The economic meltdown of 1998 has thrown into question not only Russia’s financial future but also the entire course of its foreign policy. Political chaos has seemingly enveloped the nation, and Russian policy threatens to turn along with every revolution of the government’s personnel door. Given the severity of the crisis, many have begun to predict the worst, warning that Moscow’s desperate politicians will seek to divert attention from their domestic debacle by lashing out at their newly independent neighbors. Indeed, whenever the words “Russia” and “Near Abroad” appear in the same sentence, they tend to conjure up vision of imperialism and political subversion, and the current crisis is expected to make things even worse. Yet Russia has not, in fact, invested much effor in “reintergrating” the former Soviet space. Instead, powerful, market-oriented political forces have consistently led Russia to torpedo every good chance it has had to reunify some of the newly independent states (NIS). For this and other reasons, Russian politicians across the ideological spectrum have been increasingly calling for Russia to focus not on state-driven integration in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), but instead on a market-driven process which might be called “natural integration.”
