U.S. STRATEGIES FOR ACCOMMODATING RUSSIA IN THE POST-COLD WAR ORDER AND NATO (1989-1999): A GRAMSCIAN ANALYSIS OF THE ROLE OF NEOCONSERVATIVES

Date

2023-8-03

Author

Akdan, Tolgahan

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

309
views

356
downloads

Cite This

In the 1990s there were expectations that U.S.-Russian relations would change from confrontation to cooperation, and that this cooperation would lead to Russia’s integration into the international capitalist order. The hope of cooperation ended in 1999, to be replaced by confrontational rivalry in the 2000s. This thesis examines how and why U.S. strategies of accommodation toward Russia failed. It examines the political, ideological and organizational role of neoconservatives in shaping and developing these strategies. It looks not only at what neoconservative grand strategy meant in shaping U.S. accommodation strategies toward Russia, but also at the role this strategy played in practical policy in the evolution of U.S.-Russian relations through U.S. policy on NATO, particularly its expansion. This thesis argues that neoconservatives advocated a strategy of U.S. global primacy in a unipolar order, offering Russia an unequal partnership on the terms and conditions that Russia would take a subordinate position, give up its great power status and privileges, and accept NATO’s expansion. The findings suggest that as neoconservatives managed to create a new hegemonic consensus around this strategy and make it an integral part of US foreign policy during the second term of Bill Clinton’s administration, U.S.-Russian relations began to deteriorate because the terms of partnership offered by this strategy were not accepted by Russia. This thesis benefits from the insights provided by the Gramscian historical materialist approach, as it allows for a better analysis of the social position and political role of neoconservative intellectuals in the formation of U.S. foreign policy.

Subject Keywords

U.S. Foreign Policy, Gramscian Historical Materialist FPA, Russia, Accommodation Strategy, Neoconservatives

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/104809

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis