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The states that emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union had to define a set of national
security interests either lacking the historical experience of ever having done so or not having
done so for a half century or more. The difficulty of defining national security interests in the
post-Cold War era is not peculiar to the new states of the former Soviet Union.
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However,
located next to a declining great power arguably increased the salience of national security issues
for Estonia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. Before the leaders could decide the national interests of
their state, they had to decide the basic question of whether or not Russia was a friend or an
enemy. For them, the meanings attached to the history of relations with the Russian and Soviet
empires established the parameters of the debate about what constituted the proper national
security strategy toward Russia.
The fundamental debate among international relations theorists concerns the source of state
interests. The essential difference between neorealism and constructivism on the source of state
interests is a debate about material and social conceptions of anarchy. As such, it is also a debate
about the utility of rational choice approaches to understanding state behavior. This paper jumps
into the heart of this debate by asking how new states determine their national security strategies.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Estonia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine confronted the
presence of Russian troops and Russian controlled strategic bases in their countries. Each
country had to decide whether to allow Russia to maintain its military presence on their territory.
Did Estonia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine emerge from the Soviet empire with preconceived
cognitive views of Russia to guide them in their relations with their powerful neighbor?
Exploring the claims of Samuel Huntington and other scholars, I test the ability of an identity
theory to explain the relations of these three countries with the Russian Federation.
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I argue that
identity politics, not material factors, have been the determining factor in defining strategic
Convention