Russia and Europe: Conflict or Cooperation?

Since at least the mid-1990s relations between Russia and the states of Europe have been severely strained, not least by the enlargement of NATO and the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo. In parallel, however, Russia has negotiated all manner of arrangements with NATO and the European Union, has become a full member of the Council of Europe, has engaged in an unprecedented process of disarmament, and has been an active participant in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The Kosovo crisis notwithstanding, Russia has also largely remained within the international consensus on the former Yugoslavia. This volume focuses on how Russian policy toward Europe (and sometimes, by extension, the West more broadly) has developed since the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. It argues that important aspects of cooperation have endured in the relationship despite all the vicissitudes of Russian domestic politics and at a time of flux in the international relations of the European continent. This cooperation has, at times, been fragile and has not prevented some obvious and deep-seated disagreements. It has, however, survived. Indeed, Russia and Europe have increasingly 'routinized' their relationship in a range of formal multilateral institutions.