Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO.pdf - Program on Strategic ...

general <strong>and</strong> its own position in the international system,
particularly concerning relations with the United
States <strong>and</strong> the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(<strong>NATO</strong>). It has formed the conceptual framework in
which the Russian government has approached the
topic of reductions in NSNWs. The concept of globalization
has been recast to reflect a different view of
what it means.
No Russian whom the present writers know challenges
the fact that globalization, in the sense of increasing
national interdependencies, has occurred;
many note that the catalyst for this fundamental
change in the international system began, not with
technological change so much, but rather with the fall
of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) <strong>and</strong>
the unchallenged rise of the United States as a global
hegemon. Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor-in-chief of
Russia in Global Affairs, notes that:
throughout history, this territory [Russia] sometimes
found itself on the periphery <strong>and</strong> sometimes at the
center of world politics. Its collapse was a momentous
event in terms of its impact on the structural stability
of the international system, especially in the second
half of the 20th century when the Soviet Union was
not just an influential regional power, but one of the
two pillars on which the entire world order was based.
Therefore, its collapse was not just a matter of national
self-perception, but also a radical change in the foundation
of the world order. 3
When one pillar of a bipolar international system
collapses, the remaining pillar—in this case America—tends
to occupy its place, creating a unipolar system.
In the face of advances in telecommunications,
including the internet <strong>and</strong>, probably more important,
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