Why would Western nations have been willing to make loans to troubled Russia? (We're talking aroung 1991)?

Question

I finished the rest of the paper but this doesn't make sense to me. This is for economics...So, help?

Thanks if you can!
--Jesse

Answer 1

I don't know how detailed you would need but after the Berlin Wall came down, Russia was in this state of transition. It was breaking up into several fragmented pieces all becoming self-governing.

Western nations would wish to help because in a sense, these countries are beginning from square one. It is a wise decision to HELP these people grow as a country in the RIGHT direction instead of standing back watching chaos and witnessing their human population barely surviving.

Even if it would be risky for countries to invest capital in a newly formed government, standing by and hoping someone else does it is even more risky.

There's this famous saying that goes:
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

Answer 2

For almost half a century after World War II, the basic dynamic in United States-Soviet relations was straightforward. The Soviet Union was the principal enemy of the United States, and the United States was the principal enemy of the Soviet Union. The potent combination of military power and communist ideology made the Soviet Union a real threat to the United States and its allies. Likewise, American capitalism, democracy, and military might threatened Soviet interests abroad and the very existence of the Soviet Union. Containing the power and norms of the other (or expanding one's own power and norms) was the basic drama of the cold war. To be sure, under different leaders and during different years, the policies of containment and expansion varied considerably, and at times such as the détente period during the tenure of President Richard Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, the two countries even became somewhat cooperative. Yet the basic definition of the relationship as a rivalry was never in question.

Immediately after the collapse of Soviet communism in 1991, the basic dynamic of bilateral United States-Russian relations changed fundamentally. Suddenly, the Kremlin leader was no longer the appointed head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union but the elected president of independent Russia. This new leader, Boris Yeltsin, and his allies wanted to create an economy and polity that emulated the United States. To demonstrate its fealty to America and the West, this new Russia unequivocally renounced communism and unilaterally ceased its efforts to counterbalance United States interests abroad. During the early 1990s, Russia behaved in the international arena as if it were an ally of the United States, and American leaders welcomed the reinvented Russia as a friend. In place of containment, Presidents Bush (the elder) and Clinton embraced the new policy of engagement with Russia.

This sudden dramatic shift in United States-Russian relations was the result not of United States actions or policies but of Soviet, then Russian, domestic politics. During the cold war, the Soviet regime and its expansionist mission constituted the main threat to the security of the United States and its allies. When that regime collapsed in 1991, the Russian threat to American interests greatly diminished. Russia's security outlook underwent a similar redefinition during its postcommunist transition. When Russia's new leaders succeeded in toppling the Soviet ancien régime, they no longer viewed the United States as an enemy but as an ally in completing their anticommunist revolution; joining the West replaced promoting communism abroad as the central objective of Russian foreign policy.

These lofty and noble aims of United States-Russian relations that replaced the cold war rivalry have not been met yet. Disappointed expectations-expectations that look unrealistic in retrospect-have fueled disillusion and even suspicion in both countries about the intentions of the former adversary. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's simultaneous expansion of membership to include Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic and extension of the alliance's mission to include the war against Serbia over Kosovo have created uneasiness among Russian foreign policymakers, who increasingly consider American objectives in Europe to be aggressive. Even pro-Western liberals within Russia have begun to question whether the United States is more concerned with the development of democracy and capitalism in Russia, or with the expansion of American influence in the region. Yeltsin and his first foreign minister, Andrei Kozyrev, pursued a strongly procapitalist, prodemocracy, pro-Western foreign policy. Today such ideological collaborationist thinking is gone and most of Russia's foreign policy elite views international politics through the lens of zero-sum realpolitik: United States gains are perceived as Russian losses. Many Russian foreign policymakers question the intentions of American economic and political assistance to Russia, believing that the real aim of this aid was to weaken their country. The Russian population also holds a more skeptical view of American intentions today than it held a decade ago. In polls conducted by Harvard political scientist Timothy Colton and this author in December 1999, 55 percent of Russian respondents believed that the United States represented a threat to Russian security. Such sentiments were not widespread a decade ago.

Russian foreign policymakers certainly recognize that American power now grossly overshadows Russian power. The world is no longer anchored by two superpowers but instead is dominated by one, the United States. At the same time, in areas of Russia's historical influence near its borders, in Central Asia or the Caucasus for instance, Russian leaders believe they can balance American hegemony.

American questions about Russian foreign policy intentions have grown as well. Russia's wars in Chechnya, along with its trade of nuclear technologies with Iran, its embrace of autocratic Serbian leaders, and its rhetoric of a Russian-Chinese strategic partnership against "American hegemony," have compelled United States policymakers and analysts to question Russia's real foreign policy intentions. The inauguration of President Vladimir Putin-the first change in leadership in the Kremlin since independence in 1991-increased suspicions among many about Russia's pro-Western bent in foreign policy and commitment to reform at home