Influence Expansion Strategy in Putin's Foreign Policy

After collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia is faced with strategic vaccum in its foreign policy for a time. Thus, we were witnessing a period of unstable, inactive and reactionary policy- making in Russian foreign policy while the US was expanding its influence on the Russian periphery. But in Putin's administration, the Russian foreign policy has evolved dramatically. Putin put the influence expansion strategy as top priority of his foreign policy to globally revive Russia's historical power. According to the authors, neoclassical realism due to focusing on both domestic and systemic variables, is a proper theoretical framework for understanding strategic evolution of Putin’s foreign policy. This research attempts to investigate the causes of strategic change in Putin's foreign policy through answering the following question: what are the important factors of the influence of expansion strategy and how they work? The main hypothesis of this study is that economic growth (mainly based on energy sector development) and Russia's internal cohesion are the major factors affecting the Russian leader's perception of relative power which led to influence expansion strategy in Putin's foreign policy.