by Walter Onubogu

Created on: January 09, 2010   Last Updated: January 10, 2010

No that is certainly not the case. One should not and cannot assume only because a resurgent Russia under the leadership of Prime Minister (and before President) Putin is clashing over certain foreign policy issues with America (i.e. the eastward expansion of NATO into Soviet Russia's former sphere of influence,

The Iranian nuclear issue in the UN Security Council, War on Georgia, Oil and Gas diplomacy etc) that the iron curtain is being resurrected. 

The development of contemporary international relations since 1989 has brought about a far more complex, and changing world order in its wake which consequently  has become much more multipolar in character.

The Cold War was based on bipolarity, thus mutual deterrence of the superpowers (USSR and USA), was based on a world divided (albeit the existence of a Non-Aligned block spearhead by India, Indonesia, Egypt etc)  along opposing ideological faultlines and hanging in (a fragile) balance.

All these certainties have gone since the Velvet Revolutions of 1989 replaced Communism with liberal democratic regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union's collapse ushered in a new era in the Russian Federation. 

Russia's recent resurgence (since 2000 when Vladimir Putin took over the realms of the state from an ailing - i.e. also probably chronically drunk Boris Yeltsin as President) was not the result of a desire to confront the West and re enact the Cold War.

In fact it was and still is a consequence of a deeply rooted desire (based on the immediate and subsequent experience of post Soviet collapse of the state, radical liberal reforms, growing poverty, corruption) of the majority of Russian people to see the greatness and prestige of Russia restored, by means of re-asserting Russia's national self interests on the world stage via foreign policy and domestically re-centralising political control away from the regions and special interests back to the Kremlin and sucessor of the KGB Secret Services.  

Although post Soviet Russia never really approved of NATO expansion eastwards and openly oppossed George Bush on it, it did eventually came to accept a deal with America and the West, allowing new members states such as Estonia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania to join. 

In return Russia got support and a free hand to execute its own wars against terrorism with

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