It matters if Russia has a command economy or a market economy, and it matters if Russia seeks to integrate into the West or destroy the West. If Russia succeeded in dismantling communism at home, Russia would also become less of a threat abroad, both to the United Stated and to Russia's neighbors. Russian domestic reform and US-Russian relations are intertwined. American foreign policymakers will have an easier time in reaching agreement with their Russian counterparts on issues of arms control, regional conflicts, nuclear safety, or international terrorism if Russia has a democratic polity and a market economy. Market institutions help to enforce rationality in foreign policy behavior by creating domestic groups with tangible interests in economic integration.
Democratic institutions compel national leaders to justify their policy actions to a voting public.
Public opinion polls demonstrate conclusively that the Russian population as a whole is much less interested in aggressive foreign policy behavior than are Russian elites. The greater the voice of the public in foreign policy, therefore, the less threatening Russia will be. Ironically, it is the success of Russian reform, however limited, that now allows these critics to assert that the Clinton Administration has given too much attention to Russian internal reforms. Ronald Reagan most certainly thought otherwise in his approach to the Soviet Union. Those who frame international relations as a game of balance of power with no reference to the internal organization of states remember fondly the nineteenth century, but seem to have forgotten the twentieth century.