Dr. Mircea MARIN*

Motto: Din marea taiga până la apele britanice
(cântec revoluţionar din Războiul Civil)

Abstract. Russians lived for centuries with the feeling of being contained. They felt that their access to the High Seas is blocked either by geography or other (and potentially hostile) powers. The building of the modern state referred to the creation of a major European power with extensive possessions or control of strategic shores and straits. Thus Russian geo-strategists developed concepts with emphases on the role of seas. While the international system was Euro-centred, Russia paid more attention to the Baltic and the Black seas with the aim of projecting its interests to the Mediterranean and North seas (than after to the Atlantic and the Indian oceans). Despite its expansion on the Pacific shores, both Asian and American, Russia did acknowledged the strategic value of this possessions only late, in the early 20th century when its Eurasian territory became a pray of concurrent powers. During the Soviet period, both before and after the World War 2, Russia used ideology as a vector in the pursuit of its strategic interests on a larger European and global scale. Post-Soviet developments refer equally to coping with territorial losses on the Baltic and Black seas shores and, nonetheless, to multipolar arrangements.

* SNSPA București