Russia’s superpower ambitions are not limited to exercising, sometime in the future, greater control over its next-door neighbors. Its avowed primary objective is still to reduce America’s global influence as much as possible. As long as Russia’s leadership indulges every opportunity to damage U.S. interests abroad, any effort to treat today’s Russia as a genuine partner would have to be based on a significant degree of self-deception. There is an expansionist mentality among Russia’s ruling elite, deeply rooted in the country’s past, which makes it difficult for them to consider forming a partnership with the West. This almost permanent urge for territorial expansion has at the same time become a scourge for the Russian people, who continue to live in appalling poverty in a country rich in resources

Jan Nowak “What NATO can do for Russia” Washington Times, 19 Apr 2000 (Nowak is a former consultant to the National Security Council on Central and Eastern European Affairs. For 25 years he was director of the Polish Service for Radio Free Europe).