Domestic political pressure drove Russia’s pro-Serb diplomacy despite Western alignment

Evidence

As the leader of a tertiary participant, Boris Yeltsin was cross-pressured by the desire, on the one hand, to maintain, expand, and benefit from good relations with the West and, on the other hand, to help the Serbs and to disarm his political opposition, which regularly accused him of caving into the West. Overall the latter concern won out, and Russian diplomatic support for the Serbs was frequent and consistent. … Russia also consistently opposed efforts to suspend the arms embargo against the former Yugoslav republics, which had its principal impact on the Bosnian Muslims, and regularly attempted to tighten that embargo. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 786

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to theories of middle powers and domestic politics constraining alignment, e.g. Snyder’s ‘Myths of Empire’.