Russian honor and combat Iranian barbarism. Russia's attitude stif-
fened precisely because its early efforts were poorly executed through
inadequate preparation, insufficient and inaccurate knowledge of
the region, and occasional lapses of interest in St. Petersburg. This
produced a series of reversals that culminated in the collapse of Geor-
gia—the very thing that Russia had promised to prevent—and the mil-
itant insistence of Iran's Qajar dynasty that it alone was the rightful
sovereign of all of the eastern Caucasus. It was the challenge to the
policies that Russia had so haphazardly pursued that stimulated Rus-
sia to pursue them with new vigor.
There was an attitude toward expansion that affected the overall
climate in which these decisions were made, even though there was
not always a direct impact. This had nothing to do with some legend-
ary Russian drive to obtain warm-water ports or some grand design
for the conquest of Asia. Instead, Russia, after a century of western-
ization, developed a colonialist outlook that was consciously imita-
tive of Western overseas expansion. Exotic alien lands made attrac-
tive targets for colonization because it was believed that they could
make their colonial master rich and because the colonial master could
in return benefit the subject peoples by introducing them to civiliza-
tion. Furthermore, all of this would prove that Russia, too, was as
great and civilized an empire as those of western Europe.
Attempts to challenge any aspect of Russian expansion were short-
lived failures. This is not surprising in light of the widespread belief
at this time throughout Europe in the advantages of having colonies.
Moreover, as Russian involvement increased, a change to a more re-
strained approach became unthinkable, a sign of dishonorable weak-
ness. In this case, the threshold was passed probably in 1796, certainly
no later than 1801. Even those who criticized certain aspects of the
established policy differed on the issue of degree, not on fundamen-
tal doubts about the merits of all involvement in the Iranian sphere.
That virtually doomed the critics' arguments to defeat since it was
the very failure of earlier, more limited activities that had led to the
escalation of Russian involvement. The great cost to Russia of con-
quering and administering the Caucasian borderlands only strength-
ened the expansionists' contention that a more limited approach was
unthinkable.
The relationship between decision makers in St. Petersburg and
officials in the field had a significant impact on the shaping and exe-
cution of Russian policy. Given the general lack of information
about Iran and the Caucasian borderlands, as well as the difficulties
of maintaining close supervision over distant subordinates, officials
Conclusions 163