IVRussian Policy:
Questions and Continuity
Catherine died before she could fulfill her plan to conquer the eastern
Caucasus and turn Iran into a puppet state, so her successors, Paul
and Alexander, had to decide whether to proceed along that course.
Both tsars began their reigns by questioning aspects of Russian policy
toward Iran and Caucasian borderlands. Paul accepted the motives
for Russia's involvement there but disagreed with the methods Cath-
erine had employed at the close of her reign. Alexander briefly reex-
amined his country's objectives but soon adopted an approach that
was as expansionist in its goals and as aggressive in its methods as his
grandmother's had been. Russia's policy toward the Caucasus and
Iran had acquired under Catherine a momentum that carried it for-
ward despite the change of rulers.
One of the most important reasons for the continuity in Russian
policy toward this region was that the people who provided the ad-
vice and information that shaped policy decisions came from a small,
inbred group that had changed very little since Catherine's day. Al-
though both Paul and Alexander, and not their advisors, made their
foreign policies, the options each entertained were effectively limited
by the kinds of information they received. This was especially true
in dealing with such areas as the Caucasus and Iran, which were re-
mote from the traditional interests of most of the Russian elite. Few
people understood, or even claimed to understand, those areas, so
Paul and Alexander had little choice but to rely on many of the same
ignorant or biased people that Catherine had.
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