In consequence, Russia has used force exclusively within the former Soviet Union, while the United States has intervened in Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and Central America.ДЄt the same time that differences in power and reach between Russia and the United States have become more pronounced, the institutional and procedural differences between them have diminished as a result of Russia's slow but continuing democratization. In contrast, post-Soviet Russia emerged from the disintegration of the old order with a sharply reduced international power position and an extended zone of instability along its southern and western flanks, as well as with internal threats to its own territorial integrity.

The end of the Cold War and the collapse of Soviet Communism left the United States as the world's only superpower-a status that, for some Americans, entailed a responsibility to create a 'new world order,' if need be by periodic resorts to force to curb regional instability. Despite these similarities, however, the differences in the respective post-Cold War security circumstances of the two countries are more striking than the similarities and have weighed more heavily in their intervention decisionmaking. At the same time, intervention almost anywhere is now safer because there is no danger of escalation to apocalyptic levels. Absent a global superpower rivalry, neither feels the same compulsion to intervene almost everywhere to protect or secure a competitive advantage. With the end of the Cold War, both the United States and Russia are in a position to use force more selectively and with less risk.

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