During the 1990s, the country that was viewed by American leaders and many others in the West as the most important challenge for a transition to democracy was Russia. The Clinton administration emphasized that one of its high priorities in foreign policy was the success of the movement to democracy and a market economy in the states of the former Soviet Union, in particular Russia. A senior official asserted that “helping the Russian people to build a free society and market economy is the greatest strategic challenge of our time,” and that “Russia was the single most important foreign policy priority” of the Clinton administration. Russia was by far the largest of the former republics of the Soviet Union in both population and land area. In addition, its geographical location gave it influence on issues in several regions in which the US was interested, and it had greater strategic military capability than any other country except the US. On a deeper level, Russia represented what remained of the former geopolitical and ideological rival of the US. If the state that had been the core of the superpower which was considered to be the main adversary of the US and of democracy could, within a relatively short time, be changed into an ideological soul mate of the US, the symbolic implications would be profound.