24.Mark Steyn, “The Bear Goes Walkabout,” National Review, December 16, 2006, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1781695/posts.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
When I began my career in foreign policy nearly a decade and a half ago, I was supposed to do so as a Russia “hand.” I had focused on Middle Eastern affairs in college and immersed myself in the study of terrorism and radical Islam in graduate school. But I was also the child of Soviet refuseniksand a native Russian speaker. So when, after a brief stint in the counterterrorism field, I was hired away by the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC) to head up its analytical work on Russia, it seemed like a logical move.
That was shortly before September 11, 2001, and life quickly intervened. More than a dozen years of work on the Middle East, radical Islam, and Iran followed, spawning countless articles, op-eds, and media appearances, as well as two books on Mideast affairs ( Tehran Rising, published in 2005, and subsequently 2009’s Winning The Long War). But Russia has never been far from my thoughts, for both personal and practical reasons. With this book, I finally have the chance to turn to the subject in earnest.
That I have been able to do so is a credit to AFPC president Herman Pirchner, who has served as my mentor for more than a decade. Time and again, he has tirelessly encouraged my curiosity about the Russian state and its geopolitical direction. And in his own understated way, Herman has been instrumental in nudging this project along (including by scheduling a fact-finding mission to Russia’s Volga region in the dead of winter several years ago). For all that, and for his continued friendship, I am tremendously grateful.
But this work quite simply would not have been possible without the assistance of a cadre of talented young scholars, all of whom lent their considerable research skills to the cause. Margot Van Loon, Heather Stetten, Cory Bender, Caitlyn McAllister, Lisa Aronson, Isaac Medina, and a host of others helped me extensively in compiling, and then deciphering, veritable mountains of data relating to Russian foreign policy and domestic trends. To the extent that this volume breaks new ground, they deserve the lion’s share of the credit. Any errors that this book may contain, however, are mine and mine alone.
Thanks also go to my colleagues at AFPC—Rich Harrison, Jeff Smith, Annie Swingen, and Cheri Ady—for their friendship, and for making every day at the office an adventure. Liz Wood, AFPC’s in-house editor, deserves gratitude as well for helping to refine my writing and polish my language, as she has on so many other occasions. The final product also benefited enormously from the insights of several Russia experts, including Gordon Hahn, Stephen Blank, and Wayne Merry, who lent their eyes, ears, and expertise to making sure that I got both the style and the substance of this work right.
Most of all, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my wonderful wife, Hillary, and to my beautiful children, Mark and Lauren. Their patience, love, and support sustained me through this project, as it always does. I hope that this book gives them a better understanding of the country our family once called home, and what the future could hold in store for it.
Ilan Berman
Washington, D.C.
April 2013
APPENDIX ONE
THE FOUNDATIONS OF RUSSIAN FEDERATION POLICY IN THE ARCTIC UNTIL 2020 AND BEYOND
ISSUED SEPTEMBER 18, 2008*
In late March 2009, the Russian government publicly released the full text of its new Arctic strategy. That document, first issued in September 2008, lays out a dramatic expansion of official Russian sovereign interests in what was previously agreed-upon as part of the so-called “global commons.” It also provides a roadmap for how Moscow will seek to rewrite the regional legal and political order in the years ahead. The translation has been reproduced below.
I. GENERAL PROVISIONS
1.Current principles determine the main goals, main challenges, strategic priorities, and mechanisms for implementing the state policy of the Russian Federation in the Arctic, as well as the means for strategic planning of the socioeconomic development of Russian Federation’s Arctic zone and the maintenance of national security of the Russian Federation.
2.Based on current principles, the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation is understood as the part of the Arctic which includes, either fully or partially, the territories of the Republic of Saha (Yakutiya), Murmansk and Arkhangelsk regions, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Nenets, Yamalo-Nenets, and Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, as defined by the decision of the Government Commission on Arctic Issues under the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R. on April 22, 1989, as well as landmasses and islands included in the Decision of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the U.S.S.R. on April 15, 1926, in its “declaration of landmasses and islands in the Arctic Ocean as territories of the USSR,” and water bodies attached to these territories, landmasses, and islands, territorial sea, exclusive economic zone, and continental shelf of the Russian Federation, inside which Russia retains sovereign rights and jurisdiction, in accordance with international law. The borders of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation can be defined in accordance to the normative legal acts of the Russian Federation, as well as by the norms of international contracts and agreements of which the Russian Federation is a participant.
3.The special features of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation, which influence the formation of governmental policy in the Arctic, include the following:
a)extreme climate conditions, including constant ice cover or drifting ice masses in the Arctic seas;
b)the unique character of economic and industrial development of the territory and low population density;
c)the distance from major industrial centers, high resource capacity, and dependence of the private and public sectors on the delivery of energy and goods from other regions within Russia;
d)low levels of stability of ecological systems, which establish biological balance and climate of the Earth, and their dependence on the smallest anthropogenic effects.
II. NATIONAL INTERESTS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION IN THE ARCTIC
4.The main national interests of the Russian Federation in the Arctic are:
a)the utilization of the Russian Federation’s Arctic zone as a national strategic resource base capable of fulfilling the socioeconomic tasks associated with national growth;
b)the preservation of the Arctic as a zone of peace and cooperation;
c)the protection of the Arctic’s unique ecological system;
d)the use of the North Sea passage as a unified transportation link connecting Russia to the Arctic.
5.National interests determine the main goals, main challenges and strategic priorities of Russia’s governmental policy in the Arctic. The realization of the Russian Federation’s national interests in the Arctic is provided for by government institutions together with institutions of the civil society in strict accordance with the law of the Russian Federation and Russia’s international contracts.
III. MAIN GOALS AND STRATEGIC PRIORITIES OF RUSSIAN STATE POLICY IN THE ARCTIC
6.The main goals of the Russian Federation’s official state policy in the Arctic are:
a)in the sphere of socioeconomic development, to expand the resource base of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation, which is capable in large part of fulfilling Russia’s needs for hydrocarbon resources, aqueous biological resources, and other forms of strategic raw material;
b)in the sphere of national security, the protection and defense of the national boundary of the Russian Federation, which lies in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation, and the provision of a favorable operating environment in the Arctic zone for the Russian Federation, including the preservation of a basic fighting capability of general purpose units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, as well as other troops and military formations in that region;