Time for a grand strategy
Putin and his people want to rebuild Russia as a great power, with global reach – and with Gazprom’s recent excursions, after Central Asia, into Latin America and Central Africa, there is more to come – and they understand their strengths and weaknesses very well. Where Russian tanks never rolled, Gazprom is now doing business, acquiring market share and aiming for monopolies – just as faithful communists had been told, in the old days, about the wicked ways of capitalists cultivating worldwide monopolies.
Obviously, there is much reason for the West to watch and worry. But there is even more reason for the West to get its act together and cheer up, welcome Russia back among the living and to define the areas where strengths are complementary and interests converge. There is no guarantee against serious rivalry over territory, loyalties and markets, from the Balkans and Eastern Europe to the Greater Middle East and beyond. This should be handled in troikas – Kosovo – or quartets – the Middle East, hopefully with more success than in the recent past. Going back to the UN is also an important option to minimize friction and, if crisis occurs, to keep talking and negotiating and avoid confrontation.
The one great premise that Western politicians have to understand is that Russia’s foreign policy thinking comes mostly from the nineteenth century. America’s was formed in the twentieth century, ‘the American century’, while Europe’s is based on a vision of never never land in the twenty-first century. That makes talking over each other, especially at summit meetings, from Heiligendamm to Kennebunkport, a time-consuming exercise, fraught with misunderstanding and resentment.
A country without friends
Russia the lone wolf – this is not a reassuring metaphor for the West, nor is it a viable strategy for Russia. Developing something like a joint Russia strategy throughout those countries who see themselves as the New West as opposed to the New Russia will take time, and it will – and should – stop short of any kind of neo-containment. This is something that cannot work and would be divisive for Europe and the US. Cultivating relations with Russia will be a long-term, difficult and sometimes painful effort for the West, but it is as unavoidable as it is promising, and it is in the long-term interest also of Russia and the Russians.
The strange marriage of pride and paranoia, so characteristic of Russian diplomacy from the tsars right down to the present, will persist. The West will have to get used to – and will have to manage – a more aggressive tone and, possibly, the rough substance of Russian political discourse both at home and abroad. Authoritarian democracy needs the image of the ruthless, wily enemy. Meanwhile, the evil forces outside also legitimize toughness and roughness in dealing with dissent and opposition at home. The 2007 election campaign, as well as the presidential campaign to follow, were not an aberration. They were orchestrated in order to make people forget their material complaints, a concerted effort to add fuel to the flames of the new Russian nationalism. What all of this means for Russia’s domestic situation as well as for Russia’s relations with the outside world, especially with the West, is not difficult to predict. The forecast is for more strong-arm tactics at home, more power struggles at the top, and a rough climate in international affairs.
What began at the Munich Security Conference 2007, when Putin said goodbye to Mr Nice Guy and took off the kidgloves, has turned out to be a two-pronged manoeuvre: not only an opening shot in the new contest with the West but also the first act in a drama orchestrated by the Kremlin for the benefit of the domestic audience. Russian foreign policy and the Kremlin’s domestic power base are, for better and for worse, intimately connected, in fact inseparable. The West should not expect a mellowing of the Kremlin’s confrontational tone without prior softening of domestic authoritarianism. Or, the other way round, the outside world should not expect the domestic toughness to soften without a climate of détente in international affairs. The domestic scene and the international performance are intimately connected, in fact inseparable. Therefore it is an illusion among many practitioners in the West that they can do business without paying attention to the wider political context. This did in fact work at the time of the Soviet Union, when Russia was both an existential threat and a reliable supplier of gas and oil, but the juxtaposition of democratic values and economic interests cannot work in an environment where mergers and acquisitions are being negotiated on a daily basis and where share swaps between major companies are a feature of everyday life. The democratic rules of the game include, after human rights, transparency, openness and the rule of law.
For the time being the Kremlin, buoyed by high prices for energy and other strategic resources, is not afraid to preside over a country without friends. By and large, however, those who walk the Kremlin’s corridors of power are nothing if not realists. They will be careful not to become the victims of their own rhetoric when it comes to existential issues. They have acquired, in practice more than in theory, a keen and crisis-hardened sense of the national interest – such as preserving the core of the non-proliferation system, nuclear parity with the US both in arms build-ups and in arms control, protecting Russia against southern terrorism, keeping China at a safe distance, and cultivating the constructive ambiguity with European nations and more especially the European Union as the most important and, for the time being, almost exclusive market for oil and gas. The availability, in the foreseeable future, of LNG and much more flexible transport facilities may change the equation. But, by and large, Russia will be guided by what the ruling class defines as the national interest in the broadest sense of the term, from the domestic equilibrium to what the Soviets used to call the ‘correlation of forces’ in the world at large, beyond Russia’s borders and sphere of influence. If the Europeans in all of this feel they are getting a rough deal, they have nobody to blame but themselves for as long as they are punching below their weight.
Cold War relations with the Soviet Union were much tougher, it should be remembered, but also much simpler. Relations with today’s Russia will see good times and bad times. For a long time to come Russia will not be a Western style democracy. But Russia will go through election cycles. The leaders will need monsters to blame and enemies to identify, much as Western leaders from time to time feel tempted to do. But in an unforgiving world both sides will ultimately converge on a number of important objectives which they have in common, overriding security concerns and common challenges. There is also a healthy base in expanding business, cross-border investment and cultural exchange. Based on more recent experience it is fair to assume that with time, patience and, if necessary, some plain speaking, a code of conduct will emerge helping both sides to manage their relations reasonably and profitably – though surely not without major differences.
No need to get hot under the collar
Russia joined the Council of Europe in the mid-1990s, signing up to a catalogue of civilized behaviour and political restraint. It was meant to be a confidence- and security-building measure. It was also a standard against which Yeltsin’s Russia wanted to be judged. Meanwhile, Russia’s leaders and the high priests of European values are unhappy with each other, and accusations of bad behaviour are flying in all directions. Throughout the West it should not be forgotten that Russia is only in the year 17 of liberty, that the country comes from a difficult home and has not had a happy youth. With time, and under the civilizing influence of market forces, democratic virtues like the rule of law, transparency and answerability may make themselves felt and transform society, slowly and steadily, as they have transformed the wilder excesses of capitalism throughout the West – in fact constituting the West.