This reading of history jars with the views of those in Eastern and Central Europe who see their countries primarily as victims of both the Soviet Union and, before it, the Russian Empire. What is most sacred in the Russian history textbook – the Soviet victory in World War II – appears to many in Europe’s east as a replacement of Nazi rule by Soviet totalitarianism. In Estonia and Latvia, those who served with the Wehrmacht and even the German SS between 1941 and 1945 are recognized as national heroes, while those who fought on the side of the Red Army are termed occupiers. Present-day Ukraine puts Soviet World War II veterans and the nationalists who fought against them, also in alliance with the Nazis, on an equal footing. While Russia and Poland made a productive effort in the late 2000s and the early 2010s to discuss the dark issues of their common history, there is unlikely to be much agreement between the Russians, on the one hand, and the Baltic countries, on the other.
In the victims’ optic, Russia is equated with communism and its most brutal practices. The famine which in 1932–3 hit large parts of the Soviet Union, including Ukraine, southern and central Russia, and Kazakhstan, is officially characterized by Kiev as genocide of the Ukrainian people by Moscow. The fact that Stalin, six decades after his death, is still viewed by a large portion of the Russian population as a great leader is presented as testimony to the evergreen penchant of the Russian people for a strong hand, even an exceedingly cruel one. That, for a lot of ordinary Russian people today Stalin is, however unlikely, a protest symbol against rampant corruption, is usually overlooked.
The fears described above are based on facts and have long roots in history. Russia is authoritarian and has a distinct view of itself as a great power. To the Europeans, Russia, a near neighbor sharing the continent with them but politically and ideologically alien, denies them the promise of a “Europe whole and free,” a “europäische Friedensordnung.” It also evokes the bitter memories of the past century and suggests frightening parallels.
These memories and parallels, however, paint a picture which does not exist now and has no chance of emerging in the future. Russia has no resources and no real will to re-create its Eurasian empire, all the more so because the would-be parts of that empire would resist being included in it; it has no ambition to conquer neighboring EU/NATO member states, thus risking a war with the US; its brand of authoritarianism is a domestic, not an export product; its state-dominated economic system is not a model for others to emulate; its ideology is nationalistic, not international; and its capacity to infiltrate Western societies is very modest.
If anything, the West should fear Russia’s weakness more than its strength. A quarter-century after the Soviet implosion, the country is very brittle. It is now going through a major economic crisis, which has structural roots; the modicum of political stability which exists depends essentially on the popularity of Vladimir Putin, thus hanging by a thread; and the absence of durable institutions within the present system and of a credible alternative to the current regime suggest that a serious political crisis, when it happens, might lead to chaos. Russia also gives precious little advance warning before it stirs; and, after it begins to stir, it soon starts to shake.
There is little that the outside world can do to affect the Russian internal political dynamic; the West needs, however, to see clearly the real challenge which Russia poses and find a constructive way of dealing with it.
2
The Russia Challenge
US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has put Russia at the top of the list of security challenges and threats to the United States, ahead of China, Iran, North Korea and ISIL.[10] So, what is Russia’s challenge to the West?
Vladimir Putin’s long leadership is essentially about two things: first, to keep Russia in one piece and, second, to return it to the ranks of the world’s great powers. By the mid-2010s the first mission looked accomplished, with the country not merely united under the imperial presidency but with the president’s personal popularity – or public acquiescence in him – standing at well above 80 percent. As for the second, in the Ukraine conflict Russia shook off the constraints imposed on it by the post-Cold War system; and, through its direct military intervention and parallel diplomatic activity in Syria, Russia has suddenly become indispensable in the issues of war and peace in one of the world’s most turbulent regions – the Middle East. If there is a strategy behind the Kremlin’s actions, here is its main objective.
In the past decade and a half, Russia’s self-image has changed considerably. Putin and his entourage still view the country as European in origin, a successor to the Eastern Christian Byzantine tradition, but they see it primarily as fully sovereign – on a par with the rest of Europe, rather than an associate of the EU. A continent-size country, uniting Slavic, Turkic and scores of other ethnic elements, a home to four religions legally deemed indigenous – Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism – Russia appears to these individuals a distinct geopolitical, economic and cultural unit, a potential center of attraction for neighbors in Eurasia, and a partner to those in the non-West advocating a multipolar world order.
In geopolitical and geostrategic terms, the Kremlin posits Russia as a great power with a global reach. It rejects as ludicrous or malicious any attempts to put Russia into a category of regional powers. Geography is the Kremlin’s major asset: a country which borders directly on Norway and North Korea – as well as on America, China and Japan – and whose reach extends from the icy Arctic to the approaches to the Middle East and Afghanistan, cannot easily be boxed in. Russia’s modest economic and demographic weight, the Kremlin argues, does not tell the whole story: the country has immense potential for growth and its demographics are improving. What is more important is the fact that Russia, alongside the United States and China, is at the moment one of the world’s only three major independent military powers.
Russian official views on the global order traditionally favor great-power concert as the best means of managing the international system. Russia’s Alexander I was one of the key players at the Vienna Congress of 1815, which ushered in the Concert of Europe and the Holy Alliance; thereafter, he and his successor Nicholas I were the dominant figures in Central and Eastern Europe. Joseph Stalin, in the company of US presidents and UK prime ministers at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam in 1943–5, laid the foundation of the post-World War II global order, which divided Europe and the world. On the other hand, Mikhail Gorbachev tried but utterly failed to keep the Soviet Union intact and in play as a power center in the post-Cold War world, and Boris Yeltsin nearly accepted US leadership. Hence, Putin’s mission to restore Russia’s rightful place on the global scene.
Such elevation, however, cannot be achieved with the post-Cold War global order intact. The place Russia is seeking is that of a co-decision-maker, a country that co-writes the rules, watches over their application, and implements sanctions as necessary. Moscow’s ideal is the pentarchy of the United Nations Security Council as a global concert, with Russia as its permanent, veto-wielding member. In fact, the implications of Russia’s international “restoration” include checking US supremacy by subjecting the US itself to the authority of the UNSC. Russians can accept US pre-eminence, but not dominance.
10
Remarks by the US secretary of defense Ashton Carter at the Economic Club, Washington, DC, February 2, 2016.