The re-emerging Russian superpower Is it to be feared or welcomed? Vlad Sobell Daiwa Institute of Research 20 January 2006 vlad.sobell at dir.co.uk
• The Kremlin’s unceremonious treatment of Ukraine during the recent spat over the price of gas has revived fears of the re-emerging Russian superpower. Indeed, it could be argued that the growing demand for energy, along with the deepening instability in the Middle East, has decisively altered the global balance of power in Russia’s favour. Unsurprisingly, therefore, Western commentary has been replete with alarmist warnings against the coming neo-imperialist bully.
• This paper shows that these fears are unduly dramatising the actual situation, as Russia is merely restoring the balance, following a period of precipitous weakness. At this point, Russia’s stance is purely defensive, with Moscow being primarily concerned with the maintenance of federal integrity and stability in its CIS backyard. However, this could change if the West continues to poison relations by lecturing the Kremlin on how to manage Russia’s internal affairs and by the promotion of so called “colour revolutions”.
• We argue that the “colour revolutions” cannot be considered as genuine democratic revolutions. This is because the underlying socio-economic structures in Russia and the CIS ensure that a nominally democratising regime change leads to little more than the replacement of one oligarchic elite by another. The West should not, therefore, be surprised if Moscow considers such efforts chiefly as a hostile geo-political strategy, designed ultimately to gain control over Russia’s resources. Since these revolutions lead to chronic instability and economic decline, they are an anathema to Russia, following the tribulations of the 1990’s.
• Russia is successfully evolving its own democracy and a market economy and it will protect the stabilising gains, which have materialised since the arrival of President Putin. Continued Western incomprehension would damage mutual relations, with a truculent Russian bully becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The re-emerging Russian superpower
The tensions between Russia and Ukraine at the start of the year have generated renewed analytical interest in Russia’s re-emerging position as a superpower, driven chiefly by its actual, or potential, domination of the global supplies of energy. Along with its role as a swing supplier of oil (enabling it to manipulate the balance of power between OPEC and the industrialised consumers), the episode has highlighted Russia’s position as the pre-eminent supplier of gas. Russia controls a third of global proven gas reserves, with Gazprom already becoming the dominant supplier in the EU and Turkey, in addition to Russia’s “near abroad”, including the energy-hungry Ukraine.
However, the drivers of Russia’s potential for becoming an energy superpower are not limited to its own resources. An additional factor is Russia’s near monopoly over the Central Asian export infrastructure, which remains unbroken by the single Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline (in operation since May 2005). Furthermore, it has been pointed out that the continued instability in the Middle East (which some argue has been deepened, rather than reduced, by the US invasion of Iraq) has boosted Russia’s position as the aspiring centre of energy geopolitics.
Add to this several other key factors – such as the long-term outlook for high energy prices, the limited ability of the US and EU to diversify their supply sources and Russia’s growing ability to play a China and/or Iran “card” both in energy and geopolitics – and the picture that emerges is one of a global energy superpower, capable in many ways to counter the might of present-day sole superpower – the United States.
Furthermore, there have been significant signs that this re-emerging superpower also means business in the military sphere. Russia has recently commissioned a new generation of missiles (Topol-M), capable of fitting a nuclear warhead and able to evade current US anti-missile defence systems. While not signalling a return to a Cold War style arms race, this development suggests Russia is no longer willing to refrain from a bit of old fashioned sabre rattling, when it feels the need to do so.
At the same time, Moscow has notified those who need to know of its determination to protect its vital strategic interests. While not seeking to become the exclusive great power player in the former Soviet Union, Russia has let it be known that it does not regard Western interests in the region as being on par with its own. It will therefore resist Western incursion in the area deemed incompatible with the pursuit of legitimate economic and political objectives.
In practice this boils down to the promotion of anti-Russian regimes in the region, through so called “colour revolutions”. Thus, in an unusual move, Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Ivanov has written in The Wall Street Journal that the Kremlin’s key objective is the prevention of Western-fomented regime changes in Russia’s “near abroad” – the CIS.
Russia is returning to normalcy
Should the world be worried? The short answer is no, not in the foreseeable future; but ultimately perhaps yes. However, the key caveat is that what happens in the future also depends on the evolution of the West’s own stance towards Russia. Russia could turn more hostile if the West fails to recognise its legitimate interests, especially the most fundamental ones, such as its right to develop its democracy in line with its own cultural traditions and its right to secure the integrity of the Federation.
The reason for saying “no” is that the presently unfolding restoration of Russia’s global power is primarily defensive rather than offensive. Although critics of President Putin’s regime tend to depict the Kremlin’s concern over the risk of disintegration of the Russian Federation as an excuse for “authoritarianism”, the fact remains that Russia, unlike any other country undoubtedly has been facing such a risk. Having shed its Soviet empire, the centrifugal process continued in the 1990’s, driven not by the yearning for independence but chiefly by corruption and greed of local oligarchic mafias. Russia did not (and still does not) have a modern army able to deter a potential aggressor, while possessing a lot of exceedingly tempting resources on its large, and probably indefensible, territory. In addition it has a long border along the global “arc of instability”, making it vulnerable more than any other power to the menace of failed states and terrorism.
President Putin’s “authoritarianism”, the clampdown on Western-oriented “democratic” oligarchs and the greater oversight over the regions may well look like the traditional Russian paranoia over security. But from Moscow’s point of view it is better to be paranoid than sorry, a point which surely would be appreciated by any self-respecting Western planner.
In the Soviet period, security paranoia certainly did serve as a pretext for imperial expansion and the promotion of communist regimes throughout the globe. However, the critical condition making this possible was the existence of messianic communist ideology, which held that the Soviet Union was engaged in an irreconcilable, epic battle with the capitalist West: as a bicycle which no longer stands upright when ceasing to move, Soviet failure to expand, or at least maintain its imperial possessions, immediately spelled the risk of the entire edifice crashing to the ground (which, in fact, is what eventually happened in 1991). Today, Russia (meaning its governing classes, not the fringe politicos) is completely free from these impulses, with the former superpower continuing to suffer from a post-imperial hangover.
The apparently unashamed resurgence of Russian power, therefore, is no more than a recoiling to something resembling normalcy, following a period of dire weakness in the aftermath of Soviet collapse in the 1990’s. Viewed from Washington, this can conceivably be regarded as an impudent re-assertion by a “defeated” former communist superpower, and hence a menacing and destabilising process. However, it should more realistically be seen as a natural and healthy development, ultimately actually helping to underpin the global stability. A persistent weakness and/or disintegration of the Russian Federation would hardly turn out to be stability enhancing.
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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