Is Russia’s Perceived Insecurity a Sufficient Explanation for War?
Addressing the Russian Federal Assembly in December 2014, President Vladimir Putin could hardly find better words to convey Russia’s persistent state of insecurity:
“I would like to emphasize this: either we remain a sovereign nation, or we dissolve without a trace and lose our identity. Of course, other countries need to understand this, too. All participants in international life should be aware of this… I’m sure that if these events [revolution in Ukraine] had never happened – I want to point this out specifically for you as politicians sitting in this auditorium – if none of that had ever happened, they would have come up with some other excuse to try to contain Russia’s growing capabilities, affect our country in some way, or even take advantage of it.”
This thinking is neither new nor novel. American diplomat George Kennan—the architect of the containment strategy–described it in the “Long Telegram” on the eve of the Cold War in 1946. According to Kennan, the source of Russia’s “neurotic” worldview is fear of contact with “more competent, more powerful, more highly organized societies…” As for Russian rulers, Kennan wrote, they “have invariably sensed that their rule was relatively archaic in form fragile and artificial in its psychological foundation, unable to stand comparison or contact with Western countries. For this reason they have always feared foreign penetration…”
With the war in Ukraine in the foreground, it is tempting to attribute Russia’s aggressive behavior to the character of Vladimir Putin and his regime. This would be misleading. We cannot know how Putin would have behaved if he were somebody else. We can know that he is not the author of Russia’s vision on foreign affairs, whose essential features one can trace back to the imperial era and to the Bolsheviks. Those features partly result from Russia’s unique geographic position at the heart of Eurasia, which has historically exposed the country to penetration from several routes: through the North European Plain (Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltics, Poland), through the grasslands that link Russia with Central Asia and through the Caucasus. Without natural defenses, Russian rulers have dealt with insecurity by expanding into those strategic areas and establishing buffer states along the frontiers. The rapid territorial expansion and incorporation of many different ethnic groups into an empire has made center-periphery relations and maintenance of control and legitimacy perennial issue. Prior to 1917, the Russian Empire included Finland, most of the Caucasus and Central Asia, Ukraine, the Baltics and Poland. Henry Kissinger wrote in his book Diplomacy, “Paradox was Russia’s most distinguishing feature. Constantly at war and expanding in every direction, it nevertheless considered itself permanently threatened… To sustain there rule and to surmount the tensions among the empire’s various populations, Russia’s rulers invoked the myth of some vast, foreign threat…”
The end of the Cold War ushered in a brief period of wishful thinking, driven by the exciting prospect of the country’s economic and political integration with the West. So came Russia’s second “end of history” moment and its second attempt completely remake its foreign relations. The first attempt was immediately in the aftermath of the October revolution of 1917. The new thinking, which rejected a zero sum approach in favor of liberal internationalism, was reflected in a foreign policy concept prepared by the Foreign Ministry at the end of 1992. The text, for example, pointed to the inevitable growth of influence wielded by third powers on the post-Soviet space, noting that this process is not necessarily negative for Russia as far as it promotes economic development and stability. This was an extraordinary time as new Russian leaders eagerly sought to break free from the Soviet past and return Russia to the community of civilized nations.
One scholar described the initial political course as romantic because Boris Yeltsin and his pro-Western foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev underestimated the intense of opposition to their policies. The armed forces rang alarm over the fate of the Soviet military infrastructure scattered across new states and other security issues. The situation became serious when a nationalist backlash forced Yeltsin abruptly to abort a planned trip to Japan in 1992. The opposing elites feared that Yeltsin and Kozyrev had been planning to make concessions to Japan on the Kuril Islands dispute (aka the “Northern Territories”) in order to resolve the long-standing issue. As criticism grew, pragmatism quickly returned to the Kremlin. The loss of the empire was not a cause for celebration but a cause for great concern.
Kozyrev himself soon became worried of the rising risk of revanchist attitudes. In June 1992, he even warned of the possibility of a coup attempted by state security members. At the same time, his own views on the country’s external environment were also changing. In a speech given in December 1992 at an OSCE meeting in Stockholm, he made the following points: 1) that Russia is primarily an Asian power, which puts limits on its rapprochement with the West 2) that Russia views sanctions against Yugoslavia in the context of NATO’s wider plans for eastward expansion 3) that Russia must use all instruments of power, including military and economic, to defend its interests in the post-Soviet space.
The parliamentary elections in December 1993–which saw strong performances by nationalists and communists and an unexpected defeat of pro-Kremlin liberals–expedited a shift in foreign policy thinking that had already been set in motion. The Kremlin moved to designate the post Soviet-states—the “near abroad”–as an area of vital interests as well as a source of top threats, essentially proposing a Russian version of the Monroe doctrine. Former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in Foreign Affairs in March 1994: “If not openly imperial, the current objectives of Russian policy are at the very least proto-imperial. That policy may not yet be aiming explicitly at a formal imperial restoration, but it does little to restrain the strong imperial impulse that continues to motivate large segments of the state bureaucracy, especially the military, as well as the public.” The West’s guarded reaction to changing winds in Moscow and NATO’s willingness to expand convinced Russian elites that the post-Soviet space would be an area of rivalry rather than cooperation with the West. To some extent, they were right. The key objectives of Washington’s post-Cold War strategy were to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival and to deter potential rivals from aspiring to a larger global role, thereby ensuring American superiority.
The 1995 integration treaty with Belarus was Moscow’s first major victory abroad, ensuring the loyalty of Belarus and securing access to strategic military facilities. Russian foreign policy became more cohesive under the leadership of Evgeniy Primakov, who became foreign minister in 1996. While maintaining a pro-Western course, Primakov’s foreign strategy aimed at reducing the influence of the United States and its allies abroad. Towards that goal, Russia intensified cooperation with states such as China, Iraq, and Iran and strived to develop special relationships with Germany and France. This became known as the “Primakov doctrine.” In 1998, Primakov proposed building a “strategic triangle” with Beijing and New Delhi to balance Washington, aka the “Primakov triangle.”
Primakov and his successors borrowed from the policy playbook of Prince Alexander Gorchakov (1798-1883), who was tasked with restructuring foreign policy following Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War (1853-56) to France, England, the Ottoman Empire and Sardinia. The Treaty of Paris of 1858 forced Russia to give up territories in the Danube river region and demilitarized the Black Sea. Humiliated and weakened, Russia almost went from major European power to second rate power. Emphasizing internal reform, Gorchakov selected to pursue a risk averse but active foreign policy taking advantage of contradictions among European powers. Gorchakov’s policies helped restore Russia’s prestige and influence. In a 1998 article commemorating Gorchakov, Primakov highlighted several important lessons for Russia: 1) that Russia must conduct a dynamic multivector diplomacy to determine an optimal position depending on the balance of power 2) that Russia must use a flexible definition of allies and adversaries (Primakov wrote, “we are not the authors of this formula that is used by the majority of states today… there are no permanent adversaries, but there are permanent national interests”) 3) and that a single great power should not be allowed to dominate in international affairs. Former foreign minister Igor Ivanov wrote in 2001, “Since the era of Peter the Great… Russian foreign policy has been most effective when it has adhered to pragmatic considerations and it has failed when imperial ideology and messianic ambitions have prevailed.” Current foreign minister Sergei Lavrov once said in an interview that in conducting its foreign affairs Moscow had always adhered to the principles outlined by Gorchakov in the 19th century. In essence, the key mission of Russia’s post-1991 strategy has been centered on restoring the country’s great power status.
The tragedy of Ukraine’s independence was that many in the new Russia simply did not accept Ukraine as a sovereign, foreign country. The loss of Ukraine—a country of 52 million (as of 1991), the size of France, sitting on Europe’s doorsteps–was a big blow to Russia. Tensions with Kyiv flared immediately over the status of the Crimean peninsula, dominated by ethnic Russians, and with regard to the ownership of the Black Sea Fleet and the nuclear arsenal. Ironically, Russia became a major threat for Ukraine, this put Kyiv on the slippery slope of seeking security reassurances from the West. Ukraine’s first President Leonid Kravchuk (who once referred to Russia’s “imperial disease”) advocated a pro-Western course for the country and membership in NATO. In February 1994, Ukraine became the first CIS country to enter NATO’s Partnership for Peace. The presidential election in 1994 revealed strong political divisions between western and eastern regions of the country. Those divisions would shape domestic politics in a negative way preventing the formation of comprehensive governing coalitions. Although Moscow and Kyiv avoided confrontation, a senior official in the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry remarked that, “Russia’s attitude toward its neighbors can now be compared to Germany’s in 1939.” The issue of Crimea was a “time bomb,” wrote one analyst in 1995.
If Russian elites in the 1990s had a clear vision of Russia’s national interests and that those interests resided in the periphery, what prevented them from pursuing these interests more assertively? The chief constraint was Russia’s spectacular economic collapse. During the decade, the Russian economy shrank almost by half. The military’s decay and disorganization was profound, as demonstrated by its failures in the first Chechen war. The country was in danger of falling apart. Not only the Chechens but also other ethnic minorities such as the Tatars, the Yakuts and the Komi sought self-rule.
Now let’s fast forward to the 21st century. In August 2008, a stronger and more confident Russia invaded Georgia. The main strategic motivation for the invasion was Mikheil Saakashvili’s open pursuit of NATO membership. George W. Bush’s enthusiastic lobbying for Ukraine and Georgia at the Bucharest summit in April certainly increased Russia’s willingness to use force. The official summit declaration stated, “NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.” Putin issued a very blunt warning saying that “The appearance of a powerful military bloc on our borders will be taken by Russia as a direct threat to the security of our country.” The North Atlantic alliance had already gone through two rounds of expansion. In 1999, former Warsaw-pact states Poland, Hungary, and Czech Republic became members; in 2004, NATO added seven more members, including the Baltic States.
Another source of irritation for Moscow was the European Union’s Eastern Partnership. The Kremlin was unhappy about the EU’s massive enlargement in 2004 and the EU’s backing of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Launched in 2009 and driven mainly by Poland and Sweden, the Eastern Partnership targeted Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. The program pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in financial support for various projects and sponsored democratic reforms. No doubt, Russia reacted with suspicion, discerning efforts of the EU to grow the bloc’s influence at the expense of Russia. In response, the Kremlin intensified its efforts to build its own Eurasian Union. The resultant distrust and competition between the two blocs made a future conflict over Ukraine more likely.
The immediate trigger for the protests that erupted in Kyiv at the end of 2013 was President Viktor Yanukovich’s abrupt refusal to sign a long anticipated association agreement with the European Union. Although Yanukovich’s government was deeply corrupt, Yanukovich conducted a familiar tactic practiced by his predecessors. It consisted of playing rival powers against each other to extract better terms (some Western diplomats in fact hoped that he was bluffing). Russia offered $15 billion in loans and cheaper gas. As it turned out, Yanukovich overplayed, underestimating the dangerous level of opposition that had built up against his regime.
The point is that when the protests broke out, Russia feared that a hostile pro-Western regime would emerge in Kyiv and would try to break free from Russia’s orbit. Reportedly, shortly before Yanukovich’s downfall, the Kremlin was informed that Ukraine would likely disintegrate and urged Russia to act. After annexing Crimea, Russia has used a drawn out “asymmetric” warfare strategy to exert pressure on Kyiv. In Eastern Ukraine, Russia has fought mainly through proxies and with undesignated soldiers. Beyond Ukraine, Russia has employed a variety of tools to spread doubts and plant division among Western states. Much has been written about Russia’s “hidden war.” The main rationale for this strategy has been to avoid a costly all out war in Ukraine, to take advantage of Ukraine’s crumbling economy, and to minimize international mobilization against Russia.
It would be a great omission not to mention the role of domestic propaganda on influencing public attitudes and perceptions. Since the onset of unrest in Ukraine at the end of 2013, the Russian public has been subjected to massive informational warfare, framing the Ukrainian revolution as a Western conspiracy and legitimizing Russian actions. Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, the Supreme Commander in Europe, called it “the most amazing information war blitzkrieg in history.” Amidst a resurgence of patriotism, the president’s approval ratings have surged, recently reaching 86 percent, in spite of the contracting economy. Anti-Western sentiments are at historic highs. As of February 2015, 85 percent of Russians display negative views of the United States, up from 44 percent last year. Similar antagonism has grown towards the European Union.
Russian propaganda is effective for several reasons. Firstly, the great majority of the Russians receive their daily news from television, whose content is tightly controlled by the government. Secondly, the Russian media play up self-justification and reassurance. Naturally, the Russians don’t want to see their country as an aggressor. And thirdly, the Russian media successfully exploit the people’s inferiority complex in relation to the West, whose societies are more modern and enjoy a better quality of life. “In the Russian mentality the West continues to exist as an ideal,” writes Lev Gudkov, sociologist and head of the Levada Center. Psychological compensation is achieved in two ways. The media make Russia appear nobler (great power, rich culture etc.) and the media expose flaws and decadence in Western societies. Gudkov points to the apparent irrationality of the public reaction that approaches fatalism. He observes that the Russians are deeply pessimistic about their personal future. By endorsing the Kremlin’s political course, they derive satisfaction by associating with their country’s perceived great power behavior.
The Kremlin has also exploited the Ukrainian conflict to promote ideology, reviving the concept of the “Russian world”. The “Russian world” refers to a unified space of culture and tradition that goes back to the imperial era and escapes the borders of modern Russia. “The Russian world is a spiritual, cultural and moral dimension of individuality,” stated Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church, who appears to have taken the lead as the new official ideologist. During Putin’s tenure, the State has actively promoted orthodox religion as a source of national identity and as an instrument of soft power. Consequently, the advertised narrative paints the ongoing conflict in Ukraine not only as a confrontation between Russia and the Western states led by the US–but also as a clash of civilizations with the Russian world battling the Anglo-Saxon world.
Russian aims and limitations
Taking into account the record of eastward expansion by Western political and military structures, Russia’s geopolitical pushback is not surprising. After the Crimean War in the 19th century, Prince Gorchakov’s main mission was to lift the restrictions of the Treaty of Paris in 1858 that left Russia isolated and reduced its influence in Europe. At that time, the key to the Russian strategy was Prussia. Prussia successfully waged wars against Austria in 1866 and France in 1870-71, changing the balance of power in Europe. Russia remained neutral and declared the Treaty of Paris to be void after France’s defeat. Later the growing power of a unified Germany drove Russia closer to France.
Russia pursues somewhat similar aims today; though, it is not losing any war right now, but it believes it was treated as a “loser” after 1989, and that Western states have consistently disregarded its interests. For example, as Fiona Hill of the Brookings Institution writes in National Interest, Putin’s ultimate objectives are: 1) To achieve the cancellations of the sanctions without conceding anything on Crimea or resolving the war in Ukraine 2) to force Europe to respect Russia’s spheres of influence that “correspond to the historic boundaries of the Russian Empire and the USSR.” 3) to signal the end of atheUS-centered “unipolar” order in Europe.
There are no doubts in Russian thinking that the West bears a large share of responsibility for the crisis in Ukraine. Speaking of Ukraine’s negotiations with the EU, Vladimir Putin said at the latest Valdai club meeting: “They simply told us: this is none of your business, point, end of discussion. Instead of a comprehensive but – I stress – civilised dialogue, it all came down to a government overthrow; they plunged the country into chaos, into economic and social collapse, into a civil war with enormous casualties.” According to the Russian leader, unilateralism has exacerbated global problems: “A unilateral diktat and imposing one’s own models produces the opposite result. Instead of settling conflicts it leads to their escalation, instead of sovereign and stable states we see the growing spread of chaos, and instead of democracy there is support for a very dubious public ranging from open neo-fascists to Islamic radicals.”
This general assessment finds agreement among the Russian foreign policy elites. In an article in Nezavisimaya Gazeta in May 2014, former Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov wrote, “The Ukraine crisis cannot be viewed as some unexpected event in world politics or as an isolated phenomenon that contradicts the general tendencies of international affairs during the past two decades. The crisis has a long pre-history.” In an article in Global Affairs in September 2014, Aleksei Arbatov, head Center for International Security at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences wrote that post-1990 attempts to reform security architecture were unsuccessful because the United States started replacing international law with the interests of NATO. “As a result, time bombs were planted.”
Despite Russia’s revisionist aspirations, it would be a mistake to judge that Russia is winning a geopolitical war. The truth is that Russia is a power in decline. For 25 years it has failed to modernize, economically and institutionally. It remains far too dependent on exports of raw materials. The share of hydrocarbon revenues in the federal budget has increased from 11 percent in 1999 to 54 percent in 2011. Unsurprisingly, the collapse of energy prices plus the western economic sanctions has sent the Russian economy into recession. The economy is expected to shrink in 2015, which will lead to a drop in the standard of living for the average Russian. The government is spending away reserve funds to avoid cutting social expenditures, which could be destabilizing. Speaking recently at the Chamber of Commerce, Russia’s former foreign minister Evgeniy Primakov urged the government to focus on internal reforms to generate future growth, citing poor economic conditions across Europe. He warned against the escalation of war in Ukraine as it would have negative consequences for Russia.
Since Western politicians have publicly ruled out sending their own soldiers to fight over Ukraine, Russia of course has an upper hand in the conflict. It is worth noting that in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, Russia enjoys some genuine support from the population. This is not the case in Western Ukraine. Even if Russia directly invaded Ukraine, controlling the territory would be very difficult, if not impossible. So there are geographical limitations. The conflict also seems to have precluded Ukraine’s membership in the Eurasian Union—once an important objective for Russia. The Baltic States have understandably voiced alarm regarding Russia. Their small size and the presence of Russian minorities make them especially vulnerable to pressure. However, their membership in NATO is a major deterrent against an armed aggression.
The need to overcome insecurity has been at the foundation of Russian thinking, guiding its interactions with foreigners, especially when it comes to territories on the periphery. Today, this sense of insecurity is amplified by the rapid modernization of China with whom Russia shares a 3,645km border. In the 1960s-80s, Russia’s Central Asia and the Far East were highly militarized in the anticipation of war with China after a Sino-Soviet split. These vast areas now stand vulnerable to economic domination of Beijing, though under very different political conditions. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin boast a strategic partnership and vow to uphold stability in Eurasia. The Russians fear dangers stemming from extremism, terrorism and interethnic tensions. About 11.7 percent of Russia’s population is Muslim, the largest proportion in a European country. This share is projected to rise to 14.7 percent by 2030. Putin has said that nationalism in Russia will lead to destruction. There are fears that renewed instability in Afghanistan can spill into Central Asia and the North Caucuses. In the North Caucuses, the Kremlin has been able to suppress violence by relying on the heavy-handed rule of proxies such as Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov who receives generous financial aid from the federal government. Still, the region remains dangerous and economically backward—a fertile ground for future unrest.
Reining in public fears of anarchy and disintegration has been central for the present regime’s survival. Russia has grown increasingly authoritarian during Putin’s tenure. That is largely because democracy failed to take off in the 1990s. Stephen Blank from the Strategic Studies Institute wrote: “Putin inherited a state in disarray. He himself certainly believed it was in danger of disintegration from terrorist threats and from the ambitions of regional politicians and oligarchs. One of the clear signs of disarray was the fact that foreign policy under Yeltsin reflected the inability of the state to centralize control over Russian politics as a whole.”
During the 2000s, high economic growth was an important source of legitimacy for the ruling elites. That growth has run its course. The government became aware of this problem during the protest period of 2011-2012 when the regime’s popularity was declining. The government has been looking for new sources of legitimacy, which makes a confrontational foreign policy more appealing as it diverts the public attention onto external threats.
A way out of the Ukrainian crisis
Given historic and geopolitical aspects of the current crisis, there is only one sustainable solution to the conflict in Ukraine. It consists of making Ukraine a neutral buffer state between the West and Russia. It is not a perfect a solution as it entails some concessions to Russian influence and puts limits on Ukraine’s choice of foreign policy. The implementation of neutrality requires international commitment and domestic political will. It is far more sensible than anything else. It can allay Russian fears and allow Ukraine to focus on domestic economic issues.
During the Ukrainian revolution, Western officials did not provide sufficient reassurances to Moscow, who viewed the events in Kyiv as a regime change. In his February 28, 2014, speech, President Obama sounded as if Moscow should let Ukraine go after the downfall of Viktor Yanukovich. Obama said, “We’ve made clear that they [the Russians] can be part of an international community’s effort to support the stability and success of a united Ukraine going forward.” And Obama warned that there would be costs for Russia if Ukraine’s sovereignty is violated.
From Moscow’s perspective, such a stance would have been unacceptable. Russia was already determined to intervene and soon moved to take control of the Crimean peninsula where it already had thousands of soldiers stationed. The EU began imposing sanctions on March 17, 2014, a day after a Crimean referendum on joining Russia. The EU expanded sanctions in July following the shootdown of a Malaysian Airlines passenger on July 17, 2014, as violence spread to eastern Ukraine. Back in April 2014, New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker wrote: “Mr. Obama has concluded that even if there is a resolution to the current standoff over Crimea and eastern Ukraine, he will never have a constructive relationship with Mr. Putin, aides said. As a result, Mr. Obama will spend his final two and a half years in office trying to minimize the disruption Mr. Putin can cause…”
During the spring of 2014, no serious diplomatic efforts were made to address the geopolitical sources of the crisis to prevent it from worsening.
Although Western officials themselves have acknowledged that the sanctions have had little impact on the Russian behavior, their approach has remained unchanged. In her remarks in February on a new security strategy, US National Security advisor Susan Rice reiterated the need to continue imposing costs on Russia, “We will continue to turn up the pressure, unless Russia decisively reverses course.”
The Western response has been focused on punishing Russia and providing Ukraine with financial and moral support. Instead, the West and Russia should have worked together to help Ukraine unmake itself as a hostage of geopolitics.
Dmitri Titoff is a foreign affairs analyst. He has an MA from Seton Hall University.