Russia’s military expenditure is now over 4% of GDP, higher than any other country, including the US. The annual budget deficit has soared from 0.5% to 3.7% of GDP. The oil price is way down and Putin cannot borrow abroad because of sanctions. He is using a reserve fund that could be depleted by the end of the year. His aggressive antics, especially in the Ukraine, are quite likely to end as a result. An Epicurean outcome greatly to be desired.
There is a danger that present-day Russia will end up like post-WW1 Germany: humiliated and utterly bankrupt, yet nationalistic and defiant, with the old institutions and structures still in place. We may want a more liberal and democratic Russia, but we don’t want to completely rob it of its national pride, because that would be an unnecessary and immoral provocation that would lead to more nationalism and conflict further down the line. Its important that the Kremlin learns its place in the world order, but to strip the Russian people of their dignity would be totally disproportionate.
If the current Russian Republic were to collapse, it would be because of the same factors as the ones behind the collapse of the Soviet Union: internal contradictions and inherent weaknesses in the system, combined with economic decline. Foreign pressure is only part of the solution- to claim otherwise is intellectual dishonesty. However, I don’t believe that the collapse of the Putin administration is imminent. This is because he faces less external pressure that the USSR did; but more importantly, Russia has experienced considerable economic growth under his rule- the current malaise is an exception to what has largely been an uninhibited increase in prosperity, particularly in comparison to NATO member states. Moreover, there is no credible opposition to the United Russia party. The Communist Party is nostalgic and unrealistic, and Putin has Russia’s oligarchs and governmental institutions on his side. Finally, the Russian people, to a large extent, have a romantic attachment to the ‘motherland’; however irrational we may consider this to be, it is nevertheless a factor behind the considerable support for Putin’s foreign policy and his authoritarian rule generally.
I absolutely agree that Russia should not be humiliated. It’s exhibit No. 1 in foreign policy for every country. The Republican idea of putting a string of rocket sites on the Russian border was truly stupid and humiliating.
The Russian economy has grown, but from a desperately low level. Per capita it has improved because the population has apparently declined. This doesn’t mean prosperity has reached the general public – the economy is oil- dependant, or rather raw material- dependent, and the people who control those sectors are corrupt. A bit of a mess. We should be prepared to do a deal with Putin that saves his face , but also dissuades him from marching into Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to grab their oil. His desire to restore the Russian Empire is understandable, but has to be tamped down. Who has the vision to do that? good question!
Applying different standards to states in evaluating their security interests and ignoring the historical forces which shaped their security needs contribute to international instability. Ridiculing individual leaders is no help unless every leader with whom we chum around is tested on the same laugh-meter. Either way it’s a distraction from formulating rational policy.
For 50% of the time that Russian civilization has existed, ca. 900-1450, its center was in Kiev. Nomadic invaders sweeping across the Asian steppes (e.g., Mongols, Tartars) who aimed at Kiev and western military power attacking Russia from the west who attacked and sacked Kiev (e.g., Poland, Lithuania, Bulgars, Sweden, the German crusaders) eventually forced the Russians to shift its security base to an insignificant tributary of the Volga, to Moscow after 1450. That center was deeper into the northern forest zone and north of Smolensk and therefore safer from Polish military pressure and from Tartar raiders.
The Ukraine and the Crimea have always been crucial to Russian security and Russia’s leaders, Rurik to Putin, have faced similar security threats. It seems to me cheeky in the extreme for western Europeans and Americans to preach non-“aggression” while at the same time seeding the world with military bases of which here are but a few:
1. http://www.occasionalplanet.org/2013/12/24/military-surprise-5-lesser-known-places-where-u-s-troops-are-deployed/
2.
http://militarybases.com/army/
3. http://www.occasionalplanet.org/2011/01/24/military-mystery-how-many-bases-does-the-us-have-anyway/
In a recent June interview with Corrierre della Sera, Putin made a legitimate point:
“I invite you to publish the world map in your newspaper and to mark all the US military bases on it. You will see the difference. . . . American submarines are on permanent alert off the Norwegian coast; they are equipped with missiles that can reach Moscow in 17 minutes. But we dismantled all of our bases in Cuba a long time ago, even the non-strategic ones. And you would call us aggressive?
Transcript of the interview is here: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42094.htm
Finally, the World Bank figures for military expenditures as percentages GDP between 2010-2013 do indicate that Russia is slightly ahead of the U.S. for the last measurement but if all four years are averaged for GDP/expenditures the figures show the U.S. @ 14.45% and Russia @ 12.65. j
The core points at issue for me are two: first, that what the west insist is “aggression” does not reflect a standard that we apply to ourselves or allies-at-the-moment. Second, the time warp introduced ignores or dismisses what were real and continuing security factors from the earliest period of Russian history. Here is a good example of this bias, wherein what we say is “true” and what Russia says is “propaganda” This CIA Pomerantsev and Weiss-John Helmer review is illustrative . http://johnhelmer.net/?p=13537/>Chatham House.
Great post! Thank you, Carmen. I did Russian history at university as a Special Subject, and one thing stayed with me ever since – Russia has absolutely no natural borders, unlike the obvious case of, say, the British Isles. It accounts for the paranoid insecurity Rissians feel, and should be borne in mind by all foreigh politicians. As Owen rightly says, don’t humiliate them.