The Australian, Australia
Dec 10 2004
Return of the big bad bear
Paul Dibb
FOR more than a decade, received wisdom in the West has been that
Russia has changed fundamentally and is now a peace-loving European
power prepared to keep to itself and live by the rules. If we prove
to have been wrong about Russia, much of what has been assumed about
global and European security will need revision, too.
Moscow’s interference in the Ukrainian election, the announcement
that Russia will deploy a new type of strategic nuclear missile “that
other nuclear states do not have”, and President Vladimir Putin’s
increasingly anti-democratic attitude all point to a reversion to bad
old habits.
Putin has openly mourned the passing of the Soviet Union as “a
national tragedy” for Russia. He has launched a bid to reconstitute a
“joint economic space” on the ashes of the Soviet Union, taking in
Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus. Putin’s growing antipathy
towards the US is reflected in his accusation that Washington is
running a “dictatorship” over global affairs.
The visit to Moscow last week of Leonid Kuchma, President of Ukraine,
to meet Putin looked suspiciously like a Soviet era visit to report
to head office for new instructions. The West has been accused of
using the Ukraine as part of “a well-planned strike directed
primarily at Russia”, and to effect “a political takeover of the
post-Soviet area”. There have even been suggestions in the Russian
press that a Viktor Yushchenko presidency in the Ukraine could
trigger military intervention.
Bad habits have been evident for some time in the new Russia. At
home, the dominance of Kremlin advisers from the former KGB, who now
occupy 60 per cent of key decision-making positions, the suppression
of dissent in the media, and the jailing (or killing) of political
adversaries are all too familiar from the days of the Soviet Union.
Overseas, the retention of links with former client states (such as
Syria and North Korea), the suspicion of NATO, and the latent fear of
China all reflect abiding Soviet geopolitical concerns.
The days of euphoria over the expectation that a democratic Russia
would become a member of the Western strategic community are long
gone. Instead, we are now seeing an attempt by Putin to re-establish
Russia as a great power.
Most countries are prisoners of their geography and history — and
none more so than Russia. There is a deeply entrenched sense of
geographical vulnerability in Russia. Invasions by the Mongol hordes,
and later attacks by Poland, Sweden, France and Germany have left an
acute sense of paranoia.
This was reflected in a statement by Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov
last year, which identifies among the main threats to Russian
security: “the expansion of military blocs and alliances to the
detriment of the military security of the Russian Federation” and
“the introduction of foreign troops onto the territories of states,
which are adjacent to and friendly toward [Russia]”. These are
scarcely veiled references to the expansion of NATO on Russia’s
western borders and the military presence of the US in states of
former Soviet Central Asia and the Caucasus.
Then there is the question of the re-emergence of Russia’s imperial
impulse. As Ilan Berman, who is with the American Foreign Policy
Council, says in The Washington Quarterly, this concept has been
present in Russian political life for centuries, and the end of the
Cold War did little to mute it.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn advocated calls for a Greater Russia shortly
after the Soviet Union collapsed. Under Putin, these impulses are
beginning to be put into practice. As he said in June, Russian
officials are “now working to restore what was lost with the fall of
the Soviet Union”.
Russia’s strong economic growth is enabling it to spend more on
defence and increase its military presence in what it calls “the near
abroad”. Russia’s real defence expenditure was $US65.2 billion ($86.1
billion) in 2003 — an increase of more than 40 per cent from 2001.
This makes Russia the second-largest defence spender in the world
after the US, and ahead of China and Japan. Of course, it would be
wrong to assume that Russia is anywhere near repairing the
post-Soviet damage to its military. But Russia still has 5000
operational strategic nuclear warheads and armed forces numbering 1.2
million. And Russia under Putin is re-establishing a military
presence in neighbouring countries.
As Berman points out, the US’s new emphasis on Central Asia and the
Caucasus as part of the global war against terrorism is drawing a
strong Russian response. In Uzbekistan, Russia has negotiated an
agreement that effectively puts Moscow in charge of much of
Tashkent’s military policy. Last year, the Russian military opened
its first foreign base since the fall of the Soviet Union, in
Kyrgyzstan.
This year, Tajikistan granted Moscow military basing rights “on a
free of charge and open-ended basis”. Russia and Kazakhstan have also
inaugurated a joint action plan for security co-operation.
In the Caucasus, Russia has negotiated the use of military bases in
Armenia. Moscow continues to foment separatist tendencies within
Georgia and has threatened to cease gas supplies to Azerbaijan.
In June, Moscow commenced large-scale military exercises (called
Mobility 2004) with a clear signal to its neighbours that it
possesses the will and firepower to project force. The Russian
Foreign Ministry said they were intended to demonstrate that “any
place is within our reach”.
So, how did we get to this remove? Not all of it can be levelled at a
paranoid Russia. Had the West mounted a serious attempt to aid Russia
after the collapse of the Soviet Union, we might have had a better
chance of a democratic Russia. Instead, Washington was intent on
never allowing Russia to emerge again as a major power. The expansion
of NATO up to the Russian borders, including basing NATO planes in
Lithuania, NATO activity in the Caucasus, and the prospect of the
Ukraine joining the EU and NATO, may turn out to be a fatal step in
the history of the 21st century.
President Putin has made it clear that Moscow should not allow this
erosion of Russia’s geopolitical space. The Chief of the Russian
General Staff has written: “A powerful military stationed at our
borders with no declared objective poses a threat to any non-NATO
country. Sensible leaders would realise this and prepare to counter
the threat.”
The problem is that Russia, after 400 years of autocracy, has never
felt its independence threatened in this way before from European
hegemony. The forthcoming elections in Ukraine may just provide
Moscow with the pretext it requires to assert control over what it
sees as vital geopolitical space.
Paul Dibb, a former deputy defence secretary, is chairman of the
Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National
University in Canberra.