By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

Why Russia  remains a country of constant crises

The evening picture underneath was taken on Russian National day 12 June 2022. Whereby the reality is that Russia can’t avoid trying to reassert power, and the West can’t avoid trying to resist. But in the end, Russia can’t win. Russia was and remains a country of constant crises and constant wars, while the primary motivation to think about the future stemmed from the economic crises of 1998 and 2008–2009. Putin’s strategy has enabled Russia to reappear on the world stage in unanticipated ways that will continue to challenge the world. Whereby It is also important to remember that the Kremlin does not speak for all Russian citizens.

 

The Putin challenge

As Putin continues in his fourth term, uncertainty about succession has already prompted maneuvering among the political class, trying to anticipate what might happen and seeking to position themselves advantageously while ensuring they are not adversely affected by what might come next.

Putin has voiced thoughts on his potential successor several times in recent years, even though he has never indicated when he may forgo seeking reelection. Last year, Putin signed a law that would allow him to remain in power until 2036 if he decides to seek two more six-year terms by rewriting the constitution through a referendum-like process that his critics have called a crude power grab.

Putin has surrounded himself with a group of young technocrats who owe their careers and advancement to him. If he decides to pick a successor, the next president could come from this group, many of whom are now running regional governments but lack an independent political base. A former Kremlin spin doctor has argued that the 2018 election “marks the arrival of post-Putin Russia regardless of whether Putin remains the head of state for the next six or sixteen years.”1 If Putin were to groom and pick a successor, he would have to avoid being viewed as a lame-duck until his retirement in 2024. All of this heightens the uncertainty about succession, introduces a simmering instability into the system, and provides a new dimension to Russia.

The Putin system has produced a succession dilemma: Russian elites depend on Putin’s patronage to continue to own their assets and maintain their power, so any managed succession must involve a candidate who will guarantee that Putin and his inner circle will keep their assets and their personal freedom after he leaves the Kremlin. When Putin took over from Yeltsin, he promised that the Yeltsin family would not be prosecuted and could keep their assets. He honored that part of the bargain. But within three years of taking office, Putin aimed some of Yeltsin’s oligarchs, forcing some into exile, seizing their businesses, and in the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, sending him to prison for a decade. The individual who succeeds Putin might well honor any agreement they made with the president himself, but would Putin’s oligarchs be safe? The process of choosing a successor to Putin could be fraught and unpredictable. 

 

The challenge to the West

How should the West respond to Putin’s Russia going forward? Since Putin has been in power, the major Western governments and Japan have pursued their resets with Russia, but all of these have ended in disappointment.

The West should begin by reviewing its flawed assumptions about what Russians wanted after 1991 and how economic integration would affect political ties. It should ask what has not worked well over the past quarter century and seek to understand why relations with Russia have not turned out the way many had assumed and hoped they would. After the Soviet collapse, many in the West believed that what had prevented the USSR and the West from developing productive relations was the communist ideology that officially guided Soviet domestic and foreign policy. It was thought that with the communist system relegated to the dustbin of history, to paraphrase Trotsky, Russia would embark on its difficult transition to a market-based, democratic society and a post-imperial foreign policy. Transition theories flourished, and Western economic and political advisers enthusiastically flocked to Russia to embark on democracy-promotion programs and advise Russians on how to implement economic reforms and create a market. Without revisiting a discussion of what is cataloged as Western and Russian mistakes during the 1990s, suffice it to say that by the time Putin took over in 2000, many Russians believed these Western policies and programs had led to chaos, the impoverishment of many, and the enrichment of a few, and that the West had not made good on its earlier promises of meaningful financial aid. Perhaps no one could understand how massive was the task of creating a capitalist economy out of the rubble of seventy years of a state-controlled, centrally planned economy.

Yet, as Putin consolidated his rule, it became clear to the world that the main reason for Russians’ rejection of Western-style economic and political programs was because they were Russians, not because they were communists. Seventy years ago, George Kennan understood that communist ideology reinforced and exacerbated, but did not contradict, the characteristics of traditional tsarist rule. Communism had been superimposed on centuries of Russian autocracy and personalistic rule and had, if anything, strengthened those traditions. The ideology was a means to consolidate the Bolsheviks’ rule, mobilize society, and, with great pain, drag Russian peasants into modernity. But it became increasingly subordinate to traditional nationalism and an expansionist foreign policy so that, by the time the USSR collapsed, few party members still believed in the tenets of Marxism-Leninism. Still, many were Russian nationalists with an imperial mindset. The minority who supported Gorbachev and Yeltsin, and thought that Russia should become more like the West politically and economically, were outnumbered. No wonder Putin likes to stand next to statues of Prince Vladimir and Tsar Peter the Great. Putin represents traditional, collectivist, authoritarian Russian political culture and appeals to a sense of Russian exceptionalism, which defines itself in opposition to the West. Russians’ understanding of their unique history and the drivers of global politics is very different from that of the West. That does not mean America and Europe cannot work with Russia, but it does suggest the West has to recognize what Russia is—and not what it would like Russia to be.

Another misapprehension was the assumption that Russia’s economic integration with the West would have a moderating effect on its political behavior. This was, after all, the basis of the West’s détente policy in the 1970s, that closer economic ties would promote more productive political relations. During the 1970s, détente worked for some years until the Soviets invaded Afghanistan because the USSR understood that it needed to import Western technology and was prepared to offer political quid pro quos. Détente produced a landmark arms control treaty, significantly improved political ties, and partially opened a window on the world for some Russians. In the early 1990s, Yeltsin supported a Western agenda in the Balkans because he sought Western economic assistance and political support for his reforms. The rather Marxist belief that economics can influence politics persists, particularly in Europe. Germany led the EU is launching a “partnership for modernization” with Russia in 2010, believing this would result in a “strategic partnership.”2 But Putin has sought to decouple Russia’s economy from its political ties to the West. Although the EU program still exists on paper, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the war in the Donbas have effectively put it on hold. Attempts to promote economic and judicial reform and support for civil society have been uneven, leading some to term this a “partnership without modernization.”

The West initially hoped Russia would become a responsible stakeholder in a post–Cold War, rules-based liberal international order it had created. But the Kremlin viewed this as an attempt by the United States, supported by its allies, to impose an agenda on Russia in which it had no agency and was inimical to Russia’s real interests. Putin is more interested in power and scale than in rules. The West may see the 1990s as a time of promise in Russia, greater pluralism, and the move toward a market society. Most Russians today, led by Putin, see it very differently—as a time of poverty, upheaval, and chaos, combined with rising economic inequality and humiliation by the West. Putin frequently repeats this historical catalog of complaints to his Western interlocutors.

Historically, cooperation with Russia has been the exception rather than the rule, at least in US-Russia relations. When people talk about “normalizing” US ties to Russia, they mean achieving an equilibrium between cooperation and competition. There have been a few high points in US-Russia ties: the Grand Alliance during World War Two and coordination and intelligence sharing after the 9/11 attacks in Afghanistan. Despite tensions in the relationship, Russia was an enthusiastic partner in both these instances because Washington and Moscow had identified a common enemy they sought to defeat. The Kremlin believed the United States was treating it as an equal. But when the common enemy was defeated, the alliance fell apart. More narrow cooperation on arms control has worked too. There were also other moments of cooperation during German unification, the First Gulf War, and the Bosnian War. Apart from these instances, US-Russia relations have been primarily characterized by mutual mistrust and suspicion. This is, at the best of times, a limited partnership in which cooperation coexists with competition and conflict.

Russia has largely been antagonistic, and UK-Russian relations are currently the worst of any European country. Europe’s inclination since the Soviet collapse has been to promote economic and political dialogue and cooperation, but these expectations have been severely challenged since the start of the Ukrainian crisis and Russia’s subsequent election interference. The reality is that Russia is partially integrated into the global economy and a major exporter of oil and gas to Europe and, increasingly, to Asia. Whenever Russia takes actions that are considered inimical to the United States or Europe, sanctions are the first resort. But these have a limited impact on Russian efforts. Earlier already, the US Congress has ramped up sanctions on Russia. Still, so far, Russia has doubled, refusing to cease its cyber activities and challenging every Western claim about its culpability, be it in election interference, the MH-17 crash, Russian soldiers in the Donbas, or various high-level poisonings including the Skripal poisonings. This constant Russian pushback is likely to remain as long as Putin is in the Kremlin.

For the rest of Putin’s term in office, Russia will assert its interests in its neighborhood, insisting both that Western encroachments there threaten its core interests and that the West should accept these concerns as entirely legitimate. It will project power abroad where it can, taking advantage of the disarray in US foreign policy. Putin will continue to use television and other media to play on the enemy image of the United States and Europe to ensure his popularity and power at home and among pro-Russia groups in the West. Under these circumstances, America and its allies have a limited number of difficult choices in dealing with Russia. 

 

What is to be done?

Endowments of vast natural resources—as well as their ability to thwart Western interests—necessitate engagement. Russia cannot be isolated because it has partnerships with many countries that refuse to criticize Russia or sign on to sanctions and do not see Russia’s actions in Ukraine threatening their interests.

Moreover, two decades of US and European democracy promotion have not succeeded in creating a more democratic society or institutionalizing the rule of law. Indeed, the Kremlin sees these efforts as a cloak for “regime change.” Under Putin, the Kremlin has steadily closed the space for political competition and has ejected US and British organizations seeking to support Russian civil society. The Kremlin has worked hard to immunize Russian society from Western influence through its state-run media, particularly Russian television.

Given these constraints, former Ambassador Jon Huntsman recently argued that the Putin era in de facto is already over. For the United States, the issues Washington and Moscow can engage on are Ukraine and strategic stability—arms control and nonproliferation. It is a constant challenge to coordinate, let alone cooperate, on these issues, but nonengagement with Russia could lead to an even greater escalation in tensions. For Europe, whose economic and energy interdependence with Moscow necessitates sustained engagement, the Ukraine crisis is the key issue, both because it has destabilized Europe’s periphery and because EU sanctions and Russian counter-sanctions have adversely affected European economies.

The continuing Ukraine crisis has highlighted an enduring problem in Russia’s relations with the West: disagreement on the shape of Euro-Atlantic security architecture and Russia’s insistence that the West renegotiate the concept of European security with Moscow. So far, the West has rejected Russian proposals because they would essentially render NATO obsolete. But since the Crimean annexation, two realities have become clear: the West will not risk military confrontation with Russia over its actions in the post-Soviet space, and as a result of these actions, further NATO or EU enlargement to post-Soviet countries is highly unlikely. Russia has thus achieved one of Putin’s major foreign policy goals.

 

To its actions. Washington should refrain from actions that seek to undermine the alliance.

Without a broader agreement between Moscow and the West, Russia will continue to nurse its growing list of grievances against the US and Europe. The West’s task for the rest of Putin’s tenure is to exercise strategic patience while containing Russia’s ability to disrupt transatlantic ties as it strengthens its defenses against Russian incursions. It must consistently and robustly push back against Russian interference in Western elections. But it must also be prepared for new challenges as Putin focuses on building up Russia’s artificial intelligence capabilities and deploying its considerable cyber prowess. Yet the US and Europe should be prepared to reengage more actively with Russia should the Kremlin step back from its current confrontational policies and moderate its anti-Western stance. Off-ramps should always be available, and the West should take the long view, not expecting significant change to occur in the short term.

During the president’s fourth term, Putin's Russia could also likely bring new challenges. The Russian leader has been known to change course unexpectedly and take actions that few anticipated because they do not take his words seriously enough when he telegraphs his intentions. Russia is predictable until it is not, and the West may confront unexpected developments during the next few years. Putin’s world is one in which Russia has returned to the global arena on all cylinders in pursuit of influence and acceptance. Putin’s strategy—if that is indeed the appropriate term for policies that often involve a rapid and shrewd response to opportunities created by Western disarray or inaction—has enabled Russia to reappear on the world stage in unanticipated ways that will continue to challenge the world.

Several lessons have become clear in the two decades that have seen the rise of Putin’s world. Isolating Russia and refusing to deal with it, however appealing that may appear to some, is not an option. On the other hand, pursuing “resets” intended to achieve qualitative improvements in ties to Putin’s Russia is a fruitless quest for the foreseeable future. Engagement must be realistic and flexible. Engage on issues of mutual interest and be prepared to be more forward-looking if Russia moderates its behavior. It is also important to remember that the Kremlin does not speak for all Russian citizens. The West should encourage a wider dialogue with Russians wherever possible. Above all, it should be prepared for surprises in dealing with Russia and agile enough to respond to them, just as Putin’s judo mastery has taught him how to prevail over an indecisive opponent. In Putin’s world, it is prudent to expect the unexpected.

 

 

 

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