Russia
05
Memorandum
from Andrew Wood
Relations with Russia
1. Internal factors
determine Russia's foreign policies to an unusual degree:
· Russian
political institutions have atrophied, leaving power in the hands of a small
group of which former President Putin remains the lynch pin. The election of
President Medvedev last year did not ensure the renewal and reinvigoration to
be expected from a true transition.
· These
structures have come under rising pressure over the past year. Russia's
incursion into Georgia crystallised a latent perception of Russian fragility.
Russia's difficulties have been compounded since then. But Russia's foreign
policy attitudes have not changed.
· Russia's
foreign policy establishment, like its power structures in general, is small
and inward looking. The assumptions that fuel its beliefs are those of the
ruling elite: that Russia is 'back' and is naturally a 'Great Power'; that it
is entitled to exercise power in a zone of privileged interests whose lesser
powers are obliged to heed its directions; that an era seen by Moscow theorists
as one where Washington alone called the shots is over but that a weakening
United States is nevertheless determined to do Russia down; and that it is
payback time for Russia's alleged past humiliation. None of these propositions
stand up to serious examination, but that does not lessen their hold on the
imagination of the foreign policy establishment.
· Russia's
actions against Georgia, its pressure on Ukraine, and its policies towards the
Baltic States reflect revisionist ambitions and a refusal to face up to the
Soviet past. That is a change from the 90s, when the newly established Russia
was more open to integration into European and Atlantic frameworks.
2. Outside powers,
including those in NATO and the European Union, have found it difficult to
arrive at a mutually consistent view of where Russia is headed, and how to deal
with it. Their joint and several agendas are distorted by differing historic
memories; by a tendency to see the choice as one between containment and
engagement when some of one and some of the other might be reasonable; and the
habit of seeing relations with Russia through a bilateral focus, rather than
taking the lands between into full account. Divisions among outside powers and the
weaknesses of both NATO and the EU have made it practicable and entirely
understandable for the Russians to focus on particular countries, and
particular issues, on bilateral bases. Energy Security is a notable instance of
Moscow's ability to set the current agenda.
3. The institutions set
up to manage the Russia-NATO and Russia-EU relationships have had useful
results - on a practical and working level. They have been less effective in
setting a meaningful strategic agenda. It is difficult to see how that might
change while the Russians are disinclined to work effectively with either NATO
or the EU. They insist on seeing themselves as the natural equivalent of the
United States, and on regarding Washington at the same time as their inevitable
rival. The new US Administration seems to want to revitalise arms control
negotiations with Russia, partly for its own sake and in the hope that this
will assuage Russian feelings and partly with the idea that wider engagement
will follow. It will be a big leap from the first hope to the second:
• Russia has continued
to try to build up its authority in and over the countries of Central Asia, in
the Caucasus, and over Ukraine.
• In doing so, it has
sought to exclude the United States and her allies.
• Russian threats to
deploy its (not yet operational) Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad went along with a determined effort not to
listen to explanations of the realities behind the deployment of small scale
missile defence systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. What vice-President
Biden recently described in Munich as the reset button has not yet entirely
defused that issue.
• The proposed
construction of new facilities for the Russian Armed Forces in "independent"
Abkhazia is intended further to alter the balance in the Caucasus and the Black
Sea.
• Russia's
determination to exploit its gas assets as a political weapon has again been
clearly demonstrated against Kiev, along with its indifference to the interests
of its European (and best paying) customers.
• Russian proposals for
a new European security architecture are clearly designed to undermine NATO,
and by extension the US position in Europe.
4. Russian and NATO often appear to exist in parallel worlds.
We do not have a dialogue of the deaf so much as the two entities talking, on
occasion even shouting, past each other. Official Moscow for instance
apparently cannot accept, even privately, that NATO enlargement has been at the
request, even the urgent request, of new and aspiring members, and still less
that it has played a part in stabilising Central and Eastern Europe. NATO knows
that it has no designs on Russia - and it is a tough call even in the abstract
to make a plausible case for the Alliance having them. The West sees the Orange
or Rose revolutions as domestic and popular events. Official Moscow took them
to be the threatening result of outside interference, and a Russian defeat.
Moscow no longer recognises, as it used to do in the 90s, that the principal
dangers to Russia's security do not come from the West, and are not that
different from those perceived by Western countries as directed against their
security too.
5. The Russia-EU relationship is in principle easier than that
between Russia and NATO. But again, the record is disappointing.
• The EU is committed
under the existing Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) to working with
Russia on the basis among other things of democratic principles and Human
Rights. Prime Minister Putin's angry reaction when the EU Commission President
mentioned violence against journalists and human rights workers at their press
conference on 6 February told again of a difference in view.
• Moscow's negotiating
style is intransigent, and the Russians do not take the EU seriously when it
comes to the harsher politics of interstate relations.
• The EU still needs to
develop a common strategy in the critical sphere of energy, or at least some
common understanding of what might underpin such a strategy.
6. It may of course be that in negotiating a new PCA, and in
developing its ideas for its proposed Eastern Partnership, the European Union
will arrive at a more coherent approach, which will encourage the Russians to
take it more seriously. Russian entry into the WTO would help in that process
if Russia were to hold to its WTO commitments and its WTO colleagues were to
ensure that it did. But the record so far suggests that while the EU is good at
approaching complex issues from the ground of wide principle, it is less effective at the hard graft of
detailed work needed to underpin those principles - and Moscow is able to do
what it does so well, and so understandably, which is to select issues of
concrete interest, and in so doing to set others' agendas for them.
7. The UK has
a bad intergovernmental relationship with Russia, as it has had before. The
British can stand proxy for the Americans, and have been staunch supporters of
NATO. We differed from the Russians over Kosovo, and Iraq. The British judicial
system has defended the rights of those granted asylum. We cannot ignore
assassination on our territory. Moscow has had other gripes in the past, and
may well have others in the future. But none of this has prevented the UK from
having a close and many textured relationship with Russia outside the
intergovernmental framework. There is a wider lesson here: looking at the
issues of defence and international relations can obscure the realities of our
other mutual interests. Russia is more than its governing elite. There are
those in Russia that look to Britain to live up to its values.
8. Russia's
present rulers will have difficult choices to make in 2009. Introducing a
review by some of Russia's most distinguished economists and social analysts on
9 February the lead editor referred to fundamental flaws in Russia's economy;
remarked that his country was running out of time to retune that economy so as
to enable a "new quality" of post-crisis growth; and said that ballooning state
involvement in the economy, the propping up of ineffective businesses and the
atrophy of market institutions presented major risks. The editor spoke the
truth. The problem for the present order of things in Russia is that too many
powerful Russians would lose from a choice of the changes, including the
changes in the structures of power, implicit in a return towards liberal reform
- and a more devolved, accountable and independently managed system is needed
for a "new quality" to be introduced. If such men of power continue to resist,
internal controls will probably be tightened still further. That would be risky
as well as unpleasant. But Russia has now no tested machinery with which to
manage change. The possibility is there of a major political crisis compounding
already serious economic stress.
9. Predicting
how Russian foreign and defence policies will evolve over the next year, let
alone longer, is in these circumstances problematic. Russia's apparent
international success has been a source of pride to its leaders and added to
their credibility with their people. Domestic stress will probably, in the near
term at least, increase Moscow's efforts to build up its influence over its
ex-Soviet neighbourhood, and foster its irritable attitude towards the West.
That would be more likely to persist if the Russian authorities chose to deal
with their economic and social problems by tightening their internal controls.
It is in any case hard enough for any leadership or individual leader in power
for almost a decade to admit that different attitudes would be wise. Moscow's
encouragement of Kyrgyzstan to close the US base there, its provision of money
to Belarus for a unified air defence system, and reported decision with its
"Collective Treaty Security Organization" colleagues to set up a rapid reaction
force are all recent indications of continuity. It is questionable if any of
them add to Russia's real security.
10. The rest
of us have no choice but to live with uncertainty as to how Russia will now
change, and how or when that will affect her attitude towards the outside
world. The UK will no doubt also have to live with differing ideas among EU and
NATO colleagues as to what is happening in Russia, and what our attitudes
towards that should be. Patience and confidence will be necessary. There is no
need for us to be short of either, though division and irresolution have marked
us before. There is no reason, just because the present Russian establishment
has a distorted and suspicious view of the outside world, and the West in
particular, that we should reciprocate. Russian policies towards Ukraine and
the Baltic States, in the Caucasus and in Central Asia will need careful
attention. It will be right to work with the Russians in the WTO context, the
Council of Europe, the United Nations and so on, while also making sure that we
understand each other properly, and stick to a common rulebook. We have strong
business interests in common. And there is work to do on energy security.
11. It will
also be right, lastly, to track Russia's efforts at military reform closely and
even sympathetically. The Russian Armed Forces are large but ramshackle. They
are in the aggregate no match for NATO, though capable as Georgia demonstrated
of bringing force to bear on vulnerable points. The Russians have their doubts
as to the resolution of others including NATO to resist such ventures, and have
spoken of their right to defend their nationals abroad. Quite what they mean by
that is unclear, but there are implications which the Russian authorities have
not dismissed for instance for Ukraine and the Baltic States. Both President Medvedev
and Prime Minister Putin have favoured increased defence expenditure. But those
increases will not match the cost of replacing obsolescent equipment, or be
sufficient to bring about the reform of the military espoused by Defence
Minister Serdyukhov. A more tightly organized and smaller Russian military
might, always provided that we can get the wider agenda in better shape, well
be easier for the rest of us to work with.
Associate Fellow of Chatham House
11 February 2009
