Russia 110422 Basic Political Developments

Managing Russia’s Unsettled Borders

By Thomas Graham

But today, in contrast to the past, Russia is no longer the dynamic core of Eurasia.  Rather, it is surrounded beyond the former Soviet space by states and regions of greater energy.  Chinese power, radical Islamic fervor, and European prosperity are penetrating into Russia’s historical space or acting as powerful poles of attraction for former Soviet states, including regions of Russia proper. This reversal of the traditional flow of power has now lasted a generation, since the Gorbachev era, many times longer than any other reversal since Russia emerged as a great power 300 years ago.  And it is far from certain that a return to the traditional pattern is imminent despite Russian leaders’ repeated assertions that Russia has returned to the world stage as a great power.

What is the nature of the challenge Russia faces?  The borders share common features, but each is unsettled in its own way. 

In Northeast Asia, for example, three large consolidated nation-states with vivid memories of historical antagonisms compete for geopolitical and economic advantage.  All of them want to tap into the vast natural resources of east Siberia and the Russian Far East.  The region lacks an effective multilateral security organization; security and stability has depended on bilateral arrangements, with the United States playing an essential role in maintaining the regional balance.  The swift rise of China, with its insatiable thirst for resources and its recent more assertive behavior, is reshaping the region. 

•    The challenge for Russia is to hold its own in this dynamic region.  In particular, Moscow needs to reinforce its writ over its sparsely-populated, resource-rich, far-flung provinces east of Lake Baykal, the economic future of which lies in full integration into the robust economy of Northeast Asia.

•    This is Russia’s most volatile and dangerous border: the chaos in Afghanistan, the high risk of internal upheaval elsewhere, and the presence of nuclear-armed powers with competing interests make this region perhaps the only place in the world where an armed confrontation between great powers is imaginable in the next decade, even if the risk is low.  The immediate challenge for Russia is to work with other powers to stabilize Afghanistan, to remove it as a major source of narcotics for the Russian market, as a harbor for terrorists, and as an arena of destabilizing geopolitical competition.  The long-term challenge is three-fold:  (1) to maintain a solid Russian presence in an increasingly competitive commercial and ideological environment, (2) to help consolidate Central Asian states and lay a solid foundation for stable long-term growth, and (3) to help build an effective regional security architecture, most likely based on the SCO.

In Southwest Asia, as befitting a crossroads of civilization, states are riven by ethnic and sectarian cleavages, as evidenced by the ‘frozen conflicts” in the Caucasus and the continuing deep unrest in the Arab world.  Iran competes with Turkey and Saudi Arabia for regional preeminence, and its nuclear program raises the specter of nuclear proliferation and an accelerating regional arms race.  Poor governance, corruption, and widespread poverty have spawned radical Islamic terrorist groups with regional and international ambitions, while unrest in the South Caucasus reinforces the turbulence in Russia’s own North Caucasus.  There is no adequate regional security organization. 

•    The challenge for Russia is to ensure the continued existence of, and bolster, a north-south axis of communication from Russia through the Caucasus into Turkey and Iran and beyond.  This will require a concerted effort to bring stability to the North Caucasus, to build constructive relations with the South Caucasian states, including Georgia, the pivotal state in the region; and to maintain good relations with both Iran and Turkey. 

In Europe, traditional nation-states share sovereignty with supranational organizations.  While some multilateral organizations include Russia as a member, the two main pillars of the European order, the EU and NATO, do not.  For the past two decades, they have moved their borders steadily eastward.  Although the ongoing economic crisis and developments in Ukraine and Georgia have cooled the earlier ardor for expansion, neither organization has renounced ambitions to move further into the Balkans and the former Soviet space.  No matter how configured, for at least the next decade, Europe will remain Russia’s largest trade partner and the key destination for its energy exports.

•    Russia faces a dilemma in Europe.  On the one hand, economic growth, and the further consolidation of the EU, would act as a powerful magnet on Ukraine and other former Soviet states, complicating Russia’s effort to rebuild its own influence in those states.  On the other hand, Europe’s continued economic growth is critical to Russia’s own well-being, given the close trade ties.  A similar situation exists with regard to security matters.  On the one hand, NATO reduces Russia’s influence on these matters in Europe; on the other, NATO provides assurances that a major conflict will not erupt inside Europe.  The challenge for Russia is to build relations with both the EU and NATO that ensure that its interests are taken into account in their decisions, while not eroding their ability to act effectively to advance Europe’s prosperity and security. 

Finally, in the Arctic, five nation-states surround a vast frontier, which is gaining in prominence as climate change opens up Northern maritime routes and makes the region’s resources more accessible and global economic growth creates demand for both the routes and the resources. 

•    The challenge for Russia is to extend its sovereignty over as large a swath of the Arctic and its resources as consistent with international law, to acquire the technology to develop those resources profitably and in an ecologically safe way, and to reduce the risk of destabilizing geopolitical competition.


Mastering the Challenges

Each border will require a unique set of policies.  It is impossible to delve into the details in a short essay, but two general points merit attention.

First, Russia will need to rethink its relationship with the other former Soviet states.  Traditionally, as Russia expanded across Eurasia, it turned borders into barriers against foreign penetration behind which it gathered its own forces for further expansion.  Driven by an ideology that posited an implacably hostile outside world, Soviet leaders took this approach to an extreme:  They sought to create an autarkic socialist economic system on the territory of the Soviet Union and its satellites in Europe, and they built a fortress state to protect it.  To a great extent, this traditional thinking shaped Russia’s policy as its leaders sought to contain the centrifugal forces that burst forth with the demise of the Soviet Union by creating first the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and then various other bodies uniting subsets of the CIS.  Nevertheless, borders remain unsettled and Russia’s primacy in the region contested.
 
This should not be surprising, for Russia’s traditional approach is inappropriate to the realities of the 21st century.  In a globalized economy, prosperity comes from active engagement in world trade and investment, power grows not so much from seizing and holding territory as from enhancing access to global markets, and a country’s success depends on its skill in manipulating interdependence to its own advantage.  This is true of Russia, as it is true of all the other former Soviet states.  Consequently, while a greater presence in the former Soviet space will enhance Russia’s well-being and security, any effort to turn that region into an exclusive zone of Russian influence, to limit the former Soviet states’ access to the global economy, will prove counterproductive. 

Today, Russia’s interests are best served by thinking of the former Soviet states not as barriers against a threatening outside world, but as bridges to dynamic, lucrative commercial markets.  Russia will still want to be the dominant power in the former Soviet space for economic and security reasons, but there is ample room for outside powers to pursue their interests there without eroding Russia’s.  Infrastructure should be designed to move goods and people between Russia and South Asia, Southwest Asia, and Europe across former Soviet space, with the proviso that a concerted effort must be made simultaneously to build infrastructure that binds Russia itself together. In addition, Russia should take the lead in promoting and managing regional security structures and organizations that include former Soviet states and states without Soviet pasts, as a way of stabilizing unsettled borders and containing security threats.

Second, the sine qua non for Russia to play this role in Eurasia is recreating Russia as the dynamic core of the region.   A dynamic, attractive Russia transforms the dynamism of surrounding regions from a threat into a resource for enhancing Russia’s own power and prosperity as Russia links up with these other centers of dynamism to mutual benefit.

Recreating the dynamic core entails thorough-going modernization, as the Russian political elite understands.   So far, however, efforts as modernization have proceeded fitfully, and the challenges are only growing.  This slow, uncertain progress leads other countries to question Russia’s commitment to maintaining itself as a major power, and thereby makes them less inclined to invest in serious long-term relations with Russia, even if they have to deal with it in the short term.  Without a creditable modernization effort, Russia will be relegated to a secondary role in any effort to build economic and security structures along its periphery – as was the case in Europe as the EU and NATO once expanded without much regard for a strategically weak Russia.     

There is one final matter that Russia cannot ignore as it considers its unsettled borders:  the United States.  Everywhere Russia turns, it finds the United States.  This situation will not change soon.  Despite current difficulties – unsustainable budget deficits, a mounting national debt, an overstretched military – the United States will remain for years to come the one truly global power, with significant strategic interests at stake along Russia’s entire periphery.

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, and especially for the past decade, Russia has seen America’s presence along its borders as a major threat to its great-power aspirations.  This fear is not unfounded.  The United States, as a matter of policy, has sought to prevent the reemergence of a threat of Soviet dimensions in Eurasia.  Since only Russia could form the core of such a renewed threat, U.S. policy has sought to limit Russian options in the former Soviet space and to enhance the independence of all the former Soviet states.  Not surprisingly, Russia has pushed back.
 
The question is whether intense geopolitical competition in Eurasia makes sense for either country now, given the myriad challenges both face in an era of great global turbulence.  Recent steps suggest both countries are reconsidering their positions.  Under President Obama, the United States put NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia on hold, reversed the decision to locate missile defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic, and refused to rearm Georgia.  Under President Medvedev, Russia opened a transit corridor across Russia to supply American and NATO forces in Afghanistan and welcomed U.S. cooperation in containing unrest in Kyrgyzstan.  These are all positive developments, but the improved situation remains fragile.  Neither country has articulated a strategy that would justify a more cooperative relationship along Russia’s borders.  And they have not done so in large part because neither is fully convinced that a cooperative relationship is strategically desirable or possible.

Yet the main lines of the argument for a more cooperative relationship are straightforward.   The United States and Russia are no longer two hostile superpowers locked in an ideologically-driven, life-or-death global struggle.  Each must advance its interests in an increasingly non-ideological multipolar world.  In such a world, intense U.S.-Russian competition tends to play to the advantage of third countries.  In Northeast Asia, China gains increased leverage over the United States and Russia as a result.  In Central/South Asia, regional states play the United States and Russia off against one another to their own benefit.  In Southwest Asia, Iran advances its regional ambitions along the fault lines of U.S.-Russian rivalry.  Everywhere, the competition complicates the emergence of the stability that would benefit both the United States and Russia.  Conversely, cooperation between a strong, confident, dynamic Russia and a powerful United States would ease the task of creating stable balances and promoting economic development along Russia’s entire periphery.

After years of bitter competition and profound mutual suspicion, it is perhaps hard to believe that the key to settled borders that Russia needs may lie in Washington, while the key to stability in Eurasia that the United States seeks may lie in Moscow.  But global trends are quickly creating such a situation.  It is time to recognize – and act on - that reality. 

Thomas Graham was the senior director for Russia on the U.S. National Security Council staff 2004-2007

This article was originally published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta