By Barry Rubin
The transition to democracy and capitalism has not been kind to Russia. It sank from superpower to sideshow internationally. The country is hurting and stagnant; it has no sense of purpose or goals; and Russia is in the hands of a ruthless dictator who knows how to use nationalism and demagoguery to ensure his power.
Of course, Russia’s rulers are weaker, less ambitious, far less well armed, and less anti-American than the old Soviet Union. Still, though, the Russian government has a chip on its shoulder. It believes that the West betrayed it, tricked it into dropping Communism but then didn’t deliver prosperity. So the old traditional rivalry with the West and the United States has lost its Marxist element but gained a new factor.
Another new element is the search for money. Russia has two main assets: oil and the ability to export arms along with nuclear facilities that might be turned into weapons. Since the West, with a head start and superior products, has a head start, Russia has to seek riskier, more marginal clients which mean the more radical ones that the United States won’t accept. In short, Russia needs allies that don’t have the option of enjoying Western allies and suppliers.
What is most notable about Russian Middle East policy is that it tends to side with the extremist forces. These friends include primarily Iran, Syria, Hizballah, and Hamas. Russia makes money by selling arms to Syria that Iran pays for, knowing that some of them will be transferred to Hizballah, and nuclear equipment to Iran. An alliance with Tehran also ensures that Iran doesn’t back Islamists within Russia. Since there is no cost to Russia for engaging in this pro-radical policy it is most attractive.
In the UN, Russia has protected Iran from stronger sanctions and the Syrian regime from tougher action to back the revolutionary forces there.
Meanwhile, Russia’s regime is involved in a far less visible strategy of rebuilding its influence in Central Asia, the south Caucasus, and Central Europe. Russian enterprises, often strongly backed by the government, are buying up assets in these places, undermining the independence of former Soviet republics and some of the ex-satellites. The countries so menaced get virtually no support from the Obama Administration. Again, Russian policy is all gain, no cost.
Russia is protecting billions of dollars in investments and that’s the long and the short of it. The Russians never saw this problem in Syria coming and they are reacting the way a criminal syndicate would, not ideologues.
What Should Russia do?
Especially, how should Russia handle their islamic, Middle Eastern and Central Asian neighbors?
Dalliance with their islamic neighbors may offer benefits in the short run,
but in the long run, Russia will be swamped by muslim immigration and influence,
and the white Orthodox Christian Russia of the last one thousand or three thousand years will be erased from history, and all of her contributions to Western Civilization will be pounded into dust like the “Statues of Bamiyan”, or the “School Children of Beslan”.
Should Russia move West, be a champion of Western Civilization to which she has made so many important contributions, and resume her position as one of the foundation blocks and corner stones of Western Civilization.
And hold her muslim neighbors at arms length until the islamic problem is solved?
Or should the leaders of Russia betray their own people and heritage and seek a marriage of convenience with the forces of darkness?
Russia has never been “one of the foundation blocks” of Western civilization. What can be said is that Russian high culture in the 19th (and early 20th) century influenced Western high culture, and that during the same time Russian aristocracy was European. But Russia has not been an integral part of the West.
A possible answer could be that Russia is positioning itself to maintain sufficient strategic power to compete with China and the Muslim block as America goes down the tubes.
I would add: 1. Russia’s role in South America via Venezuela in concert with Iran/Hizballah and in Paraguay, Cuba (still) and (once again) in Nicaragua, along with a significant Russian Latin American diaspora. 2. Russia’s nuclear weapons modernization program begun under Yeltsin continued under Putin already deployed and with more to come while looking to negotiate lower levels of weapons with an Obama administration eager to make deep cuts without building a new generation of nukes. This difference in quality especially at low levels of weaponry will ultimately affect US extended deterrence and could be,down the road, a factor in a crisis and embolden further no cost Russian moves along the lines noted in the article.
Barry, for some countries being tied to Russia is necessary for survival. Armenia wouldn’t last very long without military support and protection by Russia. Armenia can’t depend on the West that has a long running use and throw away Eastern Christian policy. In the 1990′s when Turkey was massing its army on Armenia’s border, threatening invasion, it was Russia that told Turkey that if they invaded they would be at war with Russia. The US did nothing. There are still Russian troops on the Armenian side of its border with Turkey, for which we are thankful.
I’m not justifying what else Russia does, just that when crunch time comes the West will sit on its hands. We know we can’t depend on the West. Armenia has no choice but to look to Russia and to the SCO with China. Armenia has to look East; it knows that for its survival it cannot depend on the West.
Russia is picking up where the Tsars left off: rebuilding their Near Abroad through capitalism and crude power diplomacy minus the gunboats. Russia has succeeded in expelling the West from the region and regaining its Great Power status through the Commonwealth Of Independent States, creating a Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan that a pro-Moscow Ukraine will probably join in the foreseeable future and clawing back much of the lost Empire not through military force but through gas pipelines and the dominance of those markets by Russian companies flush with cash. From Moscow’s standpoint this is a good deal. The Soviet Union lost money propping up bankrupt satellites of dubious political and strategic value. Russia in contrast, profits handsomely from countries willing to pay for the energy they need to fuel their economies. No Russian politician wants to rebuild the Soviet Union but from the way things are looking, Moscow doesn’t have to.
The ruskies have always lost in the ME because they backed the Arabs against Israel. The ruskies were behind the arabs in 67, and lost. Their pilots and planes and tanks were always shot down and blown up. What kind of a moron country has Bashar Assad as an ally? I guess they got money for selling their inferior arms but in the end they got no real influence.
If they had brains in their bodies they would be the US’s best friend in the world. They would have factories that built US products like computers and automobiles and they would make a ton of money. Instead they always team up with losers like Iran and Syria and Saddam Hussein. They will get their heads handed to them one of these days. Again.
If Russia’s motive for its actions in the Middle East is basically money, this has implications:
1. Russia will sell to the US, information or actual systems, such as the S-300 anti-aircraft system, that it sells to Iran, provided the sale is confidential.
2. Russia can be persuaded to support a US invasion of Iran by giving it some oil, or maybe an oil field.
So why is China Russia’s only companion in the Security Council?