RUSSIAN FOREIGN
POLICY AND THE
RETURN OF
GEOPOLITICS
Andrei CAZACU
Modern History & International Relations
s2283786
Andrei.cazacu.sh@gmail.com
Weteringschans 37/2, 1017RV AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS
Supervisor: Dr. Margriet Drent
22.03.2015
Contents
Introduction ... 2
I. The return of geopolitics in world affairs? ... 8
Imagining the world ... 12
II. Eurasianism ... 18
History & tenets of Eurasianism ... 23
The geopolitical foundations of Eurasianism ... 28
III. Russian presidential rhetoric ... 34
1. NATO Summit – April 4th 2008, Bucharest ... 37
2. Valdai Club 2013 ... 38
3. Speech on Crimea, 18th March 2014 ... 41
4. Valdai Club 2014 ... 43
IV. Media & Non-linear warfare in Eastern Europe ... 52
Conclusion ... 58
Introduction
The recent developments in Eastern Europe – primarily the violent revolution and the subsequent proxy war in Ukraine – caught EU officials by surprise and have showed how unprepared the lumbering mechanisms of the Union are to deal with such crises on its very borders. At the same time, there have been many explanations put forward in the media and in policy analysis circles regarding the causes and wider context. The present analysis intends to provide an eagle-eye view of Russian foreign policy today, specifically in regards to Europe and in the context of the Ukraine war. It will focus on (1) the ideas guiding foreign policy, collectively referred to as Eurasianism, (2) the official rhetoric coming from the Russian Presidency, and (3) the actions through which geopolitical goals are pursued in Eastern Europe –i.e. “hybrid” or “non-linear” war.
In particular, I intend to look at Eurasianism, an ideology firmly rooted in geopolitical thinking which has resurged after 1991, in part as a product of the conditions created by the disintegration of the Soviet system and Russia’s new position in the rearranged world order. The questions guiding the analysis are:
What is Eurasianism?
To what extent Eurasianism is present in Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric? What practical implications can we ascertain for Russian foreign policy?
Walter Russell Mead and John G. Ikenberry will serve as the starting point in the first chapter.
The second chapter explores the origins and characteristics of Eurasianism as an ideology with geopolitical foundations and with influence in Russian power circles. The third focuses on analyzing the content of a few selected speeches given by Russian president Vladimir Putin in order to determine whether elements of the ideology are present in his vision of Russia as an international relations actor. In the final section I look at the practical implications of Eurasianism as a guiding ideology for Russian foreign policy, specifically at the combination of information warfare and limited military involvement – often referred to as ‘hybrid warfare’.
First, we must determine what Eurasianism is and what its main elements are, in order to potentially place them in Vladimir Putin’s official speeches. Therefore, the paper conducts a literature review of important English language publications on the topic of Russian Eurasianism, after which it outlines the ideology’s position within the wider foreign policy discourse landscape in Russia since the end of the Cold War. The geopolitical foundations of the ideology are also explored, in an attempt to present to the reader a comprehensive image of the underlying assumptions, the motivations, and the goals of Eurasianist thought. This also allows us to later consider what Russia’s policy towards Ukraine and, more broadly, Europe and the US, will look like in the future.
espoused a variant of Marxism-Leninism. Moreover, keeping in mind the gradual cooling of relations with the US and NATO, as well as criticism coming from Putin of the “American empire”, we need to determine what his alternative for the global order would look like.
For this purpose, 4 major speeches will be investigated. The first is a speech given at the end of 2008 NATO conference in Bucharest, selected because it was the last major speech on Russia-NATO relations before the Georgian War, which was a distinctly tense period for the relationship. The surprise appearance by Putin at the summit also hints at the urgency and importance of the issues addressed.
The second speech was delivered in the fall of 2013 at the Valdai Club, an annual venue inside Russia where issues pertaining to Russia are discussed. It conveyed two major messages: That “Russia is fully back on the world stage seeking a leadership role” and that “Russia offers the world an alternative value system to that of the West, which has lost its moral compass”, according to foreign policy expert Angela Stent.1 It was also published in an edited version on Russian ideologue Aleksandr Dugin’s website, 4pt.su, under the title “The flourishing diversity of Eurasia: our political goal”, suggesting (beyond the title) that the message is one of interest to Eurasianists. Lastly, it comes a few weeks before Ukraine’s revolution began and this allows us to compare it with the one Putin gives a year later, in 2014, at the same venue and to the same audience (see below).
Thirdly, the 18th of March 2014 speech, the official declaration by Putin when Crimea was absorbed into the Russian Federation, may offer important insight into the Kremlin leadership’s vision of geopolitics and world order at the moment that it broke
away from the post-Cold War consensus defined by the primacy of state sovereignty and the inviolability of a country’s borders. Arguably the most important geopolitical moment of 2014, the annexation of Crimea sparked ardent debate over how valid the conclusion was that liberalism had won the ideological clash of the Cold War.
The final speech, as mentioned above, is the 2014 Valdai Club address, which offers the opportunity to compare whether Putin’s vision has changed in light of the Ukraine conflict and the deterioration of NATO-Russian relations, and if so, how.
The paper seeks to determine for each speech the following: who delivers the message, what the message is, what channel is used for delivery, who the audience is, and what the effect is. The focus of the analysis will be on the content – i.e. what the message is. In effect, the section will investigate what the main representations are in Putin’s speeches of the main geopolitical actors and events. How are Russia and the US depicted? How is their relationship portrayed? What is the ideal state of affairs according to the speeches? If these representations are congruent with those espoused by Eurasianist geopoliticians, we have moved one step closer to answering the main research question.
Readers may raise objections that the findings will not be statistically significant due to the small data sample. To balance this weakness, I intend to complement the analysis in the final section, where the issue of “non-linear warfare” (or hybrid) is investigated. The purpose of the section is twofold. First, it acknowledges one of the crucial features of Eurasianism as exposed by Dugin: that the prescribed goals are to be accomplished through a combination of subversion, media warfare, and careful limited application of military force. Secondly, this section makes the transition from the theoretical to the practical. Simply investigating official speeches tells only half of the story, at best. Should we also encounter a heavy information campaign and a tactic of limited warfare employed by the military, then we can begin to address the question whether Putin’s policy is impacted by Eurasianism or the influence remains purely at the level of rhetoric. Thus, one of the main contributions of this inquiry is that it will move us closer to giving practical answers to widely circulated questions such as ‘what does the future of European security look like in light of the war in Ukraine and recent Russian foreign policy?’
At the same time, due to the nature of social sciences, we cannot hope to give a definitive answer to the research question at hand, but merely to present the case at its strongest and see whether it holds to scrutiny. The reader must keep in mind that Russia has no official state ideology and so an answer to our central question will be riddled with caveats. Furthermore, observer of Russian politics and media Peter Pomerantsev has repeatedly illustrated that the end of official ideology in 1991 gave way to a wave of cynicism in Russia, which has been exploited by the elite.2 The phrase “everything is PR” symbolizes the difficulty in point with certainty at the official intentions of the Russian
elite, beyond its desire to remain in power. It then becomes a safe working assumption that, if Eurasianism indeed offers guiding principles to Vladimir Putin, it is ultimately most likely a useful power instrument both internally and abroad, rather than a true reflection of his geopolitical beliefs.
I. The return of geopolitics in world affairs?
2014 was in many ways a critical year for international affairs. The rise of the Islamic State brought further chaos and destabilization to the Middle East, forcing Western powers to reassess their planned exit from the Iraq region and their overall strategy in regards to Syria. The ever-simmering Israel-Palestine conflict was brought to a boil in July, when Israeli troops entered the Gaza Strip following Hamas’ firing of rockets into Israel. The Iranian nuclear negotiations have made little progress. In East Asia, tensions between China and Japan are growing, peaking when Japan’s government approved a reinterpretation of the country’s pacifist constitution to give more power to its self-defense force. The move also raised concerns from other regional actors such as South Korea, which called for “increased transparency” in the constitutional revision process3.
Arguably the most important moment of 2014 for international affairs was March 18th, the day on which Crimea was incorporated into the Russian Federation, a move widely regarded as a flagrant breach of international norms. The annexation came after pro-EU manifestations in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev turned violent, leading to civilian casualties and the ousting of the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich. The instability was used by Russian president Vladimir Putin as an opportunity to retake the Crimean peninsula, historically a part of Russia. While aggressively portrayed by Russian media as the fulfillment of Crimean popular will, on the back of a hastily put together referendum conducted with covert Russian troops on the ground4, few UN
members have recognized the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol as part of Russia. The US, having ‘pivoted’ its foreign policy to East Asia following the most recent of many ‘resets’ with Russia, seemed taken by surprise by the developments, just as the EU did at having such a crisis develop on its borders.
The annexation and the subsequent war in eastern Ukraine, suspected to be a proxy war carried out by Russia against the Ukrainian government5, have led to a frenzy of publishing and ardent debate on the topic of Russia, its foreign policy, and the implications for the future of global politics. The ubiquitous question seems to be: have geopolitical considerations resurfaced in world affairs? For some time it seemed that the old type of politics played with tanks and soldiers was on the way out. At least in Europe, a strong case could be made that zero-sum geopolitics had been left behind in favor of a win-win brand of cooperation and interaction. Among a multitude of voices, the exchange between Walter Russell Mead and G. John Ikenberry in Foreign Affairs stands out because it presents two important Western views of world politics, which are built on different assumptions.
The first text treats the end of the Cold War as a peace settlement.6 Walter Russell Mead puts the realist case that geopolitical considerations never went away to begin with. He takes a jab at liberal thinkers (most prominently Francis Fukuyama and his famous ‘End of History’ thesis) by pointing out their fundamental misreading of what was in fact a temporary respite in geopolitics brought along by the conditions of the post-Cold War period. This was not, he claims, the wider ideological triumph of liberalism over the Soviet system which many saw7, but rather the result of the political settlement
5 MacFarquhar, 2014 6 Mead, 2014
of the Cold War; a settlement against which China, Iran, and Russia “are all pushing back”. Putin “doesn’t believe that history has ended” and “has solidified his power at home and reminded hostile foreign powers that the Russian bear still has sharp claws”.8
As far as prospects go for the revival of Russia as a global power, Mead is skeptical due to the country’s economic woes which are not likely to disappear too soon.9 However, Russia has become “a more important factor in U.S. strategic thinking, and it can use that leverage to extract concessions that matter to it.”
In effect, an argument is brought to the forefront which in Western popular discourse until now belonged almost exclusively to the American right: that by buying into the post-historical model, Western countries have developed a blind spot for the power politics of resentful Russia.
The second text, G. John Ikenberry’s response, represents the liberal view of the end of the Cold War as the global socio-political and economic triumph of one model – liberal capitalism. It dismisses Mead’s tone as alarmist and seeks to defend the liberal global order on the basis of its strength and perceived legitimacy. The author does not deny the existence of geopolitics in American foreign policy, but argues that the latter is precisely concerned with managing and solving the big geopolitical questions, rather than ignoring them. The liberal principles pushed by Washington “enjoy near-universal appeal, because they have tended to be a good fit with the modernizing forces of economic growth and social advancement”. He assumes that there is no real alternative model offered to the US liberal one, a fact exemplified by Ukraine’s pro-EU orientation and
8 Mead chooses to depict Putin as a revisionist, a term used by other writers as well (Krastev, 2014);
this is accurate to the extent that he desires the revision of the world order. Otherwise, and in light of his recent statements about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact which have been interpreted as ‘historical revisionism’, it is inaccurate. It is precisely the revision of the Soviet version of history which Putin is fighting against.
9 And, indeed, the economic crisis which erupted in Russia in late 2014 seems to support Mead’s
Russia’s need to resort to violence – a sign of weakness in this context, not of strength. Moreover, Russia, along with China, “although they resent that the United States stands at the top of the current geopolitical system, they embrace the underlying logic of that framework,” seeing as they gain access to trade, investment, and technology through it. In the end, Ikenberry dismisses the prospects of the two powers seriously challenging or altering the world order, as “they do not have grand visions of an alternative order”.10
The two opposing viewpoints set up our investigation: is there really no alternative model to the liberal one? An initial, tentative answer is that Russia’s moves seem to indicate an attempt to construct precisely such an alternative. Whether it is about the settlement of the Cold War or about the wider political, social, cultural, and economic model pushed by the West, the fact remains that Russian foreign (and internal, although not the main focus of your analysis) policy shows deep resentment about the post-Cold War order.
We will therefore investigate the main visions of foreign policy present at the highest levels of Russian decision making, and ask whether there is an ideology guiding (or complementing) the main vectors. At a first glance, the geopolitical ideology of Eurasianism seems to be the most likely candidate, although it needs to be established whether it is noticeably influential, to what extent, and how.
Imagining the world
The way in which the world is viewed and understood depends very much on who does the viewing and interpreting: Russia’s geopolitical vision is different from that of the majority of Europeans, and in turn that differs from the American version (or the Chinese version, for that matter). This affects the way in which policy is conceived and implemented.
John Agnew provides a clear example – the break-up of the former Yugoslavia between 1989 and 1994. The geopolitical visions of the then West German government and of the US government were very different. For the US it was important to maintain the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia which it viewed as a buffer between the Soviet bloc and Western Europe. West Germany, on the other hand, was thinking about investment and trade potential and thus encouraged political independence for Slovenia and Croatia, the two wealthiest regions. In both cases, Agnew argues, “a geopolitical framing that reflected different globally defined interests on the part of powerful external actors contributed to the conflict, even though each was rhetorically devoted to resolving it”.11
More to our point, the end of the Cold War and the symbolism of the Berlin Wall being torn down have vastly different meanings for the US, Russia, and Europe, as a recent LA Times op-ed correctly reminds us.12 For the US, the story is one of triumph: not just of its military and economy, but also of its values. The ethos of “might makes right” is confirmed by the Soviet collapse, and the Eastern European members of the former Soviet bloc eagerly desiring integration into the Western model served as added proof that the liberal democratic ideals won over all else.
Europe, on the other hand, looks at the absence of force on the continent as the main cause of “velvet revolutions” and is suspicious of American eagerness to show military strength. In other words, its commitment to peace following the devastation of the two World Wars paid off by also winning the Cold War. Some commentators, Engel included, have criticized the perceived hubris of declaring a triumph over war itself.
Finally, for Russia the story is one of loss. In the words of Vladimir Putin, the Soviet collapse is “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” the episode which marked the relegation of Russia to a regional power at best. The state of the economy during the 1990s, with nothing in place that could be called a second Marshall Plan, along with NATO’s enlargement eastward and its incursions into former Yugoslavia convinced Russia that the West was not to be trusted. The country generally shares the “might makes right” ethos with the US, but, as the losing party, is resentful of the settlement.
These three different perceptions of the world at the end of the Cold War, while admittedly superficially outlined, are key to understanding how the three parties see the geopolitical map of the world in 2014 and why they acted/reacted the way they did to the events surrounding Ukraine. A country’s perception will determine its attitudes towards its environment and its actions. The interesting question is how actors within those countries differ in their worldviews, and what that tells us about the direction of those countries’ policies. Since our subject is Russia, we will therefore need to place Eurasianism in the context of the different strands of foreign policy thinking in Moscow.
recently ended, communism having collapsed, and the Soviet Union being divided. The cataclysm brought along considerable changes, including the emergence or re-emergence of various foreign policy discourses.13
A national identity comes with an image of the role of the country in the world, and the identity crisis experienced by Russia in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet collapse was reflected in a foreign policy lacking coherence, design, and a sense of strategy.14 Three main foreign policy discourses have offered different versions of Russian identity and of the “possible ways of considering the further evolution of Russian relations with the outside world”.15 These discourses outlined by Tsygankov are what Max Weber would call “ideal types” – analytical tools created by selecting and accentuating certain elements for the purpose of comparative study; there is a good deal of overlap between the position taken by the figures associated with the discourses.
Figure 1 - map of post-Cold War geopolitical imaginations (adapted from the analysis of Tsygankov, 1997, 1998)
13 Tsygankov, 1997 14 Porter, 1996, p.121 15 Tsygankov, 1997, p.264
End of Cold War
US geopolitical
vision EU geopolitical vision geopolitical visionRussian
1. International institutionalism
Most commonly associated with Gorbachev’s New Thinking brand of foreign policy, this position advocates international cooperation as the basis of national security. At the time – late 1980s and early 1990s – the vast nuclear arsenals and the increased economic interdependence between the Soviet and Western spaces presented the biggest challenges to continuing the Cold War as before, hence some Soviet leaders adopted pro-Western policies and envisioned a new basis for security: cooperation which would turn Russia into an active participant in international organizations.
With almost no precedents in Russian foreign policy history and confronted with a plethora of challenges (the conflict in Chechnya, the semi-hostile attitude of former Soviet republics, NATO enlargement, the conflict in the Balkans), international institutionalism was abandoned as official policy around 1993-1994 in favor of other schools of thought.
2. Realism
Realism is a school of thought that has been prominent in Russia since pre-Soviet times.16 Russian realists hold that the basis of security is similar to that of Western realism: maintaining a balance of power. The emphasis is placed on power as control, domination, and conflict, as opposed to cooperation and regeneration. Furthermore, security is a relational concept as it requires an outside threat against which it is to be achieved.
The major goal for realists is maintaining “the existing balance of power and
geopolitical stability rather than upsetting these for the purpose of transformation”.17 This is an important feature of realism: it values order above freedom, and stability over transformation.18 Furthermore, the more geopolitically-minded of realists would also posit that a fundamental fact about realism is its “recognition of the most blunt, uncomfortable, and deterministic of truths: those of geography” – i.e. that a state’s position on the map is the first thing that defines it.19
Realists are further divided into 2 groups. An aggressive form of realism emerged as a direct opposition to New Thinking, was upheld by conservative, right wing politicians (e.g. Gennadi Zyuganov), and favors moderate expansion. The restoration of the Soviet Union is the only means of maintaining security in the long term. On the other hand, defensive realists tend to be critical of Soviet foreign policy and lay equal blame on the US and SU for how the Cold War unfolded. Politically, the proponents tend to be neoconservative and they advocate the restoration of the Soviet Union, albeit through non-forceful means. The famous formulation of Russian interests as “spheres of influence” belongs to this faction, and is commonly referred to as the “Yeltsin doctrine”.
3. Revolutionary expansionism
The final foreign policy discourse is that of revolutionary expansionism, of which the most notable strain is Eurasianism. Similar to realism in that its origins can be traced to pre-Soviet and Soviet periods, its radical doctrines place it at the extreme right of the political spectrum. Quite differently from the previous two positions, it is not concerned with stability and instead advocates a “conservative revolution”, meaning in
17 Ibid.
effect that securing Russian interests can only be accomplished through geopolitical and cultural expansion.
II. Eurasianism
Russian Eurasianism has received some attention in the past two decades in Western publications.
In 1993, Madhavan K. Palat provided a somewhat sympathetic analysis of the history and substance of the ideology by taking it at its face value – a multicultural basis for a new identity which would fill the void left after the collapse of the USSR. At the time, Madhavan saw Russia working on building its third version of Eurasia, after the nationalism of imperial Russia and the communism of the Soviet Union, both which were unsuitable models for the environment at the time.20
A more critical view of the ideology came in 1999 with a piece by Charles Clover in Foreign Affairs, at the point when Eurasianism was growing in popularity in Russia and its Duma. The author claims that the Russian elite’s shift was not one from the determinism of dialectical materialism to capitalism and liberalism, as many in the West were hoping, but simply to the geographical determinism offered by the Eurasianist ideology. While he identified a milder strain which mainly posited Russia’s uniqueness, startling for Clover is how widespread the more hard-line version was, which saw the Eurasian heartland as “the geographic launching pad for a global anti-Western movement whose goal is the ultimate expulsion of ‘Atlantic’ (read: American) influence from Eurasia”21. Figures such as Communist Party leader Gennadi Zyuganov, LDPR22 leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Aleksandr Prokhanov, or Aleksandr Dugin were all part of the early post-Cold War proponents of the ideology. The latter is particularly interesting
20 Palat, 1993 21 Clover, 1999, p.9
22 The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, an ultranationalist political formation which can by no
because some of his prescriptions seem to have “anticipated actual Russian policy vectors”, hence the need to better understand his brand of ideology.
This echoes a point made in a slightly different context by Dmitry Shlapentokh (2007b). While seeing no reason to ascribe the type of power and influence to Dugin that Dugin himself might do, he does emphasize the need to understand his geopolitics in order to better grasp the ideas circulating in the minds of Putin’s inner circles. Ideas to which, he goes on, even liberal Russian intellectuals with Western affinities such as Carnegie Moscow’s Dmitri Trenin, are not completely immune. Trenin was seduced by the idea of a Great Russian Empire, albeit to be accomplished by different means than those proposed by Dugin.23
Indeed, the concept of Eurasianism at its core is appealing past Russian ideologues and decision-making circles. In one of the most recent pieces tackling the wider Eurasian issue, Emerson (2014) provides an overview of the possible rationales, implications, and likely challenges of conceiving a Greater Eurasia – a continuous social, cultural, and economic space spanning from Japan to Portugal. After a brief mention of Russian Eurasianism as “a defence against the West” developed “energetically” by Aleksandr Dugin, “a prolific writer and propagandist whose views combine strident Russian nationalism with Eurasianism”, the article quickly moves on to a number of possible agendas for pursuing a more generic project: energy pipelines, trade relations, cross-border security issues (i.e. criminality and terrorism), strategic security, political ideologies, long-term socio-economic and cultural values etc.
This shows that the core concept is an appealing one to people outside Russian decision-making circles too.
Possibly the most encompassing analysis of Eurasianism comes from expert on Russia Andrei P. Tsygankov who in 1998 wrote an article entitled “Hard-line Eurasianism and Russia’s Contending Geopolitical Perspectives.” It is worth noting that the author saw a struggle inside the Kremlin between two different factions of hard-line Eurasianists – modernizers and expansionists. Aleksandr Dugin, a recurring figure in all the above mentioned analyses, belongs to the latter faction. It is the influence of his strain of Eurasianism on actual decision-making which, Tsygankov claims, would make dialogue between Russia and the West virtually impossible, since “their discourse is a discourse of war”.24 It is therefore important to establish whether this virulent strain of Eurasianism carries much weight in today’s Russian foreign policy, and this will be one objective of the paper at hand.
One should be wary of ascribing too much influence to the radical Eurasianists. David Kerr points out that, even while the pro-Western policy position in the Kremlin has lost influence since 1991, it would be shortsighted to conclude that “Russia is once again moving into opposition to the Western economic and political model”25. Rather, the long-term picture seems to show the entrenchment of the position that Russian and Western interests are not necessarily identical, but not necessarily opposed either. By this standard, the most recent conflict over Ukraine is just one episode where those interests clashed, an episode that does not by itself signal long-term conflicting foreign policies. It is worth keeping in mind this nuanced view of the wider context.
Outside of academic literature, Eurasianism has also received some attention in Western media due to the developments of 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and began a form of ‘hybrid warfare’ in eastern Ukraine.
24 Tsygankov, 1998
Yale historian Timothy Snyder writes in the New York Review of Books about the connection between the Eurasian Economic Union project (EEU) and Ukraine. The “Euromaidan” protests of late 2013, pro-EU and pro-democratic in their nature, were sparked by president Yanukovich’s last minute refusal to sign the EU association agreement. Russia’s involvement after this point (particularly the $15 million offered to the Yanukovich regime and the support for the violent crackdown on protests) has much to do with the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Union, a rival project “not based on the principles of the equality and democracy of member states, the rule of law, or human rights”. Ukraine could not be anything but authoritarian in order to join the “hierarchical organization, which by its nature seems unlikely to admit any members that are democracies with the rule of law and human rights,” because this would pose a threat to Putin’s rule in Russia.26
Leon Neyfakh also writes about the connection between the EEU and the Russian president’s motivations. He argues that, even if he is “truly driven” by any kind of Eurasianism, his decisions, statements, and the people he surrounds himself with tend to indicate that he envisions “something deeper than a mere economic alliance” – i.e. a political, economic, and cultural union.27
This paper will put the case that his wider vision of Russia as a global power requires an ideology, and Eurasianism has all the ingredients needed to legitimize the project.
One of the important assumptions of the analysis is that Eurasianism is a useful instrument for a leader seeking to consolidate power at home and pursue a more aggressive foreign policy, based on balancing power with the NATO bloc in particular,
History & tenets of Eurasianism
The starting point of Eurasianism is in the early part of the 20th century, when a group of Russian émigrés developed a theory about Russia’s unique civilization, one completely distinct from both Europe and Asia, and about the country’s primacy in the geographical space between these two continents. The geopolitical character of the ideology was defined largely by the international order context at the time, with traditional ally China’s decline and the rise of imperial Japan; the prospect that the East might once again be a threat to Russia was worthy of new consideration.
The most recent incarnation of the doctrine comes as a reaction to the collapse of the USSR, and is today most famously proposed by Aleksandr Dugin, an ideologue whose brand of Eurasianism he himself describes as ‘National-Bolshevism’ in his many books, including “Foundations of Geopolitics” and “The Fourth Political Theory”. He is a popular figure among Traditionalists, is frequently invited by such circles as a guest speaker, and has had considerable influence in the Kremlin as a special advisor to the president.
Born in 1962 in a Moscow military family, he studied foreign languages and history. An intellectual and activist in the late 1980s around a far-right movement, Pamyat, he later was part of the Russian “New Right” emerging in the 1990s; he kept contacts with European New Rightists such as Alain de Benoist or Robert Steukers. He was the chief ideologist of the National Bolshevik Party until 1998, when he left the party after disagreements with leader Edward Limonov.
Vtorzhenie (Invasion), Milyi Angel (Dearest Angel). He is the owner of the 4pt.su website, which hosts Russian and European far right authors’ texts, as well as texts from officials (most prominently editorials by Vladimir Putin himself) and also from the American far-right which tends to share some of his ideals.
Dugin has become more prominent since 2000, as Russia’s official Eurasianist inclinations have been consolidated. Proclamations of Russia’s derzhavnost (great power status) “have become not just acceptable, but a genuine component of official discourse, and oppositionists have found much to praise in Putin’s programme”.28
As the most prominent Eurasianist, we will look at his vision of the ideology not in order to ascribe it as a whole to the Russian leadership today, but to gain a better understanding of the type of ideas present in Kremlin power circles.
One of the defining traits of Eurasianism is that it is a conservative ideology which is neither Communist nor Nationalist. Often, Eurasianism is mixed with other ideological notions, described on the whole by Dugin as “National-Bolshevism”:
“1. Eschatological awareness, clear understanding of the fact that the civilization is finally nearing its end. This leads us to the idea of eschatological restoration. There is also an effort to perform this Restoration of the Golden Age by political means.
2. The idea of inadequacy of the existing religious institutions of eschatological goals - the hidden anti-radicalism, reincarnations, and pharisaism of the traditional western religions. The spirit of reformation or "new spirituality" (mysticism, Gnosticism, paganism).
3. Hate for the modern world, the Western civilization, with its roots in the spirit
of Enlightenment. Identification of the cosmopolitan imperialist capitalism with the extreme global evil. Anti-bourgeois pathos.
4. Interest for the East and dislike for the West. Geopolitical orientation towards Eurasia.
5. Spartan (Prussian) ascetism. Pathos for Work and the Working Man. The basic idea of the primary spiritual origin among the people, among its lowest levels who have been safe from the depravity of the last few centuries, in comparison with the degenerated elite of the old regimes. The principle of "new aristocracy", rising from the masses of the people.
6. Understanding the people and the society as an organic brotherly collective, based on moral and spiritual solidarity. Radical denial of individualism, consumption and exploitation. Effort to bring all peoples to the state of the "golden age".
7. Dislike for the cultural, religious and economic traditions of Semitic origin (Judaism, Islam), setting Indo-Europeic traditions against them, since the social class of "merchants" (with its mentality) did not exist as such.
8. Readiness to sacrifice oneself for this ideal and what it's worth. Hate for mediocrity and petty-bourgeoisie. Clear revolutionary spirit.”29
. The fourth point gives the ideology its fundamentally geopolitical character. It also shares some assumptions with Western realism, most notably putting emphasis on control, domination, and conflict as opposed to cooperation and regeneration. The perceived weakness of Russia in the immediate post-USSR period is a cause of huge
concern for Eurasianist thinkers who understand Western (particularly US) actions as looking for any opportunity to weaken and exploit Russia.
Unlike Western realism, the standard unit of analysis is not the state, but rather the empire, and history itself is considered to be “a drama of a birth, decline, and rebirth of empires”. Therefore the ideology pushes the idea of a land-based, Eurasian Empire, led by Russia, which would counter the geopolitical ambitions of the maritime, Atlantic civilization – i.e. the United States and the United Kingdom.
Russia, after all, developed an empire in a slightly different manner than the maritime empires of Western Europe. While it did expand enormously starting with the 17th century, it acquired land only from adjoining territory (with Alaska the one exception). The empires of Western Europe colonized South America (Portugal and Spain) and North America (Britain and France). This expanded the geographical scope of “the West” across the Atlantic Ocean. Moreover, these empires stretched all the way to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, “establishing dominion over today’s India and Indonesia, imposing a patronizing presence in parts of China, carving up almost all of Africa and the Middle East, and seizing scores of islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans as well as in the Caribbean Sea”.30
The first half of the 20th century turned the transoceanic rivalry of the two remaining maritime empires, France and Britain, into an alliance against an emerging continental power, Germany. Moreover, after 1945 the Soviet Union, “the vast Eurasian landpower”31 clashes with a United States that had quickly and decisively emerged from the geographical isolation in which it had built its industrial and military power. This
30 Brzezinski, 2011, p.9
event once again redefines ‘the West’ as cross-Atlantic, this time dependent on and dominated by the US.32
The above geopolitical perspective of history is fundamental to Eurasianists: history itself is a duel between maritime and land-based empires33. Geographical proximity to Europe places certain demands on Russian security. While Europe is a separate civilization with its own interests, it can be relied upon as an ally in the confrontation against the maritime interests of the Americans. In practice, this translates into distrust for a US-dominated NATO, but not necessarily for individual member states. In this regard, Dugin’s personal and professional relationships with European far-right philosophers and authors (openly professed, including on his own websites) is telling, as is the connection between the Eurosceptic, far-right Front National in France and the Putin regime34. With Eurasianist discourse being so much centered on power, Eurasianists found common ground with anti-EU movements and parties within Europe; the normative logic of the EU precludes balance of power arrangements and the imperial logic of Eurasianism.
Moreover, Eurasianists lay emphasis on culture and identity when explaining why international actors act the way they do. In other words, rationality as defined by Western thought is insufficient and needs to be complemented by references to cultural and ethnic factors – social feelings, national pride, national memory etc. The differences between civilizations here are also derived from their very nature: as mentioned above,
32 As Brzezinski notes, “Western Europe became almost formally America’s protectorate and informally its economic-financial dependency” (p.12)
33 “Russia is an independent Orthodox-Eurasian civilization, rather than the periphery of Europe,
insisted Eurasianists, following their ideological predecessors, the Slavophiles, along with other Russian conservatives (…) If the Atlanticist West is the enemy of the Eurasianists, then the Eurasians are the enemies of the West and its agents of influence”, Dugin writes http://4pt.su/en/content/eurasia-war-networks
Eurasia is a land-based civilization while the Americans and the British are seen as part of a naval-based civilization. The origins of this dichotomy can be traced back to the writings of geographer Halford Mackinder.
The geopolitical foundations of Eurasianism
Halford Mackinder is most commonly referred to as the father of geopolitics. In a 1904 article, he presented a synthesis of historical and geographical generalizations which, he argued, was for the first time possible:
“For the first time we can perceive something of the real proportion of features and events on the stage of the whole world, and may seek a formula which shall express certain aspects, at any rate, of geographical causation in universal history.”35
According to the theory, the history of civilizations is one profoundly shaped by geographic and climatic conditions.
The dominance enjoyed by European powers beginning with the Greek and Roman civilizations up until modern times is to a considerable extent owing to the accessibility of navigation and the abundance of rain caused by proximity to the Atlantic. Western Europe’s distinct geographical advantages – “wide and fertile plains, an indented coastline that allowed for many good natural harbors, navigable rivers flowing northward across these plains and extending the reach of commerce to a greater extent than in the Mediterranean region, and an abundance of timber and metals” – helped it
become prosperous through both resource extraction and trading.36 In contrast, the vast Eurasian heartland is mainly a steppe, is inaccessible to ships, and large rivers such as the Volga drain into salt lakes or the frozen Arctic Ocean.
This, Mackinder explains, has given an advantage to those whose mobility depended on camels and horses, such as the Mongol hordes. Kaplan goes on to summarize the implications of this geographical approach:
“Russia, protected by forest glades against many a rampaging host, nevertheless fell prey in the thirteenth century to the Golden Horde of the Mongols. Thus would Russia be denied access to the European Renaissance, and branded forever with the bitterest feelings of inferiority and insecurity. The ultimate land-based empire , with no natural barriers against invasion save for the forest itself, Russia would know forevermore what it was like to be brutally conquered , and as a result would become perennially obsessed with expanding and holding territory, or at least dominating its contiguous shadow zones.”37
Essentially, Mackinder’s geographical approach leads him to divide the world into 3 major regions: The pivot area of the Eurasian Heartland, the “marginal crescent” and the “insular crescent”. Eurasia and Africa are collectively referred to as ‘the World Island’. Returning to his original thesis in his 1919 Democratic Ideals and Reality, Mackinder reflects on the power interests which clashed dramatically in the First World War and puts forward a dictum which would become famous:
"Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island controls the world."40
40 Mackinder, 1919
He also attempts to steer clear of presenting it as a form of determinism by including a caveat: “The actual balance of political power at any given time is, of course, the product, on the one hand, of geographical conditions, both economic and strategic, and, on the other hand, of the relative number, virility, equipment, and organization of the competing peoples”.41
That Mackinder wrote the article at the beginning of the 20th century is not a random occurrence – the very idea of world politics came about “when it became possible to see the world (in the imagination) as a whole and pursue goals in relation to that geographical scale”42. His thesis also had considerable impact on German Geopolitik, through such figures as Friedrich Ratzel, a late nineteenth century German geographer and etnographer or Rudolf Kjellen, a student of Ratzel who actually coined the term Geopolitik. The two would depart from Mackinder’s basic formulation of the geographical factors that challenge human societies to categorize these societies in racial and biological terms. Karl Haushofer, known as the geopolitician of Nazism, was also an admirer of Mackinder. Robert Kaplan sums up Haushofer’s crucial divergence from Mackinder:
“Whereas Mackinder, influenced by Wilsonianism and the need to preserve the balance of power in Eurasia, recommended in 1919 a belt of independent states in Eastern Europe, Haushofer, inverting Mackinder’s thesis, calls a few years later for the ‘extinction of such states’”43. (Kaplan)
41 Mackinder, 1904, p.436 42 Ibid.
43 The vision proposed by Mackinder resonated with “the morbid philosophy of world power or downfall
Dugin’s brand of Eurasianism borrows much from this geographical approach to understanding the world. In his vision, a Eurasian empire, or strategic bloc, would span from Lisbon to Tokyo44, with Russia (‘the Heartland’) a central and dominant element both in terms of power and geography. The creation of such a bloc would involve a “redivision of ‘spheres of influence’ between Russia and Germany in Eastern Europe, the ‘decomposition’ of Ukraine, and the creation of a Balkan Federation”.45 Implied in this arrangement is the ousting of American influence in Europe and the resurgence of Germany as a major geopolitical actor.46
As Ingram points out, there is nothing in Dugin’s vision which would suggest he takes seriously the idea that “people might prefer neither subordination within the strategic dictates of the Continental bloc, nor integration within a world economy dominated by the USA”.47 This is due to the fact that geopolitical security can only be guaranteed by strong control over a ‘Great Space’.
Furthermore, in Eastern Europe, Serbia and Bulgaria would serve as the basis of a Balkan Federation, due to their common Slavic identities, while Moldova is to come under Moscow control. Actors such as Macedonia and Romania are seen as central to Atlanticist strategies. It is important to note that this is only an intermediary step from the current state of affairs to the final, in which there are only two empires with opposing interests – the Eurasian and the Atlantic. In this, Dugin’s Eurasianism is similar to early 20th century German Geopolitik.
The goal of creating the Eurasian Empire is to be pursued using the principle of the common enemy: “A negation of Atlanticism, a repudiation of the strategic control
44 http://4pt.su/en/content/horizons-our-revolution-crimea-lisbon 45 Ingram, p.1038
46 http://www.4pt.su/en/content/eurasian-idea
of the United States, and the rejection of the supremacy of economic, liberal market values – this represents the common civilizational basis, the common impulse which will prepare the way for a strong political and strategic union…”48. Fomenting the anti-Americanism of the Japanese and the Iranians means gaining reliable allies in the fight against the US.
Whether these ideas carry weight with the Russian president Vladimir Putin is the subject of the next section, which will analyze several high-profile speeches in order to gauge whether Eurasianist ideas are guiding his foreign policy.
III. Russian presidential rhetoric
In order to establish the extent to which Eurasianist ideas are present and influential in Putin’s foreign policy, the next chapter will analyze the discourse of the Russian president as present in several high-profile speeches: the 2008 NATO Summit speech, the 2013 and 2014 Valdai Club speeches, and the 18th of March 2014 speech about Crimea.
Before getting to the texts themselves, it should be established what the assumptions and understandings about foreign policy are for this paper. In particular, at the heart of our problem is the relationship between identity and foreign policy, as outlined in the previous sections. With the crisis in direction and vision occurring in the 1990s in Russia intrinsically came a crisis of identity, with the country caught between two paradigms: Russia as a Western country or Russia as a distinct cultural entity. Eurasianism itself is a reaction to the failed Westernization current which began with Gorbachev’s policies. Whether or not Putin is a Eurasianist himself, his discourse shares many of the assumptions, dichotomies, and contradictions of the ideology.
Therefore, we will treat foreign policy as intrinsic to identity formation. The conventional understanding of foreign policy is founded on Western historical experience, with one form of social organization and identity giving way completely to another (church->state) at a specific moment in time (1648). However, the context in which this process occurs is the much wider one of the Reformation through the Renaissance and Enlightenment, a process through which Russia never passed.
understanding international relations as “the existence of atomized states that are fully fledged intensive entities in which identity is securely grounded prior to foreign relations”49 is restrictive and ignores the ongoing process of boundary drawing and identity construction, as well as the discursive practice of connecting domestic “resistant elements” with the foreign oppositional “other”.
“For the state, identity can be understood as the outcome of exclusionary practices in which resistant elements to a secure identity on the ‘inside’ are linked through a discourse of ‘danger’ with threats identified and located on the ‘outside’. The outcome of this is that boundaries are constructed, spaces demarcated, standards of legitimacy incorporated, interpretations of history privileged, and alternatives marginalized”.50
The self-other dichotomy is only one of many which are present in foreign policy discourses relating to identity. Another fundamental one is the sovereignty-anarchy one, which is increasingly well-established in Vladimir Putin’s discourse as we shall see momentarily.
Further dichotomies are, for example: subject/object, inside/outside, rational/irrational, true/false, order/disorder etc. In each of these cases, “the former is the higher, regulative ideal to which the latter is derivative and inferior, and a source of danger to the former’s existence”51.
The 2014 speech at Valdai in particular is abundant in dichotomous reasoning, where the Russian president is explicit about the amoral/immoral character of the West which is contrasted with the moral superiority of the Russian people. In this discourse,
the social space of inside/outside (Russia/West) is connected with the superior/inferior dimension (traditional, religious/liberal, secular, godless). The same dichotomy is incidentally present in Dugin’s Eurasianism, albeit in much more strident terms.
1. NATO Summit – April 4th 2008, Bucharest52
At the Summit, held in Romania, one of the newer members of NATO, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was the scheduled speaker on behalf of the Russian Federation, hence the huge surprise to see the Russian president take the stage on the final day of the summit, in front of a largely Western audience.53 Not surprisingly, the main theme of the speech is the future of NATO-Russia relations.
The speech begins by praising the cooperation between Russia and NATO on issues of common interest: in Afghanistan, Putin praised the “simplified procedure for the transport of non-military goods through Russian territory to supply the International Security Assistance Force”; the two parties were also engaged in a joint anti-drug project, counter-terrorism programs, and civil emergency planning.
However, Putin continues by claiming that “the effectiveness of our cooperation will depend on the extent to which NATO respects the interests of the Russian Federation and the Alliance’s willingness to compromise on issues shaping the strategic environment in Europe and the World”. In effect, the responsibility for good relations lies solely (or mostly) with NATO at this stage.
The expansion of NATO is criticized as a direct threat to Russia’s security, but oddly enough the statement that “[n]ational security is not based on promises” also stands out; it is an interesting statement considering the invocation by Russian officials of the alleged NATO promise not to expand eastward as a reason for intervening in
52 Putin, 2008
Ukraine.5455
Furthermore, we take note of the president’s disgruntlement with the unilateralism of the post-Cold War period: “the criteria for the use of military force by NATO remain unclear, as does its relationship with the United Nations Security Council”. The statement alludes to American disposition to bypass UNSC approval for use of military force (e.g. Kosovo, Iraq), a major grievance of the Russian government.
Even with the criticism, which was preceded by the harsher and now famous 2007 “Munich speech”, the ending is optimistic and makes it clear that Russia and the West are not enemies by default: “we have clearly identified the problems we are facing and intend to further develop practical cooperation with the Alliance in the areas where we have common interests”, signaling that the interests of Russia and the West are not the same, but not necessarily completely opposite. However, later during 2008, the military intervention in Georgia complicated NATO-Russia relations and cast doubt on the possibility for further future cooperation.
2. Valdai Club 201356
The venue is a yearly international conference with the focus on Russia’s role in the world, held near Lake Valdai, in the Novgorod region. The address is largely focused on issues of Russian identity in relation to the West – in many ways a textbook case of Self/Other rhetoric.57
54 A myth refuted by Gorbachev himself, and debunked by Mark Kramer in a 2009 piece (Kramer, 2009;
Pifer, 2014)
55 That this statement has been made countless times throughout Vladimir Putin’s tenure means that
the recent change in Russian military doctrine is not at all surprising. (Hille, 2014)
56 Putin, 2013
57 An edited version of this speech has been published in the form of an op-ed on Dugin’s Fourth
Bringing up the need “to preserve our identity in a rapidly changing world, a world that has become more open, transparent and interdependent”, the speech quickly draws a distinction between what it means to be Russian and its antithesis – what it means to be part of the West: “The main thing that determine success is the quality of citizens, the quality of society: their intellectual, spiritual, and moral strength. (…) the question of finding and strengthening national identity really is fundamental for Russia”. Putin claims that:
“We can see how many of the Euro-Atlantic countries are actually rejecting their roots, including their Christian values that constitute the basis of Western civilization. They are denying moral principles and all traditional identities: national, cultural, religious and even sexual. They are implementing policies that equate large families with same-sex partnerships, belief in God with the belief in Satan […] The excesses of political correctness have reached the point where people are seriously talking about registering political parties whose aim is to promote paedophilia. People in many Western countries are embarrassed or afraid to talk about their religious affiliations. (…) And people are aggressively trying to export this model all over the world. I am convinced that this opens a direct path to degradation and primitivism, resulting in a profound demographic and moral crisis.”
This is a threat to the very identity of Russia, stemming from the same source as Russia’s security threats – the unipolar world model of the post-Cold War era, in which the West deems it fit to export its cultural model through the pressures of globalization. The contradiction between having a West powerful enough to export this model and its alleged moral weakness is not addressed.
“disruption of traditions and consonance of history”, “demoralization of society”, “deficit of trust and responsibility”.
He also argues for the building of a new Russian identity which is a synthesis of the best elements of Russian history and culture, and which is capable of adapting to changing circumstances. However, “debates about identity and about our national future are impossible unless their participants are patriotic”, referencing also potential enemies within: “too often in our nation’s history, instead of opposition to the government we have been faced with opponents of Russia itself”. This approach to criticism and political opposition has been a staple of Putin’s governance, which has “dusted off a Cold War narrative in which the United States is trying to foment a ‘color revolution’ in Russia using agents and hirelings, both foreign and domestic, and the people learn once again to fear enemies of the motherland in the employ of the ‘imperialist’ United States.”58
The speech also reiterates Russia’s opposition to the perceived unipolarity of the post-Cold War period and claims that “key decisions should be worked out on a collective basis, rather than at the discretion of an in the interests of certain countries or certain groups of countries (…) Russia believes that international law, not the right of the strong, must apply”. On this point, there are also hints at a parallel between the post-Cold War settlement and Treaty of Versailles, which imposed restrictions upon Germany that laid the grounds for WW2.
It also lays emphasis on the multicultural character of the Russian nation, but all other forms of identity must be superseded by the sum of “shared values, a patriotic consciousness, civil responsibility and solidarity, respect for the law, and a sense of responsibility for their homeland’s fate, without losing touch of their ethnic and religious
roots”.
Furthermore, the speech brings up the future Eurasian Economic Union:
“The 21st century promises to be the century of major changes, the era of the formation of major geopolitical zones, as well as financial and economic, cultural, civilizational, and military and political areas. This is why integrating with our neighbours is our absolute priority. The future Eurasian Economic Union, which we have declared and which we have discussed extensively as of late, is not just a collection of mutually beneficial agreements. The Eurasian Union is a project for maintaining the identity of nations in the historical Eurasian space in a new century and in a new world. Eurasian integration is a chance for the entire post-Soviet space to become an independent centre for global development, rather than remaining on the outskirts of Europe and Asia.”
This reveals both the resentment about the marginalization of the region after the Cold War, and that the EEU is meant to be as much an economic project as an identity-building one.
3. Speech on Crimea – 18th March 201459
Given at the Kremlin, on the day of Crimea becoming part of the Russian Federation and in front of a Russian audience, the speech is in effect the justification of the annexation of Crimea. The emphasis is on the referendum being carried out “in full compliance with democratic procedures and international norms”.
The notion of the multicultural origins of Russia, mentioned in previous addresses, now is instrumentalized to justify the incorporation of an ethnically-diverse Crimea (back) into Russia:
“Crimea is a unique blend of different peoples’ cultures and traditions. This makes it similar to Russia as a whole, where not a single ethnic group has been lost over the centuries. Russians and Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars and people of other ethnic groups have lived side by side in Crimea, retaining their own identity, traditions, languages and faith.”
A crucial element of this speech is the reference to the enemies of Russia: elements which, having infiltrated the initial protests in Kiev, “resorted to terror, murder and riots. Nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes and anti-Semites executed this coup. They continue to set the tone in Ukraine to this day”. This use of historical imagery – the Soviet fight against Nazi Germany – is meant to justify an intervention which would defend Russians against a vicious and barbarous enemy. This is complemented by accusations of anti-Semitism (denied vehemently by the Jewish community in Ukraine60) to further the moral claim of Russia to intervene to allegedly prevent a genocide against the Russian speaking population in the region. Vague language is employed – e.g. “continue to set the tone” – so as to avoid direct accusations. This way, the responsibility is diffused among the entire Ukrainian political leadership; there is no further need to explain who exactly the neo-Nazi Russophobes are.
Furthermore, “there is no legitimate executive authority in Ukraine now, nobody to talk to”. This shows that Russia does not recognize the post-Yanukovich regime, and also that the annexation/referendum procedure had to be done without involving Kiev authorities.
Once more, strong criticism is voiced about Western cynicism in the face of international law and institutions: “they have lied to us many times, made decisions
behind our backs, placed us before an accomplished fact. This happened with NATO’s expansion to the East, as well as the deployment of military infrastructure on our borders.” The statement alludes to Russia’s “sphere of influence” paradigm which sees Belarus and Ukraine as part of its national security interests. The prospect of Ukraine as part of NATO would have targeted vital Russian interests, Putin claims, the strategic port of Sevastopol mainly: “I simply cannot imagine that we would travel to Sevastopol to visit NATO sailors”.6162
This is a means of bringing up Russia’s main doléance: its fall from superpower status after 1991. “Russia is an independent, active participant in international affairs; like other countries, it has its own national interests that need to be taken into account and respected”.
There are also appeals to the German reunification idea to further legitimize the Crimean integration into Russia, as well as a passing reference to possible “action by a fifth column” within Russia, in order to destabilize the regime and ultimately change it. Here we take note again of the Russian government’s tactic of delegitimizing the political opposition.
4. Valdai Club 201463
At another Valdai Club meeting, this one taking place as fighting in eastern
61 An indication of just how important the Black Sea is to Russia, as Sevastopol is its only
warm-water naval base outside of the Far East.
62 NATO presence in Europe, while still considerable, was diminishing year by year. While expanding
eastward, the fact remains that no non-host country troops had been deployed in any of the post-1991 members. Only two European members have troop projection capabilities – France and the UK. Moreover, the number of US troops has gone down from 250.000 in 1985 to around 65.000 today, mostly stationed in Germany, Italy, and the UK. Compound to this the areas of cooperation mentioned in the 2008 address by Putin, and it becomes less likely that NATO does, in fact, constitute a major threat to the security of the Russian Federation (Walker, 2014).
Ukraine was continuing, despite a ceasefire agreement reached in Minsk, Putin puts the case that the world has reached a “historic turning point”: new rules or a game without rules. The speech calls for a reassessment of existing rules of conducting international affairs and avoiding anarchy.
There are “balance of power” references throughout the text, hinting at his realist inclinations; a balance of power, however, which ought to rely on a system of checks and balances, not brute force. This seems to be an institutionalist idea which also laments the diminished role of the UNSC and calls for improving the UN and the OSCE. Putin sees the post-Cold War order as a peace settlement, with the US declaring itself the winner. Unjust actions by the victors led to this current situation: односторонний диктат (unilateral diktat). This period of “unipolar domination has convincingly demonstrated that having only one power centre does not make global processes more manageable”, Putin goes on to say in criticism of the current world order.
He also emphasizes the increasingly greater role of Asia in world politics and economy and restates Russia’s reorientation towards the region.
He explicitly criticizes “our colleagues” (read: the US) for using “regional conflicts” and designing “colour revolutions” to suit their interests in Ukraine and Georgia, and alludes to the US alleged support for Ukrainian neo-fascists.
As far as Russian priorities go, they are: “further improving our democratic and open economy institutions, accelerated internal development, taking into account all the positive modern trends in the world, and consolidating society based on traditional values and patriotism”.
“We have entered a period of differing interpretations and deliberate silences in world politics. International law has been forced to retreat over and over by the onslaught of legal nihilism. Objectivity and justice have been sacrificed on the altar of political expedience. Arbitrary interpretations and biased assessments have replaced legal norms. At the same time total control of the global mass media has made it possible when desired to portray white as black and black as white.”
Common elements:
The four speeches were delivered to different audiences at different venues, yet are consistent in the messages they present. One of the reasons is that the separation between foreign and domestic audience is not a definitive one. Presidential statements and speeches are available in both Russian and English translations on the Kremlin’s website. Furthermore, the March 18th address, although given at the Kremlin to a crowd of government supporters and insiders, was broadcast worldwide and contained very important messages for a much wider, international audience.
In all the statements presented above, one of the core ideas that stand out is that NATO represents a threat to Russian security. The enlargement of the security organization after 1991 has been a cause of great concern for Russian policymakers and defense community. The missile defense system that is to be deployed in Poland and Romania has been invoked numerous times by Russia as a sign of NATO’s belligerence, on the basis that it goes beyond reasonable security needs for Europe and that it can be used offensively against Russia.64
Most recently, Ukraine’s possible association with the EU raised concerns over
