FOREIGN POLICY AND THE U.S.-RUSSIA RELATIONS
In 6thed. ofPutin’s Russia,edited by Steven Wegren (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015)
The return of Vladimir Putin as Russia’s president in March 2012 signaled a critically important change in foreign policy since the presidency of Dmitri Medvedev. Russia revived the assertive course that had culminated in the war with Georgia in August 2008 and was then re-assessed by Medvedev. Under Medvedev, the country’s approach to the outside world was dictated by need to modernize the domestic economy and reach a new understanding with the Western nations. Because Russia was seriously affected by the global financial crisis, it was keenly interested in developing economic and technological ties with the Western nations.
This chapter documents the new policy shift away from the Kremlin’s rapprochement with the West, explaining it by its renewed pressures on Russia’s political system by the United States and Putin’s perception of those pressures as threatening his power. Contrary to some common views that attribute Russia’s foreign policy to the nation’s traditionally imperialist and anti-Western political culture, the primary drivers in the Kremlin’s foreign policy have remained contemporary and domestic. Confronted with new challenges to his rule, Putin reached out to nationalist constituencies at home and sought to strengthen Russia’s position in the former Soviet region. The crisis in Ukraine resulted in part from Russia and the EU and the US’s attempts to pull Kiev in their own areas of influence by further straining Russia’s relations with the West. The Kremlin also sought to capitalize on new international opportunities by establishing stronger ties with non-Western countries.
CHANGED CONDITIONS
Three factors—the global financial crisis, revolutions in the Middle East, and especially strained relations with the West —served as global conditions that have shaped Russia’s current foreign policy perspective. During 2008, Russia’s economy was hit by the global financial crisis. The crisis ended an era of unprecedented growth that lasted nine years (1999–2008), during which the economy not only caught up with 1990 levels but continued to grow at an annual pace of about 7 percent. The global economic crisis revealed the tenuous nature of Russia’s recovery and the remaining weaknesses of its power base. During the crisis, Russia, which is heavily dependent on energy exports, experienced a decline in GDP by about 9 percent in 2009, while China and India continued to grow, albeit at a slower pace. Russia had to spend a considerable portion of its financial reserves to bail out domestic enterprises, including noncompetitive ones, and to scale back its activist foreign policy in Central Asia and the Caucasus.[1] During the crisis Russia met some of its economic and security challenges, but the downturn also perpetuated an insufficiently diversified economic structure and failed to address some serious gaps in its social infrastructure.
Another important factor that affected Russia’s foreign policy had to do with transformations in the Middle East from regime changes in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya to rising instability in Syria. From Russia’s perspective, the Middle Eastern changes had the potential to destabilize the region and contribute to growing terrorist violence including inside Russia. Russia’s domestic ties with 20 million to 25 million Muslims were far from balanced, constantly testing the relationships between ethnic Russians and residents from the Islamic republics of the Northern Caucasus. For example, two terrorist bombings at a train station and a trolleybus took place in Volgograd in December 2013 that killed more than 30 people. The Kremlin viewed such terrorist attacks in context of global terrorist threats that required a global response by the international community.[2]
Finally, Russia was affected by the Western nations’ criticism of what they viewed as the Kremlin’s actions disrespectful of human rights. Opponents of deep engagement with Russia have always been strong in the West. Many in Europe and the United States do not believe that Moscow is interested in deepening cooperation with the West, and advocate a tougher approach to Russia. In the United States, proponents of such views were loud under President George W. Bush. The rhetoric of “aggressive” Russia was also heard during the United States’ presidential elections in November 2012, when several prominent politicians called for cancelling the “reset” and severing ties with Russia, who is “without questions our number one geopolitical foe.”[3] During his first presidency, despite Russia’s war with Georgia, Barack Obama quickly moved to “reset” relations with Russia and establish strong ties with Russia’s president Dmitry Medvedev in early 2009. The “reset” diplomacy alleviated the Kremlin’s fear of NATO expansion and the region’s destabilization in response to Washington’s strategy of global regime change. Members of Obama’s administration were rarely engaged in criticisms of Russia under Medvedev from 2009-2011, as the U.S. worked to strengthen relations with him at the expense of Putin.[4] Nevertheless, such criticisms grew strong since Obama’s re-election. In addition to the shift of power back to Putin, this was a response to new policies by the Kremlin that Washington found difficult to accept. In particular, Western nations reacted critically to Putin’s attempts to re-assert power domestically, in Eurasia, and the Middle East.
THE U.S. CRITICISMS OF RUSSIA AND THE KREMLIN’S RESPONSE
With respect to Russia’s domestic politics, Western leaders voiced their disagreement with the handling of protesters by the Kremlin. For example, a Russian court sentenced members of the punk band Pussy Riot to two years in jail for hooliganism. Three members of the group danced near the altar of Russia’s main cathedral by calling Mother of God to “chase Putin away.” Western governments expressed their strong disagreement with the decision almost immediately after the verdict. The U.S. State Department called the punishment "disproportionate" and urged the Russian authorities to “ensure that the right to freedom of expression is upheld." Strong criticisms were also issued by heads of European governments.[5]
Another expression of U.S.-Russia disagreement concerned the case of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was defending a foreign firm, but was arrested and died while in detention. In December 2012, the U.S. Congress, while normalizing trade relations with Russia, passed the bill named after Magnitsky that imposed visa bans and asset freezes on human rights violators in Russia. TheRussian State Duma retaliated bypassing the"Anti-Magnitsky Act," which targets U.S. citizens who Russia considers tobe violators ofhuman rights, and banning theadoption ofRussian children byU.S. citizens. The crisis provoked speculation ofa new Cold War inthe making, with U.S.-Russia relations being jeopardized by a weak presidency in Washington.[6] Obama did not initially support theMagnitsky Act, but signed it because therepeal ofthe Jackson-Vanik amendment was attached toit and because there was so much support inboth chambers ofCongress forthe bill.
The United States also expressed disappointment with Russia’s new law against “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations among minors” passed in June 2013. According to the Kremlin, the law does not seek to police adults but aims to protect children from information that rejects “traditional family values.” 88% of Russians supported the law.[7] However, many human rights activists the United States and Europe saw it as “anti-gay law” by calling to boycott Russian vodka and Winter Olympics in Sochi. The U.S. President Obama too publicly spoke against the new legislature and declared that he has "no patience for countries that try to treat gays, lesbians or transgender persons in ways that intimidate them or are harmful to them." [8] Overall, the issue added to the American image of Russia as disrespectful of minority rights.
Partly in response to the U.S. criticism, since Putin’s return to presidency, Russia’s foreign policy has obtained an ideological justification. Before Putin’s third term as Russia’s president, the Kremlin’s discourse was largely shaped by ideas of adjustment to the international community and protecting national interests. Throughout the 2000s, Putin was commonly dismissive of calls for a “Russian idea” by instead filling his speeches with indicators of Russia’s economic and political successes. In his 2007 address to the Federation Council, Putin even ridiculed searches for a national idea as a Russian “old-style entertainment” (starinnaya russkaya zabava) by comparing them to searches for a meaning of life.
Beginning with his election campaign, Putin has promoted the vision of Russia as a culturally distinct power, committed to defending particular values and principles relative to those of the West and other civilizations. In July 2012, in his meeting with Russia’s ambassadors he called to actively influence international relations by relying on the tools of lobbying and soft power.[9] In his 2012 address to the Federation Council, Putin’s spoke of new demographic and moral threats that must be overcome if the nation is to “be preserved and reproduced.”[10] He further stated that “In the 21st century amid a new balance of economic, civilizational and military forces Russia must be a sovereign and influential country… We must be and remain Russia.”
Putin’s return to the Kremlin meant a continuation of the effort to carve out a new role for Russia in the international system by challenging the established position of Western nations. The 2008 Foreign Policy Concept already recommended that Russia remain true to a “balanced multi-vector approach” in light of the West’s gradual departure from the world’s economic center.[11] In February 2013, Russia released a new Foreign Policy Concept that further developed the ideas of transition toward a multipolar structure of the international system and the emergence of new threats outside of those connected to nuclear weapons. The Concept began by stating that "[t]he capabilities of the historically established West to dominate the global economy and politics continue to decline” and “[t]he global potential of strength and growth is dispersing and shifting eastwards, particularly towards the Asia Pacific region."[12] The document also emphasized global economic competition, in which different “values and development models” would be tested and “civilization identity” would obtain a new importance. In this context civilization was understood to be a distinct cultural entity, not a universal phenomenon. Russia was beginning to see itself as culturally and politically independent from the West.
Relative to Medvedev, Putin’s values priorities inside the country included strengthening Russia’s traditional values and articulating a new idea uniting Russians and non-Russian nationalities. Since early 2012, he advanced the idea of state-civilization by recognizing ethnic Russians as “the core (sterzhen’) that binds the fabric” of Russia as a culture and a state.[13] While proposing to unite the country around Russian values, Putin also argued against “attempts to preach the ideas of building a Russian "national," mono-ethnic state” as “contrary to our entire thousand-year history” and “the shortest path to the destruction of the Russian people and the Russian state system.”[14] Another theme developed by the president in the 2012 inaugural address to the Federation Council and other speeches is the theme of a strong state capable of addressing “corruption” and “flaws of the law enforcement system” as root causes of ethnic violence. Finally, being especially concerned with national unity, Putin pointed to “deficit of spiritual values” and recommended strengthening “the institutions that are the carriers of traditional values” especially family and schools. In multiple statements, he further criticized what he saw as Europe’s departure from traditional religious and family values. In his Valdai Club speech, he quoted Russian traditionalist thinkers and declared “the desire for independence and sovereignty in spiritual, ideological and foreign policy spheres” as an “integral part of our national character.”[15] In his 2013 address to the Federation Council, Putin further positioned Russia as a “conservative” power and the worldwide defender of traditional values.[16]
The emphasis on distinct civilizational values has affected Russia’s foreign policy. Behind the opposition to Western global hegemony, special relations with Asian and Middle Eastern countries or building the Eurasian Union are not only considerations of balance of power and economic development, but also those of Russia’s resurgence as a state-civilization. Although the Kremlin’s values priorities are yet to be fully specified and articulated in foreign policy doctrine, instinctively Moscow is acting on them by seeking to defend what it views as traditional family values, national unity, and sovereignty in foreign affairs.
Putin’s ideological turn resonated domestically. The global uncertainty and Western pressures have stimulated a resurgence of nationalist thinking in Russia. Pro-Western elites that argue for modernization and integration with the West grew progressively weaker. Until Putin’s return to presidency, the discourse of modernization was actively promoted by then president Medvedev. In response to the global financial crisis, Medvedev grew critical of Russia’s domestic conditions by pointing to “a primitive economy based on raw materials and endemic corruption”, a “semi-Soviet social sphere, fragile democracy, harmful demographic trends, and unstable Caucasus.”[17] His proposed solutions included the modernization of the economic and political system, technological changes, strengthening of the judiciary to fight corruption, and re-tooling foreign policy to establish “modernization alliances” with the United States and other Western nations.[18] Modernization thinking is often supported by the middle class and the business community groups critical of what they view as an excessively centralized and energy-oriented model of development and favour the country’s integration with the world economy and Western institutions. Foreign policy analysts with ties to the West also support this thinking and encourage the Russian state to go further in developing a pro-Western orientation. Experts working at leading foundations and universities, such as the Moscow Carnegie Center, Highest School of Economics, and Moscow Institute of International Relations, frequently argue that Russia is not a distinct civilization and must align itself with European and the U.S.-led security institutions.
In contrast to those favoring modernization, those viewing foreign policy in terms of defending Russia’s sovereignty and cultural distinctiveness have grown increasingly influential in political and policy circles. Officials, such as Vladimir Yakunin, Minister of Railroad Transportation advanced the notion of Russia-civilization in their speeches and public writing.[19] A number of Orthodox priests, including Patriarch Kirill, endorsed the idea of Russia’s religion-centered civilizational distinctiveness. Politicians from the relatively marginal to the well-established, such as the Communist Party leader Gennadi Zyuganov regularly spoke on issues of Russia’s national interests as tied to Eurasian geopolitics and self-sufficiency. Several clubs were established to promote the idea of Russia’s distinct civilizational values. For example, on September 8, 2012 the Izborsky club was founded to serve as an umbrella organization that combines intellectuals, experts, and politicians of Eurasianist, neo-Soviet, and Slavophile convictions affiliated with the ROC and various nationalist media and think tanks. Vladimir Medinsky was present at the inaugural meeting of the club, and Executive Secretary at the Eurasian Economic/Customs UnionCommission, Sergei Glazyev, holds membership.