RT Expert View: Isolating Russia
Published 26 September, 2008, 17:19
Where does Russia go after the war in Caucasus? Will it be eventual ‘isolation and irrelevance’ as U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice suggested? Will the Kremlin change its stance over international criticism?
Peter Lavelle, RT’s political commentator and anchor.
There are rumours in Moscow that the Kremlin is about to announce a number of measures to improve relations with the West, particularly the United States. The reason being given for this possible diplomatic campaign is “the Kremlin understands it has gone too far because of the South Ossetia and Abkhazian situation” and the resulting “isolation.” Part of that “isolation” includes the need to have good relations with the West during the on-going global financial crisis. Simply put, Russia can’t afford to be left in the cold internationally because it cannot financially afford it. And part of this campaign, the rumour continues, is the release from prison of individuals such as Mikhail Khordorkovsky.
Does this make any sense to you? Does the Kremlin really fear being “isolated?” Let’s assume such a campaign may soon become a reality – would the Kremlin expect some form of reciprocity? After all, bilateral relationships have two players.
Sergei Roy, editor, www.guardian-psj.ru security website.
This whole business of isolation is intrinsically, by the very nature of the concept of isolation, a two-sided affair. It actually subsumes two questions. Question one: Does Russia wish to isolate itself from the rest of the world? Question two: Does the rest of the world, or some political forces in that world, wish to isolate Russia?
On point one, both Premier Putin and President Medvedev have given unequivocal answers recently: No, Russia does not wish to rebuild the Iron Curtain. It wants to be part of the so-called civilized world, more cynically, this may be seen as the desire to belong to the Golden Billion. On point two, the question again falls into two parts: do Russia’s foreign partners wish to isolate Russia – and can they afford to?
As we consider the current realities of the situation in Russia and the world in various fields, we see that in most cases Russia strives for closer contacts with foreign partners rather than isolation – yet it can cope with a bit of isolation without much damage to its well-being and sometimes even to its advantage. Contrariwise, most foreign countries, particularly European ones, can only isolate themselves from Russia at their own energy peril – despite the widespread Russophobic tendencies in some of these countries.
Economically, Russia is becoming more and more integrated in the world economy, carried along on the current of globalization. Foreign companies are investing in Russia’s economy by the thousand, Germany is the often cited example, with some four to five thousand German companies having considerable interests in Russia and fully intending to stay here, whatever happens in the Caucasus or elsewhere.
Far from proposing to cut off its economic ties with the rest of the world, particularly with Europe, Russia is complaining about the practices of its foreign partners that put up obstacles in the way of Russian companies’ involvement in their economies. Economic expansion rather than isolation is the catchword in Russia. This trend solidifies as the two energy supply routes, northern along the Baltic Sea bottom and southern via the Black Sea, are nearing completion. Entry in the WTO is just part of this drive, and again the obstacles here are put up by Western partners while the Russian side has done everything it was obliged to do to qualify for entry.
Finances, now. The rumour that “Russia can’t afford to be left in the cold internationally because it cannot financially afford it” is taking a sort of beyond-the-looking-glass view of the situation. In cold reality, the circle in which Russia’s finances have so far moved is truly vicious: Russia sells its oil and gas abroad, then Finance Minister Kudrin salts away the proceeds in foreign securities while Russian corporations go to the same foreign financial institutions for loans that are an order of magnitude more expensive than the money thus salted away. It is only to be hoped that the crisis will help disrupt this vicious circle and the RF government will find ways of investing the oil and gas money in its own economy and financial institutions, rather than supporting bankrupt US institutions like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. In terms of finances, a modicum of isolation could only do Russia good.
Geopolitically, Russia is intent on restoring its former stature as a player on the international scene; it is dead set against the doctrine and practice of a unipolar, US-dominated world. We are right now observing Russia’s latest moves in this direction, see for example the Venezuelan gambit, which have turned back the earlier trend towards withdrawal from such areas as Cuba and Vietnam.
Last but not least, there is an ever increasing trend toward closer contacts between private individuals in Russia and the rest of the world through travel, tourism, scientific, educational and cultural exchanges, emigration, immigration, and so on. There is no sign at all of any effort on the part of the Russian government or any other agents to revert to a downward curve in this area. The recent lifting of visa requirements for travel between Russia and Israel is perhaps the most telling example in this respect. Immigration is a much bigger issue in the West than in Russia, whose porous borders make any efforts at restricting migration a forlorn hope.
To balance out this picture, it must be pointed out that there are forces in this country that profess the ideology of Fortress Russia. Historical evidence suggests that the mobilization mode of achieving the country’s modernization has worked in the past – at the time of industrialization, in achieving nuclear parity with the US, in space exploration, and in many other endeavours. The mobilization mode, however, demands too great sacrifices on the part of the populace, which makes the Fortress Russia ideology currently entirely unacceptable and unworkable.
Robert Bruce Ware is a professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. His book on Dagestan: Russian Hegemony and Islamic Resistance is forthcoming from M. E. Sharpe)
The Kremlin has clearly been surprised by the hostility of the international reaction to its brief war with Georgia and its roles in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The element of surprise results from Moscow's miscalculation of a) international ignorance regarding affairs in this region, b) a viciously biased and misleading presentation of events by the international media, c) a stubborn, pervasive, and irrational Russophobia that has altered little in the last two decades.
Especially unanticipated by Moscow was the condemnation that it received from other Asian states. Yet this response was based less on events in South Ossetia, which clearly justified Russian intervention, than on fears of Russian expansionism and increasing geo-political rivalry with Russia.
Yet Russia's immediate response has not been overtures to Europe and North America. Instead it has embarked on aggressive diplomacy with Latin America, which has been largely neglected by the United States and Europe throughout the last eight years. This strategy will have limited benefits for the Kremlin since there are clearly some Latin American states that will welcome an alliance against Washington (e.g. Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Bolivia). However, other states with rapidly advancing economies (e.g. Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Costa Rica) will not wish to risk their growing ties to western economies. Others like Columbia, Mexico, Panama, Guatemala, and most of the Caribbean, are simply too close and too dependent upon the U.S. economy to take any position that might alienate Washington.
Russia will also alter its position toward Iran and Pakistan, and seek alliances in South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, where resentments toward the West are often high.
At this point any overtures toward Europe will be primarily exercises in trust-building, small and symbolic gestures with a sharp eye for reciprocation. It is possible that these gestures could include Moscow's release of prisoners who are no longer of any genuine political or economic significance. Vitriolic American rhetoric has left little room for constructive gestures on anyone's part.
discuss it
