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STRATEGIC

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INSTITUTE

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Strategic Studies Institute Monograph

PERSPECTIVES ON RUSSIAN FOREIGN POLICY

Stephen J. Blank

Editor

September 2012

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ISBN 1-58487-536-4
iii

CONTENTS

Foreword .......................................................................v

1. Defying That Sinking Feeling: 

 Russia Seeks to Uphold Its Role 

 in the Multistructural International 

 System in Flux .........................................................1

Pavel K. Baev

2. The Sacred Monster: Russia 

 as a Foreign Policy Actor .................................... 25

Stephen J. Blank

3. Ideology and Soft Power 

 in Contemporary Russia ................................... 195

Ariel Cohen

About the Contributors ........................................... 215

v

FOREWORD

The essays collected in this volume comprise a 

panel on Russian foreign policy that was presented 

at the Strategic Studies Institute’s (SSI) annual Conference on Russia on September 26-27, 2011, held at 

Carlisle, PA. These chapters aimed at analyzing not 

just the day to day diplomacy, but some of the deeper 

structures of Russian foreign policy, both their material basis in actual policy and the cognitive structures 

or mentality that underlies it. This issue is now more 

important with the return of Vladimir Putin to the 

presidency of Russia and the fact that major transformations in international relations are occurring today 

across the globe and at an unprecedented pace.

The assessment of such changes, and of governments’ policy responses to them, lies at the heart of 

any effort to conceive of a strategy that makes sense 

in today’s world. Without some viable sense of trends 

and of the forces that shape key actors’ strategies and 

policies (which are decidedly not the same thing), no 

government can navigate safely through the shoals of 

contemporary world politics or make informed judgments concerning war and/or peace. Since both war 

and politics are interactive processes “where the enemy gets a vote,” a profound grasp of global political 

and economic trends is essential to the formulation 

of sound U.S. policies and strategies, especially as regards so important an actor as the Russian Federation.

Providing such informed strategic analysis is SSI’s 

primary function. Such analytical efforts constitute 

the bedrock of its activities and of its responsibilities 

to its audience. Accordingly, we are happy to present 

this volume to our readers in the belief that it will contribute substantially to their understanding of the con-
vi

temporary world and help them to make the informed 

judgments about U.S. interests, policies, and strategy.

 

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute 
1

CHAPTER 1

DEFYING THAT SINKING FEELING:

RUSSIA SEEKS TO UPHOLD ITS ROLE IN THE

MULTISTRUCTURAL INTERNATIONAL 

SYSTEM IN FLUX

Pavel K. Baev

INTRODUCTION

The economic and political turmoil of the year 2011 

has shown that the ever-evolving international system 

is growing rapidly in complexity and generates challenges that not only catch the policymakers by surprise, but also exceed their ability to produce adequate 

answers. Russia is struggling to adjust to these accelerating power shifts while also sinking into its own 

crisis of governance driven by the exhaustion of the 

economic model based on redistribution of expanding 

petro-revenues.1 As its domestic politics are based on 

preserving stability that is eroded by systemic corruption and accumulating discontent, so, too, its foreign 

policy aims at upholding the role of a major power 

that is not supported by sufficient resources. In both 

domains, the Russian leadership, which now has to go 

through another round of self-reformatting, typically 

remains in denial of the weakness of its control over 

the game-changing developments but demonstrates 

high ambitions for staying in charge of the rules.

In the period of increasing self-assertiveness in 

the mid-2000s, the rather simplistic worldview prevalent in the Moscow political elite was shaped by the 

concept of multipolarity, which essentially predicted 

an unraveling of the unfair and unnatural U.S. domi-
2

nance on the global arena.2 This proposition is omitted 

in the 2008 Foreign Policy Concept (which also does 

not mention Russia’s status as a Great Power), but 

just a month after its approval, President Dmitri Medvedev formulated five principles of Russian foreign 

policy, and the second one asserts that:

The world should be multi-polar. A single-pole world 

is unacceptable. Domination is something we cannot 

allow. We cannot accept a world order in which one 

country makes all the decisions, even as serious and 

influential a country as the United States of America. 

Such a world is unstable and threatened by conflict.3

The economic recession that originated in the subprime U.S. debt crisis in the autumn of 2007 was initially seen in Moscow as a manifestation of multipolarity, 

but in late 2008, the Russian economy experienced a 

contraction of such depth that foreign policy thinking 

lost any coherence. The proud feeling of a rising power 

that has every right to demand respect from declining 

peers has suddenly changed into a sinking feeling accentuated by unavoidable reflections on the collapse 

of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) 20 

years ago. The scheme of multipolarity has been put 

aside as much too simplistic but in its stead nothing 

more sophisticated was adopted, so the current big 

picture, as seen from Moscow, comes out as an eclectic mix of residual great-power ambitions, intrinsic 

anti-Americanism, wishful thinking about the golden 

age of gas, and shallow hopes to retain the privileges 

granted to Russia by international law.4 This chapter 

does not sort out this discord and cacophony, but attempts to evaluate the implications of compulsive attempts to punch above its weight by looking into the 

nuclear domain, the hard power-centered geopolitical 
3

interactions, the economic relations, and the workings 

of international institutions.

STRUGGLING TO PRESERVE THE NUCLEAR 

BIPOLARITY

With all the revolutionary changes of the last 20 

years in the symbolically rather than practically important area of nuclear armaments, the world system remains essentially bipolar because the U.S. and 

Russian strategic arsenals exceed those of three other 

legitimate nuclear powers—China, France, and the 

United Kingdom (UK)—by an order of magnitude. 

Russia attaches pivotal importance to preserving this 

inherited status, which involves pursuing the unattainable goal of maintaining a strategic parity. The 

prime value for Moscow of the reset process initiated 

by U.S. President Barack Obama in the spring of 2009 

is in formally fixing this parity in the legally binding 

Prague Treaty, and that largely explains the exhaustion on this process after the miraculous ratification in 

December 2010. The built-in paradox of this achievement is that Russia insisted on fixing the quantitative 

ceiling of this parity rather high, so that its superiority 

over other nuclear powers would be in no doubt, but 

it cannot sustain any leg of its strategic triad at the 

prescribed level.5 Far greater investments than in the 

United States are channeled into the programs for deploying new generations of sea-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and intercontinental ballistic missiles 

(ICBMs), yet the rate of decommissioning the missiles 

that are past the expiration date—and in the near future, long-range bombers as well—is so high that the 

aggregate number is fast going down, which is never 

acknowledged in the official discourse.6
4

Russian concerns about preserving a semblance 

of strategic parity are exacerbated by U.S. plans for 

building a missile defense system, which is seen as a 

means to render the whole system of nuclear checks 

and balances irrelevant. The main focus of controversy is currently the North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

(NATO) commitment to deploying a European antiballistic missile (ABM) system, and while the intensity 

of Moscow’s objections might appear seriously exaggerated, in fact, through this intransigence the Russian 

leadership seeks to exploit the questionable readiness 

of many European states to invest in radars and interceptors in a time of severe budget cuts.7

 At the same 

time, Russia prioritizes the deployment of a new generation of surface-to-air missiles (the S-400 and S-500 

systems) and the integration of various assets into an 

air-space defense system, which is a dubious proposition given the record of failures with space launches.8

The desire to preserve the status and the privileges 

of a nuclear superpower is the main driver of Russia’s long-set course on preventing other states from 

acquiring these weapons; however, its nonproliferation policy is not without ambiguity. Proliferation of 

weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and missile 

technologies is defined as one of the military risks in 

the 2010 edition of the Russian Military Doctrine (along 

with the aspiration to move NATO’s infrastructure to 

Russia’s neighborhood and the deployment of an antimissile system), but there is an underlying question 

in this assessment about whether a possible appearance of several newly-nuclearized states could make 

Russia’s massive arsenal more politically prominent.9

In the crucial case of Iran, Moscow did agree on introducing limited United Nations (UN) sanctions but 

has indicated that it is not prepared to go any further 
5

along this road, generally perceiving the very probable acquisition by Tehran of several nuclear warheads 

as an unfortunate development, but one that by no 

means constitutes a direct threat to Russia.10 Nonproliferation considerations are only a minor limitation 

in the aggressive policy of exporting Russian nuclear 

technologies, for which the Rosatom is relying on state 

support for expanding into new markets such as Turkey or Vietnam and potentially the Gulf monarchies.11

Grave risks involved in maintaining the resourceconsuming and partially obsolete nuclear complex 

do not compel the Russian leadership to share the vision of a nuclear-free world rejuvenated by President 

Obama. Paying appropriate lip-service to this farfetched proposition Medvedev actually presides over 

the most determined effort to modernize nuclear assets, which are seen as crucial for national security and 

hugely valuable for political prestige. One manifestation of this increasing reliance on nuclear instruments 

is a pronounced reluctance to engage in any negotiations on reducing the nonstrategic (tactical) nuclear 

weapons in Europe or even to allow a modicum of 

transparency for this arsenal, which quite possibly 

stores more warheads than the strategic forces.12 The 

problem with the policy of upholding the position of 

the second nuclear super-power is that it consolidates 

the material basis of bilateral confrontation, so the 

best reset intentions cannot overcome the traditional 

deadlock of deterrence.13 In the opinion of the Russian 

leadership, the respect coming from the privilege of 

being a major strategic adversary for the United States 

more than compensates for the lost opportunities that 

could have been gained through entering the crowded 

marketplace of U.S. allies.
6

MANEUVERING IN THE GEOPOLITICAL 

MULTIPOLARITY

The construction of nuclear balances occurs in a reality that in many ways is virtual (despite the physical 

reality of nuclear weapons), while in the real world, 

as seen from the prevalent Russian worldview, states 

compete for advancing their national interests relying primarily on their hard power, the core of which 

is made up of conventional military capabilities. Despite U.S. superiority in the most modern elements 

of these capabilities, its ability to project power is seriously limited, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan 

have brutally confirmed, so the Realpolitik world is 

effectively and increasingly multipolar. A large part 

of the Russian political elite originating in various 

power structures (first of all, the Russian Secret Police 

(KGB)/Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) superstructure) instinctively rather than theoretically tend 

to interpret international relations as essentially geopolitical.14 In this perspective, Russia must constantly 

assert its position as a major and independent powerpole checking and pre-empting encroachments from 

all directions on its natural sphere of influence, which 

does not necessarily coincide with the borders of the 

former USSR.15

A key assumption in this defensive geopolitics 

is about the inherent hostility of the West, and that 

makes NATO into the main antagonist, which has to 

be contained from advancing eastward so that the first 

and the most specific military risk defined by the 2010 

Military Doctrine would be neutralized.16 Partnership 

with NATO could only be a means towards this end, 

and the recommendations of some liberal think-tanks 

to President Dmitri Medvedev to aim at membership 
7

in the Alliance amounts to malignant wishful thinking.17 Russia would not have been able to withstand 

the drive of the NATO military machine, but it has 

enjoyed a run of good fortune because the unity of 

the Alliance has been deeply damaged by U.S. intervention in Iraq, and the war in Afghanistan continues to drain resources from the armed forces of key 

member-states while heading towards the inescapable 

defeat.18 The intervention in Libya, which has caused 

some misgivings among the Russian leadership, has 

also added to the NATO crisis by exposing the decline 

of its power-projecting capabilities and leading to an 

outcome that may be very far from the desired one.19

Severe cuts in the defense budgets of major European 

states, executed despite the needs revealed by the 

Libyan intervention, are interpreted in Moscow as favorable changes that reduce the risks emanating from 

NATO.20

The only real security guarantee in the Realpolitik world can be provided by one’s own hard power, 

and the military reform abruptly launched in the autumn of 2008 was supposed to gain Russia usable instruments for the period when the United States and 

NATO remain entangled in the two unwinnable wars. 

The reform was long-overdue, but it is hard to imagine a less fortunate moment to start radical restructuring and downsizing than during the tumble down 

into an unexpected severe economic crisis. Defense 

Minister Anatoly Serdyukov deserves credit for his 

stubborn determination in executing the reform plan, 

but his complete ignorance of military-organizational 

and strategic matters necessitated severe purges in the 

High Command and resulted in a profound deterioration of combat capability, first of all in the Ground 

Forces.21 The crucial issue of conscription is in limbo, 
8

and the main controversy thickens currently around 

the viability of the recently approved rearmament 

program that aims ambitiously at replacing the whole 

arsenal of aging Soviet weapons but boldly ignores financial realities.22 In fact, many yawning deficiencies, 

particularly in command, control, communications, 

and intelligence (C3I) systems, could only be eliminated by importing technologies or full sets of equipment 

from the West, which requires a new level of partnership with NATO.23

The impossible question for NATO in this cooperation is about where and to what political ends the modernized and upgraded Russian armed forces would be 

used. Geopolitical fantasies provide few clues about 

it; for that matter, the withdrawal of U.S. troops from 

Afghanistan could result in a destabilization of Central Asia, but Russia would hardly take on the role of 

security provided (as it did in Tajikistan in the early 

1990s), exactly because this region is no longer seen as 

a frontier of geopolitical competition. Much speculation has been fueled by the geopolitical struggle for 

the Arctic, but Moscow has discovered that its military 

position of strength, even if augmented with a couple 

of specially trained brigades, generates few political 

dividends, and so Russia opts for a cooperative policy, confirming this choice by the new border treaty 

with Norway, which is far from popular with public 

opinion.24 One region where Russia is keen to put its 

military might into play is the Caucasus, but here its 

main security challenge is the smoldering civil war in 

the North Caucasus, which the neighbors and competitors are careful not to fan, but Moscow still fails to 

extinguish.25 In geopolitical terms, the most unstable 

power imbalance has emerged in the Far East, but 

Russia has no answer to the staggering rise of China 
9

and so prefers to pretend that the ambivalent strategic 

partnership is on a solid footing, ignoring its obvious 

inability to develop and defend Russia’s vast Pacific 

periphery.

FALLING BEHIND IN ECONOMIC 

GLOBALIZATION

Political thinking in Russia is increasingly economized and even mercantilized, and from a strictly 

business perspective, the scheme of multipolarity is 

only of limited relevance since nonstate actors pursue 

their profits with little regard to state interests. The 

rather unsophisticated self-descriptions of Russia as 

the energy superpower typical for the mid-2000s did 

not survive the economic contraction at the end of the 

decade, not only because of the sharp but short fall in 

oil prices, but primarily because the vulnerability of 

the position of raw materials supplier (or appendage 

as the Soviet propaganda used to define it) became too 

obvious.26 Medvedev’s affirmatively established goal 

of modernization signifies an attempt to overcome the 

oil curse Russian-style, which involves de-industrialization and decline of the sciences, and this discourse 

has contributed to further denigration of energy sector hyper-development. By the end of Medvedev’s 

presidency, the false start at executing the modernization proposition has compromised its rational content, 

so that Russia has come to depend more on oil and 

gas export revenues while the acknowledgement and 

even resentment of this dependency has spread from 

expert circles to the whole political class.27

It is quite uncertain whether the hydrocarbons 

would generate sufficient inflow of petro-dollars 

to finance the bloated social programs, but their di-
10

minishing political importance is quite certain. In the 

mid-2000s, the potential impact of the energy weapon 

was the subject of many alarmist assessments in the 

West, but at the start of the new decade, it has become 

clear for Moscow that opportunities for using energy 

towards political ends have all but disappeared.28 Oil, 

which in fact generates most of the budget revenues, 

has zero political utility, and natural gas, which used 

to be the main focus of Western concerns, has become 

a product that requires a lot of political effort to market, particularly as a consequence of the massive increase of shale gas production in the United States.29

Gazprom remains unable to open an export channel 

to China despite great many political commitments 

and has found itself under serious pressure to cut 

prices for Germany and other major consumers.30 The 

much-anticipated opening of the Nord Stream pipeline 

across the Baltic Sea by the end of 2011 could improve 

reliability of Gazprom’s deliveries, so it can hope to 

sell extra volumes to compensate for the interruption 

of supply from Libya, but the presumed geopolitical 

profile of this controversial pipeline is yet to be discovered.

The energy intrigues provide constant entertainment for professional Russia-watchers but they hide 

the trend of Russia’s marginalization in the fast-moving economic globalization. Medvedev’s attempt at 

breaking this trend by identifying directions where 

Russia could become a leader utilizing its scientific assets and cultivating high-tech innovations has been too 

feeble to make a difference, and the European Union 

(EU) initiative for promoting partnership for modernization has fallen perfectly flat.31 The key condition for 

any progress in modernization is the inflow of foreign 

direct investments (FDI), but in reality Russia has experienced a colossal outflow of capital, estimated at 
11

$134 billion in 2008, $56 billion in 2009, $35 billion in 

2010, and continuing in 2011, despite Vladimir Putin’s 

strict directive to secure the annual level of FDI at 

$60-70 billion.32 Medvedev correctly characterized the 

Russian investment climate as very poor but has been 

pathetically helpless in inducing any changes, which 

would have inevitably involved curtailing interests of 

corrupt bureaucratic clans.33

Having accumulated foreign exchange and gold 

reserves of about $550 billion (as of September 2011), 

Russia could have been a major player in the global financial market, and Medvedev keeps insisting on the 

plan for organizing an international financial center 

in Moscow. Domestic confidence in Russian moneymanagement is so low, however, that the ruble falls 

against the euro with every piece of sad news from the 

euro-zone.34 Despite the relatively high and remarkably stable oil prices of 2011, investment funds prefer 

to move away from the Russian stock exchange, which 

keeps falling deeper than most world indexes during 

the current bumpy ride.35 While the level of state debt 

is very low, the external corporate debt has grown 

again above $500 billion, most of which is made by 

state-owned corporations, so the costs of borrowing 

for covering the budget deficit could be even higher 

than its Better Business Bureau (BBB) credit rating 

indicates.36 As the global economy is bracing for the 

next stage of the protracted crisis, Russia has nothing 

to contribute to addressing the central imbalances but 

is very vulnerable to negative external impacts. 
12

GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS IN 

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

It is hard to find many bona fide liberal institutionalists among the Russian political elite, but Russia’s 

foreign policy traditionally and persistently attaches 

great importance to demonstrating engagement in the 

works of various international institutions. Medvedev 

presents himself as a firm adherent to international 

law, and seeks to follow up on declarations with action, ranging from signing and ratifying the maritime 

border treaty with Norway to taking an assertive 

stance on the Kuril Islands dispute with Japan. He 

was also very eager to advance an ambitious proposal 

for a new legally binding treaty on European security 

that would have delegitimized war and provided the 

foundation for a new architecture.”37 What compromised this stance beyond all diplomatic white-washing was the August 2008 war with Georgia, for which 

Moscow has never been able to build a convincing 

justification.38 Medvedev was obliged to take responsibility for the consequences of this inglorious victory, 

but that has left him with little choice but to quietly 

abandon his grand Euro-architectural designs.39

The single most important position in all the institutional miscellany is the permanent chair in the 

UN Security Council, so while Moscow periodically 

confirms its commitment to reforming this organ (particularly to Germany and India), in fact, it is rather 

reluctant to invite new members to this hugely privileged club, and certainly does not want to hear about 

cancelling the veto right.40 One of the major concerns 

in Russia’s active engagement in the Security Council’s proceedings (which contrasts with its rather low 

profile in most UN bodies) is upholding the centrality 
13

of state sovereignty, so every interventionist measure, 

for instance in the spirit of the Responsibility to Protect 

doctrine, is scrutinized as an undesirable precedent.41

For that matter, Moscow was extremely cautious about 

measuring every step in tightening the UN sanctions 

against Iran—and very upset by the enforcement of 

unilateral sanctions by the United States and the EU.42

Medvedev had to defend the decision to let the UN Security Council pass Resolution 1973 on Libya against 

sharp criticism from Putin—and then was left complaining about NATO’s abuse of this mandate for protecting civilians.43 Russia wants to ensure that the UN 

remains the sole maker of international law, but this 

desire is clearly at cross-purposes with the preference 

for this unique organization to do as little as possible.

Another highly valued membership in an exclusive club is the hard-earned seat at the G-8 (United 

States, Japan, Germany, France, United Kingdom, 

Italy, Canada, and Russia), but this privilege has become diluted as the global crisis necessitated the shift 

of economic debates to the G-20 (Argentina, Australia, 

Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Republic of Korea, Turkey, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the United 

Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union). 

Seeking to ensure a special place as a connecting link, 

Moscow engages in transforming the odd grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa 

(BRICS) into a real organization.44 In fact, however, 

it cannot qualify as an emerging economy because it 

lacks economic dynamism and a growing population, 

so Russia is as much an odd man out in the company 

of China, India and Brazil, as it is among the seven 

industrial democracies. It is characteristic in this respect that Russia remains outside many key economic 
14

organizations: It has never been accepted into the G-7 

(France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, the United States, 

and Canada) forum of finance ministers; despite being 

the major energy producer, it keeps its distance from 

the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries 

(OPEC) and does not take part in the International Energy Agency (IEA), while the Forum of gas producers 

has failed to grow into a real organization; its bid for 

joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) is still 

deadlocked and so membership in the Organization 

for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 

is not in the cards.45

Russia is active in a great many overlapping regional organizations around its borders, from the 

Arctic Council to the Caspian “five” and to the AsiaPacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), seeking to utilize the advantage of its unique geography. Political 

priority is formally set on cooperating with the postSoviet neighbors, but the ambition to establish effective leadership in this natural sphere of influence has 

been derailed not only by reluctance to support this 

role with sufficient resources but also by arrogant and 

selfish political behavior. Every existing format from 

the broadest Commonwealth of Independent States 

(CIS), which functions mostly as a presidents’ club, 

to the narrowest bilateral union state between Russia and Belarus, which has been bedeviled by quarrels with President Aleksandr Lukashenko, generates 

more problems than solutions.46 Moscow is in a good 

position to exploit the post-Soviet autocrats’ fears of 

domestic discontent escalating to revolution, but it 

is reluctant to commit itself to guaranteeing their regimes, so the Collective Security Treaty Organization 

(CSTO) remains a talk-shop despite recent declarations about making it into a shield against the threat of 
15

revolution.47 Much expectation and concern has been 

focused on the potential of the Shanghai Cooperation 

Organization (SCO) to mature into an effective security provider, but Russia and China obviously have 

very different ideas about patronage over Central 

Asia.48

Russia, therefore, is prepared to engage with as 

many international institutions and regimes as possible only insofar as they aim at preserving the status 

quo (which most of them are built for) and securing for 

it a far more prominent global status than its economic 

weight or feeble soft power would justify. The mercantilist nature of its foreign policy, which conflates 

the interests of the corrupt authoritarian regime with 

national interests, determines the essentially unilateralist character of its external behavior.

CONCLUSIONS: THE BLUNDER OF INFLATED 

SELF-ASSESSMENT

In Russian political thinking, Russia’s place in the 

world system is conceptualized not just as one of the 

great powers or poles in the multipolar world, but 

also as a unique position determined both by geography and by its development along a particular path. 

This model of a strong state directing economic and 

social development combines some features typical 

for Western democracies and some characteristics 

of the emerging powers, so that Russia could swing 

between various groups as it sees fit.49 The problem 

with this ambitious vision is that the model does not 

work. Since the spasm of crisis in the autumn of 2008, 

Russia’s petro-economy has generated insufficient 

revenues for sustaining the investments in strengthening the military might and the social cohesion, and 
16

the massive out-flow of capital proves that the class 

of super-rich has lost confidence in harvesting further 

profits.50

A major advantage of the Russian model is supposed to be political cohesion secured by the tightly 

centralized self-reproducing leadership, and it is exactly here that the crisis of Putinism has grown particularly malignant. The problem is not that the experimental construct of power-sharing between Putin and 

Medvedev is not organic to the hierarchic bureaucratic 

structure, but that the dominance of bureaucracy over 

business has resulted in unstoppable growth of corruption that has become the operational mode of this 

system of power rather than its side-effect.51 The leadership will probably be reformatted after the tightly 

managed parliamentary and presidential elections, 

but that cannot restore the irreversibly diminished efficiency of a patently undemocratic political system.52

Lacking soft power and discovering that its traditional 

hard power has become unusable or unreliable, Moscow finds itself not in the desired position of balancer 

but in the group of hopeless laggards, with no allies or 

friends and with the massive exposure to the phenomenon of China’s growth.

This vulnerability should have been the central 

concern in Russia’s foreign policy, but in fact, it is only 

a peripheral concern that leads to such seemingly odd 

moves as the deliberate escalation of the old quarrel 

with Japan over the South Kuril Islands.53 The main 

focus of external activity is set on securing the regime’s survival, and this obsession dictates an explicitly negative attitude towards any mass uprisings and 

revolutions, including those that have shaken the Arab 

world since the start of 2011.54 This ideological stance 

that translates into readiness to stand by the Bashar al-
17

Assad regime in Syria no matter what crimes against 

own population it commits secures Moscow some 

moral leadership among the post-Soviet presidentsfor-life and provides some foundation for a counterrevolutionary alliance with China. 

This uncharacteristic departure from pragmatism, 

however, is not enough by far to compensate for the 

stalling reset with the United States and the deteriorating partnership with the EU, or to reverse the estrangement between Russia and its post-Soviet neighbors, or to erase China’s growing contempt of Russia’s 

self-made decline. It was Putin’s resolute restoration 

of domestic order by the mid-2000s that underpinned 

the strengthening of Russia’s international profile, and 

it is the deep degradation of Putinism that determines 

Russia’s current marginalization in the chaotically 

changing international system while the ambitions of 

its national leader are still on the rise.

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 1

1. Analysis of the trajectory of this crisis goes beyond the limited scope of this chapter, but its key parameters are examined in 

Maria Lipman and Nikolai Petrov, eds., Russia in 2020: Scenarios 

for the Future, Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2011.

2. One sharp analysis of this concept is Vladislav Inozemtsev, “Dreams about a multi-polar world,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, 

September 18, 2008; my examination is in Pavel Baev, “The Russian Federation: Striving for Multipolarity but Missing the Consequences,” in Graeme Herd, ed., Great Powers and Strategic Stability 

in the 21st Century, London, UK: Routledge, 2010, pp. 117-136.

3. The transcript of the interview to Russian TV channels on 

August 31, 2008, in the English version of the presidential website, 

is available from president.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2008/08/31/1850_

type82912type82916_206003.shtml.
18

4. An argument for rethinking the habitual articles of faith 

is presented in Fedor Lukyanov, “The West as a Problem,” Moskovskie novosti, July 20, 2011; see also Nikolai Spassky, “The Island 

of Russia,” Russia in Global Affairs, No. 2, April-June 2011.

5. Detailed analysis of Russia’s nuclear posture can be found 

in several papers presented at the U.S. National Defense University and U.S. Army War College in 2010; see Steven Blank, ed., 

Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future, Carlisle, PA: 

Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2011. Yuri Solomonov, the chief designer of Russian solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), revealed the scope of the problems 

with funding and implementing the approved plans in an angry 

interview; see “State order for 2011 is already failed—it cannot be 

implemented,” Kommersant, July 6, 2011.

6. Valuable updated information on the current developments is available in Pavel Podvig’s blog, Russian Strategic Nuclear 

Forces, available from russianforces.org/.

7. Dmitri Rogozin, special envoy on missile defense matters, 

travels tirelessly around Europe selling the Russian position. 

See, for instance, Dmitri Rogozin, “Missile Defense: As friends 

or foes?” New York Times, June 7, 2011. In the growing body of 

Russian analysis, one noteworthy revisionist’s view is found in 

Aleksandr Khramchihin, “Useless ABM—an artificially created 

reality,” Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, July 22, 2011. 

8. On these failures, see “Russia’s limited space,” Nezavisimoe 

voennoe obozrenie, August 26, 2011. Acrimonious debates on the 

rationale of the air-space defense can be seen in Aleksandr Golts, 

“A package of incivility and slander,” Ezhednevny zhurnal, August 

5, 2011, available from www.ej.ru/?a=note&id=11235; Mikhail Khodarenok, “Elements of anti-missile heresy,” Voenno-promyshlennyi 

kuryer, August 3, 2011, available from vpk-news.ru/articles/7990.

9. The content of Russia’s nuclear policy is thoroughly examined in Aleksei Arbatov and Vladimir Dvorkin, Nuclear Reset: Reduction and Proliferation of Weapons, Moscow, Russia: POSSPEN, 

2011. 
19

10. One useful examination of this policy is Dmitri Trenin and 

Alexei Malashenko, “Iran: A View from Moscow,” Carnegie Report, Moscow, Russia: Carnegie Center, October 2010. My recent 

analysis is in Pavel Baev, “Has Russia come to terms with Iran?” 

PONARS Eurasia Memo 141, Washington, DC: George Washington University, May 2011.

11. On the post-Fukushima aims of this activity, see Vadim 

Ponomarev, “No point in waiting,” Expert, June 9, 2011; Vadim 

Dzaguto, “Rosatom is invited to the Emirates,” Kommersant, August 16, 2011.

12. See Aleksei Arbatov, “Non-strategic nuclear weapons: Dilemmas and points of departure,” Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, 

May 20, 2011.

13. An attempt to escape from this trap is Sergei Karaganov, 

“To overcome deterrence,” Rossiiskaya gazeta, April 6, 2011.

14. One noteworthy example of this thinking, which blends 

classical geopolitics with the clash of civilizations scheme and 

the Orthodox Christian dogmas, is the anonymous Proekt Rossiya

(Project Russia) enterprise, which has published several books 

and expands its profile on the web; see www.proektrussia.ru/. 

15. A more elegant presentation of this perspective, which 

compares Russia with a maverick planet that has escaped from 

the Western solar system, can be found in Dmitri Trenin, “Russia 

leaves the West,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 85, No. 4, July/August 2006, 

pp. 87-96. 

16. A sample of the NATO-damning analysis is Aleksandr 

Bartosh, “US + NATO: Power Tandem of Globalization,” Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, March 11, 2011.

17. See Igor Yurgens, “Military cooperation: Breakthrough in 

Russia-NATO relations,” Vedomosti, September 20, 2010. 

18. A concise summary of this perspective is found in Sergei 

Karaganov, “Russia is in luck,” Rossiiskaya gazeta, March 7, 2011. 
20

19. See Fedor Lukyanov, “Colonial precedent,” Gazeta.

ru, August 28, 2011, available from www.gazeta.ru/column/

lukyanov/3744173.shtml.

20. This assessment is fairly close to some U.S. analyses, see, 

for instance, Stephen Fidler and Alistair Macdonald, “European 

retreat on defense spending,” Wall Street Journal, August 24, 2011.

21. An informed and positive assessment of the initial stage 

of the reform can be found in Vitaly Shlykov, “The secrets of 

Serdyukov’s blitzkrieg,” Russia in Global Affairs, January/March 

2010, pp. 29-48. Further stages are examined in M.S. Barabanov, 

ed., Novaya Armiya Rossii (Russia’s New Army), Moscow, Russia: 

AST, 2010; Aleksei Arbatov and Vladimir Dvorkin, “Russian New 

Military Reform,” Carnegie Paper, Moscow, Russia: June 2011. My 

less upbeat analysis can be found in Pavel K. Baev, “Military 

reform against heavy odds,” in Anders Åslund, Sergei Guryev, 

and Andrew Kuchins, eds., Russia after the Global Economic Crisis, 

Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 

2010, pp. 169-186.

22. Medvedev gives Serdyukov support in squeezing the suppliers, but the state corporations have allies in Putin’s cabinet; see 

Ivan Safronov, “President controls the state defense order,” Kommersant, July 13, 2011; Viktor Myasnikov, “State-defense-failure: 

price war, corruption, and arms-twisting,” Nezavisimoe voennoe 

obozrenie, July 22, 2011.

23. On the purchase of a complete training center from Rheinmetall, see Vlad Socor, “Made in Germany for Russia’s army,” 

Eurasia Daily Monitor, February 14, 2011. 

24. My most recent analysis of this departure from geopolitics 

is in Pavel Baev, “Russia’s Ambivalent Arctic Policy: Asserting 

Sovereignty and Advancing Cooperation,” paper presented at the 

Kingston Conference on International Security, June 13-15, 2011.

25. See on that Aleksei Malashenko, “What the North Caucasus Means to Russia,” Russie.Nei.Visions, Vol. 61, Paris, France: 

Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI), July 2011.
21

26. One authoritative source on that is Marshall I. Goldman, 

Petrostate: Putin, Power and the New Russia, Oxford, UK: Oxford 

University Press, 2008. I have examined the energy-political ambitions in Pavel Baev, Russian Energy Policy and Military Power, 

London, UK: Routledge, 2008.

27. See Vladimir Milov, “Russian Economy in Limbo,” Pro et 

Contra, Vol. 15, No. 1-2, January-April 2011, available from http://

russia-2020.org/2010/07/13/russian-economy-in-limbo/; Sergei Guriev, “Oil cannot save us,” Forbes (Russian Ed.), January 20, 2011, 

available from www.forbes.ru/ekonomika-column/finansy/62301-neftuzhe-ne-spasaet.

28. The popular propositions like, “It is on this front, of energy blackmail, that Russia has been most active,” were problematic to start with, and now need further re-evaluation. See Edward 

Lucas, The New Cold War: Putin’s Russia and the Threat to the West, 

New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, p. xix. 

29. The course of the shale gas revolution is examined in the 

World Energy Outlook 2009, Paris, France: IEA, 2009; see particularly pp. 400-415. One sharp view is Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., “Shale 

Gas and Putin Puzzle,” Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2011. Meeting 

with the Valdai club in November 2011, Putin expressed strong 

views on this issue; see Clifford Gaddy and Fiona Hill, “Putin’s 

Next Move in Russia,” CUSE Comments, December 12, 2011, available from www.brookings.edu/interviews/2011/1212_putin_gaddy_

hill.aspx.

30. On the deadlocked bargaining with China, see Sergei Kulikov, “Gazprom is surrounded by opponents of expensive gas,” 

Nezavisimaya gazeta, August 18, 2011; on the issues with Germany, 

see Konstantin Simonov, “How much gas does Germany need?” 

Expert, July 26, 2011.

31. An insightful view on that is Arkady Moshes, “Europe is 

tired of Russia,” Gazeta.ru, June 10, 2011, available from gazeta.ru/

comments/2011/06/10_x_3658765.shtml.

32. See Sergei Minaev, “The depth of powerful outflow,” 

Kommersant-Vlast, June 20, 2011; on Putin’s directive, see Igor 

Naumov, “Putin wants to bring back investors,” Nezavisimaya 

gazeta, March 28, 2011.
22

33. See Catherine Belton and Charles Clover, “Medvedev expected to target capital flight,” Financial times, May 5, 2011.

34. See Aleksandr Morozov, “Ruble will lose,” Forbes (Russian 

Ed.), August 29, 2011, available from http://www.forbes.ru/lichnyedengi-column/valyuty/72753-rubl-proigraet.

35. See Anton Verzhbitsky, “Foreigners take money out of 

Russia en masse,” RBC Daily, August 29, 2011.

36. On the looming budget issues, see Aleksei Mihailov, 

“Budget of war and police,” Gazeta.ru, July 25, 2011, available 

from www.gazeta.ru/column/mikhailov/3707805.shtml; on Putin’s irritation over the too low credit rating, see “Russia and US find 

common foe in S&P,” Moscow Times, August 10, 2011. 

37. One attempt to sell this proposal is Dmitri Danilov, “The 

European Security Treaty within the EU-US-NATO Triangle,” Security Index, Vol. 16, No. 4, Fall 2010, pp. 61-72.

38. Careful examination of this self-acquitting can be found in 

Roy Allison, “The Russian case for military intervention in Georgia: International law, norms and political calculation,” European 

Security, Vol. 18, No. 2, June 2009, pp. 173-200.

39. My short comment on this can be found in Pavel Baev, 

“Medvedev reflects on the Georgian war and on himself,” Eurasia 

Daily Monitor, August 8, 2011.

40. It is hard to find anything on Russia’s contribution on 

the very useful website of the Center for UN Reform, which has 

a special page for the Security Council reform; see www.center

forunreform.org/node/23.

41. See Fedor Lukyanov, “Aria of the off-stage choir,” 

Gazeta.ru, June 23, 2011, available from gazeta.ru/column/

lukyanov/3672037.shtml. 

42. One isolated voice of reason is Dmitri Trenin, “Russia, uranium and Iran,” InoSMI.ru, June 10, 2010, available from 

inosmi.ru/op_ed/20100611/160522302.html. 
23

43. See Aleksandr Aksenenok, “Russian diplomacy in the Libyan crisis,” Moskovskie novosti, July 21, 2011; Nikolai Zlobin, “Why 

Russia is not Libya,” Vedomosti, March 28, 2011. 

44. On the weakness of this grouping, see Fedor Lukyanov, 

“BRICS into pebbles,” Gazeta.ru, June 2, 2011, available from 

gazeta.ru/column/lukyanov/3636225.shtml; the idea to invite Turkey is found in Dmitri Trenin, “Ankara as a geopolitical partner 

for Moscow,” InoSMI.ru, April 29, 2011, available from inosmi.ru/

op_ed/20110429/168896495.html. 

45. On the latter problem, see Aleksei Portansky, “Russia’s 

accession to the WTO: External implications,” Russia in Global Affairs, No. 2, April/June 2011, available from eng.globalaffairs.ru/

number/Russias-Accession-to-the-WTO-External-Implications-15239. 

46. One of the most thoughtful analysts of political processes in this space was Dmitri Furman; see, for instance, his lecture 

“From the Russian Empire to the Failure of the CIS,” Polit.ru, 

October 5, 2005, available from www.polit.ru/article/2005/10/05/

furman/.

47. On the latest summit of this quasi-alliance, see Aleksandr 

Gabuev, “CSTO tries to become a bloc,” Kommersant, August 13, 

2011; Viktor Litovkin, “CSTO is turned against the color revolutions,” Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, September 9, 2011; informed 

analysis is Roger McDermott, “CSTO moves into the information age,” RFE/RL Commentary, September 4 2011, available from 

www.rferl.org/content/commentary_csto_moves_into_information_

age/24317363.html.

48. On the tensions in this smoothly-run body, see Vladimir 

Skosyrev, “Russian influence in Central Asia is diminishing,” 

Nezavisimaya gazeta, April 27, 2011; Fedor Lukyanov, “SCO as a 

global mirror,” Gazeta.ru, June 16, 2011, available from gazeta.ru/

column/lukyanov/3663441.shtml.

49. For dualism, see Evgeny Gontmaher, “Between catchingup and innovative modernization,” Vedomosti, August 31, 2011. 
24

50. On the drivers for the capital flight, see Sergei Shelin, 

“Money chose freedom,” Gazeta.ru, May 25, 2011, available from 

www.gazeta.ru/column/shelin/3628261.shtml.

51. Literature on corruption in Russia is vast, but a value of 

evidence is available at the blog of Aleksei Navalny, available 

from navalny.ru/.

52. The crisis of leadership is diagnosed even by the professional courtiers; see for instance, Gleb Pavlovsky, “Tandem has 

turned into a thrombus in the Russian state,” Novaya gazeta, August 17, 2011.

53. My take can be found in Pavel Baev, “Moscow learns to 

play by Asia-Pacific rules,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, February 14, 

2011.

54. See Vitaly Naumkin, “From the bottom to the top and 

back,” Russia in Global Affairs, No. 4, July/August 2011, available 

from www.globalaffairs.ru/number/Snizu-vverkh-i-obratno-15277.
25

CHAPTER 2

THE SACRED MONSTER:

RUSSIA AS A FOREIGN POLICY ACTOR

Stephen J. Blank

INTRODUCTION

Writing in 2002, Russia’s Foreign Minister, Igor 

Ivanov, proclaimed that the Russian Federation was 

qualitatively different from all of its Russian predecessors. According to Ivanov, Russia differed from them 

in its nature of government, territorial boundaries, 

the geopolitical environment it faced, and in its capabilities and power. Therefore, it “needed to develop 

a new way of looking at its foreign policy goals and 

priorities.” Ivanov further argued that Russia did not 

and implicitly does not see itself as heir to the Soviet 

policy in pursuing a foreign policy dictated by the 

requirements of an international class war.1 Therefore, according to Ivanov, Moscow no longer pursues 

a policy based on a fixed idea of a particular enemy 

or adversary and has renounced all the trappings of 

Leninism, including an ideological approach to foreign policy. Since then, according to Ivanov and many 

other commentators, Russia has instead struggled, finally with success in recent years, to conduct a foreign 

policy based solely on the pursuit of national interests.

But is this the whole story? While Russia certainly 

no longer pursues a “class-based” foreign policy based 

on Marxism-Leninism; and certainly manifests a horror of revolution abroad today, is Russian foreign policy under Vladimir Putin and his successor, Dmitry 

Medvedev, really a qualitatively new foreign policy, 
26

or are there significant elements of enduring Russian 

approaches to foreign policy that developed during 

the Tsarist and Soviet periods of Russian history? Is 

there no ideological component to Russian foreign 

policy and only the strict pursuit of national interests, 

obviously conceived of in a manner resembling the 

19th century fashion? Can Russia, or any other state for 

that matter, escape history and start anew even if we 

allow for a new environment and new (and reduced) 

capabilities for exercising power? Or is it, in fact, the 

case, as certainly appears to be developing in Russia’s 

domestic politics and maybe its foreign policy, that 

Russia is to some considerable extent still enmeshed in 

its past history? Is it the case, in contrast to Ivanov’s 

argument, that, as the contemporary Russian novelist 

Vladimir Sorokin says, “Our future is becoming our 

past”?2 In that case, would not Russian foreign policy 

under Putin reflect, as well, the siren call and abiding 

forces of Russian history?

INNOVATION AND CONTINUITY

Without denying substantial and ongoing change 

(which also visibly occurred under the Soviet system), 

this work argues that Russian policy, despite undoubted innovations, is less innovative than Ivanov claimed. 

We argue here that much of the tone and content of 

Russian foreign policy represents an outward projection of its autocratic domestic political system and 

that system’s attendant mentality. Indeed, the leaders of this system consciously and frequently invoke 

Russian history as a justification for its continuation 

in power.3 Therefore this continuity allows us to judge 

Moscow’s foreign policy from within a framework of 

Russia’s historical development. We use this term au-
27

tocratic because it is obvious to us and to several other 

writers that today’s Russian state bears many defining 

characteristics that resemble in considerable degree, if 

not always totally, Tsarist and Soviet precedents. Just 

as both the Tsarist system, as it evolved over time, and 

the Soviet system exemplified the patrimonial Russian 

state; so too does the current system represent a patrimonial autocratic system as defined below. That state 

is characterized by personified power, currently in 

the form of the President or even the tandem of Putin 

and Medvedev and state ownership of property at the 

expense of legally enshrined property rights. It also 

manifests itself in the recurrence of a modified version 

of the old service state and the feudal relationship of 

patron and client networks or the phenomenon of nul 

home sans seigneur (no man without a lord) that typified 

feudalism. Indeed, many scholars have recognized 

this linkage between what we might call the domestic 

constitution and foreign policy.4 For example, Alexei 

Arbatov states that: 

This interdependence between the regime’s nature at 

home and its projection abroad explains why those 

trying now to rehabilitate Stalinism and appeal for a 

return to this or that form of authoritarian regime always link it to a revival of some form of Russian (or 

Soviet) empire and permanent confrontation with the 

West.5

The announced transfer of power in September 

2011 whereby Premier Putin and President Medvedev 

announced that they would exchange positions in 2012 

indicates that for the ruling elite, the state is conceived 

of, indeed, as nothing more than Putin’s personal 

property, or to use the old Russian term for patrimony 

(Votchina), upon which he can act as he pleases. This 
28

patrimonial attitude confirms the genetic resemblance 

to Tsarist and Soviet models of the state. This recent 

ministerial or presidential leapfrog between Medvedev and Putin, to use the late Tsarist term, validates 

our use of the concept of patrimonialism because it so 

vividly demonstrates this concept’s continuing practice, along with its subordinate manifestations of an 

enduring contempt for law and for the Russian people. 

It also is arguably a vote for the entropy of the system 

as occurred under Leonid Brezhnev and arguably a 

guarantee that sooner or later, though we cannot say 

when, why, or how this will occur, a violent crisis will 

shake the system. Indeed, Putin’s spokesman recently 

contended that “For us, Brezhnev is not a minus sign 

but rather a positive sign.”6

This patrimonial state formation is a recurrent phenomenon in Russian history. Therefore, we employ 

here a historically-based explanation of contemporary 

Russia’s foreign policy continuity with its forbears. 

While this approach is certainly not the last or even 

necessarily the first word in analyzing contemporary 

Russian policy, it does represent an under-represented view or word that must nevertheless be spoken. 

Certainly the evidence of congruence with past governmental systems is there for any observer to find. 

For example, as it developed into the 19th and 20th 

century, the autocracy spawned a vast but incoherent 

bureaucracy that made it ever more difficult for the 

Tsar or for policymakers to control policy, not least 

foreign policy. Thus Heinrich Vogel observed that:

It is becoming more and more clearly evident that 

President Putin can place only limited trust in the officials of the partially reformed public institutions. The 

Kremlin is granted obsequious obedience in suppressing undesirable political activities, and the resulting 
29

political correctness engenders lip service to a strong 

state; but the most immediate loyalty is to each local 

authority.7

Today’s Russian press is filled with repeated instances of both Medvedev’s and Putin’s repeated 

frustration and anger over the systematic inability to 

implement state policies or willful disobedience by 

bureaucrats, much as was the case in the Tsarist and 

Soviet past.

Due to the failure to reform, today there is neither 

a lawful or specifically legislated overall policy process for resolving critical foreign or defense policies 

nor a specific institution legally ordained with regular 

and general oversight and leadership of national security policy. The long lasting struggle between the 

General Staff and the Ministry of Defense as well as 

the fluctuating status of the Security Council graphically testify to this fact, and the consequences of this 

absence emerged clearly in both the descent into Pristina and the second Chechen war, both in 1999, and 

has now morphed into the entire North Caucasus, two 

episodes that show how easily the unchecked rashness of the General Staff, supported by the regime, 

could entrap Russia either in big or in endless wars, 

if not both.8

Thus Russia still lacks a reliable and consistent or 

stable mechanism for either making or conducting defense policy. Those who claim otherwise, like former 

Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov as former Secretary of 

the Security Council, must hide or distort the truth. 

Like Tsarist statesmen, they pretend that a regular, 

law-governed bureaucratic process or system is occurring in defense policymaking and that a regularly 

functioning institution or institutions are currently 
30

making or coordinating policy.9 However, as they well 

know, the reality is exactly the opposite of a regularly 

functioning system. Indeed, every reliable account of 

how the system actually operates points to a system 

of unending and often vicious bureaucratic struggle. 

Accordingly, major policy questions, and not just on 

defense policy, are always subject to obstruction by 

interested bureaucracies and to lack of coordinated 

follow through. Alternatively major policy initiatives are launched behind the government’s back so 

to speak, denoting a continuing failure to devise even 

what Soviet scholars called a rule of law government 

(Pravovoye Gosudarstvo). This disorganization typified the late Tsarist regime’s approach to policymaking, and students of Soviet history know full well how 

much bureaucratic infighting and lack of coordination 

occurred there. In this respect, contemporary Russian 

national security policy (and probably other realms 

of policymaking as well) are eerily reminiscent of late 

Tsarist Russia when Baron A. P. Izvol’skii, about to be 

named Foreign Minister, told the Quai D’Orsay that: 

‘Despotism’ always bore the same fruits—’incoherence 

if not contradiction in the conduct of affairs which are 

treated simultaneously by various departments which 

ignore each other—and which obtain from the supreme leader detailed decisions which are irreconcilable in fact: the Russo-Japanese War came from that.”10

This failure to achieve political reform has therefore precluded genuine military reform and civilian 

control of the multiple armed forces. This gap in control over the structures of force (Silovye Struktury) 

impedes democratization, because it leaves control 

of the military outside of the normally functioning 

democratic channels of control, and undermines Rus-
31

sia’s ability to maximize its security position in international affairs because Russian policy is ad hoc, unpredictable, and subject to no regularized institutions 

of policy control. It also impedes Russia’s ability to 

defend itself against real threats like the jihadi insurgency in the North Caucasus. 

For example, President Putin’s proposals in 2000 

for a missile defense initiative involving Europe 

to counter the U.S. missile defense program were 

worked out without consultation or participation by 

either the Ministry of Defense or Foreign Affairs.11 Not 

surprisingly, there were public expressions of dissent 

by powerful military figures like the Commander in 

Chief (CINC) of the Strategic Nuclear forces, General 

Vladimir Yakovlev, that outside observers could not 

reconcile with Putin’s statements and which left everyone confused as to what the policy really was.12

Former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin’s September 

2011 outburst against excessive defense spending cited below suggests that this phenomenon of struggle 

and lack of control over the instruments of force continues, even if it is generally carefully hidden behind 

the Kremlin’s walls.

FOREIGN AND DEFENSE POLICY CONTINUITY

Today Arbatov, among many, laments the absence 

of coherent policymaking mechanisms or institutions, 

Parliament’s nullity as a counterweight to the executive, and the predominance of informal relationships 

at the top that break down any attempt at orderly policymaking, even within the executive.13 Izvol’skii and 

his colleagues would undoubtedly find themselves at 

home in today’s Russia; so would post-Stalin Soviet 

bureaucrats, if not their predecessors. Thus Andrei 
32

Ryabov writes that, “Freedom and ownership rights 

gave not been given an institutional framework, nor 

has there been a return to the numerous rules that the 

old system had for regulating the elite’s recruitment 

and transfer of power.” Moreover, power remains 

personified, not regulated by law. Putin’s primacy 

as Premier, constitutionally the No. 2 position in the 

government after 2008 and the recent exchange of 

positions with Medvedev demonstrate this.14 Indeed, 

discerning analysts see in Putin’s regime a kind of 

reversion to aspects of Stalinist personnel practice or 

policy, whereby police or security services cadre play 

the role of both the party and the security services under Joseph Stalin. Thus already in 2004, Nikolai Petrov 

wrote that:

The old system of appointment and staff rotation 

has been reduplicated. Establishing an infrastructure 

of secret services the local police do not control, the 

federal center regained the previously lost leverage 

with the regions. Shifting representation in law enforcement agencies, the president ended up with a 

“security horizontal” at his service. Along with the 

executive verticals, it forms a kind of carcass holding 

the state together. To a certain extent, the authorities 

have reduplicated the Stalin system when control over 

regional elites was maintained through (and with encouragement of) a confrontation between party organizations and security structures. In conflicts like that, 

the federal center is always well informed on everything. These days, we have a conflict between security 

structures and regional elites. State officials feel themselves under observation and abstain from what they 

were free to do only recently.15
33

More recently, Gregory Carleton has written that: 

To frame contemporary culture without reference 

to the Soviet legacy would seem irresponsible—just 

as this article cannot avoid. Moreover, current realities give credence to this logic. The centralization of 

power by United Russia, the consequent emergence of 

an identifiable single party line, the state’s key control 

of key sectors of the economy, and the suppression 

of independent media—all, inter alia, recall Soviet 

practice and policies. Additional corroboration of this 

impression comes from the conscious resurrection of 

Soviet symbols, such as the national anthem and the 

flood of Stalinist hagiography, particularly as popular 

history, with some of it more grandiose and fictitious 

than what circulated in his lifetime.16

In other words, we see multiple signs of regression to past Soviet and Tsarist practices. Moreover, 

these reversions go well beyond the examples cited 

here to encompass much, if not all, of Russia’s socioeconomic-political and even cultural life. Therefore 

contemporary observers do not hesitate to describe 

the bureaucracy as patrimonial.17

To the degree that the Russian elite, beginning 

with President Boris Yeltsin (1991-99), consciously 

opted to rebuild an autocratic system of power in the 

traditional sense, it also adopted both the trappings 

and substance of many historical policies that have 

characterized Russia over the years. Among these 

traditional manifestations of Russian autocratic thinking and policy are an obsession with Russia’s uniqueness or specificity (Samobytnost’ or Spetsifichnost’ in 

Russian), its refusal to account to anyone at home or 

abroad for its actions (itself a projection outward of 

autocratic power) to other governments, and the neoimperial concept of the state that is explainable not 
34

only in terms of material interest, but also in Russia’s 

obsession with status and in the relentless quest for 

an exclusive sphere of influence in the former Soviet 

Union at the expense of the sovereignty of the new 

states there. Lastly, there are a series of geopolitical 

continuities with past regimes, the presupposition that 

Russia is threatened by enemies everywhere and thus 

must have a free hand in its policies and not be subordinate to anyone (itself linked with the autocratic impulse), the enduring obsession with the United States 

as the main enemy and also most desired partner, and 

the constant effort to prevent any kind of European 

integration or at least to freeze it in its tracks. 

To be sure, no state can simply abandon its history without incurring serious, diverse, and longterm costs. Indeed, the fundamental changes in Russia since 1991 are incontestable. This goes beyond 

the end of Marxism-Leninism, support for socialists 

and revolutionaries abroad, a planned economy, and 

at least until now, the excessive militarization of the 

economy. Likewise, the priority placed on economic 

instruments in foreign and domestic policy and Russia’s unprecedented wealth represent fundamental 

changes. But even here, in this most innovative realm 

of Putin’s foreign and defense policy, we find traditional elements holding their ground, so to speak. 

Moreover, we find some distinctly disquieting signs 

of a pervasive moral nihilism that has accompanied 

and been both cause and outcome of the endemic corruption and unbridled criminality of the Russian political system, one that Medvedev described as legal 

nihilism. Logically, it should not surprise observers 

that the progression from legal nihilism and the ongoing failure to confront honestly the Soviet historical 

record has contributed greatly to this pervasive moral 

nihilism.
35

As Dmitri Trenin recently observed, much elite 

thinking sees international politics as simply a struggle for power between competitive states where values and their invocation merely cloaks hard power 

designs.18 Essentially, this is a bastardized version of 

Otto Bismarck’s realism that harks back to conservative German thought in the 19th and 20th centuries 

as embodied by people like Friedrich Nietszche, Carl 

Schmitt, etc.19 Ironically, as is the case with so much 

Russian social theory after 1800, there is much that is 

originally German more than intrinsically Russian in 

it, except possibly for its intransigent absolutism and 

extreme nihilism that there is nothing beyond this 

struggle for power in international relations. Thus 

Russia, like China, is a pillar of the “high church of realism” in international affairs. Its realism, as described 

by Trenin and discussed below, is of a particularly 

atavistic and even nihilistic kind that believes in nothing but power.20 Therefore, its thinking and behavior 

antedate the theories of realism in world politics that 

appeared after World War II and are a throwback to 

19th century Realpolitik of a particularly brutal kind.

Trenin incisively captures the worldview of the 

elite and the practical consequences that flow from it.

• The world is primarily one of struggle of all 

against all, of fierce competition for markets 

and resources. Cooperation emerges not out 

of good will but competition, whose point is to 

determine the conditions on which future cooperation may be possible.

• Economics are paramount, and business and 

money are both driving forces and the prize. 

There is no room for emotions in this competition or for values.
36

• Consequently, Western values that are so highly prized there are merely covers, cloaks for a 

reality every bit as harsh and no different from 

that in Russia where money and power are 

king. Democracy promotion is merely a tool for 

promoting U.S. interests.

• Russia is strategically alone, but only needs 

itself as it is self-sufficient. Other major powers are its rivals and smaller powers the objects 

and purpose of these struggles.

• Russia’s key comparative advantages, at least 

for the foreseeable future, are oil and gas and 

its nuclear weapons, the most important guarantors of its security.

The practical consequences of this cynical Weltanschauung are:

• Realpolitik is the only reliable policy.

• Maintaining the status of a great power under 

autocratic rule is the precondition for Russia’s 

survival and progress as a great power, which 

means that smaller states orbit around its sun. 

Otherwise, Russia will be torn apart.

• Everyone is a potential competitor or partner at 

least for a time but because nobody and nothing can be trusted and they will cheat at the first 

instance (as will Russia), legally binding contracts or agreements are necessary (but nothing 

guarantees that Russia will stay bound, because 

the others are no better and only interest guides 

Russia).

• Foreign policy is guided only by the national 

interest, which in Russia means the interest of 

the ruling corporation.
37

• Interests, not illusory ideology or values, represent the real substance of foreign policy. Pragmatism consists of managing differing and opposing interests.

• Patriotism is only important for mobilizing the 

public and creating a solid base for a pragmatic 

foreign policy.

• Public opinion is only the result of external manipulation by interested parties and experts. 

The manipulation of images that are created 

and destroyed on demand trumps any concept 

of reputation.

• Foreign policy relationships must be maintained with everyone but without any ideological or value-grounded expectations.

• The aim of Russian foreign policy is the creation 

or formation of a Russian center of power as 

one constitutive element of the emerging world 

order, a global oligarchy of five or six key players. Only when American hegemonism passes 

into history, which Moscow believes is happening, can there be a basis for genuine partnership with America.

As a result, we have a foreign policy elite that is utterly cynical, manipulative, exceptionally venal, and 

obsessed with power, wealth, and status. While its utter cynicism may go beyond even the Soviet system, 

the pervasive moral nihilism that is so strong a Soviet 

legacy is deeply visible here, as is the late 19th century origin of such views. It is narrow-minded, less informed about the world than its predecessors, amoral, 

and not interested in bettering the life of the people or 

in overcoming the traditional gap between state and 

society. It has contempt for the people instead, and 
38

national interest is often a cloak for personal or sectoral interests. As it has no strategy other than narrow 

self-interest, its policies are reactive and essentially 

negative threats to obstruct if Russia is not respected. 

Those members of the elite who are familiar with the 

outside world, like all nouveaux riches, think they 

know the price of everyone and everything, and that 

they know it all, when in fact much of what they know 

is essentially conspiracies to gain power and wealth 

among elites who are as corrupt, self-seeking, and 

venal as they are. They are at once driven by a paradoxical combination familiar to students of Russian 

history and culture of an inferiority complex and an 

ingrained sense of superiority and overcompensation. 

Thus their behavior is often boorish, uninformed, and 

characterized by a resort to crude threats and intimidation, which, after all, is the way they get things done 

at home.21

If one compares this with the behavior of gangsters who are obsessed with respect and status as well 

as power and wealth and possess a similarly cynical 

world view and amorality regarding the means of obtaining these goals, it becomes clear why so many observers rightly characterize Russia as a “mafia state.” 

After all, the Mafia and the current state are essentially medieval formations that have adapted but retain 

their core essence. Moreover, as described below the 

regime has, in its foreign policy, aligned itself with organized crime abroad as an instrument of state policy.

At the same time, Putin’s and his team’s realization of the primacy of the need to develop a modern 

economy in Russia and use economic power as the 

foundation of Russia’s global standing marks a significant innovation in Russia’s history. Only after 

economic stability was achieved do we now see sig-
39

nificant increases in defense spending, a pattern also 

seen in the 1930s. But the ultimate goal of advancing 

the great power standing and capacity of the state is 

entirely traditional in nature, as is the belief that the 

state must lead this process by itself without reference 

to indigenous self-standing social networks.22 Equally 

traditional is the fact of the state’s penchant for militarism. Historians repeatedly mocked the paradomania for endless strict military parades of Tsars Paul, 

Alexander I, and Nicholas I, and the legacy of state 

militarism that the Tsars as a whole fostered continues 

to inhibit defense reform in Russia.23

Similarly, critics of the regime, notably former economics officials, like Aleksei Kudrin (Finance Minister 2000-11) and Andrei Illarionov (President Putin’s 

economic advisor), have both publicly criticized the 

regime’s excessive defense spending and tendency 

to think in terms of war. In September 2011, Kudrin 

announced that he would not serve under the forthcoming Prime Minister Medvedev (currently President Medvedev) and specifically attacked excessive 

defense spending.24 Illarionov has observed that: 

Since its outset, the Siloviki regime has been aggressive. At first it focused on actively destroying centers 

of independent political, civil, and economic life within Russia. Upon achieving those goals, the regime’s 

aggressive behavior turned outward beyond Russia’s 

borders. At least since the assassination of the former 

Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev in Doha, 

Qatar on 14 February 2004, aggressive behavior by 

SI [Siloviki-men of the structures of force-author] in 

the international arena has become the rule rather 

than the exception. Over the last five years the regime has waged ten different “wars” (most of them 

involving propaganda, intelligence operations, and 

economic coercion rather than open military force) 
40

against neighbors and other foreign nations. The most 

recent targets have included Ukraine (subjected to a 

“second gas war” in early 2009), The United States 

(subjected to a years-long campaign to rouse antiAmerican sentiment), and, most notoriously, Georgia 

(actually bombed and invaded in 2008). In addition to 

their internal psychological need to wage aggressive 

wars, a rational motive is also driving the Siloviki to 

resort to conflict. War furnishes the best opportunities 

to distract domestic public opinion and destroy the 

remnants of the political and intellectual opposition 

within Russia itself. An undemocratic regime worried 

about the prospect of domestic economic social and 

political crises—such as those that now haunt Russia 

amid recession and falling oil prices—is likely to be 

pondering further acts of aggression. The note I end 

on, therefore, is a gloomy one: To me the probability 

that Siloviki Incorporated well be launching new wars 

seems alarmingly high.25

There can be no doubt that many of the methods 

used by Moscow reek of traditional coercive Russian 

socio-political interactions, not to mention outright 

criminality. 

Given Kudrin’s well-founded misgivings about the 

direction of policy, it is too soon to tell if this priority 

of economics represents a long-term and stable trend 

or one that could or will give way, as may increasingly 

be possible, to renewed emphasis on overt military 

great power rivalry. Certainly the statist and dirigiste 

notion of economic development that now prevails in 

Moscow augurs badly for democracy or for optimal 

economic growth but strongly for the perpetuation 

of the Muscovite paradigm with its emphasis on defense. That trend is highly likely to lead logically to 

an increase in military rivalry and political tensions 

with other major powers, as has historically been the 
41

case. The substantial rise in defense spending and increasingly military cast of the rivalry with America is 

a warning sign in this regard. For if the end result of 

Putinism is a renewed militarization, then the innovative aspects of his legacy will diminish while the assertion of traditional practices and policies will have 

triumphed. Indeed, as of early 2012, we see disturbing 

signs in this regard.26

Nonetheless, as Putin and his team have recognized, Russia’s ability to compete in world politics or 

to maintain its sovereign and independent freedom 

of action in their terms, crucially depends upon its 

ability to build and sustain a vibrant technologically 

advanced economy. Only on this basis can it compete 

in world politics while simultaneously building a 

military capable of defending the national interest. Although Russia is currently undertaking a significant, 

if not major, military buildup to last through 2020 and 

its emphasis upon the military arm is growing (not 

least due to domestic reasons connected with the succession to Putin in 2008), Putin’s overall policies have 

hitherto been distinguished by an understanding of 

the priority of the economic instrument of statecraft 

over the military one. This also relates to the primacy 

of a perception of domestic rather than foreign threats 

in actual policy, as for example in the share of the national security budget allocated to the armed forces 

and to those agencies primarily responsible for domestic security like the Ministry of Interior.27

This understanding of the priority of economic 

reconstruction and of the economic instrument in foreign policy is also apparent in Russian foreign policies 

towards the Commonwealth of Independent States 

(CIS), in the extensive dialogue with the European 

Union (EU), and in its use of the energy weapon in Eu-
42

rope and Asia. Even the primary purpose of arms sales 

has arguably been, until about 2005 if not later, the 

acquisition of revenue that would allow the Russian 

defense industry to recover until it can provide for the 

domestic rearmament of the Russian military. Indeed, 

as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has acknowledged, 

it is “the energy weapon” that has allowed Russia 

to gain independence in foreign policy vis-à-vis its 

numerous interlocutors.28 On a daily basis, energy 

exports, particularly of natural gas, are Russia’s principal foreign policy instrument. Arguably, no major 

power has ever before staked its great power standing and identity so nakedly on this cash crop to the 

extent that Russia has. This policy, or more precisely 

grand strategy, of employing energy as an all-purpose 

instrument of national strategy in several different regions was canonized in Russia’s 2003 energy strategy 

that openly postulated the connection between Russia’s ability to export large energy volumes, mainly to 

Europe but subsequently as well to East Asia, and its 

great power standing.29

That energy strategy, subsequent statements by 

President Putin and other leading officials confirm 

the importance of energy to Russia’s foreign policy, 

and that energy policy’s purpose is to promote Russia’s return to great power status in Eurasia.30 Indeed, 

as Roman Kupchinsky pointed out, Moscow in 2009 

formally admitted in its 2009 national security concept 

that: 

The change from bloc confrontation to the principles 

of multi-vector diplomacy and the [natural] resources 

potential of Russia, along with the pragmatic policies 

of using them has expanded the possibilities of the 

Russian Federation to strengthen its influence on the 

world arena. In other words, Russia’s energy resourc-
43

es were once again officially acknowledged to be tools 

of Russian foreign policy, or as some believe, a lever 

for blackmail. There was apparently no further reason 

for denying the obvious, and the authors of the [2009] 

security doctrine decided to lay out Russia’s cards on 

the table.31

Although there is a conscious effort to augment 

Russia’s real capabilities for projecting military power 

into the borderlands, that hardly equates to the use 

of that power to enforce compliance with its wishes. 

Russia uses energy exports as a multipurpose security 

instrument, much like a Swiss Army knife that cuts in 

all directions.32

However, at the same time, we have more recently 

seen a careful and consistent effort to rebuild Russian 

military capability and its capacity for projecting effective power throughout the CIS, most notably in 

Central Asia. Thus Russia has been selling to Central 

Asian states Russian weapons at subsidized prices, 

providing training, buying up former Soviet defense 

industrial facilities on their territories in exchange for 

debts, building up its military bases in Kyrgyzstan, 

Tajikistan, and potentially Uzbekistan (in case there is 

an emergency, Russia has the legal right to use the air 

base at Navoi33), building an expanded Caspian Flotilla, augmenting military capabilities for rapid power 

projection into Central Asia, constructing integrated 

military alliances with Central Asian states through 

the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) 

and a projected Caspian naval force (CASFOR), and 

by dropping not so subtle hints that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) should become either 

or both a military alliance and /or an energy club.34

In so doing, Russia has several objectives. First, 

Russia seeks to create a network of defense and de-
44

fense industrial relationships spanning both Central 

and East Asia. Towards this end, it has either begun 

to conduct or announced a series of exercises to unite 

its own forces with those of Central Asian allies in the 

SCO, China, and India, e.g., the August 2005 naval exercises with Kazakhstan and other states in the Caspian. Operation Tsentr’ exercises in September 2011, and 

annual exercises among the SCO members, including 

bilateral exercises with China after 2005, exemplify 

this policy. Second, Russia seeks to transform the SCO 

into a true strategic and military alliance whereas 

China has openly advocated that it concentrate on 

trade and economics. Third, Russia’s force development and base seeking campaigns aim to provide its 

forces in Central Asia with integrated ground, air, and 

naval (Caspian Sea Flotilla) forces. The recent Russian 

moves to gain new bases in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, 

and Tajikistan also clearly aim at providing secure 

lodgments for expanding air and ground forces, especially as its own domestic defense reforms aim at generating a real, as opposed to notional, capability for 

moving forces rapidly to hot spots, a theme that has 

been rehearsed frequently in its exercises since 2004.35

Thus careful analysis of Putin’s policies suggests 

that we should not be overly hasty in concluding that 

there is a long-term depreciation of the military instrument in Russian policy. Putin has had to grapple 

with years of neglect and bad policy and has in his 

own way contributed to the abiding dilemmas of Russian defense reconstruction.36 The new arms buildup 

also suggests a recurrence or at least an attempt to 

foster the recurrence of what the Russian historian 

S. F. Platonov suggested was the pattern of Russian 

history, namely, that the breakdown of a system of 

rule is ultimately followed by the reconstitution of a 
45

new form of state power, perhaps based on key elements of the old, and most importantly, featuring a 

new army some years later as the true incarnation of 

that new state power.37 Yet today that process remains 

incomplete, given the incompletion of the current 

defense reform. Indeed, from today’s vantage point, 

we cannot be certain what kind of army Russia will 

have and whether or not it can adequately defend the 

state and the regime against foreign or other threats 

to security. Nonetheless, we cannot gainsay the scope 

of the current long-term defense modernization program that is currently underway.

Putin’s innovative emphasis on economic reconstruction above other considerations goes against the 

fundamental historical tendencies of Russian statecraft that repeatedly sacrificed the economy to the 

military and the pursuit of a great power. Yet he also 

has set in motion a process by which the purpose of 

this economic development is not growth in and of 

itself, or for its own sake, but to serve as the foundation for an ambitious global policy based on Russia’s 

supposedly inherent great power status and a quest 

for independence from all foreign policy constraint. 

This policy logically entails substantially increased 

military spending and greater emphasis on defense 

threats and issues that is more nearly characteristic 

of Russian history. Worse, it inevitably contributes 

to the spread of great power tensions along military 

lines, some of which are already beginning to surface, 

e.g., the U.S. European Command’s earlier demand 

for more troops in Europe at least in part because of 

an unpredictable situation in Russia and the growing 

disposition of certain sectors of the U.S. military to 

see Russia as a potential future threat, especially as 

regards nuclear weapons.38
46

Moreover, the jury is still out concerning the ultimate purpose and “destination” of those policies, given the large military buildup underway and the steady 

and large increases in defense spending. This does not 

mean that the primacy of the military has been the 

only tradition. Examples like those of Mikhail Reutern 

under Alexander II from 1856-78, Count Sergei Witte 

in 1892-1900, and Peter Stolypin, who was in effect 

Prime Minister and Minister of Interior from 1906-11, 

display episodes or cases where the economic reconstruction of Russia took priority or where financial 

and economic imperatives kept military policy in relative check. Similarly, the New Economic Policy (NEP) 

of the 1920s and even the first 5-year plan to some 

degree aimed at economic reconstruction or breakthrough rather than at prioritizing the defense sector. 

Nonetheless, the priority of defense and foreign policy over Russia’s economic health was a trademark of 

the Tsarist, Stalinist, and post-Stalinist systems and in 

the Soviet period revealed the logic of Leninism as applied to international politics. Military spending was 

prioritized because the regime saw the Soviet state as 

being in a permanent situation of war against domestic “class” enemies and abroad against “imperialism” 

while it was in a seemingly permanent condition of 

backwardness. Therefore, the economy and the state 

had to be permanently mobilized. Consequently, the 

Soviet economy was “a sui generis war economy” in 

the words of the Polish economist Oskar Lange. That 

certainly is not the case today, or at least is not yet the 

case today. But it could come back tomorrow, especially in a system characterized by entropy and reversion to past models of governance as increasingly now 

seems to be the case.
47

THE HISTORICAL APPROACH AND THE 

RESTORATION OF AUTOCRACY

In this context, we seek to analyze and assess contemporary Russian foreign policy as part of Russian 

history, i.e., through the lens of what historian Alfred 

Rieber has called “the persistent problems” of Russian 

foreign policy.39 But to do so, we must first discuss the 

nature of the contemporary Russian state. Indeed, as 

this writer has argued before, Russian foreign and defense policy (i.e., its overall national security policy) 

directly derives from the nature of the state. Therefore, 

to grasp the nature of that state, we must go beyond 

the insufficient contemporary theories to see today’s 

state in its historical context. Here, we must point out 

that we do not say that Russia’s state and foreign policy are mere replicas of the past. Russian foreign and 

domestic policies are by no means historically determined. But the Russian elites made a conscious choice 

during the 1990s and that choice, to replicate the historical formation of autocracy, has had consequences 

in foreign policy. As David Cameron and Mitchell 

Orenstein recently observed: 

The erosion of rights, liberties, and democracy that 

has occurred in Russia over the past decade is most 

frequently associated with the presidency of Vladimir Putin. But there is good reason to believe that the 

causes of that erosion lie deeper, in the institutional 

structures of the state, and that whatever erosion of 

rights, liberties, and democracy occurred during the 

Putin presidency only continued a process that began 

during the presidency of his predecessor.40

Specifically, this trend is attributable to the outcome of the battle between President Boris Yeltsin and 
48

the Duma in 1992-93, a struggle that ended in a violent conflict in Moscow and with the establishment of 

what amounted to an unfettered and thus autocratic 

presidency under Yeltsin, who quite consciously liked 

to be seen as a traditional Russian boss and Tsar.41

There are those misguided U.S. analysts who have 

the bizarre and quite unfounded idea that U.S. writing 

on Russia suggests that Russian imperialism and antiAmericanism is somehow historically determined.42

Instead of such misguided and uninformed analysis, 

we would do better to realize that while today’s Russian foreign policy is entangled with Russian history, 

it also is very much the product of conscious elite 

strategies based on the interaction of domestic and 

foreign conditions, elites, and other factors (as is U.S. 

foreign policy). Marx was right. While men make history, they do not do so as they please but rather under 

the circumstances bequeathed to them from the past. 

Consequently, it is entirely arguable that the decision 

to reconstruct the Russian state along lines based on 

Russian history is the primary, though hardly the sole, 

reason for Russia’s enduring antagonism to the West, 

neo-imperial policies towards the CIS, and the suspicion with which many other governments view Russian policy today. 

This mutual suspicion is, in no small measure due 

to the fact that the construction of such a state necessarily implies a presupposition of hostility from all of 

its interlocutors. As one 2008 analysis observed, “An 

atmosphere of tension and suspicion towards foreign 

interests has been crucial to the economic and administrative expansion of the Siloviki, and they will resist 

attempts to dispel it.”43 Indeed, the study of Russian 

foreign policy history makes clear that, to Russia, any 

integration of Europe, as such, has been an enemy 
49

threat. This made perfect sense with regard to Napoleonic France and to Hohenzollern and Nazi Germany. 

But a democratic debellicized Europe integrated in 

the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and 

the EU, with the latter’s emphasis on negating power 

politics, represents no threat to Russia unless we or 

Russia proclaim that democracy and the renunciation 

of unfettered sovereignty—the two hallmarks of contemporary Europe—are in their essence threats to the 

patrimonial state Ab Initio. It should also be pointed 

out that ultimately the nature of the European project and its emphasis on civil power and democratic, 

pacific values is utterly incompatible with spheres of 

influence, neo-imperial power plays, and the corruption of European governing institutions that are all 

hallmarks of Russian policy.

Interestingly enough, some Russian writers celebrate this inheritance by the state of its patrimonial 

form and the accompanying historical legacy that the 

decision to accept this poisoned chalice has extended. 

Oksana V. Goncharova, of the Russian Public administration, thus writes: 

Russian foreign policy of today is dependent on a lot 

of factors, including the right use of historic experience. Restoration of the continuity of Russian foreign 

policy broken by the October Coup of 1917 is the primary goal of those involved in international affairs of 

the Russian state. The solution of the task will be the 

formulation of the national idea which the politically 

active and patriotic segment of Russian society needs, 

and which would make a solid basis for the national 

consensus in fundamental foreign policy issues.44

Vyacheslav Nikonov writes that, “Something else 

that is an extremely important thing and distinguishes 
50

Russia from the other powers is that we have preserved 

the important resource of our historical heritage. With 

all the revolutionary changes, its historical matrix 

was reproduced.”45 That matrix is the patrimonial 

state. Russian elite thinking about Russia’s domestic 

and international position in a world of states and 

other international actors and about the nature of the 

policies it should therefore conduct is also decisively 

shaped and influenced by, and even enmeshed to a 

considerable degree in, Russian history. Indeed, its 

progenitors explicitly invoke that history, e.g., Putin’s 

aforementioned essay of January 2012 that explicitly 

invokes a famous quotation from the Tsarist Foreign 

Minister A. M. Gorchakov and openly appeals to Russian history to justify his course, Sergei Ivanov’s remarks below, and former Foreign Minister and Prime 

Minister Evgeny Primakov’s and other analysts’ appeal to Gorchakov’s struggle after the Crimean War 

to reassert Russia’s power in Europe.46 More recently, 

Putin seems to have wrapped himself up in the mantle 

of Petr Stolypin; Nicholas II’s last reforming Prime 

Minister (1906-11). Meanwhile President Medvedev 

tried to cast himself in the mold of the Tsar Liberator, 

Alexander II.47 Putin’s success in invoking, incarnating, and reconfirming Russia’s great power position 

is bound up not only with his ever tightening control 

of the media to drown out competing narratives and 

opinions, but also with the fact that he appealed to 

and appeared to incarnate to a considerable degree 

a historically shaped identity and personal role that 

were perceived to be clearly in danger upon his arrival on the scene.48

Therefore Russia arguably presents itself to the 

world as a kind of “Monstre Sacree” (“sacred monster”) to invoke the French term. Russia still tends to 
51

see itself as a sacred or at least privileged and unique 

state with a special path (Osobyi Put’) not bound by the 

usual rules of international activity and demands that 

others accept this self-valuation as their valuation of 

Russia. It projects autocratic unlimited power into the 

international arena as a justification of its unfettered 

sovereignty and right to do as it pleases regardless of 

international law, practice, or any other constraint. 

Meanwhile, its interlocutors still frequently also see it 

as a monster intent on dominating, if not trampling, 

the neighborhood.

At the same time this phrase, “sacred monster” 

connotes the self-perception of a singular entity that 

demands that others accord it the status it claims for 

itself, i.e., its undisputed right to be above any form of 

international accountability. For example, the Russian 

government in the person of Foreign Minister Lavrov 

most recently basically told the world that it does not 

have to account to anyone for sending a ship laden 

with ammunition to Syria to assist the government 

in murdering protesters.49 Russia’s belief that it is beyond accounting to any state or institution’s norms, 

which are in any case simply an expression of a strong 

state’s interest, not any kind of objective moral value, 

transfers Russian domestic values into Russian foreign 

policy. Indeed, it places those domestic values at the 

heart of foreign policy as an object that is under attack 

and must be defended by a pervasive threat. Thus 

Timofei Bordachev, a Europe specialist at the prestigious Council on Foreign and Defense Policy (SVOP), 

wrote that a new format for developing Russo-EU relations must acknowledge Russia’s special role in the 

world and should therefore not relate to any past EU 

partnership and cooperation agreements with anyone else. Any agreement with Russia must be unique, 
52

reflecting Russia’s undefined, but taken for granted, 

uniqueness. Second, the new agreement cannot be 

a kind of European lesson plan for Russia, instructing it how drawing it closer to Europe by postulating 

reformed regulatory political and economic policies. 

Russia cannot adopt EU legislation or standards if it is 

not to become a member of the EU (even if they would 

immensely benefit Russia) for that allegedly makes no 

sense. Third, “any new document between the parties 

must avoid evaluative judgment of the Russian economy and its society as a whole.” Russia must remain 

beyond any foreign or other evaluation.50

Thus Moscow regards Russia’s internal structure 

as a point of contestation that must be removed from 

the agenda of world politics. On the one hand, this 

patrimonial structure is integral to the establishment 

of a great and feared power, even empire.

In practical terms, this means a “Conservative 

change” later translated into restoration of the famous 

power Vertikal, the taking over of competitive private 

enterprises by state companies, maintenance of natural monopolies economic and political instruments of 

government, reform of armed forces, social protection 

system, banking and financial sectors. Russia’s internal agenda represents a constitutive part of a plan 

designated to reclaim the great power status on the 

international arena.51

Obviously this system must be protected from foreign attacks. It must be free from having to answer 

for its behavior, and Russian leaders must obtain that 

freedom of action through their conduct of foreign 

policy. Arguably, they have succeeded to a considerable degree. In 2009, Arkady Moshes of the Finnish 

Institute of International Relations observed that: 
53

As far as European actors are concerned, the following 

moments have to be taken into consideration. First, in 

the middle of the current decade Russia has successfully taken its internal order off the Russian-European 

agenda. With the help of a rather influential European 

school of thought, Moscow effectively promoted the 

line of being an ‘imperfect democracy’ and lobbied for 

the prioritization of pragmatic interests over liberal 

values. Whereas the question whether or not Europe’s 

consent not to lecture Russia on its internal affairs 

helped the former to pursue those interests remains 

largely rhetorical, Moscow got an impression that in 

reality values did not matter for Europe. Rather, they 

were a bargaining chip, which could be traded for economic or other concessions.52

Not surprisingly, many Russian political figures 

see the state as essentially traditional. Mikhail Gorbachev recently said that the Stalinist system is still being partially used in Russia.53 Semyon Novoprudsky 

sees the state as bearing enormous resemblances to its 

Soviet predecessor throughout the state structure, and 

even in the society.54 Dmitry Furman observed that, 

“managed democracies are actually a soft variant of 

the Soviet system.”55 Moreover, Russian patrimonialism and autocracy probably cannot survive without 

replicating itself in Ukraine and across the CIS. Thus 

it is hardly surprising that Medvedev, like Putin and 

Yeltsin before him, has now formally claimed an 

undefined sphere of influence going beyond the old 

Soviet borders as a fundamental principle of Russian 

foreign policy.56 Celeste Wallander, now Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, called this transimperialism, although the label is less important than the imperialistic reality.
54

Transimperialism is the extension of Russian patrimonial authoritarianism into a globalized world. Russia 

can trade and invest without being open and permeable by selectively integrating transnational elite networks in the globalized international economic system 

and replicating the patron-client relations of power, 

dependency, and rent seeking and distribution at the 

transnational level. Russian foreign policy is increasingly founded on creating transnational elite networks 

for access to rent-creating opportunities in the globalized international economy. Moscow functions as 

the arbiter and control point for Russia’s interaction 

with the outside economy to ensure that Russia is not 

exposed to the liberalizing effects of marketization, 

competition, and diversification of interests and local 

power. If that were to happen, the political system that 

keeps the present leadership in power would be at risk 

of failing. In this sense, globalization is a threat not to 

Russian national interests but to the interests of Russia’s political leadership.57

Both NATO and EU enlargement to Ukraine represent this kind of globalization. Accordingly, the reform 

of Ukraine’s politics, and in particular Ukraine’s enormously corrupt gas trading operations with Russia, 

is a critical component of Ukraine’s integration with 

the West and the rest of the world. This corrupt trade 

and Ukraine’s undefined political trajectory are foundations of Russia’s autocracy and efforts to corrupt 

Western public institutions and politicians through 

the use of energy in tandem with organized crime, the 

Russian state, and intelligence agencies.58 Thus this 

strategy, in its energy and military dimensions, aims 

to stop the threat posed by European integration in 

its tracks, or to limit the damage to what has already 

been lost and, if possible, reverse it by hollowing out 

the institutions of European unification as Medvedev 

noted above.59
55

Effectively Moscow aims to undo in practice the 

content of the post-Soviet and former Warsaw Pact 

states’ sovereignty. Michael Emerson of the Center for 

European Policy Studies in Brussels, Belgium, reports 

the comments of a civil society leader in Belarus who 

told him that, “we have the impression that Moscow 

has come to see a certain Finlandization of Belarus as 

unavoidable and even useful.”60 As Emerson describes 

the term, Finlandization means:

Remaining in Moscow’s orbit for strategic security affairs (strategic military installations, 50% ownership 

of the gas pipeline, no question of NATO aspirations), 

but becoming more open to its EU neighbors for personal contacts and eventual political liberalization and 

for modernizing its economy. All this has the ring of 

plausibility to it.61

While this may look attractive to Moscow or maybe even to some of the governments of the region like 

Belarus and Armenia, and possibly Moldova, it clearly does not satisfy Ukraine and probably Azerbaijan, 

not to mention Georgia, or leave any of these states 

with full sovereignty over their foreign, defense, and 

economic policies. According to Emerson even if none 

of those post-Soviet states currently has a credible 

prospect for either the EU or NATO, Russia’s multidimensional presence is either sustained or growing 

throughout the region.62

Although some American analysts like Thomas 

Graham have recommended Ukraine’s Finlandization as a goal of U.S. policy, it is quite unlikely, given 

Ivanov’s and many others’ statements, that Moscow 

really looks forward to these states’ political liberalization and enhanced contacts with the EU; quite the 

contrary.63 In other words, Moscow has rather a differ-
56

ent definition of Finlandization, one that is much more 

politically and economically restrictive. Meanwhile, 

in Central and Eastern Europe Moscow wants “trojan 

horses” inside the EU and NATO. For example, upon 

Bulgaria’s accession to the EU in 2007, Russian Ambassador to the EU Vladimir Chizhov publicly said 

that Bulgaria was Moscow’s trojan horse there, and in 

2008 stated that Russia counted on Bulgaria and other 

states to block sanctions against it in the wake of the 

2008 war with Georgia.64 Certainly NATO as well as 

the EU regarded the Dimitrov government in Bulgaria 

that was in power until earlier in 2009 as little more 

than just such a trojan horse.65

Moreover, close examination of Russian policies 

throughout Eastern Europe as defined here indicates 

that Moscow’s aims go beyond those listed by Emerson. The multiplicity of incidents we have listed here 

or that others like Keith Smith, Robert Larsson, Anita 

Orban, and Janusz Bugajski et al., have listed indicate 

that we are witnessing a coordinated Russian strategy 

directed against Europe.66 As a recent assessment of 

Russian policy in Latvia concluded:

We see several, interrelated short-term [Russian] strategies focusing on exercising ever-increasing influence 

in the politics of the target states. What we do not see 

is a policy of military conquest but, rather, a gradual 

but unswerving drive to eventually regain dominance 

over the social, economic, and political affairs of what 

are to become entirely dependent client states.67
57

NORMATIVE OR IDEOLOGICAL FACTORS 

IN RUSSIAN POLICY

Here we must realize that, Igor Ivanov’s writings 

aside, contemporary international politics is once 

again or perhaps never stopped being ideological 

as well as geopolitical and geoeconomic. Not even 

Trenin’s Russians are ready to get up in public and 

say they recognize nothing but power and interest. 

Thus Moscow’s foreign policy approach, especially in 

the former Soviet borderlands, becomes an ideological-political one as acknowledged by both foreign and 

Russian observers. Temur Basilia, Special Assistant to 

former Georgian President Edvard Shevarnadze for 

economic issues, wrote that in many CIS countries, 

e.g., Georgia and Ukraine, “the acute issue of choosing between alignment with Russia and the West is 

associated with the choice between two models of social development.”68 The aptness of this observation 

transcends Georgia and Ukraine to embrace the entire 

post-Soviet region, since it is clear that Moscow viscerally opposes “exporting democracy” to it. Indeed, 

it regards the idea with contempt and thus attracts 

the local dictators who cleave to it for support against 

Western pressures for democratization.69 Basilia also 

pointed to the local perception of Russia as a security 

threat.

Nowadays there are many in the West who believe 

that Russia has changed—and, having reformed, seeks 

to interact with neighboring countries in conformity 

with international norms. Some Eurasian countries 

would disagree with this opinion, and believe instead 

that the Russian mentality has not changed much, and 

that Russia continues to deem the “near abroad” as its 

sphere of social influence. After the second war with 
58

Chechnya, many think that Russia regards violence as 

its major tool for resolving social and political problems, especially with regard to non-Russian peoples 

from the former empire. Thus integration into the international community should be viewed as a guarantee for security and further development.70

Similarly Sabine Fischer writes: 

Ukraine’s foreign policy orientation does not only involve a choice between different partners for political 

and economic cooperation. It is a strategic decision 

between two models of development, and as such essentially a decision on the identity and future of the 

country. It forms part of Ukraine’s state and nationbuilding processes, and its outcome will have a decisive impact on the future of the region, and Europe in 

general.71

Finally, Lilia Shevtsova reminds us that: 

No matter whether the Russian foreign policy takes 

the form of a dialogue or confrontation with the West, 

its aim remains to keep in place a personalized power 

system that is inherently hostile to liberal democracy. 

The optimists who get excited every time the Kremlin 

starts cooperating with Western partners would do 

well to remember this.72

Russian analysts like the late Dmitry Furman also 

acknowledge that “The Russia-West struggle in the 

CIS is a struggle between two irreconcilable systems.”73

Furman’s analysis is instructive of the regime’s compelling need for a foreign policy enemy that seeks not 

only to weaken Russia but to block its full return to 

great power status, particularly in the CIS.
59

Our system’s democratic camouflage demands partnership with the West. However, the authoritarian, 

managed content of our system dictates the exact opposite. A safety zone for our system means a zone of 

political systems of the same kind of managed democracies that we are actively supporting in the CIS and, 

insofar as our forces allow, everywhere—in Serbia, the 

Middle East, even Venezuela. The Soviet Union’s policy might seem quixotic. Why spend so much money 

in the name of ‘proletarian internationalism’? But if 

you do not expand, you contract. The same could be 

said about our policy toward Lukashenko’s regime [in 

Belarus-author]. The system of managed democracy 

in Russia will perish if Russia is besieged on all sides 

by unmanaged democracies. Ultimately it will once 

again be a matter of survival. The West cannot fail to 

support the establishment of systems of the same type 

as the West’s, which means expanding its safety zone. 

We cannot fail to oppose this. Therefore the struggle 

inside the CIS countries is beginning to resemble the 

Russian-Western conflict.74

THE PERSISTENT PROBLEMS OF RUSSIAN 

HISTORY

Rieber’s approach emphasizing the persistent 

problems of Russian history originated in his dissatisfaction with the pieties and clichés of earlier generations of Russian historiography and of foreign historiography about Russia. But it also represented an effort 

to find satisfying answers to what are also discernible 

persisting continuities in Russian history up to the 

end of the Soviet period and more recently to the present even under conditions of profound revolutionary 

change.75 Any worthwhile account of this history must 

account for both the continuities, most visible in the 

continuing form of rule, i.e., the Muscovite or Tsarist 
60

paradigm of autocracy described here, and the ruptures like the revolutions of 1917 and 1991. This Muscovite or Tsarist paradigm is characterized by the government’s or the Tsar’s control, even ownership of the 

national economy; the absence of enforceable property 

rights, public, legal, or Parliamentary controls on the 

government; the absence of the rule of law, a strong 

tendency towards emphasizing the military or martial 

aspects of national security policy over other dimensions; a quasi-militarized state rhetoric, if not concept 

of the state’s organization; a caesaro-papist ideology 

making the ruler the object of cultic veneration; and 

an accompanying great power and imperial mystique 

as well as reality. One major purpose of that imperial 

mystique and its accompanying reality is to translate 

these domestic factors into international factors to 

ensure the security of this inherently insecure and illegitimate (in contemporary European and Western 

terms) regime. 

The state in this paradigm was also, as were the 

Tsarist and Stalinist states, a service state in which everyone was bound to serve the state and power as well 

as income, especially at the top of society, only came 

from the rewards of service. Just as the “Boyars” must 

serve in order to gain control over the rents coming 

from the state and are thus a rent-seeking elite, so too 

the state grants these rents with the proviso that they 

serve the Tsar well (even if corruptly). Hence the state 

is a rent-granting state and the elite a rent-seeking 

elite. Today the service state is still far too present (not 

just in the army still subject to conscription, but also in 

the government). To cite one example, in a notorious 

late 2007 interview, Oleg Shvartsman, a “businessman” admitted that he was the front for an interlocking series of organizations representing high-ranking 

government figures and their families that raided cor-
61

porations to take them over on behalf of his “clients” 

and their families. Shvartsman further admitted that 

the government had set up an organization at Putin’s 

direction in 2004 to compel businesses to be “more 

socially responsible” and that it engaged in what he 

called “collective blackmail.”76 Similarly, we see the 

large role of so-called informal taxes, i.e., demands by 

the state and Kremlin for contributions outside the formal system of taxes and other rule-based obligations.77

The Kremlin’s ongoing expropriation of foreign and 

domestic businessmen who run afoul of it, most recently expressed in its late summer of 2011 raids 

against British Petroleum (BP) is another example of 

a government who feels that all the property belongs 

to it, that it can seize that property whenever it suits it 

to do so, and that this is nobody else’s affair. All these 

manifestations of state expropriation and compulsory 

service as a condition of possessing property and/or 

political position derive from the medieval phenomena of such taxes, predatory confiscation of estates, 

and krugovaya poruka (collective surety). 

In less stringent times, e.g., after the emancipation 

of the serfs, the obligation to serve was partially relaxed, but it is clear in Putin’s Russia that his topmost 

elites are state servants in exactly the same way as 

were Tsarist or Soviet officials.78 That is, they retain 

their office and property on the basis of their loyal 

service to Putin or Medvedev, a service that exempts 

them from true legal accountability to anyone or any 

institution and enables them to retain their access to 

rents throughout the system that are obtained by a 

pervasive corruption. Absent legal and institutional 

checks upon the power of the autocrat, rival bureaucracies emerge out of rival factions and clans at court, 

and the Tsar’s task is to check each group by the other, 
62

while remaining in some sense above the fray, not 

least through the mystique of Tsardom and the cult of 

personality. Or as Clifford Gaddy observes, the Tsar 

is the ultimate arbiter of rents.79 But as all good histories of Tsarist Russia show, this resembles the political 

function of the later Tsars who constantly were balancing off factions around them, each of whom wanted 

preeminence and unimpeded direct access to the Tsar. 

Much the same behavior is also observable among Soviet General Secretaries, including Stalin. Even though 

his power was as absolute as anyone could wish for, 

he was constantly balancing off competing factions in 

his Politburo and cabinet. Policy thus often emerges 

out of the strife of these bureaucratic and “courtly” 

factions. 

But given the pervasive corruption, patron-client 

relationships, and endless rivalry of courtiers for the 

favor of the Tsar (or president), the end result is a blurring of the distinction between personal and national 

interest and thus persistent, endemic, and structurally 

rooted, as well as culturally permitted corruption on a 

grand scale. Indeed, given the interpenetration of officialdom and business, it is often all but impossible to 

distinguish between the motives of each side in foreign policy deals. It becomes clear that it is equally difficult to distinguish between the personal or sectoral 

interests of actors and the national interest for each of 

those conceptions of interest is, as James Sherr, notes, 

“a primary color” that must be combined in the overall picture to be seen properly.80 Such features typify 

the authoritarian and backward state. The following 

observations about Afghanistan could be literally 

word-for-word true about Russia.
63

The structural lack of competition and representation 

has significant ramifications for performance, for it inhibits accountability and pushes political competition 

outside the formal, legal system, where it has taken 

the form of informal contests for patronage and the 

capture of resources. The formal rules of the game become meaningless, and performance by state officials 

becomes transactional rather than rational.81

Therefore, the personal interest of elite members 

often, if not always, trumps any true concept of national interest. We see examples of this and of the 

rivalry between competing bureaucracies, elites, and 

factions, with particular vividness in the energy sector. For example, Russia and China have been discussing oil and gas pipelines for years to no avail. Indeed, 

in 2003-08 the issue was whether to go with a pipeline 

to China alone or to the Pacific Ocean coast and Japan. 

In reality, it is not China or Japan, but Russia that wants 

to bring large volumes of its oil and gas to the market 

of Northeast Asia in the most economical way. Also, it 

is not Japan and China who are the main contenders 

for a pipeline route, but rather diverse interests within 

Russia. Indeed, some interest groups would prefer to 

explore the oil and natural gas reserves in a way that 

would not necessarily gain local industries and communities, and without considering the overall groups 

that prioritize regional developments, social advancement and national energy markets, as well as access 

to multiple markets in Northeast Asia. The problem 

is that the Chinese decided to side with the former, 

while the Japanese aimed towards the latter. Tokyo 

was only supporting, not proposing the pipeline route 

that Transneft already advocated and that President 

Putin strongly favored.82
64

Consequently, the competition for pipeline routes 

and financing in Asia was as much an internal Russian factional fight for rents, bribes, and influence as it 

was a foreign policy strategy. Russia’s ultimate decision clearly reflected the personal interests of key bureaucratic players, who prevailed at the expense of the 

earlier policy and concept of Russian national interest. 

Then in 2009 at the bottom of the financial crisis, Igor 

Sechin and Sergei Bogdanchikov, the heads of Rosneft 

and Transneft, pushed through loans from China to 

their organizations on condition that they build an oil 

pipeline to China, which opened in 2011. But they did 

so under conditions that undercut Russian national 

interests, which called for a pipeline to more than one 

customer. At the same time, they undermined the Russian railways, which had previously carried the oil to 

China in return for a handsome Chinese subsidy. It is 

difficult to imagine that their motive was not as much 

bureaucratic and personal as it was supposedly in the 

national interest, for Russia still is hobbled in the Far 

East with regard to energy sales to Japan, South Korea, and other potential buyers. 

Similar examples exist in the struggle over foreign 

arms purchases. While it is clear that the Russian defense industry cannot provide the quality and hightech weapons demanded and needed by the military, 

it and its bureaucratic patrons refuse to let go of the 

rents accruing to them and insist against all reason 

and evidence that they can do better. This is not just 

(although it is in part) nationalist boasting.83 These 

examples therefore indicate to us the continuing saliency of historic Russian structures, mentalities, and 

behavior patterns: imperialism, a particular kind of 

militarism, factional rivalry, and the continuation of 

the autocratic state and its particular mentality.
65

If we view this collective elite mentality and behavior of the elite at home and abroad in the light of 

this historical inheritance, we encounter a revived 

form of the essence of the Soviet Nomenklatura, namely 

the medieval and feudal fusion of power and property, along with feudal patron-client relationships and 

many elements of the service state. In other words, a 

great deal of medievalism still attaches itself to Russian politics at home and abroad. In the light of such 

episodes as those recounted by Shvartsman and, for 

example, the Magnitsky and Khodorkovsky affairs, it 

becomes clear why foreign diplomats and officials, including the U.S. embassy have labeled Russia a “mafia 

state.”84 Clifford Gaddy and Barry Ickes called Putin’s 

system a protection racket some time ago.85 Even former Russian officials have done the same thing. As 

Andrei Illarionov testified to Congress in 2009: 

According to the classification of the political regimes, 

the current one in Russia should be considered as 

hard authoritarianism. The central place in the Russian political system is occupied by the Corporation 

of the secret police. The personnel of Federal Security Service—both in active service as well as retired 

one—form a special type of unity (non-necessarily 

institutionalized) that can be called brotherhood, order, 

or corporation. The Corporation of the secret police operatives (CSP) includes first of all acting and former 

officers of the FSB (former KGB), and to a lesser extent 

FSO and Prosecutor General Office. Officers of GRU 

and SVR do also play some role. The members of the 

Corporation do share strong allegiance to their respective organizations, strict codes of conduct and of 

honor, basic principles of behavior, including among 

others the principle of mutual support to each other in 

any circumstances and the principle of omerta. Since 

the Corporation preserves traditions, hierarchies, 
66

codes and habits of secret police and intelligence services, its members show high degree of obedience to 

the current leadership, strong loyalty to each other, 

rather strict discipline. There are both formal and informal means of enforcing these norms. Violators of 

the code of conduct are subject to the harshest forms of 

punishment, including the highest form.86

What this means, and the second conviction of 

Mikhail Khodorkovsky in December 2010 confirms, is 

that executive power is undivided, the courts cannot 

check it, there is no unconditional right of property, 

no truly enforceable contracts by recourse to impartial 

law costs, and the state leadership is determined to 

keep things this way. Its Mafia-like qualities testify to 

the fact that force is the ultimate arbiter of all decisions, that rivalries for control of property and power 

dominate the state, and that the regime refuses to subject itself to any legal accountability so that those who 

cannot be bribed or simply intimidated are subjected 

to force majeure or killed. Likewise, we see the control 

by members of the government of the major engines 

of economic activity and the use of unbridled and unaccountable state power to oust rivals from the scene. 

These state megaliths have grown, thanks to state 

cronyism and systematic predation, not excluding officially sponsored corporate raiding. 

Indeed, as Khodorkovsky observed, corruption is 

probably Russia’s greatest export, much as in a criminal racket. We see this not only in Ukraine’s notorious 

corruption or the similar phenomena in Central Asia, 

but also in countless examples in Eastern Europe. 

Thus events and trends in Central and Eastern Europe 

fully display the linkages between energy firms, intelligence penetration, efforts to buy up strategic sectors 

of the local economy, influence peddling, corruption, 
67

and the buying and subversion of politicians and political institutions that we see across Europe and that 

can only be part of a centrally directed Russian policy 

to achieve the objectives stated above of eroding European security and democracy. 

Simultaneously, European intelligence services 

and NATO have discerned a vast expansion of the 

Russian intelligence network in Europe and its efforts 

to penetrate and destabilize European governments. 

These trends are particularly noticeable at NATO 

headquarters in Brussels and in Eastern Europe. The 

head of Polish Military Intelligence, Antoni Macierewicz, observed in 2007 that Poland was under attack 

from a greatly expanded covert network of agents.87 In 

2008 Vladimir Fillin, the Ukraine office chief of forum.

msk, told a gathering of Ukrainian law-enforcement 

officials that:

For some time now the Ukrainian special services have 

been discharging the country’s international commitments by working actively to curb smuggling that is 

‘sheltered’ by influential Chekist forces in the Russian 

Federation. The Chekists have taken over Russia’s internal heroin and cocaine market and are now trying 

to expand as far as they can into the Ukrainian and 

European markets. . . . However nothing has come of 

their efforts.88

In July 2009 Kyiv expelled two Russian diplomats 

from the Crimea, not for spying, which would be 

bad enough, but unfortunately something we all live 

with. Rather, they were trying to incite the population 

against the Ukrainian government.89

We find analogous examples in Poland, the Baltic, 

Hungary, and the Czech Republic, if not elsewhere in 

Central and Eastern Europe. For example, in 2004 Ro-
68

man Giertych, Deputy Chairman of the commission 

that investigated the notorious Orlen scandal in Poland, concluded in his report that:

The commission has evidence that a certain kind of 

conspiracy functioned “within the background of the 

State Treasury Ministry, the Prime Ministerial Chancellery, the Presidential Chancellery, and big business,” which was supposed to bring about the sale 

of the Polish energy sector into the hands of Russian 

firms.90

In Lithuania, former President Rolandas Paskas 

was impeached for his connections to Russian organized crime and intelligence figures. As of August 

2009, the Seimas was moving to block any possibility 

that the Russo-Lithuanian capital bank Snoras could 

gain control of the Lieutvos Rytas media group.91 But 

this is hardly a new Russian policy. 

In 2007-08, Lithuanian businessman Rimandas 

Stonys, President of Dujotekana, Lithuania’s Gazprom intermediary, who has close ties to Russian and 

Lithuanian officials and has extensive investments in 

Lithuania’s energy and transit sectors, was brought 

under investigation by Lithuania’s Parliament. These 

investigative reports charge that he had used his ties 

to Russian intelligence and other Lithuanian political 

connections to advance personal and Russian interests 

in Lithuania’s energy sector. Dujotekana is reputed to 

be a front for Russian intelligence services that are already entwined with Gazprom. A counterintelligence 

probe into a foreign citizen’s efforts to recruit senior 

Lithuanian Intelligence (VSD) officers led to the firm, 

which also recruited government officials. Key executives of Dujotekana are apparently also KGB alumni. 

Similar charges are also raised in regard to Stonys’ 
69

and his firm’s influence in Lithuania’s transit sector 

and his large contributions to politicians and media 

and his influence over political appointments.92

Since then, it has become clear that the company 

was established with the help of Russian special services, but because Stonys failed to gain control of a 

new power plant in Kaunas that would have legitimized Gazprom as an investor and power in Lithuania, he may well be on his way out.93 However, that 

would hardly stop other friends of Russia from trying 

to capture key positions in the state and its policy.94

Indeed, Gazprom is still trying to obtain a long-term 

contract to supply Lithuania with gas and make a deal 

with the main gas company, Lieutvos Dujos, until 

2030. 95 Clearly, this is a constant, long-term Russian 

policy. Thus Stonys only took off from where earlier 

efforts had failed when attempts were made to compromise Lithuanian politics by using such figures as 

Viktor Uspaskich, founder of the Labor party, who is 

trying to make a comeback, and Paskas.96 Likewise, in 

Estonia, the 2006 annual report of the Security Police 

noted that the Constitution Party is financed partly 

from Moscow.97

In Hungary, Istvan Simiscko, a member of the 

Christian Democratic People’s Party and Chairman 

of the National Security Committee of the Parliament, 

has publicly charged that Russian (and possibly Slovak) intelligence and criminal links may be involved 

in the murder of members of the Hungarian Roma 

in an attempt to incite ethnic unrest inside Hungary 

and/or discredit Hungary abroad.98 There are also repeated examples of Russia, either acting on its own or 

through the Austrian energy firm OMV, attempting 

to gain control over Hungarian energy firms, notably MOL.99 Thus there has been good reason for open 
70

U.S. concern about Hungarian policy, especially when 

the Socialists led by Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcany 

were in power.100 Indeed, Gyurcsany had, at various 

times, proposed that the EU, Russia, and Caspian Sea 

governments form an energy partnership or said that, 

despite Hungary’s democratic orientation, it cannot 

expect to become independent of Russia.101 More recently, there are discernible signs of this phalanx of 

business, crime, and government money establishing 

havens for itself in Iceland and Montenegro.102 In other words, we are confronting a pervasive and strategic 

policy on the part of the Russian elite to corrupt European public institutions.

However, the most comprehensive recent example 

occurred in the Czech Republic. Prague’s recent expulsion of two Russian diplomats, including the defense 

attaché, for spying has revealed the scope of the problem even though Moscow, as is its habit, denounced 

the charges as provocations. Diplomats have stated 

that Russia is increasing its network in Prague to the 

extent of activating sleepers or past agents and reverting to Soviet methods. For some time, the Czechs 

have been investigating this expansion of Russian intelligence, subversion, and espionage activity, thanks 

to the arrest in 2008 of Herman Simm, a high-ranking 

Estonian official in the Ministry of Interior who was a 

Russian spy. As one NATO diplomat told the Czech 

newspaper Mlada Fronta Dnes: 

The extensive building up of Russian espionage networks in the Czech Republic and in other NATO countries, and also the hitherto unprecedented amounts of 

money that Moscow was starting to invest in this ‘project’ in the recent period have exceeded the acceptable, 

and sometimes also tolerated, limits of espionage, . . .

In the recent period this has exceeded any kind of 
71

degree, whether this is a case of infiltrating the intelligence services or of contacting experts involved in 

NATO strategic defense.103

What reportedly most disconcerted NATO about 

these trends is not the intelligence gained by Moscow, 

but the fact that Russia has returned to Soviet practices and clearly views NATO as enemy number one.104

Had NATO paid closer attention to Russian statements 

and policy, it would not have been surprised. Formally, Prague expelled these diplomats for attempting to 

influence public opinion against the planned U.S. missile defense installations in the Czech Republic. Czech 

officials and reports have long observed that, using 

business and either Czech or Russian businessmen as 

a front, Moscow has been trying to make contact with 

and suborn politicians to influence Czech policies.

Moscow has doubled the number of known agents 

in the Czech Republic from 50-100, and many officials 

believe that the leadership of the Czech Social Democratic party is either prey to dangerous illusions about 

Russia or worse and would undermine Prague’s proWestern policies.105 A report from Radio Free Europe 

indicates that an increasing number of Czech politicians have ties to Russia in one form or another, including state-owned Russian enterprises in which energy 

enterprises figure prominently.106 Most of these firms 

operate by stealth like the gas trading firm Vemex that 

controls 12 percent of the Czech domestic market and 

which is controlled by the Centrex Group Ltd., whose 

official ownership is impossible to trace but is one of 

Gazprom’s East and Central European firms set up to 

muscle into the European utilities business. Likewise, 

Lukoil has enormous pull inside the Czech Republic 

and has secured preferential contracts to provide oil 
72

and jet fuel to Czech concerns and the Prague airport. 

There is good reason to believe that these business activities are also transferring money to Czech political 

groups.107 Czech intelligence thus reports that Russian 

intelligence has attempted to establish and exploit ties 

to Czech politicians and civic groups for purposes 

hostile to government policy and on behalf of Russia.108 As one representative of Czech Intelligence, the 

BIS, told the Czech journal Respekt.cz previously:

In the last few years we have noted numerous attempts by business entities that had proven connections to suspicious Russian capital to gain control over 

telecommunications, information systems, and transportation infrastructure from railroads to airports and 

airlines. To what extent the Russian secret services 

are involved in these activities, however, we do not 

know.109

Knowledgeable Czech experts like the former 

Ambassador to Moscow Lucas Dobrovsky have little 

doubt what Moscow wants to achieve through such 

efforts to penetrate the Czech government. As he observed:

We would stop resisting the efforts to bring Russia’s 

economic, political, and perhaps, to a certain extent, 

military, influence back to the area of Central Europe. 

The current Russian Government and the president 

believe that this is a natural influence in the area that 

was directly and indirectly occupied by the former Soviet Union. You will find a lot of evidence of this in the 

statements of Russian politicians. This would lead to 

the weakening of our Euro-Atlantic relations.110

Czech Deputy Foreign Minister Thomas Pojar 

echoes these comments and notes that recovering 
73

Russia’s position in Central Europe has been a Putin 

priority since he took power in 2000.

111

Apart from Russian efforts to undermine popular 

support for the stationing of U.S. missile defense radars in the Czech Republic, these espionage activities 

are clearly connected to Russian efforts to take over 

and penetrate key sectors of the Czech economy. For 

example, Russian interests are trying to buy into the 

nuclear storage sector, an effort that according to intelligence experts immediately raises questions, especially as Russian diplomats are involved in this project.112 Indeed, the whole question of the tenders for the 

Temelin nuclear plant, a major project intended to facilitate Czech energy independence, reflect substantial 

attempts by Russian entities to buy into Temelin and 

control it. In all these cases as well, we find examples 

of corruption, price overruns, and criminality ensnaring Russians and Czechs in an intricate web of corruption.113 Russian agents have likewise repeatedly tried 

to infiltrate Czech political parties and make contact 

with members of Parliament, their staffs, and personnel in the foreign relations departments of political 

parties in order to gain key access to critical economic 

sectors.

Shell reportedly wants to sell its 16 percent share in 

Ceska Rafinerska, a refinery company. One of the 

main suitors? Supposedly, Russian Lukoil which recently expanded its local network of gas stations. The 

troubled Polish company PKN Orlen might want to 

sell its stake in Unipetrol, the Czech company that 

controls Ceska Rafinerska. The likely suitor? Again 

the Russians. The list goes on. Such worries about 

Russian expansion aren’t surprising when one considers that the Russian company TVEL will, beginning in 

2010, start supplying the Czech nuclear power plant 
74

Temelin with fuel, replacing Westinghouse, the American firm; a Czech subsidiary of the Russian company 

OMZ will take part in additional work on Temelin; 

and Gazprom, the Russian gas giant, controls Vermex, 

the second largest importer of gas from Russia.114

Although Russian officials deny interfering in the 

activities of Russian companies, the record clearly contradicts such denials. So until the charges of economic 

expansion subside and the opacity characteristic of 

Russian business-government relations lifts, nobody 

will believe that the signs of increased Russian activity in the Czech Republic are purely commercial, certainly not the Czechs.115 Indeed, the criminalization of 

the energy sector is so great that a Russian newspaper 

opined that one of the reasons for President Medvedev’s violent attacks on Ukraine’s government on August 11, 2009, and refusal to send Ambassador Mikhail 

Zurabov there, is that the attacks also intended to keep 

Zurabov from gaining control over gas flows through 

Ukraine, so that the state, not Gazprom, will run the 

policy and control those flows at the end of the day.116

Through such means, Russia tries to corrupt European public institutions, forestall European integration, and remain a wholly free and independent 

“sovereign democracy” that answers to nobody for 

its conduct and possesses an unchallenged sphere of 

influence in countries with which it claims to have 

“privileged interests.”117 This “damage limitation” 

posture is inherently revisionist and ultimately opposes the pacification of Europe that is the greatest 

product and triumph of our times.
75

SOVEREIGNTY AND DEMOCRACY IN EURASIA 

While Russia may have renounced formal empire 

and territorial expansion, it certainly has not abandoned the autocratic state, its neo-imperial proclivities, many historical mental and behavior patterns, 

and its assertion of Russian Samobytnost’ (uniqueness) 

or revisionist policies in Eurasia. However, if this is 

the matrix, to use Nikonov’s term, from which the current state has issued, it is quite logical that it will be a 

state whose foreign policy is dominated by the a priori

presupposition of conflict with its main interlocutors, 

if not its neighbors as well. There are several reasons 

for saying this.

As we noted above, one of those resemblances to 

the Russian historical tradition is the imperial concept 

of the state, which is expressed in the assertion that, 

of the post-Soviet successor states, only Russia truly 

has sovereignty, and those states are in some way 

artificial, illegitimate, and not truly sovereign. Therefore, Russia is entitled to a sphere of influence in these 

states, and the consolidation of that sphere is a test of 

the viability of the state. In other words, as we shall 

see below, Russian elites believe that if Russia does 

not have this dominion over those states, it will not 

only cease to be a great power, but its own statehood 

will come under question. 

For example, in 2008 at the Bucharest NATORussia Council on April 4, 2008, President Putin told 

President Bush, “But, George, don’t you understand 

that Ukraine is not a state.” Putin further claimed that 

most of its territory was a Russian gift in the 1950s. 

Moreover, while Western Ukraine belonged to Eastern 

Europe, Eastern Ukraine was “ours.” Furthermore, if 

Ukraine did enter NATO, Russia would then detach 
76

Eastern Ukraine (and the Crimea) and graft it onto 

Russia. Thus Ukraine would cease to exist as a state.118

Putin also said that Russia regards NATO enlargement as a threat, so if Georgia received membership, 

Moscow would “take adequate measures” and recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia to create a buffer 

between NATO and Russia.119 Putin’s outburst is not 

unrepresentative of Russian foreign policy. Instead, 

it mirrors numerous statements by officials made to 

former Soviet republics and Eastern European states 

to the effect that they are not really sovereign states.120

On August 11, 2009, Medvedev published an open 

letter, ostensibly to President Viktor Yushchenko of 

Ukraine, but actually to the whole country, lambasting Ukraine’s policies, announcing that he will withhold sending Ukraine a new ambassador, and calling 

upon the Ukrainian people to elect a new pro-Russian 

president.121 Medvedev specifically charged that:

The leadership in Kiev took an openly anti-Russian 

stand following the military attack launched by the 

Saakashvili regime against South Ossetia. Ukrainian weapons were used to kill civilians and Russian peacekeepers. Russia continues to experience 

problems caused by a policy aimed at obstructing the 

operations of its Black Sea Fleet, and this on a daily 

basis and in violation of the basic agreements between 

our countries. Sadly, the campaign continues to oust 

the Russian language from the Ukrainian media, the 

education, culture and science. The Ukrainian leadership’s outwardly smooth-flowing rhetoric fits ill with 

the overt distortion of complex and difficult episodes 

in our common history, the tragic events of the great 

famine in the Soviet Union, and an interpretation of 

the Great Patriotic War as some kind of confrontation 

between two totalitarian systems.
77

Our economic relations are in a somewhat better situation and are developing, but we have not yet succeeded in tapping their full potential. Again, the problem is that Russian companies frequently face open 

resistance from the Ukrainian authorities. Bypassing 

Russia, Ukraine’s political leaders do deals with the 

European Union on supplying gas—gas from Russia—and sign a document that completely contradicts 

the Russian-Ukrainian agreements reached in January 

this year.122

This extraordinarily insulting letter‘s publication, 

not to mention its writing, was an overt gesture of contempt towards Ukraine’s sovereignty and Yushchenko personally. Its authorship and, a fortiori, its publication, fully display to the world that Medvedev shares 

Putin’s assessment of Ukraine’s sovereignty and, for 

that matter, the sovereignty of the other CIS governments. It makes clear that what angers Russia is the 

idea that Ukraine might actually exercise the prerogatives of an independent sovereign state and demand 

that Russia not meddle in its politics and elections, uphold the treaty on the Black Sea Fleet, desist from trying to take over Ukraine’s energy economy and wage 

energy wars against it, and come to terms with the 

Soviet (not just Stalinist) legacy. Thus it is clear that 

Moscow cannot accept that Ukraine as a sovereign 

state may decide its foreign policy independently. Instead, if Ukraine is not neutral on behalf of Russia, its 

sovereignty will come under Russian assault.123

Nor is this attitude restricted to Ukraine. At least 

since 2007, Moscow’s true aim is Georgian “neutrality,” i.e., a renunciation of its sovereign pro-Western 

orientation and a further abridgement of its sovereignty.124 Indeed, it pervades official thinking and 

rhetoric about the former Soviet bloc, not just the Sovi-
78

et Union.125 As Dmitri Trenin recently acknowledged, 

“as an international actor, Russia is at a point where it 

recognizes all former borderland republics as separate 

countries, even if it does not yet see all of them as foreign states.”126 Indeed, Russian ambassadors and officials, taking their cue, perhaps, from Putin’s remarks 

to President Bush, often publicly display their belief 

that post-Soviet states and even the smaller states of 

Eurasia are not really true sovereign states.127

Clearly the belief that Samostoyatel’naya Ukraina 

ne byla i ne budet (an independent Ukraine has never 

been and will never be), dies hard among the Russian 

elite. Similarly, over a decade ago Russia consciously 

opted for an energy strategy predicted on the idea of 

forcing Central Asian states to pump gas through the 

only available pipelines through Russia to Europe at 

Russian-dictated prices that Moscow could then arbitrage for huge profits rather than develop Russia’s 

own indigenous but hard to develop holdings in eastern Siberia and the Far North. Thus a conscious decision to erect an economic and political structure on the 

foundation of neo-imperial predation lay at the heart 

of Russia’s economic growth and the enrichment of its 

elite. Naturally, that elite is loath to forsake “the lure 

of something exotic in the borderlands.”

This contempt for the sovereignty of small states, 

an abiding Tsarist and Soviet tradition, hardly exhausts the catalogue of other manifestations of the traditionalism of today’s Russian state. The public statements of high-ranking foreign ministry and defense 

officials clearly indicate their open belief that Russia’s 

sovereignty is greater than that of these countries. For 

example, the 2007 remarks by Chief of Staff General 

Yuri Baluyevsky that if Poland wants missile defenses, it should also give its people gas masks, reflects 
79

the abiding Russian belief that it can bully other states 

with impunity.128 Neither are such remarks new tactics in Russian policy. Instead, they have ample precedents going back years. In particular, Russia’s ambassadors evidently believe that they have license to 

interfere in their host countries’ domestic politics and 

make threats indicating their belief in these states’ diminished sovereignty, which, of course, in Moscow’s 

eyes make them inferior to Russia whose sovereignty 

is assumed a priori to give it more equality than other 

states have. 

For example, on September 15, 2011, on the eve of 

the NATO EULEX mission’s takeover of the Kosovo 

customs’ points Brnjak and Jarinje, Russian Ambassador Alexander Konuzin created a diplomatic scandal in Serbia that has apparently grown since then. 

Speaking at the Belgrade Security Forum, Konuzin 

lambasted the audience and program leaders for not 

raising questions about this alleged violation of United Nations (UN) Resolution 1244 and other Security 

Council decisions and asked if there were any Serbs in 

the audience. Subsequently, he told another Serbian 

audience in the town of Lazarevac that, while Serbia 

needs to cooperate with other countries on economic 

deals, it should not do so to the detriment of RussianSerbian relations “because that could prove more 

harmful than useful.” Thus he added threats to his 

earlier screed. Konuzin’s impolitic outburst was bad 

enough, but events since then, including this implicit 

threat, have only intensified the outcry against Moscow’s interference in Serbian domestic affairs and unhappiness with the government’s pro-Western policy.

Whatever the merits of the Kosovo issue may be, 

it appears that this interference is precisely the case. 

After Konuzin’s speech, there was high-profile me-
80

dia coverage of the visit to Russia by leaders of the 

Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and Democratic 

Party of Serbia (DSS) who attended the conference 

of the ruling United Russia (Edinaya Rossiya) party. 

At this meeting, there was mention of one billion Euros in Russian investments should a “nationally responsible government” be formed. Furthermore, the 

Danas newspaper’s collaborators, including former 

and incumbent government officials in Belgrade outlined what amounts to a network of political officials 

in the government, Serbian Assembly, various government bodies, and business sectors who advocate 

on behalf of whatever Moscow’s interests are actually 

very well paid for their work and that this activity has 

gone on for at least a decade.

Thus Vladimir Beba Popovic, former chief of the 

Serbian Government’s Communications Bureau, told 

the newspaper, “Russia’s role in appointing and dismissing governments in Belgrade was notorious.” He 

also claimed that Russian power centers in the Serbian 

government and army supported the 2003 assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, with the support of agents from the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). Similarly, Radomir Naumov, Chairman of 

the Serbian Power Company’s Board of Directors and 

then in 2004 Minister of Energy, was “inspired” by his 

Russian connections into making dozens of contracts 

with Russian firms.

Russian TV reporters then interviewed the reporters who broke this story, and they admitted that 

Konuzin’s outburst had inspired them to publish their 

reporting. But these events clearly ignited a scandal 

in Serbia. Right wing parties, including the DSS, SNS, 

and the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) boast of their 

close ties with analogous organizations in Russia, and 
81

there is a lot of smoke, if not fire, suggesting that these 

organizations are funded by Russia, as well as the fact 

that some of their leaders have grown rich through 

business deals with Russia. Naturally, however, these 

parties deny any and all such charges. 129

This attitude, reminiscent of the old Brezhnev Doctrine, comes from the top of the government. In particular, it crops up with particular force in regard to 

the two issues of NATO enlargement and the frozen 

conflicts in and around the Black Sea littoral. Sergei 

Markov, Director of the Moscow Institute for political Studies, told a Georgian interviewer in 2006 that, 

“Georgia has not yet deserved our respect for its sovereignty because it has proved unable to achieve an 

agreement with the Abkhazian and South Ossetian 

ethnic minorities.”130 Of course, Markov ignored Russia’s unremitting efforts to ensure that conflict resolution cannot take place. So what is one to make of 

the Russian Ambassador, Vyacheslav Kovalenko’s 

statement that “Russia wants Georgia to be independent, sovereign, and neutral.”131 Since Georgia’s political class is united on seeking entry to NATO and 

then EU, essentially this is a demand that Georgia renounce its independence and leave its territory at risk. 

Such double talk is not restricted to Georgia. Neither 

was this an accidental one-time affair. Instead, it represents deeply held views in the Ministry of Foreign 

Affairs and the government.132 For instance, as Defense Minister, in 2005 Sergei Ivanov openly updated 

the Brezhnev Doctrine’s concept of diminished sovereignty for Central Asian states, specifically as regards 

NATO or American bases. 

The countries of the region are members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). And [if the 
82

countries of the region are] making a decision about 

hosting new bases on their territory, they should take 

into account the interests of Russia and coordinate this 

decision with our country.133

Ivanov also said that these states should also take 

preliminary consultations with other members of 

the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). This 

would also give China rights of veto over these states’ 

defense policies and tie them up by obliging them to 

seek collective permission to conduct an independent 

defense policy.134 Echoing this view of the CIS members’ inability to stand as fully sovereign independent 

states, Russian diplomats still cannot fully accept former Soviet republics as genuine states, e.g. diplomats 

at an Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe 

(OSCE) meeting calling Georgia “some province.”135

This too represents a deeply held attitude in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.136

The examples of such chauvinism are too many to 

be accidental. On December 20, 2006, Russia’s ambassador to Latvia, Viktor Kaluzhny, made the remarkable statement that: 

The task for Latvia and all other countries is to keep 

peace therefore they should follow the example of 

other nations, such as Spain and Italy, which have left 

Iraq. . . . Latvia, which demands an apology from Russia for Soviet occupation, should apologize to Iraq for 

participating in its occupation.137

This extremely impertinent statement would never 

have been addressed to Great Britain or Australia, let 

alone America. But the fact that Kaluzhny, who presumably was authorized to say this, felt free to do so 

reflects the abiding contempt of Russia’s ambassadors 

for the sovereignty of small European countries, not 
83

just the Baltic states. In 1998 Andrei Shvedov, Moscow’s Minister Plenipotentiary in Bulgaria, stated that, 

Our position is that NATO’s expansion should not 

be effected to the detriment of any country. No state 

should be deprived of the right to express its opinion 

on this matter. Still, the issue remains of whether the 

entry of a certain state into NATO represents a threat 

to the security of another country.”138

Here Moscow sought to dictate to Sofia that it could 

not have friendly relations with the West and Moscow 

at the same time, and that Moscow could exercise a 

veto on its defense and foreign policy. Naturally this 

gambit went nowhere, and Bulgaria entered NATO at 

the Istanbul summit in June, 2004.

The failure with Bulgaria did not seem to dissuade 

Moscow from trying again in even more egregious 

fashion. Thus in 2002, Russia’s new ambassador to 

Ukraine, former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, publicly decried Ukraine’s policy of nonalignment with NATO and Russia, calling for a public 

choice on behalf of Moscow.139 Chernomyrdin, who 

clearly acted as if he was sent to be Moscow’s proconsul in Kyiv like his Tsarist and Soviet predecessors, 

has even endorsed candidates in Ukrainian elections 

since then, and Moscow spent $300 million to manipulate the outcome of the Ukrainian presidential election 

in 2004, showing again how little actual regard Moscow really has for the sovereignty and independence 

of Ukraine.

In 2003 Moscow’s ambassador to Azerbaijan, Andrei Ryabov, overtook and surpassed his colleagues 

in the quest for the outstanding chauvinist or neocolonialist outburst against his hosts. “Provoked” by 

then U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s visit 
84

to Baku, discussions of U.S. troop deployments there 

at Azerbaijan’s request, and offers by the Pentagon 

of military assistance to Azerbaijan, Ryabov declared 

that, “There has not been and there will not be any 

kind of American presence in the Caspian. We will 

not allow it, they have nothing to guard here.”140 Ryabov also stated that the appearance of foreign military forces will not ensure, but rather prolong, the 

conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, a conflict that has been 

frozen and where Armenia has hitherto prevailed, 

not least because of a billion dollars worth of Russian 

arms transfers to Armenia. Ryabov also argued that 

“positioning foreign military bases in the territory of 

other sovereign counties should be considered a partial seizure of those countries’ independence.” Yet 

while Ryabov lamented the negative consequences of 

foreign military bases in an independent country, he 

conveniently omitted Russia’s large military presence 

in Georgia and Armenia. Nor did he mention the stationing of troops in Moldova.141

Finally, at a Hungarian conclave called to celebrate 

the 50th anniversary of the EU in 2007, opposition leader Viktor Orban, leader of the Hungarian Civic Union 

(FIDESZ) Party, strongly criticized Russian policies in 

energy and sharply differentiated between what he 

called the European and Russian way of thinking. In 

reply, Moscow’s Ambassador to Hungary, Igor Savolsky, took the unusual step of interfering in Hungarian 

domestic politics and threatened that if Russian businessmen do not feel themselves welcome or secure in 

the Hungarian market, then they will leave it, i.e., cutting off energy supplies to Hungary.142

Thus Russia also still cannot accept the sovereignty of unified states that were former Soviet republics, 

e.g., Ukraine or Eastern European governments. With 
85

that derogation of the present sovereignty of former 

republics and satellites goes the formulation and implementation of policies designed to undermine it in 

fact. Self-determination, as was the case under Soviet 

rule, then becomes a principle to destroy sovereignty. 

In late 2006, for example, Putin offered Ukraine unsolicited security guarantees in return for permanently 

stationing the Black Sea Fleet on its territory, a superfluous but ominous gesture inasmuch as Russia had 

already guaranteed Ukraine’s security through the 

Tashkent treaty of 1992 and the Tripartite agreement 

with Ukraine and America to denuclearize Ukraine 

in 1994.143 Putin’s offer also came at the same time 

as his typically “dialectical” approach to Ukraine’s 

sovereignty in the Crimea where he stated that, “The 

Crimea forms part of the Ukrainian side and we cannot interfere in another country’s internal affairs. At 

the same time, however, Russia cannot be indifferent 

to what happens in the Ukraine and Crimea.”144

In other words, Putin was hinting that Ukrainian 

resistance to Russian limits on its freedom of action 

might encounter a Russian backed “Kosovo-like” scenario of a nationalist uprising in the Crimea to which 

Russia could not remain indifferent. Here we must 

note that, as one recent commentary puts it: 

Moscow has the political and covert action means to 

create in the Crimea the very type of situations against 

which Putin is offering to ‘protect’ Ukraine if the Russian 

Fleet’s presence is extended. Thus far such means have 

been shown to include inflammatory visits and speeches 

by Russian Duma deputies in the Crimea, challenges to 

Ukraine’s control of Tuzla Island in the Kerch Strait, the 

fanning of anti-NATO—in fact anti-American—protests 

by Russian groups in connection with planned military 

exercises and artificial Russian-Tatar tensions on the peninsula.145
86

Similarly, in regard to Moldova, Putin in 2000 invoked the Russian diaspora there and other ethnic 

minorities in an effort to gain more influence over 

Moldova and its frozen conflict. His justification could 

have been written by Catherine the Great or, for that 

matter, Hitler and Stalin.

Russia is interested in Moldova being a territorially 

whole, independent state. But this cannot be achieved 

unless the interests of all population groups, including 

Transnistria population, are observed. Russia is prepared to participate in creating the conditions in which 

all residents will feel secure in Moldova. The political 

treaty must firmly ensure the rights of all those who 

reside on the territory of Moldova and who consider 

that Russia can be a guarantor of their rights.146

Subsequently, in 2003-04 he sponsored a plan crafted by Dmitri Kozak which was rebuffed by Moldova, 

leading to perpetual tension between Chisinau and 

Moscow. An assessment of the Kozak plan observed 

that its: 

Institutional features were designed to provide Transnistria a veto over any legislation that would threaten 

the leadership. Ultimately these multiple loci of vetoes 

would make it impossible for the federal government 

to operate. In addition, the Kozak Memorandum included clauses that could be interpreted to easily dissolve the federation. For example, the Kozak Memorandum allowed for subjects of the federation to have 

the right ‘to leave the federation in case a decision is 

taken to unite the federation with another state and 

(or) in connection with the federation’s full loss of sovereignty. . . . [thus] Moldovan integration with international organizations such as the EU could be used 

as a basis for the dissolution of the federation under 

this clause’.147
87

 It is not suprising that EU and American intervention at the last hour to prevent this outcome apparently enraged Putin and the Kremlin, demonstrating that 

their idea of partnership with the West, a free hand to 

reorganize Eurasia, was incompatible with the interests and values of Europe and Washington.148

More recently, on October 19, 2011, Turkmenistan’s Foreign Ministry blasted Russia’s politicized 

objections to its participation in a Trans-Caspian 

pipeline (TCP), stating that such a pipeline was an 

objective vital economic interest of Turkmenistan, rebuked Moscow for “distorting the essence and gist of 

Turkmenistan’s energy policy,” and announced that 

discussions with Europe over this pipeline would continue.149 Moscow’s reply came soon. On November 15, 

2011, Valery Yazev, Vice-Speaker of the Russian Duma 

and head of the Russian Gas Society, openly threatened Turkmenistan with the Russian incitement of an 

“Arab Spring” if it did not renounce its “neutrality” 

and independent sovereign foreign policy, including 

its desire to align with Nabucco. Yazev said that: 

Given the instructive experience with UN resolutions 

on Libya and the political consequences of their being 

‘shielded from the air’ by NATO forces, Turkmenistan 

will soon understand that only the principled positions of Russia and China in the UN Security Council 

and its involvement in regional international organizations—such as the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation 

Organization), CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization), Eurasian Economic Union—can protect it 

from similar resolutions.150

In other words, Turkmenistan should surrender 

its neutrality and independent foreign policy and not 

ship gas to Europe; otherwise, Moscow will incite a 
88

revolution there leading to chaos. Other Russian analysts and officials threatened that if Turkmenistan 

adheres to the EU’s planned Southern Corridor for 

energy transshipments to Europe that bypass Russia, 

Moscow would have no choice but to do to Turkmenistan what it did to Georgia in 2008.151

Russian observers fully understand the intrinsically imperial or neo-imperial cognitive foundation of 

this great power mantra. For instance, Alexei Malashenko observed that Russia’s response to the Chechen 

threat in 1999-2000 only made sense if Russia continues to regard itself as an empire.152 Since then, Russian 

political scientist Egor Kholmogorov has observed 

that: 

‘Empire’ is the main category of any strategic political 

analysis in the Russian language. Whenever we start to 

ponder a full-scale, long-term construction of the Russian state, we begin to think of empire and in terms of 

empire. Russians are inherently imperialists.153

If Russia is an empire of this sort or still hankers for 

that empire, then it becomes clear why membership in 

NATO or the EU of former Soviet republics or even 

of Russia’s erstwhile satellites in Eastern Europe becomes a threat to Russian sovereignty and why Russia 

must be an independent sovereign actor, unbounded 

by any other political association and exercising unfettered power in its own domain. Moreover, it is essential for the concept of Derzhavnost’ (i.e., Russia as 

a unique, autocratic, great power) not only that Russia 

assert its great power status but that it be recognized 

as such by other states and thus granted a superior 

status, first of all, vis-à-vis the neighboring CIS countries. Thus in its 1999 official submission to the EU of 

its strategy for relations with that organization, made 
89

by then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the Russian 

government stated that:

As a world power situated on two continents, Russia 

should retain its freedom to determine and implement 

its foreign and domestic policies, its status and advantages of a Euro-Asian state and largest country of the 

CIS. The “development of partnership with the EU 

should contribute to consolidating Russia’s role as the 

leading power in shaping a new system of interstate 

political and economic relations in the CIS area.” and 

thus, Russia would “oppose any attempts to hamper 

economic integration in the CIS [that may be made 

by the EU], including through ‘special relations’ with 

individual CIS member states to the detriment of Russia’s interests.”154

The concurrent and deep-rooted demand for recognition of Russia as a great power with a right to 

an exclusive sphere of influence in the former Soviet 

Union and a global great power status originated with 

Yeltsin at exactly the same time as the drift towards 

autocracy and the end of reforms began, i.e., in 1992-

93. Indeed, these beliefs in Russia’s intrinsic great 

powerness and the demand for a sphere of influence 

in the CIS are linked, for in the minds of many of this 

elite if Russia is not a great power, i.e., a neo-imperial 

empire, it will not only not be a great power, it will be 

anything other than a newly minted version of medieval appendage princedoms. Moreover, as many 

analysts claim, democracy is contraindicated to the 

preservation of the large state, if not the state as such, 

because it will lead to Islamist rule in the south and 

other similar breakdowns of power at the center.155

In a recent publication of a U.S.-Russian dialogue, 

Russian participants made their views clear. 
90

Russian participants in dialogue meetings argued that 

Russia’s principal objective in the former Soviet region 

was to strengthen the country’s security by ensuring 

that governments there remained stable and friendly. 

From Moscow’s perspective, American democracy 

promotion is a direct threat because it disrupts the 

existing political order—introducing instability—and, 

because of Washington’s selectivity and varied standards, appears to be aimed primarily at installing proAmerican governments rather than democratic ones. 

This dynamic drove much of the U.S.-Russian discussion and interaction in Central Asia during the Bush 

Administration.156

However, this perspective only tells part of the story. In fact, as can be seen from Moscow’s response to 

the Arab revolutions of 2011, democracy is the greatest enemy of the state. Since Russia is obviously not 

interested in truly improving the security of former 

Soviet allies or republics, but in dominating them for 

its own unilateral advantage, it is unwilling to give up 

their freedom of action in world politics. As a result, 

Moscow regards democracy as such as a threat and, 

like its Tsarist and Soviet predecessors, has internalized the Leninist threat paradigm that reformers at 

home are paid agents of foreign influence. Therefore, 

as Sergei Ivanov, then Defense Minister and Deputy 

Prime Minister, wrote in 2006, suggesting that the 

main threat to Russia is democracy as such, i.e., a 

democratic revolution in Russia or a neighboring CIS 

state, not an invasion by any foreign regime or terorrists.157 Democracy and revolution, or autonomous 

public political action beyond the limits imposed by 

the state is generally, if not always, the result of a conspiracy from abroad. Thus the media and the government regularly denounce U.S. initiatives to distribute 
91

cellular technology or use the Internet, or the Internet 

itself as part of a conspiracy from abroad, and their 

first response to such crises is (and this is typical of 

all authoritarian regimes), of course, to shut down, or 

at least restrict the use of information and social technologies and networks.158

In keeping with the inherited Soviet and KGB 

mentality and the traditions of projection onto the 

enemy of your own fears and intentions that was so 

prominent in Stalin’s makeup, they regularly assert 

that such revolutions are therefore merely the product 

of external manipulation and subversion, overlooking 

the domestic roots of such upheavals. Thus it is now 

the case in professional Russian military writing that 

the term “color revolution” is now described essentially as a revolution stage-managed from outside by 

external political actors with an interest in the constitution of power in the affected state. The citizens of 

that state are merely passive bystanders or puppets 

of this external manifestation, a clear projection outward of how the Russian government views or wants 

to view its own citizens, and also the threats to it from 

their arousal.159

Similarly President Medvedev could say, with regard to the Arab revolutions of 2011: 

Look at the current situation in the Middle East and 

the Arab world. It is extremely difficult and great problems still lie ahead. In some cases it may even come to 

the disintegration of large, heavily populated states, 

their break-up into smaller fragments. The character 

of these states is far from straightforward. It may come 

to very complex events, including the arrival of fanatics into power. This will mean decades of fires and further spread of extremism. We must face the truth. In 

the past such a scenario was harbored for us, and now 
92

attempts to implement it are even more likely. In any 

case, this plot will not work. But everything that happens there will have a direct impact on our domestic 

situation in the long term, as long as decades.160

Neither is it surprising that Putin et al., continue to 

raise the phobia of Western instigation as a pretext for 

intervention and plots against Russia.161

Therefore a unitary state, led by an autocrat is not 

only a domestic necessity; it also is a foreign policy 

necessity as what a contemporary great power means, 

if not a full-fledged empire. This view dates back to 

the Bolsheviks, if not the Tsars. For example, Stalin in 

1920 wrote about the Soviet borderlands that: 

Only two alternatives confront the border regions: Either they join forces with Russia and then the toiling 

masses of the border regions will be emancipated from 

imperialist oppression; or they join forces with the Entente, and then the yoke of imperialism is inevitable.162

Indeed, Moscow has historically feared reform and 

democracy originating in the borderlands and peripheries of its empire. For example, Ukraine’s historic role 

as a gateway for Western ideas into Russia makes a reformed, democratic, stable, and secure Ukraine enormously important for European security.163 Ukraine 

tied to Russia allows Moscow to restore its imperial 

role and threaten Europe. Contrarily, without empire 

a Russian autocracy is much harder to sustain. Consequently, Russia has no choice but to conjure phony 

threat scenarios, subvert neighboring regimes and European states, and intimidate everyone.

Western power, embodied in these treaties and 

organizations like the OSCE, translates into an often 

resented pressure upon neighboring states to democ-
93

ratize their economic-military-state organizations in 

ways that challenge Russia’s system and imperial pretenses. Those reformed organizations could become 

more effective comparative models for their political, 

economic, and military organization. As we know from 

Tsarist and Soviet times, the demonstration effect of 

trends from Central and Eastern Europe into the former Soviet Union, Russia, and now into Central Asia 

generally generates pressures for modernization that 

corrode existing anti-democratic regimes.164 Similarly 

in Russian foreign policy, anti-reformers triumphed 

with regard to Asian policy so that by 1993 authoritarian China, not democratic Japan, was regarded as 

Moscow’s principal partner in Asia, not least because 

of its anti-reform and anti-American proclivities.165

While many Russian elites view this Western pressure as a conspiracy and threat to Russia’s integrity 

and state, they have no viable answer to this challenge.166 The Paris Peace Treaty of 1990 and the OSCE’s 

1991 Moscow Declaration, foundation documents of 

today’s world order, state that democratic norms and 

their observation by the states parties to those agreements are “matters of direct and legitimate concern to 

all participating States and do not belong exclusively 

to the internal affairs of the state concerned.”167 Thus 

their laws and their legal, military, and political institutions derive their legitimacy from these documents, 

and Russia’s regressive state system duly risks being 

branded as illegitimate, not just ineffectual.168 Those 

treaties are the product of the George H. W. Bush administration that was singularly deficient in the “vision thing.” Yet they provide legal force to the idea 

that domestic sovereignty can be challenged politically by foreign governments and actors, and that states 

have a legitimate right to place other states’ domestic 
94

political conduct under an international microscope 

and even to intervene if necessary to prevent unacceptable domestic conduct.169 

This Derzhavnost’ outlook also clearly influences 

and lies behind recent efforts to generate an ideology 

of “sovereign democracy” for Russia to depict its status and place in the world as a state enjoying a uniquely independent standing unlike most other states. This 

notion of both intrinsic and threatened great power 

status that must therefore be fought for every day 

thus ties together other deeply felt and long-standing 

Russian concepts, the belief in its uniqueness, the supposed refusal to accept the standards and limits placed 

upon other states, and its untrammeled sovereignty, 

pertaining to both that of the autocrat at home and 

of the Russian state abroad. Therefore, Russia must 

be not only an empire but also a wholly freestanding 

actor in world politics. Moreover, by virtue of its assumed status and implicit (if not actual) capabilities, 

Russia, as people like Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov 

say, should be a system-forming power in today’s 

world politics, not just the CIS.170

Policymakers also stated these views and ambitions at the dawn of Putin’s presidency. For as Deputy 

Foreign Minister Ivan Ivanov stated in 1999: 

Our country is not in need of affiliation with the EU. 

This would entail loss of its unique Euro-Asian specifics, the role of the center of attraction of the re-integration of the CIS, independence in foreign economic and 

defense policies, and complete restructuring (once 

more) of all Russian statehood based on the requirements of the European Union. Finally great powers 

(and it is too soon to abandon calling ourselves such) 

do not dissolve in international unions—they create 

them around themselves.171 
95

So while Russian history may have bequeathed a 

heavy imperial legacy, Russian state policy, the current nature of the state, and its resemblance to earlier 

formations to a significant degree represent the result 

of conscious elite decisions to seize power and hold it 

in accordance with Russian traditions, i.e., without recourse to democratic and legal means, even if today’s 

world is utterly transformed from that of the past. 

Those traditions most assuredly include as a key core 

interest of the state the retention of its neo-imperial 

outlook, tendencies, and powers.

That too is not an accidental or arbitrary coincidence with the turn towards autocracy at home and 

neo-imperialism abroad. In the chaos of that time, the 

armed forces usurped foreign policy to carry out interventions in Moldova and Georgia that set the stage for 

a neo-imperial reassertion of Russia and the persisting 

frozen conflicts that have remained unresolved since 

then. Troops occupied the Transdniester, supported 

rebels against Georgia in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, 

and Russia shipped $1 billion of weapons to Armenia 

in its campaign in Nagorno-Karabakh against Azerbaijan. It is no accident that these were the states that 

most defiantly asserted their right not to remain tied 

to Russia. By 1993, Yeltsin was publicly advocating 

this sphere of influence and giving every sign of autocratic power seeking. So it is also hardly a coincidence 

that states in Eastern Europe: Poland, Hungary, and 

the Czech and Slovak Republics, all began to assert 

their interest in joining NATO at this time. While U.S. 

policy was and is hardly irreproachable, it does not 

bear sole, or maybe even primary responsibility for 

the decline in relations with Russia. Russia may like 

to portray itself as the victim (and has habitually done 
96

so) of misguided or treacherous Western policies. But 

objective analysts cannot let Russia off the hook of its 

own responsibility so easily. 

RUSSIAN FOREIGN POLICY AND RUSSIAN 

HISTORY

As we noted, Rieber’s search for persistent challenges to Russian foreign policymakers originated 

in dissatisfaction with the pieties of Russian historiography that this author shares. Few, if any, studies of Russian foreign policy since 1991 have taken 

Russian history before Mikhail Gorbachev’s valiant 

but doomed effort to reform the Soviet Union into 

account.172 Equally disquieting is the fact that far too 

many contemporary discussions of Russian foreign 

policy implicitly assume that foreign policy in Russia 

and the issues confronting Moscow only began with 

Gorbachev. Earlier Sovietological accounts made the 

same mistake, assuming that foreign policy issues only 

began under Brezhnev, Nikita Khrushchev, or Stalin, 

etc. Obviously, this is not the case, and Vladimir Putin 

did not happen upon a foreign policy landscape that 

was only created or fell from the sky in the 1990s.

These accounts often share the same flaws. They 

begin with Gorbachev and forget about the period 

preceding him. Second, virtually every study of postSoviet foreign policy divides Russian foreign policy 

practitioners and analysts in Russia into three camps. 

Whatever title one ascribes to these groups, we usually come down with an approach that finds conservatives, moderates, and liberals whose views are 

most often analyzed without any reference to Russian 

domestic or contemporary international politics, let 

alone Russian history. While foreign policy ideas may 
97

be free floating, they do not originate in the stratosphere and then descend to earth. Rather, they originate as a response to concrete political and economic 

situations. Given the inherent fluidity and dynamism 

of contemporary politics, these situations often seem 

to be new and unexpected to policymakers or unlike 

earlier issues even when there are connections to the 

past. Nonetheless, we, unlike politicians, may draw 

analytical connections to past experiences and issues 

that provide useful insight into a country’s foreign 

policy. 

Those continuities in Russian history include, inter 

alia, 

• The long chronicle of colonization and conquest; Russia’s historic attractiveness to other 

elites in neighboring countries that made up for 

the empire building phase of Russian history 

through 1945, if not 1991 when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) collapsed.

• Russia’s “longevity” as an imperial great power dating back to Peter the Great, if not earlier, 

while other contenders fell out of the competition; the enduring longevity of Russian statesmen’s belief that Russia is or should be seen as 

an empire or great power regardless of the facts 

of the case at any given time.

• The presence of its frontier of weakly consolidated states that offered numerous opportunities for subversion and then annexation and 

incorporation of adding territories, and the 

concentration of political power and hence of 

foreign policymaking in the hands of a small 

group of people clustered around one ruler.173

• Other enduring geopolitical considerations are 

the regime’s abiding awareness that other states 
98

with which Russia must interact are ahead of it 

in economics, democracy, technology cultural 

sophistication as defined by Western canons 

and often military power.

In that connection, we might also cite the longstanding perception by Russian elites that Russia is 

not truly seen by Europe as a fully European and legitimate state either politically or culturally, a stance 

that obliges Russia to fight constantly for recognition 

and to be taken seriously.174 But at the same time, the 

unlimited claims made on behalf of Russia by its leaders and diplomats reflects their perception of dealing with treacherous and often superior foreigners 

by whose standards (and those became standards by 

which Russia wanted to present itself after Peter the 

Great) Russia was increasingly seen as a barbarous, 

illegitimate, and threatening tyranny. Indeed, virtually from the outset of its history as a state, Russia has 

suffered from the European and now possibly global 

perspective that while it commands great power and 

material resources, it is not truly a great power because it remains in some crucial sense an uncivilized, 

rude, and barbarous kingdom that does not accept the 

true European or Western, or global standard of what 

statehood and its responsibilities now means.175 Consequently, much of the history of Russian diplomacy 

from its inception until the present is Russia’s determined and obsessive quest for status as it sees itself, 

and an effort to make others see Russia and accept it 

as the Russian government wants to see itself and be 

seen by others. If it is not so perceived, Russia will 

sulk, seek vengeance, and continue to make trouble 

until it is taken seriously. 
99

This demand for taking Russia seriously lies at 

the heart of the issue in East-West relations because 

Moscow believes and has complained that the West 

as a whole, and particularly America, does not take it 

or its interests sufficiently seriously, i.e., at Moscow’s 

own, but often self-serving, and inflated valuation of 

itself. Putin’s presidential envoy for relations with the 

EU, Sergei Yastrzhembskiy, stated that this was Russia’s main objection to recent developments in world 

politics.176 Similarly, Russia’s Ambassador to America, 

Yuri Ushakov wrote in 2007 that:

What offends us is the view shared by some in Washington that Russia can be used when it is needed and 

discarded or even abused when it is not relevant to 

American objectives. . . . Russians do not need any 

special favors or assistance from the United States, but 

we do require respect in order to build a two-way relationship. And we expect that our political interests 

will be recognized.177

Similarly, in 2007 then Deputy Prime Minister 

Dmitry Medvedev told the annual Davos Conference that while nobody was obliged to love Russia, it 

would demand the respect that it deserves. Later that 

year, he asserted that through its own efforts, Russia 

had returned to the great power status that it deserved 

and would not tolerate being told off like a naughty 

pupil.178 Since then, for example in 2009 and endlessly 

since then, Moscow has repeatedly said:

The further development of our partnership with the 

alliance will depend in a large part on whether NATO 

is prepared to maintain a dialogue on a fair and equal 

basis, with mutual interests and concerns taken into 

account and to build relations with Russia in the security area not as with an opponent but as a partner.179
100

Unfortunately, those terms mean that NATO gives 

Russia a veto on its activities, while Russia has near 

complete freedom of action in its sphere of influence, 

and that its domestic policies, unlike those of the West, 

remain free from any external criticism or rebuke. 

Obviously, neither the United States, nor NATO, nor 

any European state, nor the CIS states can freely accept such an abridgement of its or their independence 

and sovereignty along with the unraveling of the post1991 status quo in Europe. This is where the issue is 

and will be joined for a long time to come. As Sergei 

Markedonov wrote in 2009:

Russia has its regional interests, resources to defend 

them, and a legitimate motivation to protect them. 

Acknowledging these interests could basically make 

the process of “resetting” indeed something meaningful. However, for this NATO (and its main engine), 

the United States need to seriously change their assessments of post-Soviet realities, and Russia needs to 

substantially moderate its global ambitions (especially 

when it is impossible to pay for them).180

But since the reset of the policy of 2009, Europe 

and the United States have indeed moved in the direction specified by Markedonov. But Moscow has not 

done so and, indeed, the nature of its political system 

precludes such movement. Thus, we can behold the 

continuing crisis of bipolarity in Europe and Eurasia.

• Culturally, the abiding and insoluble issue of 

defining a national identity adequate to Russia’s state continues as both intellectuals and 

policymakers cannot make up their minds as 

to whether Russia is a European state, a bridge 

between Europe and Asia, a uniquely Eurasian 

phenomenon, a national state or a multinational empire or both, or all of the above, etc.
101

• Finally, and most consistently, is the long 

struggle by Russian Tsars and subsequent leaders to ensure the continuity of the autocratic 

patrimonial state in its various guises and to 

defend it not only physically but increasingly 

intellectually against Western onslaughts. This 

is a domain where we can most visibly see the 

continuity in historical thinking among the 

elite. This particular task has been a challenge 

at least since Catherine the Great’s time, if not 

since the state’s inception under Ivan III, and 

it continues to this day. The following examples underscore this continuity. The famous 

justification for Tsarist rule was the immaturity, backwardness, etc., of the Russian people, 

and this was summed up in the Russian word 

Popechitel’stvo, (tutelage). But the Bolsheviks 

took it up soon after they seized power. In 1918, 

Bolshevik Commissar of Enlightenment, Anatoly Lunacharsky, justified the Bolshevik dictatorship in words that could have come out of 

the mouth of any Tsarist official after Peter the 

Great. Namely, he said that the masses’ ignorance precluded their self-government whose 

precondition was their own enlightenment.181

Lenin’s whole approach grew out of his conviction that the working class could not of its 

own accord liberate itself. Since that had not 

happened, Soviet power had to rule by what 

Lunacharsky termed “enlightened absolutism.” Because the old intelligentsia opposed 

Bolshevism, Lunacharsky argued that “we, the 

avant-garde, must have the power since we 

represent the correct understanding of the majority’s interest. Power must therefore reside in 

the proletarian dictatorship.”182
102

More recently, Deputy Prime Minister and then 

Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov replied to a question 

about the concept of “Kremlin Inc.,” in the following 

manner. (It should be noted that the elite speak of the 

system as a corporation, so this was not an innocent 

question.)

It’s just a nice phrase, a journalistic turn of phrase. But 

I would say that you need to understand our history, 

our mentality. Russia is a huge country and mentally, 

unfortunately the majority of the population, as before, 

relies on the Tsar. Our civil society is weak. It can’t 

be strong because only 15 years have passed since it 

began to be created. Before then, you’ll agree there 

was not the slightest condition for it to be created. It is 

still very young. Therefore, you can’t see questions of 

concentration of management in Russia only through 

the prism of Anglo-Saxon political culture. Russia will 

never take its model of management completely, 100 

percent from that Anglo-Saxon political elite. Whether 

you like it or not is a different question, but I am telling you how it is.183

In the same interview, Ivanov called democracy a 

bardak, i.e., a particularly slovenly brothel.79 Here Ivanov self-consciously invoked the Russian autocratic 

tradition as justification to prove our point. 

Similarly, Putin and Medvedev have both made it 

clear that they will never let Russia be governed as 

is Ukraine where there is a much greater pluralistic 

or democratic component.184 But this refusal to alter 

the autocratic nature of the state, even if reform from 

the top is contemplated, means that the state is also 

increasingly aware throughout modern times that its 

legitimacy is suspect and that its people’s desire for 

autonomous political self-expression is deeply to be 
103

feared. Furthermore, its rhetoric of being a besieged 

fortress and the enduring argument that reformers at 

home are enemies linked with Western governments 

and intelligence agencies ensures the continuation of 

the Leninist threat paradigm linking both sets of enemies together and freezing the regime in an a priori

hostility towards the West. Neither is it surprising 

that Putin et al., continue to raise the phobia of Western instigation as a pretext for intervention and plots 

against Russia.185 Cynics may say this is just for domestic consumption, but it clearly reflects leaders’ 

anxieties while simultaneously creating a corresponding domestic demand for autocratic and strongman 

rule.

The flip side of this defense against democracy 

is the postulation of Russian statehood in terms that 

clearly evoke conservative and Slavophile (if not still 

more reactionary) platitudes developed since the 17th 

century, if not even earlier. For Dmitri Trenin, Russia is “authoritarianism with the consent of the governed,” i.e., an exact restatement of a Slavophile ideal 

that itself looks backward to the medieval Zemsky 

Sobor (Council of the Land).186 The renowned movie 

director, Nikita Mikhalkov, has praised the “conservatism” of Russian culture and the Russian mind that 

unites “ecclesiastic, monarchist, Soviet, and liberal 

ideologies.” Democracy is contrary to Russian tradition and incompatible with Russia’s size, therefore the 

current regime is indispensable.187 These ideas are no 

more original than is Trenin’s description of the state 

though Trenin is much more accurate. The examples 

of this invocation of a mystical Russian history to justify the regime are omnipresent.

Chairman of the State Duma Boris Gryzlov professes that “autocratic people power” (Samoderzhvnoye 
104

Narodovlastiye) is the same thing as sovereign democracy and is uniquely indigenous and historically characteristic of Russia. By making this proclamation, Gryzlov also consciously invokes the history of the idea 

of the Zemsky Sobor, and the Slavophile notion of 

Sobornost’ (“conciliarity”) in order to justify a picture 

that looks remarkably like an expanded version of the 

medieval Boyar Duma, namely the Prince and his retinue of nobles, as the rulers of Russia. Thus history and 

the use of history as justifications for power at home 

and abroad continue to shape Russian foreign policy. 

Indeed, Gryzlov, like innumerable publicists before him in Russian history, argues that Russian democracy (much to most observers’ amazement) is 

characterized by collaboration and harmony between 

the executive and legislative powers.188 This kind of 

reasoning implicitly rejects the need to have a separation of powers and is a hallmark of Russian autocracy 

and political thought. Given the near total emasculation of the legislature in today’s Russia; such reasoning strikes us as Orwellian, if not preposterous. But 

undoubtedly it expresses the thinking and cynicism 

of Russian leaders. Medvedev, in his 2008 campaign, 

expressly stated the presidential system represents 

the Russian historical tradition, and with any other 

system Russia would fall apart.189 This idea, that without autocracy Russia would fall apart and count for 

nothing in world politics, dates back at least to the 

18th century, if not earlier, and is a cornerstone of Russian conservative thinking, to the suppression of all 

thought of reform.190

As Ivanov’s interview showed, Russians, especially the current elite, insist on Russia’s specificity, most 

particularly with regard to the nature of the political 

order and regime, whereas Westerners continue to 
105

insist on seeing it in terms of the categories of Western political thought.191 Indeed, official commentaries 

invoke the nature of Russian history as proof of this 

uniqueness and thus of the justification of the present order.192 A recent speech by President Medvedev 

makes clear the deliberately politicized and mythologized history of the state that the Kremlin today (tomorrow, as we know, it may change) wants to present. Unfortunately, little or none of it is true. Thus 

Medvedev said that: 

Russian statehood initially developed on a multiethnic basis and did not follow a path of division, but 

rather, a path of unification. And that is the only reason why today we have such a unique nation. Even 

then, fragmentation was seen as a factor of weakness, 

and in the process of creating the nation, there were 

no significant barriers to cultural and religious diversity, which, again, allowed for the creation of such a 

unique state as the Russian Empire, and subsequently, 

the Russian Federation. I feel that this is one of the truly serious, genuinely fundamental lessons in history. 

Moreover, consolidation into one state also promoted 

the emergence of common values. These common 

values served as the foundation for developing new 

norms of social life and common rules of behavior, 

as well as the development of relations with European and subsequently Asian nations. And, of course, 

people adopted the leading examples of culture and 

modern ideas of the time. There is another fact that 

has to do with the law, which is of particular interest to me as a member of the legal community. We 

have discussed it with historians. Initially, Russia was 

formed as a law-governed state, that is, as a state with 

its own rules of conduct that in modern terms we refer 

to as laws. These rules of conduct regulated relationships between people, maintained public order, and, 

therefore, sustained a certain lifestyle and values. This 
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idea of a law-governed Russian state at that time was 

part of the general idea of justice: the government is 

needed so that the state can develop and people will 

live better, and so the government should take into account both the interests of ordinary people and their 

traditions, the traditions of different peoples who live 

together in a large country.193

Indeed, Medvedev explicitly stated that the reason 

for propounding this theory are explicitly political, 

i.e., justifying his political project, and nationalistic in 

terms of the state. Thus: 

Why do I say this? Because there are all kinds of negativist notions, denying the legal nature of the Russian 

state, showing a lack of respect for our legal traditions, 

the sense that we are inferior in some way up to the 

point that statehood came to Russia from somewhere 

in Western Europe, whereas we were not able to come 

up with it ourselves. We all realize that this is completely wrong, of course, but at the same time it is 

very damaging. That’s why I think that the discussion 

about the legal nature of the Russian state also has value in itself. If it is a law-governed state, fundamentally 

based on the law, even with all its defects, then such a 

state can develop along the democratic path, which is 

our goal today. Otherwise, the conclusion would have 

to be different, and that would set us back 100 years.194

Thus Medvedev’s speech, like innumerable citations from leaders before him, once again invokes the 

centuries-old tradition of the state determining for political purposes what Russian history is, and second, 

defending that history as a purely autochthonic process in ways calculated to belittle foreign influence on 

Russia’s development and appeal to Russia’s unique 

state nationalism. This official mythmaking appeals 

to deeply rooted and obviously cherished concepts of 
107

Russian culture even if they have little grounding in 

the actual historical truth. If we may paraphrase the 

cynical view expressed at the conclusion of the film, 

“The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” when the truth 

contradicts the legend, “Print the legend.” 

Furthermore, since its birth as a state during the 

reign of Ivan III or Ivan the Great, 1462-1505, Russia 

and its leaders have continually stressed the uniqueness and special, even sacred character of Russia 

that distinguishes it from all other governments or 

states. As Ivanov demonstrated, this perspective still 

dominates the ruling class. Indeed, as Russian commentators know this hostility towards the West and 

democracy is almost obsessive. For example, Vladimir 

Shlapentokh has shown that an essential component 

of the Kremlin’s ideological campaign to maintain the 

Putin regime in power and extend it past the elections 

of 2008 is anti-Americanism. Thus: 

The core of the Kremlin’s ideological strategy is to 

convince the public that any revolution in Russia will 

be sponsored by the United States. Putin is presented 

as a bulwark of Russian patriotism, as the single leader able to confront America’s intervention in Russian 

domestic life and protect what is left of the imperial 

heritage. This propaganda is addressed mostly to the 

elites (particularly elites in the military and FSB) who 

sizzle with hatred and envy of America.195

Similarly Russia has accepted a threat perception, 

for which ultimately there is no solution for as the 

Russian philosopher Sergei Gavrov writes:

The threats are utopian, the probability of their implementation is negligible, but their emergence is a sign. 
108

This sign—a message to “the city and the world”—

surely lends itself to decoding and interpretation: we 

will defend from Western claims our ancient right to 

use our imperial (authoritarian and totalitarian) domestic socio-cultural traditions within which power 

does not exist to serve people but people exist to serve 

power.196

These are not isolated views either. Russian journalist Leonid Radzikhovsky has said, “The existential void of our politics has been filled entirely by 

anti-Americanism” and that to renounce this rhetoric 

“would be tantamount to destroying the foundations 

of the state ideology.”197 Similarly, Fedor Lukyanov, 

Editor of Russia in Global Affairs, writes that: 

The mentality of Russian politics is such that relations 

with the United States remain at the center of universal 

attention and virtually any problems are seen though 

an American prism. This is partially a reflection of 

inertia of thinking which is finding it hard to break 

with perceptions of Cold War times. It is partially a 

demonstration of a hidden desire to have a sense of 

our own significance. There is still a desire to compare 

ourselves specifically with the only superpower.198

Lukyanov also notes that both the United States 

and Russia see the other as being a power in decline.199 At least one Russian writer boasts that Russia 

bears primary responsibility for frustrating American unilateralism by shaping blocking coalitions that 

restrained and ultimately foiled U.S. designs.200 This 

kind of thinking would conform to the contention by 

Kari Roberts, a Canadian scholar, that, “It appears as 

though the common themes in Russian foreign policymaking continue to be how Russia views itself visà-vis the United States and its pragmatic approach to 
109

identifying and tackling foreign policy problems.”201

For example, there is good reason to see Russia’s Iranian policy as being closely tied to its perceptions of 

U.S. policies.

For an understanding of security policy, we must 

emphasize that the intrinsic nature of this autocratic 

service state condemns it to constant suspicion of all its 

neighbors and to their equal distrust of Russian objectives. This state’s abiding sense of insecurity is, first of 

all, domestic. Its leaders’ habitual resort to fraud, corruption, and electoral manipulation, if not to violence, 

against critics, bespeaks its leaders’ inner awareness 

of the fragility of their rule, the short-term time horizons of the elite that never knows when everything 

might be taken away from them, and the illegitimacy 

of their power. The determination to preserve the autocratic matrix intact as far as possible sets the stage 

for a state in permanent crisis against its own people 

because of the ever-present danger of revolution. The 

vast armies and police forces (multiple incarnations of 

each as well) that typified Tsarist and Soviet rule still 

characterize contemporary Russia, and it is increasingly clear that they are deployed to prevent the public from asserting its civic, human, and political rights, 

thereby creating the ever-present potential for a civil 

war with inherently international implications.

There is ample evidence that both these dangers 

of unrest or of heightened forcible repression are 

growing, along with the authorities’ perception of the 

manifestation of popular unrest due to the current 

economic crisis.202 Already in 2005-06, the Ministry of 

Defense (MOD) formed Special Designation Forces 

from Spetsnaz brigades under the Minister’s direct 

control. They have air, marine, and ground components and conduct peace support and counterterrorist 
110

operations.203 Since the minister answers only to the 

president, essentially this also means putting all Russia under threat of counterterrorist or other so called 

operations without any Parliamentary accountability 

or scrutiny.

Since then, matters have, if anything, grown worse. 

An April 2009 report outlined quite clearly the threat 

perceived by the authorities. Specifically, it stated that:

The Russian intelligence community is seriously worried about latent social processes capable of leading 

to the beginning of civil wars and conflicts on RF territory that can end up in a disruption of territorial integrity and the appearance of a large number of new 

sovereign powers. Data of an information “leak,” the 

statistics and massive number of antigovernment actions, and official statements and appeals of the opposition attest to this.204

This report proceeded to say that these agencies 

expected massive protests in the Moscow area, industrial areas of the South Urals and Western Siberia and 

in the Far East while ethnic tension among the Muslims of the North Caucasus and Volga-Ural areas is 

also not excluded. The author also invoked the specter 

of enraged former Army officers and soldiers who are 

now being demobilized because of the reforms that 

should dramatically reduce the armed forces might 

also take to the streets with their weapons. But while 

this unrest threatened, the government is characteristically resorting to strong-arm methods to meet this 

threat. In other words, it is repeating past regimes 

(not the least Yeltsin’s) in strengthening the Internal 

Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (VVMVD) 

and now other paramilitary forces as well.205

More soberly, this report, along with other articles, 

outlines the ways in which the internal armed forces 
111

are being strengthened. Special intelligence and commando subunits to conduct preventive elimination 

of opposition leaders are being established in the 

VVMVD. These forces are also receiving new models 

of weapons and equipment, armored, artillery, naval, 

and air defense systems. In 2008, 5.5 Billion rubles was 

allocated for these forces’ modernization. Apart from 

the already permitted “corporate forces” of Gazprom 

and Transneft that monitor pipeline safety, the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) is also now discussing an 

Olimpstroi (Olympics Construction) Army, and even 

the Fisheries inspectorate is going to create a special 

armed subunit called Piranha.206

Since then, even more information about the extent of the domestic reconstruction of the MVD into a 

force intended to suppress any manifestation of dissent have emerged. As of 2003, there were 98 specialpurpose police detachments (OMONs) in Russia. By 

comparison, in 1988 during the crisis of the regime 

and its elites under Gorbachev, 19 OMONs were created in 14 Russian regions and three union republics. 

By 2007, there were already 121 OMON units comprising 20,000 men operating in Russia. Moreover, by 

2007 there were another 87 police special designation 

detachments (OMSNs) with permanent staffing of 

over 5,200 people operating with the internal affairs 

organs, making a grand total of 208 special purpose or 

designated units with 25,000 well-trained and drilled 

soldiers. The OMSNs have grown from an anti-crime 

and anti-terrorist force to a force charged with stopping extremist criminal activity. All these units train 

together and have been centralized within the MVD 

to fight organized crime, terrorism, and extremism. 

From 2005 to 2006, the financing of these units was 

almost doubled. By 2009, they were also working with 
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aircraft assets, specifically the MVD’s own Aviation 

Center with nine special purpose air detachments 

throughout Russia. Seven more such units are to be 

created. 

Furthermore, the MVD has developed a concept 

for rapidly airlifting these forces to troubled areas 

from other regions when necessary. These forces are 

also receiving large-scale deliveries of new armored 

vehicles with computers in some cases and command, 

control, communications (C3) capabilities. Since these 

are forces apart from the regular VVMVD, “On a parallel basis with the OMON empire, a multi-level internal security troop machine is being developed with 

its own special forces, aircraft, armored equipment, 

situational-crisis centers, and so forth.”207 When one 

considers this huge expansion of the domestic Silovye 

Struktury, it becomes clear why already in 2008 Russia 

announced that it would increase funding for the Ministry of Interior by 50 percent in 2010, and where the 

government’s estimation of the true threat to Russian 

security lies.208

The striking continuity of elite thinking and policy 

over several centuries should not come as a surprise to 

students of Russia. But what it does show, beyond the 

continuing relevance of Russian history, is the degree 

of elite consensus that had been attained by the time 

Putin came to power. Beyond that, Ivanov’s remarks 

show just how much the elite invokes Russian history 

as a justification for its rule and how much it insists 

upon Russia’s specificity (spetsifichnost’) as part of 

that justification. Indeed, such invocations are themselves long-standing phenomena of Russian history. 

Unfortunately, as shown above, today’s state is very 

much a product of and bears a strong resemblance to 

what preceded it. Yet, precisely because these issues 
113

never have been and probably cannot be conclusively 

resolved, they continue to haunt the minds of policymakers, analysts, and foreign observers of Russian 

foreign policy.

Second, as Ivanov’s words above indicate, the 

leaders’ sense of constant insecurity is a permanent 

feature of its foreign policy. This is not just the identification of democracy as the enemy or of the linkage 

between domestic reformers and external powers. It 

also relates to the struggle over the borderlands as reflected in Stalin’s statement above and the consistent 

policy aiming to subvert the new states’ sovereignty. 

Russia’s contemporary leadership, like the Bolsheviks, 

sees itself in a state of siege with both democracy and 

other great powers. How else can we explain the vast 

increase in Russian intelligence operations against the 

United States, its allies, and Russia’s neighbors under 

Putin?

The continuation of geopolitical conflict, much to 

the chagrin of many U.S. intellectuals who think it 

should have ended with the end of the Cold War, is not 

the same thing as the Cold War. In any case, according to prominent and well-connected Russian experts 

like Sergei Karaganov, the Cold War never ended and 

still goes on. Karaganov, director of the semi-official 

Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, wrote in the 

Jordan Times in 2009 that not only had the Cold War 

not ended, it never really finished.

NATO, moreover, not only enlarged its membership, 

but also transformed itself from an anti-communist 

defensive alliance into an offensive grouping (with 

operations in Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan). NATO’s expansion towards Russia’s own borders, and 

the membership of countries whose elites have historical complexes in regard to Russia, increased anti-
114

Russian sentiment inside the alliance. For all its efforts 

to improve its image, many Russians now view NATO 

as a much more hostile organization than they did in 

the 1990s, or even before then. Moreover, NATO enlargement has meant that Europe itself has still not 

emerged from the cold war. No peace treaty ended the 

cold war, so it remains unfinished. Even though the 

ideological and military confrontation of those times is 

far behind us, it is being replaced with a new standoff 

- between Russia, on one hand, and the U.S. and some 

of the “New Europeans” on the other. My hope is that, 

when historians look back at Georgia’s attack on South 

Ossetia of last summer, the Ossetians, Russians, and 

Georgians killed in that war will be seen as having not 

died in vain. Russian troops crushed Georgia’s army 

on the ground, but they also delivered a strong blow 

against the logic of further NATO expansion, which, 

if not stopped, would have inevitably incited a major 

war in the heart of Europe.209

Lest we think that the U.S. reset policy towards 

Russia has altered this point of view, we should consider the following evidence. Dmitri Trenin recently 

wrote that: 

The opinion that has predominated in our country 

to this day that the ‘reset’ is above all Washington’s 

apology for the mistakes of the earlier Bush Administration and their rectification certainly does not correspond to the idea of the current team in the White 

House. For example, in our country the concept of the 

‘reset’ is understood as almost the willingness in current conditions to accept the Russian point of view of 

the situation in the Near Abroad, which essentially is 

wishful thinking.210

Similarly, Russia’s Ambassador to NATO, Dmitri 

Rogozin, said in March 2009, “any new relationship 

with NATO would be on Moscow’s terms.”211
115

THE QUEST FOR SECURITY

Precisely because of this backwardness of the state, 

society, and economy and this uncertainty as to whether Russia belongs to some specific community of states 

and has the means to participate in its international 

interactions, it has been a constant effort for Russia to 

import the resources necessary for effective political 

competition from the very states that it regards as rivals, if not enemies. The need for foreign investment 

in multiple forms, not just economic or technological 

investment, has been an enduring feature of Russian 

history since Ivan III until today. Russia’s rulers have 

long understood Russia’s backwardness vis-à-vis 

its competitors in the West and more recently in the 

East, even when they rebelled against it and extolled 

Russia’s greatness and Samobytnost’ (its uniqueness) 

and had to find a way to maintain that competition 

without sacrificing what its rulers believed the be the 

basis of the state, i.e., its autocratic and imperial nature. That is still the case today. According to Trenin, 

modernization means “Russia using its resources to 

buy assets in Europe, and Europe supplying Russia 

with technology.” This shows just how deep Europe’s 

wishful thinking is.212 This is not unlike what Russia’s 

position was in the 1920s and what the New Economic 

Policy (NEP) was all about in foreign policy.213 It also 

shows that the core of Russian foreign policy is not 

about identity but about the acquisition of tangible resources and material power at home and abroad.

For all these reasons, Rieber duly identified four 

persistent conditions that are neither immutable nor 

impersonal but which Russian rulers have invariably 
116

confronted through modern history. Their dimensions 

are subject to change and obviously much depends 

upon individual rulers, as well as specific conditions 

of each time and place. But their fundamental attributes persist over time. 

These conditions are: relative economic backwardness compared to Western Europe and then America 

and Japan, a challenge that may now come to include 

China; permeable frontiers all along the peripheries 

of state power and thus perennial vulnerability either 

to physical attack or to cultural-political and ideological trends deemed to be inimical to the security of the 

state and its ruling order; a multicultural (one could 

refine this to say multiconfessional and multiethnic) 

state and society composed of ethno-territorial blocs, 

frequently located at these vulnerable borderlands; 

and a persistent sense of cultural marginality relative to its interlocutors.214 This last point would also 

include the ongoing Russian sense of being ideologically excluded or subjected to what Moscow likes to 

call double standards by other powers due to the nature of its political arrangements and policies.215

In this context, however, it might be beneficial 

and of utility to introduce and add a fifth persistent 

problem that has confronted Russian rulers at least 

since Ivan the Terrible’s times. Indeed, that fifth issue 

lies at the core of today’s foreign policy because of its 

continuity and because of the universal recognition 

that it is both state capacity and economic capability 

that allows a state to play a great role in world affairs. 

That question is the constant need to adapt and even 

reform the state structure to the exigencies of international competition. Such competition includes not just 

war, but both domestic and increasingly global economic, cultural, and technological development. Un-
117

doubtedly one of the persistent problems of modern 

Russian history has been the challenge of building, organizing, and running a state that could cope with the 

great power challenges of the last 5 centuries whether 

they are economic, political, cultural, or military. 

Although this challenge relates to Rieber’s point 

about a backward economic and social structure, it 

also stands in its own right if one takes into account 

the ceaseless activity of Russian rulers since Ivan the 

Terrible to rebuild the governing state structure to facilitate more effective governance, usable military capability, and economic development. Indeed, Putin’s 

fundamental drive throughout his tenure as president 

has been the interlinked drive of reviving the economy 

and restoring the authority and power of the state. For 

Putin and Medvedev, foreign policy’s first priority is 

to serve the cause of not just keeping Russia out of war 

and crisis, but of providing the conditions by which its 

economy and state may be reconstructed.216 Thus, for 

Putin, foreign policy has been very much an exercise 

in stabilizing the external arena so that he can proceed 

undisturbed with those tasks of economic and governmental revival. In other words, foreign policy has 

not only been external diplomacy but also a domestic 

power resource, one increasingly driven by the need 

to justify and defend a particular political-economic 

order at home.

This continuing obsession with reorganizing the 

structure of government can reach almost epic dimensions, as was the case with Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev, who constantly reorganized the state, or in 

Lenin’s and Yeltsin’s case, first shattered the state they 

inherited and then rebuilt a new one. But in all these 

cases, the state building project was decisively shaped 

by the exigencies of war and/or international rela-
118

tions. That holds true today, for Medvedev’s struggle 

for economic and political modernization is based on 

his understanding of the rigors of international competition for which Russia is quite poorly organized. 

The Soviet regime was, after all, a state built to wage 

class war at home and abroad in an era of total war 

and often invoked foreign threats or conditions to 

justify large-scale transformations of the state and 

of society, e.g., collectivization, the purges, and later 

on Perestroika. Yeltsin and Putin’s efforts to reform 

state structures, though very different and adapted to 

different needs are not different in quality. Yeltsin’s 

consuming interest in ensuring his power by gaining 

Western recognition and acceptance certainly explains 

much of his foreign policy, which relied upon Western 

support in both tangible (monetary) and intangible 

ways in order to silence domestic critics. For him, 

too, foreign policy was ultimately a domestic power 

resource. But there is no doubt that one of the major 

drives of Putin’s foreign policy is the demand that the 

West treat Russia as a great power and show it greater 

respect than has previously been the case.

Finally, we must understand that when Russian 

rulers have confronted and will confront these persisting problems in the future, these issues do not come 

to policymakers’ attention as discrete single issues or 

in the form that Rieber or this author describe them. 

Political issues never come neatly packaged. Rather, 

all these problems are bound up with contemporary 

issues in dynamic and interlinked, often unexpected 

ways. Indeed, they often may come to policymakers’ attention in unpredictable combinations. Thus 

the quest for an effective state mechanism is and has 

continually been bound up with the perception that 

Russia remains behind its competitors or those against 
119

whom it constantly measures itself in many, if not all, 

of the dimensions listed above. Therefore, reform of 

the state often has been comprehensive in nature in 

an attempt to address many, if not all, of the sources 

or manifestations of this backwardness, whether it is 

in culture or military power. At the same time, many 

of these reforms have been driven by the exigencies 

of maintaining an increasingly restive multiethnic and 

multicultural empire. This drive continues despite the 

truncation of the empire in 1991 with the Soviet collapse.

The ongoing and at best only partially successful 

efforts to stabilize the North Caucasus, Russia’s most 

disturbed Muslim frontier, testify to this ongoing 

continuity. That the linked security threats of terrorism and of Islamism arose in this border area clearly 

owes much to the failures of the state administration 

to function well in governing these areas. But if these 

areas were destabilized, Putin and other high officials 

have strongly argued that the integrity of the Russian 

state as a whole would be at risk.217 Thus the need for 

comprehensive reconstruction of the state administration in a multiethnic and multiconfessional area vulnerable to ethnic or religious appeals from abroad is 

very much a priority issue in Russia’s overall security 

policy. 

But the continuing failures of the state to function 

effectively are also tied to the issue of Russia’s sense 

of cultural marginality, for example the “accursed 

question” of whether Russia is a European, Eurasian, 

or Asian power or some combination of all or most 

of these phenomena. Despite the undoubted activity 

and interest of the Putin regime in enhancing Russia’s 

Asian position and occasional statements to the effect that Russia is a Eurasian state, policymakers still 
120

are torn over these issues. Putin, who personally has 

often cited his own European inclinations, has also 

given the impression that Asia is something of an afterthought in Russian foreign policy, while his first 

Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, explicitly embraced the 

idea of Russia as a bridge from Europe to Asia. Analysts such as Alexander Lukin castigate the regime 

for regarding China and Asia in wholly instrumental 

terms as a card to be played to get the West’s attention and for thus neglecting Asia. Meanwhile, a close 

examination of the actual policy demonstrates that 

the executive agents who are to conduct that policy 

in Asia are continually at odds with each other, thus 

undermining the entire foundation of Russia’s Asian 

policy.218 So once again, the debilities of the state as an 

effective executor of policy reinforce both geopolitical 

weakness and also the deep-rooted angst over where 

Russia belongs.

Thus all the five persistent questions are present 

throughout Russian history until now while the issues 

tied to them interact continuously and throughout 

Russian history, highlighting the critical importance 

of the domestic instrument of the state’s effectiveness 

in Russian foreign policy. An effective state and military is inconceivable without some way of overcoming economic, technological, and cultural backwardness. But, to be sure, the reverse equation also holds, 

namely that the precondition for overcoming backwardness is an effective state, military, etc. Likewise, 

the opportunities for expansion due to the presence 

of divided weak states on the frontier also entail the 

permeability of Russia’s frontiers to both military and 

ideational threats. From the regime’s standpoint this 

vulnerability to both geopolitical and ideological-cultural penetration is particularly urgent when peoples 
121

of another ethnicity, religion, or culture largely inhabit 

the borders that are at risk. 

Neither do these linkages end here. Instead and in 

fact, they only begin here. The realization of Russia’s 

vulnerability as a multiconfessional and multiethnic 

empire with restless borderlands vis-à-vis constant 

but disparate military and political, ideological, or 

economic threats also relates to the abiding sense of 

cultural marginality postulated by Rieber. The many 

complaints about Western double standards apply as 

much to the unilateral use of force by America as they 

do to the attacks on Russia’s democracy deficit. Those 

attacks underscore the continuing feeling in Moscow 

of Russia’s cultural marginality as seen from the West, 

as do the compensatory statements that Russia will 

never be part of the West whether such statements are 

uttered in despair or defiance. They are uttered because, as Putin has said in the past, Russia measures 

itself as a European state and hence by European standards, even if it violates them regularly.

Similarly, the threat of the state’s collapse and of 

its inability to play the role of a great power urgently 

confronted Putin, by his own admission, when he 

came to power.219 Indeed, he has frequently reiterated 

his belief, beginning in November 1999, in the domino 

theory that if Chechnya fell, whole provinces would 

continue to fall, threatening the integrity of the Russian state.220 These statements clearly unite in a single 

policy conundrum the threat to the state posed by its 

ineffectiveness as military and political actor vis-àvis an insurgency in these restless borderlands. The 

viability of the Russian state clearly was an issue of 

the utmost topicality for Putin upon coming to power 

because he then discerned quite coldly the crisis of the 

state, which convinced him that Russia was confront-
122

ing the real threat of dismemberment and disappearance as a great power.221 Thus he devoted himself from 

the outset to both the restoration of the state and of 

Russia as a great power that could ward off the many 

international challenges that he perceived it faced.222

But state reform is not just an effort to stabilize domestic structures against diverse threats occurring in 

the borderlands. As often as not, it represents an effort 

to defend Russia’s regime against foreign charges of 

misrule that then repose among disaffected minorities 

or elites at home. Frequently these defenses must be 

couched in terms of Western values for this justification to be credible at home and abroad. Indeed, both 

in the Soviet Union and today under Putin, Russian 

leaders and spokesmen are constantly at pains to 

argue that their system represents democracy even 

though their regime is anything but democratic. 

However, such an invocation of foreign values 

itself testifies to the fact of cultural backwardness 

and marginality in Rieber’s terms. This lagging behind is clearly tied to the problems arising from both 

Russia’s cultural marginality and the unreliability 

of the peripheries when they come in contract with 

neighboring states. Thus, historically these perceptions of backwardness, of cultural marginality, or of 

the borderlands’ inquietude have generally not been 

perceived in isolation from each other. Indeed, they 

are frequently perceived as a conjoined threat to the 

stability and integrity of the regime, e.g., Stalin’s massive purges among ethnic minorities in the 1930s and 

1940s. The quest for an effective governing mechanism 

is thus naturally bound up with Russia’s many efforts 

to overcome its economic, technological, and cultural 

backwardness and the restiveness of its minorities in 

the borderlands. Similarly, the endless obsession with 
123

developing a governing structure that can compete 

with other powers has consistently been bound up 

with the perception that Russia is in a constant, rigorous, international competition with its interlocutors, 

imparting the drive of an a priori perception of multiple 

hostile enemies to the overall state building project. 

This sense that unnamed foreign enemies are always 

“out there” supporting efforts to weaken, undermine, 

suppress, and even divide Russia has become a leading trope of elite rhetoric in the last few years.223

RUSSIA’S PERSISTING THREAT PERCEPTION

What this means is that despite Russian leaders’ 

efforts to depict their state as a strong, mighty, and 

united monolith or foreign policy actor, in fact they 

are constantly haunted by a sense of its weakness and 

fragility. Once again, observers have long taken note 

of this duality of stridency and insecurity. Heinrich 

Vogel alluded to “the typical petrostate combination 

of presumed omnipotence and yet political insecurity 

of the leadership.”224 Similarly, Boris Tumanov has 

written that Russians “simultaneously believe themselves to be the greatest and most oppressed nation on 

the earth.”225 It is not uncommon for such contradictory emotions to reside in an individual or in a political elite. One way to dispel the fear of marginalization 

is to insist ever more on Russia’s strength and abiding 

status as a great power (Velikaya Derzhava). This linkage of the quest for building a competitive economy 

and state with foreign threats and this perception of 

inherent weakness beneath the protestations of great 

power is most famously expressed in Stalin’s 1931 

speech that imperial Russia was beaten by everyone 

for over 100 years because it was backward. But it is no 
124

less of a shaping force in Putin’s Russia, especially as 

Putin has increasingly turned to accusing the West of 

trying to undermine, weaken, exploit, and even break 

up Russia. Increasingly, Putin’s Russia is characterized by the belief that despite the Western perception 

of a relatively benign threat environment, Russia actually faces mounting and linked threats from within 

and without. Moreover, at the same time, the West, 

i.e., primarily America, refuses to take Russia, its interests and objectives seriously and refuses to grant 

Russia its rightful place as a world power in directing 

world politics. Even though nobody foresees an attack 

on Russia or a NATO offensive anytime soon, leading 

members of the government and armed forces firmly 

believe that Russia is under siege from both the terroristic threat and from the allegedly conjoined threat of 

ideological subversion as manifested in the Georgian, 

Ukrainian, and Kyrgyz revolutions of 2003-05, NATO 

enlargement, supposed foreign support for Chechen 

leaders, and now the Arab spring and Western designs upon Libya and Syria.226 

Therefore they charge that the “enemy is at the 

gates,” that opponents of the Chechen war and proponents of reform constitute “a fifth column,” and that 

unless the elite is totally united behind Putin, the state 

could disintegrate quite easily.227 In keeping with the 

inherited Soviet and KGB mentality and the traditions 

of projection onto the enemy of your own fears and 

intentions that was so prominent in Stalin’s makeup, 

they regularly assert that such revolutions are merely 

the product of external manipulation and subversion, 

overlooking the domestic roots of such upheavals.

In other words, and confirming Sorokin’s fears 

above, as a fundamental element of its state building 

process, or more accurately regime formation, the cur-
125

rent elite is apparently reviving the Leninist notion 

of a state challenged from within and without and 

where the external and internal enemy are essentially 

one and the same. As happened under Lenin and Stalin, this is basically a call for a perpetual civil war at 

home or at least a paternalistic state ruling ultimately 

by force, not to mention a state of siege abroad. Under 

such circumstances, the almost ritualistic invocation 

of Russia as a great power and of its revived power 

in world affairs appears almost as a fetish brandished 

like a medieval talisman to ward off both real and 

imaginary apparitions. Consider, for example, the 

listing of the threats to Russia given by Chief of Staff 

General Yuri Baluyevsky to a January, 2007 conference 

of the Academy of Military Sciences on the need for a 

new defense doctrine. According to Baluyevsky’s selfstyled comprehensive assessment, the military threats 

facing Russia are:

The U.S. military-political leadership’s course to 

preserve its world leadership, and to expand its economic, political, and military presence in regions under Russia’s traditional influence; implementation of 

NATO’s expansion plans; introduction into Western 

practices of military strong-arm actions in circumvention of the generally recognized principles and norms 

of international law; the existing and potential seats 

of local wars and armed conflicts, primarily in the 

direct vicinity of the Russian borders; a possibility of 

strategic subversion resulting from violations of international arms limitation and reduction agreements or 

qualitative and quantitative arms build-ups by other 

countries; proliferation of nuclear and other types of 

mass destruction weapons, their delivery vehicles and 

advanced military production technologies in combination with attempts by separate countries, organizations, or terrorist groups to implement their military 
126

and political aspirations; other states’ territorial claims 

to the Russian Federation and its allies; the fight for 

access to energy resources; international terrorism; 

unlawful activities by nationalist, separatist, and other 

organizations directed at destabilizing the internal 

situation in the Russian Federation; hostile information actions in regard to the Russian Federation and 

its allies.228

These are only the specific military threats, even 

if their definition is rather broad. Indeed, General M. 

A. Gareyev (Ret.), the Head of the Academy, echoed 

Baluyevsky’s depiction of the elements of the threats 

facing Russia, albeit in a somewhat different order. 

Gareyev stressed that these threats, the breakup of 

the USSR and of Yugoslavia, color revolutions in the 

CIS in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, etc., show 

that “principal threats exist objectively, assuming not 

so much military forms as direct or indirect forms of 

political, diplomatic, economic, and informational 

pressure.” Moreover, these threats are continuing (obviously from the West) and therefore the state‘s new 

military doctrine, and indeed its overall national security policy, of which foreign policy is a critical part, 

must consider military and nonmilitary threats in 

their organic unity.229

A state whose leaders perceive it to be so comprehensively threatened can hardly account itself 

a strong or secure state or think of world politics as 

anything other than a jungle. Hence it is fair to say 

that Russia under Putin has come to approach world 

politics on the basis of what the German philosopher 

Carl Schmitt called the presupposition of enemies and 

of conflict.230 Certainly, there can be no doubt that this 

is the government’s threat perception as well, despite 

undoubted economic success since 2000. For example, 
127

Putin told the G-8 press corps in June 2007 that Russia and the West were returning to the Cold War and 

added that: 

Of course we will return to those times. And it is clear 

that if part of the United States’ nuclear capability is 

situated in Europe and that our military experts consider that they represent a potential threat then we 

will have to take appropriate retaliatory steps. What 

steps? Of course we must have new targets in Europe. 

And determining precisely which means will be used 

to destroy the installations that our experts believe 

represent a potential threat for the Russian Federation 

is a matter of technology. Ballistic or cruise missiles or 

a completely new system. I repeat that it is a matter of 

technology.231

In other words, if the military says it is a threat, it 

is one. Not only does this reinforce the traditional tendency to see Russia as being comprehensively threatened from abroad, in domestic politics, it gives the 

General Staff an unchallenged power of threat assessment and formulation. This has decidedly negative 

tendencies for both domestic politics (budgetary allocations for example) and in foreign policy. Certainly, 

it reinforces the trend towards marital conceptions of 

the state and its administrative order, as well as an 

atavistic and classical Realpolitik approach of zerosum games to Russian thinking about international 

relations. In his speeches dating back to 2006 if not 

2004 when he accused unnamed foreign elements of 

seeking “juicy pieces” of Russia, Putin embraced the 

Baluyevsky-Gareyev threat perception. Putin specifically charged that:
128

• America is a unipolar hegemon that conducts 

world affairs or aspires to do so in an undemocratic way (i.e., it does not take Russian interests into account)

• America has unilaterally gone to war in Iraq, 

disregarding the UN Charter, and demonstrating an “unconstrained hyper use of force” that 

is plunging the world into an abyss. It has therefore become impossible to find solutions to 

conflicts (in other words American unilateralism actually makes it harder to end the wars in 

Iraq and Afghanistan—hardly an incontestable 

proposition). Because America seeks to decide 

all issues unilaterally to suit its own interests in 

disregard of others “no one feels safe,” and this 

policy stimulates an arms race and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

• Therefore, we need a new structure of world 

politics, i.e., multipolarity and nonintervention in the affairs of others. Here Putin cited 

the Russian example of a peaceful transition to 

democracy! It should also be noted that Russia hardly has a spotless record with regard to 

nonintervention as Estonia, Moldova, Ukraine, 

and Georgia can tell us.

• Putin expressed concern that the Moscow Strategic Offensive Arms Reduction Treaty of 2002 

(SORT) may be violated or at least undermined 

by America, which is holding back several 

hundred superfluous nuclear weapons for either political or military use. America is also 

creating new destabilizing high-tech weapons, 

including space weapons.

• Meanwhile, the Conventional Armed Forces in 

Europe (CFE) treaty is not being ratified even 
129

though Russian forces are leaving Georgia and 

only carrying out peacekeeping operations in 

Moldova. Similarly, U.S. bases are turning up 

“on our border” (here Putin revealed that for 

him, the borders of Russia are in fact the old 

Soviet border since Russia no longer borders 

either on Romania or Poland).

• America is also extending missile defenses to 

Central and Eastern Europe even though no 

threat exists that would justify this. In regard to 

this program, Putin replied to a question at the 

2007 Munich Wehrkunde Conference by saying 

that:

The United States is actively developing and 

already strengthening an anti-missile defense 

system. Today this system is ineffective but 

we do not know exactly whether it will one 

day be effective. But in theory it is being created for that purpose. So hypothetically we 

recognize that when this moment arrives, the 

possible threat from our nuclear forces will be 

completely neutralized. Russia’s present capabilities, that is. The balance of powers will be 

absolutely destroyed and one of the parties will 

benefit from the feeling of complete security. 

That means that its hands will be free not only 

in local but eventually also in global conflicts.232

• Moreover, Baluevsky, his successor, General 

Nikolai Makarov, the General Staff, and Russian officials all regularly argue that, because 

there is allegedly no threat from Iran, these 

missile defenses can only be aimed at Russia 

and at threatening to neutralize its deterrent.233

• NATO expansion (the Russian term in opposition to the Western word enlargement) there-
130

fore bears no relationship to European security 

but is an attempt to divide Europe and threaten 

Russia.

• Finally America is seeking to turn the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe 

(OSCE) into an anti-Russian organization and 

individual governments are also using nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) for such 

purposes despite their so-called formal independence. Thus revolutions in CIS countries 

are fomented from abroad and elections there 

often are masquerades whereby the West intervenes in their internal affairs.234 Recently Prime 

Minister Putin and his spokesman, Dmitry 

Peskov, openly claimed that the United States 

has been planning for 2-3 years in advance to 

unseat Putin by generating a scandal during 

the most recent Duma elections in December 

2011 and handing out money to oppositionists in support of this goal. While this charge 

is both totally cynical and delusional, it is entirely consistent with the mentality behind 

Russian policy.235 Obviously, this view projects 

Russia’s own politics and policies of interference in these elections (e.g., the $300 million it 

spent and the efforts of Putin’s “spin doctors” 

in Ukraine in 2004) onto Western governments 

and wholly dismisses the sovereign internal 

mainsprings of political action in those countries, another unconscious manifestation of the 

imperial mentality that grips Russian political 

thinking and action.

Since then a new consensus has evolved due to 

Russia’s assertive policies, palpable signs of a U.S. de-
131

cline, the Russo-Georgian war, and the financial crisis 

that began in 2007 and hit Russia in late 2008. That 

consensus assumes that Russia has recovered from its 

travails and is now a recognized, independent great 

power with the will, capability, and status to be a system-forming power capable of helping to contribute to 

and help resolve global issues. Second, international 

politics are on the threshold of a great change, a presumption that includes the perception of U.S. decline. 

Therefore, the key practical goal is to consolidate Russia as the international defense, financial, political, 

and security hub in Eurasia, a posture that reflects the 

intimate linkage between domestic and foreign policy. 

With this in mind, Moscow seeks to establish Russia 

as a political hub and model in Eurasia for an alternative path of development other than Western models. Many of Russia’s specific policy initiatives, e.g., 

Medvedev’s proposals for a new European security 

architecture and the unrelenting drive to integrate the 

CIS around Russia, flow from these assumptions or 

consensus.236

Since 2004, the notion of being surrounded from 

within and without by the same enemy, i.e., the West, 

has grown among elites but was based on the previous 

perception Russia was menaced by terrorists at home 

who as Putin said were part of a terrorist international 

from Bosnia to the Philippines. Since 2004, the notion 

has grown, incited by Putin, that these enemies, increasingly viewed as the West, want to prevent Russia 

from achieving its rightful place as a great power and 

dominator of the post-Soviet space and are aiming 

to subvert the foundations of Russian statehood by 

misguided and conspiratorial democracy campaigns 

directed against both the Russian government and its 

nondemocratic neighbors in the CIS. Indeed, Putin has 
132

recently and repeatedly attacked Western forces along 

with domestic reformers, whom he called jackals for 

seeking to destabilize Russia, and divide its territory 

through support for Russian NGOs and the democracy campaign they promote. Putin even likened them 

to the reformers of the Yeltsin epoch.237

Thus the sense of being backward or behind visà-vis the West and the corresponding need for a reformed state structure translates into a belief today 

that foreign policy is not only a way of advancing 

the national interest, it also is an instrument for ensuring the internal stability of a beleaguered system 

at home. The articulated concept that Russia’s domestic security, i.e., its governmental structure, is at 

risk from abroad and that the primacy of the domestic threat drives foreign and defense policy not only 

borrows from Nicholas I’s hysteria about liberalism, 

revolution, and reform and Stalin’s notion of capitalist 

encirclement, it also is a hallmark of the security preoccupations of Third World states whose ramshackle 

domestic structures are always seen to be at risk of disintegration.238 Thus in many ways, Russia’s national 

security posture and outlook resembles that of Asian 

rather than European states, particularly Asian states 

who are threatened by internal forces and weak legitimacy. Russian experience and overall security policy 

conforms to the pattern discernible in Asian and Third 

World states where security is primarily internal security and is recognized as such by all the leaders there. 

These countries simultaneously confront the exigencies of both domestic state-building, i.e., assuring the 

regime’s internal security and defense against external 

threats without sufficient means, time, or resources 

to compete successfully with other more established 

states. Not surprisingly, their primary concern be-
133

comes internal security and their continuation in power, hence the proliferation of multiple military forces, 

intelligence, and police forces in these countries, often 

enjoying more resources than do their regular armies, 

and their governments’ recourse to rent-seeking, authoritarian, and clientilistic policies.239

These facts possess significant relevance for any 

discussion of security in the Third World but clearly 

also for Russia where the security environment perceived by the government is one of “reversed anarchy” 

as described by Mikhail Alexiev and Bjorn Moeller. 

Moeller observes that:

While in modernity the inside of a state was supposed 

to be orderly, thanks to the workings of the state as 

a Hobbesian ‘Leviathan,’ the outside remained anarchic. For many states in the third World, the opposite 

seems closer to reality—with fairly orderly relations to 

the outside in the form of diplomatic representations, 

but total anarchy within.240

Similarly, Amitav Acharya observes that: 

Unlike in the West, national security concepts in Asia 

are strongly influenced by concerns for regime survival. Hence, security policies in Asia are not so much 

about protection against external military threats, 

but against internal challenges. Moreover, the overwhelming proportion of conflicts in Asia fall into the 

intrastate category, meaning they reflect the structural 

weaknesses of the state, including a fundamental disjunction between its territorial and ethnic boundaries Many of these conflicts have been shown to have 

a spillover potential; hence the question of outside 

interference is an ever-present factor behind their escalation and containment. Against this backdrop, the 
134

principle of noninterference becomes vital to the security predicament of states. And a concept of security 

that challenges the unquestioned primacy of the state 

and its right to remain free from any form of external 

interference arouses suspicion and controversy.241

Indeed, for these states, and arguably even for transitional states like Russia, internal police forces enjoy 

greater state resources than do the regular armies, this 

being a key indicator of the primacy of internal security as a factor in defining the term national security.242

These points certainly apply to Russia. As Stephen 

Hanson observes: 

The central puzzle of Russian politics is that fifteen 

years after the collapse of the USSR, the country still 

lacks any stable and legitimate form of state order. The 

result is continuing pervasive political and social uncertainty—concretized in the palpable official fear that 

independent civil society organizations might promote 

additional “color revolutions” in Russia or other postSoviet states and the endless rumors about various 

unconstitutional or semi-constitutional schemes Putin 

might employ to stay in power after his formal second 

term ends in March 2008. Bearing in mind that Russia 

remains the world’s largest country by territory and 

still possesses thousands of nuclear warheads as well 

as large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons 

of mass destruction, such uncertainty could quickly 

become a major international problem as well.243

These political conditions duly represent some 

of the reasons why even Russian analysts admit that 

Russia remains a risk factor in world politics, not the 

reliable pole of world politics that it claims to be.244

Thus Vladimir Mau emphasizes that despite the 

transformation of the past 20 years, the state remains 
135

a weak state, one that cannot effectively manage the 

transition to either a growth economy or democracy.245

Similarly, Gordon Hahn’s study of the Islamic terrorist threat to Russia, primarily in the North Caucasus, 

flatly states that, “Despite Putin’s efforts to recentralize power, Russia remains a weak state, is becoming 

a failing state, and risks becoming a failed one.”246

Russia’s siege mentality, no matter how bizarre it may 

seem to us, has deep roots in the structure of the state 

and the real threats to it.

In 2004-05, in the wake of the terrorist attack at 

Beslan and the Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, Russia’s frustration with its inability to defend its internal 

borders or project its system into Ukraine turned into 

this portrayal of “the enemy at the gates.”247 Vladislav 

Surkov, Deputy Chief of Putin’s presidential administration gave a secret speech explicitly charging that 

Freedom House is essentially an extension of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Therefore, “it takes an 

idiot to believe in the humanitarian mission of this 

establishment.” In so describing Freedom House, he 

used the Russian word Kontora or office, the old Soviet 

term for the KGB.248 Surkov, like other CIS leaders such 

as former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, clearly 

believes that democratic revolutions in CIS states are 

orchestrated conspiracies against Russia and threats 

to the stability of the Russian state itself.249 According 

to Kremlin commentator Vyacheslav Nikonov, the 

Kremlin views this revolution as a “refined special operation” or as an externally directed unconstitutional 

coup against Russia to eliminate its influence in the 

CIS and replace it with an American presence.250 Professor Alexei Pushkov of the Moscow State Institute of 

International Relations called Ukraine a continuation 

of the “West’s strategic line of staging a political takeover of the post-Soviet space.”251 But Surkov was only 
136

following his master’s and other officials’ footsteps in 

warning that the state is at risk.252 

This wide-ranging threat perception also embraces 

Russia’s domestic politics as well. Regime spokesmen, e.g., Surkov, also have openly stated that Russia must take national control of all the key sectors of 

the economy lest they be threatened by hostile foreign 

economic forces and so called “offshore aristocrats.”253

In other words, this threat perception links both internal and external threats in a seamless whole (as did 

Leninism) and represents the perception that Western 

democracy as such is a threat to Russia. Therefore U.S. 

and Western military power, even if it is not actually a 

threat, is a priori perceived as such.

This outlook affects even those areas where Russia affects to realize a common policy with America, 

e.g., arms control. For example, Yevgeny Primakov, 

Yeltsin’s Foreign Minister and Prime Minister during 

1996-99 and previously head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), writes in his memoirs that, 

despite perceptions at the end of the Cold War of an 

end to enemy relationships with the West, in fact the 

West has behaved like an enemy, seeking to deprive 

Russia of its “special role in stabilizing the CIS in order to frustrate hopes for a rapprochement with Russia.”254 Primakov here thus not only postulated the a 

priori existence of foreign enemies, he blamed them 

for everything that went wrong in Russia and no less 

implicitly postulates a Russian sphere of influence in 

the CIS. Those outlooks are clearly by no means his 

alone. Rather they are shared by most of Russia’s contemporary elites and are fundamental to their ideological Weltanschauung.
137

THE MYSTIQUE OF DERZHAVNOST’

Under these circumstances, the centralization and 

personification of power that have taken place as the 

critical component of the state-building program must 

be buttressed by an effort to unify the state and society around the ideology of autocracy and Derzhavnost’

(Russia’s inherent great power status). As Putin has 

recently observed, this unity is an essential source of 

Russia’s strength.255 By invoking it, he also has shown 

his effort to fulfill a key part of the domestic, anti-or 

counter-reform agenda of that ideology as expressed 

by Retired General M. A. Gareyev, President of the 

Russian Academy of Military Sciences.

A Russia that is mired in division and dissension cannot stand in the modern world. To unify the healthy 

forces within society and to support a reliable political 

system one must first define the reasons for the existence of our fatherland. One such uniting factor is the 

idea of a revival of Russia as a great power, not as a 

regional one, for Russia stretches across several large 

regions of Eurasia, and is truly great on a global scale. 

This greatness is not defined simply by someone’s desire, not just by nuclear weapons, or the country’s size. 

It is determined by historical traditions and the realworld needs for the development of Russian society 

and state. Either Russia will be a strong, independent. 

and unified state, uniting all peoples, republics, territories, and areas in the territory of Eurasia, which is 

in the interests of all mankind, or she will scatter into 

pieces, becoming a source of many conflicts. Then the 

entire international community will be unable to cope 

with a situation in which Eurasia is brimming with 

weapons of mass destruction. Either Russia will be a 

great power, or she will not exist at all. There is no 

other alternative.256
138

Similarly, Dutch Scholar John Loewenhardt reported in 2000 that despite the fact that Russia’s alleged 

status as a leading pole in global affairs was then understood to be increasingly more rhetorical than real: 

In one of our interviews a former member of the Presidential Administration said that the perception of 

Russia as a great power ‘is a basic element of the selfperception of high bureaucrats.’ If a political leader 

were to behave as if Russia was no longer a great power, there would be ‘a deeply rooted emotional reaction 

in the population.’257 

This concept that Russia is simultaneously both 

inherently a great power and a state that deserves to 

be seen at home and abroad as such or as an empire in 

order to survive—even if this can only be asserted irrationally and not by empirical demonstration—is embodied in the term Derzhavnost’ (tellingly, a word that 

emerged into popularity only in the 1990s when the 

concept it denotes was under fierce attack). As conservatives endlessly insist, going back to the famous line 

of the 19th century poet Fedor Titutchev “Umom Rossiiu ne poniat’“ (“Russia cannot be understood by the 

mind”), this belief in Russia’s great power destiny is 

an article of faith not subject to critical thinking.258 This 

irrationalist and organicist approach to the nation not 

only aims to dissuade criticism by invoking a mantra of near theological belief, it also is a long-standing 

refuge for conservatives and reactionaries against the 

rationalism embedded in classical and modern Liberalism. By trying to banish any hope of understanding 

Russian politics through critical rational analysis, it 

also typically overcompensates for the fear that if Russia is not a great power and not seen as such, then it 
139

will be nothing. Putin, Yeltsin, and many other figures 

like former Foreign Minister and Prime Minister Evgeny Primakov have repeatedly echoed this sentiment 

about Russia as an inherent great power that must act 

independently of other “poles” of the international 

system.259 For example, upon becoming Foreign Minister in 1996 Primakov told Rossiyskaya Gazeta that: 

Russia’s foreign policy cannot be the foreign policy of 

a second-rate state. We must pursue the foreign policy 

of a great state . . . the world is moving toward a multipolar system. . . . In these conditions, we must pursue 

a diversified course oriented toward the development 

of relations with everyone, and at the same time, in 

my view, we should not align ourselves with any individual pole. Precisely because Russia itself will be 

one of the poles, the ‘leader-led’ configuration is not 

acceptable to us.260

As Primakov’s words suggest, not only is this concept of Russia as a great power inextricably tied to the 

idea of Russia as an independent unconstrained actor 

in world politics, just as the Tsar is not constrained 

by anything at home, the Derzhavnost’ concept entails 

Russia as a leader in world politics forming its own 

solar system of states around it.261 Equally importantly, this concept is tied to a particular notion of Russia’s identity as an actor in world politics where either 

it is acknowledged as a great power or, its leaders 

fear, it counts for nothing. But this attitude’s practical implications as seen in ongoing demands for bases 

throughout the CIS, obstruction in the CIS frozen 

conflicts, and the energy crises with Ukraine and Belarus are unmistakably imperial in consequence. The 

Derzhavnost’ concept betokens a belief that Russia is 

an empire sufficient unto itself and thus above all of 
140

the other rules of international life, precisely what it 

attacks Washington for doing.262 As Trenin observed, 

Moscow wants to create its own solar system of international relations, replete with client states, independent of the West.263

Thus Derzhavnost’ postulates Russia as an empire 

freed of external constraints that form a chain of states 

around it because while it is a great power, they are 

not and therefore cannot defend their sovereignty. 

Certainly, Russian scholars know full well that Russia’s elites have long continued to see the Russian state 

in imperial terms. As Alexei Malashenko observed in 

2000, Russia’s war in Chechnya is logical only if Russia continues to regard itself as an empire.264 More recently, Russian political scientist Egor Kholmogorov 

has observed that: 

‘Empire’ is the main category of any strategic political 

analysis in the Russian language. Whenever we start to 

ponder a full-scale, long-term construction of the Russian state, we begin to think of empire and in terms of 

empire. Russians are inherently imperialists.265

If Russia is such an empire, then it becomes clear 

why EU or NATO membership becomes a threat to 

Russian sovereignty. For as Deputy Foreign Minister 

Ivan Ivanov stated in 1999: 

Our country is not in need of affiliation with the EU. 

This would entail loss of its unique Euro-Asian specifics, the role of the center of attraction of the re-integration of the CIS, independence in foreign economic and 

defense policies, and complete restructuring (once 

more) of all Russian statehood based on the requirements of the European Union. Finally great powers 

(and it is too soon to abandon calling ourselves such) 

do not dissolve in international unions—they create 

them around themselves.266 
141

It is noteworthy that in Ivanov’s list of reasons for 

not joining the EU empire preceded independence 

suggesting the deeply rooted belief among Russian 

elites that if Russia is not an empire, it is not a state. 

Hence, it is not surprising that Ivanov outlined here 

the goal, alluded to by Trenin above, of creating a solar 

system around Russia. But the quest for great power 

and empire is the fetish invoked by Russian statesman 

throughout the ages to ward off the nightmare of being marginalized and no longer being a great power. 

This nightmare haunts the imagination of Russia’s 

political elite and undoubtedly is one of the most primordial psychological and cognitive drivers of Russian foreign policy, even if it postulates only two possible outcomes for Russia, great or even super-power 

status, or oblivion and marginalization.267 Indeed, in 

pursuing this mirage of being a great power that can 

act unconstrainedly in world affairs, Putin has sought 

to copy the Bush administration’s doctrine of preemption or preventive war to justify its unlimited right to 

military intervention in the CIS with rather less justification than did President George Bush, for there have 

been no foreign-based attacks upon Russia.268

So this concept of Derzhavnost’ is inextricably 

linked to the current notion of Russia being a sovereign democracy, with the emphasis on Russia’s sovereignty and independence, the supposed primary goal 

of its foreign policy.269 Of course, it is this sovereignty, 

independence, and hence great power status that are 

most at risk from the aforementioned threats. In other 

words, Russia increasingly defines its independence 

and sovereignty as being an inherently anti-Western 

and neo-imperial project.
142

This concept of Derzhavnost’ did not only recently 

spread throughout the elite. Instead, it is in the nature 

of the historical legacy handed down from ruler to ruler despite the historical rupture generated by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Nicholas II’s Prime Minister, Count Sergei Witte, famously said that he did not 

recognize Russia but rather the Russian empire. After 

him, Stalin in 1937 underlined the profound sense of 

historical continuity in the minds of Russian policymakers through the ages concerning the vital necessity of retaining the Russian empire and the accompanying status of a great power. At Defense Minister 

Voroshilov’s villa, in November 1937, Stalin remarked 

that:

The Russian Tsars did much that was bad. They robbed 

and enslaved the people. They led wars and seized territory in the interests of the landowners. But they did 

one good thing—they put together an enormous Great 

Power. . . . We inherited this Great Power. We Bolsheviks were the first to put together and strengthen this 

Great Power, not in the interests of the landowners 

and capitalists, but for the toilers and for all the Great 

People who make up this Great Power.270

The congruence of Stalin’s remarks with contemporary thinking and his backhanded glorification of 

Tsardom’s imperial legacy is no accident. Thus Alexei 

Malashenko of the Carnegie Endowment observes 

that in relation to the war in Chechnya, Russia’s war 

in Chechnya is logical only if Russia continues to regard itself as an empire.271 Kholmogorov‘s observation 

only brings that observation into the present.272

Similarly, the contemporary publicist close to the 

regime, Stanislav Belkovsky, writes that, “In 2004-08, 

the foundations of the Russian nation must be laid. 
143

Our nation has only one destiny—imperial.”273 Yeltsin’s former prime minister, Egor Gaidar, forthrightly 

charged that an organized movement of imperial nostalgia that seeks to reject the need to come to terms 

with the loss of empire is rampant among today’s officialdom and society. Gaidar states that this attitude 

invokes arguments that are all too reminiscent of German conservatives in the Weimar Republic, and represent one of the greatest challenges to Russia’s security 

and stability.274

This adherence to Derzhavnost’ was also a foundation point for Tsarist statesmen, who possessed what 

Dietrich Geyer calls “the power elite’s traditional 

sense of imperial prestige.”275 Geyer was writing 

about the historical period of the 1860s, an era of reform, threatened loss of autocratic power, instability, 

and renewed imperialism and state nationalism. This 

era in particular has been the historical reference point 

for much of contemporary Russian policy because it 

was another period of weakness abroad and domestic 

reform that ended in an increasingly aggressive nationalism comparable to the contemporary scene.276

Indeed, contemporary evidence suggested then that 

much of Russia’s foreign policy standing in the decade after the Crimean War stemmed from its efforts 

at reform, and that reform was also driven by the need 

to maintain its standing in Europe.277 This underscores 

the enduring linkage between domestic and foreign 

policy in Russian history. Consequently, we can see 

that many of the key reference points and foundations 

of Putin’s foreign and domestic policies are rooted in 

a deeply rooted elite and quite possibly in the popular 

consciousness of the historical continuity of the Russian state and of its interests. Likewise, there is a similarity between the cycles of reform and counter-reform 
144

that were enacted then and are being reenacted now 

and using similar arguments against reform points to 

underlying continuities in Russian history.278

Russian foreign policy under both Yeltsin and 

Putin is inextricably tied to the assertion of this great 

power project that depends on the unification of the 

population around a counter or anti-reform program. 

It is no accident, to use a Stalinist neologism, that Russia’s anti-Westernism takes its point of departure from 

the same time, as does the end of democratizing and 

liberalizing reforms. Indeed, as we shall see, the enemies of reform consciously appealed to Derzhavnost’

to derail liberalizing reforms. Under both rulers, foreign policy has become very much a resource for domestic politics to ensure their regime’s hold on power.

At the same time, this formulation of Russia as an 

inherent and intrinsic great power is tied to an organic view of the state as a unified supra-ethnic political 

entity. Proponents of this view, like Gareyev, clearly 

believe that Derzhavnost’, i.e., great power ranking 

and status is the only alternative for Russia. Thus, they 

connect liberalization, not to mention democracy, and 

their inherent tendency to deconcentrate state power 

with the essential end of Russia as an independent 

state. They regard all challenges to this ideal of Derzhavnost’ as a challenge if not threat to Russia’s ability 

to conduct an independent foreign policy and survival as a state or great power (the two are essentially the 

same identity).279 Likewise, they regard all efforts at 

democracy as being akin to treason or at least as representing a threat to Russia’s great power destiny and 

standing, not to mention their own power.

The Derzhavnost’ or imperial concept of Russia’s 

destiny and status has always been a rock, if not the 

rock, upon which major reform has foundered in Rus-
145

sia going back at least to the Decembrist revolt of 1825, 

if not earlier. It also is tied to a belief that Russia is a 

unique actor whose path must be defined by its statist, authoritarian, centralized, and anti-liberal, not to 

mention anti-democratic, tradition. In effect, like the 

outlook of German conservatives before World War 

II, this view of Russia as an inherent great power for 

reasons that are often invoked and not analyzed is connected to a view of Russia as having a unique Sonderweg (other way). Like German conservatism, and quite 

ironically in view of its unrestrained championing of 

Russia’s uniqueness, this view is almost wholly derived from the tenets and categories of German Romantic and conservative thinking in the early 19th 

century as well as Russian Slavophilism. At the same 

time, the continuing emphasis on an imperial stance 

also derives from Russia’s own historical experience 

as an empire as interpreted through those earlier German and then Slavophile categories of thought. 

Contemporary Russian leaders have clearly inherited this worldview. Indeed, to judge from Putin’s 

domestic and foreign policies, they can only conceive 

of the state as an imperial, even pre-modern formation based on an organic unity around the Tsar that 

rejects political dissent, and which is unified by a 

common ideology and a state religion.280 Certainly the 

way Putin’s succession by Medvedev as president has 

worked out indicates that the state remains essentially 

pre-modern in its structure, if not its leaders’ mentality. The authoritarian coalition’s deeply held vision 

of Russia’s having to be a great power or nothing denotes the constant sense of inner insecurity and even 

illegitimacy of the elite and of the state it has created. 

This inner sense of insecurity and even of illegitimacy 

are particularly striking when Russia compares itself 
146

or is compared to European processes and standards, 

hence both the sense of cultural marginality and the 

often outsized and outlandish claims made to compensate for that sense of marginality. Indeed, the frequent resort to Soviet-like rhetoric and threats against 

parties who conduct policies deemed to be inimical to 

Russian interests betrays, as much as anything, both 

weakness and an awareness of weakness and even 

an awareness that Russia does not compare favorably 

with its peers. Therefore, one function of these heavyhanded threats and rhetoric is overcompensation: a 

way of telling its elite and population that Russia still 

is a great power and trying to impress this fact upon 

Russia’s interlocutors. Meanwhile, at the same time 

this great power status must be an imperial, even opulent one in both style and substance. In order to awe 

any potential rivals at home or abroad and reassure 

the elite of the awesome power of the Tsar or now of 

Putin. It must be imperial to awe potential enemies as 

well as subjects with Russian power, to provide security against all manner of internal and external threats, 

and to confirm the self-image and unconstrained power of the elite and the Tsar or President. 

Consequently and despite the fact that Putin has 

explicitly said he is against the restoration of any official ideology, his regime has manufactured one based 

on a concept of Russia’s being an inherent great power and relying on the forces of Putin’s autocracy and 

cult of personality, the exaltation of the Russian Orthodox Church as the state church, and on a growing 

intolerance to foreigners expressed as an official state 

nationalism. Arguably, the similarity of this ideology 

to Nicholas I’s official nationality that exalted autocracy, orthodoxy, and nationality, and to Stalin’s cult 

of personality is not accidental.281 Neither are the now 
147

visible similarities to the Brezhnev era, as suggested 

above.282 Indeed, the continuing need for some state 

ideology that defends Russia against its supposed 

ideological as well as political enemies and justifies 

its system to both domestic and foreign audiences has 

been a feature of Russian statecraft since Ivan the Terrible sought to create such an ideology in the 16th century. Certainly Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, 

and then Nicholas I each explicitly sought to forge a 

body of ideas that justified their policies to both sets 

of audiences. The effort to form an ideology during 

Yeltsin’s presidency and Putin’s subordinates’ propagation of an ideology called “sovereign democracy” 

continues that tradition.

Unfortunately, along with the penchant for ideological justification of its regime, the Putin government has taken over much of this perception of being 

under siege from domestic as well as foreign enemies, 

and not just terrorists. In this regard, Putin has inherited the outlook that characterized those elements of 

the Soviet system that could not reconcile themselves 

fully to the post-Soviet world and, like Putin, regard 

the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century. Just as Lenin instituted a “state of siege,” first within Russian Social 

Democracy and then in world politics, Putin’s Russia 

now seems to postulate that same condition, albeit 

in a less intense form of polarization. Nonetheless, 

the similarities between the Putin regime as of late 

2007 and its Soviet predecessors are clear to Russian 

writers. 
148

PUTIN’S FOREIGN POLICIES AS DOMESTIC 

POWER RESOURCE

Analysts of Putin’s foreign policies must understand that, first and foremost, it was and is an instrument for stabilizing the regime’s ability to pursue a 

domestic agenda of reconstructing centralized power, 

even autocracy. Foreign policy’s task has been to prevent situations that could obstruct the rebuilding of 

autocracy (i.e., the state’s authority conceived of in a 

hierarchical power vertical) while elevating Russia’s 

effective status and power in world affairs. Then that 

strengthened state could pursue a more aggressive 

and independent foreign policy, thereby continuing 

the reciprocal relationship between domestic and 

foreign policy. Numerous statements by Putin underscore that he has understood foreign policy until now 

in just such a light, i.e., as having the primary task of 

allowing him to pursue his domestic agenda for reconstructing Russia as a great and centralized power 

that in turn would then allow him to pursue a stronger foreign policy. 

Neither is there any doubt that Putin was the most 

popular and successful politician in Russia, even if 

much of that popularity is manufactured or the product of fear of repression. In 2007, a poll gave him an 

almost 80 percent popularity rating!283 Indeed, he may 

be the most successful and legitimately popular ruler 

in Russia since Stalin. As Dale Herspring has written 

about Putin, “He is in charge. Indeed, one could argue that Putin is more in charge than any post-Stalin 

leader of the Soviet Union.”284 This fact makes his regime’s manipulations so that an open election not take 

place all the more discouraging. Still, like his Soviet 
149

and Tsarist predecessors, Putin rules, as many analysts have noted, as a Tsar, i.e., he is not responsible to 

anyone nor is his state subordinated to any control by 

law or any other institution.285 In this regard as in so 

many others, Putin’s Russia represents a reinvigoration if not reincarnation of what we have called above 

the Muscovite paradigm. 

Putin has marginalized every other possible source 

of political initiative in Russian society and substituted state control over all of these potentially influential segments of Russian society so that there can be 

no effective challenges to either domestic or foreign 

policy. Indeed, as early as 2005 his entourage boasted 

that they had smashed all institutions and bureaucratic “veto groups” as well as any hope of autonomous 

political action from the Duma. Igor Bunin, Director 

General of the Center for Political Technologies, stated 

then that Putin’s reforms have aimed at converting the 

entire state system into a mono-centric administration where he and his entourage have all the power. 

In such a system, conflicts within the bureaucracy are 

supposedly absent because it is vertically integrated. 

Hence the government becomes a technical instrument rather than a policy initiator, a task reserved for 

Putin and his entourage in the presidential chancellery.286 Foreign observers note that he has essentially 

deinstitutionalized the state, robbing all other organs 

but the presidential administration of any real vitality.287

In fact, as the traditional Muscovite paradigm and 

Russian history clearly suggest, the effort to completely depoliticize Russia and its policies only means that 

fierce political conflict has moved into the bosom of 

the bureaucracy from where it cannot easily be dislodged. The succession struggle of 2007-08 with vis-
150

ible as well as invisible political struggles between the 

rival bureaucratic clans who make up the leadership, 

going all the way to arrests and political murders, 

underscores the opacity of Russian politics. These 

struggles are inherent in the Russian political system, 

and we find numerous instances of them among the 

Tsars and in the Soviet period. For example, Stalin deliberately fostered such conflicts, as did his predecessors and successors, to retain their full prerogative of 

power. As bureaucratic conflicts have not abated but 

have migrated to interclan rivalries among the power 

structures of the regime and Putin’s entourage (the so 

called Silolvye Struktury and the Siloviki) a fierce domestic rivalry among these clans or factions invariably 

occurs, as has always been the case in modern Russian 

politics. But the regular state does not perform better 

nor is the public directly involved as anything other 

than an object of manipulation. 

So, paradoxically, the strengthening of the power 

vertical results in the strengthening of the Kremlin 

and of centralized power, but it is not clear that the 

regular organizations of the state, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, perform any better or that 

the state really is more effective.288 If anything, it may 

be less effective as a direct result of Putin’s policies 

of centralization of power at the top. Consequently, 

this program ultimately remains insufficient to fully 

revive the economy or improve the state mechanism 

as much as Putin wants. In this respect, Putin’s Russia follows in the tradition of Russian political history 

where all modern efforts to revive the Muscovite paradigm have led to the same outcome. In many, if not 

all of these cases, efforts to reform the system, either 

towards greater centralization or towards greater liberalization within the framework of the system, often 
151

achieved sub-optimal results. Improvements did not 

reach full fruition, and that frustration carried within 

it the seeds of further crisis. In other words, Putin’s 

success suggests that the system he has consolidated 

will relatively soon reach a dead end, even if it continues along its own entropy or inertia.

As part of this agenda of strengthening the central 

power structures, Putin and his underlings have also 

attempted to disseminate through Russian society not 

just a cult of Putin’s personality ( thereby confirming 

Marx that when history repeats itself the first time—in 

this case, under Stalin—it occurs as tragedy; while in 

the second case—as is now the case under Putin—it 

returns as farce) but also an ideology that emphasizes 

Putin’s autocracy, the legitimacy of this autocracy 

in terms of support for the regime by the Orthodox 

Church, and third, an aggressive doctrine of state 

nationalism. They also evidently believe that have 

achieved or at least profess their desire for a result that 

has eluded Russian rulers since Nicholas I, namely officialdom’s recurrent dream of a perfectly integrated 

vertical hierarchy that functioned strictly as a machine 

acting on orders from the top and implementing them 

in quasi-military style and hierarchy. Because this 

machine supposedly incarnated the Tsar’s position as 

superseding all factional, partial, and sectoral interests, and subordinating everyone to the service of the 

state, it was equally supposedly wholly depoliticized 

and had only the state’s true national interest at heart. 

Only the state truly represents the genuine national 

interest as opposed to partial and sectoral elite interests, which invariably entail oligarchy and ultimately 

the loss of empire and great power status. Of course, 

this system left those atop the machine with all the 

power and opportunities to conceal their self-serving 
152

rent-seeking under the cloak of supposedly being the 

embodiment of the national interest. Russian and foreign analysts therefore rightly underscore the persistence of Tsarist mores and structures in contemporary 

Russian political life.289 

Whereas it is debatable how successful Putin has 

been in creating an effective state in domestic politics, 

Putin is fortunate that his foreign policy—in great contrast to that of his predecessor, Yeltsin—has hitherto 

been a key factor in his success, especially as discordant voices have either been silenced or marginalized. 

Foreign observers like Hryhoriy Nemyria, when he 

was Director of the Kyiv-based Center for European 

and International Studies, have stated that, “A significant part of Putin’s legitimacy lies in his ability to control developments in Russia’s near abroad.”290 Indeed, 

in foreign policy, perhaps more than in any other aspect of his rule, Putin is more totally in charge since 

foreign policy historically and in present day Russia 

is regarded as a “Tsarskoe Delo,” something worthy 

of the Tsar’s or ruler’s attention (and, of course, a conscious evocation of the continuity in official mores 

from Russian history). In other words, all the freelancers of the preceding decade have been suppressed, in 

Khodorkovskii’s case, forcibly, and no doubt exemplarily. This does not only mean that Putin decides 

policy arbitrarily, although he certainly could if he 

wanted to. But it does suggest that his prerogative is 

the ultimate and most authoritative, if not irreversible, 

one. 

In this respect, Putin’s power, as numerous commentators have noted, resembles that of a Russian 

Tsar, if not the power of the General Secretary of the 

Communist Party of the Soviet Union.291 For example, 

in September 2001 after the terrorist attacks on the 

United States, Putin convened a meeting of his 20 
153

other senior advisors on the issue of whether or not 

to help Washington in Central Asia and to what degree. Of these advisors, 18 opposed the idea of supporting the U.S. military presence in Central Asia and 

Afghanistan, two abstained, and Putin supported the 

idea of offering such help with no strings attached. 

Not surprisingly, his decision prevailed. This authoritative role of the ruler typifies Russian history (one 

need only remember that Tsar Alexander II forced 

through the emancipation of the serfs even when the 

State Council opposed key provisions of the plan292) 

and certainly held true under Yeltsin, who as Bobo Lo 

and Dmitri Trenin observe, in truly autocratic fashion 

“regarded foreign policy as essentially the sum total 

of his personal relations with foreign leaders.”293

Thus, foreign policy success and even the appearance of success means Russia’s self-perception as a 

great power being accepted abroad and that Russia 

can also behave with a free or at least strong hand in 

world affairs are critical factors in sustaining Putin’s 

domestic power and authority.294 In turn, domestic 

needs that go beyond the drive for economic recovery, 

to include the stabilization of a particular form of rule 

and accompanying political economy, drive foreign 

policy. This drive is most noticeable in the CIS—the 

former Soviet republics and what was called in the 

1990s the near abroad.295 Here, Russia assiduously promotes the perpetuation or extension of its own form 

of rule to those states, not least because the perpetuation of domestic Tsarism requires its perpetuation 

and extension to the next tier of states as well. But this 

also means that because so much of it is driven by domestic factors, or to influence them, much of Russian 

foreign policy emerges out of an unregulated struggle 

between or among rival bureaucracies and can only be 

decided by Putin.
154

A key part of both Putin’s domestic and foreign 

policies has consequently been his unrelenting efforts 

to present himself in a particularly appealing image 

to his audience. Apart from Putin’s personal motives 

(and such cults only betray the inner insecurity of the 

leader and his need for adulation as well as his subordinates’ belief that he needs it and that by stimulating 

it, he will reward them), this image campaign naturally 

correlates with the efforts to forge a cult of personality and ideology that justifies his policies to domestic 

and foreign audiences, all part of a very long-standing 

Russian political tradition. Like the trained KGB agent 

that he was, Putin has consistently striven to present himself to different audiences as he thinks they 

wish to see him, an ability that Stalin also possessed 

in abundance. Thanks to his success in this endeavor, 

abetted by a managed and suppressed Russian media, 

Putin has enjoyed great domestic and foreign success 

in coming across to others as a decisive, practical, reliable, and predictable steward of Russian national 

interests. One need only cite his strong personal ties 

with President George Bush, German Prime Minister 

Gerhard Schroeder, and Italian President Silvio Berlusconi as examples. But there are other examples as 

well. Still, perhaps more importantly, at home his success has been even greater. By portraying himself to 

the public as a sober, tough-minded, masculine, and 

plain speaking, no-nonsense leader who was devoted 

to Russia’s recovery and prosperity as a great power 

and by suppressing alternative voices, Putin tapped 

into one of the deepest emotions among Russian political figures, namely the obsession that as Yeltsin said, 

“Russia deserves to be a great power.” (It is crucial 

here to note the distinction between the present tense 

and the conditional in this statement). He also tapped 
155

into the deep-seated belief that Russia needs a Tsar 

“who can make the Boyars jump,” i.e., a man who can 

be frightful in the exercise of power.

An example of the ongoing relevance of Rieber’s 

approach may be found in an examination of Putin’s 

“state-building” activities in the light of the linkages 

between domestic and foreign policy highlighted by 

this historical approach. By accepting this threat assessment, which was already strikingly outlined in 

the Defense and National Security Doctrines of 2000 

and the Foreign Policy Concept in earlier forms, Putin has formally ratified the unity of concept between 

his perception of the need to reform the state and the 

sense of being under threat domestically and externally from more advanced powers.296 Putin’s quest for 

an effective governing mechanism, seen in the light of 

Russian history, evokes memories of previous Tsarist 

and Soviet attempts to create a similarly ideal type of 

state against the threat of revolution from abroad that 

could exploit Russia’s backwardness. This constant 

search for an effective and responsive “power vertical” continues to this day under Putin. It is not just 

that what followed in the wake of Communism was 

a much more chaotic state that encountered great difficulty in formulating both its identity as a state and 

an effective foreign policy, although this certainly was 

the case. Rather, we also see as well a similar obsession in the case of Nicholas I and his elite, as well as 

his successors, in perfecting the mechanism of government.297 The many upheavals generated by Peter 

the Great and Stalin had as their aims, among other 

things, strengthening Russia’s capacity to ward off 

perceived foreign threats.

As Nicholas I’s obsession was with revolution and 

with the threat that an ineffective state structure both 
156

stimulated desires for radical change and could not 

monitor those who might act upon such desires, so 

clearly is Putin’s obsession with suppressing dissent, 

unifying the state, and imparting to it a quasi-military 

and police outlook of unquestioning discipline and 

service to the state a response to the threat that he and 

his associates perceive in democracy and in Western 

superiority. A man and regime that claims that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical 

disaster of the 20th century cannot see democratization as a source of strength for his Russia. Neither will 

his foreign policy recommend democracy’s extension 

to the newly independent states of the former Soviet 

Union. 

Therefore, these similarities between Putin’s “militocracy” and Nicholas’ cult of quasi-military order are 

surely more than personal idiosyncrasies.298 Nicholas’ 

rule was in itself a continuation of trends observable 

under Paul I, his father, and his brother, Alexander 

I. Those contemporary challenges to Russia that find 

their reflection or response in ongoing reorganization of the state are not just the preparation of a state 

for war against what is now perceived as a growing 

military threat and the maintenance of a vigorous and 

effective diplomacy in service to the regnant national 

interest of the day. Rather, they are part of a tradition 

of visualizing the state as an idealized military-type 

organism that should be pervaded by the same spirit 

of self-discipline and selfless service that is to be expected in the army. This is because the fundamental 

paradigm of Russian state power, as we shall see below, is one that is inherently pre-modern, patrimonial, martial, and demonstrably suboptimal as regards 

great power competition over time.299
157

This tradition generally privileged military power 

and standing over broad-based economic and technological development.300 The latter’s purpose was 

invariably to provide for the former. Nevertheless, as 

Rieber rightly observes, awareness of backwardness 

has haunted Russian rulers for centuries and stimulated all their efforts to catch up, not just in economic 

and technological terms, but also, as noted above, in 

remodeling the government to compete with Russia’s 

interlocutors. The reforms of Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Alexander I, Alexander II, the Witte 

and Stolypin reforms, Lenin’s War, Communism, and 

Stalin’s revolutions all had the critical goal of preparing the Russian state for war and international rivalry, 

and were openly admitted as having such objectives. 

Gorbachev’s Perestroika and foreign policies aimed to 

reduce the defense burden upon the state and reorient 

it for more successful economic competition in world 

politics. 

Consequently, Putin’s and his team’s realization of 

the primacy of the need to develop a modern economy 

in Russia and use economic power as the foundation 

of Russia’s global standing marks a significant innovation in Russia’s history. Only after economic stability was achieved did we see the meaningful increases 

in defense spending that are now taking place. But the 

ultimate goal of advancing the great power standing 

and capacity of the state is entirely traditional in nature as is the belief that the state must lead this process 

by itself without reference to indigenous self-standing 

social networks.301 It is too soon to tell if this priority of 

economics represents a long-term and stable trend but 

one that could or will give way, as may increasingly 

be possible, to renewed emphasis on overt military 

great power rivalry. Certainly the statist and dirigiste 
158

notion of economic development that now prevails in 

Moscow augurs badly for democracy or for optimal 

economic growth but strongly for the perpetuation 

of the Muscovite paradigm with its emphasis on defense. That trend is highly likely to lead logically to 

an increase in defense rivalry and political tensions 

with other major powers, as has historically been the 

case. The substantial rise in defense spending and increasingly military cast of the rivalry with America is 

a warning sign in this regard. For if the end result of 

Putinism is a renewed militarization, then the innovative aspects of his legacy will diminish while the assertion of traditional practices and policies will have 

triumphed.

TOWARDS A PUTIN SYNTHESIS

We have mentioned “Putin’s” foreign policy and 

not by accident. Putin inherited a state in disarray. He 

himself certainly believed it was in danger of disintegration from terrorist threats and from the ambitions 

of regional politicians and oligarchs.302 One of the clear 

signs of disarray was the fact that foreign policy under 

Yeltsin reflected the inability of the state to centralize 

control over Russian politics as a whole. Yeltsin was 

never fully able to establish his control of that policy, 

for all his efforts to that end. As a result, foreign policy 

was very often made by diverse forces, often acting on 

their own to impose their own agenda or create “facts 

on the ground.” 

Military and right wing political and public opinion frustrated openings to Japan in 1992.303 This had 

major consequences for it left China, a very different 

state with a very different and certainly not pro-democratic government as Russia’s main partner in East 
159

Asia.304 Russian energy policies during the 1990s were 

also clearly a matter of competition among private 

and state companies and governmental bureaucracies, 

making it difficult for Moscow to devise a coherent 

and viable energy program to meet both the opportunities and rising foreign challenges it began to encounter during the 1990s.305 Finally in 1999, General 

Anatoly Kvashnin, Chief of the General Staff, initiated 

the Russian Army’s march on Pristina and blindsided 

both the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign affairs, even though this march almost landed 

Russia in a conflict with NATO. Slightly earlier, Yeltsin’s first Foreign Minister, Andrei Kozyrev, though 

loyal and idealistic, failed to gain control over foreign 

policy or impress observers with his competence.306

Kozyrev’s ministry, for example, publicly stated in 

1992 before Yeltsin aborted his trip to Japan that it 

had given Yeltsin 14 options for his negotiations over 

the Kurile Islands before his proposed visit to Japan, a 

sure sign of incompetence.307 Not surprisingly, his and 

Yeltsin’s pro-American policies were under constant 

attack from forces opposed to Yeltsin’s economic and 

political reforms and from the armed forces. Indeed, 

the Foreign Ministry itself remained largely unreformed despite Kozyrev’s appointment.

These factors, coming on top of the catastrophic 

economic conditions and political strife of the 1990s 

not only led to a revival of conservatism, based on the 

axis of Russian state patriotism, they ensured that the 

pro-Western foreign policy associated with Yeltsin 

and Kozyrev were under constant pressure from a 

growing conservative and statist-oriented coalition.308

By 1992-93, as official documents like the 1993 foreign 

policy concept indicate, that pro-Western policy was 

in steady retreat.309 But the precedent of politicizing 
160

foreign policy success or failure in the domestic debate as a way to enhance or reduce the government’s 

standing was firmly established. Putin has learned 

from this experience and his curtailment of the media and establishment of a consensus from above by 

virtue of establishing unchallenged power based on a 

notion of Russian state greatness has enabled him to 

stifle debate on his foreign policies. Thus today there 

is no public consensus as to what Russian national 

interests either are or should be because there is no 

debate on these issues. Rather, there is an incessant 

beating of the drums for state nationalism or patriotism manipulated from Putin’s and now Medvedev’s 

office in order to squelch unfettered public debate.

Meanwhile, the chaos surrounding foreign policy 

during the 1990s allowed other actors to exploit the 

policy vacuum for their own interests. Unilateral military operations in the Caucasus and Moldova, ostensibly in the name of peacekeeping or peacemaking, exploited ethnic divisions in Georgia and Moldova and 

Azeri-Armenian tensions over Nagorno-Karabakh to 

create lasting proto-states in these areas, often garrisoned or protected by Russian military forces. These 

officers and politicians associated with them and these 

proto-states not only asserted their political and psychological interest in seeing Russia act as a great power and imperial policeman in the former Soviet Union, 

they also benefited and still benefit handsomely from 

the many opportunities for corruption provided by 

these proto-states. Consequently, they have created a 

situation of permanent tension in the Caucasus, particularly with Georgia but also with the West that arguably does not benefit Russian interests as a whole. 

For instance, it remains an open question if Georgia 

would be so anti-Russian and pro-Western if Russia 
161

had helped broker a viable solution to the conflicts in 

Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In that case, there would 

be much less East-West rivalry here and also a much 

more stable situation-confronting Russia throughout 

both the North Caucasus and Trans Caucasus.

This chaos abated somewhat during the late 1990s 

as a stronger hand in foreign policy by Yevgeny Primakov gradually restored some order to policymaking 

and veered towards the elite consensus on attempting 

to build a multipolar world where Russia engaged everyone and acted or portrayed itself as acting as a great 

independent power on a global stage. Although ultimately this approach, too, failed for lack of resources 

with which to play this role, it more nearly reflected 

the emerging elite consensus and helped to make the 

foreign policy debate in Russia less partisan. But it 

did so at the price of making it also less democratic. 

Foreign policy was now firmly established as a state 

activity carried out by the President and his team and 

removed from partisan political debate and influence.

Putin has built upon this achievement as well as 

the long-standing tradition in Russian history (that 

Yeltsin tried but only partially succeeded in realizing) 

that foreign policy is the Tsar or dictator’s prerogative 

alone. His success is due both to his ability to silence 

domestic debate, largely through repression and manipulation of public opinion through the media, and 

to his successes. But even if one argues that his policies have frequently not succeeded in achieving their 

foreign policy goals, they have done so in a domestic 

context, i.e., in consolidating an elite consensus and an 

elite form of rule, not necessarily in achieving greater 

stature or security for Russia. Arguably, today Russia may be wealthier and in some ways more powerful, but it also is more distrusted than it should be 
162

or needs to be. Thus this apparent success has been 

purchased at the price of a reversion to a traditional 

form of Russian rule, i.e., autocracy, which has repeatedly been shown to be inherently sub-optimal in ensuring Russia’s lasting security and stability. For all 

the innovative qualities of Putin’s foreign policies and 

notwithstanding the newness of today’s international 

environment, not enough of Igor Ivanov’s argument is 

being validated, while too much of Sorokin’s lament 

appears to have come true and still remains the case in 

both domestic and foreign policy.

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 2

1. Igor S. Ivanov, The New Russian Diplomacy, Washington, 

DC: The Nixon Center and Brookings Institution, 2002, pp. 21-22.

2. Sorokin is quoted in Michael Kimmelman, “Putin’s Last 

Realm to Conquer: Russian Culture,” New York Times, December 

1, 2007, p. A9.

3. The most recent example is Putin’s Article, “Russia Muscles 

Up-the Challenges We Must Rise to Face,” January 16, 2012, available from premier.gov.ru.

4. Neil Robinson, “Patrimonial Capitalism and the International Financial Crisis,” Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. XXVII, No. 3-4, September-December, 2011, pp. 

434-455; Brian D. Taylor, State Building in Putin’s Russia: Policing 

and Coercion After Communism, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2011; Richard Hellie, “The Structure of Russian Imperial History,” History and Theory, Vol. XLIV, No. 4, December, 

2005, pp. 88-112; Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, Kremlin Rising: 

Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the End of Revolution, New York: Scribner’s, 2005, p. 417; Steven Rosefielde, Russia in the 21st Century: 

the Prodigal Superpower, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University 

Press, 2004; Marshall T. Poe, The Russian Moment in World History, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003; Stefan Hedlund, Russian Path Dependence, London, UK; Routledge, 2005; 
163

Emil Pain, “Will Russia Transform Into a Nationalist Empire?” 

Russia in Global Affairs, Vol. III, No. 2, April-June, 2005, pp. 71-80; 

Stephen Kotkin, “It’s Gogol Again,” Paper Presented as part of 

the project, The Energy Dimension in Russian Global Strategy, James 

A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice University, Houston, 

TX. These are only a few of the authors who now see the vitality 

of the Tsarist metaphor as a means of explaining Putin’s Russia; 

Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC: 

Praeger, 2004; Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Old Regime, New 

York: Scribner’s 1975; Stephen Blank, Rosoboroneksport; Its Place in 

Russian Defense and Arms Sales Policy Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2007; Harley Balzer, “Confronting the Global Economy After Communism: Russia and China Compared,” Paper Presented to the Annual Convention of the 

International Studies Association, Honolulu, HI, March 1-5, 2005.

5. Alexei Arbatov, “Russia’s Own Imperial Road,” Natasha 

Bubnova, ed., 20 Years Without the Berlin Wall: A Breakthrough to 

Freedom, Moscow, Russia: Carnegie Center, Carnegie Endowment 

for International Peace, 2011, p. 32.

6. Evgenia Chaykovskaya, “Peskov: Comparing Putin to 

Brezhnev Is a Good Thing,” Moscow News, October 5, 2011, available from themoscownews.com/politics/20111005/189096032.html.

7. Heinrich Vogel, “The Putin System,” Internationale Politik 

Transatlantic Edition, No. 1, 2002, p. 4; Fred Weir, “Putin’s Duel 

With the Bureaucrats,” Christian Science Monitor, February 22, 

2002, confirms this; and “Russia’s General Staff Resisting Putin’s 

Force Reforms,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, February 14, 2002, p. 10, 

confirms this for the military.

8. Vitaly V. Shlykov, “Does Russia Need a General Staff,” 

European Security, Vol. X, No. 4, Winter, 2001, pp. 45-83; Stephen 

Blank, “From Kosovo to Kursk: Russian Defense Policy From 

Yeltsin to Putin,” Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, Vol. XII, No. 

2, Winter 2000, pp. 231-273; Dale R. Herspring, The Kremlin and 

the High Command: Presidential Impact on the Russian Military from 

Gorbachev to Putin, Foreword by David M. Glantz, Lawrence, KS: 

University of Kansas Press, 2006.
164

9. Moscow, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, in Russian, November 29, 

2000, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Soviet (SOV), 

November 29, 2000.

10. David M. MacDonald, “A Lever Without a Fulcrum: 

Domestic Factors and Russian Foreign Policy, 1905-1914, “ Hug 

Ragsdale, ed., Imperial Russian Foreign Policy, Washington, DC, 

and Cambridge, UK: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 281.

11. Ivan Safranchuk, “Russian Views on Missile Defense,” 

Pugwash Occasional Paper, Vol. II, No. 2, March, 2001, pp. 38-42.

12. Ibid.

13. Arbatov, p. 54.

14. Andrei Ryabov, “No Institutions,” Bubnova, ed., 20 Years 

Without the Berlin Wall, p. 79.

15. Nikolay Petrov, “Stalin’s System Reduplicated,” Moscow, 

Russia: Carnegie Moscow Center April 21, 2004, available from

www.carnegie.ru/en/pubs/media/70274.

16. Gregory Carleton,”History Done Right: War and the Dynamics of Triumphalism in Contemporary Russian Culture,” 

Slavic Review, Vol. LXX, No. 3, Fall 2011, p. 617.

17. Taylor.

18. Dmitri Trenin, “Overview of the History of Russian Foreign Policy (1992-2010), Bubnova, ed., 20 Years Without the Berlin 

Wall, pp. 245-246.

19. Jonathan Steinberg, Bismarck: a Life, New York: Oxford 

University Press, 2011.

20. Trenin, “Overview,” pp. 245-248.

21. Ibid. 
165

22. Celeste A. Wallander, “The Challenge of Russia for U.S. 

Policy,” Testimony before the Committee on Foreign Relations, 

United States Senate, June 21, 2005.

23. Alexander Golts and Tonya Putnam, “State Militarism 

and Its Legacies,: Why Military Reform Has Failed in Russia,” International Security, Vol. XXIX, No. 2, Fall 2004, pp. 121-159; Aleksandr’ Golts, Armiya Rossii: 11 Poteryannykh Let, Moscow, Russia: 

Zakharov, 2004. 

24. “Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin Resigns,” BBC 

News Europe, September 26, 2011, available from www.bbc.co.uk/

news/world-europe-15064866.

25. Andrei Illarionov, “The Siloviki in Charge,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. XX, No. 2, April, 2009, p. 72.

26. Stephen Blank, “Rumors of War: Russia and Its Neighborhood,” Forthcoming in World Defence Systems, 2012.

27. Taylor.

28. Sergei V. Lavrov, “Containing Russia: Back to the Future,” 

July 25, 2007, available from www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/e78a48070f12

8a7b43256999005bcbb3/8f8005f0c5ca3710c325731d0022e227?Open

Document.

29. Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, Energeticheskaya Strategiya Rossii Na Period do 2020 Goda, Moscow, Russia, 

2003.

30. Ibid.

31. Roman Kupchinsky, “Energy and Russia’s National Security Strategy,” The Progressive Realist, May 19, 2009, available from 

www.progressiverealist.org/blogpost/energy-and-russias-nationalsecurity-strategy.

32. Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, Energeticheskaya Strategiya Rossii Na Period do 2030 Goda, Moscow, 2009.
166

33. “Russia Gains a New Uzbek Client,” Jane’s Foreign Report, 

December 8, 2005; “Uzbek Airfield Is Made Available to Russia in 

Emergencies,” Ferghana.ru Information Agency, December 22, 2006.

34. Stephen Blank, “The Naval Dimension of the New Great 

Game,” World Defence Systems, Vol. IX, No. 2, 2007, pp. 34-40.

35. Blank, “The Naval Dimension of the New Great Game,” 

pp. 34-40.

36. Zoltan Barany, Democratic Breakdown and the Decline of 

the Russian Military, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 

2007; Herspring, The Kremlin and the High Command, Foreword by 

Glantz.

37. Sergei F. Platonov, Time of Troubles: A Historical Study of the 

Internal Crisis & Social Struggles in Sixteenth & Seventeenth-Century Muscovy, John T. Alexander, trans., Lawrence, KS; University 

Press of Kansas, 1970.

38. Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Nuclear 

Capabilities: Report Summary, Washington, DC: Office of the Under 

Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistic, 

December, 2006, pp. 11-12; Conversations with officers from U.S.

European Command (USEUCOM), Cambridge, MA, November 

26, 2007.

39. Alfred Rieber, “How Persistent Are Persistent Factors?” 

Ibid., pp. 205-277; Alfred J. Rieber, “Persistent Factors in Russian 

Foreign Policy: An Interpretation,” Hugh Ragsdale, ed., Imperial 

Russian Foreign Policy, Washington, DC, and Cambridge, MA: 

Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Cambridge University Press, 

1993, pp. 315-359.

40. David R. Cameron and Mitchell A. Orenstein, Post-Soviet 

Authoritarianism: The Impact of International Actors, Linkages, and 

Alliances, Paper Presented to the Annual Convention of the American Political Science Association, Seattle, WA, September 3, 2011.

41. Ibid., p. 16.
167

42. Samuel Charap and Alexandros Petersen, “Reimagining 

U.S. Interests and Priorities in Post-Soviet Eurasia,” Paul J. Saunders, ed., Enduring Rivalry: American and Russian Perspectives on 

the Former Soviet Space, Washington, DC: Center for the National 

Interests, 2011, pp. 5-7.

43. Nazrin Mehdiyeva, “New Man in the Kremlin: What Future for Russian Foreign Policy?” The International Spectator, Vol. 

XLIII, No. 2, June, 2008, p. 25. 

44. Oksana V. Goncharova, Russia and Europe: Opportunities 

and Practical Realizations, Paper Presented to the Standing Group 

on International Relations Conference, Stockholm, Sweden, 2010, 

p. 10.

45. “Interview with Vyacheslav Nikonov, President of the 

Politika Foundation,” Moscow, Russia, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, in Russian, July 26, 2007, Open Source Center, FBIS SOV, July 26, 2007.

46. Putin, “Russia Muscles Up—The Challenges We Must 

Rise to Face”; Fleming Splidsboel-Hansen, “Past and Future Meet: 

Aleksandr’ Gorchakov and Russian Foreign Policy,” Soviet Studies, Vol. LIV, No. 3, 2002, pp. 377-396.

47. Andrey Kolesnikov, “United Stolypin Front—How Vladimir Vladimirovich Gave Petr Arkadyevich’s Speeches,” Moscow, 

Kommersant Online, in Russian, July 14, 2011, Open Source Center, 

FBIS SOV, July 15, 2011; Alexei Makarin, “The Kremlin: the Sovereign and the Premier,” Moscow, Russia, Yezhednevnyi Zhurnal, 

in Russian, July 28, 2011, FBIS SOV, July 29, 2011.

48. Andrei P. Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy: Change and 

Continuity in National Identity, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006.

49. “Russia Says U.S. Deserves No Explanation on Syria Arms, 

Rejects Sanctions,” Al-Arabiya News, January 19, 2012, available 

from english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/01/18/189034.html.

50. Timofei Bordachev, “Toward a Strategic Alliance,” Russia 

in Global Affairs, No. 2, April-June, 2006, p. 3.
168

51. Stanislav Secrieru, Russia’s Quest for Strategic Identity, 

Rome, Italy: NATO Defense College, 2006, p. 19.

52. Arkady Moshes, “EU-Russia Relations: Unfortunate Continuity,” Foundation Robert Schuman, European Issues, No. 129, 

February 24, 2009, pp. 2-3.

53. Moscow, Interfax, in English, August 17, 2011, FBIS SOV, 

August 17, 2011.

54. Semyon Novoprudsky, “Soviet Warehouse,” Moscow, 

Russia, www.Gazeta.ru, in Russian, August 17, 2011, FBIS SOV, 

August 17, 2011.

55. Dmitri Furman, “A Silent Cold War,” Russia in Global Affairs, IV, No. 2 (April-June, 2006), 73.

56. Ibid.

57. Celeste A. Wallander, “Russian Transimperialism and Its 

Implications,” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. XXX, No. 2, 2007, 

pp. 117-118.

58. Robert Larsson, Nord Stream, Sweden and Baltic Sea Security, Stockholm, Sweden: Swedish Defense Research Agency, 

2007; Robert Larsson; Russia ́s Energy Policy: Security Dimensions 

and Russia ́s Reliability as an Energy Supplier, Stockholm, Sweden: 

Swedish Defense Research Agency, 2006; Janusz Bugajski, Cold 

Peace: Russia’s New Imperialism, Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, Praeger, 2004; Richard Krickus, 

Iron Troikas, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army 

War College, 2006; Keith C. Smith, Russian Energy Politics in the 

Baltics, Poland, and the Ukraine: A New Stealth Imperialism? Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2004.

59. Sergei Medvedev, “Power, Space, and Russian Foreign 

Policy,” Ted Hopf, ed., Understandings of Russian Foreign Policy, 

University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1999, pp. 46-49.

60. Michael Emerson, “Do We Detect Some Neo-Finlandization in the Eastern Neighborhood?” CEPS Commentary, May 28, 

2009, available from www.ceps.be.
169

61. Ibid.

62. Ibid.

63. Thomas Graham, Resurgent Russia and Purposes: A Century 

Foundation Report, New York: The Century Foundation, 2009, pp. 

23-25.

64. “Bulgaria, Russia Clear Out Diplomatic Scandal,” September 1, 2009, available from www.novinvite.com.

65. Judy Dempsey, “KGB-Trained Hungarian Has NATO 

Role,” New York Times, February 4, 2008. 

66. Edward Lucas, The New Cold War: Putin’s Russia and the Threat 

to the West, London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008; Larsson, Nord

Stream, Sweden and Baltic Sea Security; Larsson; Russia ́s Energy Policy; Marshall Goldman, “Putin, Petroleum, Power, and Patronage,” 

Washington, DC: Jamestown Foundation, 2006, available from 

www.jamestown.org/media/events/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D

=133&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=19&cHash=6; Smith; Author’s 

conversations with members of European foreign ministries and 

intelligence services, 2008; Anita Orban, Power, Energy, and the 

New Russian Imperialism, Washington, DC: Praeger, 2008; Edward 

Lucas, The New Cold War: Putin’s Russia and the Threat to the West, 

London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008; Larsson, Nord Stream, 

Sweden and Baltic Sea Security; Larsson, Russia ́s Energy Policy; 

Bugajski, Cold Peace; Krickus, Iron Troikas; Valery Ratchev, “Bulgaria and the Future of European Security,” paper presented to 

the SSI-ROA Conference, “Eurasian Security in the Era of NATO 

Enlargement,” Prague, the Czech Republic, August 4-5, 1997; 

Laszlo Valki, “Hungary and the Future of European Security,” 

Ibid.; Stefan Pavlov, “Bulgaria in a Vise,” Bulletin of the Atomic 

Scientists, January-February 1998, pp. 28-31; Moscow, Russia, Izvestiya, in Russian, June 19, 1997, in FBIS SOV, pp. 97-169, June 

18, 1997; Sofia, Bulgaria, Novinar, in Bulgarian, April 10, 1998, in 

Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Eastern Europe (FBIS EEU), 

April 13, 998, pp. 98-100.

67. Gundar J. King and David E. McNabb, “Crossroads Dynamics in Foreign Policy: The Case of Latvia,” Problems of PostCommunism, Vol. LVI, No. 3, May-June, 2009, p. 39.
170

68. Temur Basilia, “Eurasian Commentary,” in Jan H. Kalicki 

and Eugene K. Lawson, eds., Russian-Eurasian Renaissance? U.S. 

Trade and Investment in Russia and Eurasia, Stanford, CA: Stanford 

University Press, 2003, p. 166.

69. “Putin Speaks Out Against “Exporting Capitalist Democracy,” ITAR-TASS News Agency, April 11, 2003, retrieved from 

Lexis-Nexis; for an example from Turkmenistan, see Gennady Sysoev, “Saparmyrat Niyazov Seeks Protection,” Moscow, Russia, 

Kommersant, in Russian, April 11, 2003, FBIS SOV, April 11, 2003.

70. Basilia, p. 163.

71. Sabine Fischer, “Ukraine As a Regional Actor,” Sabine 

Fischer, ed., Ukraine: Quo Vadis, Chaillot Pape No. 108, Paris, 

France: Institute for Security Studies, European Union, 2008, 

p. 119.

72. Lilia Shevtsova, “Russia’s Choice: Change or Degradation?” Paper Presented to the Conference on Russia, Carlisle, PA, 

September 26, 2011, p. 4.

73. Dmitri Furman, “A Silent Cold War,” Russia in Global Affairs, Vol. IV, No. 2, April-June, 2006, p. 72.

74. Dmitry Furman, “A Cold War Without Words: Democratic Camouflage Keeps Russia from Properly Formulating Its Real 

Policy in the CIS,” Moscow, Russia, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, in Russian, March 27, 2006, FBIS SOV, March 27, 2006.

75. Rieber, “Persistent Factors in Russian Foreign Policy: An 

Interpretation,” pp. 315-359; Rieber, “How Persistent Are Persistent Factors?” pp. 205-277.

76. Robert Amsterdam, “Russia’s Velvet Privatization,” available from www.robertamsterdam.com, contains a reprint of Shvartsman’s interview with Kommersant, December 20, 2007.

77. Clifford Gaddy and Barry W. Ickes, “Resource Rents and 

the Russian Economy,” Eurasian Geography and Economics, Vol. 

XLVI, No. 8, 2005.
171

78. Hellie, “The Structure of Russian Imperial History,” pp. 

88-112; Baker and Glasser, Kremlin Rising, p. 417; Rosefielde, Russia in the 21st Century; Poe, The Russian Moment in World History; 

Hedlund, Russian Path Dependence; Pain, “Will Russia Transform 

Into a Nationalist Empire?” pp. 71-80; Kotkin, “It’s Gogol Again”; 

Pipes, Russia Under the Old Regime; Blank, Rosoboroneksport; Balzer, “Confronting the Global Economy After Communism: Russia 

and China Compared.” 

79. Clifford G. Gaddy and Barry W. Ickes, “Russia after the 

Global Financial Crisis,” Eurasian Geography and Economics, Vol. 

LI, No. 3, 2009, pp. 281-311; Clifford G. Gaddy, “The Russian 

Economy in the Year 2006, Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol. XXIII, No. 1, 

2007, p. 2.

80. James Sherr, “The Russia-EU Energy Relationship: Getting 

it Right,” The International Spectator, Vol. XLII, No. 2, 2010, p. 56.

81. Michael Shurkin, Subnational Government in Afghanistan, 

Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2011, p. 5, available from 

www.rand.org.

82. Shoichi Ito, Vladimir I. Ivanov, Zha Daojiong, “China, Japan, and Russia: The Energy Security Nexus,” Niklas Swanstrom, 

ed., Conflict Prevention and Conflict Management in Northeast Asia, 

Uppsala Silk Road Studies Program, Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala 

University, 2005, pp. 139-140, available at www.silkroadstudies.org.

83. Stephen Blank, “Russia’s Geoeconomic Future; The Security Implications of Russia’s Political and Economic Structure,” 

Journal of Slavic Studies, Vol. XXIV, No. 3, 2011, pp. 351-395.

84. Author’s Conversations with Foreign diplomats and officials in 2007-08; Wikileaks from U.S. embassy.

85. Clifford G. Gaddy and Barry W. Ickes, “Russia after the 

Global Financial Crisis,” Eurasian Geography and Economics, Vol. 

LI, No. 3, 2009, pp. 281-311. 

86. Testimony of Andrei Illarionov before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, at the hearing “From Competition to 

Collaboration: Strengthening the U.S.-Russia Relationship,” February 25, 2009, available from www.house.gov.
172

87. “Poland Sees Expansion in Russian Spying Network,” RIA 

Novosti, June 26, 2007.

88. FORUM/Moscow/Russia Internet, in Russian, May 24, 2008, 

FBIS SOV, May 24, 2008.

89. “Ukraine, Russia Expel Diplomats,” July 30, 2009, available from www.upi.com.

90. FBIS SOV, December 13, 2004.

91. Viktors Baublys, “Bank May Lose Lieutvos Rytas,” Vilnius, Vilnaius Diena, in Lithuanian, August 8, 2009, FBIS SOV, 

August 8, 2009.

92. FBIS SOV, October 1, 2007.

93. Jurga Tvaskiene, “Russia does Not Need ‘Exposed’ 

Friends,” Vilnius, Lieutvos Zinios, in Lithuanian, September 11, 

2009, FBIS SOV, September 11, 2009.

94. Ibid.

95. Moscow, ITAR-TASS, in English, September 9, 2009, FBIS 

SOV, September 9, 2009.

96. Richard J. Krickus, “The Presidential Crisis in Lithuania: 

Its Roots and the Russian Factor,” Occasional Papers of the East European Studies Institute, No. 73, Washington, DC: Wilson Center, 

2004; Vilnius, BNS Internet Version in English, September 21, 2007, 

FBIS SOV, September 21, 2007; Kaunas, Kauno Diena Internet Version, in Lithuanian, September 20, 2007, FBIS SOV, September 21, 

2007.

97. Tallinn, Eesti Express internet Version, in Estonian, October 

1, 2007, FBIS SOV, October 1, 2007.

98. Budapest, Magyar Hirlap Online, in Hungarian, August 6, 

2009, FBIS SOV, August 6, 2009.

99. Budapest, Hungary Around the clock, in English, August 24, 

2009, FBIS SOV, August 24, 2009; Budapest, Magyar Hirlap Internet 
173

Version, in Hungarian, December 14, 2007, FBIS SOV; “Hungary, 

Austria: A Continuing Energy Rivalry in the Balkans,” August 6, 

2008, available from www.stratfor.com.

100. Ference Kepecs, “Hungarian Maneuvering in the Draw 

of three Power Centers,” Budapest, Nepszava, in Hungarian, July 

31, 2008, FBIS SOV, July 31, 2008; Budapest, MTI, December 10, 

2007, FBIS SOV, December 10, 2007.

101. Budapest, MTI, in English, November 14, 2008, FBIS 

SOV, November 14, 2008; Budapest, MTI, in English, September 

25, 2008, FBIS SOV, September 25, 2008.

102. Vladimir Prybylovsky, Natalya Morar, Ilya Barabanov, 

and Yevgeniya Albats, “From Petersburg to Reykjavik: Whose 

Money Is Rescuing Iceland,” Compromat.ru Internet, in Russian, 

October 20, 2008, FBIS SOV, October 20, 2008; Dan Bilefsky, “Despite Crisis, Wealthy Russians Are Buying Up Coastal Montenegro,” New York Times, November 1, 2008, available from www.

nytimes.com.

103. Jan Gazdik, “In Czech Republic Russians Are Reactivating Agents From the Cold War Period,” Prague, IDnes.cz Online, 

in Czech, August 25, 2009, FBIS SOV, August 25, 2009.

104. Gazdik, FBIS SOV, August 25, 2009.

105 . Ibid.; Erik Tabery and Ondrej Kundra, “The Big Spying 

Game: What Was Behind the Expulsion of Two Russians from 

the Czech Republic”? Prague, Respekt.cz Online, in Czech August 

24-2009-August 30-2009, FBIS SOV, August 31, 2009; Lenka Ziamalova, “Interview With Lucas Dobrovsky,” Prague, Hospodarske Noviny Online, in Czech, August 21, 2009, FBIS SOV, August 

25, 2009; Prague, Czech Happenings, in English, August 21, 2009, 

FBIS SOV, August 25, 2009; Prague, Czech Happenings, in English August 27, 2009, FBIS SOV, August 27, 2009; Prague, CTK, 

in English, August 31, 2009, FBIS SOV; “Russia, Czech Republic: 

Trading Diplomatic Expulsions,” August 18, 2009, available from 

Stratfor.com.
174

106. Gregory Feller, and Brian Whitmore, “Czech Power 

Games: How Russia is Rebuilding Influence in the Former Soviet 

Bloc,” Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, September 25, 2010.

107. Ibid.

108. Prague, CTK, in English, August 31, 2009, FBIS SOV, August 31, 2009.

109. Tabery and Kundra, FBIS SOV, August 31, 2009.

110. Lenka Ziamalova, “Interview With Lucas Dobrovsky,” 

FBIS SOV August 25, 2009.

111. Lenka Ziamalova, “Interview With Deputy Foreign Minister Thomas Pojar,” Prague, Hospodarske Noviny Online, in Czech, 

September 25-28, 2009, FBIS SOV, September 28, 2009.

112. Jana Klimov and Janek Kroupa, “Nuclear Waste Storage Facility at Temelin Being ‘Built’ By Russian Consul,” Prague, 

IDnes.cz, in Czech, September 17, 2009, FBIS SOV, September 17, 

2009.

113. Feller and Whitmore.

114. Jeremy Druker, “Prague: The ‘Second Infiltration’,” International Security Network, September 14, 2009, available from 

www.isn.ethz.ch.

115. Ibid.

116. Caversham, BBC Monitoring, in English, August 13, 2009, 

FBIS SOV.

117. Smith; Author’s conversations with members of European foreign ministries and intelligence services, 2008; Anita Orban, Power, Energy, and the New Russian Imperialism, Washington, 

DC: Praeger, 2008; Edward Lucas, The New Cold War: Putin’s Russia and the Threat to the West, London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 

2008; Larsson, Nord Stream, Sweden and Baltic Sea Security; Larsson; 

Russia ́s Energy Policy; Bugajski Cold Peace; Krickus, Iron Troikas; 

Valery Ratchev, “Bulgaria and the Future of European Security,” 
175

paper presented to the SSI-ROA Conference, “Eurasian Security 

in the Era of NATO Enlargement,” Prague, August 4-5, 1997; 

Laszlo Valki, “Hungary and the Future of European Security”; 

Stefan Pavlov, “Bulgaria in a Vise,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 

January-February 1998, pp. 28-31; Moscow, Izvestiya, in Russian, 

June 19, 1997, in FBIS SOV, pp. 97-169; Sofia, Novinar, in Bulgarian, April 10, 1998, in FBIS EEU, pp. 98-100, April 13, 1998.

118. Ugroza Kremlya,”April 7, 2008, Radio Free Europe Radio 

Liberty Newsline, April 8, 2008, available from www.kommersant.

com; “Putin Hints At Splitting Up Ukraine, “ Moscow Times, April 

8, 2008; “Putin Threatens Unity of Ukraine, Georgia,” Unian, April 

7, 2008, available from www.unian.net.

119. “Ugroza Kremlya.”

120. Stephen Blank, “The Values Gap Between Moscow and 

the West: the Sovereignty Issue,” Acque et Terre, No. 6, 2007, pp. 

9-14 (Italian), pp. 90-95 (English), cites many examples of such 

statements and policies.

121. Available from www.kremlin.ru/eng/text/speeches/2009/

08/11/0832_type207221_220745.shtml.

122. Ibid.

123. Dmitri Trenin, Post-Imperium: a Eurasian Story, Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2011, p. 29.

124. Moscow, Vesti TV, in Russian, February 6, 2007, FBIS 

SOV, February 6, 2007.

125. Blank, “The Values Gap Between Moscow and the West.” 

126. Trenin, Post-Imperium, pp. 13-14.

127. Blank, “The Values Gap Between Moscow and the West,” 

pp. 90-95.

128. “Army Chief Warns Poles: If You Want U.S. Shield, Buy 

Gas Masks,” Russian Courier, July 16, 2007, available from www.

russiancourier.com/en/news/2007/07/16/75153/.
176

129. Stephen Blank, “A Scandal in Serbia,” Eurasian Daily 

Monitor, Forthcoming.

130. Koba Bendeliani, “Interview With Sergei Markov,” Kviris 

Palitra, June 26, 2006, cited in Johnson’s Russia List, June 26, 2006, 

available from www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/.

131. Moscow, Vesti TV, in Russian, February 6, 2007, FBIS 

SOV.

132. Charles Clover, “Ukraine Looks East,” FT.com, January 21, 2001, available from www.ft.com; Charles Clover, “Kiev 

Warned on Neutral Policy,” Financial Times, July 12, 2001, p. 2.

133. Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Newsline, from Radio Mayak, Moscow, October 11, 2005, available from www.ft.com.

134. “Russian Minister’s Military Pact Comment Seen as 

Warning to Rice in Central Asia,” NTV, Mir, October 11, 2005, 

retrieved from Lexis-Nexis.

135. “Moscow, NTV in Russian, July 2, 2005, FBIS SOV.

136. Clover, “Ukraine Looks East,” p. 2; Clover, “Kiev Warned 

on Neutral Policy,” p. 1.

137. Riga, Baltic News Service, December 20, 2006.

138. For Russian policy towards Bulgaria, see Ratchev, “Bulgaria and the Future of European Security”; Laszlo Valki, “Hungary and the Future of European Security”; Stefan Pavlov, “Bulgaria in a Vise,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January-February 

1998, pp. 28-31; Moscow, Izvestiya, in Russian, June 19, 1997, in 

FBIS SOV, pp. 97-169, June 18, 1997; Sofia, Novinar, in Bulgarian, 

April 10, 1998, in FBIS EEU, pp. 98-100, April 13, 1998.

139. “Russian Ambassador Plays Down Impact of Ukrainian 

NATO Membership,” Interfax News Agency, Moscow, June 8, 2002. 

140. “Russian Ambassador: We Will Not Allow US Presence 

in Caspian, “Baku Today, June 12, 2003; Stephen Blank, “Central 

Asia’s Great Base Race,” Asia Times Online, December 19, 2003.
177

141. Ibid.

142. Viktor Janszo, “Hungary’s Eyes on Russia Again,” Budapest, Magyar Hirlap, in Hungarian, March 30, 2007, FBIS SOV, 

March 30, 2007; Attila Pinter, “Interview With Zsolt Nemeth,” 

Ibid; Peter Dunail, “Confrontational Policy Leads Nowhere,” Budapest, Nepszabasdag, in Hungarian, January 5, 2007, FBIS SOV, 

January 5, 2007; Andreas Desi, “This Is a New Russia,” Ibid. March 

30, 2007, FBIS SOV March 30, 2007.

143. Vladimir Socor, “Putin Offers Ukraine “Protection” for 

Extending Russian Black Sea Fleet’s Presence,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, October 30, 2006.

144. Ibid.

145. Ibid.

146. The Jamestown Monitor, June 18, 2000.

147. Steven D. Roper, “Federalization and Constitution-Making as an Instrument of Conflict Resolution,” Demokratizatsiia, 

Vol. XII, No. 4, Fall 2004, p. 536.

148. Alexei K. Pushkov, “Missed Connections, “The National 

Interest, No. 89, May-June, 2007, pp. 52-55.

149. Moscow, Interfax, in English, October 19, 2011, FBIS SOV, 

November 19, 2011.

150. “Senior MP Advises Turkmenistan to Stick with Russia 

to Avoid Libya’s Fate,” Moscow, Russia, Interfax, November 15, 

2011; also available from BBC Monitoring.

151. Vladimir Socor, “Moscow Issues Trans-Caspian Project 

Warning,” Asia Times Online, December 2, 2011, available from 

www.atimes.com.

152. Maura Reynolds, “Moscow Has Chechnya Back—Now 

What?” Los Angeles Times, June 19, 2000.
178

153. Quoted in Boris Rumer, “Central Asia: At the End of the 

Transition,” Boris Rumer ed., Central Asia At the End of Transition,

Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe & Co. Inc., 2005, p. 47.

154. Strategiia Razvittia Otnoshenii Rossiiskoi Federatsii s Evropeiskim Soiuzom na Srednesrochnuiu Perspektivu (2000-2010) Diplomaticheskii Vestnik, November 1999, available from www.ln.mis.ru/

website/dip_vest.nsf, items 1.1., 1.6, and 1.8.2000, cited in Hannes 

Adomeit and Heidi Reisinger, Russia’s Role in Post-Soviet Territory: 

Decline of Military Power and Political Influence, Oslo, Norway, Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, Forsvarstudier No. 4, 2002, 

p. 5.

155 . Taylor; Hellie, “The Structure of Russian Imperial History,” pp. 88-112; Baker and Glasser, Kremlin Rising, p. 417; Rosefielde, Russia in the 21st Century; Poe, The Russian Moment in World 

History; Hedlund, Russian Path Dependence; Pain, “Will Russia 

Transform Into a Nationalist Empire,” pp. 71-80; Kotkin, “It’s 

Gogol Again”; Pipes, Russia Under the Old Regime; Blank, Rosoboroneksport; Balzer, “Confronting the Global Economy After Communism: Russia and China Compared.”

156. Paul J. Saunders, “Managing U.S.-Russian Differences in 

the Former Soviet Space,” Paul J. Saunders, ed., Enduring Rivalry: 

American and Russian Perspectives on the Former Soviet Space, Washington, DC: Center for the National Interests, 2011, p. 74.

157. Sergei Ivanov, “Russia Must Be Strong,” Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2006, p. 14.

158. Yuliya Alekhina, “America preparing for World Internet 

War,” Moscow, Russia, Komsomolskaya Pravda, in Russian, July 28, 

2011, FBIS SOV, July 29, 2011; Jim Sciutto, “The Police State Playbook: An Introduction,” World Affairs journal, July-August, 2011, 

available from www.worldaffairsjournal.org/articles/2011; Andrei 

Soldatov, “Kremlin’s Plan to Prevent a Facebook Revolution,” The 

Moscow Times, in English, February 28, 2011, FBIS SOV.

159. Col. A. A. Strel’tsov (Ret.), “Basic Goals of Government 

Policy in Information Wars and Battles,” Military Thought (English), XX, No. 2, 2011, p. 36.
179

160. “Dmitry Medvedev Held a Meeting of the National AntiTerrorism Committee in Vladikavkaz,” February 22, 2011, available from eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/1804.

161. Tatiana Stoyanova, “Are ‘They’ the Main Threat to Russia?” Moscow, Russia, politkom.ru, in Russian, February 25, 2011, 

FBIS SOV.

162. I. V. Stalin, “The Policy of the Soviet Government on the 

National Question in Russia,” Pravda, October 10, 1920; Joseph 

Stalin, Marxism and the National Question: Selected Writings and 

Speeches, New York: International Publishers, 1942, p. 77.

163. Roman Szporluk, ed., The Influence of East Europe and 

the Soviet West on the USSR, New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975; 

Vladimir D. Shkolnikov, “Modernization and Russian Democracy,” Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Vol. XXIX, No. 2, Summer, 

2005, pp. 21-25.

164. Ibid.

165. Stephen Blank, “We Can Live Without You: Dialogue 

and Rivalry in Russo-Japanese Relations,” Comparative Strategy,

Vol. XIV, No. 1, 1993, pp. 173-198; Stephen Blank, “Diplomacy at 

an Impasse: Russia and Japan in a New Asia,” Korean Journal of 

Defense Analysis, Vol. V, No. 1, Spring/Summer, 1993, pp. 141-

164; “Voyennaya Doktrina, Rossiiskoi Federatsii-Proekt,” Krasnaya Zvezda, October 9, 1999, pp. 3-4; Moscow, Russia, Nezavisimoye 

Voyennoe Obozreniye, January 14, 2000, FBIS SOV; Moscow, Russia, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, April 22, 2000, FBIS SOV, April 24, 2000; 

“Yeltsin Okays Russian Foreign Policy Concept,” Current Digest 

of the Post-Soviet Press (CDPP), Vol. XLV, No. 17, May 26, 1993, 

p. 15; Evgeny Bazhanov, “Russian Perspectives on China’s Foreign Policy and Military Development,” Jonathan D. Pollack and 

Richard H. Yang, eds., In China’s Shadow: Regional Perspectives on 

Chinese Foreign Policy and Military Development, Santa Monica, CA: 

Rand Corporation, 1998, pp. 71-76; Yuri S. Tsyganov, “Russia and 

China: What is in the Pipeline,” in Gennady Chufrin, ed., Russia 

and Asia: The Emerging Security Agenda, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press for SIPRI, 1999, pp. 301-303.
180

166. E. G., Vyacheslav Nikonov, “Putin’s Strategy,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta, December 22, 2004: Mikhail Margelov, “What Need 

Is There for the OSCE,” Moscow, Russia, Nezavisimaya Gazeta,

January 19, 2004, FBIS SOV; Address by Defense Minister Sergei 

Ivanov, “Russia’s Armed Forces and Its Geopolitical Priorities,” 

Moscow, www.polit.ru, February 3, 2004, FBIS SOV; Surkov.

167. Phillip Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the 

Course of History, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002, pp. 634-638.

168. Ibid.

169. Ibid.

170. Sergei Lavrov, “Global Politics Needs Openness and Democracy,” Izvestiya, in Russian, April 24, 2007, FBIS SOV.

171. Quoted in Michael Emerson, “From an Awkward Partnership to a Greater Europe: A European Perspective,” Dana Allin and Michael H. Emerson, eds., Readings in European Security, 

Vol. III, Brussels, Belgium, and London, UK: Center for European 

Policy Studies and International Institute for Security Studies, 

2005, p. 19. 

172. Robert Legvold, ed., Russian Foreign Policy in the 21st 

Century & the Shadow of the Past, New York: Columbia University 

Press, 2007, is a recent exception to this trend.

173. Rieber, “Persistent Factors in Russian Foreign Policy: An 

Interpretation,” p. 321.

174. Neuman Hausikala.

175. Iver Neumann.

176. Moscow, Russia, Ekho Moskvy, in Russian, February 17, 

2007, Open Source Committee, FBIS SOV.

177. Yuri Ushakov, “From Russia With Like,” Los Angeles 

Times, February 1, 2007, available from www.latimes.com.
181

178. Mehdiyeva, p. 24.

179. “Russia Ready to Cooperate With NATO on an Equal 

Basis Only-Foreign Ministry,” Moscow, Interfax, in Russian, April 

8, 2009, FBIS SOV.

180. Sergei Markedonov, “NATO’s Anniversary Summit: the 

European Dimension,” Moscow, politkom.ru, in Russian, April 6, 

2009, FBIS SOV.

181. “Transcript: Sergei Ivanov,” Financial Times, April 18, 

2007, available from www.ft.com/cms/s/b7e458ea-ede1-11db-8584-

000b5df10621.html.

182. Pipes; Lunacharsky’s remarks cited in Ronald Hideo 

Hayashida, The Third Front: The Politics of Soviet Mass Education 

1917-1918, Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University, 

p. 148.

183. “Transcript: Sergei Ivanov.”

184. “Putin Warns Russia Political Reform Needs Caution,” 

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, January 22, 2010, available from 

www.rferl.org.

185. Tatiana Stoyanova, “Are ‘They’ the Main Threat to Russia?” Moscow, Russia, politkom.ru, in Russian, February 25, 2011, 

FBIS SOV.

186. Dmitri Trenin, “Building a Republic 20 Years After the 

Putsch,” Moscow Times, August 16, 2011.

187. “Vladimir Shlapentokh, “Russian Intellectuals Hold the 

Russians in Contempt: Not Ready for Democracy,” p. 41, available from shlapentokh.wordpress.com.

188. “’Sovereign Democracy’ Intrinsically Russian-Speaker,” 

Interfax, April 27, 2011, Johnson’s Russia List, April 28, 2011.

189. Cited in Stephen White, Understanding Russian Politics, 

Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp. 110-111.
182

190. Richard Pipes, Russian Conservatism and Its Critics: A 

Study in Political Culture, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 

2007.

191. “Meeting on Preparations for Celebrating the 1150th Anniversary of Russia’s Statehood,” July 22, 2011, available from eng.

kremlin.ru/transcripts/2626.

192. Ibid.

193. Ibid.

194. Ibid.

195. Vladimir Shlapentokh, “Are Today’s Authoritarian Leaders Doomed to Be Indicted When They Leave Office? The Russian 

and Other Post-Soviet Cases,” Communist and Post-Communist 

Studies, Vol. XXXIX, No. 2, Autumn, 2006, pp. 462-63.

196. Sergei Gavrov, “Is the Transition to Authoritarianism 

Irreversible?” Russian Social Science Review, Vol. XKVIII, No. 3, 

May-June, 2007, pp. 22-23.

197. Cited in Cathy Young, “From Russia With Loathing,” 

New York Times, November 21, 2008, available from www.nytimes.

com.

198. Fedor Lukyanov, “Political No-Road Map,” Moscow, 

Russia, Gazeta.ru, in Russian, April 3, 2008, FBIS SOV; Tsypkin 

cites analogous examples of this, Tsypkin, pp. 784-787.

199. Fedor Lukyanov, “Russian Dilemmas in a Multipolar 

World,” Journal of International Affairs, Vol. LXIII, No. 2, Spring/

Summer, 2010, p. 28.

200 . Timofei Bordachev, “Multipolarity, Anarchy, and Security,” in Ivan Krastev et al., What Does Russia Think? London, 

UK: European Council on Foreign Relations, 2009, p. 63, available 

from www.ecfr.eu.

201. Kari Roberts, “Jets, Flags, and a New Cold War?” International Journal, Vol. LXV, No. 4, Autumn, 2010, p. 962.
183

202. Vladimir Kara-Murza, “Stealing the Vote: the Kremlin 

Fixes Another Election,” World Affairs, September-October, 2011, 

pp. 60-63.

203. Zoltan Barany, Democratic Breakdown and the Decline of the 

Russian Military, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007, 

pp. 167-168.

204. “Russia On the Brink of Civil War,” Moscow, Vlasti, in 

Russian, April 19, 2009, FBIS SOV.

205. Ibid.

206. Ibid.

207. Iriana Borogan, “In Shoulder-Boards: The Kremlin’s Anti-Crisis Project: When OMON Rushes to Help,” Moscow, Russia, 

Yezhenedevnyi Zhurnal, in Russian, December 15, 2009, FBIS SOV.

208. Moscow, Agentstvo Voyennykh Novostey Internet Version, 

in Russian, July 4, 2008, FBIS SOV.

209. Sergei Karaganov, “The Unfinished Cold War,” The 

Jordan Times, August 13, 2009, available from www.jordantimes.

com/?news=19064.

210. Trenin is quoted in Sergei Strokan and Dmitry Sidorov, 

“In the World: and Now the Rest,” Moscow, Russia, Kommersant 

Online, in Russian, July 27, 2009, FBIS SOV.

211. House of Commons Defence Committee, Russia: A New 

Confrontation? Team Report of Session 2008-09, London, UK: The 

Stationery House for the House of Commons, 2009, p. 56.

212. “Charlemagne, “Europe’s Bear Problem,” The Economist, 

February 27, 2010, p. 61.

213. Ulam, Kennan.

214. Rieber, ““Persistent Factors in Russian Foreign Policy: 

An Interpretation,” pp. 315-359; Rieber, “How Persistent Are Persistent Factors?” pp. 205-277.
184

215. Oleg Shchedrov, “U.S. Uses Double Standards Over 

Protests: Russia.”

216. Reuters, November 27, 2007; “Foreign Ministry: Russia 

Rules Out Double Standards,” available from en.civilg8.ru1779.

php. These are two typical examples where Russia accuses the 

West of applying double standards over human rights and civil 

rights violations in Russia and towards the liberalization of the 

EU’s energy markets while demanding the same in Russia.

217. Moscow, Russia, Vek (Electronic Version), in Russian, 

November 26, 1999, FBIS SOV, for a justification of the Chechen 

offensive in terms of the domino theory, underscoring Putin’s 

sense of the precariousness of state power in the provinces as for 

other Russian observers. See Vladimir Baranovsky, “Russia and 

Asia: Challenges and Opportunities for National and International Security,” Gennady Chufrin, ed., Russia and Asia: The Emerging 

Security Agenda, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press for the SIPRI Institute, 1999, p. 14.

218. Alexander Lukin, “Russia’s China Card: Eyes on Washington,“ Byung-Kook Kim and Anthony Jones, eds., Power and Security in Northeast Asia: Shifting Strategies, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007, pp. 167-193; Rouben Azizian, “Russia and 

the Asia-Pacific: Trends, Threats, and Common Threads,” and 

Artyom Lukin, “Regionalism in Northeast Asia and Prospects for 

Russia-U.S. Cooperation,” both in Rouben Azizian, ed., Russia and 

America in the Asia-Pacific, Honolulu: HI: Asia-Pacific Center for 

Security Studies, 2007, pp. 16-36 and 227-230, respectively.

219. Moscow, Nezavisimaya Gazeta Internet Version, March 

17, 2000, FBIS SOV; FBIS SOV, November 29, 1999; ITAR-TASS, 

March 1, 2000; FBIS SOV, March 1, 2000. Vladimir Putin, “Russia 

at the Turn of the Millennium,” available from www.geocities.com/

capitolhill/parliament/3005/poutine.html. 

220. FBIS SOV, November 29, 1999.

221. Moscow, Russia, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, (Electronic Version), March 17, 2000, FBIS SOV; Moscow, Russia, Vek (Electronic Version), November 26, 1999, FBIS SOV, November 29, 1999; 

Moscow, Russia, ITAR-TASS, March 1, 2000, FBIS SOV.
185

222. Vladimir Putin, “Russia at the Turn of the Millennium,” 

available from www.geocities.com/capitolhill/parliament/3005/poutine.html.

223. “Putin says Russia can defend its interests at home and 

abroad,” RIA Novosti, November 18, 2007; Vladimir Putin, “Meeting with Members of the Nakhimov and Suvorov Military Academies and Representatives of Youth Organizations After Laying 

Flowers at the Monument to Mini and Pozharskii,” November 4, 

2007, available from www.kremlin.ru/eng/text/speeches/2007/11/04. 

See the articles in the Russian Journal (English language version) 

Military Thought, No. 2, 2007, from speeches given at a conference 

at the Academy of Military Sciences in Moscow, January 20, 2007; 

M. A. Gareev, “Russia’s New Military Doctrine: Structure and 

Substance,” pp. 1-14; Y. N. Baluyevsky, “Theoretical and Methodological Foundations of the Military Doctrine of the Russian 

Federation (Plans for a Report), pp. 15-22; A. S. Rukshin, “Doctrinal Views on Employment and Organizational Development of 

the Armed Forces of Russia,” pp. 23-30. Gareev is President of the 

Academy, Baluyevsky is Chief of Staff, and Rukshin his Deputy.

224. Heinrich Vogel, “How Not to Deal With a Backsliding 

Russia,” Internationale Politik, Winter, 2005, p. 59.

225. Paul Goble, “Window on Eurasia: Russians See Themselves as Both ‘the Greatest and Most Oppressed of Nations, Moscow Commentator Says,” Johnson’s Russia List, May 31, 2011.

226. “Russia At Risk of Collapsing, Putin Says,” Associated 

Press, April 18, 2005, Retrieved from Lexis-Nexis; “Interview with 

Chief of the Presidential Staff Dmitri Medvedev,” Ekspert Weekly, 

April 5, 2005, retrieved from Lexis-Nexis; “Vladislav Surkov’s Secret Speech: How Russia Should Fight International Conspiracy,” 

available from www.mosnews.com, July 12, 2005; “Interview with 

Vladislav Surkov, Moscow, Russia, Ekho Moskvy, FBIS SOV, September 29, 2004.

227. Ibid.; General M. A. Gareyev (Gareev), “Problems of 

Maintaining Defense Security in Today’s World,” European Security, Vol. X, No. 3, Autumn, 2001, pp. 36-37.

228. Baluyevsky, p. 17.
186

229. Gareev, pp. 4-5.

230. Western analysts have noted this as well. Jacob Kipp, 

“Russia: New Draft Military Doctrine,” Ustina Markus and Daniel N. Nelson, eds., Brassey’s Eurasian and East European Security 

Yearbook, Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2000, p. 343.

231. “Putin Interviewed by Journalists from G8 countries—

text,” June 4, 2007, available from www.kremlin.ru, Retrieved from 

Nexis-Lexis.

232. Moscow, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Internet Version, “Russian President Addresses Munich Forum, Answers Questions on Iran, 

February 12, 2007, FBIS SOV. The question and answer session 

from which these remarks are taken are not on the kremlin.ru website.

233. “Interview with General Yuri Baluyevsky, First Deputy 

Defense Minister and Chief of the Russian Federation Armed 

Forces General Staff, Moscow, Russia, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, February 21, 2007 FBIS SOV.

234. FBIS SOV, February 12, 2007; “Speech and the Following 

Discussion at the Munich Conference on Security,” February 10, 

2007.

235. Ellen Barry, “Putin Aide Says Foreign Hands Are Behind Protests,” New York Times, February 4, 2012, available from 

www. nytimes.com; Thomas L. Friedman, “Russia: Sort of But Not 

Really,“ New York Times, February 5, 2012, available from www.

nytimes.com.

236. Andrew Monaghan, “Medvedev’s Modernization: Towards a Russian Strategy,” Christopher M. Schaubelt, ed., Towards a Comprehensive Approach: Strategic and Operational Challenges, Rome, Italy: NATO Defense College, 2011, pp. 115-121.

237. Vladimir Isachenkov, “Putin Lashes Out at Political Enemies,” Associated Press, December 2, 2007.

238. Mohammad Ayoob, “From Regional System to Regional 

Society: Exploring Key Variables in the Construction of Regional 
187

Order,” Australian Journal of International Affairs, Vol. LIII, No. 3, 

1999, pp. 247-260; “Inequality and theorizing in International Relations: The Case for Subaltern Realism,” International Studies Review, Vol. IV, No 3, 2002, pp. 127-148, and the works cited therein.

239. Mohammad Ayoob, “From Regional System to Regional 

Society: Exploring Key Variables in the Construction of Regional 

Order,” Australian Journal of International Affairs, Vol. LIII, No. 3, 

1999, pp. 247-260; Mohammad Ayoob, “Inequality and Theorizing in International Relations: The Case for Subaltern Realism,” 

International Studies Review, Vol. IV, No. 3, 2002, pp. 127-148, and 

the works cited therein.

240. As quoted in Mikhail Alekseev, Regionalism of Russia’s 

Foreign Policy in the 1990s: A Case of “Reversed Anarchy,” Donald W. 

Treadgold Papers, Seattle, WA: University of Washington, Henry 

M. Jackson School of International Studies, No. 37, 2003, p. 12.

241. Amitav Acharya, “Human Security and Asian Regionalism: A Strategy of Localization,” Amtiav Acharya and Evelyn 

Goh, eds., Reassessing Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific: Competition, Congruence, and Transformation, Cambridge, MA: MIT 

Press, 2007, p. 241.

242. Cooper.

243. Stephen E. Hanson, “The Uncertain Future of Russia’s 

Weak State Authoritarianism,” East European Politics and Societies, 

Vol. XXI, No. 1, January, 2007, p. 69.

244. Timofei Bordachev, “Russia’s Europe Dilemma: Democratic Partner vs. Authoritarian Satellite,” Andrew Kuchins and 

Dmitri Trenin, eds., Russia: The Next Ten Years, A Collection of 

Essays to Mark Ten Years of the Carnegie Moscow Center, Moscow, 

Russia: Carnegie Center, 2004, p. 120. 

245. Vladimir Mau, “The Role of the State and the Creation of 

a Market Economy in Russia,” BOFIT Discussion Papers, No. 23, 

2011.

246. Gordon M. Hahn, Russia’s Islamic Threat, New Haven, 

CT, and London, UK: Yale University Press, 2007, p. 1.
188

247. Dov Lynch, “‘The Enemy Is At the Gate’: Russia After 

Beslan,” International Affairs, Vol. LXXXI (1), 2005, pp. 141–161.

248. Ibid.

249. Ibid.; Vyacheslav Nikonov, “Putin’s Strategy,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta, December 22, 2004, Retrieved from Lexis-Nexis; 

“The People Said ‘No’, and That Started It: Aleksander Kwasniecki Talking to Warsaw’s Polityka,” Transatlantic Internationale 

Politik, No. 1, 2005, p. 64.

250. Sergey Kolmakov, “The Ukrainian Elections—Views 

From Russia Access PBN, Vol. I, No. 23, January 25, 2005; Nikonov. 

251. Current Digest of the Post-Soviet press (Henceforth CDPP), 

Vol. LVI, No. 48, December 29, 2004, p. 10.

252. “Russia At Risk of Collapsing, Putin Says,” Associated 

Press, April 18, 2005, Retrieved from Lexis-Nexis; “Interview with 

Chief of the Presidential Staff Dmitri Medvedev,” Ekspert Weekly, 

April 5, 2005, retrieved from Lexis-Nexis; “Vladislav Surkov’s Secret Speech: How Russia Should Fight International Conspiracy,” 

July 12, 2005, available from www.mosnews.com; “Interview with 

Vladislav Surkov, Moscow, Russia, Ekho Moskvy, FBIS SOV, September 29, 2004.

253. Philip Hanson, “The Turn to Statism in Russian Economic Policy, The International Spectator, Vol. XLII, No. 1, March, 2007, 

pp. 54-55.

254. Yevgeny M. Primakov, Gody v Bol’shoi Politike, Moscow, 

Russia: Sovershenno Sekretno, 1999, pp. 133-135.

255. Vladimir Putin, “Speech at the Reception on the Occasion 

of National Unity Day,” November 4, 2007, available from www.

kremlin.ru/eng/text/speeches/2007/11/04.

256. General M.A. Gareyev (Gareev), “Problems of Maintaining Defense Security, in Today’s World,” European Security, Vol. 

X, No. 3, Autumn 2001, pp. 36-37.
189

257. John Loewenhardt, “Russia and Europe: Growing Apart 

Together,” Brown Journal of World Affairs, Vol. VII, No. 1, WinterSpring 2000, p. 171.

258. Putin so likes this poem that he quotes it to foreign visitors, e.g., French President Sarkozy, October 2007, “France’s Nicolas Sarkozy Finally Finds Someone to Admire—Putin and Russia,” October 10, 2007, www.pravda.ru.

259. Putin, “Russia at the Turn of the Millennium”; “Interview With Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov,” Moscow, Russia, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, in Russian, December 17, 1996, FBIS SOV.

260. Ibid.

261. Dmitri Trenin, “Russia Leaves the West,” Foreign Affairs, 

Vol. LXXXV, No. 4, July-August 2006, pp. 85-96.

262. Stanislav Secrieriu, “Russia’s Foreign Policy Under Putin: ‘CIS Project’ Renewed,” UNISCI Discussion Papers, No. 10, 

January 2006, p. 291.

263. Trenin, “Russia Leaves the West,” pp. 85-96.

264. Maura Reynolds, “Moscow Has Chechnya Back—Now 

What?” Los Angeles Times, June 19, 2000.

265. Quoted in Boris Rumer, “Central Asia: At the End of the 

Transition,” Boris Rumer, ed., Central Asia At the End of Transition,

Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe & Co. Inc., 2005, p. 47.

266. Quoted in Michael Emerson, “From an Awkward Partnership to a Greater Europe: A European Perspective,” Dana Allin and Michael H. Emerson, eds., Readings in European Security, 

Vol. III, Brussels, Belgium, and London, UK: Center for European 

Policy Studies and International Institute for Security Studies, 

2005, p. 19. 

267. E.g., Alexei Pushkov, “Quo Vadis? Scenarios for Russia,” 

International Affairs, No. 3, 2002, p. 71.
190

268. Julie Wilhelmsen and Geir Flikke, “Evidence of Russia’s 

Bush Doctrine in the CIS,” European Security, Vol. XIV, No. 3, September, 2005, pp. 387-417.

269. Sergei Lavrov, “Vneshnepoliticheskaya Samostoyatel’

nost’ Rossii Bezuslovnyi Imperativ” (“Russia’s Foreign Policy 

Autonomy is an Unconditional Imperative”), Moskovskiye Novosti, 

January 19, 2007, available from www.mn.ru/issue.php?2007-1-56; 

Gareyev, “Russia New Military Doctrine: Structure, Substance,” 

p. 4.

270 . Cited in Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin’s Wars: From World Wars 

to Cold Wars, 1939-1953, New Haven, CT, and London, UK: Yale 

University Press, 2007, p. 22.

271. Reynolds, “Moscow Has Chechnya Back—Now What?” 

272. Quoted in Rumer, “Central Asia: At the End of the Transition,” p. 47.

273. Cited in Yegor Gaidar, Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for 

Modern Russia, Antonia Bouis, trans., Washington, DC: Carnegie 

Endowment for International Peace, 2007, p. x.

274. Ibid., pp. ix-xviii.

275. Dietrich Geyer, Russian Imperialism: The Interaction of Domestic and Foreign Policy, 1860-1914, Bruce Little, trans., New Haven, CT, and London, UK: Yale University Press, 1987, p. 64.

276. Ibid., pp. 1-123.

277. Larissa Zakharova, “Autocracy and the Reforms of 1861-

1874 in Russia: Choosing Paths of Development,” Daniel Field, 

trans., Ben Eklof, John Bushnell, and Larissa Zakharaova, eds. 

Russia’s Great Reforms, 1855-1881, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994, pp. 19-39.

278. Theodore Taranovski, ed., Reform in Modern Russian History: Progress or Cycle? Washington, DC and Cambridge, UK: 

Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Cambridge University Press, 

1995. 
191

279. E.g., V. Kuznechevsky, “Russia-EU Samara Summit,” 

International Affairs (Moscow) No. 4, 2007, pp. 84-86. Since this 

journal is the journal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this viewpoint’s frequent appearance there is, to use a Soviet neologism, 

no accident.

280. Hence the official promotion of Russian Orthodoxy as 

a state religion and the promotion of an ideology that is not far 

removed from Nicholas I’s official nationality of autocracy, orthodoxy, and nationality (i.e., Russianness).

281. Nicholas Riasanaovsky, Nicholas I and Official Nationality 

in Russia, 1825-1855, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of 

California Press, 1969; W. Bruce Lincoln, Nicholas I: Emperor and 

Autocrat of All the Russias, Dekalb, IL, Northern Illinois University 

Press, 1989.

282. Chaykovskaya.

283. Interfax Russia & CIS Presidential Bulletin Report, July 13, 

2007, Open Source Committee, FBIS SOV, July 13, 2007.

284. Dale R. Herspring, “Putin and the Reemergence of the 

Russian Military,” Problems of Post-Communism, Vol. LIV, No. 1, 

January-February, 2007, p. 24.

285. Dmitri Trenin, “Putin’s Choice, “ The Economist, December 4, 2006, available from www.economist.com.index.html; Dmitri 

Trenin, Getting Russia Right, Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2007; Lilia Shevtsova, Russia - Lost 

in Transition: The Yeltsin and Putin Legacies (Paperback), Arch Tait, 

trans., Washington, DC: 2007. 

286. Interview With Director General of the Political Technologies Center, Igor Bunin, Ezhednevnaya Gazeta, March 26, 2004, 

available from www.fednews.ru.

287. Michael McFaul and Katherine Stoner-Weiss, “The Myth 

of the Authoritarian Model: How Putin’s Crackdown Holds Russia Back,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2008, available from 

carnegieendowment.org/2008/01/01/myth-of-authoritarian-model-howputin-s-crackdown-holds-russia-back/qwb.
192

288. Taylor, Russia’s Power Ministries: Coercion and Commerce, 

Syracuse, NY: Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism, Syracuse University, 2007, and his Presentation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on the Russian Power 

Structures, November 9, 2007.

289. Lincoln; Bunin, Interview; Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the End of Revolution, 

New York : Scribner’s, 2005, p. 417; Steven Rosefielde, Russia in the 

21st Century: the Prodigal Superpower, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge 

University Press, 2004; Marshall T. Poe, The Russian Moment in 

World History, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003; 

Stefan Hedlund, Russian Path Dependence, London, UK: Routledge, 2005; Emil Pain, “Will Russia Transform Into a Nationalist 

Empire,” Russia in Global Affairs, Vol. III, No. 2, April-June, 2005, 

pp. 71-80.

290. Francesca Mereu, “Putin’s Campaign has Kiev on 

Edge,” Moscow Times.com, October 28, 2004, available from www.

moscowtimes.com/stories/2004/10/28/001.html.

291. Trenin, Getting Russia Right; Shevtsova, Russia—Lost in 

Transition.

292. Zakharova, pp. 19-39.

293. Dmitri Trenin and Bobo Lo, “The Landscape of Russian 

Foreign Policy Decision-Making,” Moscow, Russia: Moscow Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005, p. 9.

294 . Pierre Hassner, “Russia’s Transition to Autocracy,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. XIX, No. 2, April, 2008, pp. 13-15, makes this 

point why the appearance of great power status is crucial to the 

regime’s domestic standing.

295. Julie Wilhelmsen and Geir Flikke, “Copy that—A Russian ‘Bush Doctrine’ in the CIS?” Oslo, Norway: Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, 2005, Yevgeny Primakov, Russian 

Crossroads: Toward the New Millennium, New Haven, CT, and London, UK: Yale University Press, 2004, p. 11.
193

296. Stephen Blank, “Military Threats and Threat Assessment in Russia’s New Defense Doctrine and Security Concept,” 

Michael H. Crutcher, ed., The Russian Armed Forces at the Dawn of 

the Millennium, Carlisle Barracks, PA: Center for Strategic Leadership, U.S. Army War College, 2001, pp. 191-220; also published 

as, “Military Threats and Threat Assessment in Russia’s New Defense Doctrine and Security Concept,” Treadgold Papers, No. 31, 

Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2001. 

297. Lincoln, and here one may simply cite the many references to the power vertical made by Putin and his subordinates, 

and which are found throughout the media from 2000 on. See also 

Shevtsova, Putin’s Russia, Revised and Expanded Ed., Antonia W. 

Bouis, trans., Washington, DC, 2005.

298. Ibid. 

299. Hellie, “The Structure of Russian Imperial History,” pp. 

88-112; Baker and Glasser, Kremlin Rising, p. 417; Rosefielde, Russia in the 21st Century; Poe, The Russian Moment in World History; 

Hedlund, Russian Path Dependence; Pain, “Will Russia Transform 

Into a Nationalist Empire,” pp. 71-80; Kotkin, “It’s Gogol Again”; 

Pipes, Russia Under the Old Regime; Blank, Rosoboroneksport; Balzer, “Confronting the Global Economy After Communism: Russia 

and China Compared.”

300. Alexander Golts and Tonya Putnam, “State Militarism 

and Its Legacies: Why Military Reform Has Failed in Russia,” International Security, Vol. XXIX, No. 2, Fall 2004, pp. 121-159; Aleksandr’ Golts, Armiya Rossii: 11 Poteryannykh Let, Moscow, Russia: 

Zakharov, 2004. 

301. Wallander, Testimony.

302. FBIS SOV, November 29, 1999, Baranovsky, p. 14.

303. Stephen Blank, “Diplomacy at an Impasse: Russia and 

Japan in a New Asia,” Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, Vol. V, 

No. 1, Spring/Summer 1993, pp. 141-164.

304. Ibid.
194

305. Robert O. Freedman, “Russia and Central Asia Under 

Yeltsin,” available from www.acdis.uiuc.edu/Research/S&Ps/1996-

1997/S&P_X/Freedman.htm.

306. Stephen Blank, “From Kosovo to Kursk: Russian Defense 

Policy From Yeltsin to Putin,” Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, 

Vol. XII, No. 2, Winter, 2000, pp. 231-273; Talbott.

307. Blank, “Diplomacy at an Impasse: Russia and Japan in a 

New Asia,” pp. 141-164.

308. Talbott, Petro, p. 47. 

309. “Kontseptsiya Vneshnei Politiki (1993) Rossiiskoi 

Federatsii” Special Issue of Diplomaticheskii Vestnik, January 1993, 

pp. 3-23.
195

CHAPTER 3

IDEOLOGY AND SOFT POWER IN 

CONTEMPORARY RUSSIA

Ariel Cohen

Since the Soviet era, Russia has viewed soft power 

as a tool of statecraft, from a leaflet to a mob slogan to 

ideology, just like a progression from a gun to a nuclear weapon. The Russian leadership views its ability 

to use soft power as similar to its use during the Cold 

War: To extend its influence and to constrain U.S. policy. While in the 21st century the methods Russia has 

at its disposal to hamper U.S. foreign policy and to 

change world opinion against the United States have 

changed, the end goal has not. 

The Soviet Union was a highly ideological power. 

It amassed an enormous arsenal of print publications, 

movies, television and radio programming, and education exchange programs to promote further the Soviet message for communism and against the West. 

It had tens of thousands of leftist intellectuals at its 

disposal worldwide. These lessons are still informing 

today’s Russian leadership.

Since then-president Vladimir Putin secured control of the media and political system in Russia in the 

last decade, his government has embarked on a quest 

for the hearts and minds of those outside Russia. This 

is where soft power is preferable to military (“hard”) 

power in accomplishing state goals. Today, Russia’s 

soft power is in the process of reestablishing itself as 

a regional and eventually worldwide force to promote 

Russia’s interests, including by attacking America’s 

global reputation.
196

RUSSIAN IDEOLOGICAL REINVIGORATION

Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse 

of Marxist-Leninist (communist) single-track political philosophy, Russia has witnessed the growth of a 

myriad of divergent political perspectives. The Russian Constitution bans any particular ideology from 

being “official.” As much as this pluralism has allowed 

many viewpoints, which previously would have been 

suppressed, to flourish, the most prominent contemporary philosophical and ideological trends have often been statist and nationalistic. Experts point out, 

without rancor, that the Putin reign is reminiscent of 

Emperor Nicholas I (1825-55).1 Lately, these philosophies are informing the Kremlin’s post-Soviet grand 

strategy.

Starting in the mid-1990s, then-Russian Foreign 

Minister Yevgeny Primakov began a new rapprochement with the emerging non-Western powers such as 

China, India, Iran, and the Muslim world in order to 

undermine the unipolar preeminence of Western Europe and the United States. While the world wanted to 

believe that Russia was no longer its legal predecessor, 

the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and 

abandoned forever its zero-sum world view, Primakov was engineering Russian foreign policy in order 

to prevent the rise of a unipolar world in which the 

United States was the sole superpower. He insisted 

that the post-Cold War world contained many power 

“poles,” including the United States, Russia with its 

surrounding sphere of influence, the European Union 

(EU), China, and Latin America.2 Through this time, 

Russia was building the relationships beyond the 

Western alliances that would become the driving forces to reduce American power in the 1990s. 
197

In the aftermath of the Soviet collapse, the Russian 

public opinion and emerging civil society held mostly 

positive feelings toward the United States and the 

West. However, “shame, blame, and nostalgia” began 

to percolate through society as the country defaulted 

on its bonds in 1998, and the architect of friendship 

with the West, President Boris Yeltsin, was deeply unpopular.3

In order to spread a coherent message of Russian 

retrenchment against the West, Putin and his government must find and implement a directive at home 

and would project it abroad. One element of this 

was his famous dictum that the collapse of the Soviet 

Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 

20th century. This means that the search for the new 

iteration of the Soviet global power, and its imperial 

posture in Eurasia and Eastern Europe, are goals to 

strive for. 

In that respect, it is instructive to examine the evolution of the changing philosophy of Russian political 

analyst, Fyodor Lukyanov. Affiliated with a prominent foreign-relations Moscow think tank, the Council 

on Foreign and Defense Politics, Lukyanov was once 

a leading liberal supporter of better relations between 

Russia and the United States. Over time, Lukyanov 

began to criticize the allegedly domineering “American Empire,” stating that “in the foreseeable future, a 

new world architecture will be designed according to 

American patterns.”4

More extreme political philosophers like Alexander 

Dugin evolved, combining in their outlook the NeoNazi, European New Right, and Russian imperialist 

and Christian Orthodox perspectives. Dugin vouches 

for an imperialist Eurasianist foreign policy that centered on expanding Russian influence throughout former Soviet satellites by using tools such as the Ortho-
198

dox Church, media outreach, and “the manipulation 

of information by the secret services.”5

In 2008, Professor Igor Panarin, a Russian Secret 

Police (KGB) veteran and a political analyst who advises the Federation Council, the upper house of the 

Russian Parliament, has predicted the imminent demise of the United States by 2010. Panarin stated that 

this prediction “reflects a very pronounced degree 

of anti-Americanism in Russia today” that is “much 

stronger than it was in the Soviet Union.”6 Propagandists like Dugin and Panarin are close to the Russian 

military, intelligence community, and generally, the 

ruling classes within Russia. Clearly, their services are 

in demand.

Vladimir Putin himself has articulated a foreign 

policy view that includes a sphere of influence for 

Russia; the vision of the Eurasian Union; protection 

and expansion of the Russian language and Russian 

Orthodox (Moscow Patriarchy rite) religion; use of 

energy and economic power as primary geopolitical 

tools; and neutralizing foreign, especially Western, 

powers, attempting to act in the former Soviet areas.

RUSSIA’S SOFT POWER TOOLS IN MEDIA

With the increased control over the most popular 

print, radio, and television outlets in Russia, the Kremlin is now able to project not only a unified, patriotic 

image of Russia abroad but also to promote the idea 

of a multipolar world. At the core of Russia’s multipolar vision is the hostile message that U.S. dominance 

must be weakened and the influence of Russia and 

other opponents of the United States, such as China, 

Iran, and Venezuela, must be expanded. Therefore, 

any Russian use of public diplomacy or strategic communication must be anti-American by nature.
199

Russia’s premier soft power instrument is its burgeoning global television empire, led by its flagship 

news network RT. Formerly known as Russia Today, 

RT was launched in 2005 with the stated objective to 

“improve Russia’s image around the world” in the 

face of the alleged anti-Russian bias from outlets like 

Cable News Network (CNN) and British Broadcasting 

Company (BBC). Although occasionally giving viewers a more positive perspective of Russia, the vast majority of RT’s content is aimed directly at criticizing 

the United States, Western Europe, the North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization (NATO), and the global economic order, including avidly glorifying the “Occupy Wall 

Street” protests. Suffice to say that America-hater and 

convicted criminal, Lyndon La Rouche, is often interviewed by RT and other Russian TV channels as a 

credible commentator. Moreover, RT is now unabashedly pro-Obama and anti-Republican, which raises 

questions about its—and Russia’s—intra-American 

political agenda. The channel has received global condemnation for airing controversial programming such 

as a documentary that claims that the September 11, 

2001 (9/11) terrorist attacks were committed by the 

United States itself, not by Islamist terrorists.7

RT’s apparatus includes three separate satellite 

channels, which are available as cable channels in 

Washington, DC, in English, Spanish, and Arabic; a 

website with live streams of the channels; a Twitter 

feed; and a popular YouTube Channel with over 200 

million hits.8 Virtually all of RT’s content is available 

for free.

The budgets of all of these Russian-based global 

news outlets have grown significantly since the early 

2000s, and with the help of the Internet, all of Russia’s outlets can reach people all around the world. 
200

For example, RT’s budget has grown from $30 million to around $150 million in 2008.9

 Experts believe 

RT now has a budget in excess of $200 million. As oil 

revenues increase, these and other media budgets will 

only grow.

RT even showcases useful American citizens who 

have become champions against the U.S. Government, 

using Russian media outlets to spread their message. 

For example, former U.S. Marine and political commentator Adam Kokesh was the host of his own program on the popular Russian news channel RT. According to Accuracy in Media, RT exploits Americans 

like Kokesh to parrot Russian agitprop against the 

United States. Another American commentator and 

radio talk-show host, Alex Jones, frequently appears 

on RT to condemn American domestic and foreign 

policy, including America’s support of Georgia during the 2008 Russian-Georgian War, calling the initial 

moments of the war a “sneak attack” by the American 

military-industrial complex against Russia.10 Accuracy in Media states that to fulfill objectives of Russian 

propaganda, the country prefers “to use foreigners, 

especially Americans to make [Russia’s] propaganda 

points.”11

According to RT’s website, RT has become one of 

the most watched global news channels in many major 

world cities, including Washington and New York.12

The network was nominated for the best documentary 

prize from the 2011 Monte Carlo TV Festival and has 

received other worldwide acclaim that has raised RT’s 

reputation.13 Yet, the crude propagandistic tone of RT 

puts it behind France 24 and Deutsche Welle, let alone 

the dynamic Al Jazeera English and BBC. 

Beyond the Internet, Russian based media is readily accessible in the West through cable and broadcast 
201

TV, terrestrial radio, and national newspapers. As RT 

attempts to reach out with its anti-American agendadriven news and commentary, Russia will continue to 

be able to guide and to distort the opinions of many 

North and Latin Americans, Europeans, Middle Easterners, and others.

Besides RT, the global Russian media is more 

balanced. It broadcasts through a global radio network called “The Voice of Russia” that goes back to 

Radio Comintern (Communist International) and is 

accessible on the Internet. “The Voice of Russia” is 

broadcast in many languages including English, Russian, French, Arabic, Spanish, German, and Chinese; 

and the radio network’s website is available in these 

and other languages. Russia also takes advantage of 

Western print media by paying major European and 

American newspapers to have “Russia’s side” appear in special advertising sections, entitled as Russia 

Behind the Headlines or Russia Now, that resemble articles written by the original newspaper.

The Russian base for much of Russia’s global media 

is the Russian press agency RIA Novosti, capably led 

by its Director General, Svetlana Mironyuk. Whereas 

during the Soviet era RIA Novosti often was a cover 

for clandestine activities, today it mainly sticks to the 

official business. Unlike Associated Press or Reuters, 

RIA Novosti is state-owned. It is a professional source 

of news and information for Russian news outlets and 

international news organizations covering events in 

Russia. Recently, the agency has increased its presence beyond Russia by covering global events without 

the assistance of non-Russian news agencies.
202

RUSSIAN SOFT POWER AND THE RUSSIAN 

DIASPORA

Beyond what Russian state media broadcast for 

domestic and global consumption, Russian speakers 

and former Soviet citizens living outside Russia are 

increasingly becoming a target for the long arm of the 

Russian state. For the first time since the collapse of 

the Soviet Union, Russia’s diaspora is no longer seen 

as hostile and anti-communist. On the contrary, the 

home country would like to curry favor with emigrants and not to lose it in favor of their new home.

Adopted in 1999, the Russia’s “State Policy toward 

Compatriots Living Abroad” was updated in 2010 

and now requires Russian compatriots to be “certified 

by a respective civil society organization or by the person’s activities to promote and preserve the Russian 

language and culture.”14 In part through this “compatriots’ policy,” Russian soft power towards its diaspora is conducted through embassies, a network of 

establishments that promote Russian policy outlook, 

language, and culture under such banners as the Institute for Democracy and Cooperation, Russki Dom 

(Russia House), Russki Mir (Russian World), and online. However, some experts caution that these means 

of connecting Russian expats to their home country 

may have turned into bases for Russian intelligence 

operations and have certainly become advocates of 

Kremlin policies.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian government established Russia House, a network of over 

50 global “Russophone centers” to promote Russian 

culture, Russian language and “ethnic identity” as 

well as to generate dialogue between Russians abroad 

and their “historical motherland.”15 Experts state that 
203

the budget for Russia House has swelled from $26 to 

30 million, and plans are to expand the operation to 

100 branches worldwide by 2020.16

Besides Russia House, Russian World is the Russian government’s primary organization devoted to 

connecting to its diaspora through a “common bond 

between Russia and its emigrants who left” that would 

use the Russian language as the factor that bonds the 

two together.17 Although initially nongovernmental, 

it quickly became absorbed into the propaganda and, 

apparently, the intelligence realms. According to the 

Estonian Security Police (KAPO), former Soviet intelligence teams “are active” within Estonia through 

Russian World, which some believe that this signals 

that Russian outreach organizations are serving “to 

advance Russia’s foreign policy interests in the Baltics.”18

Some analysts pointed to the use of the Russian 

Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchy) branches 

overseas as a conduit to the extensive governmental 

funding and influence. Just like Russian World, it is 

attempting to encourage expatriate Russians to “act” 

more Russian while living abroad. It also is trying to 

discourage emigrants from adopting the cultural mores, language, and political beliefs of their host country.19 In fact, in 2006, Metropolitan Kirill, before he became the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, 

stated that Russians all over the world “should oppose 

Western civilization in its assertion of the universality of the Western tradition.”20 This typifies Russia’s 

“compatriots’ policy” that serves to keep Russian expatriates under its influence.

Finally, social networking is still one of the freest 

modes of exchange between Russia and the outside 

world. However, the Russian language social media 
204

are monitored and manipulated through dedicated interference (see below), though without the censorship 

that other media have. Additionally, organizations 

that track global Internet freedom have seen a growing intimidation from the government to those who 

disseminate information against the Kremlin.21

Recently, pro-Kremlin actors have found ways to 

undermine the legitimacy of these websites through 

acts of sabotage. One main form of sabotage is through 

intentional acts of incitement, known as “trolling,” in 

which a specially trained user will intentionally publish inflammatory, libelous, or outlandish statements 

in order to evoke emotional responses from other users. This is done in order to derail or squash a legitimate debate, or spread chaos. 

RUSSIAN USE OF “AGENTS OF INFLUENCE”

The use of “agents of influence” by Russia is quite 

prolific even after the end of the Cold War, as this has 

been a tried-and-true espionage tool going all the way 

back to the czarist intelligence services. They have 

become immersed in the centers of policy promotion, 

business, lobbying, and journalism to shape policy 

and American opinion to favor Russian interests. Russia’s agents of influence have become an integral part 

of its campaign to increase Russia’s influence in international affairs by weakening America’s role in the 

world.

Targeting American domestic affairs has been one 

of Russia’s greatest foreign priorities despite the collapse of the Soviet Union and the more cooperative 

relationship between Yeltsin’s Russia and the United 

States. In his book, Foundations of Geopolitics, Dugin 

proposed that post-Soviet Russia should use Russian 
205

intelligence officers “to provoke all forms of instability 

and separatism” in the United States. He recommended agents achieve domestic instability by fomenting 

racial tensions, promoting “isolationist tendencies,” 

and “actively supporting all dissident movements.”22

A KGB defector alleged that The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) has become 

a main vehicle by which Russian intelligence agents 

penetrate into America through its unwary Russianexpat followers. According to former KGB officer 

Konstantin Preobrazhensky, once Russian Foreign 

Intelligence Service (SVR) agents entrench themselves 

into the Russian Orthodox Church in America, it becomes a “stronghold for Russian intelligence.”23 Subverted Russian churches in America can potentially 

become prime locations for subversive operations and 

for recruiting future Russian agents of influence in 

America. These allegations, which come from a single 

source interested in promoting his book, need further 

investigation. Yet, Russian intelligence services have 

amassed their own “‘PR line officers,” who work undercover as diplomats or journalists. They attempt to 

gain sensitive information, using their secret agents, 

contacts in the diplomatic sphere or within the American media, or plant rumors and misinformation.24

The high profile arrest in 2010 of a Russian spy 

ring that included Anna Kushchenko, also known as 

Anna Chapman, raised many questions with regards 

to Russian long-term intelligence goals in America, 

including the influence of the policy process. Developing intelligence assets for future insertion into the 

media process is a sophisticated use of soft power. 

According to a Russian-born Canadian/American 

journalist Jamie Glazov, one of the stated goals of this 

failed spy ring was “to search and develop ties in poli-
206

cymaking circles in [the United States].” Some of the 

policy issues the spy ring tried to influence included 

nuclear weapons, U.S. arms control, Iran, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) leadership, Congress, presidential elections, and political parties. One of the spy 

rings contacts included a New York “financier who 

was active in politics.”25 Fortunately, this group of 

failed spies did not manage to compromise the integrity of American foreign policy or national security, 

but this is only one of many examples of Russia’s continued determination. 

Another recently prominent case involved an exposed Russian alleged spy within the British Parliament. Katia Zatuliveter, an assistant for Mike Hancock, a member of the defense committee of the House 

of Commons, was arrested for spying on Hancock for 

the Russian SVR. Many believe that Zatuliveter intentionally targeted the powerful Member of Parliament 

(MP) as he is known as the “most pro-Russian MP 

from among all the countries of western Europe.” It 

has been alleged that while Zatuliveter was working 

in Hancock’s parliamentary office, the office sent requests for an “inventory of Britain’s nuclear weapons 

arsenal” and “details of nuclear material outside international safeguards.”26 However, the pro-Russian 

statements of Mr. Hancock in the media represented a 

considerable boon for this alleged intelligence operation.

Russian firms, especially Gazprom, and the Russian government have spent millions of dollars on 

lobbyists to purvey their message and to influence 

politicians in Washington to influence policy. According to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 

the Department of Justice’s second semi-annual report 

to Congress in 2010, Gazprom, Ketchum Inc., Techs-
207

nabexport, the St. Petersburg city government, and 

the Russian federal government have called upon the 

services of American lobbyists to influence policy and 

politicians.27

EXAMPLES OF RUSSIAN SOFT POWER IN 

ACTION: UKRAINE AND GEORGIA

Russia’s soft power machine was put into practice 

first in its “near abroad,” when major crises were unfolding that were threatening Russia’s tenuous control 

over its “sphere of privileged interests.” The foremost 

tests for determining the effectiveness of Russian soft 

power occurred in Ukraine and in Georgia. 

The Kremlin has been active in its campaign to 

weaken pro-Russian political forces in Ukraine since 

the Kuchma presidency; however, the 2004 election 

and the Orange Revolution saw an onslaught of Russian TV agitprop towards opposition leaders Victor 

Yushchenko and Yulia Timoshenko and their supporters. The main focus of Russia’s soft-power sabotage 

was primarily on ethnic tension and Eastern Ukrainians’ loyalty to Russia, its culture, and language. The 

Fund for Effective Politics (FEP), directed by Gleb 

Pavlovsky, a “political technologist” and then-adviser 

to Putin, was one of the main bases for spreading misinformation on the Orange Revolution and attempts 

to discredit it through anti-American propaganda not 

seen since the height of the Cold War.28 This included 

allegations of Mrs. Yushchenko, an American citizen, 

being a CIA agent and of clandestine funding of the 

“orange” forces. 

Georgia has remained under the direction of proWestern political forces led by Mikheil Saakashvili, in 

spite of heavy Russian interference in the country’s 
208

affairs. Beyond the use of force in the 2008 RussianGeorgian war, Russian intrusion in Georgian politics 

has been steadfast and aggressive, including Russianbacked mass protests for Saakashvili’s ouster and 

funding for some opposition politicians. From the 

aftermath of the 2008 Russian-Georgian war, Russia spread allegations that a tiny Georgia somehow 

endangered Russian sovereignty, or had committed 

“genocide” against South Ossetians, of which international observers have not found any evidence. 

HOW THE UNITED STATES SHOULD RESPOND 

TO RUSSIAN SOFT POWER

The lessons from these two cases show how Russian soft power is a clear national security concern and 

can undermine domestic security and global stability. 

Therefore, the United States must formulate a clear 

and active strategy to combat Russian soft power operations within the United States and within its allies 

in order to protect national and global security.

The United States has fallen behind Russia in the 

struggle for hearts and minds through traditional and 

new forms of media. Through outlets like RT or on 

the Internet, Russia has already spread its message 

effectively by using these low-cost outreach tools, 

which connect millions instantaneously everywhere.29

The United States must seize the opportunity to reach 

hundreds of millions of new audiences and those with 

whom the United States had lost touch after the end 

of the Cold War by increased use of low-cost new media on the Internet and mobile devices. Through these 

reinvigorated outreach efforts, the United States can 

effectively compete with Russian soft power to refute 

Russian distortions.
209

In using new technologies or other means to reach 

more audiences, the United States must remember 

how it engaged with its audience during the Cold 

War. Then the United States effectively promoted dialogue and exchanged ideas with foreign audiences, 

cultivated institutional relationships, assisting the 

education of future democratic leaders. Learning how 

the United States defeated Soviet soft power will help 

guide U.S. policy to combat Russian soft power. 30

The U.S. Government, traditional media, and the 

public often view “new media” as a magic tool, portending a revolution in the way the U.S. Government 

conducts public diplomacy and addresses the world.31

New media has shown itself to be the “game changer” 

that as of July 8, 2001, as former Undersecretary of 

State of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith 

McHale discussed in her confirmation hearing, can 

revolutionize how media communicates with its audience: 

[New media provides] the opportunity to move from 

an old paradigm, in which our government speaks as 

one to many, to a new model of engaging interactively 

and collaboratively across lines that might otherwise 

divide us from people around the world.

32

In developing its ability to use “new media,” the 

United States needs to establish a National Communications Strategy outlined by the Undersecretary of 

State for Public Diplomacy in order to organize one 

unified message against Russian soft power that is 

clear, concise, and believable. This National Communications Strategy should especially ensure that its 

message through new media is unique and identifiable from potential acts of informational sabotage, like 

trolling, and that it is disseminated through those out-
210

lets that access the most valuable audiences, such as 

young people and politically active groups. One way 

to promote the success of the U.S. informational campaign is to establish a research body to analyze how to 

best reach targeted audiences with which Russia has 

actively engaged.33

The United States must also continue to fund 

and to promote traditional forms of communication 

through outlets such as Radio Free Europe/Radio 

Liberty (RFE/RL), the Voice of America (VOA), and 

the publication of books and journals that comprise 

collaboration among Americans and talented locals, 

similar to RT recruiting British and American journalists and commentators to spread its message, to generate the most effective message for local audiences. In 

addition to its efforts abroad, the United States must 

improve its ability to counteract Russian information 

operations within the country, including within the 

Russian Orthodox Church in America, Russki Mir, and 

other Russian-led outlets. 

The United States must carefully examine the 

scope and success of Russian informational operations. It must counteract Russian soft-power operations by directly engaging with the Russian-speaking 

diaspora and other groups targeted by Russian outreach programs. Furthermore, the United States must 

focus its most intense public diplomacy efforts on the 

former Soviet-controlled regions of Eastern and Central Europe. Although much of this region has become 

more economically and politically free and more integrated with the “Euro-Atlantic sphere,” the United 

States must work with its allies in Europe to ensure 

that Russia does not corral this area back into its ideology sphere of influence and under its control.34
211

CONCLUSION

With the growth of Russian soft power on the Internet, through TV and other traditional media, and 

through government-sponsored expat organizations, 

the world is exposed to Russia’s influence. In addition, 

the growing Russian outreach institutions, including 

the Russian Orthodox Church, which reach out to 

Russians and non-Russians abroad, have become the 

advocates and influencers for Russian policy abroad. 

Behind the glamor and the ostensibly innocuous nature of the Russian soft power, its goal is to strengthen 

Russia’s international influence by weakening America’s global leadership role. 

Without a way to counteract this increasingly 

popular and effective media empire, the United States 

will continue to suffer damage to its interests abroad. 

Vladimir Lenin once said that “a lie told often enough 

becomes truth.” Today, as before, the key to U.S. victory in the battle of ideas will be leadership and commitment to promote America’s ideals to the world and 

to respond effectively to misinformation from Russian 

media. 

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 3

1. Artemii Yermakov, “Sovremennaya gosudarstvennaya idelologiya Rossii i ee ‘nikolayevskie’ korni” (“Contemporary state 

ideology in Russia and its ‘Nicholaevan’ roots”) September 7, 

2011, available from samoderjavie.ru/node/328.

2. Ariel Cohen, “The ‘Primakov Doctrine’: Russia’s Zero-Sum 

Game with the United States,” Washington, DC: The Heritage 

Foundation F.Y.I., No. 167, December 15, 1997, p. 3, available from 

s3.amazonaws.com/thf_media/1997/pdf/fyi167.pdf. 
212

3. Ariel Cohen and Helle Dale, “Russian Anti-Americanism: A Priority Target for U.S.-Public Diplomacy,” The Heritage 

Foundation Backgrounder, No. 2373, February 24, 2010, p. 2, available from www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/02/Russian-AntiAmericanism-A-Priority-Target-for-US-Public-Diplomacy. 

4. Fyodor Lukyanov, “Pax Americana: imperia obustraivaet 

mir,” Gazeta.ru, April 4, 2003, available from www.gazeta.ru/comments/2003/04/22108.shtml.

5. Cohen and Dale, “Russian Anti-Americanism: A Priority 

Target for U.S.-Public Diplomacy,” p. 5.

6. Andrew Osborn, “As if things weren’t bad enough, Russian 

professor predicts end of U.S.,” Wall Street Journal, December 29, 

2008, available from online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.

html. 

7. RT.com, “Who was involved in 9/11? Documentary reveals 

shocking facts,” September 11, 2008, available from rt.com/news/

who-was-involved-in-911-documentary-reveals-shocking-facts/. 

8. RT.com, “RT hits 200 million on Youtube,” December 23, 

2010, available from rt.com/about/pressoffice/rt-hits-200-million-youtube/. 

9. Nikolaus von Twickel, “Russia Today courts views with 

controversy,” The Moscow Times, March 23, 2010, available from 

www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russia-today-courts-viewerswith-controversy/401888.html.

10. “Alex Jones on Russia Today TV,” YouTube (content from 

Russia Today), August 26, 2008, available from www.youtube.com/

watch?v=XcO8OBVCdCM, September 20, 2011.

11. Cliff Kincaid, “Russian TV Sounds Like Soviet TV,” Accuracy in Media, August 19, 2008, available from www.aim.org/

aim-column/russian-tv-sounds-like-soviet-tv/, September 18, 2011.

12. RT.com, “RT watched more than other major international 

news channels in major cities,” January 9, 2011, available from rt.

com/about/pressoffice/rt-watched-major-international-news-channelsmajor-u-s-cities/.
213

13. RT.com, “RT in final of Monte Carlo TV Festival,” May 

17, 2011, available from rt.com/about/pressoffice/rt-in-final-of-montecarlo-tv-festival/. 

14. Heather A. Conley and Theodore P. Gerber et al., “Russian 

Soft Power in the 21st Century: An Examination of Russian Compatriot Policy in Estonia,” Washington, DC: Center for Strategic 

and International Studies (CSIS), August 2011, p. 12 (Sourced 

from Tatyana Kiilo and Yelena Vladimirova, “Compatriots,” in 

Russian Federation 2011: Short-term Prognosis, ed., Karmo Tuur, 

Tartu, Estonia: Tartu University Press, 2011, p. 181.

15. Conley et al., p. 14.

16. Ibid.

17. Andis Kudors, “‘Russian World’—Russia’s Soft Power 

Approach to Compatriots Policy,” Russian Analytical Digest, 

Vol. 81, No. 10, June 16, 2010, pp. 2- 3, available from kms1.

isn.ethz.ch/serviceengine/Files/ISN/117631/ipublicationdocument_

singledocument/91db7fe2-59bf-46bb-8f89-fe8243377968/en/Russian_

Analytical_Digest_81.pdf.

18. Conley et al., p. 15.

19. Kudors, pp. 2- 3.

20. Ibid., p. 3.

21. “Threats to Internet freedom in Russia, 2008, 2011,” AGORA Association, June 2011, available from www.openinform.ru/

fs/j_photos/openinform_314.pdf. 

22. John B. Dunlop, “Aleksandr Dugin’s Foundations of Geopolitics,” Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, available from www.

princeton.edu/~lisd/publications/wp_russiaseries_dunlop.

23. Clare Lopez, “Book Review of Konstantin Preobrazhensky’s FSB’s New Trojan Horse: Americans of Russian Descent,” 

Gerard Group Intel Analysis, June 10, 2009, available from www.

gerardgroup.com/newsletter/nl2009-06-10.php#Review.
214

24. James Glazov, “Spies like Putin,” FrontPage Magazine, 

July 8, 2010, available from frontpagemag.com/2010/07/08/spies-likeputin-2/print/.

25. Ibid.

26. Daniel Foggo and David Leppard, “Russian spy found in 

Commons; MP’s aide arrested for spying,” The Sunday Times, London, UK, December 5, 2010. 

27. Report of the Attorney General to the Congress of the 

United States on the Administration of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, as amended, for the 6 months ending December 31, 

2010, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, available from 

www.fara.gov/reports/December31-2010.pdf.

28. Taras Kuzio, “Russian Policy toward Ukraine during Elections,” Demokratizatsiya, Vol. 15, No. 1, Winter 2005, p. 495-499.

29. Helle Dale, “Public Diplomacy 2.0: Where the U.S. Government Meets ‘New Media’,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2346, December 8, 2009, available from www.heritage.

org/research/reports/2009/12/public-diplomacy-2-0-where-the-usgovernment-meets-new-media.

30. Carnes Lord and Helle Dale, “Public Diplomacy and the 

Cold War: Lessons Learned,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder 

No. 2070, September 18, 2007, available from www.heritage.org/

research/reports/2007/09/public-diplomacy-and-the-cold-war-lessonslearned.

31. Dale, “Public Diplomacy 2.0.”

32. Judith McHale, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Confirmation Hearing, May 13, 2009, available from www.state.gov/r/

remarks/124155.htm. 

33. Dale, “Public Diplomacy 2.0.”

34. Cohen and Dale, “Russian Anti-Americanism.”
215

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

PAVEL K. BAEV is a Research professor at the Peace 

Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO), Norway, and Editor 

of Security Dialogue. After graduation from Moscow 

University in 1979, he worked in a research institute 

for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) 

Ministry of Defense. In 1988, Dr. Baev joined the 

newly created Institute of Europe within the Soviet 

Academy of Sciences. In autumn 1992, he took a sabbatical to move to PRIO where, from 1994 through 

1996, Dr. Baev held a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Democratic Institutions Fellowship. His 

recent books, The Russian Army in a Time of Troubles

(1996) and Russia’s Policies in the Caucasus (1997), are 

available from Sage Publications and the Brookings 

Institution, respectively.

STEPHEN J. BLANK has served as the Strategic Studies Institute’s expert on the Soviet bloc and the postSoviet world since 1989. Prior to that he was Associate 

Professor of Soviet Studies at the Center for Aerospace 

Doctrine, Research, and Education, Maxwell Air Force 

Base, AL; and taught at the University of Texas, San 

Antonio, and at the University of California, Riverside. Dr. Blank is the editor of Imperial Decline: Russia’s 

Changing Position in Asia, coeditor of Soviet Military 

and the Future, and author of The Sorcerer as Apprentice: Stalin’s Commissariat of Nationalities, 1917-1924. He 

has also written many articles and conference papers 

on Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States, 

and Eastern European security issues. Dr. Blank’s current research deals with proliferation and the revolution in military affairs, and energy and security in 

Eurasia. His two most recent books are Russo-Chinese 
216

Energy Relations: Politics in Command, London, UK: 

Global Markets Briefing, 2006; and Natural Allies? 

Regional Security in Asia and Prospects for Indo-American 

Strategic Cooperation, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2005. Dr. Blank holds 

a B.A. in history from the University of Pennsylvania, 

and an M.A. and Ph.D. in history from the University 

of Chicago.

ARIEL COHEN is Senior Research Fellow in Russian 

and Eurasian Studies and International Energy Policy 

at the Katherine and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute 

for International Policy at The Heritage Foundation 

in Washington, DC. He directs high-level conferences 

on Eurasian security, terrorism and energy; the rule 

of law, crime, and corruption; and a variety of other 

issues. He also directs Heritage’s energy simulation 

exercises and war games involving Russia (2007-11). 

Dr. Cohen conducts White House briefings, and regularly lectures for the U.S. Government, including the 

Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of 

State, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Training and 

Doctrine and Special Forces Commands of the U.S. 

armed services, the Central Intelligence Agency, and 

the Defense Intelligence Agency. He frequently testifies before committees of the U.S. Congress, including 

the Senate and House Foreign Relations Committees, 

House Armed Services Committee, House Judiciary 

Committee and the Helsinki Commission. Dr. Cohen 

is also a Member of the Council of Foreign Relations 

and International Institute for Strategic Studies (London). Dr. Cohen authored Russian Imperialism: Development and Crisis (Praeger Publishers/Greenwood, 

1996 and 1998), edited and co-authored Eurasia in Balance (Ashgate, United Kingdom, 2005), and authored 
217

Kazakhstan: The Road to Independence: Energy Policy and 

the Birth of a Nation (School of Advanced International 

Studies, Johns Hopkins Central Asia Caucasus Institute, 2008). Dr. Cohen wishes to thank Robert Nicholson, a former Heritage Young Leaders program 

participant, for invaluable help in preparation of his 

chapter.
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General Anthony A. Cucolo III

Commandant

*****

STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

Director

Professor Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr.

Director of Research

Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II

Editor

Dr. Stephen J. Blank

Director of Publications

Dr. James G. Pierce

Publications Assistant

Ms. Rita A. Rummel

*****

Composition

Mrs. Jennifer E. Nevil