Lajos F. Szászdi
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVES ON THE EVE OF THE SECOND CHECHEN WAR:
ANALYTICAL INTERPRETATIONS
Russia’s incentives for its second military invasion of Chechnya are
going to be addressed together with analytical interpretations on the several
motives and security policy considerations that gave impulse to Moscow’s
September 1999 military offensive against the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. There are seven motivations that can explain
the Kremlin’s decision to intervene militarily then: (1)
fear that Chechen independence would threaten the territorial integrity
of the Russian Federation in general and Russia’s hold over its autonomous
republics in the North Caucasus in particular,1 (2)
concern over the inability of the Chechen government to combat
effectively the rising lawlessness and organized crime activity stemming from
Chechnya while failing to ensure internal stability in the republic,2
(3) geopolitical considerations
linking Russia’s security to maintaining an unchallenged and unopposed Russian
strategic sphere of influence over the geographical space made by the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) member countries, including the
Caucasus region,3 (4) dread
over the prospects of Chechnya becoming not only a source of Islamic militancy
that could spread throughout the Caucasus region but also a base for Islamic
armed incursions against the mainly Muslim autonomous republics of Russia in
the North Caucasus,4 (5)
control over the Chechen segment of the Baku-Novorossiisk oil pipeline
and over Chechnya’s oil fields plus road networks and a section of the
Baku–Rostov railroad line of strategic importance,5 (6)
the Russian military’s (Army as well as MVD) desire to avenge their
defeat in the First Chechen War,6 and (7)
interest by Russian politicians to capitalize on a second, more
successful, military invasion of Chechnya for the sake of achieving electoral
victory and political stardom.7
In order to explain the causality of these motivations, which led
Russia to invade Chechnya for a second time in the decade, it is imperative to
recognize the ideological and doctrinal underpinnings on which the Russian
government based its arguments against the Chechen republic’s
independence. Neo-Eurasianist thinking
and its policy perspective, the geopolitical conceptions of both the Russian
government and the military, and the various geostrategic considerations in the
Russian military will be examined in this context.
The Neo-Eurasianist Perspective
Philosophically, Russia’s executive branch of government, including
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the state security-intelligence apparatus, and
the military with the inclusion of the Army and the MVD,8
appear to have been under the influence of the Neo-Eurasianist school of
thought,9 which modeled their perception of what
the country’s national interests are and to which ends its security policy
should be oriented.10
In its most simple form, Neo-Eurasianism is an expression of Russian
national identity in the post-Soviet era.
Neo-Eurasianism encompasses the notions of Russian self-identity and a
sense of awareness of the uniqueness of Russian culture and civilization
together with views of Russian nationalism and, characteristically, an
association to the concept or idea of Eurasia as a distinct mental and
geopolitical postulate. Neo-Eurasianism
is a vision, a concept of Russia that can be identified according to two main
currents of thought, although these are neither uniform nor homogeneous:
1)
Moderate or Pragmatic
Neo-Eurasianists;
2)
Radical or Dogmatic
Neo-Eurasianists.
These two currents
of Neo-Eurasianism largely differ according to their degrees of moderation or
extremism, and to their approaches on how to achieve Russian national goals and
policy objectives. Either Pragmatic
Neo-Eurasianism or Dogmatic Neo-Eurasianism does not constitute “a uniform
position but rather a broad continuum of opinion.” Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists represent the
political side that Ilya Prizel identifies as the “‘centrist’ camp,” while what
he describes as the “’Eurasian’ camp” is in fact constituted by the Dogmatic
Neo-Eurasianists.11
Broadly speaking, Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists regard Russia as a
unique entity differentiated culturally from the West, as one country that
should develop its own national path as it faces the economic power and
cultural influences of the West.
However, Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists are willing to cooperate with the
West diplomatically, economically, and in terms of security as long as it suits
Russia’s interests. Moreover, followers
of this tendency support a market economy, and regard Russia as a full member
of the international community and an important actor in the international
scene. Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists are
eager for Russia to maintain close relations with other powers, such as China,
France, Germany, India, Iran or Japan, not just for the evident economic
advantages to be gained through trade but also to serve as a counterbalance to
the power and influence of the last remaining superpower in the world, the
United States.
Dogmatic Neo-Eurasianists also consider Russia as a unique entity,
but they are opposed to full cooperation with the West, rejecting the influence
of Western culture or the introduction of a neo-liberal market economy in
Russia. Also, Dogmatic Neo-Eurasianists
are not opposed to a policy of confrontation with the West, and with the U.S.
in particular.
Neo-Eurasianism, which author Rajan Menon calls Eurasianism, had intellectually
a forerunner in the Eurasianist movement that developed among Russian thinkers
living in exile during the years that followed the Bolshevik takeover of power
in Russia.12 Before Neo-Eurasianism, the Slavophile and
Eurasianist movements of the first decades of the 20th century
believed that the uniqueness of Russian culture and civilization was the
product of the fusion of Slavic and Turkic elements blended together throughout
the country’s distinct historical experience.13 Neo-Eurasianist thinking in general upholds
the notion that Russian civilization is the result of the fusion of Europe and
Asia in Russia’s geography, history, and culture.14
In the minds of Neo-Eurasianists, ‘Eurasia’ is the “symbiosis of
‘Europe’ and ‘Asia’ within some cohesive and well-integrated space,” even
though Dmitri Trenin rejected the idea that that is what Eurasia actually was.15
The “notion” of “Eurasia” could be said to rest basically on the strong
influence that Russian culture still has over the territories of the former
Soviet Union. Russian culture as well as
Moscow’s control would hold together that ‘internal empire’ that the Russian
Federation is, which comprises, a myriad of other different nations, cultures,
and religions besides the ruling Russian nation.16
Neo-Eurasianist thinking would postulate that ‘owing to Russia’s
history and its geographical position at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, it
should follow its own unique path,’ as opposed to the conception that it would
be in its best interest for Russia to ‘take the path of other developed
countries…familiarizing itself with the achievements of Western civilization.’17
What Sergei Medvedev calls “the ideology of Great Russia,” which in fact
is Neo-Eurasianist thinking, is according to this author an outlook common in
post-Soviet Russia to supporters of democratic change, to Communists, and
nationalists alike. Being a factor that
brings together liberal democrats, Communists, and nationalists, Neo-Eurasianist
thinking would provide the ideological legitimacy over which Russia’s governing
leadership would base the foundations of state authority and power.18
Additionally, Neo-Eurasianists in general, that is both Pragmatic and
Dogmatic Neo-Eurasianists, who would fall into the groups that Menon identifies
as “democratic reformers, Eurasianists, Communists, and nationalists,” regard
Russia to be “a great power engaged in the big issues of world affairs.”19
According to
Menon, the great pressures that “Eurasianists,” “Communists,” and “nationalists”
exerted on the government of President Yeltsin shaped the Kremlin’s official
statements and policies, a phenomenon that began to be seen since the end of
1992 in the rhetoric of Russian foreign policy.20 Perhaps it can be argued further that the
Russian government adopted Neo-Eurasianist postures and policies not because of
domestic political pressures external to the Kremlin but because of the
conversion of government officials to Neo-Eurasianism or the promotion into
government positions of officials with Neo-Eurasianist ideas.
Neo-Eurasianism postulates that in the realm of foreign policy
Russia should not give emphasis to the idea of partnership with the West over
other foreign policy relationships. It
would thus follow that close relations with the CIS member states, and with
countries in Asia and the Near East, in addition to relations with the West,
are of “critical importance” to Russia’s national interest.21
Neo-Eurasianism, however, would regard the limits of the former Soviet
Union as Russia’s “geostrategic” borders, even though these are acknowledged as
not being the Russian Federation’s “legal” borderlines.22
Neo-Eurasianists may even see “Russia’s geostrategic position in
accordance with [Halford] MacKinder’s (sic) concept of Russia as the pivotal
state in the Eurasian landmass.”23 Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianist Sergei Karaganov24 identified one major current of
thought in Russian society that is characterized by considering matters of
Russian foreign policy in a geopolitical fashion. Thus, for those with a geopolitical mindset
regarding Russian foreign policy issues, the countries of the CIS provide “strategic depth” to the Russian Federation. Consequently, the CIS is crucial and
essential to Russia’s national interest.25 This geopolitical outlook of Russian foreign
policy would correspond with Neo-Eurasianist thinking.
To the Neo-Eurasianists, Islamic extremism and conflicts based on
nationalism – after all, the Russian Federation contains besides the dominant
Russian nation more than a hundred different nationalities, which in 1998
constituted about 28 percent of the country’s total population26 - represented two main threats that
posed a serious challenge to Russia’s security.27
This perception of Islamic extremism notwithstanding, the
Neo-Eurasianists did not regard Islam in general with apprehension but only
when one of its forms – such as Islamic religious radicalism – could pose “a
legitimate security concern” to Russia and the CIS.28
Another factor explaining why Neo-Eurasianism came to inspire the
Russian government’s postures and policies addressing security concerns in the
1990s was the reassertion of Russian imperial designs and objectives in shaping
perceived national interests.29 Coupled to erstwhile imperial aspirations were
the Kremlin’s desire to place Russia at the forefront of international great
power politics,30 although not as another
“normal” power such as the United Kingdom or France but as a power of greater
standing and international influence, clearly rising above the majority of the
world’s powers by the uniqueness of Russia’s own national interests and
strengths.31 To fulfill these notions of what Russia ought
to be, the doctrinal nature of Neo-Eurasianism is founded on the political
orientation of realism, i.e., the principles of realpolitik, particularly as
reflected in Moscow’s foreign policy.32 Hence, one important element of the
Neo-Eurasianist school of thought is the opposition to a post-Soviet monopolar
world dominated by the United States of America, in contrast to the former Cold
War bipolar international order balanced by the superpowers’ confrontation
between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.33
Realism stands for the concepts of “power, force, national interest,
and diplomacy.” The same principles of
realism are to be found among realist intellectuals and thinkers as well as
among realist politicians and members of government.34
Realist thinking departs from the premise that the main actor in the
international relations theory of realism is the state, and that the state is
at the same time a “unitary and rational” entity.35
However, the realist idea of the state as a rational and a single united
actor is not a view of the state in reality but an assumption of the nature of
the state. According to realist
thinking, the idea of national security is the most important concern of states
in the world arena, and pursuing of the national interest to the greatest
extent possible is one of the state’s main aims. The power at the disposal of states is an
instrument they employ to reach their national interests. Moreover, realism considers the basis of
international relations to be the constant tug of war in which states are engaged
with each other as they employ the power at their disposal to achieve their own
national interests or as they strive to attain power over other states in the
world arena.36
Realists conceive the concept of balance of power as the recourse
states resort to confront a state or group of states that threaten to exceed
the level of power at their disposal in the world arena. The states that feel threatened thus join to
balance out the power of the state or group of states threatening the
equilibrium of power in the international community. Realist thinking sees bipolarity as a form of
balance of power in which two great powers balance each other. A multipolar balance of power is another
realist concept of the principle of balance of power, in which the power of a
single state or group of states is balanced by the power of the rest of the
states of the international community.37
The two notions of “power and system” are essential to realist
thinking at the state level and at the international level of analysis.38
One current of realists defines power as the aggregate number of
resources the state has at its disposal, including “military, economic,
technological, diplomatic” resources.
For other realists, power is perceived as the means or resources available
to a state in relation to or proportionate to the means and resources available
to other states.39
The concept of system is defined by realists in two ways, either as
the collection of relations and dealings among states and between states and
private, nongovernmental entities, or as an anarchical environment fastened by
sources of power and resources at the disposal of states.40
In sum, realists emphasize the fact that the state is a unified actor
that is rational, being their main concern questions of national security.41
According to Sergei Medvedev, previous post-Soviet notions of close
cooperation with the West as strategic allies were substituted in Russia by a
“Realist” policy orientation, with emphasis on the idea of a strong state and
the “assertion of Russia’s national interests.”42 Those political elites in Russia who Henrikki
Heikka calls “moderate conservatives” are actually Moderate or Pragmatic
Neo-Eurasianists. Heikka claims that
Moscow’s “moderate conservatives” aim to achieve Russia’s “national interest” through
a policy perspective based on political realism. In this regard, examples of “moderate
conservative” (Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianist) policy postures are rejection of
NATO’s acceptance of new member states from Central and Eastern Europe, and the
“enlightened imperialism of constructing a Russian sphere of influence” in the
CIS.43
More specifically, with regard to Russia’s policy towards the ‘near
abroad,’ “moderate conservatives” (Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists) followed a
“geopolitical realist line.”44
Neo-Eurasianism advocates social and economic reform to propel the
development and modernization of the Russian Federation, a goal linked to its
notion of Russia as a strong and stable state.
However, Neo-Eurasianist thinking stipulates that achievement of the
desired results expected from the efforts at reform is contingent upon “the
reassertion of Russian statehood and the recovery of some of the ground lost
with the collapse of the USSR.”45 In this regard, the Russian government’s
imposition of a short-lived `emergency rule’ over Chechnya and Ingushetia,
followed subsequently by two invasions of the Chechen Republic can be seen as
attempts at redressing the condition of a Russian Federation incapable of
restraining all of its 89 official constituent members, a situation which
clearly came to happen with Chechnya’s declaration of independence on November
1, 1991, after the split of the former Chechen-Ingush Soviet Socialist
Autonomous Republic.46
In addition, the
use of military power is regarded as a legitimate instrument at the disposal of
the Russian state for the achievement of foreign policy objectives. Military force would be instrumental in
guarding the borders of the CIS and in contributing to preserve Russian
hegemony over the CIS. According to the
Neo-Eurasianists, the use of military force is an important instrument “in
maintaining stability on the frontiers of the FSU and ensuring Russian
supremacy in the Near Abroad.”47 Hence, in the Russian military doctrine of
1993 attention was paid to the concept of `strategic stability’ and on
maintaining it as an alternative to the erstwhile competition with the United
States in pursuit of military parity. In
the words of John Erickson, “that concept of `stability’ was also extended to
those regions and territories adjacent to Russia’s borders.”48
Moreover, Neo-Eurasianist convictions such as that which regards the
`Near Abroad,’ i.e., the states that once were Soviet republics, as part of
Russia’s inherited and rightful “sphere of influence” constitute a “general
belief” among the followers of the school of thought, and one which has found
expression in Russian state policy.49
There appears to be widespread consensus in Russia on the motives
that would trigger and so justify a military intervention outside Russia’s
borders, in the opinion of Elaine Holoboff.
The motives for the use of military force that she thus enunciates are:
to preserve the “great power status” of the Russian Federation; to safeguard
Russian populations living in the countries of the former Soviet Union or ‘near
abroad;’ to forestall regional volatile crises and unstable security situations
from widening to neighboring areas and inside Russia itself; to defend the
“geopolitical interests” of the Russian state, including the safety of its
borders in Russia’s southern flank and thwarting attempts of Islamic
fundamentalism to extend its militant influence; to fulfill the wishes at
military intervention of a “nationalist public opinion.”50
Such motivations to intervene militarily would be in line with
Neo-Eurasianist views on when to use military force outside and inside its
borders.
It could be safely argued that if the use of force was an option
entertained for international relations, much more so would the Russian state
have conceived the use of coercive measures to bring back to obedience
independence-minded territories within the Russian Federation attempting to
break free from Moscow’s rule. Needless
to say, the two Chechen wars are an unambiguous testimony of this willingness
on the part of the Russian government.
More recently, it can be said that the foreign policy posture
displayed by the Russian government of President Vladimir Putin follows a
Neo-Eurasianist path. Thus, regarding
Russian relations with the countries of the Near Abroad, the so-called “Putin
Doctrine” appears to inspire Moscow’s foreign policy. According to BBC regional analyst Steven Eke,
the “Putin Doctrine” is based upon “the notion that history has given Russia
the right to intervene in the affair of the former Soviet republics.”51
This concept of the nature of Russia’s relations with the Near Abroad is
characteristically Neo-Eurasianist. It
is also a Neo-Eurasianist foreign policy aim to regain the erstwhile presence
the Soviet Union had in determined regions of the world as well as for Russia
to regain its former status as a world power.
In this regard, in May of 2003 the Russian and Indian navies held joint
naval maneuvers in the Indian Ocean’s Arabian Sea, an area that once had a
Soviet military presence until the collapse of the U.S.S.R. Clearly enthusiastic about the fact that Russian
warships have returned once again to the region, Russian Vice Admiral Y. V.
Orlov called the naval exercises ‘historic,’ stressing that ‘these exercises
confirm the doctrine of President Putin of our resolve to have strength in the
area.’ In this connection, the last time
that Russia and India held naval maneuvers jointly before the 2003 training
operation was in 1989.52
After having a general overview of Neo-Eurasianist postulates, it
would be expedient to review the set of characteristics that distinguish
Pragmatic or Moderate Neo-Eurasianism from Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianism,
dealing with each school of Neo-Eurasianist thinking separately.
PRAGMATIC OR MODERATE
NEO-EURASIANISM
Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianism is the most prevalent form of Neo-Eurasianism
in post-Soviet Russia, and the dominant posture inspiring Russia’s foreign
policy. The initial Western-orientated
Russian foreign policy trend favoring close ties with the West, which was
dominant in 1991 and 1992, came to be substituted by a policy characterized by
a “more assertive postimperialism.”53 The change in Russia’s foreign policy line
was due to pressures exerted in 1992 by elements holding postures which Heikka
calls “eurasianist, moderate conservative, and pragmatic nationalist.”54 The “eurasianist” elements could be identified
with Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists while those holding “moderate
conservative” and “pragmatic nationalist” perspectives would fall into the
category of Pragmatic or Moderate Neo-Eurasianists. According to Alexei Arbatov, a deputy of the
Russian State Duma and a political observer, ‘a major realignment’ in Russian
foreign policy began to take form beginning at the end of 1992. Accordingly, during this policy realignment
those Russian liberal democrats supporting “integration” into the Western
community of nations lost their influence, as well as their view that Russia
should not pursue a policy of close relations with the CIS.55
Eventually, President Boris Yeltsin sacked his erstwhile pro-Western
Russian Foreign Minister, Andrei Kozyrev, in 1995, appointing Yevgeny Primakov
in Kozyrev’s stead. The new Russian
Foreign Minister was seen as an exponent of the new assertive Russian foreign
policy outlook.56
Regarding the shift of foreign policy views from a more pro-Western
perspective to a more Russia-centered viewpoint, Medvedev alluded to the fact
that in Russia’s elites, “even liberal groups have drifted toward the
nationalist side of the political spectrum.”57 Also pointing out to this dramatic policy
shift among Russia’s elites, Andrei Kortunov wrote that ‘the liberals became
pragmatists [centrists]; and the pragmatists became nationalists.’58
What Medvedev calls the shift towards a “nationalist” policy orientation
among liberal democrats is in fact a shift towards Neo-Eurasianism. Kortunov’s “pragmatists”, who are Prizel’s
“centrists,” are in reality the Pragmatic or Moderate Neo-Eurasianists. Likewise, Kortunov’s “nationalists” are
actually the Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists. In this regard, what Andrew Bennett
identifies three schools of thought that were prevalent in Russian foreign
policy during the period of 1992 to 1994, each upholding “Liberal, Pragmatic,
and Nationalist” perspectives respectively.59 These schools of thought could instead be
identified correspondingly as those of Pro-West Liberalism, Pragmatic
Neo-Eurasianism, and Dogmatic Neo-Eurasianism.
In general, Neo-Eurasianist points of view have become so widespread
among Russia’s elites that according to Medvedev, the concept of
“derzhavnost,’” which upholds the idea of a strong Russian state and of Russia
as a great power, “has become a common foreign policy denominator for
mainstream politicians…as well as major elites.”60 Vladimir Putin after he became Russian
President has been described in 2003 has having acknowledged that for him it is
more important than democracy itself a strong Russian state.61
Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists, who Prizel calls “centrists,” maintain
the posture that because of its unique character Russia ought to seek its
particular national interests. Along
this line of thinking, Russia’s leadership ought not to forget its history nor
forsake Russia’s standing as a world power.62 Referring actually to the Neo-Eurasianists,
Alexei Arbatov wrote that the ‘presently dominant centrist and moderate
conservative group…sees Russia as being entitled to a special role because of
its size, historic preponderance and other advantages over the smaller
republics on the territory of the former Soviet Union…. Preserving and,
whenever needed, reinstating its dominant role…is the principal goal in their
version of Russian foreign policy.’63 Moreover, rather than disappearing with the
demise of the Soviet Union, Russia’s security concerns are regarded by
Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists, to have worsened in fact.64
Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists would support the idea of a strong Russian
state, if not at least to maintain the unity of a country encompassing a
constellation of non-Russian nations and cultures. The concept of a strong Russian state is that
of derzhavnost,’ whose supporters could see as the goal to develop a “strong,
paternalist, and to some extent expansionist state.”65
Nevertheless, caution and moderation would inspire the actions of
Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianist policymakers in managing Russian foreign policy. Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists, who Bennett calls
“Pragmatists,” would thus pursue a foreign policy inspired by the concept of
‘defensive realism.’66 In order to indoctrinate Russia’s new
generations with their Neo-Eurasianist ideas, by 2003 the Kremlin is promoting
‘patriotic education’ in Russian schools, stressing “the history of Russian
military and political strength.”67 The idea behind this educational initiative
would be clearly to convert Russia’s entire population to Pragmatic
Neo-Eurasianism, thus Neo-Eurasianism becoming the new ideological substratum
of Russians. In part this might be done
to fill the ideological void left over in Russia by the demise of the Soviet
Union and its official Communist Party ideology with a patriotic,
Neo-Eurasianist thinking amenable to that of the ruling Russian political
elite.
In today’s Russia those among the “political, economic, and
intellectual elites” with a better grasp of the evolving situation in current
affairs are beginning to regard in a growing fashion the CIS not as a
collective entity of undifferentiated states but as a group of diverse and
distinct countries. Thus, each CIS state
would be judged separately in terms of its significance, either great or less,
for Russia’s national interests.
Supporters in Russia of this view, suggests Sergei Karaganov, would
oppose a collective integration process ‘of the twelve’ CIS member states,
preferring that Russia instead expands its relations with each CIS member
country on a bilateral basis.68 Nevertheless, Trenin argues that although the
restoration of the former territories of the Soviet Union into Russia does not
enjoy the official approval of the Kremlin as a policy objective, “many elite
figures” still entertain such an idea.69
According to Prizel, “centrists” in Russia’s political spectrum
created the name of Near Abroad when referring to the other new countries that
once were members of the Soviet Union.70 As Menon has suggested, the concept of “Near
Abroad emits a proprietorial aura.”71 The term implies that Russia possesses rights
over the other 14 former Soviet republics, and consequently that it has
national interests in the countries that were part of the Soviet Union. This
would be arguably so due to these countries’ history as erstwhile parts of the
Russian Empire and the succeeding Russian-dominated U.S.S.R., due to their
geographical location either at the borders of or in regions close to the
Russian Federation, and to the fact that millions who belong to the Russian
nation live spread across the other 14 states that once belonged to the Soviet
Union.72
A basic view of Russia’s Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists, Prizel’s
“centrists,” with regard to the other former Soviet republics is that Russia
still maintains a high level of close ties with them culturally, economically,
and politically, a reality which practically gives the Russian state no choice
but to continue to be the guarantor of stable economic relations and of
political order “across the space of the former USSR.” There is thus a ‘special relationship,’ it is
argued, between Russia and the other ex-Soviet republics due to their common
history, their economic interdependence, and Russia’s own vision of the
geopolitics of the former Soviet space which Moscow should be careful to
nurture.73 Moreover, Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists would
consider it appropriate for the Kremlin to use as leverage in its policies
towards the countries of the Near Abroad Russia’s more powerful economy vis-à-vis
the weaker economies of the other former Soviet republics, and the fact that
communities of Russians still exist in each of the ex-Soviet republics.74
In addition, an important matter for Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists, who
Bennett calls “Pragmatists,” concerning the former Soviet space is that of the
current situation of both Russians by nationhood and of populations that use
Russian as their main language living in the former Soviet republics.75
For Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists, the presence of these Russian and
Russian-speaking populations in the 14 ex-republics of the Soviet Union enables
Russia to exert its influence or seek an expanded role in the affairs of these
countries. This influence is manifested
in the form of closer Russian economic and security relations with the former
Soviet republics. Pragmatic
Neo-Eurasianists would also be interested in the fate of Russian populations in
the Near Abroad to try to prevent them from further migrating to Russia, a
downward trend which would evidently contribute to erode Russia’s influence in
the former Soviet republics if continuing.76 Last but not least, Pragmatic
Neo-Eurasianists would support the continued presence of Russians and Russian
speaking populations in the Near Abroad out of a patriotic motivation, Russian
nationalist concerns, and cultural pride.77
Political analyst and observer Sergei Karaganov is regarded by
Prizel to be a “prominent centrist.”78 However, Karaganov can be regarded to be a
Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianist instead.
Russia’s more assertive policy towards the Near Abroad has been promoted
by Karaganov, who in this light has suggested that Moscow should follow an
‘enlightened post-imperial integrationist course’ towards the former Soviet
republics.79 By this policy Moscow would attempt to extend
its influence through “an open projection of Russia’s interests and power in
the CIS…aimed at partial reintegration of the post-Soviet space….”80
The Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianist Karaganov suggested that the security of
Russia and the stability of Eurasia depended upon the CIS states of
Byelorussia, Georgia, and Kazakhstan falling within Russia’s sphere of
influence. According to Karaganov,
Byelorussia constituted a door for Russia to have access to Central Europe, as
Georgia would be Moscow’s door to the Caucasus region, and Kazakhstan to
Central Asia, all provided that Russian exerted his influence over these
countries.81
According to Karaganov, in Russia those who are concerned for the
countries of the CIS can be categorized in two groups. Then first group see the value of the CIS to
Russia from the point of view of geopolitics, as they tend to consider in all
instances Russian policy towards other countries from a geopolitical
perspective. This group of people regard
the “strategic depth” the CIS appears to provide Russia as a valuable asset for
Russian security. The other group
alluded by Karaganov is made by members of the new post-Soviet liberal market
trading class. Earlier this group was
uninterested in the CIS, for its members believed that if Russia would turn its
attention towards the former Soviet republics the revamping and upgrading of
the country’s economy would be hindered.
The members of Russia’s fledgling trading class largely imported
products for the Russian consumer from beyond the CIS and were involved in the
retail market of those imports within Russia.
However, as Karaganov argues, this social class in Russia changed its
commercial horizon from importing products for consumption within Russia, to
the production of consumer products in Russia for their export to the countries
of the CIS and their retail in the former Soviet republics.82
This interest in exporting to the CIS Russian-manufactured consumer
products instead of importing goods from the West, for example, would have
become profitable after the 1998 collapse of the ruble and the Russian
economy. Indeed, after the meltdown of
the Russian economy Russian imports became too expensive with the presence of a
stronger dollar and a depressed consumer market for them, but domestic
production of goods in Russia turned out to be more advantageous as a weak
ruble favored Russian exports, which in the CIS would have been in general
cheaper than non-CIS imports.
According to Michael McFaul, those who Prizel calls “centrists” but
who are actually Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists maintain a foreign policy towards
the countries of the CIS that is driven by economic concerns, as it is based on
the corporate goals that several Russian industrial concerns and corporations
have in the former Soviet republics.83
Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists, who Prizel calls centrists, would
believe that the process of democratic reforms and of making Russia a full
member of the “international system” requires first controlling the instability
in the southern flank of Russia’s borders, and creating in the former Soviet
space, clearly in reference to the CIS, an integration of former Soviet
republics along the lines of the European Union.84 Undoubtedly, such a European Union-style
integration of the CIS would have Russia at its center, being the most powerful
and biggest of all CIS members, helping thus to reconstitute the former Russian
empire albeit in a partial and decentralized form. A common market, which would be an element of
a CIS as integrated as the European Union is, would entail the economic
domination of the Russian Federation over its CIS partners.
The pro-Western liberal democrats in Russia believe instead that the
success of democratic reforms in Russia and its complete membership of the
“international system” demands of Russia to orient itself largely towards the
West. Pro-Western liberals regard that
once Russia becomes again an established member of the international community,
its relations with the CIS members states would develop fully.85
Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists believe that for the purpose of
preventing Russia from returning to ambitions of empire and to help consolidate
democratic reforms in the country, Moscow ought to follow a ‘good neighbor
policy’ towards the former Soviet republics.
To achieve the aforesaid goals, Russia in addition should support a
process of closer integration of the CIS so that the “irrational borders of the
post-Soviet states by being fully open and transparent will become politically
tolerable,” that is, presumably tolerable in Russia.86 A rationale behind this thinking is
that Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists consider that for Russia to avoid isolation and
exclusion from the “international system,” Moscow must develop with the states
belonging to the CIS strong ties and cooperation in the framework of the
Commonwealth of Independent States.87
To sum up the Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianist vision of Russia and the
CIS, Vyacheslav Dashichev wrote:
The era of
empires, the creation of spheres of influence and the filling of political and
military vacuums is part of the past. It has been supplemented by regional
integrative organizations of sovereign states…But Russia has vital interests in
the former Soviet republics, just as these republics retained vital interests
in Russia…Russia’s national interests consist in promoting the creation in the
CIS space of an integrated society that is founded on a socially oriented
market economy and democratic values modeled on the European Union. Only this
can make the CIS viable.88
Although the
constitution of an empire or a sphere of influence was not avowedly being
proposed, a European Union-type of integration of a CIS headed by Russia, which
is the strongest and most populated by far of all CIS states, would lead to a
de facto Russian sphere of influence in which the policies and actions of CIS
member states would be influenced by Russia’s, if not determined by Moscow’s
policies and actions.
More recently, according to Pavel
Borodin, the current secretary of the Union of Russia and Byelorussia, ‘in
eight years we will build a post-Soviet space, and then in another eight years
we will merge with Europe. I think that [President Putin] agrees.’ Having being appointed to his post by Putin,
Borodin’s statement concurs with the goals of the Eurasian Party in Russia,
headed by Borodin himself. He envisages
that initially Byelorussia will unite with Russia in a union, followed by
Ukraine and Kazakhstan, which would also merge with Russia. Eventually, Borodin expects the European
Union to form part of a more closely-knit association with Russia.89
Such association would be based on the establishment of a “common
economic space, one of the biggest projects between the European Union and
Russia,” and which has the strong backing of Germany.90
Putin worked in 1996 for Borodin, then in charge of the Kremlin’s
“presidential property department.” It
is argued that Putin, at present President of Russia, agrees with Borodin’s
views, which can be regarded as Neo-Eurasianist. Putin is presently an advocate of an economic
association of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Byelorussia in a regional free
trade area. He also supports to restore
closer ties between Russia and its other partners within the context of the
Commonwealth of Independent States, and for Russia to develop tighter relations
with the Russian populations of the Near Abroad.91
Pavel Borodin, who can be regarded
to be a Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianist, expressed the Neo-Eurasianist goal of closer
integration of Russia and the former Soviet republics that make the CIS in a
“post-Soviet space.” Clearly, the
Russian Federation would become a giant among dwarfs in such a union, clearly
dominating in terms of size, amount of resources, population, economic might,
and military potential. It is
interesting that Neo-Eurasianists envision a future union of Russia with the
European Union, possibly in a so-called Eurasian Union. Being by far the largest and most populated
country of Eurasia, and with the most powerful nuclear arsenal, Russia would
have or seek to have a decisive role in the decision making of such a
union. It would fulfill a goal of
uniting under Russian nuclear tutelage the entire Eurasian space, including
Europe. Moreover, Europe’s dependency on
Russia for oil and gas imports would only increase the role Russia would play
in controlling the decisions of a wider Eurasian Union, a role augmented even
further if Russia would come to control the oil and gas produced in the
Caucasus and Central Asia through a union of Russia with the regions’ former
Soviet republics. Moreover, a Russia
with a strong political weight in such a Eurasian Union would attempt to
recover at least in part some of its lost influence over the Baltic region,
Central and Eastern Europe.
Russian attempts at closer
cooperation in the context of the CIS are the project of union between the
Russian Federation and Byelorussia, the initiative to develop a Customs Union
among CIS member states, and participation of these CIS member countries under
Russian auspices and leadership in the CIS Collective Security Treaty.92
Other attempts at strengthening Russia’s security presence in the CIS
are the establishment of Russian bases for its military forces stationed in the
Caucasus region, a strong military presence in Tajikistan to defend the CIS
Central Asian southern borders from instability in Afghanistan, and the signing
with Ukraine of a treaty in 1997 by which the contentious question of the
ex-Soviet Black Sea Fleet was answered in Russia’s favor. Moreover, this treaty between Russia and
Ukraine allowed Russia to keep for two decades its naval base in Sevastopol,
the capital of the Crimea.93 These attempts at the partial reintegration
of former Soviet Eurasia under Russian tutelage would be in accordance with
Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianist thinking. To
sum up, Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists would regard the Near Abroad to be the most
important of all Russian foreign policy concerns, for they view developments
and events happening in the region, no doubt due to its geographical proximity
to Russia, to affect Russia’s national interests in the short term and in a
direct fashion.94
Despite Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianist
interest in the Near Abroad, great attention is paid also to the rest of the
international community. Pragmatic
Neo-Eurasianists also advocate for Russia to maintain a positive relationship
with the countries of Europe, the United States, the countries of the Near
East, and with Asian states. Moreover,
they support an international system that is based on multipolarity, i.e., on a
multipolar balance of world powers.95 The concept of multipolarity itself is linked
to a great extent to geopolitical thinking.96 Prizel’s centrists, who can be regarded as
actually being Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists, believe that Russia is
‘geopolitically encircled’ by enemies that are either actual or likely in the
future. It is argued that this sense of
siege “centrists” have in Russia is the result of being concerned with the many
difficulties affecting the Russian Federation that have appeared in the
“Eurasian landmass.“97
The “centrists” or Pragmatic
Neo-Eurasianists wish for Russia to become again a part of the ‘core’ of the
“international system,” so as to be again an important player in the
international arena that seeks its national interests at the world stage.98
Nonetheless, it is claimed that a majority “centrists” want Russia to
become a democracy with a liberal capitalist economic system. The “centrists,” however, regard the West
with circumspection. In this regard,
they suspect that certain states in the West want Russia to perform a limited
position as a power, presumably with limited interests in the world stage.99
Thus “centrists” or Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists believe that the West is
not amenable to the idea of a resurgent Russia becoming again a great
power. They regard NATO as proof of the
continuing Western policy of “containment” against Russia, at a time in which
the Russian state is in a much weaker position than when the Soviet Union faced
the Atlantic Alliance. The “centrists,”
according to Prizel, firmly oppose NATO’s acceptance as new members of Central
European states such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, or the fact
that the borders of the Atlantic Alliance in their view have ‘moved’ to the
Ukrainian-Russian border, over 1,000 kilometers from the original NATO limes at
the Elbe River in Germany.100 The perception that NATO’s boundaries reach
Ukraine’s border with Russia would originate probably from Ukraine’s membership
in NATO’s Partnership for Peace program.
The ruling “centrist” elite hence supports the dissolution of NATO
and its substitution by a new European security structure centered, for
instance, in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE). In terms of establishing
international security structures alternative to NATO, Russia’s “centrists”
support an expanded role for the United Nations, where Russia is a permanent
member of the UN Security Council.101
Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists, Prizel’s
“centrists,” do not regard the West to constitute a menace to Russia in the
short term, but it has been regarded as an affront to Russia the continued
process of NATO expansion eastwards towards Russia’s border and the Atlantic Alliance’s
military actions against the Serbs and its military involvement in the former
Yugoslavia.102 What is being seen by Pragmatic
Neo-Eurasianists as NATO’s aggression and military penetration into the Balkan
region, and the Atlantic Alliance’s expansion eastwards into Central and
Eastern Europe, has led Russia to seek partnerships in the Near East and
Asia. This tendency to seek friends
beyond the West coincides with Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianist belief in a multipolar
international system, which for Russia means “strategic independence without
confrontation” at the world stage.
According to this line of thinking, as it seeks its national interests
Russia would regard to be friends as well as rivals countries such as the
United States, those in Europe, the European Union, and regional powers like
China or India.103
However, due to their suspicion of the U.S., a considerable number
of “centrists” – Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists – in Russia consider the
relationship with the United States as less important, one which Moscow should
not give emphasis over what to them is the most urgent task of “maintaining
stability on the Eurasian landmass.”104 Such stability would be achieved in great
measure if Russia assumes leadership of the CIS, which is regarded to be ‘non-Russia
Eurasia.’ Russian leadership of the CIS
would be necessary to lead the Commonwealth of Independent States towards a
process of integration, which would be made possible through Russia’s
overarching influence over the CIS member states. Only by assuming a central
character in the CIS can Russia become a ‘pole’ in a multipolar international
system.105
Russia’s “pragmatists” (Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists) suggest that the
country’s foreign relations depend on the circumstances of the moment and how
Russia’s national interests are best served accordingly. Thus, Russia has no inhibitions in dealing
and having close ties with states that would have a bad reputation in the
international community, such as Iraq, Iran or Syria, if this would suit its
interests.106 Therefore, as it suits its interests, besides
cultivating ties with the West Russia would seek to develop strategic relations
with regional powers such as China, India or Iran, making inroads in key
regions like the Near East, Southeast Asia and the Far East.107
In this regard, Russian exports of military equipment and training are
an important tool available to Moscow in developing and strengthening its
international relations.108 In general, according to the “centrists”
(Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists), the only sources of instability that pose
immediate threats to Russian security originate in Eurasia. Ostensibly to counteract such instability
threatening Russia, they propose that close partnerships with Eurasian powers
such as China, Germany and India ought to be brought into fruition and fostered
by Moscow’s foreign relations.109
Another posture maintained by the “centrists” (Pragmatic
Neo-Eurasianists) is that instability in Asia is more a concern for Russia and
Asian countries such as Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or
Syria than to the West, for which security matters and instability in the
region would not be a priority.
Consequently, they see the countries of Asia more like natural allies of
Russia, in contrast to the West, for the purpose of jointly dealing with the
roots of instability and conflict in the Asian continent.110
In this regard Alexei Bogaturov expressed a “centrist” position when he
wrote that
Moscow is
prepared to cooperate with the United States and Europe in stabilizing the
situation along our new borders. But Russia cannot blindly follow the West, if
only because for the United States and Germany conflicts in the nearby foreign
countries are humanitarian and political, while for us they mean bloodshed,
economic ruin and humiliation of our citizens.111
Writing in geopolitical terms, Konstantin Pleshakov suggested that
Eurasia’s ‘oceanic littoral’ could fall under the control of the Western
powers, which might establish order and security by putting down upheaval in
the Eurasian maritime regions. This
allusion no doubt is in reference to naval powers such as the United States,
Great Britain or France. On the other
hand, Pleshakov argued that rivalries and competition would continue to mark
the relations between Russia, China and Asia’s Muslim countries in their
attempts to dominate “the heartland of ‘continental Eurasia.’”112
With regard to the issue of competition between Muslim states and
Russia for hegemony in the “heartland” of Eurasia, and in part expressing a
Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianist concern with Turkey, Radical Neo-Eurasianist Andranik
Migranian wrote:
Both Iran and
Turkey are making consistent efforts to establish their own political and economic
hegemony in the Caucasus. To a significant extent, behind these regional powers
one can detect two groupings battling on a world scale: The West is behind
Turkey and the Muslim Fundamentalist movement is behind Iran.113
Nonetheless,
Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists had no problem in establishing good relations with
Iran, particularly in terms of Russian arms exports and the transfer of nuclear
power technology to the Islamic Republic.
However, Turkey is seen more of a threat due to its expanding interests in
the Caucasus and in Central Asia. It is
certainly that Turkey is seen as a geopolitical competitor in the regions
alluded, and one that is a member of NATO and an ally of the United States and
the West. Iran, on the other hand, due
to its rivalry with the U.S. is likely seen in Moscow as a partner in opposing
U.S. hegemony in the world in general and in the Near East in particular.
The “centrists” (Pragmatic
Neo-Eurasianist) do not want for Russia to assume the role of chief challenger
of the established post-war international order that the Soviet Union had nor
to become thus the head of those countries trying to defy it.114
While claiming that Russia would follow a “self-destructive” path if it
would challenge the U.S., Alexei Vasiliev claimed:
Equating
Russia’s interests with those of the United States is fraught with many
dangers… A new axis of tension is appearing – a North-South axis, which is to
say between the West and primarily the Moslem world. Russia too could be drawn
into this confrontation… Russia has the longest border with the Moslem world of
all European countries, several thousand kilometers in length… It is in the
interests of both ethnoses (sic) [Russian and Moslem] to use all conceivable
means to convert inevitable conflicts between them into nonviolent form… If
conflicts turn into bloody civil strife, this would mean the self-destruction
of both Russia and the Turkic Moslem peoples.115
Despite the fact that it has been
argued that the concept of “multipolarity” is closely associated to the
discipline of “geopolitics,” providing in turn less emphasis to the notion of
“geoeconomics,”116 the
“centrists” (Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists) believe that the objective of
conducting the Russian economy down the path of development and progress is
contingent upon Russia’s degree of engagement in international economic
relations.117
Upheaval, lawlessness and insecurity
in Russia’s southern flank remain for the “centrists” the most serious dangers
for the country’s security, and in order to tackle these problems challenging
stability in the Eurasian heartland they are inclined to seek assistance from
the West. However, this collaboration
with the West would be restricted in nature.
“Centrists” see as causes of the unstable situation along Russia’s
southern borders the spread of Islamic religious extremism, underdevelopment,
and the clash between the modern Western culture and the more traditional
Eastern civilization.118 To the “centrists” (Pragmatic
Neo-Eurasianists), the greatest danger to Russia in its southern flank was
constituted by instability and civil strife in Afghanistan, which could expand
to Tajikistan in particular and Central Asia in general, and by conflict
between Muslims and Christians in the Transcaucasus region, from which it was
feared to reach Russia’s Volga River region, presumably affecting the Turkic
autonomous republics of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan of the Russian Federation.119
Also, Russia’s key interests in its southern flank would not be
deterred or interfered with by the United States’ policy of concern for human
rights abuses committed by regimes in Asia.
“Centrists” (Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists) thus argue that Russia must be
the one to establish its own level of relations with countries such as China,
India, Iran, Iraq, Syria or Vietnam, unimpeded by U.S. policy.120
Russia’s employment of military
force in the Commonwealth of Independent States as a policy tool in Moscow’s
dealings with CIS member states is not supported by a large number of
“centrists.”121 During the initial years of the Russian
Federation as an independent state, there was a large proportion of members of
the senior officer corps who were averse to have internal conflicts and
domestic confrontations of a political nature in Russia being solved with the
use of military force.122
Nevertheless, regarding the use of force in the Near Abroad, when
all non-military policy options such as diplomacy or economic measures could
not achieve Russia’s policy objectives, “pragmatists” (Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists)
then support resorting to military force to accomplish them. If the use of force is deemed necessary, the
“pragmatists” advocate Russia’s military participation in the context of
missions sponsored by international organizations such as the Commonwealth of
Independent States, the United Nations and the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe. To employ Russian
armed forces in the Near Abroad in the framework of an internationally backed operation
is thus supported by the “pragmatists” for the purpose of legalizing the
military intervention, and to reduce the load of the Russian force involved in
the peacekeeping mission by having other foreign military forces also
participating in it.123
The “pragmatists” or Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists are apprehensive
with the idea of the West and in particular the United States following
policies of competition with Russia by adopting measures aimed at balancing the
power and influence of Moscow in Eurasia.
However, it is a source of genuine worry for the “pragmatists” the
perception that the Western powers and particularly NATO want to align the
countries of the Near Abroad with them against Russia, so as to contain and
reduce Russia’s influence and power over the region.124
Due to the perceived great importance that the Caucasus and Central Asia
have in terms of Russian national security, the “centrists” (Pragmatic
Neo-Eurasianists) support “direct Russian intervention” in Russia’s ‘soft
underbelly.’125
According to statistical research
recorded by William Zimmerman, Russian elites, including foreign policy elites,
were more inclined in 1999 when compared to 1993 to perceive the U.S. as a
threat to Russian security. The elites
included “liberal democrats,” “market authoritarians,” “social democrats,” and
communists. Thus in 1999 a greater
proportion among the Russian elites saw the U.S. as posing a danger to the
national security of Russia, with the increase of the power of the U.S. armed
forces being seen “as a great danger…or the greatest…danger” to the country’s
security. Also, increasing numbers in
the Russian elites deemed the necessity ‘to balance Western military might’ to
be a primary objective of Russia’s diplomacy, and that the Russian defense
budget ought not to be reduced by the government but either to be maintained at
adequate levels or raised further.126 The “liberal democrats” whose answers
portrayed the United States, NATO or the West as a threat to Russia can be
regarded as Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists or as those who harbor Pragmatic
Neo-Eurasianist views on Russian security.
In ROMIR surveys quoted by
Zimmerman, on the question about whether the “U.S. [is a] threat to Russian
security,” in 1999 52% of self-confessed “liberal democrats” agreed, while 79%
of “market authoritarians,” “social democrats,” and communists concurred. Also in the same year, to the question of
whether “balancing [the] power of the West” was as a Russian policy objective
“very important,” 58% of “liberal democrats” were in the affirmative and 81% of
“market authoritarians,” “social democrats,” and communists answered yes. Answering which was or were the “great…or
greatest…threats to Russian security” in 1999, 49% of “liberal democrats” and
82% of “market authoritarians,” “social democrats,” and communists said it was the “growth of U.S. military power;”
52% of “liberal democrats” and 70% of “market authoritarians,” “social
democrats,” and communists answered to be “NATO expansion in Eastern Europe;”
56% of “liberal democrats” and 77% of “market authoritarians,” “social
democrats,” and communists regarded it to be “NATO intervention in internal
conflicts in European conflicts;” and 94% of “liberal democrats” and 96% of
“market authoritarians,” “social democrats,” and communists agreed to the
proposition “military spending: increase or keep same.”127
The “liberal democrats” answering in the affirmative to the aforesaid
propositions can be considered Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists, while the group of
“market authoritarians,” “social democrats,” and communists supporting the
previous contentions can be regarded as Dogmatic or Radical
Neo-Eurasianists.
To the question on whether “Ukraine
and Russia Should Definitely…Be One State,” in 1999 30% of “liberal democrats”
agreed as well as 59% of “market authoritarians,” “social democrats,” and
communists. However, and on the same
year, 49% of “liberal democrats” and 77% of “market authoritarians,” “social
democrats,” and communists were in favor of the idea that “Belarus and Russia
Should Definitely…Be One State.”128 In
these questions, those “liberal democrats” that supported the union of Ukraine
and Byelorussia with Russia can be regarded to be Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists or
to share in their ideas.
On those who “agreed [the] U.S. [is
a] threat” in 1999, 49% of Russian “civilian liberal democrats” polled were in
favor, 74% of “market authoritarians,” “social democrats” and communists
supported the contention as 93% of members of the “military.” On the same year 45% of “civilian liberal
democrats,” 77% of “market authoritarians,” “social democrats” and communists,
and 97% of members of the “military” supported the assertion that the “growth
of U.S. power” was a “security threat” for Russia. Moreover, 50% of the Russian “civilian
liberal democrats,” 69% of “market authoritarians,” “social democrats” and
communists, and 77% of members of the “military” polled agreed in 1999 that
“NATO expansion in Eastern Europe” posed a “security threat” to Russia. On the assumption that “NATO intervention in
internal conflicts in Europe” constituted a “security threat,” 54% “civilian
liberal democrats,” 75% of “market authoritarians,” “social democrats” and
communists, and 83% of the “military” answered in the affirmative in 1999. On the opinion that to “balance Western
power” was a “very important goal” for Russia, in 1999 56% of “civilian liberal
democrats,” 79% of “market authoritarians,” “social democrats” and communists,
and 87% of members of the “military” were in agreement. Then, the suggestion to “not reduce
(‘increase’ or ‘keep the same’) military spending” was backed in 1999 by an
overwhelming 94% of “civilian liberal democrats,” by 94% of “market
authoritarians,” “social democrats” and communists, and by 100% of members of
the “military.”129 It could be assumed that the “civilian
liberal democrats” answering in support of contentions that portrayed the U.S.,
NATO, and the West as threats to Russia are Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists or that
they toy with Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianist ideas.
On those who “agreed” to “rebuild
[the Russian] economy without Western help” in 1999, 62% were “civilian liberal
democrats,” 79% were “market authoritarians,” “social democrats” and
communists, and 90% were from the “military.”
Moreover, also in 1999 50% of “civilian liberal democrats,” 77% of
“market authoritarians,” “social democrats” and communists, and only 37% of the
“military” agreed with the statement that “key economic sectors in foreign
hands” is a “security threat” to Russia.130
Regarding the issue of union of
Ukraine and Byelorussia with Russia, 29% of “civilian liberal democrats,” 47%
of “market authoritarians,” “social democrats” and communists, and 77% of the
“military” supported in 1999 the idea that “Russia and Ukraine should be one
country.” However, the contention that
“Russia and Belarus should be one country” was backed in 1999 by 48% of
“civilian liberal democrats,” 71% of “market authoritarians,” “social
democrats” and communists, and by 83% of the “military” polled.131
For the next set of questions in the
ROMIR surveys included in Zimmerman’s work, members of the Russian elite were
asked to identify themselves with either one of the following two positions: a)
‘owing to Russia’s history and its geographical position at the crossroads of
Europe and Asia, it should follow its own unique path;’ or b) ‘take the path of
other developed countries…familiarizing itself with the achievements of Western
civilization.’132
It could be assumed with a basis of certainty that those who would
support the idea of Russia following its own path, tacitly acknowledged as
being different from the West, are Neo-Eurasianists.
Regarding the proposition surveyed
in 1999 on the “orientation to political economy, assessment of political
system most suitable for Russia, and preferred developmental path,” concerning
the question whether the country should “pursue [a] unique Russian path” - a
Neo-Eurasianist posture - 46% of “market democrats,” 58% “market
authoritarians,” 68% “social democrats,” and 86% communists answered in the
affirmative. Of those who preferred the
“Soviet system before perestroika,” 93% were in favor to “pursue [an] unique
Russian path.” Of those who supported
Russia’s “present system,” 67% backed to “pursue [an] unique Russian
path.” Moreover, among those in the
elites who acknowledged being advocates of “Western democracy” in Russia, 28%
of them endorsed for their country to “pursue [an] unique Russian path.”133
The “market democrats” and those supporting “Western democracy” that
were in favor for the country to “pursue [an] unique Russian path” can be
regarded to be Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists.
Thus, about 46% of liberal democrats can be regarded as being Pragmatic
or Moderate Neo-Eurasianists, or at least it can be said that they share
Neo-Eurasianist views.
The ROMIR survey of 1999, based on
the premise of “foreign policy preferences among civilian elites, controlling
for developmental path and orientation to political economy,” recorded that
among those who saw the “U.S. [as a] threat,” 71% were “liberal democrats” who
“follow Russian path” and 30% were “liberal democrats” who “follow [the]
West.” Some 86% of “market
authoritarians,” “social democrats” and communists who “follow Russian path” as
well as 36% from this latter group (“market authoritarians,” “social democrats”
and communists) who said to “follow [the] West” saw a “U.S. threat.” Those who considered to “balance [the] West
very important,” 79% were “liberal democrats” who “follow Russian path,” 36%
“liberal democrats who “follow [the] West,” 87% of “market authoritarians,”
“social democrats” and communists who “follow Russian path,” and 57% of this
latter group who said to “follow [the] West.”
To the proposition of whether the “growth [of] U.S. power” was a danger
to Russia, they agreed 65% of “liberal democrats” who “follow Russian path,”
31% of “liberal democrats” who “follow [the] West,” 87% of “market
authoritarians,” “social democrats” and communists who “follow Russian path,”
and 50% from the latter group who “follow [the] West.”134
In the same 1999 survey, to the
question on whether “NATO expansion” was a danger to Russia, those who agreed
were 68% of “liberal democrats” who “follow Russian path,” 37% of “liberal
democrats” who “follow [the] West,” 79% of “market authoritarians,” “social
democrats” and communists who “follow Russian path,” and 43% of the latter
group who “follow [the] West.” Of those
who supported the contention that “NATO [military] intervention” posed a danger
to Russia’s security, there were 69% of “liberal democrats” who “follow Russian
path,” 44% of “liberal democrats” who “follow [the] West,” 84% of “market
authoritarians,” “social democrats” and communists who “follow Russian path,”
and 50% from the latter group who “follow [the] West.”135
To the assertion that “foreign
control of ‘key economic sectors’” is a danger to Russia, those who agreed were
65% of “liberal democrats” who “follow Russian path,” 35% of “liberal
democrats” who “follow [the] West,” 84% of “market authoritarians,” “social
democrats” and communists who “follow Russian path,” and 57% from the latter
group who “follow [the] West.” To the
contention that it is better to “solve [Russia’s] economic problems without
Western help,” those who concurred were 76% of “liberal democrats” who “follow
Russian path,” 54% of “liberal democrats” who “follow [the] West,” 83 % of
“market authoritarians,” “social democrats” and communists who “follow Russian
path,” and 69% from the latter group who “follow [the] West.”136
Among those who “strongly favor
reunification…with Ukraine,” were 31% of “liberal democrats” who “follow
Russian path,” 25% of “liberal democrats” who “follow [the] West,” 50% of
“market authoritarians,” “social democrats” and communists who “follow Russian
path,” and 38% from the latter group who “follow [the] West.” However, more members of the elite “strongly
favor reunification with Belarus,” with 65% of “liberal democrats” who “follow
Russian path,” 38% of “liberal democrats” who “follow [the] West,” 76% of
“market authoritarians,” “social democrats” and communists who “follow Russian
path,” and 54% from the latter group who “follow [the] West” agreeing with the
statement.137
It could be said with some certainty
that those “liberal democrats” who identified themselves with the posture of
Russia pursuing its own particular way as opposed to a Western path were
Pragmatic or Moderate Neo-Eurasianists.
Indeed, they acknowledge that there is such a distinctive Russian
approach to development and statehood for the Russian Federation to
follow. This view that Russia ‘should
follow its own unique path’138 is
in concord with the view of seeing Russia as part of the broader and
distinctive entity of Eurasia.
Zimmerman identifies the Russian
liberal democrats as being either the “Westernizers” or the “Slavophils” of
this day and age,139 as
opposed to their counterparts from 19th century Russia. Clearly, the “Slavophils” liberal democrats
can be identified with the Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianists. Based on the research information at hand, he
reveals that on the issue of Russian military intervention in the Near Abroad,
“Slavophils” and “Westernizers” among the “liberal democrats” differed
noticeably from a statistical point of view.140 Presumably, the “Slavophils” supported
Russia’s use of military power in the former Soviet space.
On the use of force, 99% of the subjects surveyed among the Russian
“foreign policy elite” answered “yes” in 1999 to the question of whether the
“use of force [is] legitimate” in the “defense of territorial integrity” of
Russia. Also, 85% agreed in that the
“use of force [is] legitimate” for the “defense of [the] Russian state.”141
On the other hand, in 1999 the Russian “foreign policy elite” in the
ROMIR survey voted 82% “no” on whether the “use of force [is] legitimate” to
“extricate Russia from its current crisis,” 90% said no on whether the “use of
force [is] legitimate” to use force to “protect Russia’s friends abroad,” and
92% answered no on whether the “use of force [is] legitimate” to “protect Russian
citizens living outside former USSR.”142 A majority in the Russian “foreign policy
elite” surveyed was opposed to the use of force to defend Russian foreign
allies, which strongly suggested that they did not regard it to be justified to
intervene militarily to assist Serbia, for example, against a NATO attack. Nevertheless, an overwhelming majority saw it
justified for Russia to use its military power to preserve the “territorial
integrity” of the Russian Federation or to use force for what was interpreted
as the “defense of [the] Russian state.”
These views would be reflected on some of the Kremlin’s major policy
decisions adopted in 1999.
Therefore it is not surprising that of the members of the Russian
“foreign policy elite” polled in the ROMIR survey in 1999, 94% regarded the
“defense of the Russian state” to be “very important,” 94% agreed that to
“extricate Russia from its current crisis” is “very important,” i.e., the
resolution of the country’s ongoing difficulties by establishing an environment
adequate for this, 80% regarded to be “very important” to “develop relations
with [the] ‘near abroad,’” 99% believed that the “defense of Russia’s economic
interests” is “very important,” 96% agreed that the ‘defense of Russia’s
national security’ is “very important,” 97% answered to be “very important” the
“defense of [Russia’s] territorial integrity,” and 94% concurred that the fact
that Russia “shouldn’t forget global problems” is “very important.”143
Moreover, in the 1999 survey 83% of those regarded as part of the
Russian “foreign policy elite” that were polled agreed that Russia’s “national
interest [is] broader” than its present borders.144 Indeed, years earlier Yevgeny Ambartsumov
said
Russia is
something larger than the Russian Federation in its present borders. Therefore,
one must see its geopolitical interests more broadly than what is currently
defined by the maps. That is our starting point as we develop our conception of
mutual relations with ‘our own foreign countries.’145
From a statistical standpoint, however, on the posture that the
extent of post-Soviet Russian interests was “broader” than the Russian
Federation’s actual borders, and on the stance that a threat or the most
serious menace to the stability and safety of Russia was constituted by armed
struggles and wars along the country’s frontiers, it was argued that there were
no noteworthy differences between “liberal democrats” identified as
“Slavophils” and “Westernizers.”146 Undoubtedly, Russian interests were bigger than
the physical extension of the official limits of post-Soviet Russia, for
according to Neo-Eurasianist views, they encompassed the Near Abroad and thus
the entire former Soviet space. This would appear to indicate that such
stances, which can be associated with Neo-Eurasianism, also influenced the
perspectives held by self-described Westerners among the “liberal democrats.”
Zimmerman concluded that members
of the Russian elite identifying themselves as “liberal democrats” were
“divided evenly” in supporters of a unique Russian way that the country should
orient itself towards, and Westerners that believe that to ‘take the path of
other developed countries’ was the best option for Russia’s future.147
The fact that “Slavophils” among Russia’s “liberal democrats”
constituted about half of the total number of followers of liberal democracy in
Russia polled could indicate the strength of Neo-Eurasianist ideas among this
sector of the Russian elite. It could
suggest also that about half of self-confessed liberal democrats and
specifically those who support for the country to “follow [a] Russian path” in
1999 are actually Pragmatic or Moderate Neo-Eurasianists. Zimmerman also revealed that there was a
virtual consensus on the opinion that the Russian Federation ought to “follow
[a] Russian path” among the communists, whom he identifies as “socialist
authoritarians.”148 Due to the extreme nature of the political
stances harbored by Russia’s communists, it can be averred that they can be
regarded as Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists.
Revealingly, Zimmerman establishes
that a clear distinction in terms of differences of opinion was not pitting
“liberal democrats” against “market authoritarians,” “social democrats,” and
communists regarding the stances being asked in the ROMIR polls, such as
whether the U.S., the West, NATO or NATO military intervention in the Balkans
constituted a danger or the most serious danger Russia was facing concerning
its security. Rather, opinions in
answering the survey were split noticeably along two groups, basically the
supporters of the contention that the country ought to stick to a distinctive
Russian perspective as a guideline to further its development, and the
followers of the notion that Russia should ‘take the path of other developed
countries’ in its drive towards modernization.149 Zimmerman’s conclusion could suggest that the
ideological fault lines in post-Soviet Russia should not actually be drawn
along, let us say, liberal democrats, communists, the far right, “market
authoritarians,” and social democrats.
Instead, and furthering the argument, the main distinction ideologically
speaking should be made between Neo-Eurasianists and non Neo-Eurasianists,
among whom pro-West and Westernized elites feature prominently. In this regard perhaps it is noteworthy to
mention that in the 1999 ROMIR surveys, on average there was a marked
distinction in the answers of “liberal democrats” supporting a Russian course
with the responses of “liberal democrats” favoring a Western way, concerning
the issues of a union of Russia and Byelorussia, economic relations between
Russia and the West, and whether the U.S. and NATO posed a threat to Russia’s
security.150 Furthermore, an additional distinction can be
made between Pragmatic or Moderate Neo-Eurasianists and Dogmatic or Radical
Neo-Eurasianists in Russia’s fledgling ideological spectrum.
One of the most renowned Pragmatic
or Moderate Neo-Eurasianists is Yevgeny Primakov,151 who occupied the posts of spymaster
as Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Foreign Minister, and
then Prime Minister. Allegedly enjoying
the favor of supporters of a strong Russian state, the “derzhavniki,” Primakov
won the support of Neo-Eurasianists in the Duma for his “policy of national
interests” while Russian Foreign Minister.152 Other leading Pragmatic or Moderate
Neo-Eurasianists are Sergei Karaganov, head of the “influential” Council for
Foreign and Defense Policy private research institute in Moscow and who has
been regarded a “centrist” by Prizel,153
Pavel Borodin, who was in charge in 1996 of the Kremlin’s “presidential
property department” and who was head in 1997 and 1998 of the presidential
staff’s “Administration of Affairs,” currently holding the post of secretary of
the Union of Russia and Belarus as well as being the leader of the Eurasian
Party,154 Sergei Stepashin,155 Minister for Internal Affairs and
later Russian Prime Minister, Ramazan Abdulatipov, who was a Russian Duma
deputy, Anatoly Adamishin, who was Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Yevgeny
Ambartsumov and Alexei Arbatov, who were both deputies and members of the
Duma’s committee on foreign affairs, Viktor Chernomyrdin, ex-Russian Prime
Minister, Sergei Filatov, who was chief of the presidential staff, Andrei
Kokoshin, who was Secretary of the Security Council, Vladimir Lukin, who was a
deputy belonging to the committee on foreign affairs of the Duma, Emil Payin,
who was advisor to President Yeltsin on foreign affairs, Dmitry Rurikov,
personal advisor on foreign affairs to President Yeltsin, Ivan Rybkin, who was
the Speaker of the Russian Duma, Yevgeny Savostyanov, who was Deputy Director
of the Federal Counter-Intelligence Service (FSK), the forerunner agency of the
FSB, Sergei Shakhrai, who was Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Vladimir Shumeiko,
who was the President of the Federation Council, Sergei Stankevich, an
ex-advisor to President Yeltsin, and Grigory Yavlinsky, head of the Yabloko
Party.156
DOGMATIC OR RADICAL
NEO-EURASIANISM
Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianism
shares basically the same views with Pragmatic or Moderate Neo-Eurasianism,
only that Dogmatic Neo-Eurasianism is more extreme on how to achieve the same
Neo-Eurasianist goals, more assertive in terms of suggested domestic and
foreign policy approaches, usually isolationist from the West, and dialectic,
dogmatic, and even messianic regarding both the concept of Eurasia and Russia’s
perceived role within Eurasia.
A
representative of Radical Neo-Eurasianist thinking, Andranik Migranian was a
member of the Presidential Council, providing thus advise to President Yeltsin.157
As a Neo-Eurasianist, Migranian was an advocate of a strong state and of
strong state rule in Russia. Writing in
the official newspaper Rossiiskaya gazeta in January 1997, Migranian
expressed the need for a strong Russian state to save Russia from ‘the worst
example of oligarchic rule’ that was dominating the country. He expressed the need for a ‘radical shift in
relations between the state and business to the advantage of the state in order
to destroy the system of oligarchic rule established in Russia.’ Victory of the state in this struggle between
the state and the “oligarchs” ‘was becoming a question of life and death for
the further development of Russia as an industrially developed nation.’158
Migranian’s view on the new states that won independence with the
fall of the Soviet Union was that they constituted a ‘sphere of…[Russia’s]
vital interests.’ Moreover, the new
independent states of the Near Abroad were to be prevented from joining ‘either
with each other or with third countries that have an anti-Russian orientation’
in formal alliances.159 Migranian’s regard for the newly independent
countries of the Near Abroad can be contemplated in his view that these
countries have ‘provisional’ national borders and that their sovereignty is
‘transitional.’ He added that it is
‘impossible to mechanically transfer the norms and the rules that existed
between the Soviet Union and the countries of the far abroad to relations
between Russia and these [former Soviet] republics.’160
With regard to the issue of with whom the countries of the Near Abroad
should have close associations, Migranian argued that ‘not international
structures, not the U.S. or NATO, but Russia should be the factor determining
the fate of the geopolitical space of the former U.S.S.R.’161
Thus, Migranian believed that the Russian government must ‘declare to
the world community that the entire geopolitical space of the former USSR is a
sphere of its vital interests.’162 Moreover, with regard to foreign
interventions or instability in the Near Abroad, Migranian warned that ‘Russia
will not be able to “sit out” events occurring outside the borders of the
Russian Federation without intervening.’163
Another example of Dogmatic
Neo-Eurasianist thinking is represented by the writings of Sergei Kortunov,
described as a “prominent Kremlin strategist” who participated during the
Presidency of Boris Yeltsin in the making of Russia’s national security policy
concept. A construct of Kortunov’s
Dogmatic Neo-Eurasianist ideas appeared in October 1995 in the newspaper Nezavisimaya
gazeta, at the time Kortunov was involved in shaping Russia’s national
security policy.164 It must be mentioned that at least from 1992
to 1994, Nezavisimaya gazeta was credited with expressing “Pragmatist”
points of view,165
which could be construed as being Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianist in context. Heikka described as a “tough geopolitical
realist vision of foreign policy” Kortunov’s ideas.166
According to Kortunov, on the basis
of its 1,000 years or so of history and of its culture and civilization, Russia
has a special role to play in this world, which is to assist the entire
collection of nations and states of the planet to unite through the Russian
state in peace. Thus Moscow’s policies,
either for internal or external affairs, ought to reflect and acknowledge such
a special role that Russia is allegedly destined to play. For Russia to be able
to fulfill its messianic mission, its leaders in Moscow have to adopt what
Kortunov calls ‘enlightened patriotism,’ a term that means a state-centered
political system in Russia based on a strong central government, an independent
Russian foreign policy line amenable to unilateralism in international
relations, and the adoption of a Russian solution to develop the country
instead of plans inspired by the West to solve Russia’s problems.167
According to Kortunov, Russia is
still in search of its own identity.
This is so because Russia’s identity as well as Russia’s idea of
national security are both still under development, evolving and thus having
not yet arrived to their final form.
Kortunov interprets the country’s idea of national security from a
‘metahistorical’ point of view, a viewpoint that is in turn built over a
‘Russian idea’ that itself is beyond any pragmatic or “rational” interpretation
of Russia’s national security interests.
In order for Russia’s concept of national security being above the own
particular interests of Russian political movements and leaders, it should thus
be built on the ‘Russian idea.’168 Moreover, Kortunov talks about the presence
in Russia of a ‘messianic anticipation’ for its still developing Russian
self-identity, but this anticipation has led to the making of a “position of
mastery and governance,” in the words of Heikka, in the land of Russia. Therefore, a central state firmly in control
of the country is required in order to consolidate and formalize such a
position of power acquired by the country’s leadership.169
Kortunov sees Russia as a singular
entity, different and superior to all the other states that are part of the
international community. Russia’s
messianic mission is confirmed by the belief that God has a special place for
Russia, presumably in His plan, and consequently the conviction follows that in
the history of mankind Russia has been destined to be an important player.170
According to Kortunov’s Dogmatic Neo-Eurasianist thinking, all the
nations of the earth have a role to perform in history. There are, however, a few that can be
categorized as “supernations” and which
have been “blessed” with the fulfillment of a ‘sverkhzadacha’ or “supertask” on
earth. Thus Russia is regarded as one
‘sverkhnatsiya’ or “supernation” of world history. Kortunov also sees Russia as a ‘sverkhnarod’
or “superpeople.” A “superpeople” is an
amalgamation of various nations sharing one main culture through which they are
joined together. Thus it is argued that
Russia cannot be categorized as a nation of individuals strictly belonging to a
Russian nationality, or simply expressed, that the state of Russia does not
coincides with a single Russian nation.
Rather, Russia is seen as an “empire” of many different nations joined
together by the Russian state and, it could be deduced, by the ruling Russian
culture. Consequently, it is claimed
that the concept of the ‘Russian idea’ goes far beyond basic notions of
“Russian nationalism.” Furthermore,
Kortunov claims that since its origins Russia culturally speaking has been a
magnet drawing towards its center Slavic nations as well as those with links to
the “Russian empire,” such as non-Slavic nations living within the Russian
state.171
According to Kortunov, the West
threatens the security of the Russian state through its advanced weapon systems
and its Western cultural principles.
Since the security of the Russian state is equivalent to the security of
the Russian “supernation,” by deduction the Western threats to the security of
the Russian state would be the same that would threaten the Russian
“supernation.” As Heikka correctly
points out, the fact that there is a threat of Western technologically-superior
weapon systems would suggest that in Kortunov’s thinking the Russian armed
forces by implication would play a key role in safeguarding the security of the
Russian state and the Russian “supernation,” both of them allegedly threatened
by the armed forces of the West.172 Moreover, Kortunov averred as possible to
happen that with the passing of time the Russian state would adopt the values
and form characteristic of a Western state.
Kortunov thus maintained that the Russian state would adopt a form of
statehood currently ‘universal’ and that is characterized by a liberal market
economic system, ostensibly a Western-styled “civil society,” and a state of
law or ‘pravovoe gosudarstvo.’ The
problem is that any awareness of Russia’s unique identity would be clouded and
any chance of knowing about the actual Russian idea would be hindered by this
conversion of the Russian state into a state shaped according to imported
‘universal’ Western values.173
Based on the argument that there is a trend towards the unification
of all nations, Kortunov insists that the Russian state in all and every instance
and at every time has followed policies inspired by the necessity to build a
cultural bridge to link Russia with the nations that gravitate towards
Moscow. In doing so, the Russian state
is thus building an “interculture,” defined as an “undifferentiated, imaginary
unity” joining Russia with the nations belonging to a Russian cultural sphere
of influence. However, Kortunov suggests
that the state, and for that matter the Russian state, is only a step in
mankind’s development towards integration of all the nations of the world into
one single and united civilization.
Kortunov argues this proposition is inspired by the ideas of mainstream
Russian philosophers and supports his point by mentioning the view that mankind
is ‘some large organism,’ which he credited to Vladimir Soloviev. As Heikka accurately surmises, Kortunov
regards the expansion of the Russian state, politically and culturally, as a
calculated effort to neutralize the differences between Russia and other
nations, as part of a master goal of reaching the unification of all the
nations and cultures of the earth “in as large a geopolitical space as
possible,” all of this under the sponsorship of the Russian state. However, the regional and international goals
and mission of the Russian state according to Kortunov would be considered to
be an example of “Russian imperialism” and of policies of Russian
“expansionism” by almost everybody else outside Russia.174
However, Kortunov implied that those nations and cultures subjected to
Russia through its policy of imperial expansion were never forced to become
part of the Russian empire, suggesting that they actually joined Russia by
their own free will.175
With regard to the weakened position of the Russian Federation as a
power following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kortunov believes that the
course leading to the reconstruction of its erstwhile greatness and might is
‘objective’ and ‘natural.’ Furthermore,
while he argues that the breaking up of the U.S.S.R. into independent states
could have been avoided, in contrast he insists to have been ‘inevitable’ and
‘natural’ that the communist system collapsed.
Kortunov also recognizes what he calls ‘the Post-Soviet area’ as the
zone of national interests of a resurgent and strong Russia. The national interests of a reinvigorated
Russia to be projected over ‘the Post-Soviet area’ would be largely of an economic nature
and with regard to Russian military concerns.176 Possibly as a tool of a more confident and
stronger Russia, Kortunov proposes that in substitution of Russia’s current
‘reactive’ foreign policy, the Russian state should pursue instead a foreign
policy ‘aggressive’ in nature.177
What Heikka calls the “geopolitical space” concept according to
Kortunov, is contained in this Russian author’s vision of the messianic mission
of Russia to bring together and unite the planet’s main cultures and its
nations. Thus, Kortunov sees the
historic enlargement of Russia’s imperial limits in Europe and in America as
part of Russia’s mission. The Russian
state, endowed with its central location in the Eurasian landmass that is seen
as making possible its messianic mission, would carry out the task by, in the
words of Heikka, “assimilating, melting, and uniting other cultures into Russia
until a planetary unity is achieved,” as part of the great plan that would only
be concluded when all the nations of the Earth are joined together in a single
entity, which again is the Russian state.178
The plan of introducing a Western-style economic and political system
in Russia was unsuccessful, according to Kortunov. Instead of trying to imitate the West and
copying a Western system, Russia ought to guarantee its independence and to
safeguard its technology from Western and Chinese efforts at purchasing Russian
technical secrets. These objectives can
only be achieved through a strong Russian state, which can protect the country
from Western cultural influences that are alien to Russian culture. Kortunov sees two possible paths of
development and concomitant outcomes for Russia, one being to follow a Russian
way of development that could restore Russia’s erstwhile status as a world
power, or to serve the Western industrialized nations as simply a source of raw
materials, such as oil, natural gas, minerals, and wood. For Russia to become a world power once more,
it must adopt a belief in a state based on a firm and solid structure of
central rule and order. Such a belief is
contained in the “ideology” that Kortunov calls ‘prosveshchionnii patriotizm ’
or ‘enlightened patriotism.’179 This ‘enlightened patriotism’ could be
regarded as Neo-Eurasianism in that it implies a support for a unique Russian
path towards modernization through a strong Russian state. Thus, Kortunov argues that in the post-Soviet
Russia the actual political debate is not characterized by rivalry between the
political right and the left but that it rather pits supporters of a “strong
state” against its opponents.180 Perhaps this political rivalry between those
in favor and against a strong Russian state according to Kortunov could be
translated actually as a conflict between Neo-Eurasianists, who advocate a
return of a strong Russia that follows its own path, and pro-Western liberals,
who prefer Russia to be reformed along Western lines, in the battle to shape
Russia’s future.
In Kortunov’s view, Russia is threatened by the ‘new world order’
with its “materialism and…culture of consumption” that the West has put upon
the world.181 Kortunov talks about the “imperialism” of the
Western powers manifesting itself through the use of force and the submission
of others to the power of the West. To
this he compares Russia, to which the many nations that constitute the Russian
“supernation” are ‘attracted,’ drawn to Russia’s “spiritual center.”182
What Kortunov proposes as the ‘final solution’ to the riddle of what is
a Russian identity is the ideology of ‘enlightened patriotism,’ which is
legitimized by Russia’s historical experience, shaped by its “past strong
leaders.” The memory of these leaders,
called ‘rodomysli’ or ‘originators,’ in the collective mind of both the
intelligentsia and the common people in Russia remains strong, as their
administration of Russia and its empire is been widely seen as having built up
the ‘might and greatness of the supernation.’
This positive view of Russia’s historic leaders is maintained despite
the fact acknowledged by Kortunov that their policies combined led to the death
of millions of people.183 This glorified view of Russia’s tyrants would
not be at all exclusive of thinkers like Kortunov. Recently the political party United Russia,
main supporter of current Russian President Vladimir Putin, displayed in Moscow
posters campaigning for the parliamentary elections of December 2003 in which
the faces of 50 prominent figures of Russia’s history were depicted. Among these personalities were featured
“Stalin, Lenin, Felix Dzerzhinsky… and Ivan the Terrible.”184
Dzerzhinsky created for Lenin and thus headed the Cheka, the Bolshevik
secret police which became the forerunner of Stalin’s NKVD and the later KGB.
After describing Kortunov’s Dogmatic Neo-Eurasianist ideas, which
can be considered as a good example of Neo-Eurasianist thinking among Russia’s
governing elite, it is deemed useful to ponder the main characteristics of
Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianism.
What Dmitri Trenin calls Eurasianism can be classified for the purposes
of this study as Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianist thinking. Thus, generally speaking this extreme form of
Neo-Eurasianist ideology can be regarded in contrast to the more restrained
form of Pragmatic or Moderate Neo-Eurasianist thinking. Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianism aims to
return to the Russian Federation the greater territorial extensions of the
preceding Soviet Union and tsarist Russian Empire. It also seeks to reconstitute erstwhile
Russian spheres of influence. Dogmatic
or Radical Neo-Eurasianists regard that the initial phase in reconstituting
Russia’s wider historic borders will be fulfilled with the union of the Russian
Federation with Byelorussia. The process
of aggrandizement of Russia’s extension, even beyond historical precedence,
would continue with the incorporation of Yugoslavia, or rather Serbia, into a
‘trilateral union’ with Russia and Byelorussia.
This would be followed by a ‘second reunification’ of Russia with
Ukraine. Also, former Soviet republics
such as Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan would join Russia in a ‘voluntary’
fashion.185 Russian politicians such as Gennady Zyuganov,
the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Vladimir
Zhirinovsky, head of the Russian national socialist Liberal Democratic Party,
and the nationalist Sergei Baburin have upheld publicly those views on the
desired physical expansion of Russia.186
Bennett’s Nationalists are to be identified in this work as the
Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists.
Among the positions they stand for, Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists
support the establishment of a sphere of influence under Russian supremacy over
the rest of the former Soviet republics.
They also speak out on behalf of the security and the interests of the
Russian populations living in the former Soviet republics, advocating their
protection by Russia.187
Those in Russia labeled Eurasianists by Prizel are in this study
recognized as Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists. They support a resurgence of the Russian
military and of the military-oriented society of the Soviet period. In the Russian military Dogmatic or Radical
Neo-Eurasianists see an embodiment of Russian values and national pride. The threat posed by the duplicitous policies
of the Western powers would be matched by a Russian military restored to its
former might.188
Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists are in favor of the unhindered
unilateral use of force, being disinclined to let international obligations
limit Russia’s freedom to use its military power.189
Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists are thus in support of a type of
foreign policy defined as ‘assertive realist.’190 Perhaps due to the deep suspicions they
harbor against Western powers, Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists do not put
much stress in achieving positive and friendly relations with Western
powers. This stance possibly is being
encouraged by Dogmatic Neo-Eurasianist fears of “domino effects” being abetted
by the West against Russia’s influence over the former Soviet republics.191
Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianism, with its support of the idea of
the Russian Federation adopting a unique Russian way of development instead of
a Western one, finds its support among nationalists, Russian national
socialists, and the communists, including those who regard that the best form
of government for Russia was that of the Soviet Union.192
Since Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists see Russia and Russia’s own
historical experience as a unique phenomenon, believing that Western influence
should not be allowed to infect the purity of the Russian identity,
historically-speaking some regard Russia as an entity in which a widely-held
conviction of Russian national ‘commonality’ maintains Russia’s ‘organic
spiritual society’ united.193
Regarding relations with the West, despite the hostility that
Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists would have accorded Western organizations
such as NATO or powers like the United States, a majority appears to eschew the
idea of going back to a period of global competition and rivalry such as that
which pitted the Soviet Union against the U.S.
To some extent though, there is support among members of this group for
Russia to follow a policy of isolation from the West.194
Rejecting Western civilization and its influence is at the heart of
what Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists regard as the ‘Russian idea.’ Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists share
the belief that Russia’s identity, its culture and civilization, which are
unique and thus distinct from the West, can be saved from disappearing if
Russian society’s own and distinctive experience is maintained as it is,
protected from the influence of the West.
This is so for Russia’s own social experience is perceived, when
compared to that prevalent in Western civilization, as being dissimilar to the
West and perhaps even quite its opposite.195 Moreover, Russia would have to abandon its
“spiritual essence” if it would become a part of the West. Also, a great number of Dogmatic or Radical
Neo-Eurasianists believe that every time that Russia has adopted Western
democratic systems of government, its has resulted in catastrophe for the
country.196 Being Russia a country composed of many
nations, the nationalist Sergei Baburin claims that the West is deceivingly
pressing an ‘anti-national’ democratic system upon Russia. With ‘anti-national’ democracy Baburin means
a democratic system that is not nationality-oriented towards the Russian
nation. Baburin believes that the
Western powers want in fact to achieve the fragmentation of the Russian
Federation and the erosion of “Russian civilization” by trying to push such an
‘anti-national’ democracy into Russia.197
Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists believe that the ‘Russian
idea,’ which constitutes and inspires the Russian national identity, is made up
of the fusion of races and cultures that are mainly Slav and Turk but which
have been linked together through a common Russian Christian Orthodox
Church. Needless to say, the one
thousand year old Russian civilization would be denied by the West’s Christian
faiths and by “Anglo-Saxon materialism” if Russia were to adopt these through
close ties with the West, that would open Russians to Western influences.198
For Russia to maintain its unique spiritual identity it would have
to become culturally and economically self-sufficient or autarkic. Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists believe
that it is dangerous for Russia to become an integrated part of the
“international system” dominated by the West.
If it joins the Western dominated international system, Russia will lose
its material resources and its spiritual strength. Thus, the Dogmatic or Radical
Neo-Eurasianists oppose the idea of Russia participating politically as part of
the international system. Fearing that
Russia will become merely a source of raw materials such as oil, gas or
minerals for the benefit of the Western industrialized countries, Dogmatic or
Radical Neo-Eurasianists are also against Russia’s becoming an integral part of
the Western-managed international economy.199
Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists see NATO as a tool of U.S.
imperialism in the post-Soviet era, using the military alliance to forward its
interests worldwide so as to firmly establish an international system dominated
by a single world superpower. Making the
point clear, Boris Poklad thus wrote
The events in
Yugoslavia have proven to be a lifesaver for the United States and its allies.
NATO’s interference in Yugoslavia’s affairs under the UN flag was supposed to
demonstrate the need for this alliance under new conditions and to justify its
existence. The operations in Iraq and Somalia are evidence of such intent…. If
such conflicts do not arise NATO will generate them…. Any country that becomes
a member of NATO dooms itself to the role of a political vassal, of an obedient
executor of the U.S.’s will and interests….
…United Germany, together with NATO,
are
quietly
implementing plans that they were unable to carry out during World War II.200
Also, Dogmatic or Radical
Neo-Eurasianists want as a major Russian foreign policy objective for the
Russian Federation to seek the reconstitution of an expanded Greater Russia in
the form of a Russian state entity that would include former Soviet republics
that became independent with the collapse of the Soviet Union. This goal is in contrast with what Pragmatic
or Moderate Neo-Eurasianists and pro-Western liberals in Russia wish in the
sphere of foreign policy, which is that Russia should be a full member of the
international community and an integral part of the prevalent international
economic system.201 Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianist among
nationalists and communists in Russia believe that matters concerning the
former Soviet republics should be included in the category of Russian internal
politics, for they regard the now independent republics of the former Soviet
state as being part of Russia’s sphere of special national interests.202
Nevertheless, a less ambitious expansion of the Russian Federation
foresees the annexation by Russia of adjoining territories belonging to former
Soviet republics and inhabited by a higher proportion of Russians or
Russian-speakers than non-Russian nationalities. Such territories with Russian or
Russian-speaking majorities are Eastern Ukraine, the Crimea Peninsula, and
Northern Kazakhstan. Another type of
lands coveted for annexation to an expanded Russia is made up by autonomous
republics and territories populated by non-Russian nationalities or by Russian
populations that want to secede from former Soviet republics in order to join
the Russian Federation. The secessionist
autonomous republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, and the self-declared
independent republic of Transdniester in Moldavia constitute the last-mentioned
type of territory coveted by Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists in Russia.203
A single Eurasian bloc led by Russia
and composed of the CIS, China, India, and Iran is an ‘Eurasian dream’ imagined
by the geopolitical thinking of Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists. The ostensible aim of this Eurasian bloc led
by the Russian Federation would be to serve as counterbalance to the vast and
overbearing power in terms of military might and resources of the Western
industrialized powers, and in particular of the last remaining superpower, the
United States. The proposed Eurasian
bloc would compete with the West for influence over the “former Soviet space,”
filled by the countries that once belonged to the former Soviet Union, and for
influence over Central and Eastern Europe, including the region of the former
Yugoslavia. This race for influence and
power over the Eurasian landscape between the Eurasian bloc, led by Russia, and
the Western industrialized powers, led by the United States, would not exclude
friction and confrontation in the relations between the two sides. Such and Eurasian bloc, it has been
suggested, would be similar to both the Mongol Empire and the early Cold War
Soviet-Chinese bloc all in one. The
regions in the fringes of the Eurasian landmass were to be extricated, in the
words of Trenin, “from U.S. domination and [thus] turn them into anti-American
allies” by the Eastern bloc, this being the initial mission of this
anti-Western grand alliance of Eurasian powers.204 Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianist hostility
and suspicion towards the United States and NATO was expressed in an editorial
article of the Pravda newspaper in which NATO’s Partnership for Peace
(PfP) program was denounced as an instrument of the U.S. ‘to encroach upon the
Eurasian geostrategic region, which is vital for achieving world domination.’205
The Partnership for Peace was instituted by the Atlantic Alliance so
that NATO member states would conduct training and various types of cooperative
initiatives with non-NATO countries in the Eurasian region, particularly those
states from the former Soviet bloc and former Soviet Union that entertain the
idea of one day joining the Western military alliance.
For Dogmatic or Radical
Neo-Eurasianists, the primary target in Russia’s foreign policy is the region
of the former Soviet space and the former Soviet republics contained in this
space. Thus, Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists
consider countries outside the former Soviet space as demanding less urgency in
terms of Russian foreign policy objectives.206 In consonance with the Russian policy
emphasis that they regard the Kremlin should grant to the former Soviet space,
Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianist geopolitical thinking has adopted Halford
MacKinder’s vision that Russia is the Eurasian continent’s ‘strategic pivot.’207
It has been suggested that a high
proportion of Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists see a potential problem for
Russia to contend with in the Islamic states and nations south of Russia’s
borders, due to their depressed economic situation, underdevelopment, and
continuing high birth rate, this put in context, no doubt, with Russia’s
ongoing demographic recession. Moreover,
to achieve a more prominent role in the international community is perceived as
one growing ambition of the Islamic states and nations to the south of the
Russian Federation.208 Nevertheless, Dogmatic or Radical
Neo-Eurasianists urge Russia to develop strong ties with the Arab countries and
with India to counter what they see as the expansionism of the United States
and its Western allies.209 To the Arab states and India it Iran could be
added as another valuable ally of Russia in opposing what Dogmatic or Radical
Neo-Eurasianists would regard as Western imperialism.
In addition, Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists highly regard
close relations with China as of key importance for Russia’s national
interests. Moreover, they see China as
an example for Russia to follow, for Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists see
the Chinese state as having developed its own unique path for economic
development and growth, and to have avoided bowing to Western demands for
change while successfully making Western countries to play according to Chinese
rules if seeking to trade with the Far Eastern power. These views Dogmatic or Radical
Neo-Eurasianists contrast with what they see as Russia’s pro-Western liberalism
urge to imitate the West and integrate Russia into the Western community of
nations.210
Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists are ardent supporters of a
strong Russian state. In this regard
they share the view of a strong Russian state entity with Pragmatic or Moderate
Neo-Eurasianists. Being firm supporters
of a strong Russian state, it is no coincidence that at the heart of Dogmatic
or Radical Neo-Eurasianist thinking is the geopolitical belief of Russia as the
strategic pivot of the Eurasian continent, which takes its form through a
strong Russian state, and which can unite under the power of Russia all the
Slavic and Turkic nations that populate Eurasia. This last perspective that contemplates
Russia as a center of attraction of Slavic and Turkic nations living in the
Eurasian continent, thus united through Russia, is known also as the “Eurasian
view.” This union of nations under
Russia could only be possible through a strong Russian state, strong internally
as an entity and also with the strength to back up its policy rhetoric with
power in its external relations. This
arrangement is seen as the solution to the problems that the nations of Eurasia
face when confronting the power of the West with their inferior economies and
limited individual power.211
Nonetheless, the Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianist camp is neither
monolithic nor a single group of thinkers and political advocates. Among its supporters, Dogmatic or Radical
Neo-Eurasianists have monarchists, a large segment of the Russian Orthodox Church,
Cossacks, Russian national-socialists, nationalists, communists, Russian
national-communists, and extreme, Stalinist-type communists.212
Identified by Neil Malcolm as ‘slavophiles,’ Dogmatic or Radical
Neo-Eurasianists have bastions of support in the Russian Ministry of Defense
and the Russian Armed Forces as well as in the Russian state security and
intelligence community.213
Among the Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists they can be mentioned
Sergei Baburin, Russian National Union Party head; the former Minister of
Defense and Army General Pavel Grachev; Lieutenant General Alexander Korzhakov,
personal adviser and privy to President Boris Yeltsin himself, who was a KGB
career officer that later became the Kremlin’s chief of the Presidential
Security Service (SBP) under Yeltsin; Army General Anatoly Kulikov of the
Internal Troops (VV), who was appointed in 1995 commander of the joint group of
Russian forces in the North Caucasus with operational command over Chechnya
during the First Chechen War, and was promoted the same year to head the Ministry
for Internal Affairs; Alexander Prokhanov, opinion writer in the Russian press;
the former Russian Federation Vice President and ex-Major General of Aviation
Alexander Rutskoi; Colonel General of the MVD Sergei Stepashin, former Director
of the Federal Counter-Intelligence Service (FSK) when Russian forces invaded
Chechnya in the First Chechen War, Minister for Internal Affairs and then
Russian Prime Minister; the nationalist Nikolai Yegorov, former Minister for
Regional and Nationalities Policy and former Presidential Chief of Staff to
President Yeltsin, who later appointed Yegorov Deputy Prime Minister; Army
General of the Internal Troops Viktor Yerin, Minister for Internal Affairs when
Russian forces invaded Chechnya as the First Chechen War broke out; Lieutenant
Colonel of the Russian Army (reserve) Vladimir Zhirinovsky, head of the Russian
national-socialist styled Liberal Democratic Party; and Gennady Zyuganov, head
of the mainstream Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF).214
Of these personalities, they were ardent and active supporters of
invading Chechnya in 1994 those in the Russian government during the outbreak
of the First Chechen War like Army General Grachev, the then Major General
Korzhakov, Army General of the Internal Troops Kulikov, the then Lieutenant
General of the MVD Stepashin, Army General of the Internal Troops Yerin, and
civilian minister Yegorov.215
Zhirinovsky was given a promotion from the rank of Captain of the
Russian Army (reserve) to Lieutenant Colonel of the reserve by General of the
Army Pavel Grachev, Minister of Defense, on 27 March 1995. A curious move, for in granting this
promotion Defense Minister Grachev jumped over the rank of Major that would
have followed under normal procedure that of Captain, in order to give
Zhirinovsky the higher rank of Lieutenant Colonel. This extraordinary procedure appears to be
very uncommon in times of peace. In his
twenties, Zhirinovsky did his military service as an officer in the
Headquarters of the Soviet Transcaucasus Military District in Tbilisi, from
1970 to 1972. Vladimir Zhirinovsky,
whose real surname was Eidelstein, changed to that of Zhirinovsky, a last name
that belonged actually to his mother’s first husband, a NKVD officer by name
Andrei Vasilievich Zhirinovsky, who was chief of the Leningrad’s railway
Security Department.216 More interesting was the origin of
Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party. It appears that it was formed with the
support of the KGB in 1990 to tarnish the image before Soviet voters of the
powerful Western political concepts of liberalism and democracy that were
attached to the words “liberal-democratic.”217 The KGB intended thus to affect negatively
the then ongoing process of democratization of Soviet society. Thus it would seem that the Liberal
Democratic Party of Vladimir Zhirinovsky was created by the KGB as part of a
massive deception operation against the Soviet electorate, intended to sabotage
their growing enthusiasm towards democratization and Western-style political
freedoms.
One interesting example of a Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianist in
the Russian state security and intelligence apparatus is the nationalist and
retired Major General of the KGB Alexander Sterligov.218
Major General Sterligov, who in 1999 was the leader of the Russian
National Council Party,219 is a
supporter of a Greater Russia materializing in the form of the Russian
Federation, Byelorussia and Ukraine merging in a union of the three Slavic
states. Sterligov also hoped for a
“general” to occupy the presidency in a post-Yeltsin Russia.220
This prediction would have reflected Sterligov’s desire for a strong
leader that would put the Russian state back on a position of strength
following the departure of the old and seemingly ill President Yeltsin. Such a strong leader of a post-Yeltsin Russia
would, in the logic of Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists, have to come from
among the senior ranks of the military officer corps, a choice of type of
President to whom the state security and intelligence apparatus, ever growing
in influence within the Russian government, would surely give its backing.221
But if it has been suggested that a Russian President from the military
would win the backing of the state security and intelligence apparatus in a
post-Yeltsin era, it could be assumed also with a fair degree of certainty that
a President of Russia hailing from the Russian state security and intelligence
community would have the firm support of fellow career intelligence officers
and thus of the state security and intelligence apparatus of the Russian
Federation.
Perhaps a sign of Sterligov’s “residual benefits from his [former]
KGB position,” a foreign, German-born visitor with seemingly a similar outlook
on politics as the retired KGB Major General described that Sterligov in 1994
in his Moscow office was “surrounded by uniformed police or soldiers, he was
protected with bulletproof glass, and his office was behind doors that
electrically opened like bank vaults.”222
Russia, according to Major General Sterligov, ought to ‘restore the
traditional balance of interests between the Islamic world, the Slav countries
and Europe.’223 Sterligov also has shown his sympathies for
Germany by regarding the forging of close ties with the West-Central European
power as essential for Russia’s destiny, which presumably is to become a great
power once again. Together, Russia and
Germany could forestall any attempts to compromise this Russo-German bond by
“an Anglo-Saxon conspiracy,” in the explanatory words of Prizel. According to Sterligov, in the twentieth
century ‘because of tragic concurrence of circumstances or someone’s malicious
intent’ the two great powers of the Eurasian continent fought one another in
major conflicts.224 According to revisionist and German national-
socialist sympathizer Ernst Zundel, and no doubt reflecting his host’s views on
the matter, Major General Sterligov
had been the
internal security advisor to former vice-president Aleksandr Rutskoi. He was
sacked by the Yeltsin government because he advised Rutskoi that the
Gorbachev-era reforms as well as the western-style policies adopted by Rutskoi
and Yeltsin were unconstitutional and dishonorably betrayed Russian national
interests. So Rutskoi and Yeltsin gave Sterligov a choice – either leave quietly
with full honors, or be sacked with less than full honors and a cut in pension
and privileges. He decided to leave quietly.225
Additionally, press publications such as Den’, the Russian
Armed Forces’ newspaper Krasnaya zvezda, Nash Sovremenik, Segodnya,
Sovetskaya Rossiya, and Zavtra have reflected often the thinking
of Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianists.226
*The following article was the
unabridged version of three chapters from my doctoral
dissertation covering the post-Soviet Russian ideology of Neo-Eurasianism,
which provided the ideological justification for Moscow’s invasion of Chechnya
during the Second Chechen War.
1Mark
Galeotti, The Kremlin’s Agenda. The new Russia and its armed forces, Jane’s
Intelligence Review (Coulsdon, Surrey: Jane’s Information Group, 1995), 67;
Carlos Taibo, El conflicto de Chechenia: Una guia introductoria (Madrid:
Los Libros de la Catarata, 2000), 54-55; Sentinel, July-December 2001,
520; Roy Allison, “The Military and Political Security Landscape in Russia and
the South,” in Russia, The Caucasus, and Central Asia: The 21st
Century Security Environment, ed. Rajan Menon, Yuri E. Fedorov, and Ghia
Nodia, vol. 2, Eurasia in the 21st Century: The Total Security
Environment, Publications of the EastWest Institute (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E.
Sharpe, 1999), 28; Dodge Billingsley, “Chechnya seizes independence but unity
still beyond its reach,” Jane’s Intelligence Review 11, no. 3 (March
1999): 18; Mark Galeotti, “Chechen warlords still hold sway,” Jane’s
Intelligence Review 11, no. 3 (March 1999): 8, 9; John McCarthy, “The
geo-politics of Caspian oil,” Jane’s Intelligence Review 12, no. 7 (July
2000): 23. According to Ruslan Aushev,
who at the time was President of the Russian Autonomous Republic of Ingushetia,
during the First Chechen War the then Lieutenant General Anatoly Kvashnin of
the Russian Army, who would later become Chief of the General Staff, commented
that if Chechnya would be recognized by the Russian government as an
independent state, the Chechen Republic’s neighboring autonomous republics
belonging to Russia would have sought also independence from Moscow. See Carlotta Gall and Thomas de Waal, Chechnya:
Calamity in the Caucasus (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 223,
376.
2Ibid., 8; Billingsley, 17-18;
Galeotti, Kremlin’s Agenda, 66-67; Taibo, 65; Jane’s Sentinel
Security Assessment. Russia and the CIS, July-December 2001 (Coulsdon,
Surrey: Jane’s Information Group, 2001), 520; Mark Galeotti, “Chechnia and Russia close
ranks,” Jane’s Intelligence Review 10, no. 7 (July 1998): 3; Mark
Galeotti, “Growth of the North Caucasian armies,” Jane’s Intelligence Review
10, no. 1 (January 1998): 3; idem, “Chechen warlords,” 8-9; Mark Galeotti,
“Russia’s bleeding wounds,” Jane’s Intelligence Review 11, no. 11
(November 1999): 8.
3Taibo,
54; Allison, 53. See also Shireen T.
Hunter, The Transcaucasus in Transition: Nation-Building and Conflict,
Significant Issues Series, vol. 16, no. 7 (Washington, D.C.: The Center for
Strategic and International Studies, 1994), 155; McCarthy, 23.
4Billingsley, 17-18; Galeotti,
“Chechen warlords,” 8, 9; ITAR-TASS, Moscow, cited in BBC Monitoring
International Reports, 9 January 1998, quoted in Roy Allison, “The Military and
Political Security
Landscape in Russia and the South,”
in Russia, The Caucasus, and Central Asia: The 21st Century
Security Environment, ed. Rajan Menon, Yuri E. Fedorov, and Ghia Nodia,
vol. 2, Eurasia in the 21st Century: The Total Security Environment,
Publications of the EastWest Institute (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1999), 43,
n. 26; McCarthy, 23; Galeotti, “Chechnia and Russia,” 3. See also Taibo, 64; Galeotti, “Chechen
warlords,” 8. Shireen T. Hunter argues
that since the times of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and during President
Boris Yeltsin’s term in office, Russia resorted to the “threat of Muslim
fundamentalism to silence Western objections to their interventionist policies”
aimed at the republics that became independent with the collapse of the Soviet
Union. See Hunter, 149.
5Sentinel, July-December 2001, 520; Taibo, 54, 67; Galeotti, Kremlin’s
Agenda, 67; Gall and de Waal, 127-28; Anna Politkovskaya, A Dirty War: A
Russian Reporter in Chechnya, trans. John Crowfoot with an introduction by
Thomas de Waal (London: The Harvill Press, 2001), 223. Nevertheless, Thomas de
Waal claims that Chechnya’s oil never became more than a “secondary
consideration” in the Kremlin’s calculations over the secessionist republic,
being at least not a reason for the First Chechen War. See Thomas de Waal,
introduction to A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya, by Anna
Politkovskaya (London: The Harvill Press, 2001), xvii. By July 2000 a new section to the
Baku–Novorossiisk oil pipeline avoiding Chechnya was put in place after being
laid just north of the embattled republic. See McCarthy, 23, 20. The Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet
Socialist Republic used to be the North Caucasus’ “most productive area” in terms
of oil production, with Grozny having been also an important regional
oil-refining center in Soviet times.
Central Intelligence Agency, USSR Energy Atlas (U.S.: Central
Intelligence Agency, 1985), 21. See also
the maps in pages 21, 25, 31. According
to John Erickson, Turkey was not very enthusiastic about Russia’s reliance on
the Baku–Novorossiisk oil pipeline as a main conduit of Caspian oil towards
export outlets to the West, out of concern that the pipeline could have been
attacked and impaired by Chechens fighting for their country’s independence. See John Erickson, “`Russia Will Not be
Trifled With’: Geopolitical Facts and Fantasies,” in Geopolitics, Geography
and Strategy, ed. Colin S. Gray and Geoffrey Sloan (London: Frank Cass,
1999), 261. Moscow’s concern over the
security of the Chechen pipelines can be seen also in Galeotti, “North
Caucasian armies,” 3, 4.
6AFP,
“Primakov soothes trigger-happy generals over Chechnya,” Johnson’s Russia
List, no. 3086, 12
March 1999 [news list on-line];
available from http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/3086.html;
Internet;
accessed 13 October 2001; Mark
Galeotti, “The Russian Army in Chechnya,” Jane’s Intelligence Review 11,
no. 12 (December 1999): 8, 9.
7Taibo, 65-66, 67; Sentinel,
July-December 2001, 522; Mark Galeotti, “Second Chechen war set to
rage,” Jane’s Intelligence Review
11, no. 11 (November 1999): 2; Mark Galeotti, “Russian Army 2000?,” Jane’s
Intelligence Review 12, no. 1 (January 2000): 9.
8Hunter, 151; Elizabeth Teague,
“The CIS: An Unpredictable Future,” RFE/RL Research Report (7 January
1994): 11, quoted in Shireen T. Hunter, The Transcaucasus in Transition:
Nation-Building and
Conflict, Significant Issues Series, vol. 16, no. 7 (Washington, D.C.: The
Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1994), 152, n. 11; Mohiaddin
Mesbahi, “Russia and the Geopolitics of the Muslim South,” in Central Asia
and the Caucasus after the Soviet Union: Domestic and International Dynamics,
ed. Mohiaddin Mesbahi (Gainesville, Fla.: University Press of Florida, 1994),
270, 274, 283. One explanation for the Russian military’s support of
Neo-Eurasianism could be the argument that “the military was very bitter about
the loss of the Russian empire and the Soviet Union’s position as a
superpower.” See Hunter, 154. Within the
Russian government, the Federal Counter-intelligence Service (FSK) had a
leading role in planning and initiating the First Chechen War in 1994, while
“the Interior Ministry (MVD) consistently supported the FSK.” In addition,
Galeotti affirms that those within
the Russian government who were responsible in initiating the First Chechen War
did so mainly out of “personal and institutional self-interests.” See Galeotti, The Kremlin’s Agenda,
67-68.
10Hunter, 151. The shift
towards adoption of Neo-Eurasianist ideas within the Russian government began
as early as 1992. See Hunter, 152, 151;
Mesbahi, 274. See also Mark Galeotti,
“Russia’s next millennium,” Jane’s Intelligence Review 11, no. 5 (May
1999): 9.
11Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy. Nationalism
and Leadership in Poland, Russia and
Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 248.
12Rajan Menon, “After Empire: Russia and the Southern ‘Near Abroad,’”
in The New Russian Foreign Policy, ed. Michael Mandelbaum (New York:
Council on Foreign Relations, 1998), n. 24, pp. 156-57; Prizel, 187-88.
15Dmitri
Trenin, The End of Eurasia: Russia on the Border Between Geopolitics and
Globalization (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, 2002), 304.
16Trenin,
312, 310. Although Donaldson and Nogee
used the term ‘internal empire’ to refer to the former Soviet republic, the
term can be used also to suggest the diversity of non-Russian nationalities
inside the Russian Federation, as Trenin implied when he wrote that
“Russia…[is]…an empire internally.” See
Robert H. Donaldson and Joseph L. Nogee, The Foreign Policy of Russia:
Changing Systems, Enduring Interests (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1998),
155.
17William Zimmerman, The Russian People and Foreign Policy: Russian
Elite and Mass Perspectives, 1993-2000 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 2002), 178-79.
18Sergei
Medvedev, “Power, Space, and Russian Foreign Policy,” in Understandings of
Russian
Foreign Policy, ed. Ted Hopf (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1999), 40.
20Ibid.
21Ibid., n. 24, pp. 156-57.
23Prizel,
261. Prizel used the quoted line in
reference to today’s Russian nationalists, in that such geopolitical outlook of
Russia and Eurasia is currently shared by “most” of these nationalists.
24Ibid.,
253. Prizel identifies Karaganov as a
“centrist,” but this dissertation’s author contends Karaganov is actually a
Moderate or Pragmatic Neo-Eurasianist.
25Sergei Karaganov, “Russia’s Elites,” in Damage Limitation or Crisis?
Russia and the Outside World, ed. Robert Blackwell and Sergei Karaganov (Washington,
D.C.: Brassey’s, 1994), quoted in Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign
Policy. Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 250, n. 29.
26Mark
Galeotti, “Russia’s national security concept,” Jane’s Intelligence Review 10,
no. 5 (May 1998): 4.
27Hunter,
149-50, 151, 152, 146.
28Mesbahi, 279.
29Taibo, 53; Hunter, 154.
30Ibid., 146.
31Mesbahi, 276, 278; Hunter, 150.
In contrast with Neo-Eurasianist thinking, Russia’s Euro-Atlanticist
school of thought largely upheld the notion that Russia should behave as a
great power acting in concert and in close cooperation with the rest of the
world’s great powers in general and the West in particular. See Mesbahi, 272, 271.
32Ibid., 274, 276. In this
regard, the Russian Federation’s policy makers have demonstrated a pragmatic
approach to foreign policy after Moscow’s initial inclinations toward the
West. As Galeotti put it, “Russia has no
friends, only interests.” See Mark
Galeotti, “Looking to life after Boris,” Jane’s Intelligence Review 12,
no. 2 (February 2000): 8-9.
33Cited
in Federal Information System Corporation, Federal News Service, 6
November 1992, quoted in Mohiaddin Mesbahi, “Russia and the Geopolitics of the
Muslim South,” in Central Asia and the Caucasus
after the Soviet Union: Domestic
and International Dynamics, ed. Mohiaddin Mesbahi
(Gainesville, Fla.: University Press of Florida, 1994), 277, n.25; Hunter,
150. See also Galeotti, “Russia’s next
millennium,” 9.
34Paul
R. Viotti and Mark V. Kauppi, International Relations Theory: Realism,
Pluralism, Globalism, 2d ed. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company,
1993), 61.
36Ibid., 36.
39Ibid., 44.
41Ibid., 37.
42Medvedev,
45, 44. Using Medvedev’s choice of
words, Neo-Eurasianism “can be associated with” what he calls Culture Two,
which he in turn associates with realism.
See Medvedev, n. 51, p. 45. Medvedev referred to the new policy
orientation in Moscow as he described that “the advent of Culture Two, ideas of
derzhavnost’, and assertion of Russia’s national interests have had an
impact in most areas of Russian foreign policy.” See Medvedev, 44. He defines derzhavnost’ as “aspirations of a
strong state and a great power status.” See Medvedev, 42.
43Henrikki Heikka, “Beyond Neorealism and Constructivism: Desire,
Identity, and Russian Foreign Policy,” in Understandings of Russian Foreign
Policy, ed. Ted Hopf (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1999), 61.
46John
B. Dunlop, The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1993), 276; Stasys
Knezys and Romanas Sedlickas, The War in Chechnya, Eastern European
Studies, no. 8 (College Station, Tex.: Texas A&M University Press, 1999),
15, 19. Russia’s executive power imposed
martial law on Chechnya and Ingushetia on November 7, 1991, days after the former
declared its independence from Russia. The decree declaring emergency rule was
backed up with a display of military strength when 600 Russian Internal Troops
were flown to the airbase of Khankala in the outskirts of the Chechen capital
of Grozny. In response to this the
Chechen National Guard had the airbase encircled by the morning of November 9
while a massive popular demonstration involving hundreds of thousands took
place simultaneously in Grozny in support of the country’s newly founded
independence. After Russian and Chechen
authorities negotiated a way out of
the crisis, which had the potential of becoming a humiliating rout if the
Russian soldiers would have attempted to leave the confines of their military
base and “occupy” Grozny, the Russian Internal Troops battalion was allowed to
leave Chechnya without having engaged in combat. It was yet
an ignominious end to what it could
be argued was the first Russian, post-Soviet, military intervention in
Chechnya. See Knezys and Sedlickas, 20;
Gall and de Waal, 100-101.
47Hunter, 151. Rajan Menon
suggests that for Russia’s imperial aspirations to be satisfied in the
aftermath of the Soviet empire,
Moscow could not expect more than exercising hegemony over Central Asia and the
Transcaucasus. He defines empire as
“formal control and the negation of sovereignty” and hegemony
as “the use of proximity and superior
power to shape the foreign policy of weaker states.” See Rajan Menon, “The Security Environment in
the South Caucasus and Central Asia,” introduction to Russia, The Caucasus,
and Central Asia: The 21st Century Security Environment, ed.
Rajan Menon, Yuri E. Fedorov, and Ghia Nodia, vol. 2, Eurasia in the 21st
Century: The Total Security Environment, Publications of the EastWest
Institute (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1999), 8.
48Erickson, 255.
49Galeotti, “Russia’s next millennium,” 10. Galeotti argues instead that the Russian
government has suffered from a lack of “any real policy towards the post-Soviet
states of the so-called `Near Abroad’ beyond a general belief that they remain
within its legitimate sphere of influence.”
50Elaine
Holoboff, “Russian Views on Military Intervention: Benevolent Peacekeeping,
Monroe Doctrine, or Neo-Imperialism?,” in Military Intervention in European
Conflicts, ed. Lawrence Freedman (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1994), 156, quoted
in Andrea M. Lopez, “Russia and the Democratic Peace: The Decision to Use
Military Force in Ethnic Disputes,” in Understandings of Russian Foreign
Policy, ed. Ted Hopf (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1999), 174, n. 8.
51Steven Eke, “Russia warned over Georgia ‘aims’,” BBC News, 2
December 2003 [news agency on-line]; available from http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/3256552.stm;
Internet; accessed 2 December 2003.
52”India
and Russia war games,” BBC News, 22 May 2003 [news agency on-line];
available from http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/south_asia/3049445.stm;
Internet; accessed 2 December 2003.
53 Heikka, 57.
55
Alexei Arbatov, “Russian Foreign Policy Thinking in Transition,” in Russia and
Europe: The Emerging Security Agenda, Publication of the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute, ed. Vladimir Baranovsky (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1997), 142, 146, quoted in Rajan Menon, “After Empire:
Russia and the Southern ‘Near Abroad,’” in The New Russian Foreign Policy,
ed. Michael Mandelbaum (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1998), 102, n.
6.
56 Menon, “After Empire,” 112.
59
Andrew Bennett, Condemned to Repetition? The Rise, Fall, and Reprise of
Soviet-Russian Military Interventionism, 1973-1996, BCSIA Studies in
International Security (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999), 305.
60 Medvedev, 42.
61
Nick Paton Walsh, “Military drill for Russian pupils,” The Guardian, 14
October 2003 [newspaper on-line]; available from http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4773707-103610,00.html;
Internet; accessed 14 October 2003.
63 Alexei Arbatov, “Russian Foreign Policy Thinking in Transition,” in
Russia and Europe: The Emerging Security Agenda, Publication of the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, ed. Vladimir
Baranovsky (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1997), 142, 146, quoted in Rajan Menon, “After Empire: Russia
and the Southern ‘Near Abroad,’” in The New Russian Foreign Policy, ed.
Michael Mandelbaum (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1998), 102, n. 6
65 Medvedev, 42.
66
Andrei Tsygankov, “From International Institutionalism to Revolutionary
Expansionism: The Foreign Policy Discourse of Contemporary Russia,” International
Studies Quarterly 41, Supplement 2 (November 1997): 251-52, quoted in
Andrew Bennett, Condemned to Repetition? The Rise, Fall, and Reprise of
Soviet-Russian Military Interventionism, 1973-1996, BCSIA Studies in
International Security (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999), 307, n. 23.
68 Sergei Karaganov, “Strategy for Russia – IV. Report of the Council
on Foreign and Defense Policy,” 8th annual assembly of the Council
on Foreign and Defense Policy (Moscow, 2000), quoted in Dmitri Trenin, The
End of Eurasia: Russia on the Border Between Geopolitics and Globalization
(Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002), 308, n.
10.
70
Sergei Markov, “Russian Political Parties and Foreign Policy,” in Political
Culture and Civil Society
in Russia and the New States of
Eurasia, ed. Vladimir Tismaneanu (Armonk, N.Y.:
M.E. Sharpe, 1995), 137-54, quoted in Ilya Prizel, National Identity and
Foreign Policy. Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 249, n. 28.
72 Ibid.
75 Bennett, 307.
76 Ibid.
77 Ibid.
78 Prizel, 250.
79 Nezavisimaya
gazeta, 19 August 1992, quoted in Ilya Prizel, National Identity and
Foreign Policy. Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 250, n. 31; Medvedev, 44.
81 Suzanne Crow, “Competing Blueprints for Russian Foreign Policy,”
RFE/RL Research Reports 1, no. 50 (18 December 1992), quoted in Ilya Prizel, National
Identity and Foreign Policy. Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and
Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 253, n. 40.
82 Sergei
Karaganov, “Russia’s Elites,” in Damage Limitation or Crisis? Russia and the
Outside World, ed. Robert Blackwell and Sergei Karaganov (Washington, D.C.:
Brassey’s, 1994), quoted in Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign
Policy. Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 250, n. 29.
83 Michael McFaul, “Revolutionary Ideas, State Interests, and Russian
Foreign Policy,” in Political Culture and Civil Society in Russia and the
New States of Eurasia, ed. Vladimir Tismaneanu (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe,
1995), quoted in Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy.
Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998), 250, n. 30.
85 Ibid.
88 Vyacheslav Dashichev, “Contrivances of Russian Foreign Policy
Thinking,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, 23 April 1994, quoted in Ilya Prizel, National
Identity and Foreign Policy. Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and
Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 250-51, n. 32.
89 Andrew
Jack, “Putin ‘could stay in power as head of post-Soviet confederation,’” Financial
Times, 28 October 2003 [newspaper on-line]; available from http://news.ft.com/s01/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1066565416579&p=1012571727166;
Internet; accessed 28 October 2003.
90 Alexander Rahr, interview by Julian Marshall, 1 November 2003,
12:00 GMT, BBC World Service.com’s Newshour [news program on-line];
available from http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/newshour.shtml;
Internet; accessed 1 November 2003.
92 Trenin, 307.
94 Bennett, 307.
99 Ibid., 255.
101 Ibid.,
254; Alexei Arbatov, “Russian Foreign Policy for the 1990s,” in Russian
Security After the Cold War: Seven Views from Moscow, ed. Teresa Pelton
Johnson and Steven E. Miller (Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1994), quoted in
Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy. Nationalism and
Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1998), 254-55, n. 45.
102 Prizel, 254; Trenin, 306.
104 Aleksei
Bogaturov, “The Eurasian Support of World Stability,” Mezhdunarodnaya zhizn’
(February 1993), quoted in Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign
Policy. Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998), 253, n. 41.
105 Trenin, 307.
110 Ibid., 253.
111 Alexei
Bogaturov, “Post Elections Russia and the West,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, 29
December 1993, quoted in Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy.
Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998), 252, n. 37.
112 Konstantin
Pleshakov, “Russia’s Mission: The 3rd Epoch,” International
Affairs 1 (1993), quoted in Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign
Policy. Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 252, n. 38.
113 Andranik Migranian, “Near Abroad Is Vital to Russia,” pt. 1, Nezavisimaya
gazeta, 12 January 1994, idem, “Near Abroad Is Vital to Russia,” pt. 2, Nezavisimaya
gazeta, 18 January 1994, quoted in Ilya
Prizel, National Identity and
Foreign Policy. Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 259, n. 54.
115 Alexei Vasiliev, “Assessing Russia’s Ties with the Moslem World,” Izvestiya,
10 March 1992, quoted in Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy.
Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998), 253, n. 39.
118 Robert
Blackwell and Sergei Karaganov, eds., Damage Limitation or Crisis? Russia
and the Outside World (Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1994), quoted in Ilya
Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy. Nationalism and Leadership in
Poland, Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998),
254, n. 42.
119 Alexander Goltz, “Near Abroad or a Community After All?,” Krasnaya
zvezda, 20 November 1994, Suzanne Crow, “Competing Blueprints for Russian
Foreign Policy,” RFE/RL Research Reports 1, no. 50 (18 December 1992),
Sergei Stankevich, “Preobrazhennaya Rossiya v novom mire,” Conference at the
Foreign Ministry, 26-27 February 1992, Mezhdunarodnaya zhizn’
(March-April 1992), quoted in Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign
Policy. Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 251, n. 33.
120 Alexei
Arbatov, “Russian Foreign Policy for the 1990s,” in Russian Security After
the Cold War: Seven Views from Moscow, ed. Teresa Pelton Johnson and Steven
E. Miller (Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s,
1994), quoted in Ilya Prizel, National
Identity and Foreign Policy. Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and
Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 254, n. 43.
122 Roy Allison, “Military Factors in Foreign Policy,” in Internal
Factors in Russian Foreign Policy, ed. Neil Malcolm, Alex Pravda, Roy
Allison, and Margot Light (London: Oxford University Press, 1996), 275, quoted
in Andrew Bennett, Condemned to Repetition? The Rise, Fall, and Reprise of
Soviet-Russian Military Interventionism, 1973-1996, BCSIA Studies in
International Security (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999), n. 29, p. 310.
125 Alexei Arbatov, “Russian Foreign Policy for the 1990s,” in Russian
Security After the Cold War: Seven Views from Moscow, ed. Teresa Pelton
Johnson and Steven E. Miller (Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1994), quoted in
Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy. Nationalism and
Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1998), 254, n. 43.
127 Ibid., 158-59, table 5.3, pp. 153, 157.
129 Ibid.,
168-69, table 5.6.
130 Ibid., 170, table 5.7.
132 Ibid., 178.
134 Ibid., 181, table 5.11.
136 Ibid.
138 Ibid., 178.
139 Ibid., 180.
142 Ibid., 153, table 5.1.
144 Ibid., 152, table 5.1, p. 180.
145 Boris
Rumer, “The Gathering Storm,” Orbis 37, no. 1 (Winter 1993): 91, quoted
in Rajan Menon, “After Empire: Russia and the Southern ‘Near Abroad,’” in The
New Russian Foreign Policy, ed. Michael Mandelbaum (New York: Council on
Foreign Relations, 1998), n. 1, p. 154.
147 Ibid., 179.
149 Ibid., 182.
151 Dmitri
Trenin describes Primakov as “Russia’s most enlightened and exceedingly
experienced Eurasianist.” See Trenin,
307. Andrew Bennett sees Primakov among
Russia’s “prominent Pragmatists.” See
Bennett, 308.
152 Medvedev, 42.
154 Jack;
Eugene Huskey, Presidential Power in Russia, The New Russian Political
System (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1999), 88, table 3.3, p. 89, table 3.4.
155 Although
Bennett regards Stepashin as a Nationalist, which can be interpreted as being a
Dogmatic or Radical Neo-Eurasianist, Stepashin’s moderate policies in his
relations with the West as Prime Minister would suggest he followed a Pragmatic
Neo-Eurasianist line regarding Russia’s relations with the Western
industrialized nations in general and the U.S. in particular. However, Stepashin has been regarded as a
Nationalist and thus to be a Radical Neo-Eurasianist based on his belligerent
attitude regarding Chechnya as Director of the Federal Counter-intelligence
Service (FSK) just before and during the First Chechen War, and as Minister for
Internal Affairs prior to the outbreak of the Second Chechen War. On Stepashin as a Nationalist, see Bennett,
309.
156 Ibid., 308, n.25, p. 309. In
a recent pre-electoral televised debate between Grigory Yavlinsky, the leader
of the Yabloko Party, and Aleksandr Dugin, geopolitical thinker and a head of
the Eurasian Party, when the latter queried Yavlinsky if he backed ‘the
integration of the post-Soviet space,’ the leader of the Yabloko Party answered
that his political formation was not against more of it taking place. See
“Yabloko, Motherland-Patriotic Union Square Off on Yukos, Geopolitics,” RFE/RL
Newsline, 10 November 2003 [newsletter on-line]; available from http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2003/11/101103.asp;
Internet; accessed 10 November 2003.
157 Dimitri K. Simes, After the Collapse: Russia Seeks its Place as
a Great Power (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), 182.
158 Ibid.;
Andranik Migranian, “Kto kogo na etot raz ubedit?,” Rossiiskaya gazeta,
14 January 1997, 2, quoted in Dimitri K. Simes, After the Collapse: Russia
Seeks its Place as a Great Power (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), n.
30, p. 261.
159 Alexander J. Motyl, Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine After
Totalitarianism (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1993),
122-23, quoted in Rajan Menon, “After Empire: Russia and the Southern ‘Near
Abroad,’” in The New Russian Foreign Policy, ed. Michael Mandelbaum (New
York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1998), n. 1, p. 154.
161 Anfranik
Migranian, “Real and Illusionary Foreign Policy,” Rossiiskaya gazeta, 9
September 1992, quoted in Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy.
Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998), 259-60, n. 56.
163 Andranik
Migranian, “Near Abroad Is Vital to Russia,” pt. 1, Nezavisimaya gazeta,
12 January 1994, idem, “Near Abroad Is Vital to Russia,” pt. 2, Nezavisimaya
gazeta, 18 January 1994, quoted in Ilya
Prizel, National Identity and
Foreign Policy. Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 259, n. 55.
166 Heikka, 59-60.
167 Ibid., 93.
170 Ibid., 94.
172 Ibid., 94.
174 Sergei Kortunov, “Rossiya ishchet soyuznikov,” Mezhdunarodnaya
zhizn’,” no. 5 (1996): 8, 34-38,
48, 50, quoted in Henrikki Heikka,
“Beyond Neorealism and Constructivism: Desire, Identity, and Russian Foreign
Policy,” in Understandings of Russian Foreign Policy, ed. Ted Hopf
(University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 97, n. 100.
176 Ibid.
177 Sergei
Kortunov, “Rossiya ishchet soyuznikov,” Mezhdunarodnaya zhizn’,” no. 5
(1996), quoted in
Henrikki Heikka, “Beyond Neorealism
and Constructivism: Desire, Identity, and Russian Foreign Policy,” in Understandings
of Russian Foreign Policy, ed. Ted Hopf (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1999), n. 96, p. 94.
179 Ibid., 101-2.
182 Sergei Kortunov, “Imperskie ambitsii i natsional’nye interesy,” Nezavisimaya
gazeta, 11 September 1997, idem, “Rossiya ishchet soyuznikov,” Mezhdunarodnaya
zhizn’,” no. 5 (1996), quoted in Henrikki Heikka, “Beyond Neorealism and
Constructivism: Desire, Identity, and Russian Foreign Policy,” in Understandings
of Russian Foreign Policy, ed. Ted Hopf (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1999), n. 107, 100.
184 Nick
Paton Walsh, “In the company of monsters and monarchs,” The Guardian, 30
October 2003 [newspaper on-line]; available from http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4785527-103610,00.html;
Internet; accessed 30 October 2003.
185 Trenin, 305.
187 Bennett, 309.
190 Andrei
Tsygankov, “From International Institutionalism to Revolutionary Expansionism:
The Foreign Policy Discourse of Contemporary Russia,” International Studies
Quarterly 41, Supplement 2 (November 1997): 251-52, quoted in Andrew
Bennett, Condemned to Repetition? The Rise, Fall, and Reprise of
Soviet-Russian Military Interventionism, 1973-1996, BCSIA Studies in
International Security (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999), 309, n. 26.
191 Bennett, 309.
193 Elgiz
Pozdnyakov, “Russia Today and Tomorrow,” Mezhdunarodnaya zhizn’, no. 2
(1993), quoted in Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy.
Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998), 256, n. 48.
195 Ibid., 256.
196 Elgiz
Pozdnyakov, “Russia Today and Tomorrow,” Mezhdunarodnaya zhizn’, no. 2
(1993), quoted in Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy.
Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998), 256, n. 47.
197 Sergei
Baburin, interview in Moscow News, 12 February 1992, quoted in Ilya
Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy. Nationalism and Leadership in
Poland, Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998),
256, n. 46.
198 Prizel, 257.
199 Ibid., 256-57.
200 Boris Poklad, “Post-election Russia and the West at a Crossroads?,”
Pravda, 29 December 1993, quoted in Ilya Prizel, National Identity
and Foreign Policy. Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 263-64, n. 71.
202 Sergei
Markov, “Russian Political Parties and Foreign Policy,” in Political Culture
and Civil Society in Russia and the New States of Eurasia, ed. Vladimir
Tismaneanu (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1995), 137-54, quoted in Ilya Prizel, National
Identity and Foreign Policy. Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and
Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 258, n. 52.
203 Trenin, 305-6.
204 Alexander Dugin, Osnovy geopolitiki. Geopoliticheskoe
budushcheye Rossii (Moscow: Arktogeya, 1997), 168, quoted in Dmitri Trenin,
The End of Eurasia: Russia on the Border Between Geopolitics and
Globalization (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, 2002), 306, n. 7.
205 Viktor
Vishnyakov, “Russian Recruit in NATO’s Waiting Room,” Pravda, 3 June 1994,
quoted in Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy. Nationalism and
Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1998), 264, n. 72.
207 Halford MacKinder, “Geographical Pivot of History,” Geographical
Journal 4, n. 23 (1904): 421-44, quoted in Ilya Prizel, National
Identity and Foreign Policy. Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and
Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 260, n. 58; Prizel,
261.
210 Andranik Migranian, “Real and Illusionary Foreign Policy,” Rossiiskaya
gazeta, 9 September 1992, quoted in Ilya Prizel, National Identity and
Foreign Policy. Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 260, n. 60.
212 Ibid., 255.
213 Neil
Malcolm, “Foreign Policy Making,” in Internal Factors in Russian Foreign
Policy, ed. Neil Malcolm, Alex Pravda, Roy Allison, and Margot Light
(London: Oxford University Press, 1996), 131, quoted in Andrew Bennett, Condemned
to Repetition? The Rise, Fall, and Reprise of Soviet-Russian Military
Interventionism, 1973-1996, BCSIA Studies in International Security
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999), n. 29, p. 310.
214 Bennett, 309; Richard Woff, The Armed Forces of the Former
Soviet Union: Evolution, Structure and Personalities, 2d ed. (London:
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July-December 1999, 419; Arbakhan Magomedov, “Krasnodar Krai: Nikolai
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April 1998 [journal on-line]; available from http://russia.jamestown.org/pubs/view/pri_004_007_003.htm;
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216 Pribylovsky.
217 Stephen
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218 Amy
Knight, Spies Without Cloaks: The KGB’s Successors (Princeton: Princeton
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219 Roy
Allison, “Military Factors in Foreign Policy,” in Internal Factors in
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Margot Light (London: Oxford University Press, 1996), 239;
Alexander Verkhovsky,
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220 Alexander
Sterligov, interview in Argumenty i fakty, no. 37 (1994): 3, quoted in Roy
Allison, “Military Factors in Foreign Policy,” in Internal Factors in
Russian Foreign Policy, ed. Neil Malcolm, Alex Pravda, Roy Allison, and
Margot Light (London: Oxford University Press, 1996), 239.
222 Ernst Zundel, ”Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Here is Part III
of the Russia trip Ernst Zundel took in 1994,” The Zundelsite, 17
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223 Interfax,
22 September 1992, quoted in Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign
Policy. Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 261, n. 64.
224 Interfax, 22 September 1992, quoted in Ilya Prizel, National
Identity and Foreign Policy.
Nationalism and Leadership in
Poland, Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998), 260, n. 59.
226 Bennett, 310.
