Putin's Wars

by Marcel H. Van Herpen

  It seems to be almost a law of human nature, that it is easier for people to agree on a negative programme, on the hatred of an enemy, on the envy of those better off, than on any positive task. The contrast between the “we” and the “they,” the common fight against those outside the group, seems to be an essential ingredient in any creed which will solidly knit together a group for common action. It is consequently always employed by those who seek, not merely support of a policy, but the unreserved allegiance of huge masses. From their point of view it has the great advantage of leaving them greater freedom of action than almost any positive programme.[28]

  This officially propagated nationalism with its xenophobia and enemy stereotypes (Chechen terrorists, NATO, investigative journalists, democratic opposition, NGOs, and human rights activists) is not only meant to bind the people in an unconditional way to the “negative program” of the regime (its positive program is still today largely kept secret from the Russian population—and possibly also from the regime itself). It also has another, second, function, which is to legitimate the suppression of democratic rights. This mechanism is described by Ulrich Beck as follows:

  In all previously existing democracies, there have been two types of authority: one coming from the people and the other coming from the enemy. Enemy stereotypes empower. Enemy stereotypes have the highest conflict priority. They make it possible to cover up and force together all the other social antitheses. One could say that enemy stereotypes constitute an alternative energy source for consensus, a raw material becoming scarce with the development of modernity. They grant exemption from democracy by its own consent.[29]

  Apart from these two aspects, mentioned above—binding the people to the regime and suppressing democracy—the propagation of nationalism by an autocratic leadership serves yet another goal. Because nationalist fervor can be used in two ways: first, as an instrument for its internal policy, and second, as an instrument for its foreign policy. In the first case nationalism and xenophobia are used to meet objectives of domestic policy: to divert the attention of the people from the real problems in the country, to knit them together behind the regime and to repress democracy and/or to stifle demands for (more) democracy. In the second case nationalism and xenophobia, while still serving the first function, additionally promote a revisionist and neoimperialist foreign policy agenda that aims to change the international status quo. The key question is, therefore, is Russia’s new nationalism of the first kind or of the second kind? Yegor Gaidar had dark forebodings, when he wrote:

  It is not difficult to exploit that pain [of the loss of empire] politically. Say a few words that make the point that “we were stabbed in the back,” “it’s all the fault of foreigners who have misappropriated our wealth,” or “now we will take their property and live well again,” and the deed is done. You do not have to make up the phrases; read any textbook on Nazi propaganda. Success is guaranteed. Such populist tactics appealing to social pain are a political nuclear weapon. They are rarely used. Those who do exploit them end up tragically as a rule. Such leaders bring their countries to catastrophe. Unfortunately, for the past few years Pandora’s box has been left open in Russia. The appeals to post-imperial nostalgia, nationalistic xenophobia, the usual anti-Americanism, and even to a not quite habitual anti-Europeanism have become fashionable and might soon become the norm. It is important to realize how dangerous this is for the country and the world.[30]

  The present regime is very secretive about its long-term foreign policy goals and keeps its cards close to its chest. But there are many disconcerting signals. Russia is playing a dangerous “Great Game” in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus, destabilizing its neighborhood and trying to reestablish itself as the dominant power. After the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008 and the subsequent dismemberment of this small neighboring country, an acceleration of measures and actions could be observed that—taken together—were rather disconcerting. These actions began with the combined massive Zapad (West) 2009 and Osen (Fall) 2009 maneuvers in August and September 2009 in which up to thirty thousand troops participated. For these maneuvers Khadafi’s son was invited, but not Western observers (OSCE rules for the invitation of observers were circumvented by simply dividing the maneuver into two smaller parts). The Zapad maneuver ended in September 2009 in the Kaliningrad oblast with a simulated tactical nuclear attack on Poland—an action that led to protests from the Polish government. Moreover, Russia’s nuclear doctrine was changed, to allow the preventive use of tactical nuclear weapons in local wars—even against nonnuclear states, which is a flagrant breach of the Nonproliferation Treaty. On August 10, 2009, a law was signed by Medvedev, permitting the use of Russian troops in foreign countries “to protect citizens of the Russian Federation.” These measures seemed to be meant as a legal preparation for eventual armed interventions in Russia’s Near Abroad and were interpreted as a growing Russian bellicosity, experienced as a threat by its neighboring states. According to the French geopolitician Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier, “the Russians seem to be seriously convinced that in the end the empire will always return to where it [once] reigned.”[31] The existence of the Russian empire is, indeed, for many Russians so self-evident, that it is almost a law of nature, a necessity hidden in la nature des choses. The problem is that this is not self-evident for the formerly colonized peoples, who—at last—have gained or regained their national independence. A reconstitution of the former empire on a new basis will, therefore, necessitate a huge, prolonged, and concentrated effort by the Russian leadership, an effort involving making use of all the means the Russian state has at its disposal: from economic investments and economic cooperation to economic boycotts, from pipeline diplomacy to energy blackmail, from using its “soft power” to diplomatic pressure and corruption of local political elites, from charm offensives to provocative actions and military threats.

  In Search of a New Legitimation Theory

  for a Post-Soviet Empire

  However, this new Russian imperialism needs an ideological justification. What kind of justification can the Russian leadership give to their neoimperial ambitions? It is clear that it can no longer invoke a specific mission, as in the case of the Soviet Union, which was considered as the global vanguard of the working classes. Nor can it rely on theories of the white man’s burden, which have definitively been discredited. Furthermore “spreading democracy” and the defense of human rights cannot be used as an argument. The democratic credentials of Russia are not much better than those of Belarus. What we are seeing rather are elements of the old Pan Slavism when the Kremlin calls the Ukrainians or the Belarusians “brother peoples” who should not remain separated from the “mother country” Russia. But the old Pan Slavism was meant to liberate Slav peoples from a foreign yoke. Today Belarus and Ukraine are sovereign countries and are in no need of being liberated. The new Russian Pan Slavism vis-à-vis Belarus and Ukraine has, therefore, rather the character of an annexationist Pan-Russianism. (This finds, by the way, support in the name Russians use for Ukraine: Malaya Rossiya—Little Russia.) Do Russia’s imperial ambitions stop there? Or do they equally include Moldova, Kazakhstan, the South Caucasus, and the Central Asian republics?

  What—in the end—remains as a justification for a renewed Russian imperialism vis-à-vis the former Soviet republics is not much more than the naked Russian state interest. I am referring here deliberately to the Russian state interest and not to the Russian national interest, because the new Russian imperialism is clearly in the interest of Russia’s ruling political and military elite, whose positions are strengthened and consolidated by a neoimperialist policy. However, this policy is not in the interest of the average Russian citizen. And this is a forteriori the case for the citizens of the other former Soviet republics. Mongrenier spoke in this context of an “ideology of power for the sake of power.”[32] Another French geopolitician wrote that “Pragmatism is one of the characteristics of the Russian foreign policy of our early twenty-first
century: a pragmatic quest for power characterized by coercive methods and an absence of morals.”[33] “Power for the sake of power,” “absence of morals”: it is clear that we have here a legitimation theory: it is the old social Darwinism of the end of the nineteenth century, the right claimed by the strong to dominate the weak for the sole reason that he is stronger.

  A New Ideological Triad: Orthodoxy, the Power Vertical, Sovereign Democracy

  Russia’s return to power politics had already started under Yeltsin, who demanded from the West a droit de regard in its “Near Abroad,” which came close to reestablishing the old Brezhnev doctrine of “limited sovereignty.” The West, however, did not give in to these demands. An overt neoimperial policy would also contradict the liberal democratic principles that Russia at that time still claimed to share with the West. Under Putin the principles of Russian democracy have been fundamentally changed. Russia no longer adheres to a Western-style liberal democracy with fair elections and the alternation of power. It has introduced “sovereign” democracy. This concept, forged by Vladislav Surkov, Putin’s former deputy head of the presidential administration, means that “democracy” is no longer a universal concept, the reality of which can be measured by applying universal criteria that are valid in different countries. On the contrary, “sovereign” democracy means that Russia (i.e., the leadership) itself can determine whether its system fulfills the democratic criteria. The regime is, therefore, immune against criticism from international organizations, foreign governments, or human rights organizations.

  We are here back at the “Russian specificity,” proclaimed in the nineteenth century by Russian Slavophiles, for whom Russia was a special and incomparable country with its own, unique nationhood (narodnost). Initially, Putin’s “sovereign democracy” was only conceived as a defensive concept against the universalist, Western interpretations of democracy, which made the Russian democratic praxis vulnerable to criticism. Recently, however, sovereign democracy has become an offensive concept in the ideological war with the West. Russia considers itself the vanguard of an anti-Western alliance of sovereign democracies (read: autocracies with pseudo-democratic façades). A second pillar of the new Kremlin ideology is the “power vertical,” a euphemism for an authoritarian top-down government. These two pillars are complemented by a third ideological pillar, which is the Orthodox religion, which has been given a prominent place by the regime in recent years. Surprisingly, this new ideological triad closely resembles the famous nineteenth-century triad Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Narodnost of Sergey Uvarov, the Minister of Education of the reactionary tsar Nicholas I. Orthodoxy has regained its former status of semistate ideology. Autocracy has found its modern translation in the “power vertical,” and Narodnost, expressing a unique Russian specificity, has become “sovereign democracy.” These have become the three ideological pillars of Russia’s internal policy. They combine seamlessly with the renewed social Darwinism of Russia’s foreign policy. Yury Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow, wrote:

  A paradoxical situation has emerged in Russian politics today. The élite, and society at large, holds predominantly outmoded ideological notions which surfaced when the layer of communist ideology was removed. Take, for instance, the invented dilemma of “who to be friends with”—the East or the West—which echoes the futile and mainly fabricated arguments of irreconcilable people. . . . This also comes from the lack of a modern vision of the world in the absence of the all-embracing communist idea. Society and the élite have not succeeded in borrowing to any significant degree either Western liberalism or Western social democratic ideas. What we have instead are ideas about a 19th century model of a great power which, unlike communist and liberal ideologies, have nothing useful or practical for the sphere of foreign policy, and moreover, lack an international element.[34]

  Luzhkov, although himself not exactly an example of a “crystal clear democrat,” has identified very clearly here the weak spot of present day Russia: the ideological void and, especially, the lack of an international (read: universal) element.

  Notes

  1. Vicken Cheterian, War and Peace in the Caucasus: Russia’s Troubled Frontier (London: Hurst & Company, 2008), 220.

  2. Igor Yakovenko, “Ukraina i Rossiya: suzhety sootnesennosti,” Vestnik Evropy 26, no. 64 (2005).

  3. Zbigniew Brzezinski, “The Premature Partnership,” Foreign Affairs 73, no. 2 (1994), 72.

  4. It is not correct, therefore, to speak of an American “empire” as, for instance, the Marxist economists Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy did in their book Monopoly Capital (1968). They wrote: “Legitimate differences of opinion will of course exist as to whether this or that country should be counted as belonging to the American empire. We offer the following list as being on the conservative side: The United States itself and a few colonial possessions (notably Puerto Rico and the Pacific islands); all Latin American countries except Cuba; Canada; four countries in the Near and Middle East (Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran); four countries in South and South-East Asia (Pakistan, Thailand, the Philippines, and South Vietnam); two countries in East Asia (South Korea and Formosa); two countries in Africa (Liberia and Libya); and one country in Europe (Greece).” (Paul A. Baran, and Paul M. Sweezy. Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), 183.) Clearly this hotchpotch of sovereign countries does not make an empire. Alexander Motyl’s description of the relationship of the United States with many Latin American countries as a “hegemonic nonimperial relationship” comes closer to the reality. (Alexander J. Motyl, Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 20 (emphasis mine).)

  5. Charles Tilly, “How Empires End,” in After Empire: Multiethnic Societies and Nation-Building: The Soviet Union and the Russian, Ottoman, and Habsburg Empires, eds. Karen Barkey and Mark von Hagen (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), 7 (emphasis mine).

  6. Brzezinski, “The Premature Partnership,” 79.

  7. Manuel Castells, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture: Volume II: The Power of Identity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), 37.

  8. In 1990 Estonia’s per capita GDP was 119.3 percent, and Latvia’s 107.5 percent of Russia’s. (Source: Statistical Handbook: States of the Former USSR, Studies of Economies in Transformation, Paper No. 3 (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1992), 4–5 and 14–15). This also occurred sometimes in other colonial empires. Piers Brendon, for instance, indicated that Hong Kong, at the time of its handover to China in 1997, had “£37 billion in reserves and inhabitants who were richer per capita than those of the United Kingdom.” (Piers Brendon, The Decline and Fall of the British Empire 1781–1997 (London: Vintage Books, 2008), 655.)

  9. The figures for 1991 for the other republics are: Armenia 17.1 percent, Belarus 16.3 percent, Kazakhstan 23.1 percent, Turkmenistan 21.7 percent, and Ukraine 5.9 percent (Statistical Handbook: States of the Former USSR, 14–15). This dependence on the Union Budget could be one of the factors that explain the Central Asian republics’ initial, sometimes almost reluctant, attitude to “accepting” their independence in 1991.

  10. The Russian situation resembled, therefore, that of the British in India, of which A. N. Wilson wrote: “[T]he British incursion into India, which had begun as a profit-making enterprise for merchants, had become a drain on British resources.” (A. N. Wilson, After the Victorians: The Decline of Britain in the World (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 489.)

  11. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Volume II, with an introduction by Prof. Edwin R. A. Seligman (London: Dent Dutton, 1971), 112–113.

  12. In 1881, for instance, the Earl of Dunraven wrote: “The future of England certainly depends upon her relationship with her colonies. She may remain the centre of a great empire, or become a small, scantily populated, and unimportant kingdom.” A prospect that was considered totally unacceptable by the author: “British possessions will remain British as long as we can hold them, b
y force if necessary.” (The Earl of Dunraven, “The Revolutionary Party,” August 1881, in Michael Goodwin, Nineteenth Century Opinion, 272–273.)

  13. Franz Cede, “The Post-Imperial Blues,” The American Interest, 7, no. 2 (2011), 118.

  14. Despite these doomsday prophecies the Netherlands experienced a protracted economic boom after the loss of Indonesia. This certainly helped to assuage post-imperial pain, but did not eradicate it. According to Thomas Beaufils, “In the Netherlands the workings of memory still prove difficult . . . . Fifty years [!] is a too short period to hope that wounds that are still open can be healed.” (Thomas Beaufils, “Le colonialisme aux Indes néerlandaises,” in Le livre noir du colonialisme: XVIe–XXIe siècle: de l’extermination à la repentance, ed. Marc Ferro (Paris: Robert Laffont, 2003), 262.)

  15. Yegor Gaidar, Collapse of an Empire, xiv. The same image was used by the Russian sociologist Yury Levada, who said: “The phantom pain from the loss of the Soviet empire remains vivid, like an amputated limb that one still feels.” (Quoted in Marie Jégo, Alexandre Billette, Natalie Nougayrède, Sophie Shibab, and Piotr Smolar, “Autopsie d’un conflit,” Le Monde (August 31–September 1, 2008).)