16. Van Doorn, Indische lessen, 72.
17. Van Doorn, Indische lessen, 72.
18. Van Doorn, Indische lessen, 73.
19. Gaidar, Collapse of an Empire, xvi.
20. Gaidar, Collapse of an Empire, xvi.
21. Pitirim A. Sorokin, Man and Society in Calamity: The Effects of War, Revolution, Famine, Pestilence upon Human Mind, Behavior, Social Organization and Cultural Life (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1946), 277. Sorokin was not the first to analyze the different phases of revolutions, nor their immanent tendency toward restoration of prerevolutionary trends. In his classic book, The Anatomy of Revolution (1938), Crane Brinton made a similar analysis. Sorokin, whose book was published four years later (the first printing was in 1942), did not quote Brinton.
22. Sorokin, Man and Society in Calamity, 277.
23. Sorokin, Man and Society in Calamity, 277.
24. Sorokin, Man and Society in Calamity, 280.
25. Sorokin, Man and Society in Calamity, 284.
26. Sorokin, Man and Society in Calamity, 283.
27. Lilia Shevtsova, Russia: Lost in Transition: The Yeltsin and Putin Legacies (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2007), 320.
28. F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), 103.
29. Ulrich Beck, “Nation-States without Enemies: The Military and Democracy after the End of the Cold War,” in Democracy without Enemies, ed. Ulrich Beck (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), 143 (emphasis mine).
30. Gaidar, Collapse of an Empire, xiv.
31. Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier, La Russie menace-t-elle l’Occident? with a preface by Yves Lacoste (Paris: Choiseul, 2009), 202.
32. Mongrenier, La Russie menace-t-elle l’Occident? 98.
33. Michel Guénec, “La Russie face à l’extension de l’OTAN en Europe,” Hérodote no. 129 (2008), 224.
34. Yuri M. Luzhkov, The Renewal of History: Mankind in the 21st Century and the Future of Russia (London: Stacey International, 2003), 156 (emphasis mine).
Chapter 4
Putin’s Grand Design
Many Russians consider Putin a providential man. In July 2011 the Kremlin’s political strategist Vladislav Surkov, with no hesitation, said that Putin was sent to Russia by God to save his country in turbulent times. “I honestly believe that Putin is a person who was sent to Russia by fate and by the Lord at a difficult time for Russia,” Vladislav Surkov was quoted.[1] Putin himself, probably, would agree, because Putin—a former KGB Chekist—is a man with a mission. “The Chekists consider themselves completely above the law,” wrote Yevgenia Albats. “Worse, they tend to believe they are their homeland’s salvation, the only voice of authority amidst the political and economic chaos that has engulfed the country.”[2] Putin came to power almost exactly eight years after what he considered to have been the “greatest geopolitical catastrophy of the twentieth century”: the demise of the Soviet Union. This catastrophy was followed by the chaotic, weak, and erratic rule of Boris Yeltsin and his kleptocratic “Family” (of which, we should not forget, Putin himself was a prominent member). When, in December 1999, Vladimir Putin was appointed acting president by Yeltsin it became immediately clear that his priority was not so much to put an end to kleptocracy and lawlessness, because his first move as president was to grant Yeltsin amnesty and immunity from prosecution. His real priorities lay elsewhere. These were to put an end to Russia’s “humiliation” and to restore the lost empire. This reconquista could not, of course, be a simple reconstitution of the former Soviet Union of which the ideological glue that held it together, communism, was no longer available. The neoimperialism of the new Russia had to be based on new foundations. These new foundations were Russian ultranationalism and economic imperialism, a policy that was, in itself, not totally new. It had already been initiated during Yeltsin’s presidency, but could not at that time be fully implemented due to the chaotic economic and political situation. Putin’s policy had two main goals:
To reestablish at least a Union of the Slav core countries of the former Soviet Union.
To reestablish a close economic and political-military cooperation with the non-Slav former countries of the Soviet Union under exclusive Russian leadership.
Back to the USSR? From Commonwealth to the Russia-Belarus Union State
When the Soviet Union was dissolved by the presidents of the Russian Federation, Belarus, and Ukraine on December 8, 1991, they immediately created a successor organization, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). This organization—called in Russian Sodruzhestvo Nezavisimykh Gosudarstv (SNG)—functioned more or less as a receptacle for the broken pieces of the former empire. It was, in reality, not even a faint shadow of the former Soviet Union. The participating countries—including Russia—stressed the fact that it was a commonwealth of independent states. In addition, not all former republics were represented. The three Baltic states preferred to remain outside, Ukraine was not a formal member, Turkmenistan only an associate member, and Georgia left the organization in August 2009. Although the CIS managed to play a certain role in the post-Soviet space, especially in the field of collective security, it remained a loosely structured organization that did not satisfy the Russian ambition to strengthen its grip on the former Soviet republics.[3] Also the economic clout of the CIS was restricted: only 17 percent of Russia’s foreign trade took place within this bloc.[4]
A much more serious and far-reaching initiative was, therefore, the creation of the Union State of Russia and Belarus. The initiative for this Union State was taken on April 2, 1996, by the two presidents, Boris Yeltsin and Aleksandr Lukashenko, and a treaty was signed one year later. Apart from the economic benefits the Union was supposed to bring to both countries the two leaders had their own, hidden motives: “Lukashenko hoped to become president of a large Union State and . . . Yeltsin felt guilty for presiding over the dissolution of the Soviet Union. . . . He wanted to be remembered as the leader who started the reunification of the former Soviet republics by signing the Union State agreement with Belarus.”[5] The Union of the two countries was an ambitious project, organized in grand style. It included the creation of a series of common institutions, including a Supreme State Council, a Council of Ministers, a Court, a House of Audit, and a bicameral parliament consisting of a directly elected House of Representatives and an indirectly elected House of the Union. Neither the House of Representatives, nor the Court, however, ever came into existence. The reason for this was that the objectives of both sides diverged too much. Belarus sought a rapprochement for economic and financial reasons; Russia’s motivation was almost exclusively geopolitical. This did not prevent the two countries signing, on December 8, 1999, an even more far-reaching “Treaty on the Creation of a Union State of Russia and Belarus” that resembled the resurrection of a mini-Soviet Union. The Union would have a common president, a flag, an anthem, a constitution, a common currency, common citizenship, and a common army. It was a last attempt of Lukashenko to realize his ambition to become president of the Union State and—in this indirect way—to become the ruler of Russia. This ambition had to be taken seriously, so seriously, indeed, that Anatoly Chubais, who was the chief of Yeltsin’s presidential administration between July 15, 1996, and March 7, 1997, later said: “It was total madness . . . . It was a constitutional coup d’état, a change of power, not because of a political conflict, but quite simply because we had seen nothing coming.”[6] According to the treaty the supreme power in the Union State of Russia and Belarus would be shared by the two presidents and the presidents of the respective parliaments. With an ailing Boris Yeltsin and the communist Gennady Seleznev as Russian Duma president, Lukashenko would have had a real chance to become the de facto president of the Union State. The Russian press wrote at that time, therefore, that “Lukashenko intends to realize his integrationist plans not with Boris Yeltsin, but through his allies in the Duma.”[7]
However, with the nomination by Yeltsin, on December 31,
1999, of Vladimir Putin as acting president of the Russian Federation, Lukashenko knew that his ambitions were definitively blocked. Reluctant to become the local satrap of the new Kremlin boss Lukashenko resisted any infringements on Belarusian sovereignty, even after Russia continued to support the economy of his country with generous subsidies. The Russian energy subsidy equalled 14 percent of Belarusian GDP and Belarus was able to buy Russian oil dutyfree, to refine it, and to sell the products on the international market.[8] Putin’s generosity was not without a price. In 2003 he revealed his annexationist agenda when he proposed a fully fledged merger of both states. The proposed model, wrote Dmitri Trenin, was “essentially, Anschluss on the model of West Germany in 1990 absorbing the six East German Laender. Thus, Belarus received an offer to join the Russian Federation as six oblasts.”[9] The offer was flatly rejected by Lukashenko. Thereafter the project for the Union State stalled. Soon conflicts emerged over price rises for imported natural gas from Russia. When Moscow declared its intention to quadruple the price in 2007, Lukashenko threatened to quit the bilateral project and form instead a Union State with Ukraine, which, under President Viktor Yushchenko, was pursuing a pro-Western course.[10] Although the proposal was not realistic, the Kremlin did not hide its irritation. Another irritant was the fact that Putin, when he left the Russian presidency in 2008, expected to be appointed president of the Russia-Belarus Union State. Lukashenko, who did not want Putin as his formal superior, only agreed to appoint him prime minister of the Union State.[11] The sensitivities in Belarus were such that in November 2009 President Medvedev felt himself obliged to reassure his Belarusian neighbor that “Moscow wants to build a closer union with Belarus, but has not invited the country to become part of Russia,”[12] contradicting Putin’s merger proposal of 2003. Belarus, Medvedev continued, “is an independent, sovereign state . . . . All political life in the country follows its own scenario, and we have nothing to do with this scenario.”[13] However, these words did not reassure Lukashenko, nor did they bring more dynamism to the project. In the fall of 2010 Putin declared that the future of the Union State of Russia and Belarus “is increasingly becoming problematic.”[14]
Despite the reassurances given by Dmitry Medvedev the fears of Belarus of being absorbed by its big eastern neighbor were well founded. This became clear not only from Putin’s annexation proposal of 2003, but also from declarations by Russian politicians and political experts. Pavel Borodin, the state secretary of the Union State and a former member of Yeltsin’s presidential administration, for instance, said that “it would be counterproductive to scrap the Union State due to the recent political disputes between Moscow and Minsk,” adding, “we are the same people. We have lived together and will continue to live together. We are one country.”[15] Also President Medvedev continued to express himself ambiguously in his personal blog. He not only called Belarus “the closest of its neighbors,” united with Russia “by a long shared history, culture, common joys and grief,” but added: “We will always remember that our people—I am tempted to say ‘our one people’—endured great losses during the Great Patriotic War.”[16] It could, indeed, be questioned why the “same people” or “our one people,” constituting “one country,” would need to have two separate national governments. Yuri Krupnov, a Russian political analyst nostalgic of the Soviet past, openly pleaded that the Union State should, ultimately, encompass the whole former USSR. Far from criticizing Belarus for its lack of economic and political reforms, he hailed “Belarus’ experience of preserving USSR ‘achievements,’ the best things that existed during the Soviet period.”[17] Zbigniew Brzezinski has warned that “Russia’s absorption of Belarus, without too much cost or pain, would jeopardize the future of Ukraine as a genuinely sovereign state.”[18]
The Kremlin’s policy is one of wait and see, and, in the meantime, to increase its economic and political pressure. The objective of the Union State is firmly maintained by the Kremlin, which is hoping to extend the existing dance à deux to more partners. Overtures have been made in the direction of Ukraine that under President Yanukovych pursued a pro-Russian course. The pressure exercised by Russia on Ukraine was such that Volodymyr Lytvyn, the parliamentary speaker of the Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, felt himself obliged to declare that “Ukraine’s entry into the Union State of Belarus and Russia is impossible.”[19] “I think that this is utopia,” he said, adding that “Ukraine and Russia should stop ritual dancing and give direct answers to direct questions.”[20] The Kremlin will certainly continue to put more pressure on Ukraine. A sign of this is an article by the German political scientist Klaus von Beyme that has been given a prominent place on the official portal of the Union State (www.soyuz.by). Von Beyme declared himself to be against EU or NATO membership for Ukraine. “From my point of view,” he wrote, “the optimal solution to the issue would be [a] Slavic Federation of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. It would be a natural partner for the EU and NATO, there is potential for widespread co-operation.”[21] Why such a “Slavic Federation,” a neoimperialist Russian project that under the Kremlin’s leadership would be directed against the EU and NATO, would be “a natural partner” for the EU and NATO is not explained. Von Beyme has excellent relations with the Kremlin. The portal of the Union State mentions that Von Beyme is “the first Western politician awarded the title of Honorary Professor of Moscow State University.” On his Wikipedia curriculum vitae one can read that he was the “first West German university student in Moscow after World War II.”
There are reasons not to underestimate the role of the Union State in the Kremlin’s neoimperialist strategy. The Kremlin’s objectives could be more ambitious than creating only a Slavic Federation. Kazakhstan could also be a candidate that is on Moscow’s wish list. The government of South Ossetia, a halfway annexed part of dismembered Georgia, has already expressed its interest in being incorporated into the Union. “South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity has said that the republic may join the Union State of Russia and Belarus if Minsk recognizes the independence of South Ossetia.”[22] Another candidate is possibly the Moldovan breakaway region Transnistria. Already in 2003, Pavel Borodin, the secretary of the Russia-Belarus Union, indicated that Russia wanted to expand the Union into all the countries of the CIS. “Mr Borodin said that Russia would first join with Belarus, then Ukraine and Kazakhstan,” wrote the Financial Times. “Two, four, then 12 [countries], he said, in a reference to the CIS.”[23] The Union State may not be a Soviet Union-bis, but it will be a Union in which Russian hegemony is assured and in which the formally preserved national sovereignties of the member states are made subservient to Russian geopolitical interests.
A Politically Inspired Customs Union
The Russia-Belarus Union State is only one piece in the mosaic of Russia’s neoimperialist strategy. Because this model of a reintegration of the former Soviet Union, focusing on a direct political integration, has shown its limitations, being too dependent on the whims of the political leadership of Russia’s partner country, Moscow had already developed a parallel approach, based on economic integration. Although this approach initially seemed less promising than straightforward political integration, it might, in the end, prove more successful. There are two reasons for this: first, because it is more focused on mutual economic benefits, and, second, because it is experienced by Russia’s partners as less threatening to their national sovereignty. Economic cooperation projects had already started under Yeltsin. On March 29, 1996, the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEc) was founded with Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan as its members. During Putin’s reign, in October 2000, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan joined, followed by Uzbekistan in January 2006. The goal of the Eurasian Economic Community was to create a Free Trade Area among its six member states.
However, the three founding members of EurAsEc—Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan—decided to go further and form an inner circle with a fully fledged customs union, leading to a single market. The Customs Union (Tamozhennyy Soyuz) was ratified o
n July 5, 2010. It included plans to adopt a common currency. In this instance, Russia was following the logic of European integration in which a deepening of economic integration leads, via a process of functional spillover, to a gradual political integration of the member states. Unlike the Union State the Customs Union is making progress and Russian officials are busy expanding its scope beyond the existing three members. Ukraine, here again, is the main target. The Ukrainian Economy Minister, Vasyl Tsushko, announced in December 2010 that Ukraine will act as an observer in the negotiations between Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan on the creation of a Customs Union.[24] He emphasized that “it is interesting for us to see what they are discussing there.” According to him, “Ukraine is not yet considering participating in the customs union.” It would be “primarily interested in [the] creation of a free trade zone within the Commonwealth of Independent States.”[25] But Russia is constantly raising its pressure on the Ukrainian government. In July 2012 Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said that Kiev and Moscow “were discussing, are discussing, and will continue to discuss” the question of Ukraine’s joining of the Customs Union, a question, he said, that was “directly connected with national interests.”[26] Yanukovych was also discussing with the EU. After six years of negotiations he was expected to sign an Association Agreement with the EU during the Eastern Partnership summit, organized on November 28–29, 2013, in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. At the last minute, however, he refused to sign and turned to Moscow. Putin had offered $15 billion in loans and an important discount in the price of imported gas. Yanukovych’s U-turn led to massive demonstrations in the center of Kiev.
Putin's Wars Page 10