1. Review of Russia's Foreign Policy Climate 2012 - 2018

We've all lived through this period, but let's remind ourselves of the radical changes that took place so quickly in succession. From a book by Andrei Tsygankov, Professor at San Francisco State U

No book can be comprehensive abut Russian foreign policy without considering the (now) 3 years of war in the Ukraine. This is only the "run-up" to the Ukrainian war, (written in 2019), so it must be incomplete. But it is a vital groundwork to remember all the twists and turns. You can find on line: The Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation, 31 March 2023. But maybe it is too dry and too long to post in our Library, (11,000 words, 24 pages)?

https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/fundamental_documents/1860586/

I have just started a Thread called “Special Topics on the Soviet Union”. This article is NOT part of it. This will be in a second Thread called “Contemporary Thought on foreign and domestic Russian Policy”. (Contemporary meaning after the 1991 melt-down of the USSR.) I’ll make that index file later. I’ll add to both these threads at the same time, perhaps more varied and interesting in this way.

12,200 words, The Notes are an additional 2,700 words, (view the notes as you read by opening in two tabs).

Click here for shortened version, 5,500 words

Western Pressures, Russia’s Assertiveness, and the “Turn to the East,” 2012–2018

Russia does not recognize the United States’ extra-territorial policy in violation of international law, does not accept attempts to use military, political, economic, or any other pressure, and reserves the right for a tough response to unfriendly actions including by strengthening national defense and implementing symmetric and asymmetric measures.

“Concept of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation,” November 30, 2016¹

Eurasian integration is a chance for [Russia] to become an independent center for global development, rather than remaining on the outskirts of Europe and Asia.²

“Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club,” September 19, 2013

The return of Vladimir Putin as Russia’s president in March 2012 signaled a critically important change in foreign policy since the presidency of Dmitri Medvedev. Russia revived the assertive course that had culminated in the war with Georgia in August 2008 and was then reassessed by Medvedev. Under Medvedev, the country’s approach to the outside world was dictated by need to modernize the domestic economy and reach a new understanding with Western nations. Following interventions in Ukraine and Syria, Russia moved in yet another foreign policy direction. In response to the new crisis in relations with the West generated by Russia’s role in Ukraine, the Kremlin sought to regain Western recognition by demonstrating its power and what Putin defined as “geopolitical relevance.”³ During this period Russia sought to strengthen its relations with China and non-Western countries. On the Western direction, Russia remained engaged in assertive foreign policy and took it to the new level by demonstrating the ability to project power across continents and by pursuing risky policies in the Western political space.

GLOBAL AND LOCAL CONDITIONS

Western Pressures, Instability, and the Rise of the Non-West

Western governments were uncomfortable with Putin’s return and increased their criticism of Russia’s domestic system and human rights record. In particular, Western leaders voiced their disagreement with handling of protesters by the Kremlin following demonstrations protesting fraudulent elections to the State Duma in November 2011. The West also condemned corruption in Russia and imposed visa bans and asset freezes on those it linked to the case of Russian tax accountant Sergei Magnitsky, who was arrested and died while in detention.

Russia and the West also seriously diverged on foreign policy issues. The Western nations expected more cooperation from Russia, as the Kremlin expressed growing frustration with what it saw as insufficient cooperation on the part of the West. The two sides disagreed on Western plans regarding the Missile Defense System (MDS) in Europe. Russia proposed building MDS jointly and was frustrated with the lack of progress in the area. The Kremlin’s proposal of a new security treaty in Europe was not supported by the Western partners. There were also growing disagreements over addressing the issue of instability in Syria and the wider Middle Eastern region. In June 2013, Moscow and Washington also had to confront the problem caused by the defection of the former NSA employee Edward Snowden to Russia, as the Kremlin refused to comply with the U.S. demand to turn him over.⁴ Finally, Western leaders further expressed concerns over the Kremlin’s attempts to build the Eurasian Union; while Putin emphasized an open nature of the proposed union and laid out economic incentives for joining it,⁵ American and European leaders perceived the idea as threatening. They were especially concerned about Ukraine being pulled into the Russia-centered union and worked against it by presenting the proposed arrangement as anti-European and offering Kiev an opportunity to sign an association agreement with the European Union. Following the revolutionary change of power in Ukraine and the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea and support for Donetsk and Luhansk, the Western nations condemned Russia, imposed sanctions against the Russian economy, and moved to strengthen NATO’s military readiness in Eastern Europe. Disagreements between Russia and the West also concerned the Kremlin’s role in Western elections, energy and cyber policies, and other issues.

Another important factor that influenced Russia’s perception was a growing instability of the international system. In Europe, skeptical assessments of liberal globalization grew strong. In 2016, Euro-skeptics won the referendum in Britain leading to the replacement of the government and initiation of the country’s withdrawal from the EU. The voting reflected the continent’s economic and migration crises. Europe was suffering from structural imbalances, unemployment, debt, stagnant performance, and a large of inflow of migrants fleeing from Middle Eastern instability. In 2015 alone, 1.3 million people of Middle Eastern origin reached the European continent.⁶ The migration crisis deepened the already existing problem of Europe’s coexistence with Muslim immigrants.⁷ Those in favor of British withdrawal (Brexit) received public support in part for advocating restrictive immigration policies.

Other parts of the world were also entering economic and political uncertainty. Growing economic inequality and decline of labor markets generated new protectionist sentiments creating conditions for populism and fragmentation of the global economy.⁸ The economic uncertainty was accompanied by growing political instability. Even the traditionally stable European continent, let alone the Middle East, Eurasia, and other parts of the world, increasingly demonstrated a lack of inclusive politics, pushing instead toward rivalry and competition. As argued by Richard Sakwa, new political tensions in Europe between Russia and the “Atlantic” West reflected larger changes in the international system.⁹ The previously strong and authoritative United States was no longer able to arrest dangerous developments. China was increasingly assertive in Asia and globally. The Middle East and North Africa were turning into an area of geopolitical rivalry among major regional and global powers. Other parts of the world too were increasingly unstable.¹⁰

In the United States, against expectations the liberal presidential candidate Hillary Clinton lost to the maverick Donald Trump. The latter advocated more nationalist policies such as introducing stronger restrictions on immigration and trade. While campaigning for the presidency, Trump also argued for benefits of scaling down U.S. commitments to allies in Europe and Asia. He promises to put America first by withdrawing from expensive military commitments abroad and leaving the World Trade Organization. Like all populists, he had simple messages for his main audiences at home: workers who feared losing their jobs to global markets, segments within the middle class who saw their pay shrinking as the rich got richer, and military personnel who were tired of fighting wars for American hegemony. For the first time since the post–World War II era, the old internationalist consensus was questioned by someone who called for different rules for military, political, and commercial engagement abroad.

The values of reducing international obligations in the interest of the American people were on display in Trump’s inaugural address in which he promised to be guided by the America First principle. In particular, the president insisted on reviving American industry, military, infrastructure, and middle class by “transferring power from Washington, D.C. [to] … the American People” and promising “every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs [to be] made to benefit American workers and American families.”¹¹ Trump’s subsequent actions reflected his great power nationalism. Facing resistance from many within the political class, he acted to curb what he saw as America’s overly extensive international commitments. The United States withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement negotiated by the previous administration, UNESCO, and the Paris Climate Accord. It also cut the country’s contribution to the United Nations’ budget for 2018–2019 by 5 percent. Trump also raised trade barriers for Chinese and European goods, withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran, and announced an expensive program of nuclear rearmament. The Draft Nuclear Posture Review revealed what some observers viewed as America’s drive for global hegemony potentially leading toward a new nuclear arms race with Russia.¹² Authoritative statesmen such as former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev warned that the U.S. intent to withdraw from the INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) Treaty was indicative of such a nuclear arms race.¹³ The treaty was signed by the USSR and the United States in December 1987 to eliminate their ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.

The economic and political rise of non-Western nations was another major development in the world. The failure of the United States to successfully complete its military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, stabilize the Middle East, impose its rules on Russia and China, and maintain a viable international economic order indicates that the world was departing from its politically unipolar state of the 1990s. Economically, the world witnessed the emergence of a coalition of non-Western powers seeking to diversify global commercial and monetary transactions. The rising economies of China, India, Brazil, and others have challenged the dominant position of the West by establishing institutional venues including annual meetings of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), pooling financial resources, and producing around 30 percent of the world GDP.¹⁴ Instead of relying on the protection and welfare of Western hegemony, nations increasingly sought refuge in reformulating their interests to better protect their societies and readjust to their regional environments. The idea of Western-style democracy, while still attractive, no longer commanded the same attention. China and the Asia-Pacific region were increasingly emerging as new centers of the world’s gravity.

From Political Protests to the Post-Crimea Consolidation

The main internal condition that shaped Russian foreign policy had to do with elites and with society’s post-Crimean consolidation. In December 2011, the country went through fraudulent parliamentary elections that generated powerful political protests undermining the foundations of the Kremlin’s power. While seeking to return to the presidency in March 2012, Putin depicted West-leaning protesters as unpatriotic and accused them of acting in concert with the United States and receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in “foreign money.”¹⁵

The fear of domestic protests influenced the government following Putin’s successful election as president. A number of protesters were arrested on various charges, and the Kremlin submitted to the State Duma several laws restricting the activities of nongovernmental organizations, particularly those funded by foreigners. Other passed laws included those requiring state officials to renounce their foreign assets, denying the adoption of Russian children by U.S. citizens, and banning “homosexual propaganda.”¹⁶ These developments were greatly assisted by the growing U.S. pressures on Russia that began with President Obama signing the Magnitsky Law, which introduced sanctions against Russian officials. During 2013, hawkish voices within the Kremlin gained additional strength and pressured Putin to purge the ruling class of more the liberal groups associated with Prime Minister Medvedev.

Russian state and society reached a new level of consolidation following the EuroMaidan Revolution in Ukraine and it annexation of Crimea in March 2014. Putin made the Crimea decision in close consultation with security officials, thereby granting them an additional measure of policy influence. The decision proved to be extremely popular with many Russians. The Kremlin also received a boost of domestic support following a successful military campaign in Syria that begun in October 2015. However, the post-Crimean consolidation also served to further marginalize pro-Western critics who were often viewed and presented by state media as traitors of Russia. On February 27, 2015, a leading opposition politician, Boris Nemstov, was assassinated in central Moscow. In July 2016, a former member of a liberal political party, the governor of Kirov Oblast, Nikita Belykh, was arrested on corruption charges. And in late 2017, Alexei Ulyukayev, a liberal economist who was the minister of economic development from 2013 to 2016, was sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of demanding a $2 million bribe from a state official.

These developments strengthened those around Putin, often referred to as siloviks,¹⁷ or those professionally concerned with defending the security of the state from harmful influences and favoring preservation of a strong state and great power status. In practical terms, their preferences may also translate into prioritizing state orders and increasing the defense budget. The Ukraine crisis, the Syria war, and elevated Western pressures on Russia following the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president served to heighten the perception by many Russians that they are under attack from the hostile West. Several rounds of Western sanctions against Russia convinced elites and the society that this was indeed the case. Most Russians rallied behind Putin, while many economic and security elites reached the conclusion that sanctions revealed the “true” nature of the West, which was to fight and defeat Russia in a new Cold War.

In the meantime, Western governments held the Kremlin responsible for destabilizing the West, accusing Moscow of cyber-intervention in foreign elections, bribing potential allies abroad, and assassinating political opponents and former intelligence officers. The March 4, 2018, poisoning of Russia’s former intelligence office Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England, exacerbated Russia-West tensions, yet had no serious effect on the post-Crimean political consensus inside Russia. As with cyber-interference in the U.S. presidential elections in November 2016, Russia claimed non-involvement and denied all charges by Western governments. The West reacted by accusing the Kremlin of lying and introducing additional sanctions against Russia.

In the post-Crimean environment, Russians felt united against the West and were not likely to yield to Western pressures even as they were increasingly anxious about decline of living standards and problems with the economy. These problems resulted from the chosen model of development based on the heavy reliance on natural resource exports, as well as endemic corruption, and were exacerbated by foreign sanctions. This system was centered on informal economic deals between the state and oligarchs, and on Kremlin-controlled elections. The ineffectiveness of the economic system was revealed in the devaluation of the ruble in the fall of 2014 when the Russian currency lost about 50 percent of its value due to the cumulative impact of declining oil prices and Western economic sanctions. By 2017, Russian living standards have been declining for four consecutive years, while the state continued to allocate money for defense purposes.¹⁸ Russia’s economic competitiveness remained relatively low and the technological gap with the West wide. Following the West’s economic sanctions, Russia had to urgently look for alternative foreign economic ties, reorienting its economy toward Asia—especially China.

On balance, despite the economic problems, Russians demonstrated political unity in the face of perceived Western pressures. This unity was further on display during the country’s presidential election in March 2018, when Putin was reelected with 77 percent of the official vote. The result exceeded expectations, confirming that Russians overwhelming trusted Putin even as they favored more attention to economic development.¹⁹ By supporting Putin, Russians voted not just for the president but for a commander-in-chief who was capable of protecting the country from Western pressures and what they saw as unfounded accusations.

RUSSIA’S VISION AND POWER

Russia as State-Civilization

Putin’s return to the Kremlin in 2012 meant a continuation of the effort to carve out a new role for Russia in the international system by challenging the established position of Western nations. Partly in response to U.S. criticism, since Putin’s return to the presidency, Russia’s foreign policy has obtained an ideological justification. Beginning with his 2012 election campaign, Putin has promoted his vision of Russia as a culturally distinct power, committed to defending particular values and principles relative to those of the West and other civilizations. In his 2012 address to the Federation Council, he spoke of new demographic and moral threats and stated that “[i]n the 21st century amid a new balance of economic, civilizational and military forces Russia must be a sovereign and influential country… . We must be and remain Russia.”²⁰ The 2013 Foreign Policy Concept developed the ideas of transition toward a multipolar structure of the international system and the emergence of new threats outside of those connected to nuclear weapons.

The Concept began by stating that “[t]he capabilities of the historically established West to dominate the global economy and politics continue to decline,” and “[t]he global potential of strength and growth is dispersing and shifting eastwards, particularly towards the Asia Pacific region.”²¹ The document also emphasized global economic competition, in which different “values and development models” would be tested and “civilization identity” would obtain a new importance. In this context civilization was understood to be a distinct cultural entity, not a universal phenomenon. The 2016 Concept of Foreign Policy further stressed the importance of defending the country’s cultural distinctiveness in the context of new international challenges and attempts by the United States to preserve global dominance. The document posited Russia’s “right for a tough response to unfriendly actions including by strengthening national defense and implementing symmetric and asymmetric measures.”²²

Inside the country, Putin’s priorities included strengthening Russia’s traditional values and articulating a new idea uniting Russians and non-Russian nationalities. While proposing to unite the country around Russian values, Putin argued for recognizing ethnic Russians as “the core (sterzhen’) that binds the fabric” of Russia as a culture and a state.²³ Yet he also cautioned against “the ideas of building a Russian ‘national,’ mono-ethnic state” as “the shortest path to the destruction of the Russian people and the Russian state system.”²⁴ Other themes developed by the president in his speeches included those of a strong state capable of fighting “corruption” and “flaws of the law enforcement system” as root causes of ethnic violence. Putin also pointed to a “deficit of spiritual values” and recommended strengthening family and schools as “the institutions that are the carriers of traditional values.” In multiple statements, he further criticized what he saw as Europe’s departure from traditional religious and family values. In his 2013 address to the Federation Council, Putin further positioned Russia as a “conservative” power committed to traditional values and principles of sovereignty, multipolar balance of power, and respect for cultural/civilizational diversity in international relations.²⁵ In 2014, Putin elaborated on his vision of conservatism and justified the incorporation of Crimea in terms of consolidating Russia’s centuries-old “civilizational and sacred significance.”²⁶

THE NEW DEBATE ON FOREIGN POLICY

Putin’s civilizational turn resonated domestically. Global uncertainty and Western pressures have stimulated a resurgence of nationalist thinking in Russia. Pro-Western elites that argued for integration with the West grew progressively weaker, while siloviks increased their influence on Putin. Some of them, such as the head of the State Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, called for learning from China about strategies for resisting Western influences. He proposed amending the country’s constitution in order to introduce a new state ideology for surviving under the West’s “hybrid” war against Russia in political, economic, information, and legal areas.²⁷ Officials referred to the notion of Russian civilization in their speeches and public writing.²⁸ A number of Orthodox priests, including Patriarch Kirill, endorsed the idea of Russia’s religion-centered civilizational distinctiveness. Politicians from the relatively marginal to the well-established, such as the Communist Party leader Gennadi Zyuganov, regularly spoke on issues of Russia’s national interests as tied to Eurasia, not the West. Several clubs were established to promote the idea of Russia’s distinct civilizational values.²⁹

Consistent with his statist priorities, Putin used the ideas of civilization instrumentally, as a rhetorical tool for shaping Russia’s values in the Kremlin’s desired direction. These ideas assisted Putin in forging a greater loyalty among elites by serving as an additional source of legitimation and loyalty to the state. The language of national unity appealed to various elite strata and supporters of Russia’s cultural distinctiveness. It helped deflect the domestic appeal of ethnic nationalism, appear supportive of a dialogue with Islam, and remain critical of Western human rights pressures at the same time. It also strengthened the Kremlin’s bond with the masses by identifying the conservative majority sympathetic with the notion of Russia’s distinct values, as opposed to the more cosmopolitan and West-leaning middle class.

In the meantime, Russia continued to perceive the United States as the most important power in the international system and sought to normalize relations with it following the election of Donald Trump as the U.S. president in November 2016. Putin stressed the pragmatic nature of the bilateral relationship and said that both presidents were motivated by their countries’ interests, and not personal “chemistry.”³⁰ We are running our governments.”³¹ Putin’s perspective reflected Russia’s complex internal perception of international realities. Russian foreign policy community was still divided between those favoring the decline of liberal, U.S.-centered globalization and Russia’s international assertiveness, and those cautioning against fundamental disruption of the international system. The latter pointed to limitations of Russia’s power and to uncertainty of the contemporary world order transition. Unlike those pushing for change, the more pragmatic voices were skeptical that such change would result in a stable and secure global order.

For example, the Council of Foreign and Defense Policy, Russia’s most influential think tank, concluded in its report that “the old West will not remain the leader,” yet “the rapid shift of influence toward the ‘new’ centers of power observable over the last fifteen years will most likely slow down; while competition for power will increase.”³² Some Russian analysts proposed to draw lessons from late nineteenth-century rivalry of great powers that culminated in World War I. For example, Timofei Bordachev argued that economic interdependence and nuclear deterrence notwithstanding, great-power relations are likely to descend further toward military confrontation if lessons were not learned from the 1871–1914 period in international relations.³³ Members of this group warned that during the period of international uncertainty Russia should be wary of overextension and develop a strategy of internal concentration and reform.³⁴ Still others, such as Andrei Kortunov, argued that a viable alternative to U.S. hegemony was still a Western liberal order based on rationality, openness, and institutional norms.³⁵

This divide was also evident in the Russian foreign policy community’s assessment of Trump. During the U.S. presidential elections, those favoring the decline of a U.S.-centered order did not hide their preference for Trump’s presidency and celebrated his victory in the hope for a grand bargain with America.³⁶ Others either had no preference or supported Hillary Clinton as a more predictable candidate than the highly impulsive Trump.³⁷ Subsequent developments complicated the world order debate inside Russia. In part due to domestic constraints such as investigations of his potential “collusion” with the Kremlin, Trump was unable to increase the level of cooperation with Russia. His supporters in Moscow no longer advised the Russian leadership to reach out to Trump in order to jointly negotiate a new global order. Instead, they advised continuing to build relationships with other countries in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, thereby strengthening bargaining power for future negotiations with the United States.³⁸

Power Limits

With these positions within the establishment, Putin had to show restraint in foreign policy. An assertive foreign policy could not come at the expense of destabilizing internal unity. The Kremlin assumed the West’s graduate decline and the ability to exploit it to the advantage of Russian interests. However, the goal was not a defeat or surrender of the other side. Rather than aiming for conflict, Russia wanted to gain from the West cooperation and recognition of what Moscow viewed as its proper position in the international order. The purpose was to force the West to recognize Russia’s status by highlighting the limitations of Western power and revealing their vulnerabilities on military, economic, political, and cultural dimensions. The overall objective was to push for global changes by avoiding unnecessary antagonisms with the West, relying instead, on these low-cost methods.

Despite Russia’s economic weakness, Western sanctions failed to alter the Kremlin’s behavior in any meaningful way. The siloviks were debating the notion of winning wars without direct military confrontation by relying on technologically sophisticated covert tactics and non-state actors.³⁹ Russia aimed to relax Western pressures and prevent future expansion of NATO by issuing conciliatory statements, developing bilateral contacts with European states, and engaging the United States in joint actions in Syria and elsewhere.⁴⁰ Russia further continued to exploit non-Western institutional vehicles, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and by developing bilateral ties with China, Iran, India, Turkey, as well as selected European countries such as France, Germany, and Italy.

Russia also developed an extensive presence in the information and cyber-areas. Moscow established an infrastructure to influence the formation of Russia’s image in the world and advocated its own version of media and information management by relying on the tools of lobbying and soft power since the early 2010s.⁴¹ For the first time in the post–Cold War era the Kremlin sought to influence American politics. In August 2016, unknown hackers attacked the website of the Democratic National Committee and then released confidential materials on Hillary Clinton to WikiLeaks. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia intervened in the U.S. presidential election with the objective to undermine American confidence and possibly even falsify the election’s results.⁴² The Russia issue became central in the new internal divide because it reflected both political partisanship and the growing value division between Trump-voters, - and the liberal establishment. Some liberal commentators went as far as to speculate that Putin wanted to bring to power his favorite candidate Donald Trump in order to then jointly rule the world.⁴³

To many observers, this rise of Russia’s presence in the global cyber and media space seemed surprising, given Russia’s limited information capabilities and soft power appeal in the West. The Kremlin, however, was motivated by limited and asymmetric deployment of its media, information, and cyber power. It sought to be recognized for its power capabilities and strengthen its bargaining position in relations with the United States. Rather than trying to be involved in a full-scale information war with the West, the Kremlin wanted to expose limitations of the West’s global dominance.⁴⁴

Russia’s intervention in Syria was an example of a low-cost asymmetric assertiveness. The United States wanted Assad to be removed from power, while Russia insisted on supporting him in fighting terrorism and wanted U.S. cooperation on the Kremlin’s terms. Putin believed that the West violated norms of multilateral diplomacy and respect for international sovereignty. Immediately after Obama refused cooperation to Putin, the Kremlin ordered military operation in Syria to launch on October 1, 2015. The operation was designed to assist Assad in strengthening his position, including by fighting the militant opposition and the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS). By September 2017, Russia’s support for Assad resulted in his regaining control over major cities and more than 90 percent of the country.

The Kremlin calculated that its hard and soft power was sufficient for the Syria mission even though Russia could hardly compete with U.S. military power in the region. Relying largely on air-power, Russia launched thousands of strikes, hitting targets such as groups of militants, command points, oil fields, and oil refineries. Inevitably many civilian casualties resulted from Russia’s military intervention.⁴⁵ While precise figures of Russia’s military costs in Syria are not available, by March 2016 such costs were estimated at $2.5–2.8 million per day, relative to the United States’ spending on its fight against the IS in Syria and Iraq of about $11.9 million per day.⁴⁶ On the nonmilitary front, Russia pursued a very active diplomacy seeking to confirm its reputation as a legitimate defender of international law that acted on the invitation of Syria’s official leadership – unlike the United States’ aims to overthrow Assad by supporting his opposition – and fought terrorism in the interests of all established states.

CONFRONTING THE LIBERAL WEST

Russia’s newly stated commitment to “conservative” values of national unity, sovereignty, and traditional family put it at odds with the liberal Western priorities of minority rights, democratization, and responsibility to protect people from abuses by their own governments. Regarding major issues, Russia and the Western nations had little to agree on. Russia expected to preserve pragmatic relations and strengthen ties with politicians sharing the country’s proclaimed “conservative” values. The overall direction was to push for global changes on the basis of the identified principles of sovereignty, diversity, and balance of power.

Growing Conflict with the United States

The developments since Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012 revealed the extreme fragility of Russia’s relations with the West. The value-based conflict with the West served to exacerbate disagreements generated by different understanding of national interests. As the world power balance began to shift away from the West, the Kremlin was no longer motivated by the same vision of being a normal great power articulated by Putin in the early 2000s and now wanted to be recognized by the West as a civilization in its own right.

Russia and the United States disagreed sharply on Russia’s political system. The United States and other Western states voiced their disagreement with the handling of protesters by the Kremlin and a Russian court’s decision to sentence members of the punk band Pussy Riot to two years in jail for dancing near the altar of Russia’s main cathedral. Another disagreement concerned the case of Sergei Magnitsky, whom the United States saw as an anticorruption fighter. The Kremlin, however, viewed him (proved) as complicit in the tax evasion schemes of British businessman William Browder. The United States also expressed disappointment with Russia’s new law against “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations among minors” passed in June 2013. Many human rights activists saw it as “anti-gay law” and called for a boycott of the Winter Olympics in Sochi to protest against it,⁴⁷ while in Russia 88 percent of the population supported the law.⁴⁸ U.S. and EU officials also increased their criticism of the Kremlin’s domestic policies and propaganda following the Ukraine crisis.⁴⁹

In foreign relations, the two countries disagreed on Syria. As Western nations supported the opposition to Bashar al-Assad, the Kremlin expressed concerns about instability in the country and the wider region after Assad. As the United States accused Bashar al-Assad’s regime of using chemical weapons against military opposition, Russian officials responded by rejecting such accusations and characterizing them as an effort to derail a planned peace conference on Syria.⁵⁰ The attempts at negotiations in Geneva in February 2014 proved unsuccessful in part due to the lack of a unified approach by the United States and Russia. Washington again raised the issue of regime change by refusing to recognize Assad, whereas Moscow insisted on negotiations between Syria’s existing government and opposition. The situation began to change only in May 2015 when Kerry arrived in Moscow to acknowledge the United States’ “catastrophic errors” in handling the Middle East and to seek Russia’s cooperation in isolating Islamic extremists in Syria and other parts of the region.⁵¹ Putin’s decision to intervene in Syria in October 2015 in part reflected the Kremlin’s desire to repair the broken relations with the West.⁵²

There was also no progress on nuclear issues. The United States indicated that it was interested in further nuclear reductions, but not in establishing the joint MDS preferred by Russia. President Obama wrote a long letter to the Kremlin explaining his interest in reducing strategic nuclear warheads in the United States by an additional one-third beyond the START treaty. Russia, however, did not want to consider any further cuts, viewing nuclear force as the basis of national defense (deterrence) and international stability. In the words of Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, “Before discussing the necessity of a further reduction of nuclear weapons we need to arrive at an acceptable solution of the ABM [antiballistic missile] problem.”⁵³ The other nuclear issue concerned the status of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. U.S. officials have expressed multiple concerns with Russia’s failure to comply with the treaty since 2015.⁵⁴ In October 2018, the White House cited Russia’s violations as a key reason for considering withdrawal from the INF Treaty. The Kremlin insisted that it was in full compliance and expressed its own fear that the United States’ MDS may be used for deployment of nuclear missiles aimed at Russia.⁵⁵

Other important disagreements included Snowden and Ukraine. In the eyes of the U.S. political class, the former CIA employee Edward Snowden who defected to Russia in June 2013 was a traitor for making public the surveillance activities by the U.S. government over its citizens because of their importance in the fight against terrorism. Washington therefore expected Moscow to turn Snowden over to the United States. When Putin refused to comply and granted Snowden asylum, members of the American political class threatened a full range of retaliatory steps, while Obama expressed his disappointment with the decision and cancelled a scheduled bilateral summit with Putin in Moscow.

In Ukraine, according to Putin, Western nations were behind the revolutionary change of power in 2014 without understanding their destabilizing consequences. In justifying his intervention in Crimea, Russia’s president said that he acted on behalf of overthrown but still legitimate president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovich, and that the action was necessary to safeguard Russia’s military fleet in the Black Sea and prevent violence and violation of human rights in the region by the “rampage of Nazi, nationalist, and anti-Semitic forces.”⁵⁶ However, Western nations did not view themselves as meddling in Ukraine and condemned what they saw as Russia’s “imperialism” and violation of a neighbors’ sovereignty. When Russia intervened in Crimea by sending additional troops to the region on February 28, 2014, the United States and Canada threatened to apply a broad range of sanctions against the country and its officials and to expel Russia from G-8. President Obama referred to Russia’s intervention as a clear violation of the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine that was “deeply destabilizing” and would incur “costs.”⁵⁷ European governments at first found sanctions to be unnecessary and potentially counterproductive,⁵⁸ but in April, following Russia’s growing involvement in Ukraine and the blaming of Russia for the downing of a Malaysian civilian airplane with 286 passengers on board, the EU, too, implemented sanctions against the Russian economy.

Following the election of Trump as the U.S. president, Russia initially had high hopes for building ties with the new president, but relations between the two countries soon reached a new low. Against the Kremlin’s expectations, not only did the relations NOT improve, but the conflict intensified. In July 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a package of new sanctions against Russia, alongside those against Iran and North Korea. The bill made it impossible for President Trump to ease sanctions without congressional approval.⁵⁹ The Kremlin reacted to the bill, as well as to an earlier decision by President Obama to expel Russian diplomats accused of responsibility for intervening in the U.S. elections, by expelling hundreds of American diplomats in the summer 2017. Russia also was making limited progress with the United States regarding the Middle East, Ukraine, and other issues. The list of additional disagreements included ✓nuclear priorities, ✓energy, ✓Arctic development, ✓Russia’s domestic politics, ✓arms sales, allegations of ✓Russia’s interference in Western elections, the Kremlin’s role in training and ✓doping athletes for sport competition, and others.

Following Trump’s election and subsequent inauguration, the Kremlin did what it deemed necessary to improve relations. In response to Barak Obama’s decision to expel thirty-five Russian diplomats allegedly involved in spying and cyber-interference with American elections, Putin chose to not reciprocate. Instead, he wished Obama Happy New Year and invited children of the American embassy staff in Moscow to celebrate the holiday in the Kremlin. Two months after the inauguration, Putin sent his envoy to the State Department to propose the full normalization of relations.⁶⁰ The plan envisioned restoration of diplomatic, military, and intelligence contacts and laid out a road map for moving in this direction. The road map included consultations on cyber issues with Russia’s top cyber official Andrei Krutskikh in April and special discussions on Afghanistan, Iran, Ukraine, and North Korea to take place in May. The expectation was that by the time of Putin and Trump’s first meeting, top officials of both countries’ executive branches would meet and discuss area of mutual importance.⁶¹ The Kremlin hoped that Trump’s promises during the election campaign could be fulfilled.

Instead, relations went into another crisis in April when the United States accused Assad of using chemical weapons against the opposition and bombed Syria’s military base where Russia also stationed some of its military forces. The tough responses from Russia included a statement from Ministry of Defense that promised to shoot down American missiles if similar cases will take place. The incident destroyed Russia’s domestic pro-Trump consensus and generated new fears of the U.S. pressures in the form of military encirclement and attempts to politically destabilize Putin’s system. In May, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson travelled to Moscow in part to alleviate these fears. The trip was symbolically important because Tillerson refused to meet with the pro-Western opposition and focused in his meetings with Russian officials on issues of mutual importance.

The Kremlin drew its conclusions from the crisis and, instead of proposing road maps for normalization, concentrated on addressing individual issues. When Putin and Trump met on the sidelines of the G-20 in Hamburg in early July, they reached an understanding on concrete issues of cyber-security, Syria, Ukraine, and North Korea. In particular, they proposed to form a joint group to address cyber-security and initiated a cease-fire and establishment of de-escalation zones in Syria. A similar development took place in Helsinki in July 2018 when Putin and Trump made progress in normalizing relations.

However, much of the Putin-Trump progress was invalidated by the domestic political struggle between the president and Congress. Each U.S.-Russia summit in 2017 and 2018 was accompanied by new rounds of sanctions against Russia for its actions in cyber-space, Ukraine, Syria, and the alleged poisoning of Skripal. Under increased domestic pressure, Trump accepted sanctions and even initiated some of his own. The Kremlin felt compelled to respond, thereby further worsening the relationship. For instance, in July 2017, the Kremlin ordered 750 members of the U.S. embassy staff to leave Russia, justifying it by restoring “parity” in terms of the number of diplomats working in both countries. In response, on September 1, the United States ordered Russia to close its Consulate General in San Francisco within two days.

The United States also increased pressure on Russia regarding Ukraine and North Korea. Secretary of Defense James Mattis and the newly appointed State Department envoy on Ukraine Kurt Volker supported the idea of providing Kiev with lethal weapons. Trump issued multiple threats to use force against North Korea if Russia and China failed to prevent Kim Jong Un from further development of his nuclear program and additional missile tests. Russia responded with a mixture of sticks and carrots on Ukraine. Putin made it clear that U.S. supplies of lethal weapons to Kiev will not alter the balance of power in the region. In addition, he proposed deployment of UN peacekeepers to prevent violations of the cease-fire in eastern Ukraine and provide conditions for implementing the Minsk agreement. The Kremlin no longer viewed Ukraine as an important transit area for transporting Russian gas to Europe,⁶² instead seeking to build alternative transportation routes to the north and south. The northern option included efforts to develop another Nord Stream line with Germany under the Baltic Sea, whereas in the south Russia hoped to strengthen its transportation potential via Turkey. The United States opposed both transportation projects. On North Korea, Russia cooperated with the United States by supporting the U.S.-proposed sanctions in the UN Security Council. However, in exchange the Kremlin demanded that sanctions be considerably softened. Russia and China also indicated that they did not believe in sanctions as the solution to the issue.

Overall, Russia’s relations with the United States entered a new territory. Sanctions imposed by the West against the Russian economy made it impossible to implement another “reset” in bilateral relations. Trump and Putin’s efforts notwithstanding, U.S.-Russia relations continued to worsen with the American political establishment blocking the White House’s efforts to initiate a dialogue with the Kremlin. World order preferences and power misperception divided the two sides. At the same time, the two sides were still dependent on each other for resolving vital international security issues and cooperating on counterterrorism, nuclear non-proliferation, and regional stability. They had no choice but look for possibilities to cooperate despite the weak foundation of undermined trust and disagreement over each other’s capabilities and intentions. From an American standpoint, cooperation with Russia therefore could not be “anything more than compartmentalized, tactical and transactional—precisely because the core ideological and geopolitical cleavages are so pronounced.”⁶³ It was pragmatism by default, in which rivalry and elements of cooperation had to coexist in the increasingly fragmented and insecure world.

START HERE FOR THE SHORTENED VERSION: (5,500 words)

Pragmatism and Assertiveness toward Europe

Russia continued to disagree with the European Union on multiple issues from energy to sanctions against the Russian economy and ways of building relations with East European countries.⁶⁴ Overall, the Kremlin pursued a dual-track policy in relations with the EU, working pragmatically with incumbent governments while trying to develop informal ties with Euro-skeptics and critics of liberal West. Moscow did not want to see the EU’s disintegration yet valued the ability to influence the Union’s direction through special relations with its individual members and Euro-skeptic political parties.⁶⁵ For instance, Putin hosted Marine Le Pen before the French presidential elections in May 2017. However, soon after her loss and the victory of Emmanuel Macron, Putin travelled to Paris to discuss improvement of bilateral relations. Russia also maintained relations with Angela Merkel, who was reelected for a fourth term as the country’s chancellor, while working to influence German politics and elections. The year 2018 saw a new level of Russia’s high-level diplomatic contacts with Germany and France following the two’s growing disappointment with U.S. policies.⁶⁶ In the Balkans, Moscow strengthened ties with friendly Serbia, while trying to influence the internal politics in Montenegro in order to prevent it from joining NATO. In other parts of Europe, Russia strengthened relations with the conservative government of Hungary, but maintained semi-frozen ties with the pro-American Baltics and Poland.

Bilaterally, Russia has cultivated ties with Austria, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, and Serbia. All these states favored relaxing or lifting Western sanctions against the Russian economy, supported the Kremlin’s energy projects such as Nord Stream 2, and remained skeptical of the EU’s liberal migration policies. Hungary, in particular, emerged as an important partner that deepened its dependence on Russia’s energy supplies in 2017.⁶⁷ In addition, Russia shared special Slavic and Orthodox Christian bonds with several southern European nations. For instance, it has been a tradition for Russian politicians to visit Orthodox monasteries and hold intellectual forums in Greece.

Moscow also enjoyed political leverage in those states that it views as pro-American and hostile to Russia. It sought to influence Estonia and Latvia through ethnic Russian minority population and targeted media campaigns, as well as cyber operations and economic tools. Moscow also cultivated relations with Moldovan president Igor Dodon, who was elected in November 2016 on the platform of improving ties with Russia. The Kremlin further exploited Serbian minorities to influence state decisions in Balkan states such as Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina.⁶⁸ Russian media outlets RT and Sputnik broadcasted in major European states and members of NATO and EU. During 2015–2017, Russia tried to influence elections in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and others by strengthening ties with Russia-friendly political organizations and providing their favorable coverage in Russian media.⁶⁹

In the Caucasus, Moscow’s main partners were Armenia and Azerbaijan, both sensitive to Russia’s great power aspirations and interests in the region. Relations with Georgia did not improve. Following the military conflict of August 2008, Tbilisi cut diplomatic relations with Russia and did not restore those despite the continued dialogue with Moscow. Georgia’s decision not to pursue membership in NATO during the Warsaw summit in 2016 encouraged the Kremlin yet did not stop the latter from strengthening military ties with Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

In response to NATO’s new attempts to deter Russia, the Kremlin sought to demonstrate its defensive capacity. Moscow perceived NATO’s actions and its official strategy of deterrence and dialogue with respect to Russia as confirming the West’s expansionist objectives.

The discussion within NATO and the U.S. Department of Defense following the Ukraine crisis concerned motives and tactics of Russia’s military actions using the notion of “hybrid warfare.” The notion assumed Moscow’s capacity to combine traditional military power with covert efforts to undermine an enemy government. Counter-actions proposed by the Atlantic alliance’s commanders ranged from building up defense capacity on Western borders to preparing to confront Russia should it choose to escalate in Ukraine. In particular, the supreme commander of NATO forces in Europe, General Philip Breedlove, advocated the latter approach.⁷⁰ The Western defense approach prevailed. Several summits by the alliance confirmed commitments to collective defenses, invited Montenegro to join NATO, and approved movement of troops into Poland and the Baltic states for an indefinite stay. The alliance also conducted massive military exercises in Eastern Europe annually.⁷¹

In Moscow, these developments, accompanied by Western support for the Euromaidan revolution in Ukraine and sanctions against Russia, consolidated the perception that the West wanted to punish and, possibly, attack Russia for standing firm in defending its interests. In the words of the Security Council’s Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, “the assurances of some Western leaders that NATO is a defensive alliance serve only to cover the alliance’s aggressive nature.”⁷² According to Russia’s NATO representative, Alexander Grushko, the alliance’s decision to station its troops in the Baltics on a rotation basis was merely a way to stay there permanently in violation of previous agreements,⁷³ and such military expansion served the purpose of controlling the European continent.⁷⁴ Such expansion, Grushko further argued, would require an ideological justification and “the competitor’s demonization” in mass media.⁷⁵

Lack of Progress on Ukraine

The Ukraine crisis ended Russia’s ambitions to build a new Eurasian Union with Ukraine as its member. In October 2011, Putin proposed building a new Eurasian Union among the CIS states and laid out economic incentives for joining it, including increase in trade, common modernization projects, and improved standards of living.⁷⁶ In September 2013, speaking at the Valdai forum of international experts, Putin further stated that:

“integrating with our neighbors is our absolute priority. The future Eurasian Economic Union, which we have declared and which we have discussed extensively as of late, is not just a collection of mutually beneficial agreements. The Eurasian Union is a project for maintaining the identity of nations in the historical Eurasian space in a new century and in a new world. Eurasian integration is a chance for the entire post-Soviet space to become an independent center for global development, rather than remaining on the outskirts of Europe and Asia.”⁷⁷

The Eurasian Union initiative continued Russia’s other regional integration efforts. In 2010, Russia initiated a Customs Union that also included Belarus and Kazakhstan. In the following year, Russia also invited Ukraine to join a Customs Union, promising a major discount for gas prices. Armenia and Kyrgyzstan too are being considered for membership in the Eurasian Union. In Belarus and Ukraine, Russia’s civilizational arguments have to do with their common Slavic and Orthodox Christian values. With respect to Muslim states of the region, the Kremlin advocates the notion of cross-cultural ties and similarity of political systems with highly concentrated authority. By capitalizing on high oil prices, the Kremlin hoped to reverse the pro-Western revolutions in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan by supporting those governments in favor of stronger ties with Russia.

However, the development of the Eurasian Union did not go the way Russia expected. Moscow’s regional initiatives have met with opposition from those outside the former Soviet region who perceive the Kremlin’s promoted values as threatening. In addition, there was evidence of instability in the region, which included the tense atmosphere in the Caucasus following the war with Georgia, renewed terrorist attacks, the persistent failure of Western forces to stabilize Afghanistan, the inability of Central Asian rulers to rein in local clans and drug lords, and the weakness of bodies of power in Moldova and Ukraine.

The Ukrainian EuroMaidan revolution served as a powerful testament that Russia’s influence had not translated into stability in the region. In November 2013, following President Victor Yanukovich’s decision not to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union, mass protests took place in Kiev pressuring Yanukovich to reverse his decision. Russia and the European Union pulled Ukraine in different directions by promising benefits from joining their political-economic arrangements. With the Ukrainian economy in recession, Yanukovich declined the EU offer because Putin gave Ukraine a major discount in energy prices and pledged $15 billion in aid. In the meantime, the Ukrainian protest was gathering momentum and reached an unprecedented proportion. The opposition was critical of Yanukovich’s policies at home and favored the country’s pro-European development. On February 21, 2014, the compromise agreement between president and opposition brokered by the European Union collapsed. For unknown reasons, Yanukovich left office, moving first to eastern Ukraine and then to Russia.

[We will give many details of the Euro-Maidan in a later post in this Thread.]

Since the revolution and removal of the president from power, the situation in Ukraine continued to worsen, with Russia and the Western nations providing support and assistance for different sides of the conflict. Residents of the east and south of Ukraine did not trust Kiev’s rule and demanded more autonomy. Assisted by Russia, activists in several key regions (Donetsk, Luhansk, Nikolayev, Khar’kov, and Odessa) refused to cooperate with the central government, while the latter launched “anti-terrorist” operations against the protestors, thereby exacerbating tensions. Russia blamed Western governments for collapse of the compromise agreement and demanded that Kiev refrain from using force and initiate new constitutional changes, guarantee protection of Russian speakers, and conduct a decentralization reform in the country. Russia also annexed Crimea, provided various forms of assistance for protesters in eastern Ukraine, amassed troops on Ukraine’s border, and raised prices for natural gas deliveries to Kiev.⁷⁸

As violence and instability in the eastern and southern parts of Ukraine proliferated, attempts to negotiate peace brought limited results. The Geneva accord negotiated on April 17, 2014, did not hold, as radicals on both sides refused to abide by it. On May 2, forty people were burned alive in Odessa. The summer saw especially intense fighting between the eastern rebels and the Ukrainian army. A new military escalation in eastern Ukraine in August resulted in Kiev’s defeat, and a new cease-fire agreement was negotiated in Minsk on September 3, 2014. However, in October of the same year, heavy fighting in the eastern part of the country resumed, claiming thousands of people killed and causing over a million refugees to flee the region. On February 11, 2015, the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany, including representatives from eastern Ukraine, met to formulate new conditions for peace in the Minsk-II agreement. The conditions were to be observed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and included removal of heavy weapons by the fighting sides, amnesty and exchange of prisoners, decentralization reform, passage of a law on self-governance in Donetsk and Luhansk, restoration of pensions and services for residents of the East by Kiev, and control of the border with Russia.⁷⁹

The reality, again, proved different. Although the fighting was not as intense as before the agreement, violence did not stop, and the two sides failed to implement the signed conditions. Rather than working in concert, Russian and Western powers blamed each other for not putting sufficient pressures on their patrons and engaged in mutual sanctions against each other’s economies. Despite the formal peace, the situation remained highly unstable. The position by leading powers, as well as Ukraine’s deep cultural divide between West, Center, and the East-South, continued to challenge the government’s job of building a nation. While the Western powers were sympathetic with Kiev and the United States even supplied weapons for the Ukrainian army, Russia continued to support Donetsk and Luhansk. Moscow was convinced that the crisis in Ukraine was only a pretext for the West’s open designation of Russia as the main threat. Russia’s National Security Strategy identified as the main threats NATO’s military activities and attempts by the United States and the West to preserve world economic, political, and military domination.⁸⁰ Leading experts argued that the old formats such as the Russia-NATO Council outlived their purpose⁸¹ and now viewed Russia’s mistrust and confrontation with NATO and the United States as a “new normal” in their relations.⁸²

The new issue in Russia-Ukraine relations concerned Kiev’s desire to establish independence or autocephaly of Ukrainian churches from Moscow’s Patriarchy. Partly due to the conflict with Russia, Ukraine accelerated its transition to national identity based on its own national Church. On October 11, 2018, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, upon requests from “the honorable Ukrainian Government,” decided to restore the legitimacy of Ukrainian clerics not acknowledged by Moscow or other autocephalous Orthodox churches. The decision undermined the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s ties to Russia.⁸³ Politically the decision assisted the incumbent president Pyotr Poroshenko in presenting himself as a nation-builder standing firm against hostile influences from Russia. The Moscow Patriarchate called the act an “illegal intrusion” into its “canonical territory,”⁸⁴ while the Kremlin said it would protect the interests of the faithful in Ukraine by “political and diplomatic” means if the religious split leads to illegal action or violence.⁸⁵

TURNING TO EAST AND EURASIA

The Idea of Cooperation with the Non-West

Russia’s newly discovered non-Western identity assumed the need to develop relations with the non-West. In 2014, Putin defended preservation of a “new balance of economic, civilizational and military forces” in global politics.⁸⁶ Consistent with such a worldview, Putin worked on strengthening Russia’s relations with China, Iran, and India and exploiting non-Western institutional vehicles such as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization). In the summer of 2015, Russia hosted summits of both organizations in the city of Ufa. The BRICS members pledged $100 billion as a reserve currency pool and additional resources for development projects,⁸⁷ while the SCO began the process of admitting India and Pakistan as members. The positions of Russia and non-Western nations on various international issues were increasingly close. BRICS countries did not publicly condemn Russia’s incorporation of Crimea, did not join Western sanctions, and did not support the campaign to isolate Russia politically. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, a “top priority” for Russia’s presidency in BRICS is to transform the assembly into “a full-scale mechanism of strategic interaction on key issues of global policy and economics.”⁸⁸ Other agenda items include plans to strengthen strategic stability and international information security, reinforce the nonproliferation regime, and combat international terrorism.⁸⁹

In comparison with the West, non-Western nations largely shared Russia’s values and priorities. China, India, Brazil, and the Middle Eastern nations have never been critical of human rights violations or the domestic political system in Russia. At the United Nations, Russia frequently acted jointly with China by vetoing Syria resolutions introduced in the UNSC by the Western nations. Moscow and Beijing were concerned that such resolutions would pave the way for a military intervention and regime change in Syria, as happened in Libya. By building on non-Western resentment toward U.S. hegemony and military interventions, Putin strengthened his global reputation as an advocate for sovereignty, national unity, and cultural values. While meeting with Barack Obama during the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg, Putin obtained support of most non-Western leaders present for his position on Assad and the Middle East. In addition, the Kremlin was able to take advantage of the Snowden affair. By granting Snowden asylum, Moscow again positioned itself as a defender of national sovereignty and protector against global interferences from a hegemonic power.

Strengthening “Greater Eurasia” in Partnership with China

Relations with China, Russia’s largest neighbor, obtained a strategic dimension, as the two nations demonstrated an increased convergence in global priorities and solutions to existing issues in world politics. Although Beijing did not recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the two nations had complementary interests in the areas of commerce and regional security. Their energy-related ties continued to progress. In May 2014, Putin traveled to Beijing to sign a $400-billion agreement to export almost 40 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas annually to China, thereby further diversifying Russia’s trade away from Europe. In November 2014, Russia signed another massive gas deal by pledging to supply an additional 30 bcm starting in 2019.⁹⁰ Other important agreements were signed in Moscow in May 2015 on the eve of a military parade on the Red Square marking the end of World War II. The parade also featured China’s president Xi Jinping and Putin presiding over the ceremony in the front row while observing the marching of Russian, Chinese, and Indian soldiers. Western leaders were invited but chose not to attend due to disagreement with the Kremlin over Ukraine.⁹¹

Russia’s main priority, however, remained that of Eurasia’s regionalism. Moscow’s vision of “Greater Eurasia” included China and Europe but excluded the United States. At the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg in June 2016, Putin articulated the perspective of creating various economic agreements between the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), China, member states of the SCO and ASEAN, as well as the EU.⁹² The Kremlin anticipated several policies to consolidate Russia’s place in Eurasia as that of a great power, such as strengthening relations within the EAEU, developing ties with neighbors through the CSTO and bilaterally, and proposing wider projects with China, European countries, Turkey, and Iran. As some speculated, Russia hopes to serve as a tipping-point state, avoiding excessive commitments and determining the balance of power among the world’s largest actors such as China, the United States, and the EU.⁹³

China was especially active in promoting its vision for the development of Eurasia and offering itself as a key partner in developing the region. Increasingly, Beijing acted on its economic ambitions by inviting former Soviet states to join a larger China-centered trade and transportation initiative known as the Silk Road Economic Belt.⁹⁴ In this scheme the Eurasian Union would become an integrated part of an economic and transportation project advanced by China. On May 8, 2015, the vision was solidified with the endorsement by leaders of Russia and China. During President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow, the two nations signed an agreement on cooperation between the Eurasian Union and the Silk Road.⁹⁵ Among the objectives were the establishment of the network of land and sea routes to connect the western regions of China with the main markets of Central Asia and Europe via the territories of Kazakhstan and Russia.⁹⁶

The new vision and practice of the Russia-initiated Eurasian Union and China-advocated Silk Road’s convergence encouraged those who viewed the two nations’ cooperation in terms of being a value alternative to the European Union.⁹⁷ The fact that the United States and the European Union have worked to keep Ukraine away from the Russia-dominant Eurasian Union may have contributed to the Kremlin’s motivation to develop Russia’s own civilizational ideology. The West’s sanctions against the Russian economy in response to the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea and support for eastern fighters in the Ukrainian civil war⁹⁸ served to strengthen Russia’s reorientation away from Western nations and toward China.⁹⁹ Such foreign pressures also emboldened those defending the objective of Russia’s development in isolation from Europe.¹⁰⁰ Although China’s system of values is distinct from that of Russia, the two systems may be compatible, especially relative to the West’s system.¹⁰¹ Therefore, the cultural pillar may strengthen the rapidly progressing economic and political partnership between the two nations.

China was also an essential partner in bringing jobs and investments to Russia’s non-European regions, especially Siberia and the Far East. To offset a potentially excessive dependence on one partner, the Kremlin continued earlier developed policies of building relations with non-Chinese countries and strengthening regional integration in Asia. In 2014, Moscow wrote off $10 billion of North Korean debt on the condition of building a gas pipeline and rail link into South Korea.¹⁰² Russia also increased diplomatic contacts with Japan in order to eventually solve the territorial issue and open a new page of economic relations with the East Asian power. In the fall of 2013, Putin visited Japan to make progress on the issue and sign a number of investment and trade agreements. Moscow also increased its level of participation in regional arrangements and forums such as the APEC summits in June 2012 and November 2014. In May 2015, Russia and other members of the Eurasian Union signed a free trade agreement with Vietnam, pledging reduction of tariffs from 10 percent to 1 percent.¹⁰³

Russia’s stagnating economy made it difficult to make progress in strengthening ties within the EAEU. GDP growth was negative during 2015–2016 and grew by less than 2 percent in 2017. Trade among members of the union also declined, reflecting its poor performance. Intraregional trade, which stood at $65 billion in 2012 and 2013, shrank by some 40 percent to $42.5 billion in 2016.¹⁰⁴ The situation improved in 2016–2017. As the Russian economic slowdown bottomed out and was reversed, trade and investments within the EAEU began to recover. According to the Eurasian Development Bank, after three consecutive years of decline, investments increased by 16 percent in 2016, reflecting Russia’s contribution of over 78 percent of the stock in the Union member states.¹⁰⁵

Despite the economic slowdown, the Kremlin managed to strengthen its bilateral relations with those neighboring countries interested in such relations. Following the change of power in Uzbekistan in 2016, Russia improved ties with the country’s new leader, Shavkat Mirzioyev. In 2017, the newly elected leader of Kyrgyzstan made his first foreign trip to Russia to proclaim continuity of strategic relations between the two countries. In October 2017, Putin also visited Turkmenistan, concluding important economic agreements in the country. In all these cases, Russia sought to position itself as a security provider and a means to reduce China’s influence in the region.¹⁰⁶ Turkmenistan, in particular, was supplying China with natural gas, but sought to transport some of its ample reserves through Russian pipelines to Europe.

Russia and China also reached an understanding on Central Asia. As described by analysts of their relations, “Moscow and Beijing found ways to divide their influences, with China dominating the energy realm and Russia the security realm.”¹⁰⁷ Russia’s power in Central Asia was primarily, though not exclusively, based on military capabilities. The Kremlin worked on consolidating its military presence in the former Soviet region since the mid-2000s and possesses important military and geopolitical advantages. On the other hand, the power of China in the region was largely economic and based on its ability to finance important regional projects and offset various threats to Central Asian economies. While Russia has the ambition to preserve economic influence in the region, it is increasingly unable to compete with Beijing and has learned to accept China’s lead in exchange for Beijing’s recognition of Russia’s military and political dominance in the former Soviet region. In the meantime, Chinese military attention is directed less at Central Asia than the regions of East Asia and the Asia Pacific. In the Central Asian region, Beijing deployed no troops and expressed no desire to lease any military facilities.¹⁰⁸ Therefore, from a military standpoint, Russia remains the regionally dominant power. This is acceptable to Beijing, which focuses on fighting local threats of terrorism and separatism.

The Russia-China coordination should not be viewed as a consolidation of stagnation in Central Asia. Uzbekistan’s current reform agenda is a case in point. Since the election of Shavkat Mirziyoyev as the country’s president, Uzbekistan has moved in the direction of controlled economic change, media freedom, and international openness.¹⁰⁹ Against the common expectations of Western analysts, “it was precisely Western disengagement that opened the door for change,” with Russia and China both favoring it.¹¹⁰

Overall, the Russia-China division of power and its success in Central Asia was a model for potential solutions to other problems in Asia such as North Korean nuclear ambition, economic development, greater regional security, and future Korean unification. Increasingly these solutions were being found without the involvement of the United States and at the expense of U.S. global interests. In all prominent political and security issues in Asia, Moscow acting jointly with Beijing was able to advance Russia’s objectives of preserving great power status and delivering stability on Russian, not American, terms. The Kremlin fostered negotiations with North Korea, developed special relations in Central Asia, and pushed resolution of Afghanistan and counterterrorism toward the SCO framework. It also made progress in attracting Asian investors despite U.S. insistence that Asian nations maintain sanctions on Russia. As American presence in the region shrinks, the room for U.S.-Russia rivalry in the region also declines.

As a result of Russia’s stagnating economy and relations within the EAEU, Moscow’s overall ties with Asia remained heavily centered on China, while Moscow’s attempts to diversify these relations by strengthening ties with Japan and others did not bring impressive result. The pivot to China resulted in growing trade and military ties. Bilateral trade in 2017 increased by 25 percent relative to the previous year, though it was yet to reach the level of 2013.¹¹¹ Revitalization of the EEU too increasingly meant working in partnership with China in conjunction with its Silk Road Economic Belt.

Rebuilding Influence in the Middle East

In order to compensate for its internal economic weakness and realign with quickly changing international political economic trends, Russia has sought to actively participate in transregional projects. In addition to developing ties with China and preserving energy relations with European countries, the Kremlin worked to build relations with Iran, Turkey, and other countries in the Middle East. The fact that Russia and China had similar perspectives on international crises, including those in the Middle East and East Asia, assisted the Kremlin with developing influence in the regions. Both Russia and China supported Assad in his fight with militant opposition and terrorism, although Beijing refrained from providing military assistance and tended to abstain, rather than veto, the United States–sponsored resolutions on Syria in the UNSC. Russia’s and China’s positions on handling North Korea’s nuclear ambitions too aligned and were markedly different from the tough, threatening tone assumed by the United States.

In 2014, following Western attempts to impose sanctions on Russia over its annexation of Crimea and position on Ukraine’s crisis, Moscow and Tehran increased their level of economic relations. In particular, they discussed an energy deal worth $10 billion that would involve a barter trade of oil in exchange for building electricity stations in Iran.¹¹² As the United States intensified its diplomacy to assure Iran’s compliance with the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, the Kremlin was supportive, but it had its own priorities in mind. Among them were the strengthening of bilateral commercial and political ties with Tehran and its membership in non-Western institutions such as the SCO. In April 2015, to further revitalize relations with Iran, Putin removed the ban for delivering the S-300 (advanced military system for air defense).

Outside Iran, Russia focused on regional stability by encouraging negotiations between Syria’s Assad and moderate elements of the opposition. Here too Russia worked jointly with its non-Western partners. The BRICS summits supported negotiations in Syria such as those that started in Geneva in February 2014. In addition, with continued destabilization of Syria and Iraq by Islamic radicals, the focus by Russia and other powers was on shifting to countering the region-wide threats posed by the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS). By early 2015, the IS emerged to be the leading force with capacity to topple Assad and secure important territorial gains in Iraq. In particular, the IS militants conquered western Iraq and eastern Syria, claiming to control territory with 6.5 million residents.¹¹³ In June 2014, they took control of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, and in May 2015, they seized the ancient and UNESCO-protected town of Palmyra in Syria. To contain and defeat the IS, Russia consulted both Western and non-Western nations, especially Iran. Moscow continued to strengthen economic and political relations with Tehran, in part for the purpose of jointly assisting stabilization in Syria and Iraq. Increasingly, Moscow was also reviving strong ties with Egypt¹¹⁴ and Israel, and—disagreements on Syria and Iran notwithstanding—sought to strengthen relations with Saudi Arabia.¹¹⁵

Another important partner of Russia in the Middle East was Turkey. Although the two nations supported different sides in the Syrian conflict, they were both critical of the Western role in the region and shared a desire to stabilize it by local powers. Russian-Turkish relations were also made easier by shared values of a civilizational identity and strong modernizing state able to overcome pressures from domestic and foreign influences.¹¹⁶ In addition to similarity of values, their interests were compatible. In particular, Moscow and Istanbul continued cooperation on energy issues. As Russia sought to circumvent Ukraine in developing an alternative transportation route to European markets, Turkey wanted to position itself as a major energy hub. In January 2015, Putin traveled to Istanbul to propose the building of a gas pipeline through Turkish territory to Europe’s borders. The European Union objected to the development in part because of the need to build the required infrastructure.¹¹⁷ Previously, due to disagreements with Ukraine, Russia cut gas supplies for European customers to pressure Kiev into paying the negotiated fees.

Due to military successes and engagement in negotiations with all relevant actors in the Middle East, the Kremlin strengthened its ties even with leading critics of Assad such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt. In October 2017, the Saudi King Salman visited Russia to build on an earlier agreement limiting oil production, to sign economic and military agreements, and to signal a new political understanding of the region’s realities, not based on Assad’s departure.¹¹⁸ Since then Moscow continued to its energy cooperation with the most important oil-producing state.¹¹⁹ Putin also traveled to Tehran to discuss jointly with Azerbaijan, among other projects, the idea of developing an economic corridor to the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. If developed, the project could save costs for transporting goods from the Middle East, India, and other South Asian countries. In a longer perspective, the project could become the necessary complement to Russia’s limited participation in China’s Silk Road.¹²⁰ Although Turkey remained a difficult partner for the Kremlin, Russia continued to develop relations and negotiate possible construction of additional natural gas pipelines through Turkish territory to European markets. The Kremlin also continued to foster military and energy ties with Egypt.

Assessment

Following the ongoing state of international instability, the Kremlin continued with its policy of asserting Russia’s status of an independent great power while seeking partners for its course among both Western and non-Western politicians. In the West, Moscow sought to connect with those skeptical of values of liberal globalization and sympathetic with Russia’s insistence on protection of conservative values and national interests. Outside the West, Russia worked to strengthen its reputation as a global security provider and advocated building new global economic and political institutions alternative to those centered on the West.

Results of the policy were mixed. The Kremlin strengthened Russia’s national security by choosing to fight terrorism in the Middle East, developing and testing new weapons systems, and demonstrating resolve in deterring NATO from further expansion in the eastern direction. Russia also made progress in strengthening its autonomy and reputation as a great power, particularly through demonstrating its importance in ending the military conflict in Syria. Furthermore, the Kremlin continued to make progress in building ties with Asian, Middle Eastern, and Latin American partners outside the West. In addition, Russia partly preserved the identity connection with the West and Western political circles by employing the idea of conservative values.

Still, the “conservative” foreign policy course had limitations. While being based on assumption of a global transition of power from the West to the non-West, Russia’s strategy often lacked specifics regarding transition toward a new international system. These specifics concerned relations and cooperation with the United States and European countries, participation in developing alternative geo-economic projects with China, Turkey, Iran, and other non-Western countries, and conduct of Russia’s domestic economic and political reforms.

First, Russia’s foreign policy was partly based on an incorrect reading of the United States’ position and intentions in the international system. The Kremlin assumed that America’s material capabilities were on the decline and that Trump would begin to reorient the country’s foreign policy toward Russia by lifting sanctions and cooperating with Moscow on various international issues. However, Trump was largely incapable of acting because of opposition to his policy from the political establishment and several investigations launched against him by Congress and Special Investigator Robert Mueller. Trump also demonstrated that he had plans for the United States to remain the superpower in the international system. The U.S. economy continued to grow and the United States preserved the capacity to strongly influence global and regional political developments.

Second, the non-Western countries such as China, India, and others were not as proactive in building foundations of alternative international system and remained interested in building economic and political relations with the United States and other Western countries.

Third, Russia’s foreign policy rested on weak economic foundations, overestimating the country’s capacity to challenge the West-centered international order. In response to the collapse of energy prices in 2015, Western economic sanctions, and the absence of domestic reforms, the economy was underperforming. Instead of becoming part of a vibrant non-Western alternative system, Russia was stagnating and experiencing difficulties. Russian living standards had been declining while the state continued to generously fund its military and limit investments in education and health. In the absence of a strong economy, Russia relied on asymmetrical forms of geopolitical activism in order to demonstrate its global relevance and great power status.

NOTES

Parts of the chapter build on the chapter “Relations with the United States,” in Putin’s Russia, 7th ed., ed. Stephen Wegren (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019).

1. “Concept of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation,” November 30, 2016, http://www.mid.ru/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/2542248.

2. Vladimir Putin, “Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club,” September 19, 2013.

3. “Russia must not only preserve its geopolitical relevance—it must multiply it; it must generate demand among our neighbors and partners. I emphasize that this is in our own interest. This applies to our economy, culture, science and education, as well as our diplomacy, particularly the ability to mobilize collective actions at the international level. Last but not least it applies to our military might that guarantees Russia’s security and independence” (Putin’s Annual Address to the Federal Assembly, Moscow, the Kremlin, December 12, 2012, www.kremlin.ru).

4. For background, see Cory Welt, “What the Snowden Affair Says About U.S.-Russian Relations,” The Center for American Progress, July 17, 2013.

5. Vladimir Putin, “The New Integration Project for Eurasia,” Izvestia, October 3, 2011.

6. Natalie Nourayrede, “Refugees aren’t the problem. Europe’s identity crisis is,” The Guardian, October 31, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/31/refugees-problem-europe-identity-crisis-migration

7. Kenan Malik, “The Failure of Multiculturalism: Community Versus Society in Europe,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2015, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/western-europe/failure-multiculturalism

8. Rawi Abdelal and Igor Makarov, The Fragmentation of the Global Economy and U.S.-Russia Relations (Cambridge: Working Group on the Future of U.S.-Russia Relations, Working Group Paper 8, 2017), https://us-russiafuture.org/publications/working-group-papers/the-fragmentation-of-the-global-economy-and-u-s-russia-relations/

9. Richard Sakwa, Russia against the Rest: The Post-Cold War Crisis of World Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).

10. Ian Bremmer, Us Vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism (New York: Portfolio, 2018)

11. Donald Trump, Inaugural Address, January 20, 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/inaugural-address

12. Jon Wolfsthal and Richard Burt, “America and Russia May Find Themselves in a Nuclear Arms Race Once Again,” The National Interest, January 17, 2018.

13. Mikhail Gorbachev, “A New Nuclear Arms Race Has Begun,” The New York Times, October 26, 2018.

14. “BRICS pomeryayetsya siloi s MVF,” Editorial, Nezavisimaya gazeta, February 4, 2015, http://www.ng.ru/editorial/2015-04-02/2_red.html.

15. David M. Herszenhorn and Ellen Barry, “After Russian Vote, Putin Claims Clinton Incited Unrest,” The New York Times, December 8, 2011.

16. For details, see Andrei P. Tsygankov, The Strong State in Russia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 160–65.

17. From the Russian sila or power. For reviews of research on the siloviks, see David W. Rivera and Sharon Werning Rivera, “The Militarization of the Russian Elite under Putin,” Problems of Post-Communism, March 24, 2017; Andrei Soldatov and Michael Rochlitz, “The Siloviki in Russian Politics,” in The New Autocracy: Information, Politics, and Policy in Putin’s Russia, ed. Daniel Treisman (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 2018).

18. The defense budget was at the level of 5.3 percent of GDP (Nezavisimaya gazeta, November 15, 2017).

19. Ol’ga Solovyeva, “Rossiyane sovetuyut vlastyam zanyat’sya ekonomikoi,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, February 16, 2018.

20. Vladimir Putin, “Poslaniye Prezidenta Federal’nomu Sobraniyu Rossiyskoy Federatsii,” December 15, 2012,

http://president.kremlin.ru

.

21. The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, kremlin.ru, February 18, 2013, http://www.mid.ru/bdomp/ns-osndoc.nsf/e2f289bea62097f9c325787a0034 c255/c32577ca0017434944257b160051bf7f.

22. The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation.

23. Vladimir Putin, “Samoopredeleniye russkogo naroda—eto polietnicheskaya tsivilizatsiya, skreplennaya russkim kul’turnym yadrom,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, January 23, 2012.

24. Putin, “Samoopredeleniye russkogo naroda.” Along these lines, the new official nationalities strategy until 2025 signed by Putin in December 2012 reintroduced Russia as a “unique socio-cultural civilization entity formed of the multi-people Russian nation” and, under pressures of Muslim constituencies, removed the reference to ethnic Russians as the core of the state (Kommersant, December 19, 2012).

25. Vladimir Putin, “Poslaniye Prezidenta Federal’nomu Sobraniyu Rossiyskoy Federatsii,” December 13, 2013,

http://president.kremlin.ru

.

26. Vladimir Putin, “Poslaniye Prezidenta Federal’nomu Sobraniyu Rossiyskoy Federatsii,” December 2014,

http://president.kremlin.ru

.

27. Alexander Bastrykin, “Pora postavit’ deystvennyi zaslon informatsionnoi voine,” Kommersant, April 18, 2018, https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2961578; see also, “Alexander Bastrykin prizval zakonodatel’no zakrepit’ natsional’nuyu ideyu Rossiyi,” Kommersant, May 26, 2016, https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2996728.

28. Vladimir Yakunin, “Dialog tsivilizatsiy dlya postroyeniya mirnykh i inkluzivnykh obshchestv,” Polis 5 (131), 2012; Vladimir Yakunin, “Politicheskaya tektonika sovremennogo mira,” Polis 4 (136), 2013.

29. For example, in September 2012, the Izborsky club was founded to serve as an umbrella organization for combining intellectuals and politicians of Eurasianist, neo-Soviet, and Slavophile convictions affiliated with the ROC (Russian Orthodox Church) and various nationalist media and think tanks.

30. Andrew Roth, “Trump ‘is not my bride’: Putin wades into diplomatic row with U.S.,” Washington Post, September 5, 2017.

31. Ibid.

32. Strategiya dlya Rossiyi: Tezisy Soveta po vneshnei i oboronnoi politike. Moscow: Sovet po vneshnei i oboronnoi politike, May 2016, thesis 2.3.1, http://svop.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%8B_23%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%8F_sm.pdf.

33. Timofei Bordachev, “Pushki aprelya,” Russia in Global Affairs, July 3, 2017, http://www.globalaffairs.ru/number/Pushki-aprelya-ili-Vozvraschenie-strategicheskoi-frivolnosti-19210.

34. Aleksei Miller and Fyodor Lukyanov, “Otstranennost’ vmesto konfrontatsiyi,” Russia in Global Affairs, November 27, 2016, http://www.globalaffairs.ru/number/Otstranennost-vmesto-konfrontatcii--18477; Boris Mezhuyev, “‘ Ostrov Rossiya’ i rossiyskaya politika identichnosti,” Russia in Global Affairs, April 5, 2017, http://www.globalaffairs.ru/number/Ostrov-Rossiya-i-rossiiskaya-politika-identichnosti-18657.

35. Andrei Kortunov, “Neizbezhnost’ strannogo mira,” July 15, 2016, http://old.russiancouncil.ru/inner/?id_4=7930#top-content.

36. See, for example, Dmitry Drobnitsky, “Zapad—eto dve tsivilizatsiyi, a ne odna,” July 12, 2017, https://www.politanalitika.ru/v-polose-mnenij/zapad-eto-dve-tsivilizatsii-a-ne-odna/; Ruslan Ostashko, “Zakat epokhi globalizatsiyi,” Natsional’naya oborona, no. 10, 2017, http://oborona.ru/includes/periodics/geopolitics/2017/0126/140120429/detail.shtml. For a complimentary biography of Trump, see Kirill Bendiktov, Chernyi lebed’ (Moscow: Knizhnyi mir, 2016).

37. Andrei Kortunov, “Rossiya proshchayetsya s Obamoi,” October 5, 2016, http://ru.valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/rossiya-proshchaetsya-s-obamoy-poslanie/.

38. Fyodor Lukyanov, “Opasnost’ ‘bolshoi sdelki’,” February 9, 2017, https://www.gazeta.ru/comments/column/lukyanov/10516553.shtml; Alexander Vysotsky, “Vremya dlya taym-auta,” Russia in Global Affairs, August 28, 2018.

39. For analyses of Russian military thinking, see Andrew Monaghan, Power in Modern Russia: Strategy and Mobilization (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017); see Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky, “From Moscow with coercion: Russian deterrence theory and strategic culture,” Journal of Strategic Studies 41(1), 2018.

40. In June 2016, Putin even called the United States the “only superpower,” stating that “we want to and are ready to work with the United States.” “Putin says accepts U.S. is sole superpower, dilutes Trump praise,” Reuters, June 17, 2016, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-forum-putin-usa-idUSKCN0Z31G4?mod=related&channelName=worldNews.

41. Vladimir Putin, “Meeting with the Russian Federation Ambassadors,” Moscow, Foreign Ministry, July 9, 2012, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/15902.

42. Background to “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions,” January 6, 2018, https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf.

43. Paul Krugman, “Donald Trump, the Siberian Candidate,” The New York Times, July 22, 2016; Nicholas Kristof, “There’s a Smell of Treason in the Air,” The New York Times, March 23, 2017.

44. Andrei Tsygankov, “Russia’s (Limited) Information War on the West,” Public Diplomacy, June 5, 2017, http://www.publicdiplomacymagazine.com/russias-limited-information-war-on-the-west/; Charles Ziegler, “International dimensions of electoral processes: Russia, the USA, and the 2016 elections,” International Politics, October 2017, DOI 10.1057/s41311-017-0113-1.

45. Exact figures are contested. For some estimates and comparisons, see Ana Campoy, “Syria’s civilian deaths and refugees since 2011,” Quartz, April 11, 2018, https://qz.com/1249354/syrias-civilian-deaths-and-refugees-since-2011/.

46. Marianna Belenkaya, “After two years in Syria, what’s next for Russia?,” Al-Monitor, October 5, 2017, https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/10/russia-syria-campaign-two-years-cost-future-assad.html.

47. President Obama, too, publicly spoke against the new legislation and declared that he has “no patience for countries that try to treat gays, lesbians or transgender persons in ways that intimidate them or are harmful to them” (Christi Parsons, “Obama criticizes Russia’s new anti-gay law in Leno interview,” Los Angeles Times, August 7, 2013).

48. “Moscow Dismisses Western Criticism of Gay Propaganda Law,” RIA Novosti, August 7, 2013.

49. For example, see Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Tom Malinowski’s interview in Russian newspaper Kommersant on March 3, 2015, “Vesti delo stalo ochen’ slozhno,” http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2678676.

50. Fred Weir, “Chemical weapons in Syria: How Russia views the debate,” Christian Science Monitor, August 22, 2013.

51. Andrei Kolesnikov, “Na poltona blizhe,” Kommersant, May 12, 2015, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2725130.

52. For some discussion, see Pavel Koshkin, “Is there any way to reconcile the interests of the US, Russia in Syria?” Russia Direct, October 5, 2015, http://www.russia-direct.org/debates/there-any-way-reconcile-interests-us-and-russia-syria; Andrei Tsygankov, “The Kremlin’s Syria gamble is risky, but could have a big payoff,” Russia Direct, October 3, 2015.

53. Sergei L. Loiko, “Russia reacts coolly to Obama’s nuclear proposals,” Los Angeles Times, June 19, 2013.

54. Steven Pifer, “Arms Control, Security Cooperation and U.S.-Russian Relations,” Valdai Paper No. 78, November 17, 2017. http://valdaiclub.com/a/valdai-papers/arms-control-security-cooperation-and-u-s-russian/.

55. “US missile defense in Eastern Europe may ruin INF treaty, warns Russian Foreign Ministry,” TASS, September 25, 2018.

56. Vladimir Putin’s Press-Conference, kremlin.ru, March 4, 2014, http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/6763.

57. Statement by the President on Ukraine, White House, February 28, 2014, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/02/28/statement-president-ukraine.

58. Kirill Belyaninov, “Yevropa ne prisoyedinilas’ k SShA,” Kommersant, March 5, 2014.

59. Mike DeBonis and Karoun Demirjian, “House passes Russia sanctions bill, setting up veto dilemma for Trump,” The Washington Post, July 25, 2017.

60. John Hudson, “Russia Sought a Broad Reset with Trump, Secret Document Shows,” Buzzfeed.com, September 12, 2017.

61. Ibid.

62. Dmitry Offitserov-Belsky and Andrei Sushentsov, “Eastern and Central Europe,” in The Routledge Handbook of Russian Foreign Policy, ed. Andrei P. Tsygankov (London: Routledge, 2018).

63. Hal Brands, “The five lessons that must guide U.S. interactions with Vladimir Putin,” Washington Post, September 22, 2017.

64. Philipp Casula, “Russia’s and Europe’s Borderlands,” Problems of PostCommunism 61, 6, 2014; Hiski Haukkala, “From Cooperative to Contested Europe? The Conflict in Ukraine as a Culmination of a Long-Term Crisis in EU–Russia Relations,” Journal of Contemporary European Studies 23, 1, 2015.

65. Tuomas Forsberg and Hiski Haukkala, “The European Union,” in The Routledge Handbook of Russian Foreign Policy.

66. “Macron says Europe can’t rely on US for security,” CNN, August 27, 2018; “Russian, German Leaders to Meet for Talks on Ukraine, Energy,” RFE/RL, August 13, 2018.

67. Paul Stronski and Richard Sokolsky, “The Return of Global Russia,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, December 14, 2017, http://carnegieendowment.org/2017/12/14/return-of-global-russia-analytical-framework-pub-75003.

68. Ibid. For a detailed review of Russia’s Balkan priorities and actions, see Dimtar Bechev, Rival Power: Russia in Southeast Europe (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017).

69. Lucan Ahmad Way and Adam Casey, “Russian Foreign Election Interventions Since 1991,” PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No. 520, March 2018.

70. Lee Fang and Zaid Jilani, “Hacked Emails Reveal NATO General Plotting against Obama on Russia Policy,” Intercept, July 1, 2016, https://theintercept.com/2016/07/01/NATO-general-emails/.

71. In June 2016, the alliance held a simulated defense against Russia known as Anakonda, the largest military exercise since the end of the Cold War, involving some 31,000 troops and thousands of combat vehicles from 24 countries; Michael T. Klare, “The United States and NATO Are Preparing for a Major War with Russia,” Nation, July 7, 2016.

72. Nikolai Patrushev, “Vyzov prinyat,” Rossiyskaya gazeta, December 22, 2015.

73. Alexander Grushko, “Rossiya ne ostavit bez otveta usileniye NATO,” Izvestia, June 16, 2016. The 1997 Russia-NATO Founding Act prohibits deployment of substantial military forces in Eastern Europe on permanent basis. Russia interprets 3,000 to 5,000 troops to be “substantial,” while NATO officials disagree (Yelena Chernenko, “Ekspressivnyye plany NATO,” Kommersant, September 6, 2014).

74. Alexander Grushko, “Bez strashilki o Rossiyi NATO ne uderzhat’ kontrol’ za ES,” March 25, 2016, http://www.vestifinance.ru/videos/26759.

75. Alexander Grushko, “Rossiya primet vse mery,” Kommersant, November 5, 2014.

76. Vladimir Putin, “The New Integration Project for Eurasia,” Izvestia, October 3, 2011.

77. Vladimir Putin, “Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club,” September 19, 2013.

78. For details, see Andrei P. Tsygankov, “Vladimir Putin’s Last Stand: The Sources of Russia’s Ukraine Policy,” Post-Soviet Affairs 31(4), 2015.

79. “The Minsk ceasefire deal, point by point,” Russia Today, February 12, 2015.

80. http://m.rg.ru/2015/12/31/nac-bezopasnost-site-dok.html.

81. Sergei Karaganov, “Russian Foreign Policy: ‘We Are Smarter, Stronger and More Determined’,” Spiegel, July 14, 2018, http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-putin-foreign-policy-advisor-sergey-karaganov-a-1102629.html

82. Dmitry Suslov, “Vseryez i nadolgo,” Russia in Global Affairs, November 11, 2014, http://www.globalaffairs.ru/number/Vserez-i-nadolgo-17102; Andrey Sushentsov, “The New Normal in US-Russia Relations,” Presentation at the Chatham House, April 12, 2016, https://www.chathamhouse.org/event/new-normal-us-russia-relations; Timofei Bordachev, “Russia and the Berlin-Washington Order in Europe,” Valdaiclub.com, July 22, 2016, http://valdaiclub.com/news/russia-and-the-berlin-washington-order-in-europe/?sphrase_id=4369.

83. Nicolai N. Petro, “Russian-Ukrainian Church Turmoil Driven by Political Ambitions,” Russia Matters, October 19, 2018.

84. Ibid.

85. “Amid Church Rift, Kremlin Vows to “Protect Interests” of Faithful in Ukraine,” RFE/RL, October 12, 2018.

86. Putin further insisted on preservation of a “new balance of economic, civilizational and military forces” and instructed the government to pay more attention to development of patriotic and military education. See his Annual Address to the Federal Assembly, Moscow, the Kremlin, December 12, 2012, www.kremlin.ru.

87. Katya Golubkova, “New BRICS bank to look at local, international borrowing,” Reuters, July 9, 2015.

88. Aleksey Nikolsky, “Russia charts new course for BRICS nations as presidency begins,” TASS, April 1, 2015.

89. Ibid.

90. Aleksey Nikolsky, “Russia-China Gas Deal Requires Moscow’s Reconciliation with US, EU,” Sputnik, November 10, 2014.

91. Vladimir Soldatkin and Timothy Heritage, “Russia and China deepen ties with new economic deals,” Reuters, May 8, 2015.

92. Marcin Kaczmarski and Witold Rodkiewicz, “Russia’s Greater Eurasia and China’s New Silk Road: adaptation instead of competition,” OSW Commentary, July 27, 2016, https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-commentary/2016-07-21/russias-greater-eurasia-and-chinas-new-silk-road-adaptation.

93. P. Khanna, The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order (New York: Random House, 2008).

94. Yuri Tavrovsky, “Pekin sobirayet gory i morya,” Nezavisimiaya gazeta, November 15, 2013, http://www.ng.ru/ideas/ 2013-11-15/5_china.html.

95. “Rossiya i Kitai podpisali dogovor o ‘Shelkovom puti’,” BBC, May 8, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/russian/rolling_news/2015/05/150508_rn_china_putin_jingping_silk_route.

96. For detailed proposals by Russian experts of Russia-China cooperation in Eurasia, see The Valdai Club’s Report, “Toward the Great Ocean—3: Creating Central Eurasia” (Moscow, June 2015), http://valdaiclub.com/publication/77920.html.

97. Alexander Lukin, “What the Kremlin Is Thinking: Putin’s Vision for Eurasia,” Foreign Affairs, July–August 2014.

98. For research on Ukrainian conflict as a civil war, see, for example, Serhiy Kudelia, “Ways to End the Donbas Conflict,” PONARS Eurasia, September 24, 2018. Other authors view the conflict as combining dimensions of civil war with those of international struggle for power (Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in Borderlands [London: I.B. Touris, 2015]; Gordon M. Hahn, Ukraine over the Edge: Russia, the West and the New Cold War [Jefferson, NC: McFarlane, 2018]). Others attribute the conflict to international factors that incorporate Russia’s interference and Russia-West struggle for power in Europe. For a review of various approaches, see Taras Kuzio and Paul D’Anieri, The Sources of Russia’s Great Power Politics: Ukraine and the Challenge to the European Order (E-International Relations, 2018), chap. 1.

99. Dmitry Trenin, From Greater Europe to Greater Asia? The Sino-Russian Entente (Washington, DC: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2015).

100. Sergei Glazyev, “Moment istiny: Rossiya i sanktsiyi Zapada,” Moscow, the Izborsky Club, June 26, accessed July 15, 2014, http://www.dynacon.ru/content/ articles/3397.

101. Gilbert Rozman, The Sino-Russian Challenge to the World Order: National Identities, Bilateral Relations, and East versus West in the 2010s (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014).

102. Chris Weafer, “Russia Needs to Pivot East and West,” Moscow Times, May 8, 2014.

103. Tatyana Yedovina, “K Evraez prisoyedinili vyetnamsky rynok,” Kommersant, May 30, 2015, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2738346.

104. Mikhail Molchanov, “The Eurasian Union,” in The Routledge Handbook of Russian Foreign Policy, ed. Andrei P. Tsygankov (London: Routledge, 2018).

105. Clare Nuttell, “Investment revives within Eurasian Economic Union after 3-year decline,” Intellnews, October 17, 2017, http://www.intellinews.com/investment-revives-within-eurasian-economic-union-after-3-year-decline-130661/.

106. Andrej Krickovic and Maxim Bratersky “Benevolent Hegemon, Neighborhood Bully, or Regional Security Provider? Russia’s Efforts at Regional Integration after the Ukraine Crisis,” Eurasian Geography and Economics 57, no. 2 (2016): 180–202.

107. Marcin Kaczmarski, “The asymmetric partnership? Russia’s turn to China,” International Politics 2016, 2.

108. Ibid., 12.

109. Edward Schatz, “How Western Disengagement Enabled Uzbekistan’s ‘Spring’ and How to Keep It Going,” Ponars, Policy Memo 531, June 2018.

110. Ibid.

111. Olga Solovyeva, “Tovarooborot s Kitayem vyros na chetvert’,” Nezavisimiaya gazeta, August 9, 2017.

112. Yeveniya Novikova, “Moskva i Tegeran soprotivlyayutsya sanktsiyam,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, April 30, 2014.

113. Zachary Laub and Jonathan Masters, “The Islamic State,” Council on Foreign Relations, May 18, 2015, http://www.cfr.org/iraq/islamic-state/p14811.

114. Yelena Suponina, “Kak Yegipet opyat’ stal luchshim drugom Rossiyi na Blizhnem Vostoke,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, June 10, 2015.

115. Simeon Kerr and Kathrin Hille, “Saudi defence minister to meet Vladimir Putin for talks on Syria,” Financial Times, June 17, 2015.

116. P. Bilgin and A. Bilgiç, “Turkey’s ‘new’ foreign policy toward Eurasia,” Eurasian Geography and Economics 52(2), 2011.

117. Ben Aris, “The Riga summit of disappointment,” Business New Europe, May 21, 2015.

118. Yury Barmin, “What’s Behind the Saudi King’s Historic Visit to Russia,” Moscow Times, October 4, 2017.

119. Will Kennedy, Elena Mazneva, and Wael Mahdi, “Russia-Saudi Plans for Super-OPEC Could Reshape Global Oil Order,” Bloomberg, June 22, 2018.

120. Konstantin Truevtzev, “Rossiya-Azerbaijan-Iran,” Valdai club, November 2, 2017.

.