THE END OF
‘POST-SOVIET’ RUSSIA?
MARK MOZUR*,
NATE SCHENKKAN**
Summary
Mainstream
analysis of a ‘resurgent’ Russia misreads the post-Soviet context. While high
oil and gas prices and supply disruptions, as well as the 2008 conflict with
Georgia create a sense that Russia is pursuing neo-imperialistic policies in
its near abroad, in fact their approach has been the result of inadequate and
political institutions. The primary legacy of the collapse of the Soviet Union
is an institutional deficit in Russia,
both in its domestic and international affairs. This paper analyzes recent
events in the context of this deficit and assesses whether the current Russian
administration is equipped to fully address this issue. Finally, the question
is asked, when will it be appropriate to stop referring to Russia as ‘post-Soviet’?
Key words: Post-Soviet,
modernization, institutions, Russia-Georgia, Medvedev, Surkov, energy, Putin,
history, legacy.
Two
decades after the break-up of the Soviet Union (USSR), it is much easier to
find people who agree that Russia experienced a low point in the 1990s than it
is to reach a consensus about whether Russia has since rebounded and is
currently on the rise. The collapse of
the USSR, a superpower whose
influence stretched from East Berlin to the Bering Strait, left the Union’s legal inheritor economically and geopolitically
crippled. About this there is general agreement.
It
is not necessarily true, however, that what goes down
must come up. Those who do think Russia
is on the rise tend to cite increased oil and gas revenues, pipeline dominance,
and Russia’s exercise of political and military influence over its ‘near
abroad’ as the main reasons that Russia is ‘back.’ Indeed, recent economic growth based on
natural resource exports has allowed Russian political leaders to continue what
many in Russia viewed as a necessary stabilization and vertical integration of
the governing apparatus, which many Russians believe prevented further
deleterious consequences from the relative opening of the political system in
the 1990s. Russia under Vladimir Putin has
achieved success in implementing the ‘power vertical’ and returning to
prominence on the world stage. This has
been achieved by, among other measures, abolishing the direct election of
regional governors, punishing oligarchs who threatened to become political
competitors and rewarding those who were loyal, controlling major media
outlets, and winning a ground war with Georgia in August 2008.
These
facts – energy-led growth, domestic stability, and a willingness to take
military action to preserve its sphere of influence – have prompted many
observers of the Putin-Medvedev government to declare that Russia is on the
rise, a force to be reckoned with in international politics, a potential
partner but also once again a formidable adversary. This analysis is derived from an incomplete,
stylized interpretation of post-Soviet political and economic development. An historical approach demonstrates that the
so-called resurgence has taken place in the context of a severe institutional
deficit that may in fact be the primary legacy of the Soviet
Union. Moreover, the
resurgence masks disturbing negative social and economic trends. Based on recent government policy statements,
it is unclear if Russian leaders are fully prepared to engage in the long-term
institution building necessary to lead Russia from the post-Soviet period
into a new era.
The
general tone of analysis of Russia
by outsiders seems to have darkened mainly as a result of a few key events in
the energy sphere. Specifically, many
were surprised by the 2006 dispute between Russia
and Ukraine, in which the
flow of natural gas to Europe through
pipelines built in the Soviet era was cut.
The dispute’s much more serious 2008-2009 sequel further strengthened
the argument that the Russian bear had returned with a vengeance. After considering a few similar occurrences,
such as the periodic inexplicable halting of supplies to Lithuania’s Mazeiku
refinery and the 2007 oil pricing dispute with Belarus, as well as bellicose
rhetoric by Russian political leaders, the consensus crystallized around the
notion that Russia had become an energy superpower, ready to wield its oil and
gas resources as foreign policy weapons and seeking to dominate its near
abroad. Such a turn of
events at one point even led U.S. Senator Richard Lugar to propose expanding
the mandate of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to include a
guarantee of energy security to all member states, thus rendering the question
of whether Russia could be engaged as a constructive partner largely
rhetorical.
Like
analysis of Russian activity in other spheres, it is superficial to declare
that Russia
is on the rise as an energy superpower that is willing to abuse the political
economy of oil and gas. Although the
aforementioned 2006 gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine was the first major
conflict of its kind in the eyes of most Western observers, from the point of
view of the post-Soviet states, trans-boundary commodity disputes have been
matters of concern ever since the break-up of the USSR. The Eurasian pipeline system was constructed
before notions of territorial integrity and resource ownership were foreign
policy concerns of the individual Soviet republics. Everything was centralized, for better or for
worse. Therefore the disappearance of
the Soviet Union also marked the disappearance
of an entity that served an administrative or problem-solving function. This vacuum has been an enabling factor for
multiple oil and gas disputes. In 1997,
for example, Russia blocked
pipeline access for Turkmenistan’s
gas exports, a move that had both political and
commercial motivations. Blocking exports was Russian recourse for
non-payment of transit fees as well as a demonstration of political power in a
region with still-fragile notions of sovereignty. The consequences of the 1997 gas dispute –
the signing of a 25-year supply contract between Russia
and Turkmenistan
as well as the construction of a new Turkmenistan-Iran gas line – encapsulate
the dynamics of the new Great Game being played out to this day. Regional powers seek to lock-up long-term
sources of hydrocarbons in the pursuit of “energy security,” while suppliers
and consumers alike entertain the notion of pipeline diversification.
Tracing
the continuity between past and present energy conflicts, one sees that in the
former Soviet Union, pipelines have been used as a policy instrument whether
oil cost $130 a barrel or $13 a barrel (as it did in 1997). In all cases, pipeline politics prevail due
to the absence of an alternative dispute resolution mechanism, a function
previously served by the centralized Soviet administration. Furthermore, basic capacity constraints have
led to trans-boundary commodity disputes throughout Eurasia, not just in Russia. Residents of eastern Anatolia have spent
winters without heating as gas imports from Iran
have been cut, while Iran in
turn has dealt with a shortage in its own imports from Turkmenistan. This suggests that the same factors
that have supposedly led to a “resurgent” Russia may instead be systemic
features of post-Soviet institutional geography.
The
second reason most commonly cited for Russia’s
resurgence is the brief August 2008 war with Georgia. Russia, it is claimed, is newly assertive and
aggressive, a military threat to new EU member states like Estonia and Poland. The clearest response to these claims,
however, can actually be found by examining the post-war debate within Russia
itself. Setting aside the predictable
nationalism that accompanies any war, one main political consequence of the
conflict with Georgia
has been an increasingly serious attempt to reform the Russian military as an
institution. It is understood that the
quality of the military has decayed considerably since the Soviet collapse; it
was designed to serve a function that existed in a previous era and is no
longer relevant today. US military analyst Roger McDermott
of the Strategic Studies Institute called the conflict the “final war of the
twentieth century, fought by a Soviet legacy force. .
. more suited to conducting the kind of large-scale conventional warfare that
had passed into the annals of military history.” Consensus in political circles in Russia is
that the army was aided by an incompetent and poorly equipped Georgian force
that failed to cut off Russian routes into South Ossetia. As
McDermott writes, “arguably the rapid collapse of the Georgian armed forces…was
more a result of Georgian military weakness, poor management, and limited
combat capabilities, than anything accurately reflecting the prowess of
Russia’s armed forces.” As in the energy sphere, Russian
military “strength” is more a legacy of the Soviet Union
than a demonstration of resurgence. The Russian
Federation inherited the bulk of the massive Soviet
military system, while smaller republics like Georgia were left to build
sovereign armies for the first time in modern history.
But
Russia
also inherited the Soviet military’s flaws.
Corruption and brutal hazing remain endemic. The officer corps is considered bloated and
even incompetent, while hardware and weaponry are obsolete and the command
structure ineffective. In January 2010
the reforms resulted in the firing of a number of high-ranking generals,
including the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army Ground Forces. In short, the ability of the
second-largest active army in the world to rout a country with a GDP smaller
than Albania
proved little. Russian military forces remain vastly inferior in technology, training,
and capability to NATO. Rather than as a sign of resurgence,
the Georgian War should be seen as an opportunistic gambit of limited risk to
increase Russia’s weight in
considerations over possible NATO enlargement to Georgia
and Ukraine.
Thus,
just as Russia’s
short-term energy resurgence was based on post-Soviet institutional deficits,
its recent military encounter also revealed a strong need for constructive
reforms. In light of this, it is
critical to understand the approach of Russian policymakers to strategic
planning. What problems are they trying
to solve, and what problems do they think they have solved?
When
he came to power at the end of 1999, Vladimir Putin identified his main task in
the same manner as many Russian rulers before him: his objective was to
consolidate state power against internal and external threats. Maintaining centralized administrative
control has been a constant problem for Russian leaders ever since Peter the
Great decided to shape an empire to rival the European powers.
Drawing adequate resources from such an under-populated expanse has required
apparatuses that can exert immense pressure upon the Russian people. Protecting such extensive borders, many of
which lack geographic definition, has required heavy military expenditure. Yeltsin’s experiment in relaxed control and
increased freedoms, many felt, had resulted in chaos and debility. In one of Putin’s favorite expressions, his
job was to help the country rise from her knees, both domestically and internationally.
But
although Putin may have achieved his objective, this was not the most pressing
issue facing Russia. He achieved centralized stability and renewed
Russia’s international prestige while ignoring serious longer-term trends such
as the institutional weaknesses that pervade the energy sector, the military,
the legal system, and public service delivery as a whole. The intellectual roots of this error are
evident in Presidential Deputy Chief of Staff Vladislav Surkov’s June 2007 “A
View from Utopia,” hailed at its release as the official ideology of the Putin Kremlin.
Surkov’s “sovereign democracy” is a combination of Slavophilism
and technocracy, based on three supposedly uniquely strong elements of Russian
political culture: centralization, idealism, and identification of political
institutions with individual personalities.
Reliant on Russian traditions of autocracy and popular approval of the
current regime, it is a post facto
justification of Putin’s rule, not a principled argument for it. Throughout the essay, Surkov places
preference on the consolidation of power in the center over the development of
institutions. Russia’s ban on regional, religious
and professional political parties, for example, is designed to avoid division,
rather than to prevent competition, even as it clearly discourages the
development of local solutions to local problems. The identification of every political party
in Russia
with a single charismatic leader is taken as proof of an inherently Russian
characteristic, rather than a flaw to be overcome by regulations that would
encourage political competition via policies.
Finally, greater trust in the federal government than in local
administrators is considered proof of Russians’ innate dedication to idealism
and centralization, rather than of mistrust of local politicians and
administration. This is a philosophy
oriented towards the validation of autocracy, not the development of a dynamic
and effective Russian state.
At
the same time, however, it is interesting to note that current President Dmitri
Medvedev recognizes the importance of reform in a manner counter to Surkov’s
ideology. In his September 2009 policy
address, “Forward, Russia!”, Medvedev dwells on the idea of ‘modernization’ (a new
policy buzzword), while offering a sober look at major obstacles to Russian
economic and political development.
Modernization in Russia entails patiently and gradually reducing the
economy’s energy intensity; re-establishing Russia as a leader in nuclear,
medical, and information technology; and developing a stronger base of human
capital through improved health and education.
Medvedev cites a “primitive resource-based economy” and “chronic
corruption,” as well as the tendency to blame outsiders for Russia’s predicament, as the main
roadblocks to modernization. On the
other hand, though, President Medvedev hedges his encouraging calls for reform
by reminding readers at the very end of his text that Russia will continue to
“exert substantial influence on problems with global consequences,” as
evidenced by her willingness to help the oppressed people of South Ossetia.
There
is unfortunately little reason to expect this contradiction, between the need
for internal reform and a political emphasis on external threats, to recede in
the short-term. The dominant political
philosophy in Russia
remains oriented towards addressing perceived threats to her power, rather than
towards improving public service delivery, promoting sustainable development,
or building institutions. In a September
2009 essay, Leonid Polyakov, Chair of the Department of Political Sciences at
Moscow State University and an explicator of Surkov’s ideology, stated that
“the fundamental value of the [Russian] regime continues to be freedom,” and
that this freedom is understood to be:
·
Economic
freedom
·
Freedom
as a global competition between different poles, or centres of power, that
compete for their national interests (freedom from arity)
·
Freedom
for each country to choose its own form of national governance – that is,
freedom from any form of governance being imposed from the outside
Polyakov’s
definition is remarkable for the absence of any political rights, negative or
positive. Freedom of speech, freedom of
religion, and freedom of assembly – all of which are included in the Russian
Constitution – are absent. Instead,
Polyakov’s definition is telling in that two of his three categories of freedom
are addressed to an international audience.
The second is a statement of mainstream Russian foreign policy thinking,
while the last is an explicit reference to the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, which Moscow
has depicted as a Western coup. Parts of the ruling class in Russia
continue to see their country’s worth in terms of the force it can exert on the
world stage. One serious consequence of
Polyakov’s definition is that preserving the integrity of this kind of Russian
“freedom” will require a significant expenditure of political and
administrative capital, diverting resources from the type of modernization
called for in “Forward, Russia!”
Russia’s educated
elite is aware of this possibility. As
the editors of the mainstream Russian news site Gazeta.ru stated in an unsigned editorial greeting the 2010 New
Year, “no one is minding the country … she is decaying and crumbling before our
eyes.” Surkov’s ideological
pronouncements contrast sharply with tangible, undeniable failures of public
administration. Shocking and preventable
physical disasters like the failure of a hydroelectric turbine in Sayanogorsk
in August 2009, which killed 74, and a nightclub fire in Perm in December 2009, which killed 155,
highlight the consequences of neglecting infrastructure and public
services. Furthermore, the increasing
visibility of police brutality and corruption, marked by a number of
high-profile incidents, especially the murder of three citizens by a drunken
police major in a Moscow supermarket in April of last year, have made the
shortcomings of the country’s law enforcement structures impossible to ignore. Meanwhile, despite the declaration of the end
of combat operations in Chechnya
in June 2009, violence surged in the North Caucasus
in the second half of the year. Nearly
one thousand policemen were killed or injured in south Russia in 2009.
Besides
‘legal nihilism’, other challenges to modernization identified by Medvedev
include chronic corruption and economic “backwardness” (отсталость), as well as
negative demographic trends. In
Transparency International’s 2009 Corruption Perception Index, Russia
ranked 146th out of 180 countries.
Meanwhile the Russian economy remains overly dependent on extractive
sectors. As economist Valery Inozemtsev
has noted, Russia’s industrial exports in 2008 were a mere $32 billion, while
the combined output of Brazil, India, and China (Russia’s BRIC-mates) amounted
to $1.42 trillion. In January of 2010, Finance Minister Alexei
Kudrin announced that Russia’s once robust Reserve Fund will be empty by the
end of 2010.
In terms of demographics, Russia is facing a stark population
decrease due to low birth rates and poor health. Government statistics project the working age
population will be less than 80 million by 2020, barely more than half of the
1993 peak of 149 million. Male life
expectancy in Russia is a mere 59 years, lower than it was 50 years ago, while
alcoholism and HIV/AIDS are widely recognized to be public health crises. It
is unclear whether a modernization program such as the one set forth in
“Forward, Russia!” is capable of addressing these challenges, both in terms of
resource allocation and in terms of political will.
With
the long-term in mind, it is very difficult to assess the viability of prospects
for modernization in Russia. It is evident, however, that elements of the
Russian government have begun to acknowledge some of the serious challenges the
country faces. Such encouraging
developments are often obscured by the characterization of Russia as a resurgent and at times
belligerent power. The most sustainable
path for the country lies in re-directing her focus away from perceived
external threats to the very real challenges articulated here. To the extent that this
re-orientation can be facilitated by external actors, the “reset” currently
being attempted by the Obama administration is a welcome and necessary step. Though the process of building trust in areas
of mutual interest may be slow and difficult (as evidenced by the START
negotiations), de-escalation in the tone of rhetoric and analysis on all sides
is crucial to enabling Russia
to overcome the weight of her Soviet legacy.
As Russia
enters a new decade, the best one can hope for is that the period labeled as ‘post-Soviet’,
a period characterized by severe institutional deficits and misprioritization
of policy objectives, may finally come to a close.
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Mark Mozur - He holds a
Master's degree from Columbia University's School of International
and Public Affairs. He specializes in
Energy Security, and completed his thesis on the feasibility of constructing new
gas pipelines in Turkey. Mozur is currently a consultant in the energy
sector.
Nate Schenkkan - He holds a
Master's degree in Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Regional Studies
from Columbia University's Harriman Institute. In
2010-2011 he was the Institute's Pepsico Junior Fellow.
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JOURNAL OF RUSSIAN STUDIES
