Russia’s intervention in the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict has ignited talk of a new East-West confrontation in the post-Soviet states of Eurasia. For the U.S., such a confrontation would presumably entail a policy of neo-containment toward Russia and a credible commitment to regional security. Yet given the balance of U.S. and Russian interests in the region, such an approach would be unnecessary, unsustainable and ultimately counterproductive.
A policy of neo-containment would be premature, so long as Russia remains neither welcome as a big brother nor fully capable of playing the role of a regional hegemon. Few in the region are terribly enthusiastic about Russia’s resurgence. Even Moscow’s closest allies prefer to keep some distance — Kazakhstan continues to delicately balance Russian interests against Chinese and U.S., while the idea of a Russian-Belorussian Union has been dead in the water since its conception. Perhaps more importantly, Russia suffers from grave domestic problems — endemic corruption, political violence in the North Caucasus, a shrinking population, poor infrastructure, declining oil and gas production, potential Chinese domination of the Far East, an economy highly vulnerable to fluctuations in commodity prices, armed forces that suffer from deep manpower problems and lack sufficient power projection capabilities. Russia’s willingness and ability to dominate its neighbors will be constrained by these weaknesses for the foreseeable future.
Even so, U.S. participation in such a competition would be unsustainable. Though currently in a much-diminished state, a Russian sphere of influence is not simply the ambition of Moscow’s current leadership, it is geopolitical reality. Through its position on the Eurasian landmass, Russia controls many of these countries’ links to the outside world, including critical pipelines, railroads and ports. Russia also remains the destination for most of the region’s labor migrants and is the origin of large volumes of remittances, amounting to as much as 25-30% of some receiving countries’ GDP.
The U.S. will struggle to find a sufficiently compelling national interest to justify an allocation of resources and political capital sufficient to roll back this Russian influence. U.S. interests in Eurasia tend to be driven by the extent to which regional trends can support or hinder success in other areas — strategic access to Afghanistan, containment of Iran, diversification of energy routes. These interests are significant, but —by force of geography alone — they will never be as proximate or enduring as those of Russia. Violence in the separatist regions of Georgia has clear implications for security in the North Caucasus. Likewise, a security vacuum in Central Asia has direct implications for the smuggling of Afghan narcotics into Russia. It should come as no surprise that throughout the last 20 years, no other major power has taken an equally active interest in the resolution of regional conflicts.
Finally, a policy of neo-containment would be counterproductive. The alternative to a Russian sphere of influence may be a political and security vacuum, not necessarily a stronger U.S. position. As a global power, the U.S. will always face multiple demands on its foreign policy, of which Eurasia will rarely be the most pressing. Neither it nor any other regional power — whether China, India, Turkey or Iran — is likely to garner the resources and will to fill the void left by Russia. Meanwhile, when isolated and pushed into a corner, even a weak Moscow could create significant problems in areas of great importance to the U.S. — in weapons proliferation, Iran, the Eastern Mediterranean, Venezuela, the Korean Peninsula and in the former Soviet Union itself. Absent a credible commitment to the defense of its allies in Eurasia, the U.S. will need to consider whether neo-containment is an effective means to support the independence of Russia’s neighbors, or whether it will only bolster Russia’s desire to re-assert its authority in the region.
Accepting a Russian sphere of influence in Eurasia need not be a strategic retreat. The U.S. should continue to expand its relationships with Russia’s neighbors and support their continued independence. At the same time, the U.S. should be keenly aware of the limits of what it can achieve.
Yuri Zhukov is a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University in the Department of Government. He earned his Masters with Honors from the Georgetown University Graduate School of Foreign Service, and his AB with honors in International Relations from Brown University. Yuri is also a former Program Manager at the National Defense University.
The content is exclusively the personal opinion of the author. Under no circumstances should the content be attributed to CSIS, Next America, or the author's employer, unless explicitly stated.
not so bad
you mentioned policies of neo-containment and their counter-productivity. I couldn't agree more. Yet, sadly it seems that neo-containment is already the current western policy. Links of London Current issues such as missile defense in the Czech Republic and Poland, the status of Kosovo, and NATO expansion to Ukraine and especially Georgia will not yield any material gains for the West, Links of London yet they are lobbied for as if they were the most pressing issues in history. Those issues from Russia's perspective, however, are interpreted as encirclement at the hands of the West and the die-hard lobbying for them enhances Russia's speculation that it is being backed into a corner.
It is certainly true that
It is certainly true that the U.S. conducts training and war gaming activities for crisis response contingencies in various regions, but in practice such operations are subject to considerable political constraints. U.S. military involvement in response to cases of state failure or civil war, for instance, is far more likely than in cases of interstate conflict, especially where one of the parties is a Great Power.
This is not to say that the U.S. will not contribute in other ways - through humanitarian aid or institutional capacity building - but for the U.S. government to assume law enforcement or basic security functions in Georgia would be politically risky and probably unfeasible. Contractors, of course, are not subject to these constraints and can be expected to play a more direct role.
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I don't think Russia has
I don't think Russia has done anything to hurt America, so there's no reason why Americans should be against the country. Americans should not feel resentment towards Russia because they are well past their Soviet days, and it is a much different country. America should be worrying about the terrorists in middle eastern countries, not about Russia.
Russia Has Emerged
The question is not whether or not it is in the best interests of Russia to create a sphere of influence. As seen through the Georgian conflict and most recently (perhaps most importantly) by the gas dispute with Ukraine, Russia is asserting its influence. The question is if the United States should accept this reemergence. America absolutely made the right decision in not coming to Georgia’s assistance with military backing, but was wrong not to help solve the gas disputes. Russia’s emergence should not be viewed be viewed as a threat or a reason for further isolation. This evolving world order should be viewed as an opportunity to bring Russia into the international arena to help bring further stability and solve crucial resource dilemmas. We’ve done just the opposite. By expanding NATO and establishing “Star Wars,” we threatened Russia and may have given its leaders the necessary incentive to flex its muscles and create a sphere of influence.
The Concert of the World
If I had to characterize the results of allowing rival nations to build spheres of influence while calling it a ‘balance of power’, it would be trenches, machine guns, tanks, submarines, and poison gas.
The extension of domination-based relations with satellite countries can only lead to either total success aka never ending colonial-esque dictatorship, or utter catastrophic conflict with the affected nations and their allies, with the second being the most common in history.
No, the society of nation-states must work in cohesion rather than rivalry. Allowing Russia make moves smacking of Soviet expansion is simply a recession into complacency in the midst of an international financial crisis, which parallels the lead-ins to some of the worst conflicts in history.
The next great war might not be fought in Europe, but it will be fought unless the lessons of history are taken.
Russia's concerns (and other questions)
Thank you all for your insightful comments and a very lively debate. I'll try to address your comments one by one.
John,
Thank you for a judicious, well-argued piece. I actually agree with much of what you have written - European dependence on Russian energy, Moscow's ambitions in the Western Hemisphere and threats to the independence of post-Soviet states are all policy issues that warrant priority attention in the West. Cooperation with Russia is certainly critical in many areas, and the U.S. should aim to deepen and broaden this cooperation where our interests overlap. Where you and I differ, however, is on your assumption that such cooperation would be more likely if Russia's ambitions are actively contained. As evidenced most recently by Russia's suspension of military-to-military engagement activities with NATO, a more confrontational stance from the U.S. would seem only to narrow the range of issues on which cooperation is possible.
Daniil,
Thank you for your insightful and nuanced comments. My sense is that Russia already is a stakeholder in the international system - Russian elites hold their fortunes in Swiss banks, send their children to British boarding schools, rub elbows with European socialites in the south of France. Putin certainly enjoys being received by the Bushes in Kennebunkport and relishes participating in world summits. In the former Soviet Union, however, Russia is a stakeholder in the status quo.
If I may, I would disagree with your view that NATO expansion could improve Russian behavior. Recent rounds of expansion have shown that this process creates barriers to U.S. cooperation with Russia due to the litany of unresolved political problems that persist between Moscow and its Eastern European neighbors. These problems - energy transit, territorial disputes, treatment of Russian minorities, military basing rights - will not go away overnight as a result of integration. Rather, many of them will become collective problems for the alliance.
MSulmeyer,
Excellent questions, thanks. First, on NATO expansion... At the moment, it appears that support for Georgia's and Ukraine's membership aspirations is hardening. Chancellor Merkel's recent statement that Georgia will become a member of NATO, while essentially a reiteration of the 2008 Bucharest Summit Declaration ("We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO."), appears - at least in tone - to be a departure from Germany's earlier skepticism on the expansion question. Under the surface, however, there remain deep divisions within the alliance over the utility and risk of extending a Membership Action Plan to Ukraine and Georgia. These divisions are bound to reemerge closer to the December 2008 meeting, once the dust of the August crisis settles.
The more interesting question is what military value such expansion could conceivably add to the alliance. Since, as John Elliot correctly points out, NATO expansion is driven first and foremost by the desire of sovereign nations to join the alliance, one can expect Eastern European aspirants to draw the lesson that deploying combat forces abroad to participate in U.S.-led coalition operations, at a time when the homeland is immediately under threat, carries great strategic risks. The domestic political debate over defense resource allocation between territorial defense and building capacity for expeditionary operations - a key question in Eastern European countries - can be expected to intensify in coming months. If NATO's new and aspiring members decide to focus more on territorial defense and as a result contribute less to NATO's out-of-area operations, NATO's net ability to conduct and sustain its operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere will be significantly weakened. Meanwhile, few Western European members have the appetite for the invocation of Article 5 ("an armed attack against one or more [members] shall be considered an attack against them all") by one of NATO's new members, particularly if that member initiates the conflict. Georgia's assault on Russian peacekeepers in Tskhinvali is hardly reassuring in this regard.
As regards Russia's concerns, you are correct that ten ground-based interceptors in Poland do not pose a significant risk to strategic stability in Europe. What concerns Moscow, however, is the broader pattern. Russians are not convinced, for example, that at some point the number of interceptors in Eastern Europe will not grow to 100 or 1,000, that new facilities will not be opened in closer proximity to Russia's borders, that these assets will not be supplemented with boost-phase missile defense systems, or the Airborne Laser (ABL) systems currently in development by Boeing. Indeed, recent statements by political leaders in Ukraine and Lithuania, and even by the Director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, Lt Gen Trey Obering, have given hardliners in Russia much cause to assume the contrary. Further, it is difficult to make the case that the Patriot missile battery included in the U.S.-Polish BMD agreement is directed at anyone except Russia, making U.S. assurances that "missile defense is aimed at no one" sound all the more disingenuous to Russian ears.
Russian concerns over NATO expansion are based on similar worst-case-scenario assumptions. Using correlation of forces as an indicator of relative power, one can draw some insights into how previous rounds of NATO expansion were perceived by the Russian General Staff. The countries accepted into the alliance in 2004 augmented NATO's overall force strength by 200,000, including 132,000 in the ground forces alone. At least 25 Soviet-era airstrips in the Baltic region are of sufficient length to be used by attack and transport aviation, including two airstrips capable of basing strategic bombers. Coupled with the integration of Polish and Baltic air defense systems into NATO, if these assets are to be used in wartime, flight times to select targets within Russia, such as St. Petersburg, could be significantly reduced, and NATO would be easily able to maintain air superiority in northwest Russia. The use of Baltic ports could also simplify NATO logistics for the transport of personnel and equipment into the theater. The inclusion of Georgia and, especially, Ukraine - a country with the population and territory of France, home to Russia's most strategic and historically significant warm water naval base - would have an even more decisive impact on the balance of forces in the Black Sea, which during the Cold War was essentially a "Soviet Lake."
Despite U.S. assurances that none of these projects has been directed against Russia, raw capabilities are far more important than stated intentions in Moscow's strategic thinking. Even U.S. forward operating facilities in Romania and Bulgaria, conceived as part of the Global Posture Review and intended as "lily pads" for use in training and expeditionary operations in the Middle East, are seen by Russia as potentially threatening challenges to the military balance of power. In much the same way that the basing of Russian strategic assets in Cuba or Venezuela would encounter strong U.S. opposition, it would be naïve not to expect some pushback from Russia when it finds itself in a similar position.
I have not seen anything on the creation of a dedicated U.S-led rapid reaction force in response to the situation in Georgia. My sense is that the U.S. will seek to limit its military footprint in any post-conflict reconstruction efforts, and allow the EU to do the heavy lifting. It is certainly true that the U.S. conducts training and war gaming activities for crisis response contingencies in various regions, but in practice such operations are subject to considerable political constraints. U.S. military involvement in response to cases of state failure or civil war, for instance, is far more likely than in cases of interstate conflict, especially where one of the parties is a Great Power. This is not to say that the U.S. will not contribute in other ways - through humanitarian aid or institutional capacity building - but for the U.S. government to assume law enforcement or basic security functions in Georgia would be politically risky and probably unfeasible. Contractors, of course, are not subject to these constraints and can be expected to play a more direct role.
A Middle Ground between Realpolitik and Neo-containment
I am a Russian citizen myself, and an opponent of the current Putin's regime and its policies, but more importnatly I feel myself a global citizen and therefore in my post I will try to look at the issue not only in terms of the relations between the US and Russia, but also beyond that.
To start with, I believe that the very rhetoric of "spheres of influence" and "backyards" is a thing of the past not much suitable for a 21st century world. John Elliot rightly mentioned that the current Russian leadership views the world in terms of 19th century Realpolitik, but why should the US start speaking with Russia in the same outdated language? If Realpolitik becomes the accepted language of relationship between the US and Russia, it will be a step back from even the current imperfect architecture of the international relations, where narrowly defined national interests and ambitions do not always determine policy outcomes, despite the realists' claim to the contrary. Even the collapse of the global order (similar to the one in 1914) may become a reality, as is well argued by Paul Krugman in his recent op-ed in IHT (see http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/15/opinion/edkrugman.php).
More specifically, the "spheres of influence" concession (or a bone if you will) to Russia will not make the countries in the Russian near abroad willing to bow easily to Russian pressure. It will, however, as in case with isolating Russia, threaten further dividing EU and NATO. It may also unnecessarily embolden Russia and other Realpolitik states such as China or Iran to continue or even step up irresponsible behavior in their "spheres of influence".
That said, I am also not a fan of neo-containment of Russia and other Realpolitik states, if neo-containment means some sort of isolation. First of all, as in case of playing by their rules, containing them will almost certainly fuel the Realpolitik (or even expansionist) mentality of the leadership of such states, not only through a cause-effect mechanism, but also through internal dynamics of such states. If you watch the hysteria in Kremlin controlled media in Russia these days or remember the massive outpour of Chinese nationalism in response to the Tibet criticism, you will see that the internal dimension of conflicts with the West is perhaps even more important than the external posture per se. Russian officials did not bother very much to convey their message or explain their position to the West but were very surprised when their saber-rattling aimed primarily at the Russian audience raised such an alarm in the western media. This very saber-rattling and relentless propaganda, however, have led to a sort of rally-round-the-flag effect which may have serious ramifications for any prospect of liberalization in Russia. The last thing the US would want is to strengthen the authoritarian regime in Russia by fueling the besieged fortress mentality.
The supporters of containment may argue that Russia has a stake in the current world institutional order and may be contained by a threat of exclusion from G8 or Russia-NATO Council or rejection of WTO membership. Russia is indeed interested in membership in these institutions. It also does not want to be viewed as an agressor or a bully (hence its insistence on the humanitarian nature of the military operation in Georgia).
However, the Russian stake in the international institutional order is still too limited to make Russia a responsible stakeholder exercising sufficient restraint in its actions. Thus, the urgent imperative is to think how to increase, rather than decrease that stake.
Is There a Middle Ground?
The seemingly simple conclusion that follows from the above is that the US and the West should find some middle ground between Realpolitik concessions and containment in relation to Russia which is easy only at first sight.
My short-term vision of such middle ground is that the US and its allies should not institutionally isolate Russia, at least unless Russia fails to end its military presence in Georgia outside South Ossetia proper soon.
It would be ideal if the US changed its controversial missile defense decision and relocated its missile defense systems from Poland to, say, Israel or Turkey in a sign of good will and in return for Russian cooperation on Iran and commitment to fully withdraw from Georgia.
However, the US should not concede on the issue of NATO membership for the Ukraine and Georgia which is much more important and not shadowed with controversy unlike the missile defense issue. This will deny Russia the Realpolitik clout and will perhaps make it think twice before interfering with the Georgian or Ukrainian affairs on such a scale. However, NATO membership for Georgia should not be a green light for its leadership to do whatever they want to reclaim Abkhasia and South Ossetia against their will, which NATO members should clearly articulate to the Georgian leadership.
NATO, Russia's Concerns, Rapid Reaction
Messrs. Zhukov and Elliott have done us a great service by treating an evolving conflict that reaches back far before last week with discretion and nuance.
I wonder if both commentators might care to discuss the implications of the recent phase of fighting for the future of NATO expansion. Obviously, there's no way to know anything for sure in advance. But I'd be curious as to your best guess: will the recent events motivate further expansion, or will they induce caution among existing alliance members to pause further expansion?
Another point I'd be interested in: could you parse Russia's concerns? We see lists of actions Russia interprets as "encirclement." Some seem more legitimate than others. Missile defense, for example, seems a tough sell: the Russian strategic rocket forces are losing sleep over a small number of interceptors? To be sure, the image of encirclement has always been a popular amongst Russian (and Soviet) leaders, but an analysis of their concerns would be useful.
Finally, the United States military may be called upon in the coming months to offer some form of assistance to a mission in Georgia akin to our role in East Timor. Would either of you care to comment on the advisability of the US acting as a guarantor through manning and supporting a rapid reaction force?
Less Is More: Throwing Russia a Bone
I like to analyze Russian foreign policy through a lens of cause and effect. The obvious effects are that Moscow's rhetoric has become increasingly harsh and seemingly anti-western and its military and foreign policies have become much more assertive, especially with regards to its "backyard". The causes of those effects are external, and Russia's resurgence can be attributed to previous policies put forth by the West.
Mr. Zhukov, you mentioned policies of neo-containment and their counter-productivity. I couldn't agree more. Yet, sadly it seems that neo-containment is already the current western policy. Current issues such as missile defense in the Czech Republic and Poland, the status of Kosovo, and NATO expansion to Ukraine and especially Georgia will not yield any material gains for the West, yet they are lobbied for as if they were the most pressing issues in history. Those issues from Russia's perspective, however, are interpreted as encirclement at the hands of the West and the die-hard lobbying for them enhances Russia's speculation that it is being backed into a corner.
Instead of pushing all of Russia's wrong buttons--and pushing them at the same time, what the West needs to do is concede to Russia where it can. On these non-vital issues, the West needs to escape the 'Russia is evil' mindset that still lingers on in order to develop a healthy relationship with Russia to promote cooperation to solve the real pressing issues that threaten U.S., Russian, European, and world security--things like terrorism, disease, poverty, etc.
-MPJ
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