RUSSIA
in The National Interest
The National Interest Series
China in The National Interest
Owen Harries, editor
Russia in The National Interest
Nikolas K. Gvosdev, editor
The National Interest on International Law and Order
R. James Woolsey
Originally published in The National Interest.
Published 2004 by Transaction Publishers
Published 2017 by Routledge
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Copyright 2004 by Taylor & Francis.
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Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2003061617
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Russia in the National interest / Nikolas K. Gvosdev [editor].
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-7658-0213-9 (alk. paper)ISBN 0-7658-0564-2 (paper: alk. paper)
1. Russia (Federation)Foreign relations. 2. Russia (Federation)
Foreign relationsUnited States. 3. United StatesForeign relations
Russia (Federation) 4. Russia (Federation)Politics and government
1991- 5. International relations. 6. DemocracyRussia (Federation)
I. Gvosdev, Nikolas K., 1969- II. National interest.
DK510.764.R8535 2003
ISBN 13: 978-0-7658-0564-5 (pbk)
Contents
Nikolas K. Gvosdev
Fred Charles Ikl
Sergei Stankevich
Leon Aron, Francis Fukuyama, Jim Hoagland and Bruce D. Porter
Coral Bell
Stephen Sestanovich
Robert Legvold
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Stephen Sestanovich
Alexey K. Pushkov
Janine R. Wedel
Jeffrey D. Sachs, Anders slund, and others
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Nicholas Eberstadt
Peter Rutland
Charles Flickner
Dimitri K. Simes
William E. Odom
Martin Malia, Jack F. Matlock, Jerry F. Hough, Geoffrey Hosking, Alexey K. Pushkov, Robert Legvold, Henry Trofimenko, and William E. Odom
Laurent Murawiec and Clifford Gaddy
Nikolas K. Gvosdev
Paul J. Saunders
Introduction:
The Russian Dichotomy
Nikolas K. Gvosdev
When Ivan III adopted the double-headed eagle as his emblem following his marriage in 1472 to Sophia Paleologos, the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, little did he suspect how this strange creature would come to symbolize the clashing and often contradictory imperatives that have shaped the Russian state and Russian society over the past five centuries. Two heads, one body; the eagle can be said to look both to the past and to the future; to the West and to the East; toward the distant Atlantic Ocean and the Euro-Atlantic world (the world onto which Peter the Great desired to open a window) and out across the expanses of the Eurasian steppes.
In one of his contributions to this volume, Zbigniew Brzezinski posits two questions which affect not only Russias internal development but its relationship to the larger world: What is Russia, and where is Russia? These are important questions, ones debated in the following pages. Is Russia an advanced industrial country, or a backward country verging on Third World status? Is Russia part of the community of democracies or an authoritarian state? Is Russia one of the worlds Great Powers or a collapsed and wrecked society? Does Russias destiny lie as a member of the Euro-Atlantic community, perhaps even a junior chairman of the board, or should it be excluded from the West? Is Russia a crippled empire seeking to resurrect its sphere of influence, or the natural metropolitan power, the political and economic center for the Eurasian plain?
Befitting a country whose national symbol is a two-headed animal, the answer to the previous questions are all both yes and no. In reality, we cannot speak of Russia as a singular entity in the current world. In his groundbreaking work on social capital, economic performance and political reform, Christopher Marsh has demonstrated that there is a real diversity of experience throughout the 89 regions that make up the Russian Federation. Some areas have vibrant civil societies, accountable governments, and prosperous economies; others appear to be trapped in Brezhnev-like economic and political stagnation.
This is why aggregate national measurements and assessments do not provide the observer with the complete story. The Russian Federation may have a gross domestic product that equals that of the Netherlands (or have less foreign direct investment that Thailand)but what is more important is how and where these resources are concentrated. Thus, certain regions and sectors of Russia function at a level equivalent to what can be found in North America or Western Europe, while others may resemble the poorer countries of southern Asia or sub-Saharan Africa. The Russian military, for example, possesses special forces units and strategic rocket forces that operate at American standards, while simultaneously fielding demoralized conscript infantry battalions with poor quality equipment that have proven, among other things, unable to contain a guerilla insurgency in Chechnya. In higher education, while certain institutions provide direction and remain at the forefront on knowledge and research other institutions are destitute and backward.
All of this produces a diversity of interests. For the oil and energy conglomerates, integration with European and American markets is the goal. This has produced a business and political class with a stake in bringing the Russian Federation securely within the ramparts of the Euro-Atlantic community. On the other hand, the defense industries, who have little opportunity to export their wares to the advanced industrial democracies, sell their wares to any and all clients able and willing to payand the acquisition of advanced weapons systems by India, China, or Iran is not always to the benefit of American national interests.
What is not clear at this point is whether the more prosperous and advanced sectors of Russian society will succeed in pulling the rest of the country upward, or whether the various social crises produced by Soviet impoverishment (declining life expectancy, the rise in disease, especially AIDS, and so on) will drag the country downward. Will Russias democratic gains be consolidated and extended, or eroded and diminished, over the course of the Putin administration? Will Russias growing number of shared economic and security interests with the West firmly anchor the Russian Federation within the Euro-Atlantic community, or will Russia become a vague-defined borderland lying between the EU and China? (A related question is whether a possible trans-Atlantic rift between Europe and the United States will cause both Washington and Brussels to bid for Moscows support.)