Berman Ilan. - Implosion: the end of Russia and what it means for America

THE END OF RUSSIA AND
WHAT IT MEANS FOR AMERICA

ILAN BERMAN

Copyright 2013 by Ilan Berman

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First ebook edition 2013

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CONTENTS

Credit: Library of Congress

I lan Bermans Implosion: The End of Russia and What It Means for America is a very important addition to current efforts to think strategically about America and the world.

In the tradition of Herman Pirchner and the American Foreign Policy Council, it looks at Russia and not merely at its president, Vladimir Putin. The combination of his personality, the disciplined ruthlessness of his KGB background, and the temporary advantage of the energy resources in providing a windfall to the Russian state have enabled Putin to occupy a larger space in international relations than the strategic position of Russia would justify.

In many ways we are all still affected by the scale of the Soviet Empire, its toughness in playing the major role in defeating Nazi Germany despite enormous casualties, and its ability to mobilize 20 percent of the economy to build a military machine out of all proportion to its long term capacity (and, one could argue, ultimately bankrupting the country, as had been suggested would happen in 1950 in National Security Council Report 68).

Russias relative influence is also helped by its continued possession of one of the worlds two largest nuclear arsenals, its relatively modern arms industry, and the sheer geographic expanse of the country. When you look at a map, you instinctively assume a country that big has to count for something.

Finally, Russia still benefits from being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. It inevitably, and at virtually no cost to Moscow, is at the center of the dialogue in international negotiations simply by the historic achievement of having been there at the creation, to borrow Dean Achesons term.

The question Ilan Berman puts on the table is whether Russia is a declining power more like the two weaker permanent members of the Security Council (France and Britain) than a true peer of the United States and China.

There are three great advantages to this incisive study.

First, Berman gets one thinking strategically. Not about this weeks posturing in Syria or next weeks press event of Putin posing shirtless next to a dead tiger, but rather thinking beyond Putin about the underlying strategic strengths and weaknesses of the current Russian system.

Second, Berman looks to the roots of any nations long-term power capabilities and examines demography and comparative development. Experts have been warning ever since the collapse of the Soviet Empire that Russia is in a deep demographic crisis. Berman walks the reader through the details, and they are very convincing. Alcoholism, abortion, suicide, and emigration are all combining to shrink the Russian ethnic population. At the same time, the Muslim population of Russia is growing. Muslim Russians dont drink, dont commit suicide, dont have abortions, have many children, and have a much more optimistic view of the future than their ethnic Russian counterparts. As Berman notes, Putins successors are simply going to have fewer people with a much more difficult ethnic mix to deal with. Russia beyond Putin will inherently be a smaller player on the world stage because it will no longer have the population to be a major one.

This population imbalance will play itself out in two different directions. Internally, the tensions between Muslim and non-Muslim Russians will almost inevitably exacerbate as the energy and youth of the former crowds the aging, declining Russian Christian population. Bermans recounting of the number of mosques being built in Russia today is in itself a convincing insight into the tensions of the future. Externally, the surging Chinese population will almost inevitably lead to massive Chinese involvement in Asiatic Russia where the Russian population is declining. (A side effect of the end of the Soviet totalitarian system is that a lot of people who were compelled to live in bleak, cold areas are now moving to warmer, more modern areasand the people in those nicer areas are moving out of Russia to Europe and the United States).

Third, Bermans last decade has been spent studying radical Islam and its terrorist component and he brings that expertise to bear on Russias internal problems. It isnt just that there will be relatively more Muslims in Russia. The odds are very high that a larger and larger portion of the Muslim population will be attracted to and indoctrinated in a more extreme and more violent aspect of Islam. Because of his unique RussianMiddle Eastern dual specialties, Berman is able to bring together factors many analysts miss.

The primary Russian internal threat is from the radical wing of Sunni Islam. In effect, it is a variant on Wahhabism. This threat is exacerbated by the Russian alliance with the dictatorships in Iran and Syria. Both Russian allies are in the Shia camp at a time when the Shia-Sunni split may be more bitter and trending toward more violence than any period in recent history. In effect, the Russians may find themselves on the wrong side of an Islamic civil war and that may intensify the efforts outsiders put into radicalizing and militarizing Russias own domestic Muslim population.

Berman weaves these patterns together with the corruption of the current regime and its impact on capital and foreign investment fleeing the country. The gap between the authoritarian, criminally penetrated, decaying Russia and the Russia that might have evolved is tragic and has consequences both for individual Russians and for American policy.

I remember visiting the collapsing Soviet Union and early post-Soviet Russia in the early 1990s. Again and again everyday people would say to us, we just want to become a normal country. By that they meant a country with the rule of law, opportunity for everyday folks, and a chance to do better economically over time.