Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 3, No. 4 | Eurasia A New World Order? page 3

Tough Neighborhood
Economics and trade were not the only challenges facing the new Eurasia. None of the new states had a lot of experience with foreign and security policy, yet they ended up in a tough neighborhood after the divorce.

Afghanistan, left to its own devices by the United States and Europe after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989; Iran, emerging from the revolution and nearly a decade-long war with Iraq; Russia, with its own rebellious North Caucasus region; as well as the civil war in Tajikistan that lasted from 1992-97, and secessionist conflicts in Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and North Ossetia—this was the security environment of the vast region that was sometimes called the “Eurasian Balkans.”

Yet, none of the countries that made up the new Eurasia had the military or the diplomatic establishments necessary to survive, let alone thrive in the tough neighborhood. Here, too, ties to Russia proved difficult to sever.

Russian military presence throughout the new Eurasia proved both unwelcome and indispensable. Absent foreign military assistance, Russia’s residual military presence in Central Asia or the Caucasus helped maintain a very unsatisfactory status quo, the alternative to which would have been quite possibly even less satisfactory. In some instances—in Abkhazia, for example—Russian military involvement became part of the problem rather than solution. However, no major power except for Russia took active interest in these conflicts.

All states of the new Eurasia took on the challenge of building their own militaries. To date, none has succeeded to the point of being able to secure its own borders. All are still looking for an outside partner to serve as the region’s security provider and manager.

The region—long referred to by students of geopolitics as the “Eurasian heartland”—is the backyard of every major power of Europe and Asia. China, India and Russia share it along with Iran, Turkey and Pakistan. Despite its critical importance for all, it is their strategic backyard, whereas their top strategic interests are concentrated elsewhere—in the Pacific, in Europe and the Persian Gulf. None has so far generated the resources or the vision to step into the void left by the Soviet collapse and assume the role of the region’s security manager and strategic partner.

Thus, by default, Russia remains the biggest actor in the new Eurasia despite the entry into this arena of a whole host of new actors, already mentioned in the preceding paragraphs and especially because of its diminished presence, which in turn is a product of its vastly diminished capabilities. Russia’s continuing role in the region is a product of geography, history, culture and economics—all enduring, systemic factors only some of which will change with time.

Russia’s Retreat
Russia’s withdrawal from what became the new Eurasia in 1991 was very much a product of Russian domestic politics. Gorbachev’s glasnost revealed fatal flaws in the Soviet system. Ethnic Russians, residing mostly, but not exclusively in the Russian Federation, which itself was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, saw themselves as victims of Soviet rule as much as any other ethnic group of the old empire. This realization of their victimhood gave rise to a powerful political concept of “little Russia,” or Russia without its empire.

Captured by the relatively unknown politician named Boris Yeltsin, this brand of Russian nationalism motivated millions of Russians to support Russia’s withdrawal from the Soviet Union. The old empire proved too costly and by withdrawing from it Russia would be able to focus its material resources and spiritual energy on the urgent task of domestic reconstruction. This idea was not new: Alexander Solzhenitsyn articulated it forcefully in his 1974 open letter to the Soviet leaders.⁷ But it took perestroika, glasnost, and Boris Yeltsin for it to become reality.

Ironically, the breakup of the Soviet Union and Russia’s retreat from the old empire almost immediately gave rise to neo-imperial thinking among Russian political elites. As early as 1992, prominent Russian politicians—Yevgeniy Ambartsumov, Andranik Migranyan, Sergei Stankevich to name just a few—articulated a vision of Russia as “something more than the Russian Federation in its current borders.” Russian interests, wrote Ambartsumov, who served then as the chairman of the Russian parliament’s foreign relations committee, know no boundaries.⁸

Russia’s withdrawal from the old empire prompted fears that the vacuum left in its wake would be filled by hostile powers or remain unfilled, creating dangerous instability in Russia’s “soft underbelly.” The United States, mulling over the prospects for NATO expansion to the East, Iran’s fundamentalists seeking new converts or Turkey bent on restoring long-lost links to the Turkic peoples of the Caucasus and Central Asia, all made worthy rivals from whom to safeguard the new Eurasia as Russia’s exclusive sphere of influence.

Russia’s withdrawal from the Soviet Union also rekindled the old debate about whether it belonged in Europe. Rejecting integration with Europe—and echoing some of the 19th century Westerner vs. Slavophile debates about joining Europe or gathering all Slavic nations and going Russia’s own special way—a group of Russian scholars and politicians have embraced the ideology of Eurasianism.

The Eurasian idea was articulated most prominently by Russian geographer and philosopher Lev Gumilyov, the son of the famous 20th century Russian poet Anna Akhmatova. A man of tragic fate persecuted during Stalin’s reign, Gumilyov, through his many writings, had laid the intellectual foundations for the argument that Russia’s interests would be best served by forging alliances with the Turkic peoples of Eurasia, rather than with Europe, which he considered in decline.

Gumilyov died in 1992, but his ideas about the pitfalls of aligning with Europe and the need to secure alliances in Asia have gained some currency in Russian political and intellectual circles. However, more often than not they have served a rather transparent utilitarian purpose of lending intellectual credibility to irredentist movements and parties, including the Communists, advocating the return of the old empire.

Throughout the 1990s, Russia could do very little to put these ideas in practice. Its economy was collapsing, its military in retreat and its foreign policy chaotic. Despite all the talk by political scientists and politicians about reconstitution of the old empire or establishment of its exclusive sphere of influence in the new Eurasia, Russia could do little to achieve those goals.

Moreover, the internal chaos of Yeltsin’s Russia in the 1990’s resulted in a policy of—not always benign, but nonetheless—neglect with respect to the new Eurasia. Russia’s foreign policy priorities in the 1990s were defined by its dire circumstances at home and the need to find external resources for domestic reconstruction. Thus, priority in Russian foreign policy was given to relations with the United States and other major powers, as well as international financial institutions where U.S. and European influence was needed to secure much-needed loans.

After six years of Vladimir Putin’s presidency and uninterrupted economic growth, the memory of the Yeltsin era is fading. Mr. Yeltsin’s successor has struck a very different policy line in the international arena, less dependent on the West, confident of Russia’s recovery and ability to chart its own course vis à vis the major powers in Europe, Asia and the United States.

One of the key aspects of President Putin’s new line has been renewed attention to the former empire. Russian tensions with Ukraine and Georgia over gas supplies, opposition to their respective Orange and Rose revolutions, as well as renewed partnership with Uzbekistan and an open challenge to continuing U.S. military presence in Central Asia, have given rise to speculations about Russia’s “return” to its neighborhood.

However, these speculations and Moscow’s new image of confidence and prosperity ignore the many systemic factors that have put an effective limit to Russia’s neo-imperial ambitions. Those factors are many and grave, and include the lack of structural reforms in its economy; underdeveloped and crumbling infrastructure; an obsolete industrial base; declining population; difficult investment climate; and last, but not least, a military institution that by all accounts lacks credible capabilities for power projection and for over a decade has not been able to restore peace in Chechnya. Moreover, the people of Russia still remember the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan. They are reminded on a daily basis of the threat of terror from Chechnya, where after two wars and thousands of casualties, peace and stability are nowhere in sight. They are unlikely to exhibit a strong appetite for new conquests in Central Asia even in the name of rebuilding the old empire.

Next page: Russia’s newly found prosperity and assertiveness in dealings with its neighbors help conceal one other fact: Russia’s neighborhood, most of which is comprised of the new Eurasia, is the only part of the world where Russia still can act as the heavy.

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⁷ Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, A Letter to the Soviet leaders, Collins: Harvill Press (1974).

⁸ Yevgeniy Ambartsumov, “Interesy Rossii Ne Znayut Granits,” (“Russian Interests Know No Boundaries”) Megapolis-Express, May 6, 1992.