Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 52, no. 1, February–March 2010, pp. 55–74
Order a copy of the issue here
<First 500 words>
‘At all times the survival of the empire and the maintenance of its territorial integrity were the paramount priorities for Russia’s rulers, before which national, religious, economic and other priorities invariably yielded.’ So wrote British historian Geoffrey Hosking in his history of the Russian Empire. These priorities remain paramount for Russia’s leaders today. During a trip to the Russian Far East in 2008, President Dmitry Medvedev warned that Russia could ‘in the end lose everything’ quite unexpectedly in the region, pointing to the collapse of the Soviet Union as a cautionary tale. Several years earlier, then President Vladimir Putin voiced similar concerns on a trip to the same region. The Russian Far East has not been the only source of anxiety, however. Putin relaunched a brutal war against separatism and terrorism in Chechnya, which he saw as a grave threat to Russia. Despite official claims of having successfully dealt with Chechnya, escalating violence in the North Caucasus today (particularly in two of Chechnya’s immediate neighbours, Ingushetia and Dagestan) is clear evidence of a continuing threat.
That Russian leaders fear for the survival and territorial integrity of their country must sound odd to most Westerners, fed a steady diet of warnings about Russian neo-imperialism, particularly after the 2008 war against Georgia and Moscow’s subsequent recognition of two breakaway regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as independent states. This fear also sits uneasily with Russian leaders’ claims that Russia is ‘rising from its knees’ and regaining its rightful role as a great power on the world stage after the deep socio-economic crisis and national humiliation of the 1990s. Yet the fear is real. Why?
The weight of geography and history
At one level, Moscow’s fear is a product of Russia’s geopolitical setting, political structure and historical experience, all of which have shaped its strategic culture.
Geopolitical imperatives
Today’s Russia emerged over the centuries out of Muscovy, a princedom originally situated in the northwest corner of the vast Eurasian plain, a region with few natural barriers. In the earliest period of Russian history, Russian lands were repeatedly attacked by nomads storming in from the east across the steppes. The most consequential attack was the invasion of the Mongol hordes in the thirteenth century, which subjugated most Russian lands, including Muscovy, for two centuries. This threat from nomadic tribes was to remain well into the modern era. As late as 1571, the Crimean Tatars sacked Moscow, and raids continued to plague southern Russia until the end of the eighteenth century, when Russia finally drove the Crimean Tatars and Turks out and asserted full control over the northern littoral of the Black Sea.
At the same time, when Muscovy was strong, this geographic setting allowed for swift advance. After Ivan IV defeated the Mongol Golden Horde in the mid sixteenth century, Russian traders and adventurers moved quickly across Siberia, reaching the Pacific Ocean less than a century later. The army followed, easily overwhelming technologically inferior and poorly organised tribes and claiming the territory for the tsar…
Get full article here
Thomas Graham was Senior Director for Russia on the US National Security Council staff 2004–07.
Related articles
Russia’s Choice by Sergei Karaganov (February–March 2010)
Answering Medvedev by Gilles Andréani (Feburary–March 2010)
The Unravelling of the Cold War Settlement by Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry (December 2009–January 2010)
Mr Obama Goes to Moscow by Oksana Antonenko(October–November 2009)
Rebooting NATO–Russia Relations by Oksana Antonenko and Bastian Giegerich (April–May 2009)
Russia and the West by Eugene Rumer and Angela Stent (April–May 2009)
Misreading Russia by Rodric Braithwaite (August–September 2008)
China, Japan and the Scramble for Siberia by Lyle Goldstein and Vitaly Kozyrev (Spring 2006)
America, Russia and Europe: A Realignment? by Angela Stent and Lilia Shevtsova (Winter 2002–03)
