CENTRAL ASIA - CAUCASUS ANALYST

Wednesday / February 25, 2004

FACING THE RUSSIAN RHETORIC IN EURASIA

Ariel Cohen, Ph.D.

Vladimir Putin sent shivers down the spine of CIS leaders on February 12 when he declared the demise of the Soviet Union a "national tragedy on an enormous scale." The nostalgia for the collapse of the Soviet empire was genuine and not pre-election rhetoric: "The breakup of the Soviet Union is a national tragedy on an enormous scale," from which "only the elites and nationalists of the republics gained," Putin said in a nationally televised speech. Is Russia going to operationalize this nostalgia? Will a new robust policy in the CIS go beyond traditional diplomacy? What responses CIS states will pursue? And what options Washington has to counter this rhetoric?

BACKGROUND: When Secretary of State Colin Powell landed in Moscow on Monday, January 26, after attending Mikheil Saakashvili’s inauguration, he was facing an atmosphere decisively different than the Georgian celebrations. Over the last several months, Russian leaders have sent signals indicating a less cooperative stance in the CIS. Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov has called 2004 a year to reassert Russia’s position in the CIS. In a speech to the Munich Security Conference in February, Ivanov threatened to pull Russia out of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, which will increase Russian military deployment in the Caucasus. Russia deployed elements of the air force in the new base in Kant, Kyrgyzstan, and made bases in Tajikistan permanent. Russian energy monopolies such as GAZPROM and RAO UES and other Russian companies are on an acquisition spree from Lviv to Bishkek.

The brewing disagreements between Moscow and Washington over the future of the Russian military bases in Georgia and presence of U.S. military instructors there, which Powell attempted to resolve, signal what is coming. The fight for the future of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan main export pipeline and for U.S. military presence in Kyrgyzstan are other issues on the horizon.

The Russian Duma December 2003 election results clearly indicate that the mood of Russian elite is shifting. Great Power rhetoric is back in vogue. Last December, the big winners were the socialist/nationalist newcomer Rodina (Motherland) and Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democrats. Both have an aggressive agenda of “defending” Russian-speakers, “people who belong to Russian culture”, or “feel affinity to Russia” in the words of Rodina leader Dmitry Rogozin.

Russia’s neighbors no longer write off imperialist statements as an election ploy. Implications are ominous for Northern Kazakhstan, Eastern Ukraine, Georgia, and even Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. “Putin’s speech was a clear and unambiguous signal to all of us,” a senior Kazakhstani leader told the author. In particular, Rogozin’s message of nationalization at home and nationalism abroad, high taxes, protection of co-ethnics, and Russian tanks rolling through Lithuania to ensure an extra-territorial corridor to Kaliningrad, caused consternation in many capitals in the region. Such foreign adventures would cost a fortune, and are a prescription for derailing Putin's goal of doubling GDP by 2010.

Zhirinovsky doubled his vote to 11.6 percent with slogans such as “We are for (ethnic) Russians, we are for the poor”. Before the elections he declared that Chechnya should be a taboo in the media. Instead, he suggested leaving it to the secret police and using death squads to kill off entire Chechen villages. He called for establishing a monarchy but would settle for an elected czar – President Putin.

Three parties represented in the Duma, the communists, LDPR and Rodina, have positions which are more nationalist than the official line of the Putin administration. However, the two liberal parties: Yabloko and Union of Right Forces were wiped out in the elections, and will not provide a political balance to the hard-liners.

Russian observers such as Dmitry Oreshkin of the Merkator Group, Alexei Makarkin of the Centre for Political Technologies, and Vyacheslav Igrunov, former deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee for CIS Affairs have expressed a mixture of support and anxiety about this nationalist tide. According to Nezavisimaya Gazeta, they consider Russian policy expensive and inefficient. Moscow keeps ignoring the former republics’ orientation towards Europe and the United States and their greater involvement in NATO and the EU. “Russia today is pursuing an inflexible policy in the post-Soviet area and this is partially destroying the fruits of what has been done. If this continues in the future, Russia will lose its position,” Igrunov said.

IMPLICATIONS: Putin’s changing rhetoric, supported by a cackle of politicians and experts, is caused by the deep unease in the Russian politico-military elite with the growing U.S. presence in Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. However, U.S. deployment in that part of the world is not directed against Russia, but is rather a result of a changing global footprint in the war on terrorism.

Access to Afghanistan and preemption of the rise of militant Islam in Ferghana Valley is more important today than a tank division in the Fulda Gap. This is something the Pentagon needs to make clear to Moscow. Sergey Ivanov said in Munich that he is willing to expand military-to-military contacts with NATO. U.S. should take him at his word. Putin does not need neo-imperialist rhetoric to consolidate his already firm grip on power or to placate the siloviki. This deeply felt sentiment may become particularly dangerous as the U.S. is preoccupied with the conflict in Iraq and November 2004 Presidential elections. The possibility of rush Russian moves in the Caucasus and Central Asia between now and January 2005 is growing.

Russia also enjoys a massive budgetary surplus of over $70 billion, with oil prices showing no signs of declining. Politicians everywhere, but especially in oil-producing countries with weak parliamentary and civil society controls, tend to use excess funds for their favorite geopolitical and military undertakings.

The Washington policy makers in the State Department, the Pentagon and National Security Council, however, are deeply apprehensive of the specter of Russian hegemony in its former imperial domain. They are likely to stand up to Russian neo-imperialist rhetoric while attempting to maintain reasonably good U.S.-Russian relations. Russia is likely to keep in mind that its relations with Europe have soured over the EU objections to the Russian membership in WTO. Putin is exasperated with many European positions, thus risking Russia’s isolation.

CONCLUSIONS: The swing away from democracy and towards authoritarian political controls also aggravates U.S.-Russian relations. Many among champions of exporting democracy in Washington believe that the Georgian revolution may be a model to dissolve dictatorships in other parts of the former Soviet empire, where the surge of freedom, started in 1989 with the collapse of the Berlin wall, has not been completed. NSC and the State Department, including Secretary Powell, however, grapple with the fact that democratization in the CIS is only a part of the equation. There are other important U.S. strategic priorities on the agenda, such as keeping Russia in the coalition against global terrorism, and assuring access to Central Asian military bases and to energy resources of Eurasia.

The Bush Administration is likely to face a more assertive Russian policy in the Caucasus and Central Asia. An U.S.-Russian friction, such as the one over Georgia, may become a major irritant in U.S.-Russian relations, which have improved after 9/11. Putin’s good judgment and U.S. resolve will make the difference between progress and failure in the U.S.-Russian relations.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., Research Fellow, Russian and Eurasian Studies, at the Heritage Foundation and the author of Russian Imperialism: Development and Crisis (Praeger 1998). He attended the Munich Security Conference and was Duma election observer with Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the International Republican Institute.

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