aaus-list @ ukrainianstudies.org -- [aaus-list] Post-Weimar Russia

[ajmotyl@andromeda.rutgers.edu]

From: International Politik, autumn 2007
http://en.internationalepolitik.de/archiv/2007/autumn2007/post-weimar-russia.html


Russia
Post-Weimar Russia
Article by Alexander Motyl

Russia’s combination of state weakness and growing foreign policy
assertiveness is a recipe for overreach and internal destabilization. And
it is Europe that will bear primary responsibility for dealing with the
instability—a challenge for which the European Union is unprepared.

Why has Russia become aggressive and so obviously nationalistic under
Vladimir Putin? Why have its domestic politics become continually more
authoritarian and its foreign policies increasingly anti-Western? One
commonly heard answer places the onus of this change on Putin himself, a
man with a questionable past as an agent of the state security apparatus
and a determination to make Russia powerful again. Another answer
emphasizes the compatibility between Putin’s ambitions and the
psychological needs of the Russians, a vast majority of whom support him.
A third focuses on the belief among Russians that their country has been
repeatedly humiliated by the West. While these interpretations are all
partially correct, they capture only one dimension of the reality of
contemporary Russia.

Contemporary Russia has acquired assertive, nationalist, and authoritarian
characteristics as a result of the Soviet Union’s collapse and its effects
on the Russian economy, politics, and identity. If Russia’s assertive
behavior in foreign relations and troubling domestic characteristics are
products of historical and deep-seated trends, it follows that Russia’s
current trajectory was not precipitated by Putin’s arrival and will not
change with his possible departure in 2008. Although an authoritarian,
nationalistic, and assertive Russia is probably here to stay, it will not
succeed in establishing hegemony in the post-Soviet political space.
Instead, Russia will become increasingly unstable and its neighbors
increasingly anti-Russian.

Russia and Weimar Germany
Between 1993 and 1994 the image of a “Weimar Russia” first appeared. It
was provoked by Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s sudden rise to prominence and the
distressingly large resonance that his openly chauvinistic and revanchist
views found among elements of the Russian public. The Zhirinovsky
phenomenon eventually faded from popular attention, as he and his party
marginalized themselves with their predictably extremist rhetoric.
Attention then shifted toward President Boris Yeltsin’s attempts to meet
the communist challenge and keep Russia together. Unfortunately, recent
developments suggest that it may be time to speak of a far more worrisome
phenomenon—a post-Weimar Russia.

Contemporary Russia is remarkably—and disturbingly—similar to post-World
War I Germany. Both countries were the products of sudden, rapid, and
comprehensive imperial collapse and subsequent regime change that produced
severe economic hardship and widespread political chaos. The populations
of both former empires felt humiliated and their imperial identities were
battered. Weimar Germany and post-Soviet Russia have reacted to the
shrinkage of national borders and a loss of power by blaming their
enemies, former colonies, or supposedly disloyal domestic minorities. Both
fledgling democracies championed their “abandoned brethren” in neighboring
states and transformed the diaspora into a source of permanent tension.

Unsurprisingly, democracy failed in Weimar Germany and has been unable to
find real roots in contemporary Russia, where the very notion of
democratic governance has come to be associated with failure. After the
democratic let-down, Russia turned to nationalist, chauvinist, and
neo-imperialist rhetoric, while embracing charismatic rulers who promised
to reestablish national glory, rebuild state power, and command
international respect. The democratically elected rulers of Weimar Germany
and Russia promptly established authoritarian systems—to the applause of
the majority of their populations. In both countries, the state imposed
Gleichschaltung (coordination) on civil society and the media,
increasingly meddled in the economy, encouraged leader cults and youth
movements, and depended inordinately on the secret police and other forces
of coercion.

Fortunately, the similarities end there. Unlike Adolf Hitler’s Germany,
Vladimir Putin’s Russia will not embark upon extensive military
engagements because it is—despite all the Kremlin’s assertions to the
contrary—a dreadfully weak state with a largely dysfunctional economy.
Like Hitler’s Germany, however, Putin’s Russia is engaging in
nationalistic posturing that terrifies its neighbors and that will, in
time, force them into reactive postures. Worse, the combination of
great-power assertiveness and fundamental weakness will lead to the
extension of Russia’s commitments and ambitions far beyond its capacities.
This will enhance the fragility of the Russia state, strain the economy,
and destabilize the country internally.

Economic and Political Dysfunction
When it collapsed, Germany was an empire in ascendance and, despite the
effects of World War I, the Reich bequeathed substantial state power to
interwar Germany. Today’s Russia shares none of interwar Germany’s
strengths.

Russia’s state apparatus remains weak, its economy is decrepit and would
look underdeveloped were it not for Russia’s vast energy resources. The
military is also in dire need of reform. To be sure, Putin is far stronger
as a president than his predecessor. He has amassed power, emasculated the
opposition, packed the political elite with members of the security
services and military (the siloviki), reined in the oligarchs, eviscerated
civil society, and imposed substantial controls over the media. And yet
the state apparatus itself remains weak and disorganized despite Putin’s
strong-arm tactics. Elites are at loggerheads, the siloviki form a state
within the state, ministries promote their own interests and fight over
budgetary outlays, and coordination and cooperation in the pursuit of
policy ends is minimal. The formal subordination of the regions and
governors to the “super-governors” and the center, for instance, by no
means signifies that they really are beholden to Moscow’s wishes. On the
contrary, the regions are as avidly pursuing their interests today as they
did in the past, but they are doing so less visibly and less vocally.
Finally, in obvious contrast to interwar Germany, Russia’s bureaucracy is
bloated, inefficient, and deeply corrupt.

The condition of Russia’s military is not much better than that of the
central government. Most Russian troops are poorly-trained and demoralized
draftees. Russia’s weaponry is outdated, and massive increases in the
defense budget will be required to bring it up to passable standards. To
be sure, Russia still has a vast nuclear arsenal, but this can do little
to address the most important problems associated with terrorism, Islamic
radicalism, and failing states. Nor can it be translated into political
influence in Russia’s regional sphere of influence. The still unresolved
conflict in Chechnya, where Russian forces face a significantly smaller
opposition, is testimony to Russia’s military weakness.

Although Russia’s economy has in fact rebounded since 1999-2000, it has
become distressingly dependent on the resources generated by the energy
sector. Energy production accounts for about one quarter of industrial
output, and oil and gas sales provide over half of export earnings.
Gazprom, the state-controlled gas monopoly, has become an extension of the
Russian state and actively pursues Russian foreign policy goals. Equally
worrisome is the purchase of controlling shares in a variety of strategic
sectors by the Russia state, bespeaking a progressive rapprochement
between the corrupt and authoritarian state and the energy-dependent
economy.

These trends illustrate Russia’s transformation into a “petro-state”—a
state that experiences a marriage between the central government and the
energy sector, organizes its political, economic, and social relations
around energy extraction, and suffers from long-term economic and
political distortions as a result. The easy money generated by oil and gas
sales produces bloated state employment rolls, promotes rampant
corruption, and corrodes public accountability and basic democratic
standards. And these trends in turn weaken the ability of the state and
the economy to perform basic functions.

Overreach and Destabilization
In light of Russia’s fundamental weaknesses, Putin’s assertive foreign
policies are indicative of the degree to which Russia is—to paraphrase US
President Theodore Roosevelt—“speaking loudly and carrying a small stick.”
The turn toward great-power posturing may be popular domestically, but it
is also Putin’s biggest mistake. Many Russians are angry at the loss of
empire and feel humiliated by their demotion to the status of a “third
world country with the bomb.” Putin has purposefully and effectively
played the nationalist card and revived a variety of symbols associated
with Russia and the USSR’s glorious past. He has also appropriated a
“tough guy” rhetoric, both at home and abroad, which radiates
self-confidence and promises greatness. To this end, he has acted
vigorously in defense of the nation and the state, especially in Chechnya,
where the war has become an uncompromising fight to the finish. Small
wonder that his popularity ratings remain extremely high.

The combination of continued state weakness and growing foreign policy
assertiveness is a recipe for overreach and disaster. The more aggressive
Russia becomes in the foreign policy realm, the more it becomes consumed
with maintaining an image of greatness that it does not have the
capabilities to live up to, and the greater becomes the likelihood of
systemic breakdown. Weak states that embark on assertive foreign policy
campaigns are doomed to failure. Weak authoritarian states whose leaders
play the neo-imperialist card as a means of sustaining their own
legitimacy are especially prone to commit foreign policy blunders,
destabilize their neighborhoods, and provoke a political or economic
backlash from other states. By the time the accumulated consequences of
overreach become manifest, it will be too late for an easy way out.
Russia’s leadership will be discredited, its resources strained, its state
apparatus will suffer further decay, and opposition tendencies will
increase.

Overreach would not just destabilize Russia. It could also easily
destabilize many of Russia’s fragile neighbors, and their destabilization
could fuel a cycle of further disintegrative processes in Russia. Georgia,
for instance, may be on the verge of losing South Ossetia and Abkhazia,
and if it does the resultant turmoil will inflame the entire North
Caucasus. Such turmoil could also have potential repercussions for many of
Russia’s non-Russian provinces, such as Tatarstan, Bashkiria, and Yakutia,
which resent Moscow’s rule and might conclude that Moscow’s cynical
endorsement of the right of national provinces to self-determination also
extends to them.

But overreach will also induce Russia’s neighbors to resist the Kremlin’s
real or perceived encroachments on their sovereignty, and thus to adopt
anti-Russian rhetoric and policies. Most of them have, since 1991, pursued
“multi-vector” foreign policies that emphasize good relations with Russia,
the West, and other states. But when faced with a seemingly hostile
Russia, neighboring states will have no choice but to respond with their
own intensified defense of national interests and sovereignty and hence
with the progressive abandonment of multi-vectorism.

All of Russia’s neighbors are chafing under Gazprom’s monopolist
aspirations and are therefore seeking energy alternatives. Kazakhstan is
actively courting the West and China. Ukraine, even under the supposedly
pro-Russian government of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, remains
committed to good relations with Europe and the United States and to
membership in the World Trade Organization. Gazprom’s thuggish behavior
has even succeeded in transforming Alyaksandr Lukashenko, the passionately
pro-Russian president of Belarus, into an ardent defender of Belarusian
sovereignty and a critic of the Kremlin. Most recently, the Kremlin’s
apparent initiation of a coordinated “internet war” against Estonia
succeeded only in terrifying the Baltic states, Poland, and their
neighbors in Scandinavia.

Europe’s Responsibility
Russia’s great-power posturing could not come at a worse time for Europe.
The United States is on the verge of suffering strategic defeat in Iraq
and one consequence of that will be, as in the aftermath of the Vietnam
debacle, a “syndrome” that eschews foreign policy entanglements in distant
regions of little interest to American voters. Although the United States
will remain engaged with Russia and its neighbors—America’s energy needs
and concerns about terror will ensure that—the post-Soviet space is likely
to become Europe’s “backyard” and primary responsibility.

How should Europe respond to the instability that a post-Weimar Russia is
likely to create? First, Europe should not encourage Russian
assertiveness, and, second, it should attempt to enhance the security of
Russia’s increasingly nervous neighbors. Neither of these goals requires
the use of hard military power; both require the astute use of diplomacy
and the ability to persuade others to share one’s goals—or “soft power.”
Unfortunately, Europe appears to be utterly unprepared for this task.

At first glance, discouraging Russian assertiveness appears to be simple,
since it only requires refraining from certain kinds of rhetoric and
behavior. Yet Europe’s leaders have not risen to this modest challenge.
There was no practical or logical reason for the then German Chancellor
Gerhard Schröder to call Putin a “true democrat” at the height of
Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in late 2004, when the threat of Russian
intervention in Ukraine’s popular uprising seemed all too real. Indeed,
Schröder’s statement may even be read as tacit endorsement of Russian
assertiveness; after all, if Putin’s ham-handed response to a democratic
movement in Ukraine does not preclude his being a democrat, then any
Russian intervention in the affairs of its neighboring states must, by the
same logic, be justifiable.

Even more lamentable was France’s decision on October 23, 2006, to confer
the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor on Putin. Not only did this move
implicitly whitewash the criminal organization from which he sprang, the
KGB, it also implied that Putin’s great-power aspirations in the near
abroad were not at odds with France’s interests.

Enhancing the security of Russia’s increasingly nervous neighbors can be
done militarily, economically, and/or diplomatically. Naturally, Europe is
in no position to guarantee these states’ security militarily. EU
institutions and European investors do contribute to these countries’
economies, but financial assistance and investment do not address
perceptions of threat. The only way Europe can effectively begin to
address the security concerns of Russia’s neighbors is by offering them
the remote prospect of some form of membership in the European Union. That
form of soft power worked in transforming the Central and Eastern European
states and, most importantly, in alleviating many of their Russian
phobias.

But the European Union’s famed soft power can only work under three
conditions. First, the European Union must actually want to attain the
goal it professes to offer. The current crisis in Europe’s relations with
Turkey underscores the danger in promising too much, too quickly: Turkey
wants to join the European Union but the current member states are not so
sure that they really want Turkey to join. Second, the European Union must
actually want other countries to share its goals. The European Union’s
inability to deal with Ukraine’s enthusiastic march toward accession
revealed that Brussels might actually be relieved if Ukraine abandoned
those aspirations. And third, the European Union must not be susceptible
to the hard power maneuverings of the target state or group of states. As
Russo-European relations reveal, moral suasion has little effect on
Moscow’s determination to engage in strong-arm tactics and energy
blackmail.

The European Union’s behavior in these and other instances easily, and not
unjustifiably, provokes charges of bad faith. Such accusations should be
especially worrisome to Brussels because soft power, like hard power, can
work if and only if its application is credible. Just as Russia’s
blustering masks weakness, so too Europe’s professions of human rights and
democracy begin to sound hollow if the European Union does not actually
pursue them or does not encourage others to pursue them. Europe’s
espousals of “European values” sound especially perverse in the face of
Europeans’ economically motivated and geopolitically understandable desire
to guarantee stable supplies of energy from Russia.

Neither of Europe’s responses to this issue—encouraging Russian
assertiveness and ignoring the security concerns of Russia’s
neighbors—coincides with European values or Europe’s long-term
geopolitical interests. On the contrary, they directly contravene European
values and promote the very great-power tendencies in Russia that will,
over time, increasingly destabilize the country, its neighbors, and
arguably much of Western Europe as well.

The Problem of Germany
Why, then, is Europe acting to undermine its own interests? Although
“enlargement fatigue,” ineffective institutional governance, economic
decline, globalization, and many other factors provide part of the answer,
the single most important factor is Germany. Berlin sets the tone for the
European Union when it comes to Russia and its neighbors. Germany is “old
Europe’s” largest and easternmost neighbor; thus Germany’s interests are
most immediately affected by changes in Eastern Europe.

Historically, Germany has had extensive relations with Eastern Europe and
Russia and for this reason, can claim to possess a certain expertise. This
includes a heavy emphasis on Russia in its foreign policy—to the detriment
of both countries’ neighbors. In addition, Germany has extensive economic
relations with the entire post-Soviet bloc and, since reunification, has
played a leading diplomatic role in the resolution of conflicts in that
region.

The twentieth century witnessed important instances of Germany sacrificing
the interests of other Eastern European states, especially Poland and
Ukraine, in order to forge closer ties to an authoritarian Russia. The
Schröder-Putin pipeline deal of late 2005 fits this pattern. By building a
pipeline from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea, the planned
consortium will benefit Germany while increasing Russia’s already
considerable leverage over Poland and Ukraine, through which most of
Gazprom’s pipelines to Europe currently run.This vision of Germany’s
interests is unabashedly geopolitical, asserting the primacy of hard-power
interests over soft-power values and privileging states that best serve
one’s immediate hard-power interests. Such zero-sum thinking invariably
gives pride of place to short-term gains over long-term relationships.

Although Germany may claim today that it no longer thinks in these terms,
the reality of its behavior suggests otherwise. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s
support of Schröder’s pipeline deal signaled a profoundly disturbing
reassertion of traditional German geopolitical interests and had several
unsettling implications. First, Merkel’s affirmation of Schröder’s deal
shows that Germany’s turn toward Russia was not an ethical aberration of
the Schröder era, but a change in Germany’s political culture. Since the
end of the Cold War and reunification, German elites have begun to turn
their backs on the moral authority they won after World War II by
confronting Germany’s Nazi past and attempting to atone for crimes
perpetuated during the war. A Germany truly wedded to European values
would never forget that its twentieth-century misadventures had
devastating consequences for the peoples of Eastern Europe—especially
Poland and Ukraine.

Second, Merkel’s endorsement of the pipeline deal threatens to undermine
the European Union, already weakened by the rejection in 2005 of the
European Constitution by France and the Netherlands. Russia is not, and
does not want to be, a member of the European Union. Poland, however, is a
member and Ukraine desperately wants to be. How can European solidarity
increase after Schröder and Merkel effectively declared that European
Union affiliation matters less to Germany than profitable relations with
an authoritarian non-member?

Third, Schröder and Merkel’s geopolitics will discourage reform in Eastern
Europe. Berlin must know that Russo-Ukrainian and Russo-Polish amity is
the precondition for successful internal reform in Russia, Poland, and
Ukraine. By promoting Russian hegemony toward Poland and Ukraine and by
indirectly encouraging Gazprom to continue squeezing Ukraine, Berlin is
promoting isolation, nervousness, and possibly even desperation in Warsaw
and Kiev, which will incline them to hyper-nationalism externally and not
reform internally.

The irony is that Germany’s own interests are least well served by
Schröder and Merkels’s Ostpolitik. It is hard to see just how Germany will
benefit from a weaker Poland, a beleaguered Ukraine, a stronger
authoritarian Russia, a debilitated European Union, and international
doubts about its own commitment to democracy. Germany must therefore make
a choice: whether to act according to European values and a commitment to
the long-term implications of using soft power in its relations with
Russia and its neighbors, or according to hard-nosed calculations of
short-term geopolitical interests. In other words, Germany must decide
whether it will act first and foremost as a member of the European Union
or as a great power with geopolitical ambitions of its own. Germany’s
choice will determine nothing less than the future of all of Europe.

Alexander Motyl

 PROF. DR. ALEXANDER J. MOTYL, geb. 1953, ist Professor für Politische
Wissenschaft an der Rutgers University, Newark.

ALEXANDER J. MOTYL is professor of political science at Rutgers
University, Newark.