Paul
Goble
Staunton, February 16 – Debates
about whether Russia is a super power or only a regional one typically begin
from the mistaken notion that it is secure as the latter, Sergey Shalin says;
but in fact, few of Russia’s neighbors view it as a hegemonic power even on the
former Soviet space let alone further afield.
The Rosbalt commentator points out
that the most widely accepted definition of “a regional power” is “a state
which dominates its region economically and militarily and is recognized or
even respected as a regional leader by its neighbors.” Russia may qualify on the first part but it
doesn’t on the second (rosbalt.ru/blogs/2017/02/14/1591927.html).
That lack is
typically ignored by those pressing for Russia to play a superpower role who
assume that it is at least a regional one and will always be so, Shelin argues.
But that means Moscow is engaging the broader world without the support it
thinks it has or did in the Soviet past.
Both the United States and Germany
are important regional powers, and the US is also a superpower, a role it can
play more easily precisely because it is recognized as such by its neighbors
who admire at least parts of its nature and seek to cooperate with it as a
result. That is not the case with Russia’s
neighbors.
For Russia to be a genuine regional
hegemon, Shelin says, Russia needs not only economic and human ties but also “recognition
or even respect” for its leading position.
Russia today inspires “fear” among many of them at a level “higher than
at any time in the last quarter century.”
“But fear and respect are different
things,” Shelin notes, and points to the various ways Russia’s neighbors have
sought protection from Moscow by joining NATO or spending more on their militaries
to be defend against a Russian attack. Even
the five non-Russian states in the Organization of the Collective Security
Treaty have “not in a single crisis situation shown themselves to be a
collection of Russian allies.”
Consider Belarus, he says, “formally
the closest and most dependent of all.” It is pursuing “an independent game and
at present has the worst relations of all time. Conflicts with Kazakhstan hare
hidden under the rug, but they are large and with the passage of time they aren’t
going to go away.”
Only Tajikistan and Armenia where
Russia has military bases and the unrecognized breakaway republics of Abkhazia,
South Osetia, Transdniestria, and DNR-LNR are “the real Russian outposts,” Shelin
says, and only because of its military power.
As far as human contacts are
concerned, they are weakening and will continue to do so. Ethnic Russians have
left Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in such numbers as to change the
ethnic balance in those countries significantly. The Russian language is being spoken by ever
fewer people, especially among the young.
Only the gastarbeiters from the
Caucasus and Central Asia represent a human link with Russia, he says. They are
“an important factor but obviously insufficient to replace the others. And
there are no others.” Nine of the 14
former Soviet republics -- Shelin counts the occupied Baltic states in this way
-- no longer are integrated with Russia economically.
Most are moving away rapidly. Even
Ukraine, thanks to Moscow’s policies, now is pursuing ties with others rather
than with Russia, something that was unthinkable as few as three years
ago. And in Central Asia, Russia is
losing out to China, something that allows elites there much greater freedom of
action.
Talk in Moscow about Russia being a
regional or a superpower is a distraction given how far both of these things
are from reality at the present time, Shelin argues. And such discussions have given rise to a
false and dangerous notion that the Kremlin must choose between the one or the
other.
In fact, he concludes, Russia “will
not escape from stagnation until it concentrates on its [all-too] real domestic
affairs” instead of running after either of these will of the wisps that it has
no hope of catching.
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