EGF Book Review:
Published on EGF: 09.12.2010 by Andrej Kreutz Reviewed by Professor Andrej Kreutz Due to both her theoretical approach and substantial arguments, Helen Belopolski’s monograph differs greatly from many other works, which have been published on the subject of the Russian Federation’s foreign policy. The author criticized Winston Churchill’s famous statement about the unpredictability of Russia, which the British leader called “a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”. In her view, there are many keys which facilitate opening the black box of Russian foreign policy, and in fact “Russian foreign policy objectives are not dramatically different from those of other great powers” (p.183). In order to demonstrate that and to argue her thesis, Belopolsky focuses on the Russian alignment policy with the states, considered by the US and its allies as challengers. These nations are the ones which “undertake foreign policies that endeavour to alter the existing international balance of power to their advantage” (p.3). As examples of this category she includes China, Iran and Iraq in the period from 1992 to the start of 2006. This Moscow policy and its complex multifarious transformations were led by broadly understood Russian national interests. However, as the author writes, “pursuit of national interest is sometimes a catch-all for any economic interest, and sometimes intimately linked with national security” (p.175), and the role of human perception and misperception should be neither overestimated nor underestimated (ibid). In her analysis of the history of post-Soviet Moscow’s relations with China, Iran and Iraq, Belopolsky discusses four major dimensions which contributed to their development: the economic, Russian domestic security, regional, and global dimensions. Although the role of each dimension was different in each case, and in the examples of Iran and Iraq, Russian economic ministries and commercial lobbies drove relations in the initial periods, the author nevertheless put more stress on the importance of the global dimension and the Russian will to survive as a great power. As she notices: “in the challenger states, Russia has found friends which help to facilitate its survival” (p.175), and its “resistance to decline, resistance to fragility and resistance to a system of international relations in which it is a marginal, regional power” (ibid). Moscow’s relations with the challengers were a form of balancing against the American unilateral global hegemony and were intended to exhibit the still-persisting Russian great power status. The US’s international behaviour was a major factor here. The decline in Russian-American relations in the mid 1990s weakened Moscow’s reluctance to develop its relations with nations that the US considered as dubious or even rogue states. The American foreign policy decisions which followed after that, such as increasing American interventionism, NATO expansion, the abrogation of the ABM Treaty, and American desires to invade Iraq, “brought Russia and ‘challenger’ states into more proactive collusion in defying the US” (p.181). However, such an active balancing happened only when relations with Washington were experiencing significant difficulties, and often in response to the issues which Moscow viewed as particular threats to its great power status or its national interests. The author indicates Russia’s overall prevailing willingness to bandwagon and compromise with the American superpower. Even in the cases involving its prestige and great powerhood, Russia was unwilling to irreparably damage its relations with the US through its engagement with challenger states (p.182). In the Spring of 2003, President Putin’s diplomacy, though opposed to the US invasion of Iraq, was a good example of cautious behaviour, which allowed for other states such as France and Germany to take a more vocal lead on the issue. At the very end of her monograph, the author inquires about the international status of Russia and its perception in the West: whether Russia itself is or might be seen “as a challenger” (p.182). It is not the subject of her book, but she seems to doubt it, indicating that Moscow has persistently sought, through its partnership, the entrenchment of the status quo into which the new Russian state was born in 1991. However, the issue remains open to further discussions, especially in the view of the internal divisions among both American and Russian political elites. Helen Belopolsky has written a well-researched and remarkably balanced work, but the issues which she discusses and their further development would require more critical studies and constant political attention. My critical comment is that one should not put Russia’s relations with China into the same category as its relations with Iran and Iraq before the American invasion. China is in fact a great power, and in spite of all American fears and mistrust, its economic relations with the US are still booming. No American leader ever included the People’s Republic of China among the rogue states, and American military adventure against China is out of the question, at least now. In addition, Moscow’s close relations with Beijing mostly depend on their very long borders and the difficult socio-economic situation in the Russian Far East and Eastern Siberia. Only time will tell if and when the People’s Republic of China might become a real and perhaps the most powerful challenger to US global hegemony. Any form of American micro-militarism which they are now applying in Afghanistan, Iraq and some other places, would not then be sufficient. I agree with Belopolski’s opinion that Russia has been and still is reluctant to balance the American superpower, and its preferable policy is bandwagoning. President Medvedev’s present policy, his participation in the NATO summit in Lisbon, and Russian logistical support for NATO forces in Afghanistan seem to demonstrate that. The reset policy which was inaugurated by President Obama would perhaps be able to turn a new leaf in the pages of history of both nations. However, its failure and the return to power in Washington DC of forces hostile to Russia, might cause a Russian reaction to perceived systemic changes or hegemonic policies, threatening its survival – not necessarily its territorial survival – but also its ability to remain a great power. In the case of such a turn of events, Russian pro-Western liberals who now became so vocal, might lose their political influence and social credibility.
Published in 2009 by Palgrave-Macmillan, in association with St. Antony’s College, 284. pp. | External Relations | Russia, Ukraine, Belarus |
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