Vladimir The Bare Chested has repeatedly played the nationalist card with both supreme skill and a very heavy hand. It was the nationalist card which brought him to prominence and has kept him there as the latest incarnation of the "Good Czar." Mr Putin well understands the fundamental nature of the Russian collective mind. Its feelings of chronic inferiority vis a vis the West. Its need to believe that Russia is great, powerful, and respected.
Putin knows the heart, mind, and soul of Russia as can be seen by the carefully staged and posed political photos taken a couple of months ago. His skill as a Russian politician can also be seen concretely in the strongly nationalistic posture taken over the past several years with respect to what the Russians have consistently referred to as the "near abroad."
It was this focus on Russia's privileges and special interests in the "near abroad" which resulted in the ongoing contretemps concerning the missile defense system proposed by the US for installation in Poland and the Czech Republic. While the Russians continually maintained that the limited ABM system constituted a clear threat to its security by eroding its strategic missile capacity and thus its deterrent effect, no one really, really believed this either in the Kremlin or in Washington. The ABM system was credibly directed against Iran, and the Kremlin darn well knew that.
To Putin and Company the value--and the threat--of the proposed system was its status as an emblem of US involvement in and protection of elements of the "near abroad." The implementation of the system meant to the Russians that their special position in relation to both the countries of the former Warsaw Pact and the new nations carved out of the carcass of the old Soviet Union such as the Ukraine and Georgia was being eroded, perhaps fatally.
The decision by the Obama administration to replace the land based missiles and fire control radars with ship borne and mobile systems may well be fully justifiable on sound technological grounds. The replacement of the Bush era concept by the new one may be the better military choice at least in the near- to mid-term. Certainly SecDef Gates, who is not noted for his capacity to play the role of political tool, thinks so.
Outside of purely military and technological considerations, it may be argued that the Obama administration's decision is not the best. It may, for example, be asserted that the seeming genuflection to the desires and fears of the Kremlin will result in the Russians becoming even more assertive regarding their presumed "rights" in the "near abroad." The apparent capitulation by the Obama administration may serve to erode the pro-Western orientation of the shaky governments of the Ukraine and Georgia. It might undercut the confidence in the US and the EU in the Baltic States, which are inconveniently close to the ambitious Bear.
On the other hand it might be asserted, as it has been by Obama supporters such as Nancy Pelosi, that this gesture will result in greater Russian cooperation as regards Iran. This is a comforting notion with a reality akin to whistling in the graveyard at midnight on Halloween.
Today, in the immediate wake of the Obama administration's abandonment of the ABM system, the Russian ForMin reversed the hint given yesterday by President Medvedev. The Foreign Minister stated categorically that any new, tougher sanctions would prevent a solution to the Iranian question evolving through diplomatic engagement. Once again the Russian leadership is giving the impression of a right and left hand disconnect. The dichotomous statements of president and foreign minister also implies a Putin-Medvedev split, the seriousness of which cannot be judged but might well be growing given Vladimir's hints at running for president again in 2012.
Russia wants and needs to be treated as a Great Power. From the perspective of the Kremlin--and most Russians on the street--their country has the prerequisites of Great Power status including rich reserves of oil, an army in the first steps of long overdue modernization, and, of course, a nuclear capacity of sizable nature. To a Great Power of a continental nature as Russia always has been, and particularly a continental power without natural borders, the control of adjacent territory as a glacis against invasion has always been paramount.
Russia's history demands a glacis. It is a continental power. It does not have natural feature defined borders. It has a long record of having been invaded. From the Russian perspective, these realities coupled with its Great Power status give full justification for its demands of special "rights" in the "near abroad."
The US is and always has been a maritime power. Our experience has been one of force projection by sea. Our borders have, in the main, been secured by the combination of sea and fleet. Thus we are rather bemused, uncomprehending even, when faced by the Russian demands and the fears behind them. It is a difference in historical experience which assures that now in the "Chilly War" as back in the Cold War the two governments have talked past each other most of the time.
What makes the effect of the Obama administration policy change on the Central European based ABM system on Russia difficult to assess at the moment is the instability within Russia itself. Russia's leadership is caught in a very real conundrum.
On the one hand it is very, very hard to represent Russia as a genuine Great Power when it is faced with a festering and rapidly recrudescent insurgency in the North Caucasus. On the other hand it is the existence of the insurgency and the Kremlin's fumbling attempts to counter it which demand an assertion of external power for purposes of regime maintenance.
The North Caucasus insurgency makes the Russian Bear both more temperamental and touchy in its external assertions. When coupled with the ongoing and severe economic conditions in Russia, which have been exacerbated by the fall in global oil consumption and thus prices, the temptation to the men in the Kremlin to become more extreme in their foreign affairs will be very hard to resist.
Given the way in which past American administrations have been unable to properly couple the internal and external affairs of the Russian government, it seems likely that the Obama administration's recent decision has likewise been blind to the dilemma facing Russia. To the Kremlin's need to show potency in the face of the insurgency one way or another and thus meet the Russian collective need to believe in their country as a great one, a world leader, feared and respected around the world.
Every decision made in the Kremlin is powerfully conditioned by the Russian history as a continental power without clear natural borders of long existence and with a record of having been invaded repeatedly. It is also conditioned by the long standing Russian feeling of general inferiority to the West. Similarly, decisions in the Kremlin of late have been influenced to a great extent by the insurgency in the North Caucasus and the potential for the expansion of this instability to other parts of Russia--a far from homogeneous nation.
Any decision made by the US which has an effect on its relations with Russia must take these intangible but very real factors into account. If not, the effects are likely to be both negative and non-linear.
It seems that the decision to strike the Bush plan of a land-based ABM system did not consider the implications of the Russian way of thinking, of the Kremlin's unique calculus. As a result the outcome is probably going to be far less positive than President Obama, SecDef Gates, and the others might wish.
As the Chinese toast runs: "May you live in interesting times." Once more we do.
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