Russia in Global Governance: Multipolarity or Multilateralism



Russia in Global Governance: Multipolarity or Multilateralism?

By Andrei P. Tsygankov

In: “Russia in Global Governance: Multipolarity or Multilateralism?” in Contemporary Global Governance: Multipolarity vs New Discourses on Global Governance, edited by Dries Lesage and Pierre Vercauteren. Frankfurt/Brussels: Peter Lang Publishing Group, 2009, pp. 51-62

Word count: 4,121

Although some observers view Russia’s role in international system as that of maximizing power at the expense of existing institutions, the reality is more complex. Russia’s historical experience includes a series of attempts to combine ideas of good global governance with search for strengthening material capabilities. From Alexander I’s Holy Alliance to Vladimir Putin’s pragmatic concentration of power and recent international assertiveness, Russia has strived to bridge principles of multilateral decision making with those of multipolar balance of power. Not infrequently, Russia’s efforts to maximize power have been a response to failed attempts of entering West-centered international arrangements, such as NATO and European Union. Independently of those efforts, Russia also has sought to preserve great power capabilities essential for securing the border and meeting other security challenges.

Russia’s historical experience with global governance

Russia’s historical experience was formed by similar sets of security challenges and has taught its leadership to value capabilities and status of a great power. Long geographic borders and vulnerability to external pressures – from Mongols to Napoleon and Hitler – made Russians to appreciate role of force and power in international relations. As William Fuller writes, “when Russian statesmen debated among themselves, when they quarreled with each other about the sort of policies Russia ought to pursue, they generally employed the cold-blooded language of strategy and analysis ... they justified their policies in terms of the benefits they anticipated for Russian power and security.”[i] Impressed by Russia’s appreciation for power, a number of scholars and policy makers in the West recommended to stay firm in resisting Russia’s international aspirations, rather than to keep searching for common solutions, and apply what during the Cold War would be called “containment.” As Winston Churchill put it in his famous “Iron Curtain” speech, “there is nothing they [Russians] admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for military weakness.”[ii]

The power maximization drive does not mean that Russians did not value international institutions or that they viewed international justice primarily from egoistic, rather than solidarist, perspective.[iii] Principles of just international order were in focus of Russian rulers at least since Alexander I. Having defeated Napoleon, Alexander liberated the European continent and briefly seized Paris, but then withdrew his forces in an organized fashion and initiated the Holy Alliance as a way to preserve order and justice in the post-Napoleonic Europe. Instead of attempting to establish Russia’s own hegemony, Alexander sought to create a multilateral security arrangement based on principles of autocracy. He therefore embraced anti-revolutionary Germany and Austria, rather than progressive France, as his role models. Soon, however, Russian rulers had to decide between the old monarchy-centered vision of the world and the new balance of power commitments. In the second half of the 19th century, fearful of the rise Germany Russians chose to cultivate relationships with France and Britain and ultimately entered the World War I on the side of the Triple Entente. Nicholas II also had to allocate considerable resources for modernizing the army.

By entering the First World War, Nicholas sought to comply with his alliance commitments and a vision of a just, Europe-based world order. In the meantime, Europe was fighting its way through the crisis of rising liberal ideas, and the Tsar only brought the European crisis closer to home making it impossible to prevent the spread of extremist Marxist ideas in Russia, a move which brought his downfall in the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. Yet even the Bolsheviks, with their radically different principles of world order, eventually came to accept that only multilateral institutions may prevent rise of a future hegemonic power and provide a basis of international justice. Not only did they abandon the early efforts to overthrow the “bourgeois” governments in Europe replacing them with rapprochement and pragmatic cooperation with the West, but they also joined the League of Nations and championed a collective security system in Europe in order to prevent the rise of Fascism. When their efforts had failed, Russians again retreated to a balance of power politics by signing a defense pact with Hitler and hoping to isolate Russia from World War II or at least to buy enough time to prepare for it.

A similar dynamics characterized the emergence of the Cold War era. Soviet leaders readily participated in creating the United Nations, but they also expected a bigger role in shaping European security because the Soviet Union single-handedly won most important battles against Nazi, including battles for Moscow, Kursk and Stalingrad, and contributed a much greater share of resources to the overall victory in the war. To Josef Stalin, the victory meant demonstration of his nation’s social advantages, “our victory means … that our Soviet social system has won, that the Soviet social system has successfully withstood the trial in the flames of war and proved its perfect viability.”[iv] The West, however, was mistrustful, and the United States too felt it had to actively shape the world affairs – the belief in internationalism had predated the war victory and the Pearl Harbor attack by Japan and emerged in response to the Nazi invasions of France and the Soviet Union.[v] Unable to agree, the West and Russia resorted to covert operations and balance of power politics. In the Soviet case, it meant Leonid Brezhnev’s “correlation of forces” strategy, which reflected the will to preserve Russia’s independence in world affairs and balance perceived dangerous influences from the outside powers.

Russia did not abandon its search for multilateral institutions. Even during the Cold War, the Soviet leaders tried to forge stronger ties with Europe which included important security initiative, policies of détente and signing 1975 Helsinki declaration of human rights. The post-Stalin period saw, in particular, growth of specialized institutions, in which researchers carefully analyzed Western viewpoints, such as those generated by American IR scholars. Ultimately, the search for a new justice in international relations contributed greatly to creating the environment for reformers in the Soviet Union helping Mikhail Gorbachev to come to power. Gorbachev pursued the notion of mutual security with the West and presided over a series of revolutionary arms control agreements with the United States and the Soviet military withdrawals from Europe and the Third World. By introducing the idea of “common European home” Gorbachev also meant to achieve Russian-European integration based on the principles of European social-democracy.

Post-Soviet participation in global institutions

The revolutionary changes in the Gorbachev’s Russia and the subsequent Soviet disintegration provided the context for the victory of Boris Yeltsin. In contrast to Gorbachev, the new Russia’s leaders saw their country as an organic part of the Western civilization, whose “genuine” Western identity was hijacked by Bolsheviks and the Soviet system. In their perspective, during the Cold War Russia had acted against its own national identity and interests, and now it finally had an opportunity to become a “normal” Western country. Thus, Kozyrev argued that the Soviet Union was not merely a “normal” or merely “underdeveloped,” but a “wrongfully developed” country.[vi] Russia was now to correct the distortion by accepting the priority of the individual and the free market over society and state in order to develop what was referred to as a “natural partnership” with Western countries.[vii]

Having won a considerable part of the elites on their side and using the momentum after the failed coup of August 1991, Yeltsin had first formulated and pursued the idea of Westernization as a matter of international strategy. The idea included radical economic reform, the so-called “shock therapy,” gaining a full-scale status in transatlantic economic and security institutions, such as the European Union, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, International Monetary Fund, and G-7, and separating the new Russia from the former Soviet republics economically, politically, and culturally. The Westernist vision shaped the new foreign policy concept prepared in the late 1992 and signed into law in April 1993. The concept was heavily influenced by the documents and charter of the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and favored the promotion of Russia’s interests in the first place through participation in different international organizations.

But the vision of new West-based multilateralism proved unsustainable. The domestic context of growing disorder, corruption, and poverty that had resulted from the Yeltsin’s Westernist reforms, accompanied by the growing sense of anxiety and humiliation experienced by Russians in response to the Soviet disintegration, was not conducive to the chose policy direction. No less importantly, the new vision stumbled over a relatively excessively cautious or insensitive reaction from the Western nations.[viii] The decision made by the Western nations to expand NATO eastward excluding Russia from the process is a case in point. The decision came as a major blow to the reformers and brushed aside Moscow’s hopes to transform the alliance into a non-military one or to admit Russia as a full organization’s member.[ix] It strengthened the sense that the West was interested in a hegemonic control, rather than multilateral institutions.

It was in response to this perceived failure of the post-Cold War multilateralism that Russian leadership begun to advocate return to principles of multipolarity. Presidential advisor Sergei Stankevich and then the Chief of Foreign Intelligence Yevgeni Primakov advocated the notion of Russia as a distinctly Eurasianist great power. Although the notion was hardly new, to many Russians it had the virtue of reinvigorating familiar historical parallels, such as victory over Nazi, that were a source of national pride. Appointment of Primakov foreign minister prescribed a different foreign policy. The key priorities included improving relations with non-Western countries and integrating the former Soviet region under a tighter control of Moscow. Aware of Russia’s weakness, Eurasianists worried about becoming dependent on the strongest and wanted to pursue “multi-vector” policies, aiming to preserve what they saw as Russia’s civilizational uniqueness and develop more balanced relations with the West. They also warned against Russia unequivocally siding with Europe or the United States at the expense of relationships with key participants of Eurasian continent, such as China, India, and Islamic world. Such thinking was adequately reflected in official documents. The country’s National Security Concept of 1997 identified Russia as an “influential European and Asian power” and, it recommended that Russia maintain equal distancing in relations to the “global European and Asian economic and political actors.”[x] Multilateralism again yielded to multipolarity.

Even while disappointed with the West’s perceived lack of desire to include Russia in its international institutions, Moscow continued to work on strengthening its role in global governance. In July 1992, it managed to join the G-7, despite the opposition of Britain and Germany. It pursued an ambitious agenda of developing an economic union and a collective security pact with the former Soviet republics.[xi] Despite growing resentment toward NATO, it did not break its ties with the alliance. For instance, in May 1997 Primakov negotiated document entitled the “Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between Russia and NATO”, which he saw as a quasi-institutionalization of relationships with the alliance. It also became a founding member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which emerged out of a 1997 Russia-China treaty on border troops reduction and then included China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.[xii] The organization became prominent after September 11 mainly to address terrorism and security vacuum in Central Asia.

The second opportunity to push for a more multilateral, rather than multipolar, world came after September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Although President Putin was wary of the U.S. policies and tempted to continue with Primakov’s policies of building a multipolar world, Putin saw as economic modernization and security from terrorism as Russia’s most important national interests. He therefore sought to engage the Western nations into common international projects and security arrangements. This strategy is best understood as one of a normal great power.[xiii] It pursues the normal objective of moving further away from Soviet-style isolationism and wants to turn Russia into a full-fledged member of the international community. Yet the strategy also recognized that Russia could not join the international community at the expense of its sovereignty and great power attributes its material and human capabilities, territorial size, and political reputation in the world. In this philosophy great power status is therefore not a goal in itself but rather a necessary condition for Russia’s internal stability and more advanced engagement with the world.

The approach has changed in response to the United States’ global regime change strategy which Moscow viewed as a threat to its stability and area of foreign policy interests. First, Moscow was fearful of a revolution inside Russia. Although the public support for a revolution was weak,[xiv] the Kremlin’s political technologists took the threat seriously knowing that less than 1% of the population was really involved in the recent capitals-centered colored revolutions and those influential elites in the United States maintained contacts with some radical organizations in Russia.[xv] Second, the Kremlin felt increasingly encircled by radical pro-American regimes in the former Soviet region. The so-called colored revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan during 2003-2005 failed to bring greater stability and prosperity, but greatly politicized the international environment in the region. Georgia and Ukraine had already expressed their desire to join NATO, which added to Russia’s sense of strategic insecurity.[xvi] Third, Russia felt vulnerable to radicalization of Islam in response to the U.S. style of fighting a war on terror. Although some problems of Islamic terrorism were Russia’s own errors, such as attempts by some of its authorities to close local Mosques, the other part has to do with the U.S. policies that tend to isolate moderate Muslims and give the cards to radicals. In a global world, this translates into a greater support for Islamic radicals inside Russia.

The Kremlin has come to realize that a purely defensive strategy was no longer able to provide the necessary sense of stability and security, and it was important to take active measures to defend what it saw as Russia’s national interests.

Russia’s international assertiveness as a new multilateralism[xvii]

Soon after the colored revolutions in the former Soviet region, Putin’s foreign policy obtained a new dimension – assertiveness. Russia’s international behavior has not become confrontational, nor has it returned to the era of Primakov’s balancing the United States’ power in the world. Instead, assisted by high oil prices Russia has signaled that it seeks greater stakes in the international system and would no longer accept the status of a West’s junior partner it was during the 1990s. In addition to its desire to capitalize on its energy competitiveness and break into Western economic markets, Russia no longer views the old methods of preserving stability and security as sufficient. While maintaining an essentially defensive security posture, it believes that a more assertive strategy provides a better defense of national interests. Putin’s speech at the Munich Conference on Security Policy became a high point in Russia’s new assertiveness and was extremely critical of U.S. “unilateralism.” Russia’s president then accused the United States of "disdain for the basic principles of international law" and having "overstepped its national borders in . . . the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations."[xviii] . The speech was soon followed by Moscow’s threat to withdraw from the Intermediate Nuclear Missile Treaty should NATO continue with deploying its military infrastructure closer to Russian borders.

It looked as if Russia again moved toward multipolarity in world affairs. By the time Putin had made his speech in Munich, Russia stepped up its economic and military cooperation with China. It begun to advocate adding Iran as a member to SCO, yet refused to consider such status for the U.S. American analysts recommended that the country’s leaders continue their efforts to gain associate membership in the organization.[xix] Russia also sought to strengthen its control over the former Soviet region building pipelines in all geographic directions, raising energy prices for its oil and gas-dependent neighbors and coordinating its activities with other energy-producers. In May 2007, Putin secured a commitment from Kazakhstan, Turmenistan and Uzbekistan to increase exports of Central Asian energy via Russia’s pipelines which served to heighten the U.S. concerns.

Many have interpreted the Kremlin’s international assertiveness as an indicator of Russia’s departure from the West and a vindication of their old fears about Russia’s hegemonic ambitions.[xx] Such a view disregards that Russia sought to expand its participation in Western institutions, but instead had to swallow the war in the Balkans, two rounds of NATO expansion, the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM treaty, U.S. military presence in Central Asia, the invasion of Iraq and plans to deploy elements of nuclear missile defense in Eastern Europe. In the light of these developments, viewing Putin as a challenger to existing international institutions can hardly be viewed a cogent analysis. While moving toward multipolar world, Russia stayed open to further development of multilateral institutions if such development were to be supported by the West. Russian officials recognized the vital need of foreign investment, particularly from Western nations, for continuing high economic growth, and the Kremlin insisted on expediting the country’s entrance to the WTO. Moscow kept pressuring Washington to negotiate new nuclear security arrangements. Russia also wanted a greater cooperation between NATO and the Moscow-initiated Collective Security Treaty Organization in securing Central Asia from terrorism.

The new assertiveness therefore does not imply a confrontational behavior and does not mean that Russians have acquired a taste for hegemony to replace multilateralism. Those accusing Russia of hegemonic ambitions and challenging the West’s vital interests in the world, oversimplify the extremely complex process of Russia’s transformation and its relations with Western nations. They fail to note that the majority of the country’s political class has come to accept the new post-Soviet realities, thinking about them in terms of adjustment and stabilization, and not confrontation.[xxi] Despite the urging of Russia’s hard-liners, the Kremlin abstained from pursuing actions that would principally change the existing international balance, such as developing an alliance with anti-American states, recognizing separatist territories in the former Soviet region, or sponsoring a military intervention there. It was in response to realities and imperatives of internal development that President Putin formulated Russia’s objectives in the following way:

“The main aim of our policies is to achieve favorable external conditions for the development of Russia…. We will form a multi-vector foreign policy; we will work with the United States, with the European Union, and with other countries of Europe. We will work with our Asian partners, with China, with India, and countries of Asia-Pacific region.”[xxii]

Conclusion

Russia’s intentions and policies have been frequently misinterpreted in the West, and the complex multipolarity/multilateralism dialectic has often escaped the attention of scholars and policy analysts. To properly understand those intentions and policies, it is important not to ignore the interactive nature of Russia-West relations. Presenting Russia as an essentialist entity with once-and-forever formed values and behavioral patterns downplays the responsibility of Western nations, but hardly helps to understand the reality of the two sides’ relations. As this essay sought to demonstrate most of Moscow’s efforts to build a multipolar balance of power have resulted from the West’s inability or unwillingness to engage Russia into genuine multilateral institutions. Most of Russia’s 19th century efforts to contain Germany resulted from failures of Holy Alliance policies. Stalin’s deviation from attempts to establish collective security system against Hitler was a product of the West’s mistrust and negotiations with Nazi Germany behind the Soviet Union’s back. Cold War too was in part a reaction to the USSR’s perceived lack of recognition of the Soviet desire to preserve the post-war international arrangements. After the end of the Cold War, Russia again was hoping to enter West-centered multilateral institutions, but failed to achieve the objective. Primakov and then Putin each felt they had to capitalize on Russia’s power potential and capabilities to compensate for being mistreated by the West. In their perception, the Western nations had acted in disrespectful and unilateral fashion presenting Russia with no other choice but trying to meet critical security challenges by becoming a power pole.

Notes

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[i] William C. Fuller, Jr., Strategy and Power in Russia, 1600-1914 (New York: Free Press, 1992), p. 132.

[ii] Quoted in Richard Sakwa, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union (London: Rouledge, 1998), p. 295.

[iii] S. Neil MacFarlane, “Russian Perspectives on Order and Justice,” in: Order and Justice in International Relations, edited by Rosemary Foot, John Gaddis, and Andrew Hurrell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 179.

[iv] Quoted in: Sanjoy Banerjee, “Attribution, Identity, and Emotion in the Early Cold War,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 1, 1991, p. 30.

[v] In January 1941, only 39 percent of the public felt that U.S. intervention in World War I was a mistake (relative to 68 percent in October 1939) (Jeffrey W. Legro, Rethinking the World: Great Power Strategies and International Order (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), p. 67.

[vi] Andrei Kozyrev, Preobrazheniye (Moskva: Mezhdunarodnyye otnosheniya, 1995), p. 16.

[vii] Andrei Kozyrev, “Rossiya v novom mire,” Mezhdunarodnaya zhizn’, No. 3-4, 1992.

[viii] See, for example, Peter Rutland, “Mission Impossible? The IMF and the failure of the market transition in Russia,” Review of International Studies, 1999; N. Gould-Davies and N. Woods, “Russia and the IMF,” International Affairs Vol. 75, No. 1, 1999; J. L. Black, Russia Faces NATO Expansion: Bearing Gifts or Bearing Arms? (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000).

[ix] In addition, some influential foreign policy experts in the West spoke of “the premature partnership” with Russia. See, for example, Zbigniew Brzezinski, “The Premature Partnership,” Foreign Affairs Vol. 73, No. 1, 1994.

[x] National Security Concepts and Foreign Policy Concepts are available in: Tatyana Shakleyina, ed. Vneshnyaya politika i bezopasnost’ sovremennoi Rossiyi (Moskva: ROSSPEN, 2002), Vol. 4, pp. 51-90, 110-111. For analysis, see Alla Kassianova, “Russia: Still Open to the West?” Europe-Asia Studies Vol. 53, No. 6, 2001.

[xi] For details, see my Russia’s Foreign Policy (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), chaps. 4-5.

[xii] Uzbekistan joined in 2001.

[xiii] Andrei P. Tsygankov, “Vladimir Putin’s Vision of Russia as a Normal Great Power,” Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol. 21, No. 2, 2005.

[xiv] One poll revealed, for example, that Russians valued political order and stability as a result of a successful foreign policy by expressing strong condemnation of revolutionary prospects in the country. They are most positive about such word-symbols, as ‘order' (58%), 'justice' (49%), and 'stability' (38%). In the same poll, the word ‘revolution’ was among the least popular, with 22% viewing it in a negative light (“Russians like order and justice,” RosBusinessConsulting, March 28, 2007).

[xv] Members of the American political class maintained ties with organizations, such as the National Bolshevik Party, while increasing pressures on the Kremlin to “democratize” and respect political freedoms, only served to strengthen the perception (Vladimir Frolov, “Democracy Pretension. Is the United States Promoting Democracy or Leveraging Political Influence in Russia?” Russia Profile, April 17, 2007, at ).

[xvi] Policy makers, such as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, insisted that the possible entry of Ukraine and Georgia to NATO would bring about a tremendous “geopolitical shift” and require that Russia “revise its policy” (As cited in “NATO official slams Lavrov statement,” Interfax, June 7, 2006. See also “NATO Expansion A Huge Mistake – Lavrov,” Interfax, Dec. 12, 2006).

[xvii] This section draws on portions of my Russia’s International Assertiveness – What Does It Mean for the West? Problems of Post-Communism, Vol. 55, No. 1, March-April.

[xviii] “Speech at the Munich Conference on Security Policy,” Munich, February 10, 2007.

[xix] See, for example, Ariel Cohen, “What to Do About the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s Rising Influence,” , September 21, 2006.

[xx] See, for example, Zbigniew Brzezinski, “Moscow’s Mussolini,” Wall Street Journal, September 20, 2004; “James Woolsey, Former CIA Director, Speaks To RFE/RL At Forum 2000,” RFE/RL, October 10, 2005 ; Russia’s Wrong Direction: What the United States Can and Should Do (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2006; Richard Cheney, Vice President's Remarks at the 2006 Vilnius Conference The White House, Office of the Vice President, May 4, 2006, at ; David Satter, “Russia: Rebuilding the Iron Curtain,” Testimony to U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, May 17, 2007; Jim Hoagland, “Dealing With Putin,” Washington Post, May 27, 2007; Edward Lucas, The New Cold War: The Future of Russia and the Threat to the West (London: Bloomsbury, 2008).

[xxi] This change in Russian elite belief system has been well documented. See, for example, Leon Aron, “The Foreign Policy Doctrine of Postcommunist Russia and Its Domestic Context,” in: Russia’s New Foreign Policy, edited by Michael Mandelbaum (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1998); Andrei P. Tsygankov, “Mastering Space in Eurasia: Russian Geopolitical Thinking after the Soviet Break-Up,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 35, 1, 2003.

[xxii] Putin, as cited in David Kerr, “The Sino-Russian Partnership and U.S. Policy Toward North Korea,” International Studies Quarterly Vol. 49, 2005, p. 416.

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