Forces advisers in Georgia, was at best doing nothing to stop the traffic and at worst encouraging it.
Proceeding from its core policy, the United States was trying to build friendships in the region, especially in Georgia, but it was obvious to all that the U.S. was no longer capable of serious power projection. It still had naval and air power in reserve, but on the ground its forces were tapped out in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This was significant enough psychologically, but then the Iraq war created a huge political effect as well. The split that developed between the United States and France and Germany over Iraq, and the general European antipathy toward the Bush administration, meant that Germany in particular was far less inclined than it had been to support American plans for NATO expansion or confrontations with Russia. In addition, the Russians had made Germany dependent on Russian natural gas by supplying nearly half of Germany’s needs, so the Germans were in no position to seek confrontation. The combination of military imbalance and diplomatic tension severely limited American options, yet by habit the United States continued to try to increase its influence.
In his state-of-the-nation address on April 25, 2005, Putin declared the fall of the Soviet Union to be the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” This was his public announcement that he intended to act to reverse some of the consequences of that fall. While Russia was no longer a global power, within the region it was—absent the United States—overwhelmingly powerful. Given the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States was now absent. In light of this, Putin moved to increase the capability of his military. He also moved to strengthen his regime by increasing revenues from commodity exports, a fortuitous decision given the rise of commodity prices. He used the intelligence capabilities of the FSB and SVR, heirs to the KGB, to identify and control key figures in the former Soviet Union. Since most had been politically active under the Soviet regime, they were either former Communists or at least well known to the FSB from their files. Everyone has vulnerabilities, and Putin used his strongest resource to exploit those weaknesses.
In August 2008, the Georgian government, for reasons that have never been completely clear, attacked South Ossetia. Once part of Georgia, this region had broken away and had been effectively independent since the 1990s, and it was allied with Russia. Putin responded as if Russia had been expecting the attack: he struck back within hours, defeating the Georgian army and occupying part of that country.
The main point of the attack was to demonstrate that Russia could still project power. The Russian army had collapsed in the 1990s, and Putin needed to dispel the perception that it was no longer relevant. But he also wanted to demonstrate to the countries of the former Soviet Union that American friendship and guarantees had no meaning. It was a small attack against a small nation, but a strike against a nation that had drawn very close to the United States. The operation stunned both the region and eastern Europe, as did the lack of an American response, along with the effective indifference of the Europeans. U.S. inaction, limited to diplomatic notes, drove home the fact that America was far away and Russia was very close, and as long as the United States continued to commit its ground forces to the Middle East, its inability to act would persist. Russian supporters in Ukraine, aided by Russian intelligence, began the process of reversing the results of the Orange Revolution. In 2010, elections replaced the pro-Western government with the man whom the Orange Revolution had overthrown.
By moving too slowly, the United States allowed the Russians to regain their balance, just as the U.S. was losing its own strategic balance in Iraq. At the very moment that it needed to concentrate power on the Russian periphery to lock into place its containment system, the United States had its forces elsewhere, and its alliances in Europe were too weak to be meaningful. It is to avoid such missteps and missed opportunities that the American president will need to adopt a new and more consistent strategy in the decade ahead.
THE REEMERGENCE OF RUSSIA
In the long run, Russia is a weak country. Putin’s strategy of focusing on energy production and export is a superb short-term tool, but it works only if it forms the basis for major economic expansion. To achieve this larger objective, Russia has to deal with its underlying structural weaknesses, yet these weaknesses are rooted in geographical problems that are not readily overcome.
Unlike much of the industrial world, Russia has both a relatively small population for its size and a population that is highly dispersed, tied together by little more than a security apparatus and a common culture.
Even the major cities, such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, are not the centers of a giant megalopolis. They are stand-alone entities, separated from each other by vast distances of farmland and forest. Leaving apart the fact that the Russian population is in decline, the current distribution of population makes a modern economy, or even efficient distribution of food, difficult, if not impossible. The infrastructure connecting farming areas to the city is poor, as is the infrastructure connecting industrial and commercial centers.
The problem in connectivity stems from the fact that Russia’s rivers go the wrong way. Unlike American rivers, which connect farming country to ports where food can be distributed, Russian rivers merely create barriers. Neither the czars and their railway bonds nor Stalin with his enforced starvation ever came close to overcoming the problem, and the cost of building a connective tissue for the Russian economy—extensive rail systems and roads— remains staggering. Russia has always wielded a military force that outstripped its economy, but it cannot do so forever.
Russia must concentrate on the short term while it has the twin advantages of German dependence on its energy and America’s distraction in the Middle East. It must try to create lasting structures—some of them domestic, some foreign—that can hold together even in the face of economic limitations.
The domestic structure is already emerging, with Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan having reached agreement on an economic union and now discussing a common currency. Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan have expressed interest in joining in, and Russia has floated the idea of Ukraine joining as well. This is a relationship that will evolve into a political union of some sort, like the European Union, an alignment that will go far in re-creating the central features of the former Soviet Union.
The international structure Russia needs is perhaps more important and problematic. It begins with a relationship with Europe, particularly Germany. Russia needs access to technology, which the Germans have in abundance, while Germany needs access to Russian natural resources. Germany fought two wars to get hold of these resources but failed. Its interest in these resources has not diminished, but its means are now diplomatic rather than military. The desire to exploit this complementary relationship will be at the heart of Russian strategy during the next ten years.
Germany is the driving force of the European Union, which, as we will see, carries with it unexpected burdens. Germany has little interest in American operations in the Middle East and no interest whatever in expanding NATO, and with it American influence, to the Russian periphery. It wants to keep its distance from the United States, and it needs options other than the EU. Closer cooperation with Russia is not a bad idea from Germany’s point of view, and it is an outstanding idea from Russia’s point of view. Putin knows the Germans well enough to understand their fear and distrust of Russia. But he also knows them well enough to realize that they have outgrown the postwar world, are facing serious economic problems of their own, and need Russian resources.
The simultaneous reconstruction of a Russian-dominated sphere of influence and the creation of structural relations with Germany is an idea that Russia needs to push, and push quickly, since time is not on its side. It must convince Germany that it can be a reliable partner without taking any steps to disrupt the EU or Germany’s relations with it. These developments will be a ballet backed by real, if transitory, power.
To have any chance for maneuvering in the coming years, Russia must split the United States from Europe. At the same time, it will do everything it can to keep the United States bogged down in Iraq, Afghanistan, and, if possible, Iran. From the Russian point of view, the U.S.-jihadist war is like Vietnam: it relieves Russia of the burden of dealing with the American military, and it actually makes the Americans dependent on Russian cooperation in measures such as imposing sanctions on countries like Iran. The Russians can play the Americans indefinitely by threatening to ship weapons to anti-American groups and to countries such as Iran and Syria. This locks the United States in place, trying to entice the Russians when in fact the only thing the Russians want the Americans to do is to remain permanently bogged down in the war.
This Russian strategy reveals the price of the American overcommitment to the war on terror. It also shows
