political future of the Islamic world as well as to global stability. Second, Turkey’s commitment to peaceful cooperation with its Middle Eastern neighbors, a region of Turkey’s historic preeminence, is consistent with the security interests of the West in that region. Third, a Turkey that is increasingly Western, secular, and yet also Islamic—and that exploits its territorial and cultural connection with the peoples of the old Ottoman Empire and the post-Soviet Central Asian states—could be a Turkey that undermines the appeal of Islamic extremism and enhances regional stability in Central Asia not only to its own benefit but also to that of Europe and Russia.
In contrast to Turkey, Russia’s relationship with Europe is ambivalent. Its political elite proclaims that it desires closer links with the EU and NATO, but it is unwilling at this stage to adopt the reforms that would facilitate such linkage. Its social, political, and economic programs lack focus and their prospects remain relatively uncertain. Nevertheless, it is essential, for America, Europe, and Russia, that Russia forges a partnership with the West rooted in a commitment to shared political as well as economic values. The next two decades are likely to be critical for Russia in determining its prospects for greater—and politically genuine—collaboration with the West.
Historically, Russia considers itself to be too powerful to be satisfied with being merely a normal European state and yet has been too weak to permanently dominate Europe. It is noteworthy in this connection that its greatest military triumphs—notably, Alexander’s victorious entry into Paris in 1815 and Stalin’s celebratory dinner in Potsdam in mid-1945—were more the byproducts of the folly of Russia’s enemies than the consequence of enduringly successful Russian statesmanship. Had Napoleon not attacked Russia in 1812, it is doubtful that Russian troops would have marched into Paris in 1815. For within less than five decades of Alexander’s triumph, Russia was defeated in the Crimean War by an Anglo-French expeditionary force deployed from afar by sea. Five decades later in 1905, it was crushed in the Far East by the Japanese army and navy. In World War I, Russia was decisively defeated by a Germany that was fighting a prolonged two-front war. Stalin’s victory in the middle of the twentieth century, precipitated by Hitler’s folly, gained Russia political control over Eastern Europe and extended into the very heart of Europe. But within five decades of that triumph both the Soviet-controlled bloc of Communist states as well as the historic Russian empire itself disintegrated due to exhaustion resulting from the Cold War with America.
Nonetheless, the contemporary postimperial Russia—because of the wealth of its sparsely populated but vast territory rich in natural resources—is destined to play a significant role on the world arena. Yet historically, as a major international player, Russia has not displayed the diplomatic finesse of Great Britain, or the commercial acumen of the democratically appealing America, or the patient self-control of the historically self-confident China. It has failed to pursue consistently a state policy that prudently exploits its natural resources, extraordinary space, and impressive social talent to rise steadily while setting an international example of successful social development. Rather, Russia has tended to engage in bursts of triumphant and rather messianic self-assertion followed by plunges into lethargic morass.
Moreover, though Russia’s territorial size automatically defines it as a great power, the socioeconomic condition of its people is detrimental to Russia’s global standing. Widespread global awareness of Russia’s social liabilities and relatively modest standard of living discredits its international aspirations. Its grave demographic crisis—a negative population growth marked by high death rates—is a testimonial to social failure, with the relatively short life span of its males being the consequence of widespread alcoholism and its resulting demoralization. At the same time, the growing uncertainties regarding rising Islamic unrest along its new southern borders and Russia’s barely hidden anxieties regarding its increasingly powerful and densely populated Chinese neighbor, situated next to Russia’s empty east, collide with Moscow’s great power hubris.
In comparison to Turkey, Russia’s social performance ratings—despite the fact that it ranks overall number one in territory, number nine in population, and number two in the number of its nuclear weapons—are actually somewhat worse and can be considered at best only middling in a worldwide comparison. In the area of longevity and population growth, Russia’s numbers are disturbingly low. Cumulatively, Russia’s and Turkey’s ratings dramatize the dialectical reality that both are simultaneously in some respects advanced industrial countries and yet still somewhat underdeveloped societies, with Russia specifically handicapped by its nondemocratic and corruption- ridden political system. The comparisons with other countries ranked immediately above or below Turkey and Russia respectively are especially telling. Russia’s demographic crisis, political corruption, outdated and resource- driven economic model, and social retardation pose especially serious obstacles to a genuine fulfillment of the understandable ambitions of its talented but often misruled people. The following tables (see Figure 4.1 on pp. 142–143) reinforce the proposition that both nations would benefit greatly from a genuinely transformative relationship with a Europe that is able to reach out confidently to the East because of its ongoing links to America.
Moreover, the persisting disregard specifically in Russia for the rule of law is perhaps its greatest impediment to a philosophical embrace with the West. Without an institutionalized supremacy of law, the adoption of a Western-type democracy in Russia has so far been no more than a superficial imitation. That reality encourages and perpetuates corruption as well as the abuse of civil rights, a tradition deeply embedded in the historically prolonged subordination of Russian society to the state.
Complicating matters further, the current geopolitical orientation of Russia’s foreign policy elite, unlike Turkey’s, is quite conflicted and in some respects escapist. At this time—and also in contrast to Turkey—full-fledged membership in the Atlantic community through eventual membership in its economic as well as political and security institutions is not yet Russia’s explicit and dominant aspiration. In fact, there exist within Russia’s political and business elites multiple interpretations of Russia’s appropriate global role. Many wealthy Russian businessmen (especially in St. Petersburg and Moscow) would like Russia to be a modern, European-type society because of the resulting economic advantages. Meanwhile, many in the political elite desire Russia to be the dominant European power in a Europe detached from America, or even to be a world power on par with America. And still other Russians toy with the seemingly captivating notions of “Eurasianism,” of Slavic Union, or even of an anti-Western alliance with the Chinese.
The “Eurasianists,” mesmerized by the sheer geographic size of Russia, see it as a mighty Eurasian power, neither strictly European nor Asian, and destined to play a coequal role with America and China. They fail to realize that with their trans-Eurasian space largely empty and still underdeveloped, such a strategy is an illusion. A variant of this notion, the idea of a Russo-Chinese alliance presumably directed against America, also represents an escape from reality. The fact of the matter, painful for many Russians to acknowledge, is that in such a Russo-Chinese alliance—assuming that the Chinese would want it—Russia would be the junior partner, with potentially negative territorial consequences eventually for Russia itself.
Still other Russians cherish dreams of a Slavic Union under the aegis of the Kremlin, involving Ukraine and Belarus and enjoying “a privileged role” in the space of the former Russian empire and of the Soviet Union. They underestimate in that context the contagious appeal of nationalism, especially among the younger Ukrainians and Belarusians who have recently savored their new sovereign status. Notions of a “common economic space” with a dominant Russia cannot hide the fact that its hypothetical economic benefits cannot override the proud feelings of distinctive national identity and political independence. Efforts to pressure Ukraine or Belarus into a Slavic “union” thus risk entangling Russia in prolonged conflicts with its immediate neighbors.
FIGURE 4.1 GLOBAL PERFORMANCE RANKINGS AND GLOBAL DEMOGRAPHIC RANKINGS FOR TURKEY AND RUSSIA
Finally, Moscow’s relationship with the West is still burdened by Russia’s ambiguous relationship with its Stalinist past. Unlike Germany, which has repudiated in toto the Nazi chapter of its history, Russia has both officially denounced and yet still respects the individuals most directly responsible for some of history’s most bloody crimes. Lenin’s embalmed remains continue to be honored in a mausoleum that overlooks the Red Square in Moscow and Stalin’s ashes are installed in the nearby Kremlin wall. (Anything similar for Hitler in Berlin would surely discredit Germany’s democratic credentials.) An unresolved ambiguity thus persists, reflected in the absence of a clear-cut indictment of Lenin’s and Stalin’s regimes in officially approved history schoolbooks. Official unwillingness to fully confront head-on the ugly Soviet past, epitomized in Putin’s own equivocations on this subject and his nostalgia for Soviet grandeur, has obstructed Russia’s progress toward democracy while burdening Russia’s relations with its most immediate Western neighbors.
