Russia's Top Ten Foreign Policy Mistakes

As a sequel to an article I wrote about China's top ten foreign policy mistakes, I felt there was equally a need to highlight the foreign policy mistakes Moscow made since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Note: To take a step back and theorizing about the need to talk about this topic, in conceptualizing foreign policy mistakes, it is important to avoid two common and related fallacies. The first fallacy is to identify a policy as a mistake in hindsight. The 2003 U.S. military intervention in Iraq serves as an example. The second misconception is to confuse foreign policy faults with foreign policy failures or outcomes. Here it is important to realize that errors are about the decision-making process; that is, they are behavioral or cognitive phenomena. Failures, on the other hand, are about analogies, that is policy results. In other words, a foreign policy mistake can fall into two categories: (a) intelligence, a cognitive judgment that is blinded by bias, ignorance, or passion, or (b) policy, a prescription for behavior that is costly and results in undesirable and unanticipated effects.

The dismemberment of the Soviet Union is viewed by many Russians as a major geopolitical disaster and miss the USSR. Indeed, a poll, conducted November 24 through 28, 2017 by the independent Russian Levada-Center, which has been conducting this poll since the 1992 collapse of the USSR, found that 58% of Russians regret the fall of the Soviet Union, the highest number since 2009. The respondents cited a number of different reasons for waxing nostalgic about the past, though 54% agreed that the lack of a unified economic system was their greatest reason for missing the Soviet Union. But that was far from the only answer, with others citing their longing to once again belong to a "great power". Further, more than half of the poll's respondents believe the decay and eventual collapse of the Soviet Union was avoidable, a response given by 52%.

After the dissolution of the USSR, Russia declared that it assumed the rights and obligations of the dissolved central Soviet government, including the supranational memberships and permanent membership on the Security Council. Indeed, in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed when fourteen of the Soviet republics broke away and declared their independence. At this point, the Soviet state was too weak to prevent it. All the republics, including Russia itself (now called the Russian Federation), became independent countries. And, since Russia was any way the largest and most influential state within the Soviet Union, it took over the legacy of the Soviet Union.

Now, several themes that embody Russia’s main foreign policy interests and goals have remained consistent since the birth of the post-soviet Russian state. These are: (1) importance of its sphere of influence on the CIS; (2) opposition to NATO’s eastward expansion; (3) a defence of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and international law; (4) the resistance to the establishment of a missile defence system in Europe; (5) the call for a multipolar world; and (6) the achievement and consolidation, by Russia, of its great power status.

Most of these topics revolve around the necessity for Russia to feel safe in light of the invasions it suffered throughout its history. As a reminder, Russia is made of open terrain, and to counter that geographical vulnerability Moscow feels the need to create buffer zones around its core, expanding the space around it, to make an invasion more difficult. But, the Kremlin is concerned with an even more sophisticated kind of invasion that might take place if the CIS were to become westernized: it could eventually influence the Russian population and bring about regime change in Russia. That is why the CIS, the former Soviet possessions, are so crucial to Russia’s administration; it wants them under its influence because they represent a buffer to protect its core. 

Since the turn of the last century, and following the 1999 NATO military operation against Serbia, a call for a multipolar world where international problems are resolved through multilateral cooperation as opposed to unilateral actions and unipolarity has been a constant in  Russian foreign policy concepts. However, what can be considered as the paramount core element of the Kremlin's foreign policy – one that has achieved even more importance under Putin – has been that of first retrieving, and then consolidating, its status of great power, derzhavnost. In the words of Putin himself “we will strive to be leaders”. Moscow has therefore always considered itself an equal to the United States and Europe, and it has no intention of being led by them; it has always defended its position as an independent strategic player. Indeed, as typical of most great powers, Russia has historically considered itself an exceptional country with a special mission. This has made Russians very proud people, and it also caused them to be highly resentful to the West whenever they felt like it was disregarding Russia’s exceptionalism. This sense of uniqueness and of being on a mission has taken on several different hats throughout time: from the third Rome to the pan-Slavic kingdom, from being the center of world Communism to today’s Eurasianism.

Foreign policy failure #1: Lack of strategic vision in building stronger ties with the West (1991 - 1999)

Historians continue to debate whether Boris Yeltsin deserves the appellation of Great Man or Great Failure. There is no doubt about Yeltsin's skills as a destroyer, for he played a significant role in bringing down the Soviet communist system and in breaking up the USSR, as well as in clearing away the remnants of Soviet-style political institutions in post-Soviet Russia. It is about his qualities as a builder that the debate rages. His defenders cite his record in advancing the cause of democracy in Russia through his respect for the electoral process, the freedom of speech and press, his efforts to achieve a compromise at critical junctures, and his tendency to support the efforts of market reformers. His efforts made possible the first law-governed electoral transfer of power in the thousand-year history of his country. His detractors, however, cite his ego-driven and authoritarian style of rule, the absence of a vision or program for his country, his apparent insecurity and lack of personal discipline, his inconsistency, his willingness to resort to violence against internal enemies, and his penchant for destabilizing Russia's politics.

Yeltsin sought, with PM Kozyrev’s assistance, to rebuild Russia as a great democratic power, a genuine partner of Washington, and a part of a new undivided Europe. Yeltsin had to contend, however, with being a beggar for financial aid coming from the international institutions, a very much junior partner of Washington, and increasingly an outsider in a Europe that was uniting without Moscow.

In the early years after Russia became a sovereign nation in 1991, Moscow's foreign policy repudiated Marxism–Leninism as a supposed guide to action, emphasizing cooperation with the West in addressing regional and global problems, and soliciting humanitarian and economic aid from the West in support of internal economic reforms. However, although Russia's leaders now allude to the West as its natural ally, they wrestled with defining new relations with the Eastern European states, the new nations formed upon the disintegration of Yugoslavia, and Eastern Europe. The Kremlin opposed the expansion of NATO into the former Soviet bloc nations of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic in 1997 and, particularly, the second NATO expansion into the Baltic states in 2004. In 1999, Russia opposed the NATO bombing of former Yugoslavia for more than two months (cf. Kosovo War) but later joined NATO peace-keeping troops in the Balkan region in June 1999.

Relations with the West have also been stained by Russia's relationship with Belarus. Indeed, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, an authoritarian leader, has shown much interest in aligning his country with Moscow, and no interest in deepening ties with the ever-expanding NATO or implementing Western-backed neoliberal market reforms. 

While Russia should have no illusions about the West, it needs to find a way to live in peace with it, shielding its interests but avoiding unnecessary and petty provocations. Moscow is neither predestined to have adversarial relations with the West nor preordained to have friendly ones with the West: it is all in the hands of policymakers who must learn, also from their failures. Putin’s recent US Presidential election meddling has helped fuel doubts in the West about the fairness and credibility of democratic processes -- a critical foreign policy objective. However, Putin’s actions have implicated Russia in a series of conflicts with no solution in sight; prevented trade, investment and scientific collaboration with the West (paramount to Moscow’s long-term economic growth); re-awakened anxieties of Russia in the West; and sparked an escalating series of security responses from NATO and the U.S. 

Foreign policy failure #2: Russia did not capitalize on the CIS and the EEU

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the former Soviet States except Russia were keen to extract themselves from Moscow's orbit of influence. The Kremlin, to preserve its zone of control and protect the Russian minorities living in these states, established the Commonwealth of Independent States as well as the Eurasian Economic Union. However, over the years they have not become a useful instrument of Russian regional influence. This Union did not acquire a political dimension and is not in reality even an economic union. It has introduced only one fundamental freedom – the freedom of movement of labour. The flow of goods, services, and capital has not been liberalized, and member states even operate different customs regimes. Most significantly, post-Soviet partners did not support Russia in its conflict with and over Ukraine. On the contrary, Belarus, Russia’s declared closest ally, used the opportunity to distance itself from Moscow and seek re-engagement with the West.

Foreign policy failure #3: Moscow did not build out its international business markets thereby wearing down the projection of its foreign policy

A strong economic foundation is the sine qua non for a successful foreign policy. Under Brezhnev, the Soviet Union lost its last opportunity to reform and thus transform itself and instead turned toward conservatism, which resulted in decay. Gorbachev could not rule the world with his new thinking while concomitantly begging for economic assistance. Yeltsin’s ambition of driving a great power was never taken seriously due to Russia’s severe economic plight. Similarly, Putin's current goals are not feasible over the long run without sufficient economic ability to support them, and the costs of foreign policy are amplified by the weaknesses of the Russian political and economic systems. Going forward, Russia’s international status will be decided primarily not by its nuclear arsenal but by its capacity to expand its export markets.

Russia wants to be recognized as a great power but requires sufficient economic ability and potential to encourage it to behave accordingly. However, under its current leadership, it acknowledges that there are economic limits to its behavior. There is a consistent commitment to budget discipline and a measured allocation of resources among crucial claimants — the development and social sectors, as well as defense and security. That limits the allocation of resources to  power projection, particularly of the hard variety, even if such allocation is at a level high enough to cause considerable discomfort in the West.

The economy in Russia is subject to specific pressures: stagnant growth even before the 2014 fall in oil prices, and the investment and budgetary challenges of sanctions and lower oil prices. The commitment to budget discipline and a measured allocation of resources has been preserved. However, there has also been a significant rhetorical and policy shift towards a more ‘securitised’ economy, including import substitution-led industry policy. There are notable features of the Russian environment which threaten the success of such a change in policy, but which are highly immune to policy action. They include much discussed institutional weaknesses, as well as issues of climate, remoteness, industrial location, and market size, that make it difficult for Russian industry to be globally competitive. The West has no determining influence over the Russian economy. But it can raise the costs of great power behavior, through reducing access to investment and technology, and should do so.

Foreign policy failure #4: Ukraine and Russia

Putin's international prestige suffered a significant blow in the West during the disputed 2004 Ukrainian presidential election. Putin had twice visited Ukraine before the election to show his support for the pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych against opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, a pro-Western liberal economist. He congratulated Yanukovych, followed shortly afterward by Belorussian president Alexander Lukashenko, on his victory before election results were even made official[41] and made statements opposing the rerun of the disputed second round of elections, won by Yanukovych, amid allegations of large-scale voting fraud. The second round was ultimately rerun; Yushchenko won the series and was eventually declared the winner on January 10, 2005. In the West, the reaction to Russia's handling of, or perhaps interference in, the Ukrainian election evoked echoes of the Cold War, but relations with the U.S. have remained stable.

In Crimea and Ukraine, meanwhile, Putin acted quickly in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych to annex Crimea and stop Ukraine from pursuing closer integration with Brussels and Washington. Through the provision of military hardware to Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine and the use of asymmetric warfare, Putin secured Russia’s control over the Donbas region (long considered Ukraine’s industrial heartland). But again, at what cost? Moscow has turned a generation of Ukrainians against Moscow -- recent polling shows that while nearly 95% of Ukrainians viewed Moscow positively as recently as 2010, that number now hovers in the low 40s, and is unequivocally much lower than that in western Ukraine. Russia’s intervention in Ukraine also resulted in a series of punishing economic sanctions from Europe and the U.S., which, when coupled with the sharp decline in global oil process, has caused devastation to Russia’s economic growth, undermined the ruble’s value, and eroded real wages. Russia is poised to resume moderate growth this year (around 1.5 percent), but that level of growth cannot compensate for Russia’s economic contraction of recent years.   

Foreign policy failure #5: Russia did scare off the former Warsaw Pact countries

The Kremlin’s strategy of military aggression in Ukraine and Eastern Europe has backfired, spurring former Soviet and Warsaw Pact countries to become a de facto anti-Moscow military bloc, while NATO rearms and reinforces its eastern flank. Russia’s foreign policy concerning Eastern Europe and the Baltic states has failed because they stimulated national resistance and the beginning of NATO rearmament. Altogether, Eastern Europe has become the most rapidly militarizing region on earth, which is not to Moscow’s advantage.

Indeed, a critical trend has emerged in the wake of Russia's unchecked aggression in Ukraine, namely the Eastern European' anxiety for the future is mounting. Russia's increased activity in their airspace, naval probes in the Baltic Sea and the English Channel, nuclear threats, intensified exercises and exercise tempos, unrelenting information warfare, political subversion, espionage at Cold War-levels and constant energy threats since 2014 have confirmed their assessment that Russia will use military force to overthrow the Cold War settlement and deprive them of their security, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. And not only the former Warsaw Pact countries are getting upset about Putin's geopolitical harassment, but even neutral countries such as Sweden and Finland are also now considering joining NATO to deter Russia from attacking them.

But Putin's leverage on Eastern Europe is not only militarily, but also economically. Indeed, Russia’s energy leverage has grown in recent years, a source of power which Russia has used both to reward its friends and punish its enemies.Some states such as Armenia, Belarus, and Ukraine under President Kuchma-have been favored with heavily subsidized energy. Others-such as Georgia, Moldova, the Baltic States and Ukraine under President Yushchenko-have been targeted by supply disruptions and punitive price increases. Moscow’s new ‘petro-power’ is of great importance today, and not just for its immediate neighbors: like other ‘petro-states,’ Russia is likely to gain even more power as oil and gas become scarcer in the future.

Foreign policy failure #6: The Chechen conflict and tensions in former soviet republics

The image of Chechnya in the West remains one of radicalization and conflict, unresolved secessionist ambition and Russian brutality. But far more than is acknowledged outside Russia, Moscow's policies towards Chechnya have succeeded in their aims. The republic is now relatively peaceful; reconstruction is gaining momentum; and Chechnya's leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has been both a useful and seemingly faithful servant of Russia in the North Caucasus. However, it would be unwise to assume this represents a long-term solution to the problems in the North Caucasus.

Moscow’s support and influence is increasingly irrelevant in Chechnya. If federal authorities attempt to arrest Kadyrov, a third Chechen War will break out—a conflict that the Kremlin can ill afford. Putin has become a prisoner of his creation. Ramzan Kadyrov may well be Vladimir Putin’s most ghoulish creation—a kind of vassal who remains slavishly loyal to the Russian leader but who also serves as a constant and nagging reminder of how ugly Putin-style autocracy can get. Whatever the ultimate rationale for Kadyrov’s Moscow gambit, it portends severe political instability for Russia. Vladimir Putin’s initial promise to bring stability to the Caucasus after the two brutal wars required making a Faustian bargain with a Chechen devil. He may have thought he had successfully sealed the Pandora’s box of Islamic radicalism by working with Kadyrov. Instead, he may well have made Russia itself into a tinderbox.

Foreign policy failure #7: War in Syria

Russia’s military intervention in September 2015 helped to stabilize the unstable Assad regime, avoided a looming assault on critical government-held territory in western Syria, and ensured a sustained Russian military presence there. It also guaranteed that Russia would be an essential player in future discussions about Damas fate. However, while Assad currently enjoys the upper hand on the battlefield, there are still thousands of embittered and heavily armed opposition fighters who will never accept his leadership. There are also thousands of Islamic State and al Qaeda-affiliated extremists who, despite battlefield setbacks, are likely to continue operating in Syria in smaller groups, meaning that Russian forces will have to remain engaged in combat there for the foreseeable future -- at considerable cost and with more casualties.

Moreover, as long as Assad remains in control, the international community is not likely to provide significant reconstruction assistance to Syria, guaranteeing that Russia will be compelled to foot at least a portion of the reconstruction cost, which is key to ensuring Damas -- or any hand-picked heir’s -- political viability. And finally, Russia’s collaboration with Iran in Syria has alarmed Sunni states in the region and damaged Israel-Russia ties. Israel’s recent military operations in Syria reflect its fear over Iran’s presence on its borders, and there is an increased risk of a clash between Israeli and Iranian-backed forces in Syria. This would put Russian troops in a particularly precarious position given their proximity to Iranian proxies on the battlefield. One final point: Given Iran’s considerable influence on the ground, it’s entirely plausible that Russia’s military intervention has ensured that Tehran, not the Kremlin, will play the most substantial role in shaping Syria’s future.  

Foreign policy failure #8: Russia became a partner of China exposing its eastern flank

There was a time when the threat was coming from the East as the Mongols invaded and then conquered the Rus from 1240 till 1480. Nowadays, Russia's flank in its Far Eastern and Siberian regions is vulnerable to China's growing power hunger. Granted, both Moscow and Beijing are partners, and they have a very close relationship - politically, economically, and militarily speaking. Still, while Moscow is manipulated by NATO's expanding presence on its Western flank (and it remembered Germany's Operation Barbarossa vividly in 1941), it should pay attention to what's happening alongside the Siberian and Far Eastern District borders. Yes, Russia has a vast military might that is a deterrence to China, but China has a higher growth potential than Russia merely because of the size of the Chinese economy and its population. Russia has a prominent place in Chinese geopolitical calculations, as a supplier of both modern weaponry and energy resources needed to continue its modernization. Therefore, the Chinese are doing everything possible to strengthen their economic and political position in Russia, and to draw Russia into their sphere of influence. And China is succeeding, most importantly, by consistently reinforcing Putin's anti-American and anti-western agenda.

Russia’s “pivot to Asia” is delivering very slowly, if at all. Experts from the Moscow Carnegie Center have recently opined that the “low-hanging fruit” in Russia-China relations has been reaped, that all politically motivated agreements have been concluded, and that Russia should not expect any “easy money” from China. For most analysts, the Russian-Chinese relationship is not a partnership of equals. Rather, Moscow accedes to initiatives, such as “One Belt, One Road,” which Beijing is determined to undertake in any case. Under Putin, Russia has sought to strengthen ties with the People's Republic of China by signing the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation as well building the Trans-Siberian oil pipeline geared toward growing Chinese energy needs.

Foreign policy failure #9: Russia does not have permanent friends

Charles De Gaulle once said that countries have no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests. And, so, unsurprisingly, Russia does not have lasting friends, only permanent interests. But still Russia has occasional friends, and Moscow should make sure that the friends of the moment do not abuse Moscow’s support for them. The lessons of Castro’s Cuba, Assad’s Syria, Milosevic’s Serbia, and Saddam’s Iraq should remain a warning for Russia’s current and future leaders.

In the old days, Russia and the USSR had the Warsaw Pact where Moscow could rely on a collective defense treaty in the event of a military threat. However, nowadays Russia does not enjoy such joint defense mechanism. Granted, there is the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) which is an intergovernmental military alliance that was signed on 15 May 1992. Then, there is also the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) which is a Eurasian political, economic, and security organization, the creation of which was announced on 15 June 2001. However, both organizations are not the equivalent of the Warsaw Pact or NATO. Indeed, neither the CSTO nor the SCO carries an accord on political issues. For example, the governments of Belarus and Kazakhstan, for example, can exhibit independence from Moscow and construct their relations with the West, or China can conduct its independent foreign policy in the East and South China Seas. Therefore, we cannot speak of a single political position within the CSTO and SCO.

Moscow also bears an inability to become the top partner of close neighbors such as China and India, or former ally Vietnam. Russia's economy is not strong enough to become the leading influence even in countries that would have welcomed this. The era of unions formed for political reasons is over, and the ability of business to become a competitive leader in foreign markets is now crucial. Russian business has neither the experience nor the resources for attaining this goal, even though its weapons are very popular and in demand overseas. Russia is not the top partner for any of its main economic partners (such as Germany and China, as well as the CIS, notably Kazakhstan). At best, it is one of their 10 largest partners. This has weakened Russia's ties, including political ones, with these states.

Foreign policy failure #10: Putin’s foreign policy gambles as a need to contain domestic upheavals 

Putin is acutely aware that his real power basis is not primarily the Russian military or the security services, but the Russian people. And, a predominant leader, such as Vladimir Putin, needs the domestic situation to be calm. Therefore, when such a leader doesn’t find, internally, a way to contain a threatening domestic restructuring, the leader resorts to international adventures. Putin probably finds it quicker and easier to create a global emergency that can be escalated in a matter of hours (and that offers a chance for Russia to affirm its great power claim) than to undertake long and complicated policies to improve the domestic situation. Eventually, he will have to focus on those, because the patience of the people is not endless. However, for the time being, he seems to prefer the easy way.

For example, when the price of oil began to fall, resulting in significantly reduced revenues for the Russian State and, consequently, in a worsening of the national living standards, the Kremlin responded by manufacturing and selling “urgent state problems” and disorder to distract the attention from internal issues. One of the main reasons Putin had for annexing Crimea was a important domestic imperative. Russia's Crimean mission was a fusion of Putin’s domestic and foreign policy agendas, and that independently from what else he might or might not accomplish, Putin’s annexation of Crimea would not be forgotten either at home or abroad.

In fact, as a result of the mission the President’s approval ratings skyrocketed again to 80%, from a low-point of 64% recorded only a few months earlier. It was the greatest increase in Putin’s approval ratings due to a single event since his records started being kept in 2000. Putin, emboldened by the fact that as a result of the taking of Crimea his domestic approval ratings are extremely high again, would now be willing to gamble and take significant risks in order to keep his approval ratings up, as demonstrated by the intervention in Syria and by the hard stance Putin took while confronting Turkey’s President Erdogan in the row over the downing of the Russian military jet.

To take a helicopter view: Moscow would have been wiser to first focus on addressing its economic and demographic issues until it would have had a strong and diversified enough economy to become the backbone of a strong foreign policy. Instead, the Russian economy remains too much dependent on energy causing the country to be vulnerable to erratic economic swings; its infrastructure is dilapidated and the country needs deep reforms. And maybe because of Putin knows that it cannot rely on the security apparatus to secure his powerful status, Putin is using the nationalist stick to prop up the morale of the Russian citizens de facto causing them to cast dry positive opinions about Putin. But these kinds of foreign policy gambles might carry a higher cost than benefit, and the thing with foreign policy adventures is that you know when and how to start them but you never know how and when they will end. 

Granted, Moscow has been able to reestablish itself as a regional power that can no longer be ignored, and has been able to fill the gaps left open by the US vacuum of power (i.e., Middle East but also gradually Latin America). However, while on the medium term the Moscow-Beijing axis is proven beneficial to both countries, on the long run the Kremlin should have a really geostrategic view and consider that its eastern flank is too much exposed to potential Chinese land grabs. One must acknowledge that the West has also made mistakes in handling Russia after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, but ultimately Russia is more a European/ Western country rather than an Asian country, and thus Washington would be a better partner to Moscow than Beijing.

The aforementioned strings of troubling foreign policy reversals should prompt Moscow and Vladimir Putin to reevaluate Russia's diplomatic and regional approach.