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Professor Richard Pipes, the Harvard University political scientist, is a seminal figure among sovietologists, historians and scholars of Soviet Studies. I highly recommend his trilogy, Russia under the Old Regime, The Russian Revolution and Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime ( I would pair the first with W.Bruce Lincoln’s The Romanovs Autocrats of All the Russias to see the differences between the way eminent historians and political scientists handle the same topic). Dr. Pipes has written an op-ed for WSJ.com and it was reviewed by his former student, Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett.

First the Pipes op-ed, then Tom’s assessment and then my comments:

“Pride and Power: Russia is caught between continents and haunted by its past,”

One unfortunate consequence of the obsession with “great power” status is that it leads Russians to neglect the internal conditions in their country. And here there is much to be done. To begin with: the economy. The Russian aggression against Georgia has cost it dearly in terms of capital flight. Due to the decline in the global prices of energy, which constitute around 70% of Russian exports, exports in the first half of 2009 have fallen by 47%. The stock market, which suffered a disastrous decline in 2008, has recovered, and the ruble has held steady, but the hard currency reserves are melting and the future does not look promising: The latest statistics indicate that Russia’s GDP this year will fall by 7%. It is this that has prompted President Dmitry Medvedev recently to demand that Russia carry out a major restructuring of her economy and end her heavy reliance on energy exports. “Russia needs to move forward,” he told a gathering of parliamentary party leaders, “and this movement so far does not exist. We are marking time and this was clearly demonstrated by the crisis… as soon as the crisis occurred, we collapsed. And we collapsed more than many other countries.”

….Today’s Russians are disoriented: they do not quite know who they are and where they belong. They are not European: This is attested to by Russian citizens who, when asked. “Do you feel European?” by a majority of 56% to 12% respond “practically never.” Since they are clearly not Asian either, they find themselves in a psychological limbo, isolated from the rest of the world and uncertain what model to adopt for themselves. They try to make up for this confusion with tough talk and tough actions. For this reason, it is incumbent on the Western powers patiently to convince Russians that they belong to the West and should adopt Western institutions and values: democracy, multi-party system, rule of law, freedom of speech and press, respect for private property. This will be a painful process, especially if the Russian government refuses to cooperate. But, in the long run, it is the only way to curb Russia’s aggressiveness and integrate her into the global community.

Read the rest here.

Now, Tom on Pipes:

Pipes the Elder on Biden comments: so impolite because they are so true

The biggest issue, like with China, is official corruption. The second is the pervasive depoliticization of the populace: they’ve never really had any experience picking their own leaders over the past 1,000 years. That fend-for-yourself mentality pervades the political system and its foreign policy. All citizens want from the state is order, and what they miss most about the Soviet past was that it preserved Russia’s contiguous empire beyond that of any in Europe or Asia.

Russians have no idea who they are today: they don’t feel either European or Asian. Eventually, they’ll come to some conclusion about what sitting between those civilizations means in terms of identity.

So patience and care is required.

Very nice piece by Pipes.

Read the rest here.

Russia has had repeated bouts of historical, “geographic schizophrenia”: the long Tatar Yoke, the age-old conflict between Petrine westernization and Orthodox slavophilism, the iron Soviet dictatorship, especially Stalin’s democidal rule. Russia has neither joined the West nor considered itself to be fully Asiatic. Instead, the Russians inherited a “Third Rome” complex from Byzantium that has helped keep them isolated from their own best opportunities as a great power. Fringe groups of ideologues promoting nutty “neo-Eurasianism” in Russia play upon this historical legacy.

To the extent that the cold-blooded Vladimir Putin and the Siloviki clan have made their nation into “Russia, Inc.” - a gas and energy monopoly in the tattered rags of a nation- state, the long term trend will be accepting globalization and integration, regardless of any deep cultural angst and Ivan Q. Public Great Russian nationalist-chauvinism along the way.

ADDENDUM:

“The Western View of Russia” by George Friedman

I have a mixed opinion on STRATFOR’s analytical products but Friedman is playing to his strengths here in a piece that is measured and thoughtful. Hat tip to Lexington Green.

Forget Me Not. Obama’s Russian “Reset” Risks Alienating Eastern European Allies by Mike Wussow

Adds some regional context to Friedman’s post .

New Yorker in DC has done an excellent region by region breakdown of the effect of the Russo-Georgian War on Russia’s “Near Abroad” as well as neighboring states, some which were formerly part of the Eastern Bloc and others, such as Turkey, that are NATO allies. It’s a very long post with many links but I wanted to highlight one particular section, from the introduction:

The situation in the Caucasus is slowly deteriorating. First, Poland and the United States reached an agreement on the missile shield to include 10 interceptor rockets at a base in northern Poland, and seemingly in response, Russia’s military pushed deeper into Georgian territory. Moreover, Russia also raised the ante by hinting that the US would have to choose, and soon, between what it refers to as its “Special Project” or issues which are more important to the US and the international community; mainly, Iran and North Korea. According to the AP, the US agreed in the deal with Poland, and in defiance of Russia’s recent victory, to include a declaration that the US will aid Poland militarily in case of a threat from a third country, and will establish a permanent American base on Polish soil.

The negotiations regarding missile defense have been ongoing but the sudden agreement with Poland was most likely intended by the Bush administration as diplomatic retaliation against Moscow for failing to adhere to the cease-fire agreement in Georgia.

In one sense, this might be a useful move to demonstrate that Russia’s policy in Georgia will come with a set of costs and that Poland’s swift adherence, after much earlier footdragging by Warsaw, indicates the unhappiness and alram of Russia’s neighbors. Unfortunately, it also represents more “flailing about” by the Bush administration to grab something that was already in the pipeline that the Russians would find particularly irritating in a country that is deeply anti-Russian for very good reasons.

Easy to do but putting an anti-missile unit in Poland really does not accrue us any new diplomatic leverage in the crisis. Or military advantages ( unless we are to believe that Putin intends to attack Poland, a member of NATO, with just one or two nuclear missiles -if so, problem solved!). In terms of reaching a declared goal of getting Russia out of Georgia this move was probably a net loss. But in the absence of any overarching strategy in Washington for Russian-American relations, the best that can be managed are tactical moves in isolation.

SOLZHENITSYN AND HIS BATTLE FOR RUSSIA’S SOUL

Der Spiegel recently had an interview with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ( hat tip to M. Gemmill). At 88, Solzhenitsyn has lost neither his mental acuity nor his uncompromising vision of Russia that made him the most feared of dissidents by Soviet leaders, until his expulsion from the USSR in 1974, four years after being awarded the Nobel Prize. Some excerpts of Solzhenitsyn’s answers from the interview:

“The prize in 1990 was proposed not by Gorbachev, but by the Council of Ministers of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, then a part of the USSR. The prize was to be for “The Gulag Archipelago.” I declined the proposal, since I could not accept an award for a book written in the blood of millions.

…I have grown used to the fact that, throughout the world, public repentance is the most unacceptable option for the modern politician.

….Vladimir Putin — yes, he was an officer of the intelligence services, but he was not a KGB investigator, nor was he the head of a camp in the gulag. As for service in foreign intelligence, that is not a negative in any country — sometimes it even draws praise.

….Only an extraordinary person can turn opportunity into reality. Lenin and Trotsky were exceptionally nimble and vigorous politicians who managed in a short period of time to use the weakness of Kerensky’s government. But allow me to correct you: the “October Revolution” is a myth generated by the winners, the Bolsheviks, and swallowed whole by progressive circles in the West.

….However, when you say “there is nearly no opposition,” you probably mean the democratic parties of the 1990s. But if you take an unbiased look at the situation: there was a rapid decline of living standards in the 1990s, which affected three quarters of Russian families, and all under the “democratic banner.” Small wonder, then, that the population does not rally to this banner anymore. And now the leaders of these parties cannot even agree on how to share portfolios in an illusory shadow government.”

Solzhenitsyn has never been a voice of liberalism or even Russian nationalism in the traditional pan-Slavic, imperial and chauvinistic sense the term is usually meant. Rather he has propagated Russophilism, even to the extent of using archaic Russian words without modern foreign antecedents, when possible, in his writings. Solzhenitsyn’s emphasis on the unique cultural and spiritual traditions of old Russia is one that excludes other peoples - including those like Jews and Ukrainians- who have been deeply intertwined with or innately part of Russian history.

Part of Solzhenitsyn’s thunderous moral denunciation of the monstrosities of the Soviet system were because of the ruin of the old Russian patrimony under the profoundly alien doctrines of Communism, a Western import. I would not be surprised if Solzhenitsyn traced the origin of Russia’s sad history to Peter the Great as much as to Vladimir Lenin.

ALL HAIL ZENPUNDIT I., EMPEROR OF GREENLAND

A New Power Is Rising

In the spirit of Russia’s recent and entirely specious claim to the sea floor of the Arctic Ocean , I would like to formally announce my claim to the imperial crown of Greenland as well as subsidiary overlordship over Baffin Island. Once the grateful natives and polar wildlife acclaim my benevolent, absentee, rule of the Greenlandic Empire, I will get about the business of issuing postage stamps, selling foreign ship registries and writing a few, slightly shady, bank secrecy laws.

Sure, Denmark already has de jure sovereignty over Greenland and they still have some kind of quaint, Scandivanian, bicycle-riding, monarchy rattling around Copenhagen and, technically, my blog is not yet considered a sovereign power, but what the hell ? The rule book has been thrown out! I don’t even think you need to be a nation-state anymore - call it a virtual, fourth generation, imperium. Plus, the chances of a punitive military expedition from Denmark reaching the Chicago area are relatively low. It’s not even that great that they’d make it to Greenland.

On a more serious note, the Russian claim to the Arctic may be complete nonsense in legal terms but the strategic energy policy behind the outrageous territorial grab it is not. It makes good sense for Russia to attempt maximize it’s future share of a tightening global oil and gas market as a way of boosting it’s geopolitical and economic influence. Without making too much of it in terms of noise, Washington needs to firmly rebuff Russia’s claim because any success will set off a scramble of imitators and splendid little wars across the globe between third and fourth tier powers. Or worse, larger powers like China with extensive but quiet claims of their own might begin to press them with greater vigor.

The world has enough headaches without re-starting the 19th century.

KOMSOMOL WITHOUT THE COMMUNISM

Recruiting for the next “rent-a-riot” to disrupt anti-Putin demonstrations. Man, are they just going through the motions here. Sad.

Hat tip to Dr. Von.