Identity in a Great Power

Called RussiaTapani Kaakkuriniemi

Helsinki Summer School8 August 2008

Doctrines and foreign policy Military doctrine, 2000 Concept of foreign policy, 2000 Concept of national security, 2000 Naval doctrine up to the year 2020, 2001 Ecological doctrine, 2002 Concept of the development of healt care

up to the year 2020 (in the process) Concept of demographic policy, 2007

National interest & security Soviet system: excessive securitization Russian Fed.: desecuritization? Soft security: human rights, dignity and

welfare of the individual citizen Now: security ≈ empire → more

securitization Primakov 1998: ”to strengthen the foreign

ministry’s efforts to protect Russian national interests, i.e. being a great power and having a policy reflecting that status”

Security challenges Russia could not prevent NATO’s

enlargement nor NATO’s 1999 air war punishing Serbia for its brutality in Kosovo and elsewhere in ex-Yugoslavia

Russian population in ex-Soviet republics: Estonia, (Latvia), Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Transdnistria/Приднестровье

Security interests in border areas: Chechnya, Ossetia (South/North), Abkhasia

Military might Problems of the army: substantial re-

equipment, modernization of the principles for manning the army

Colonel-General (2003): 56 % of officers are living below the poverty line

An increasing proportion of the weapons systems are out-of-date or will soon be so

Shortages of fuel, spare parts, lubricants and ammunition: no excercise

Military might #2 In 2007, Ground forces: an estimated total

395.000 including ca. 190.000 conscripts In 1995–96: estimated 670.000 including

210.000 conscripts Problems of the in-barracks discipline:

according to Min. Ivanov, 531 men had died on duty in accidents and crimes in 2002, and 20.000 had been wounded

Military districts Ground & Coastal Defence

Forces of the Baltic Fleet Leningrad Military District ……. Moscow Military District ……… 20th Army ……………………… North Caucasus Military

District Trans-Caucasus Group of

Forces Volga-Ural Military District …… Siberian Military District ……… Far East Military District ………

HQ Kaliningrad

HQ St. PetersburgHQ MoscowVoronežHQ Rostov-na-Donu

Tbilisi

HQ YekaterinburgHQ ChitaKhabarovsk

Russian Federation

Economic security External debt has diminished drastically. Exchange rate is stable. Registered unemployment decreasing. Ecological problems grow in importance. Fuel and energy sector is the main source

of environmental degradation: 70 % of total greenhouse gas emissions

Deterioration of health: 60 million people live in environmentally hazardous conditions

Economic security Demography, health and economy: Quality & qualification of labour force Aging & diminishing population

Population of Russia: projectionYear Population (million)2008 140,7 (est.)2010 1382015 134

Geopolitical view to security Nikita Lomagin: 1999-2002 remarkable

shift from traditional realist/liberal think-ing to a broader understanding of security

The National Security Concept (2000)http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/doctrine/gazeta012400.htm

Foreign Policy Concept (1999/2000)http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/doctrine/econcept.htm

Responsibility of international security, commitment to create a new world order

CIS and Russia CIS: weak organ for integration Multi-level cooperation: councils of… heads of states, governments, foreign

ministries, defence ministries, joint armed forces, commanders of border troops

Inter-governmental economic council + bank-financial council

Russia: problematic status of Big Brother

CIS and its alternatives Treaty Organization on Collective Security Eurasian Economic Community (BY, KAZ,

KYR, RUS, TAJ, UZ Central Asian Community (KAZ, KYR, UZ,

TAJ, RUS) Shanghai Organization of Cooperation

(KAZ, KYR, RUS, TAJ, UZ, CN) Unified Economic Area (BY, KAZ, RUS, UA) Federal Union of Russia and Belarus

Russia as an island, #1/10 The model of Vadim Cymburski is an

alternative version to Mackinder’s 1904 vision of Eurasian geopolitics understood as a competition between Heartland and Rimland.

Heartland: unconquerable land power in the central and northern parts of the landmass

Rimland: maritime powers at the coastal edges of the Eurasian landmass

Russia as an island, #2/10 Crucial conception for Cymburski: hard

nucleus of the continent, i.e. Island Russia, a metaphysical model of the centre of the Russian polity

Abandoning the Eurasianist models from the 1920s, C. claims that there are three characteristics that describe Russia as a geopolitical object:

1) it is the whole geopolitical niche of the Russian ethnos, located east of the "Roman-Germanic ethno-civilizatory platform" without having a relationship with it.

Russia as an island, #3/10 2) the width of the areas in the east that are

extremely difficult to conquer. This is why he abandons the Mackinderian model, too.

3) Russia is bounded in the west by the Roman-German Europe, to the "homeland of liberal civilization, to the belt of the nations and regions that are connected to the Europe proper but do not belong to it". This intermediate region Cymburskij calls "strait territories", despite of their continental location.

Russia as an island, #4/10 By this statement, C. emphasizes that the

Russian world does not fall into western categories, but is large and vital enough to form a category by itself, and thus act as a core of its own type of civilisation.

Island Russia: Russia as an ethnic, linguistic, cultural, religious and historical entity

Island Russia is a pure civilization in the Huntingtonian sense, without alien elements.

Russia as an island, #5/10 Cymburskij's thought about maintaining

the nucleus of Russia intact re-awakens the Slavophile ideas of the 19th century.

Its counterpart is the peripheral and amorphic limitroph, a border territory around the nucleus.

Geographically it is the periphery of Island Russia, but being outside of the nucleus, it falls under the historical influence of other civilizations.

Russia as an island, #6/10 Because of Eurasian history and

geography, Island Russia is actually surrounded by not only its own limitroph, but also the Great Euro-Asian Limitroph, starting in Finland in the northwest and ending in Korea in the southeast.

This belt is a miscellaneous mixture of the peripheries of all major Eurasian civilizations.

Russia as an island, #7/10 From the Russian point of view, the limitropg

forms a single geopolitical megasystem, with criss-crossing civilizational boundaries. Russia's central location means that it borders the Great Limitroph along its entire length.

Russia has no obligation to, say, maintain the economies of the limitroph in a good shape by preferential treatment or investments, but less costly political meddling is Russia’s natural right in the area.

Russia as an island, #8/10 Island Russia necessarily is smaller than the

Russian Federation, because the latter contains many ethnoses, which are not Russian.

They nevertheless are within the jurisdiction of the Russian state, and thus competition against other centres is easiest there, but at the same time the political necessity to control and “civilize” these non-Russian elements and keep them within the Federation is very strong.

Russia as an island, #9/10 The Near Abroad: The former Soviet

sphere of influence forms the inner core of the Great Euro-Asian Limitroph.

This way, the belts around the nucleus can be perceived as a space available for the Island Russia.

Other civilizational elements, such as Orthodox Christianity, or the wider Slavic ethnos, also make for commonalities with the Island Russia.

Russia as an island, #10/10 Does Balkan belong to the Great Limitroph

of Russia or not? No, it is not, at least in geographical terms, an area in the immediate sphere of interests of Russia.

Probably the best solution suggested for the case of Balkan is the proposal of Mikhail Il'in that in many respects, Balkan should be regarded as a special item in the Great Limitroph.