The Foreign Policy Dimension And Its Link to Domestic Policy

Accordingly the exploitation of ethno-religious and other fissures in targeted societies has become a staple of Russian foreign policy.  A recent Chatham House study by Keir Giles emphasized Russia’s ability to purchase or co-opt business and political elites to create compliant networks”, generate “agents of influence” or “Trojan horses” in foreign governments and institutions that offer Russia leverage over them.[i] This is particularly the case where ethnic and/or religious cleavages offer a means for exploiting those tensions to Russia’s benefit as is now the case with regard to Muslim migration to Europe.[ii] This is because for Russia the phenomenon of nationalism is one that begs to be instrumentalized for the benefit of the state.  As innumerable studies of Russian policy have shown, in the Balkans Moscow supports the Hungarian minority against Ukraine, Serbs against Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro, and Bosnia, even to the degree of launching a coup in 2016-17 in Montenegro using Serbs.[iii]  And in the Middle East this tactic has an equally long provenance dating back to the Tsars. These tactics are a larger part of an overall approach to what used to be called the “national question” that prizes tactical flexibility in manipulating the perception of reality in service to Russian state objectives. Thus James Sherr of Chatham House has written that,

While Russia formally respects the sovereignty of its erstwhile republics; it also reserves the right to define the content of that sovereignty and their territorial integrity.  Essentially Putin’s Russia has revived the Tsarist and Soviet view that sovereignty is a contingent factor depending on power, culture, and historical norms, not an absolute and unconditional principle of world politics.[iv]

Sherr subsequently wrote that “For 20 years the Russian Federation has officially – not privately, informally or covertly, but officially – equated its own security with the limited sovereignty of its neighbors.”[v]  More recently Alexander Cooley, Director of Columbia University’s Harriman Institute, deconstructed the logical inconsistencies in Russian justifications for its actions in Ukraine and demonstrates that what ties together Russian argumentation on behalf of empire is essentially expediency in the name of self-interest.[vi]

Similarly the manufacture, incitement, and exploitation of ethnic or other conflicts among the peoples on Russia’s periphery dates back to the very inception of the Russian state in the XVth Century.[vii]  Neither was or is this tactic confined to the people inside the empire.  It was and is a hallmark of Russian policy towards the Kurds and Armenians in the late Ottoman Empire and remains so today for as recent studies of Russian policy towards the Kurds and toward Iraq make clear Russia’s attitude towards the Kurds varies with the prospects for its ties to Turkey and Iraq.[viii] At the same time, Susan Stewart of the Stiftung Wissenschaft Und Politik in Germany writes that

Russia is more than willing to tolerate instability and economic weakness in the neighboring countries, assuming they are accompanied by an increase in Russian influence.  In fact, Russia consciously contributes to the rising instability and deterioration of the economic situation in some, if not all, of these countries.[ix]

In the Caucasus, Richard Giragosian, Founding Director of  the Regional Stuides Center  in Yerevan observes that,

Russia is clearly exploiting the unresolved Karabakh conflict and rising tension in order to further consolidate its power and influence in the South Caucasus.  Within this context, Russia has not only emerged as the leading arms provider to Azerbaijan, but also continues to deepen its military support and cooperation with Armenia.  For Azerbaijan, Russia offers an important source of modern offensive weapons, while for Armenia, both the bilateral partnership with Russia and membership in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) offers Armenia its own essential security guarantees.[x]

 Unfortunately this remains the case today.  The indepndent Caucasus-based analyst Eugene Kogan reached the same conclusion. 

Moscow remains determined to block conflict resolution as conflict resolution would eliminate much of its leverage and  pretexts for militarizing the area even though it is incresingly clear that Moscow  has not arrested the disintegration of the North Caucasus by these forceful policies.[xi]

Other analysts have reached this conclusion too.

In the case of Azerbaijan, the government of Azerbaijan needs to understand that as long as President Putin sees no personal benefits for him and his government in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict’s resolution, Moscow will retain the policy of status quo, which is best for its own interests.  The other two parties, namely the co-chairs of the Minsk Group – France and the US – will do nothing to change the situation as long as it cannot change in their favor.[xii]

And in regard to Central Asia Alexey Malashenko of the Carnegie Endowment in Moscow has confirmed this same point, and also observed that the issue of protecting Russians abroad is merely an instrument or tactic not a principled policy.  Listing the goals of Russian policy in Central Asia, Malashenko writes that,

This list does not mention stability, since that is not one of Russia’s unwavering strategic demands for the region.  Although the Kremlin has repeatedly stressed its commitment to stability, Russia nevertheless finds shaky situations more in its interests, as the inherent potential for local or regional conflict creates a highly convenient excuse for persuading the governments of the region to seek help from Russia in order to survive.[xiii]

Russian foreign policy beyond the CIS faithfully process along similar lines. The Anglo-American historian Niall Ferguson observed that “Russia, thanks to its own extensive energy reserves, is the only power that has no vested interest in stability in the Middle East.”[xiv]  Thus Putin’s gambits in Moldova, Georgia, and now Ukraine are part of an unbroken and long tradition of Russian statecraft, not improvisations or anomalies.  Rather they stand at the center of the Russian policy and state-building process.

But while we focus here on Russian policy, we cannot overlook the fact that in many if not most of these societies that were targeted by Russia and in contemporary Syria the prospect for a cohesive state and social order were already diminishing if not destroyed both before and thanks to Russian policies.  Those groups that cooperated with Russia were themselves in some way representative of the fragmentation processes occurring within them and sought to use their connection with Russian power to advance their own objectives.  For example in the first decade of Soviet power in what became Uzbekistan, Adeeb Khalid observes that, “It is absurd to speak of a single ‘Uzbek Muslim culture’ in a society wracked by a decade and a half of conflict, a society that had experienced a murderous civil war and the dislocations of revolution and famine.”[xv]  He also notes that during the ideological campaigns against Islam in the 1920s Muslim  and pro-Moscow cadres had no compunction about assaulting their own brethren and their religious traditions in the name of Socialism.  In other words they were quite coopted and persuaded about the validity of Leninist ambitions and objectives.[xvi]

He further noted that the determination of the early Soviet leaders to shatter traditional mores and institutions found a response among impatient, and hitherto marginalized potential of counter-elites in Central Asian society who also had their own, not necessarily Leninist, vision of effecting such a transformation.[xvii]  Therefore local actors often although perhaps not always, had their own scope for agency especially if their society was undergoing some sort of transformative crisis or destabilizing process.