Russia's recent diplomatic successes in Syria and Iran, along with US President Barack Obama's foreign policy mistakes, have emboldened President Vladimir Putin in his efforts to position Russia as capable of countering American exceptionalism and Western universalism. But Putin's recent address to the Federal Assembly was more a reflection of his anger at Russia's geopolitical marginalization than a battle cry of a rising empire.
With the United States exhausted by pointless wars in the Middle East and Europe turned inward to face its own crisis, the case is more compelling today than at any time since the Cold War. However, this does not change the fact that Russia is a failing power, whose diplomatic triumphs are merely tactical achievements that do not result in a strategic game changer for the world.
If, as Lenin said, communism was "Soviet power plus the electrification of the entire world", then Putinism can be reduced to nuclear weapons and oil extraction. In all other areas, the West maintains a clear advantage: Russia's demographic decline, its aging armed forces, one-dimensional economy, low productivity and chronic internal unrest make the challenges facing the US and Europe smaller and easier.
In fact, Putin's recent address was filled with allusions to Russia's weaknesses - primarily "inter-ethnic tensions", local governments "constantly rocked by corruption scandals", incompetent administration, capital outflows through "offshore activities" and the inability to achieve "technological breakthroughs". ". These features do not contribute to the creation of a dominant force in the globalized world. Like it or not, stories about Russia's competition with the West are nothing more than sentimental nostalgia or meaningless rhetoric.
As far as Putin is concerned, the agreement reached in 1945 during the Yalta conference is not dead; the borders of the Kremlin's influence simply shifted eastward, mostly to the borders of the former USSR. Although Putin managed to prevent Georgia from joining NATO, his Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC) is a poor copy of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), which consisted of all Eastern Bloc countries and a few more socialist countries. Similarly, the Organization for Collective Security and Co-operation, a Eurasian military alliance led by Russia, is nothing more than the old Warsaw Pact.
Moreover, although Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovych have so far managed to prevent Ukraine's trade and political agreement with the European Union, they are unlikely to be able to do so for much longer. And while Putin won over with generous financial support and cheap gas, Ukraine is unlikely to join the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Community, which is more a means of funneling former Soviet republics into Russia's sphere of influence than a mechanism to promote trade.
However, the most serious threat to Russia's status in the world is the obsolescence of its nuclear arsenal. Putin cannot respond to America's development of a "global lightning strike," which allows the United States to hit targets around the world with conventional weapons within an hour - which would render Russia's defenses irrelevant. Russia can no more compete with Western technology and capabilities today than the USSR could when it collapsed under the stress of the arms race with the US.
In his address to the Federal Assembly, Putin positioned himself as a defender of conservative values against "tolerance, neutral and barren" (a euphemism for gay rights) and a champion of morality and traditional family values. Russia may no longer be a superpower; but, Putin claims, it represents a morally superior civilization that fights against America's foreign policy carelessness, harmful economic practices, and moral depravity.
Putin's stories about morality, however, are full of contradictions. "Today, many nations," he warned, "change their moral values and ethical norms, destroy ethnic traditions and differences between people and cultures." However, Russia is a kaleidoscope of ethnicities and cultures, whose efforts to affirm are dismissed in the same speech as the criminal behavior of "ethnic mafias".
Moreover, the Western values that Putin rejects in the name of Russian nationalism (and anti-Americanism) are precisely those that many Russians embrace.
Putin's description of Russia as a Slavophile and Eurasian country reflects his drive to forge an alliance with China and other emerging economies to shake America's global dominance.
However, Putin cannot expect China to support his intentions. China may have joined Russia in opposing Western "humanitarian interventions" in internal conflicts in other countries, but the Cold War view that ideological closeness is the appropriate basis for a military alliance would not work with China today. Simply put, China is not interested in revolutionizing the international system from which it benefits so much.
Putin's ambitions are nothing new. Indeed, it represents a continuation of Russia's centuries-old desire to be treated as a major power in a world order it sees as a Hobbesian struggle in a war of all against all. However, authoritarianism and inadequate diplomacy are not exactly a recipe for success in the XNUMXst century.
Translation: M. RUDOVIĆ
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2014.
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