Two years into Putin’s war against the global order Moscow declares a new Cold War in Munich. How would Putin view his progress?
One should begin with Putin’s world view and his closest security advisors. Putin and his security elite pursued three primary and interrelated goals upon his return to power in 2012: (a) the survival of the Putin regime against a Colored Revolution; (b) fabricating a Russian domestic identity opposed to American internationalism; and (c) creating a Russian led geopolitical order breaking American unipolar hegemony.
Putin began his war with the same inner circle in place today. Members still include FSB Chairman Bortnikov, former FSB Chairman and now Chair of the National Security Council Patrushev, SVR Chair Fradkov, Chief of Staff Sergei Ivanov (former KGB, Putin FSB associate & Minister of Defense) and others. Minister of Defense Shoigu is not a full member of the innermost circle but actively participates; he was a popular civilian political figure before assuming his post. Still further outside the inner circles are a number of other former intelligence officers, such as RISI Chair General Reshetnikov, other former KGB or FSB associates.
Non power entities like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Finance, etc. remain outsiders and may be consulted but are rarely included in key national security decision-making. Putin’s Central Banker and Minister of Finance, for example, often can not get a face to face meeting. (Putin’s disdain for technocratic experts is well known). Patrushev, not the Ministry of Finance, ruled on potential defense budget restrictions.
Putin’s innermost security circle share a counter-intelligence culture. That circle in turn activated and uses various nationalist, ultra-nationalist, fascist and Orthodox voices as useful. The KGB fostered that symbiotic relationship during the later Soviet era; the contemporary relationship remains utilitarian. All nonetheless share a perceived threat from globalization and international norms long pre-dating Ukraine’s Maidan in 2014.
The counter-intelligence ideology – as during the Soviet period – attributes American causality to international events. Putin et al. continue to believe American policies purposefully create so-called Colored Revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Georgia, Ukraine and intended to export one to Russia. The tautology? American power drives globalization, so any event touched by globalization is America’s fault. Moreover, American media and social technology such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are seen as weapons promoting American hegemony. A Russian response requires control, censorship or manipulation via state-sponsored information war campaigns.
The 2012 Bolotnaya Moscow protesters demonstrating against Putin’s return to power confirmed Putin’s view of attempted American regime change. A counter-intelligence mind set perceives intent and linkages signaling threats in Moscow – as made clear by this March 2016 development. Maidan is another example; Putin himself declared America manipulated Ukrainians “like rats” to overthrow Yanukovich, ushering in Maidan. To dismiss this view as mere rhetoric is a mistake. Patrushev accused the US of using Ukraine as a pretext to overthrow the Kremlin and split Russia. Reshetnikov from RISI frequently uses KGB tradecraft frames to uncover alleged CIA and American operations driving many contemporary events.
These specific potential revolutions are seen as the inevitable result of US-led globalization, the proxy for American power and unipolar hegemony. The Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISI), the Kremlin think tank, recently described international globalization and norms as an existential threat to Russian distinctiveness and geopolitical identity.
Europe is an important Russian target in Putin’s war for two reasons. First, as Timothy Snyder et al. emphasize, Russia is outclassed only by a unified EU. Russia would be again closer as a peer power with the EU collapsed, facing individual countries. Secondly, American power is seen as rooted in the unified Western idea. Breaking the EU is a means of ejecting America from the European littoral.
In this context, ascribing Western notions of defensive and offensive actions to Moscow can be misleading. Russian counter-intelligence mind-set stipulates Russia faces a protracted existential threat. This siege mentality assumes a priori that the assault already began. Accordingly, actions responding to (notional) assault may be rationalized as defensive. Reduction of tensions through Western compromise that do not dismantle globalization and international norms will not alleviate the existential threat. Mirror imaging Western notions of rationality will misidentify Russian threat perceptions and decision loops.
Using his own counter-intelligence metrics, Putin’s war on Ukraine can be judged a costly — though incomplete — success. Putin crushed the Bolotnaya movement and stopped a potential Maidan arising in Russia. Ordinary Russians in 2016 overwhelmingly view Ukraine, Maidan and Ukraine’s uprising in starkly negative terms.
Securing his regime from a (notional) American-sponsored Colored Revolution (in 2012 and again after Maidan) is a priceless achievement. By definition.
Putin also fabricated a crude Russian tribal identity to resist globalization’s alleged homogeneity. Unleashed Russian chauvinism supported roll back of fragile liberal democratic civil society and NGOs, rule of law and marginalized ‘liberal’ Opposition.
Abroad, Russian operations in Crimea and Donbas cripple Ukraine’s post-Maidan consolidation. Crimea under Russian control proved Russia can alter the post War European map by force and defy international norms. Russian military assets in Crimea now extend regional area denial power projection by sea and air.
The Ukraine war’s great failures are nevertheless stark. Putin created Ukrainian nationalism. Moscow completely misjudged the potential for taking Ukraine with a “Russian Spring” uprising. Ukrainians overwhelmingly now support a European path. EU sanctions also surprised Moscow. NATO reinforces its eastern flank. Russian international isolation is undeniable; an independent Russian geopolitical pole not only failed to materialize, China refused to support the concept.
Domestically, Russian euphoria over Crimea stalled; Ukraine fatigue is undeniable. Russian media long ago dropped anti-Ukraine agitprop. Polls, never reliable in Russia, nonetheless show widespread opposition to further operations in Ukraine. Russians now debate the names of 2,000 individual alleged combat deaths.
Economic concerns dominate. In the famous Russian battle between the television and the refrigerator, the latter is winning. Saudi oil warfare drives the Russian economy into recession. In 2015 the economy contracted by 3.7%. The IMF predicts recession continuing into 2017. Kudrin, Moscow’s former Finance Minister, agrees 2016 will be another painful year.
The tangible impact of this on average Russians is clear. The ruble lost 60% of its value against the dollar. Average wages of Russians have fallen already 10%. Almost 60% of Russians say the economy is the greatest threat to Russia. The majority of Russians now favor rebuilding ties to the West. Russia’s economy shrunk to the approximate level of The Netherlands – GDP is now at 2006 levels.
More worrying for Moscow, oil and gas revenues constitute 44% of the federal budget. The resulting $38 billion deficit led to panicked efforts to raise revenue from new taxes or rushed privatization. Even the formerly sacrosanct defense budget is being cut by 5%. Delays in paying defense contracts and salaries led to an “unprecedented revolt” in 2016 by regional defense enterprises.
Western sanctions have a more targeted impact than Saudi oil policy. A key example is military development. Russian re-armament under their so-called 2020 plan began to hit its stride in 2014. Russian inability to access Western technology is now a critical limiting step for the Russian defense industrial base (VPK). Chief of the General Staff Gerasimov’s article “About the Syrian Experience”, underscored the essential nature of high tech cyber, precision and other weapons for future warfare – and Russian need to catch up. Such weapons are much more expensive to procure than those under the 2020 plan. To design and build them, the Russian VPK needs Western (and Chinese) technology.
Military requirements highlight a contradiction in Putin’s counter-intelligence approach. Modern technologies will not likely emerge from Russian neo-autarky, if at all. Yet Gerasimov attributes Syria’s civil war to another attempted American-led Colored Revolution. His call for Russia to develop a formal hybrid warfare doctrine and information warfare capability because of Syria reveals how pervasive the counter-intelligence mindset pervades Russian national security thinking in 2016.
Moscow’s Syrian gambit should be seen in this context. Syria marks the first overt Russian military deployment to halt (at least temporarily) a perceived neo-Color Revolution.
Russia curtailed Ukrainian activity before the Syria operation. Russian Ukraine fatigue, diplomatic signaling and maskirovka undoubtedly played a role. Syria deployments also demanded substantial planning, command and control bandwidth at the General Staff and decision-making levels. A question is how much Putin’s style of personalized rule necessarily limits simultaneous strategic operations.
Moscow unrealistically believed it could use Syria to re-open a global settlement with Washington (the aborted Medvedev DC trip, etc). Putin clearly dangled a Yalta 2.0. To date, the US compartmentalized its grudging cooperation to Syria.
(N.B.: Russia did not create the Syrian refugee crisis to undermine the EU. Putin, however, opportunistically uses it.)
Moscow currently supports cessation of military operations (never described by Moscow as an actual ‘cease fire’). Americans and Europeans now discuss partition with Assad remaining in a rump state. This is a tentative operational victory that could become strategic.
Putin also underestimated challenges. He promised a three month commitment and no ground troops. Russian offensives then failed. Russia achieved tactical and almost operational success around Aleppo by increasing air strikes and deploying actual ground troops. (Social media posts by Russian troops from Syria prove they are in actual combat, not just advisors). When would this end? At what cost? Moscow observers already noted Putin’s raiding training budgets to pay for Syria would soon be unworkable.
Russia lacks experience fighting in the Middle East unlike its Eastern European comfort zone. After Turkey shot down the Su-24, Russia faced unpredictable conflict. Turkey’s large military and control of the Straits pose significant strategic risk. Russia also has no interest in Turkey expanding its regional influence via a pseudo Ottoman revival. Saudi threats to deploy troops in Syria would expose Russians to direct combat against Sunni nations. Worse, the Saudis are technologically more advanced than the Russian military, boasting precision guided weapons that Moscow lacks. Finally, Russia’s relationship with Iran is more complicated than many perceive.
A pause now allows Moscow to assess circumstances and re-think tactical and strategic objectives.
Of Putin’s three goals, only one can be said to be fully achieved: preventing (notional) regime change in Russia and blocking a potential Maidan in Moscow. In Ukraine, his grip on Donbas puts Kiev’s alleged attempted Color Revolution on hold and buys him time. Moscow did, however, manage to arrest Assad’s imminent defeat. That outcome arguably marks the second time Putin defeated a (notional) American-led Colored Revolution.
Other goals remain elusive. And costs are staggering.
His new, fabricated Russian tribal identity frays at the edges from recession and growing ineffectiveness of regime propaganda. Worse, Putin’s counter-intelligence ideology is at odds with necessary measures for sustained Russian economic development and military transformation.
War, however, is often a function of results over time. Operational outcomes frequently are relative to a specific moment. Can Putin gamble and manage his costs better than the American and EU international order? Better than Kiev? His economic and political burn rate is massive. There’s no doubt, however, it’s better than Kiev’s currently. After all, some Russian economic recovery — at reduced levels — is expected sometime in 2017.
Putin has long said the EU’s great weakness is it began as an economic integration without the political. Major European political dysfunction at the national and EU level over austerity, terrorism, refugees and EU membership underscore that point. Can Putin out-wait/hasten European drift towards disintegration while absorbing his costly missteps? A counter-intelligence view of existential threat mandates he try or improvise again.
Accordingly, Russian funding for European Left or Right extremes (openly as in the case of Le Pen, others covertly) and other subversion must continue. EU political de-stabilization at worst (for Putin) means sanctions likely collapse regardless of Minsk II. At best, the EU itself eventually could, too. Putin is the only leader supporting a British June 2016 vote to leave the EU.
An ongoing existential threat motivates Putin to avoid a Gorbachev-esque accommodation 1988-91. What circumstance(s) trigger a transition to a standing fight are not known. Yet Moscow already thinks about scenarios. Military publications emphasize the need to ensure today’s Russian Army will not waiver in regime defense as the Soviet Army did in 1991. The West should think about scenarios, too.
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