Russian Desperation
I talk a lot about geography because I believe that Herodotus was right in that ‘geography is destiny’, and very few countries detail that better than Russia. Geo-politically speaking, states always seek two things: Security and prosperity. Mountains, deserts, and large bodies of water can buffer a state from its enemies while flat plains, navigable rivers, extensive coastlines, and a temperate climate can create a region where prosperity flows naturally (Carter). The Russian core territories have none of these. To remedy this, the Russians conquered. They conquered everyone. After nearly three hundred years, it claimed everything from Warsaw to Anchorage, a distance of about four and a half thousand miles. Russia bound its borders to the Carpathian mountains, the Caucuses, the deserts of Central Asia, and the Pacific ocean, finally gaining strategic distance and protection. All these regions were necessary to the prosperity and defense of the Empire in that they provided coasts and distance.
There are no major deserts or mountain chains between Moscow and Central Europe, so Russia instead used distance as a natural defense (Marshall). The plan was to force their enemies to slog through miles and miles of the frozen, muddy wasteland that composes much of Eastern Europe and slowly wear them down until the Russians could beat them back (Marshall). Napoleon, Carolus Rex, and Hitler all failed to breach that strategic distance between them and Moscow. The distance that the Kremlin has maintained between it and its perceived threats is the primary natural defense the Russians have employed in its many years (Marshall). But, to obtain prosperity, Russia needs easy access to the sea. Unfortunately, the most populated regions of the country are landlocked and very close to the tundra. Shipping is the cheapest and most efficient way to move goods in bulk, but boats need ports, specifically warm water ports that do not freeze over (Valentine). Such is the sticking point for Russia’s centers of trade. While Russia has extensive coastlines, most are located in the tundra and are blocked by ice for the majority of the year. Two of the largest ports in the Russian territory, St. Petersburg and Arkhangelsk, are iced over for many months at a time, and Russia’s largest warm water port, Novorossiysk, has four different choke points between it and the open sea (Samokhvalov). These chokepoints have been used by Russia’s previous rivals in the past to deny them access to the broader world. Russia needed to expand its influence and territory to the west to reach warmer ports and bypass these chokepoints (Marshall). In order for Russia to control the distance from its rivals and garner open sea access, it needs to conquer the surrounding regions or persuade them to submit to the Kremlin’s whims.
However, relying on these geographic advantages becomes problematic when the non-Russian populations that live on the land that both bars the country from invaders and gives easy sea access, come into contact with ideas of nationalism and self-determination (Miscevic). There were lots of different peoples who lived in that critical space between Russia and the world, who are not Russian and do not want to be governed by Russians. Russia, however, needs that critical space and dedicated much of the 19th and 20th centuries to control the peoples that wanted nothing to do with them. Riga is a fantastic port that rests at the end of the Daugava River, but the local Latvians have typically taken issue to Russian incursions. The massive flat expanses of Ukraine have swallowed countless invaders, but I doubt if the local Ukrainians ever enjoyed being fodder. Lastly, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia are all critically important to securing Russia’s southern border on the caucuses, But all those countries have significant issues with one another and don’t appreciate being forced into the same side. All of the smaller countries around Russia have the geography Russia needs to be safe and prosperous, and for a while they had it.
The Soviet Union was the most powerful incarnation of the Russian state. It had more than enough buffer from Western European aggression and access to plenty of warm water ports. The issue was that they had managed to tick off the United States. And so, despite finally achieving everything Russia ever needed to be prosperous, the United States rallied a global economic alliance that eventually strangled the Soviet Economy. Everything came tumbling down soon after when, on December 26th, 1991, the Soviet Union officially ceased to exist, being replaced with fifteen new nation-states.
In the subsequent years, the Baltics, Poland, most of the Balkans, and Romania all went to the West, joining the EU, NATO, or both, thus abandoning Russia. Conversely, the Caucuses, Belarus, and Central Asia all stayed with the Russians and joined in various trade and military agreements (Kuhrt). Here Ukraine stands alone as the last state to have neglected to choose a side (officially). Ukraine both kowtowed to the Kremlin and tried to join the West, thus leaving them in a situation without Russian trust or Western backing (Samokhvalov). The problem with Russia losing its influence over much of the former Soviet Union is that it lost that critical ocean access and distance from continental rivals. While that would be bad, typically, Russia’s imminent demographic collapse makes it catastrophic without proper precautions (Adamson). The Russian Federation saw a birth rate decline of 60% between 1991 and 1992, as people stopped having children due to the economic and political travesty present at the time (Vandenbroucke). With the loss of these territoires Russian security and Russian economic prosperity held on by a thread. The only way to regain either security or prosperity would be to regain those territories.
Coincidentally, it has almost been thirty years since 1991, and the army is starting to feel the crunch of demographics. Any nation’s army is typically made up of 18-30-year-olds, but because of the birth rate collapse, the Russian military will have an ever harder time finding soldiers (Eberstadt). This should set off alarm bells since even a basic understanding of Russian military history clearly shows the historic Russian reliance on quantity over quality. Thus it becomes a real quandary: if Russia ever wants to regain its strategic defensibility and that critical distance that it lost with the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has to act soon (Eberstadt). And, personally, Vladimir Putin does not strike me as the type of personality that will let his country lose this chance.
Geo-politically speaking, Russia should seek to control much of Eastern Europe to regain that strategic distance it held in the past and that it needs to be safe. I have been using the word ‘control’ very specifically so far because the nature of Russian influence does come in a spectrum. There is the extremely blunt instrument of outright conquest, see Crimea (Eberstadt). There are the covert Social and political influences, see Poland, Hungary, or the United States (Simon). And lastly there are combination offensives where military force is used to support “local” “freedom” or “independence” movements, see the Georgain war or the on-going Ukrainain border conflicts (Eberstadt). Russian destabilization of Hungarian libral democracy into an illiberal democracy has distanced the country from its Western European neighbors and the United States, which is all Russia needs. This will be the Kremlin’s play book moving forward: a mix of crimean-like occupations and Hungarian-like destabilizations. Certain key strategic zones the Russians will simply occupy, some examples might be Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, and strategic areas in Azerbaijan. While other larger targets the Russians will simply force out of everyone else’s orbit: countries like Armenia, Poland, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan.
My first question/objection to this idea was primarily: “What about NATO/EU?”, but that idea has mainly been put to rest with the rising tide of right wing isolationism. Let us start with NATO. Created to perpetuate peace and contain Russia, or the Soviet Union, NATO has been fairly aimless as of late. The Soviet Union fell thirty years ago and no other threat has really arisen to warrant such a massive alliance. Most potently the American public has become largely disenchanted with being a part of a wider global community. The 2016 election is the most obvious example of this with the Trump administration being openly hostile towards the alliance. The new Biden administration has clearly stated that they want to patch up any wounds made by the past administration, but I doubt how far they will get. The rising popularity in both right and left wing populism in the United States with Super-Star politicians like Trump and Sanders have pushed at the entrenched beliefs of the Neo-Liberal establishment in Washington. The American public is less and less willing to effectively interact with the rest of the world until issues like healthcare, police brutality, and income inequality are dealt with, and ignoring all of those issues to pay for an alliance that frankly has no real purpose for Americans does not sound like a savvy political strategy. Ask yourself this question: “Do you think Joe Biden would send American citizens to die for Estonia?”. I don’t know. That uncertainty is a colossal shift in America’s role in the world.
Next, the EU, dedicated to maintaining peace in Europe, is seeing massive upheaval at the periphery. Anti-Western movements have gripped many of the former Soviet Republics like in Poland and Hungary (Simon). Right-wing single-party rule has come to these countries, and the men in power blame the EU for ‘weakening’ their country. Unsurprisingly, the Russians were involved in election meddling in both Hungary and Poland (Simon). Brexit has shaken the confidence that both the international community and the member states had in the EU. And at the core, the economic/financial fallout of the Euro collapse have not yet come home to roost as the Germans have been kicking that can down the road for over a decade, but due to the German’s own demographic challenges (see “European Finances Pt. 2” for more), Germany can only prolong for a few more years. Yes the EU has a “Common Security and Defense Policy”, but given the collosal issues the institution has I doubt it survives the decade (again for more see my “European Finances” series).
There is a reason Estonia does not have a long history of independence. Same for Belarus, Ukraine, Latvia, and so many other Eastern European countries. Their territory is of critical interest to a more powerful state, and in a time before international law and international systems were in place, the Russians went out and conquered what they needed. But with the result of the Cold War and the acceptance of the U.S. lead order, they lost five hundred years of effort and conquest. However, in a world where the U.S. takes a step back and where Europe is arguing with itself again, the Russians have a free hand to regain what they view, correctly, as the land they need for security and prosperity. Actions taken in the past few years by the Putin regime has given the international community a lens into the future, and what it decides to do depends on whether people decide to look or not.
Work Cited:
Adamson, David M. and Julie DaVanzo, Russia's Demographic 'Crisis': How Real Is It?. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1997. https://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP162.html.
Carter, David B., and Goemans H. E. “The Temporal Dynamics of New International Borders.” Conflict Management and Peace Science, vol. 31, no. 3, 2014, p. 285. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.26271364&site=eds-live.
Eberstadt, Nicholas . “The Dying Bear: Russia’s Demographic Disaster.” Foreign Affairs, vol. 90, no. 6, 2011, p. 95. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.23039632&site=eds-live.
Kuhrt, Natasha, and Filippo Costa Buranelli. “Russia and the CIS in 2018: Regionalism or Transregionalism?” Asian Survey , vol. 59, no. 1, Jan. 2019, pp. 44–53. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bas&AN=BAS923314&site=eds-live.
Manakov, A. G., and P. E. Suvorkov. “Forecast of Demographic Processes in Russia and in Countries of Central and Eastern Asia in the 21st Century.” Geography & Natural Resources, vol. 39, no. 1, Jan. 2018, pp. 16–22. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1134/S1875372818010031.
Marshall, Tim. “Russia and the Curse of Geography.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 31 Oct. 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/russia-geography-ukraine-syria/413248/
Miscevic, Nenad. “Nationalism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Sanford University, 15 Dec. 201, plato.stanford.edu/entries/nationalism/.
Samokhvalov, Vsevolod. “Russia and Its Shared Neighbourhoods: A Comparative Analysis of Russia-EU and Russia-China Relations in the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood and Central Asia.” Contemporary Politics , vol. 24, no. 1, Feb. 2018, pp. 30–45. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bas&AN=BAS919188&site=eds-live.
Shulman, Stephen, and Stephen Bloom. “The Legitimacy of Foreign Intervention in Elections: the Ukrainian Response.” Review of International Studies, vol. 38, no. 2, 2012, pp. 445–471., www.jstor.org/stable/41485557. Accessed 25 Jan. 2021.
Valentine, Harry. “Comparing Maritime Versus Railway Transportation Costs.” The Maritime Executive, 25 Dec. 2017, www.maritime-executive.com/editorials/comparing-maritime-versus-railway-transportation-costs.
Vandenbroucke, Guillaume. “Russia’s Demographic Problems Started Before the Collapse of the Soviet Union.” Economic Reserch - Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 23 Feb. 2016, research.stlouisfed.org/publications/economic-synopes/2016/02/23/russias-demographic-problems-started-before-the-collapse-of-the-soviet-union/.