Moscow must recognize how expensive royal designs can be

It is impossible to know what the Kremlin Sphinx has in mind. But, whatever Putin’s intentions, his actions are undermining the idea that underpinned the creation of the Russian Federation 30 years ago.

Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first president since the Soviet Union, is now rarely a topic of conversation. If the Russians mention him, perhaps it is to recall his excessive drinking or the inflation and poverty that fueled Russia’s transition to a market economy, rather than to credit him with profound historical insight. It was Yeltsin who recognized the significant costs of maintaining the Soviet Empire. Only by shedding these costs, dissolving the empire, and establishing a free market economy, could Russia provide its people with emancipation and prosperity. But, on New Year’s Eve of 1999, Yeltsin probably ruined his vision. The man to whom he entrusted power that night is now determined to give up his deep insight. Although Putin may not seek to rebuild the Russian Empire, he is determined to establish hegemony over former Soviet states. This is a very expensive proposition.

The share of Soviet production in maintaining its empire is unclear. But, given the demands of industrial production and the Soviet military-industrial complex, which together claimed up to 80% of all government revenue, it is safe to say that Moscow could not subsidize unproductive factories in its separate regions. . constituent states. And it says nothing about the cost of the empire in blood, which was highlighted by the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.

These costs were not lost on ordinary Russians, who resented them side by side. But the same cannot be said about the charge. From Russian kings to Lenin and Stalin to Putin today, Russia’s leaders have almost universally believed that the cost of the empire was justified. This may partly reflect ideology. As the Palestinian scholar Edward Said famously observed, each empire “tells itself and the world that it is, unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.” The Russians have said a lot about their empire, and also about Ukraine.

If the leaders of Russia believed in a civilizational mission, they believed even more strongly that an empire was good for its national security. But history tells a different story. In fact, imperialist control quickly leads to redundancies, makes a power less secure, and accelerates the decline of the empire.

For Russia, costs are rising. The country’s military spending rose from 3.8% of GDP in 2013 – the year Russia invaded Ukraine, annexed Crimea, and supported separatist forces in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions – to 5.4 in 2016 %. While this share declined in 2017 and 2018. It’s climbing again. With Russian troops spread all around, this is no surprise.

The strategic costs of the empire are hard to quantify, which Putin shies away from recognizing. The Kremlin’s imperial agenda has called into question the post-Cold War settlement in Eurasia, from the Baltic to the Bering Sea. That agreement enabled governments to divert resources from the military budget to social programs. The peace dividend not only enabled Russia’s economic transformation; It also supported a protracted economic boom in the West.

But China got the biggest advantage. Recall that 40 years ago, huge armies were stationed on the Sino-Soviet border, and thousands of Russian nuclear weapons were trained on Chinese cities. The end of the Cold War allowed China to redirect resources towards economic growth and poverty reduction. China’s success on these fronts over the past 30 years speaks for itself.

Against this background, one has to wonder how Chinese President Xi Jinping views Russia’s intervention in Kazakhstan, which shares a border of about 1,800 km with China, especially in light of Putin’s previous comments on Kazakhstan. undermines the history of the independent state. He has shown equal contempt for the independence of Belarus, the Baltic states and Ukraine.

The domestic cost—and a poll by the Levada Center in Moscow shows few Russians are willing to trade to raise their standard of living on a global scale—should be enough to persuade Putin to abandon his imperial ambitions. . If not, there should certainly be a possibility of re-igniting the rivalry with China. But it is far from guaranteed that Putin will explain the reason. He is already ignoring the lessons of Russia’s own history. ©2022/Project Syndicate

Nina L. Khrushcheva is Professor of International Affairs at The New School, and co-author of In Putin’s Footsteps: Searching for the Soul of an Empire Across Russia’s Eleven Time Zone.