The present regime is very secretive about its long-term foreign policy goals and
keeps its cards close to its chest. But there are many disconcerting signals. Russia
is playing a dangerous “Great Game” in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus, destabilizing
its neighborhood and trying to reestablish itself as the dominant power. After the
Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008 and the subsequent dismemberment of this small
neighboring country, an acceleration of measures and actions could be observed that—taken
together—were rather disconcerting. These actions began with the combined massive
Zapad (West) 2009 and Osen (Fall) 2009 maneuvers in August and September 2009 in which up to thirty thousand
troops participated. For these maneuvers Khadafi’s son was invited, but not Western
observers (OSCE rules for the invitation of observers were circumvented by simply
dividing the maneuver into two smaller parts). The Zapad maneuver ended in September 2009 in the Kaliningrad oblast with a simulated tactical
nuclear attack on Poland—an action that led to protests from the Polish government.
Moreover, Russia’s nuclear doctrine was changed, to allow the preventive use of tactical
nuclear weapons in local wars—even against nonnuclear states, which is a flagrant
breach of the Nonproliferation Treaty. On August 10, 2009, a law was signed by Medvedev,
permitting the use of Russian troops in foreign countries “to protect citizens of
the Russian Federation.” These measures seemed to be meant as a legal preparation
for eventual armed interventions in Russia’s Near Abroad and were interpreted as a
growing Russian bellicosity, experienced as a threat by its neighboring states. According
to the French geopolitician Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier, “the Russians seem to be seriously
convinced that in the end the empire will always return to where it [once] reigned.”[31] The existence of the Russian empire is, indeed, for many Russians so self-evident,
that it is almost a law of nature, a necessity hidden in la nature des choses. The problem is that this is not self-evident for the formerly colonized peoples, who—at
last—have gained or regained their national independence. A reconstitution of the
former empire on a new basis will, therefore, necessitate a huge, prolonged, and concentrated
effort by the Russian leadership, an effort involving making use of all the means
the Russian state has at its disposal: from economic investments and economic cooperation
to economic boycotts, from pipeline diplomacy to energy blackmail, from using its
“soft power” to diplomatic pressure and corruption of local political elites, from
charm offensives to provocative actions and military threats.
In Search of a New Legitimation Theory
for a Post-Soviet Empire
However, this new Russian imperialism needs an ideological justification. What kind
of justification can the Russian leadership give to their neoimperial ambitions? It
is clear that it can no longer invoke a specific mission, as in the case of the Soviet
Union, which was considered as the global vanguard of the working classes. Nor can
it rely on theories of the white man’s burden, which have definitively been discredited.
Furthermore “spreading democracy” and the defense of human rights cannot be used as
an argument. The democratic credentials of Russia are not much better than those of
Belarus. What we are seeing rather are elements of the old Pan Slavism when the Kremlin calls the Ukrainians or the Belarusians “brother peoples” who should
not remain separated from the “mother country” Russia. But the old Pan Slavism was
meant to liberate Slav peoples from a foreign yoke. Today Belarus and Ukraine are
sovereign countries and are in no need of being liberated. The new Russian Pan Slavism
vis-à-vis Belarus and Ukraine has, therefore, rather the character of an annexationist
Pan-Russianism. (This finds, by the way, support in the name Russians use for Ukraine: Malaya Rossiya—Little Russia.) Do Russia’s imperial ambitions stop there? Or do they equally include
Moldova, Kazakhstan, the South Caucasus, and the Central Asian republics?
