Russia Rising

When a calamitous earthquake and tsunami struck the east coast of Japan in March 2011, few could have guessed just how far the aftershock would reach. Japan, one of the world’s largest economies and a powerhouse in East Asia, was left utterly devastated and economically crippled, with entire regions flooded and thousands dead or missing. The disaster also set off a chain of events that would eventually lead to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, under pressure from a mobilized German public and a growing green movement, to announce that Germany would close all its nuclear power plants by 2022.

Just a few weeks later, Poland signed an agreement with Germany and France to create a joint military force. This came two months after Poland committed itself to the formation and leadership of a battle group with Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.

Then, in early July, Russia stepped up its efforts to act as a mediator in the Libyan conflict, welcoming the Secretary-General of NATO and the President of South Africa, who has offered to help negotiate with Colonel Qaddafi. The president of the World Chess Federation, a former president of the Russian Republic of Kalmykia named Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, traveled to Tripoli for a second time to discuss the possibility of a negotiated end to the conflict with Qaddafi.

Taken together, these seemingly disparate developments point to an important trend that has been overlooked in a year filled with revolutions, natural disasters, and fiscal crises: the slow but steady resurgence of Russia. With the United States tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan and focusing its attention on the Arab Spring and debates on domestic spending, and Europe lurching from one debt crisis to the next, Russia is taking advantage of opportunities to reassert itself throughout Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Compared with the roar of headlines pronouncing default and impending deadlines, however, Russia’s slow rise has gone largely unnoticed.

More Than a Man

There is a popular theory, both in Russia and around the world, that any signs of a resurgent Russia are thanks to the strong and charismatic leadership of former president and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Putin, a former KGB agent with an eccentric personality and a flair for dramatically machismo tasks like fishing shirtless and practicing judo, has nurtured a cult of personality since first becoming president in December 1999. Though Dmitry Medvedev formally took over as President in 2008, it is widely acknowledged he remains one of, if not the key power player, in the Kremlin. Indeed, deputy administration chief Vladislav Surkov, a Kremlin power broker and aide to President Medvedev, went so far as to tell Chechen television that Putin was sent to the Kremlin by God to help address its troubles in the post-Soviet period. According to an article by Alexei Nikolsky of the AFP news agency, Putin has been made the hero of pop songs and brands of vodka, and a small female sect even believes him to be the reincarnation of Paul the Apostle.

According to George Friedman, founder of STRATFOR global intelligence, a resurgent Russia is due less to Putin’s skilled leadership than to the geopolitical forces that were certain to restore Russia to a position of global prominence after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. “Had Putin been hit by a car in 2000,” Friedman says, “another Putin would have emerged. The direction in which Putin took Russia, rebuilding the security apparatus to control the state, rebuilding the state to control Russia, rebuilding Russia to dominate the former Soviet Union—this was a natural course for any Russian president to follow.” Putin may be a dominant, beloved figure, Friedman says, but Russia is simply too large—politically, economically, and geographically—to be entirely at the whim of one man.

But Putin was not hit by a car, and his influence on the development of Russia since 2000 has been profound. It is important, therefore, to examine exactly what he has built in Russia and how he has built it over his decade in power.

Putin’s perceptions of the modern world, and Russia’s place in it, are shaped by his experience living through the fall of the Soviet Union. In his State Address in 2005, Putin declared that the end of the Soviet Union was the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” “As for the Russian people,” Putin continued, “it became a genuine tragedy. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of Russian territory.”

For Putin, the fall of the Soviet Union was not a fitting end for a corrupt and poorly-functioning empire stretched beyond its means, as it has often been portrayed in the United States. Rather, it was a departure from the natural order of the world, a geopolitical disaster that created only chaos and confusion within both Russia and its proper sphere of influence throughout Eurasia. Separatist movements like Chechen nationalism are, therefore, directly attributable to Russia’s failure to reclaim its rightful place in the world order, and ordinary Russians have suffered as a result.

It is these considerations that have motivated Putin to craft what Friedman describes as an empire without the traditional burdens of empire. “What he recognized was the problem of the Soviet empire, the problem with the czarist empire,” Friedman explains, “was that they totally controlled surrounding territories. As such, they benefited from them, but they were responsible for them as well, and so that wealth was transferred into them to maintain them, to sustain the regimes, and so on and so forth. Putin came up with a new structure in which he had limited desires from countries like Ukraine.” There were certain things these countries could not do—become a part of NATO or house hostile forces, for instance—but Russia was not directly responsible for their future, as the Soviet Union had been with its satellite countries. By aligning former Soviet states with Russia without suffering the economic drain of empire, Putin has positioned Russia to achieve maximum influence at minimum cost. Partly as a result, governments friendly to Russia have popped up across the former Soviet Union, including in Ukraine.

This is not to say that Russia is afraid to use force, however. In August 2008, Russia shocked the world by sending troops into neighboring Georgia in support of separatist movements in South Ossetia and Abkhazia that sought to align those territories more closely with Russia. Though the war was brief and small in scale, it demonstrated Russia’s willingness to balance finesse with force and soft influence with hard power. It was an effective warning to other potential adversaries in Russia’s sphere of influence.

Russian presidential elections are scheduled for March 2012, and as of July 2011 neither Putin nor Medvedev has publicly discussed who will run for president or what the configuration of power will be in the Kremlin after the end of Medvedev’s term. The elections themselves are more a formality than a test of democratic will, and whatever the outcome, the influence of Putin, and his vision of a new Russia reclaiming its rightful place in the world order, will remain strong.

Gaining Energy—Literally

In addition to a concentrated effort to rebuild power, Russia has also taken advantage of a confluence of events and crises that have strengthened its position in Europe.

The March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan and ensuing nuclear scare at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant caused worldwide panic about the safety and security of nuclear reactors. In Germany, the disaster energized a growing green movement, leading to mass rallies in 21 German cities demanding the closure of nuclear power plants. On May 30, Chancellor Angela Merkel, mindful of her 2012 reelection prospects, announced that all nuclear power plants in Germany would be closed by 2022, and that seven stations built before 1980 would be closed immediately. German leaders have been forced into a corner regarding nuclear power by the green movement before, but the visceral reality of daily images from Fukushima throughout the crisis and a newfound national momentum for the green party seem to indicate that the closure may stick this time.

The question now is how Germany will replace the closed nuclear power plants, in both the short- and long-term. In 2010, nuclear power accounted for 23 percent of all electricity consumption in Germany. With Germany, the workhorse of the European economy, attempting to rebuild and recover from the global financial crisis, a steady flow of energy will be more important than ever.

Germany will either need to make a massive investment in developing the infrastructure for a durable system of renewable energy, or increase gas supplies from Russia, north Africa, and the Middle East. Natural gas currently supplies 13 percent of Germany’s electricity.

With the Middle East and north Africa in turmoil over the Arab Spring, however, increased dependence on Russian natural gas appears to be the only viable option. As Vadim Trukhachev wrote in Pravda, “The German Greens do not like Russia, and criticize it for everything. Would they have to become dependent on the Russian gas? Chancellor Merkel says that the dependence on Russia will not increase. Yet, then they would have to buy from the Middle East and North Africa. The situation in those regions leaves much to be desired. Hence, the head of the German government is simply saying what people want to hear.” Next door, the devoutly anti-nuclear Austrians are already facing the prospect of electricity shortages. A similar problem in Germany would have a catastrophic effect on Germany, Europe, and the world economy. Russia stands ready to reap the economic and geopolitical benefits of an increasingly-dependent Germany and Europe. In mid-July, for instance, Russian energy giant Gazprom began negotiations with the government of Belarus for control of Belarus’s natural gas transportation network, a move the Belarusian government accepted.

Likewise, the economic emergency that has swept across the Eurozone, derailing Greece and heading next toward Spain, Portugal, and Italy, has left Europe more vulnerable than ever. In late June, Gazprom announced its interest in purchasing power-generating plants in Germany and German-operated power plants in central Europe, according to STRATFOR. Though the deal will likely generate significant backlash from the European Commission and central European nations for violating EU energy security directives, the deal would be beneficial to Germany in the form of lower consumer energy prices. If Germany continues to bear the burden for bailing out failing European economies, it will need the cheaper goods and services that Russia can provide.

In line with EU energy security directives, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite recently signed a law requiring the diversification of the Lithuanian natural gas supply. Currently, Gazprom provides 100 percent of Lithuania’s natural gas. How Russia responds to this move may prove telling regarding both the likelihood of the Gazprom deal in Germany as well as Russia’s wider intentions for the European energy sector. Other European countries will certainly pay close attention to how Russia reacts.

Pushing West—and East, and South, and North

At the same time, with the United States bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan and paying close attention to the events of the Arab Spring, the countries of the former Soviet Union have begun to look elsewhere for protection and security, and Russia has stepped up its efforts to establish itself as a clear world power.

Poland, for instance, has signed two defense agreements in the past two months, both with other European countries to the west and south. President Bush’s controversial missile defense shield has become less and less of a priority for NATO—the item was not even on the agenda at a recent NATO-Russia summit, according to STRATFOR—which Poland and other eastern European powers have taken as a sign of wavering NATO commitment and growing uncertainty regarding the ability and willingness of the United States and its allies to stand up to Russia should a confrontation arise. At the same time, Poland has used its recent elevation to the role of EU President to try to pull Ukraine away from Russia’s sphere of influence through economic agreements.

Just as importantly, in 2007 Russia announced its intention to annex the North Pole. According to Time Magazine, a group of 50 Russian scientists who spent time exploring the area in and around the North Pole discovered that an underwater ridge called the Lomonosov ridge directly links Russia’s Arctic coast to the North Pole, thus legitimating Russian claims to the North Pole and its vast deposits of oil and natural gas. Though the UN commission in charge of regulating and preserving the North Pole has repeatedly denied claims that any one country owns or controls the North Pole, the fact that Russia nonetheless claims ownership—and goes to so much trouble to prove it—should leave no doubt about the seriousness of their intentions. According to an article in the Toronto Sun, even Canada is aware of Russia’s growing role in the Arctic and taking moves to counter the threat. “You’re seeing a buildup of capabilities that simply hasn’t been there before, period,” said Rob Huebert, University of Calgary Arctic security expert. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has promised a stronger security presence in the north, including a new military port, a new icebreaker ship, and more military exercises, but such promises have been slow to catch up to the reality of Russian expansion.

Meanwhile, to the south of Russia, violence caused by an Islamic separatist insurgency continues to ripple across the North Caucasus. Russia has responded with an increased security presence and more resources devoted to preventing the spread of terrorism within Russia. In late July 2011, Russia began its largest air force training exercise in the North Caucasus in 15 years as a show of strength and as an effort to beef up military capabilities in advance of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Putin made his reputation early on by crushing insurgency in the North Caucasus, and if the festering violence in the region spreads or grows out of control, a rapid and forceful Russian response is likely.

Russia’s self-appointed role in trying to mediate the Libyan crisis is emblematic of the role the country envisions for itself even outside the borders of the former Soviet Union. Prime Minister Putin has said the UN resolution authorizing NATO intervention in Libya resembled “medieval calls for crusades”—a remark which drew a sharp rebuke from President Medvedev—and Russian diplomats and officials have been at work since the start of the NATO intervention to bring an end to the conflict. Russia has sent multiple diplomats to Libya to negotiate with Colonel Qaddafi, including Mikhail Margelov, Russia’s envoy to Africa, who made the startling announcement that Qaddafi has a “suicide plan” to destroy Tripoli should the tide of battle turn against him.

This role—as a good-faith mediator bridging the divide between an autocratic government and Western powers—is one that Russia feels itself uniquely suited to play. Russia itself it a mass of contradictions and confusions uniting East and West, and has been known both to decry Western attempts at intervention, as is the case in Libya, but also to occasionally support them, as in Kosovo. This flexibility gives Russia an advantage and a niche, and as revolts continue to swell throughout the Arab world on the heels of the Arab Spring, Russia will be happy to offer its services as a strong, credible mediator, lending further weight to the country’s self-perception as a world power.

The Endgame

At a time of uncertainty around the world, Russia finds itself poised to reclaim a position of power and influence not seen since the end of the Cold War. Thanks to geopolitical undercurrents, Putin’s adept maneuvering, energy and fiscal crises across Europe, and American preoccupations with the Middle East and the domestic budget battle, Russia has the opportunity to slowly, surely, and silently expand its sphere of influence around the world and grab tighter and tighter hold of Europe and other areas of strategic importance. To be certain, Russia faces its own problems, both domestic and external, many of them stemming from the world economic crisis that left no corner of the globe untouched. But while the rest of the world panics and jumps from crisis to crisis, Russia’s long-term ambitions and its clear vision of itself as a rightful and important world power will continue to guide Russian policy toward steady objectives. While countries like China, Brazil, and India may be receiving most of their attention for their strong economic growth and expanding political influence, it may well be the rise of Russia that crucially defines the next century. The Russian bear may have been in hibernation, but at the end of every winter comes a new spring.