Russian military exercise in Primorye territory

Politics

غريزة روسيا الإمبريالية

Jan 16, 2017 Carl Bildt

واشنطن – أضحت روسيا مرة أخرى في قلب الحوارات السياسية في العديد من العواصم الغربية. وللمرة الثالثة على التوالي، سيبدأ رئيس أمريكي جديدبقيادة حكومته مع طموحات لتحسين العلاقات الثنائية. إن اتخاذ وجهة نظر تاريخية إزاء الدولة الروسية على المدى الطويل سيساعد على فهم سبب صعوبة تحقيق هذا الهدف.

لقد مضى الآن ربع قرن على تفكك الاتحاد السوفيتي، وفي عام 2017 ستحل الذكرى المئوية للثورة الروسية، التي أطاحت بالإمبراطورية القيصرية التي دامت لقرون طويلة. وفي هذه الأثناء، هناك تشابهات في الروايات بين الفترات التي تلت كل من هذه الخواتم الإمبريالية.

وقد اتسم تاريخ روسيا بالتوسع المستمر في أنحاء القارة الأوراسية. ويشبه هجوم القياصرة الشرقي على سيبيريا هجوم أميركا الغربي خلال القرن التاسع عشر، و تزامن التوسع الروسي في آسيا الوسطى مع استعمار القوى الأوروبية لأفريقيا.

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Carl Bildt

Writing for PS since 2009
112 Commentaries

Carl Bildt was Sweden’s foreign minister from 2006 to 2014 and prime minister from 1991 to 1994, when he negotiated Sweden’s EU accession. A renowned international diplomat, he served as EU Special Envoy to the Former Yugoslavia, High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, UN Special Envoy to the Balkans, and Co-Chairman of the Dayton Peace Conference. He is Co-Chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 21 Comments on this article

Alexxx Bera Mar 22, 2017

Talking about "Russia’s Imperial Instictict" while piling tanks, rockets and jets ner Russian borders ? Talking about "Russia’s Imperial Instict" after 3 failled attempt ( by German Nazis, Napoleon and Sweden ) to invade Russia ? Isn't it a fine example of so called "Reversed reality" or at least "Fake news"? Let me illustrate: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mgsMS7J86_A/VYipXkbFq8I/AAAAAAAAbD8/9ac1jgNZEhY/s1600/USBasenUmRussland.jpg
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Bernard Fudim Jan 18, 2017

Bildt chooses to view limit aspects of Russian imperialism to Stalin/Lenin versus Wilson and the west. In reality Wilson sent marines to Vladivostok under the pretext of protecting Czechoslovakian troops. Late 19th century American imperialism was in conflict with German Asian imperialism for rule over the Pacific ocean. Germany had the most modern navy in the world at that time. The Deutsches Kolonialreich an overseas empire in Africa and the Pacific Ocean, much to the dismay of the USA. Was that an Imperialistic Instinct? The Tartars13th century invasion of Russia was also an imperialistic adventure, which was the east and who was the west? There is shortness of historical vision in the article by Bildt.
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Paul Daley Jan 18, 2017

Bildt would plainly like a stable, prosperous, peaceful and weak Russia as a neighbor, but that may not be on offer. He should perhaps think a little bit more about how you deal with a relatively strong state that is determined to maintain its connections with Europe and the wider world through the Baltic and Black Seas.
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Yoshimichi Moriyama Jan 18, 2017

The followings are a number of things I heard or read that once impressed me. The quotations are of course not accurate.
The history of Russia since the Peter the Great had been to get back what it had lost during the years of Tartars' subjugation. The character of Soviet diplomacy was not to revolutionalise and communize the world but to protect status quo and preserve its Eastern European sattelites under its umbrella. (I heard this in 1960s.)
The Russians have a deep, and insatiable inferiority complex and admiration with the West (David Riesman).
Harrison Salisbury, a New York Times reporter, noted in Geneva in 1954 that the Soviets delegates enjoyed talking with their counterparts from the NATO countries, compelelty ignoring their comrades from China and that the Chinese were angry.
The West was filled with anxiety at the might of Czarist Russia after Napoleon was defeated and the anxiety was shared by all politicians from Metternich to Disraili but Lord Salisbury (1830~1903) said that Russian society was always in a big trouble and its economy was always in such disarray that it could work tolerably well only on debts from Germany.
The Munich Conference gave an OK sign to Nazi Germany to extend its influence over and invade Eastern Europe and Russia (Frederick Schumann.) If so, we could not have expected Stalin to stop, in fighting back Nazi, on the Polish border; he could not have stopped before he reached Berlin.
I understand George Kennan said in 1973 or 74 that Russia faced very serious internal problems and that the maginitude of gravity was comparable to that of the problems that Russia faced in the last years of the Czarist regime. Kennan also said when NATO expanded into a few of former Russian sattelite countries that it was the biggest mistake the West committed since the fall of the Soviets regime.

Of course I am not suggesting here that we could make good friends with Putin.
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Shiang Peow Foo Jan 18, 2017

However, many of these countries populated with Slavs have deep root association with Russia.
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Laurentiu Visan Jan 17, 2017

As usual for the Western countries diplomacy you forgot to mention Romania's province Moldova (aka as the russian given name Bessarabia) amongst the Molotov-Ribbentrop casualties
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Bernhard Kopp Jan 17, 2017

Russia will remain an authoritarian state for some time. Authoritarians cannot be benevolent imperialists, they cannot even be benevolent within their own country towards dissenters or even minorities they consider too different from their mainstream doctrine. This is the very essence of authoritarianism. We need to deal with Russia with this in mind. As long as 'we' have the objective, supported by billions, to make Kiev, or, Tbilisi, a liberal democracy, which is unrealistic in itself, we shall run into confrontation. Even a slightly more liberal Kiev, compared to Moscow, is a threat to Moscow and will remain so for quite some time. We need to get our of the confrontational mode with Russia. We need peaceful coexistence with the big neighbor to the east.
- Henk Crop Jan 22, 2017
  
  Bernhard,
  In both comments well put.
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Jose araujo Jan 17, 2017

I think one of the problems is that we have been selling for years to former iron curtain countries, that the only problem with them was being part of a communist regime. They were convinced that once getting rid of communism they would pave the streets with gold, like in the west.

Well they had a rude wake-up call; ending communism didn’t solve the problems of the countries. Ukraine lost more than 10% of its population, people would rather immigrate than work for a better country.

Europe failed them, well the West didn’t fail them actually, just oversold and under deliver, so it’s just natural for these countries to gravitate back to Russian influence. Its either Germany or Russia.. I don’t blame those who don’t want to be second class Germans..
- Bernhard Kopp Jan 17, 2017
  
  A law-based, liberal democracy is more difficult than just economic development. The latter works quite well in an authoritarian system - see China. But, Many of the former soviet republics had no history and political culture, no common good-oriented elites, and no basic legal structure of segregation of powers, to find even a credible beginning for a democratic system . It will take several generations, maybe more. See what post-colonial Latin America achieved , in terms of stable statehood, in almost 200 years.
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- Jose araujo Jan 17, 2017
  
  If we are honest we can see that most of the problems with communism, the authoritarian, cronny, corrupt systems are back in full swing.
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j. von Hettlingen Jan 16, 2017

According to Carl Bildt Putin is rekindling Russia's "imperial instinct," and the modern tsar has just to follow the path of history - "Russian imperialism has thrived when Europe and the West have been divided" - to reach his goal, which aims to make Ukraine as part of "Novorossiya." A century earlier the Russian empire fell after Tsar Nicholai II was overthrown during the February Revolution in 1917.
Under Tsar Alexander I, Russia conquered Eastern Europe. In 1807 it took part in the European coalitions against the Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, defeating Napoleon's invasion in 1812 in the battle of Borodino. Army officers returned home bringing liberal ideas, spurring efforts to rein in the Romanov autocracy. But the Tsar also dispatched a Russian mission to the Antartiica, which discovered the continent in 1820. Ever since Russia has paid close attention to the area.
In 1939 a brutal, militaristic, dictatorial reality had engulfed Europe. Stalin concluded a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, seizing eastern Poland, parts of Romania and Czechoslovakia, and then the Baltic States after the start of the World War II. He needed to distract people from economic disruption and deliberate policy of repression that led to mass famine in Ukraine and deportation of hundreds of thousands of people to numerous forced labour camps.
The 1945 Yalta Conference celebrated the Allies' victory over Nazi Germany followed by swift establishment of Soviet hegemony in Central and Eastern Europe, and Balkans. It decided the fate of post-war Europe and drew the borders of the future Cold War, which lasted for the next 40 years. For east Europeans Yalta is a name that became an euphemism for the cynical sacrifice of small nations’ freedom to great powers’ spheres of influence. Russians on the contrary enjoy seeing themselves as liberators.
As Trump is critical of America's commitment to its NATO allies and the EU, which is music to Putin's ears, this could weaken the Alliance. Even though his soon-to-be defence minister, James Mattis stands by the treaty, Trump's business-like manner sends a clear signal to Europeans, who have been under-investing in their defence, that they need to spend more. Trump insisted Europeans need to pay America for any military assistance in the future.
What causes concern is that Trump, as part of his rapprochement with Putin, might be prepared to let the Kremlin regain its zone of influence in former Soviet republics, or to reduce pressure over the issue of Ukraine, by lifting sanctions. This could create a much more unstable situation in Europe, and encourage Putin to revisit the Yalta Conference, creating a new division of the countinent into spheres of influence, which would bring back some of the instability during the Cold War.
Acquiescing to Russian aggression in Ukraine and accepting the Kremlin to call the shots there send a signal that Trump acknowledges Russia's right to invade its neighbours. It would boost his ego as trouble shooter, but it would not secure long term stability in Ukraine. Besides it will have a knock-on effect in former Soviet republics that are now part of NATO and the EU - the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Under Trump it might be wishful thinking that the US would defend and protect NATO territory in Europe. It's time for its member states to get their act together and stand on their own feet. The author says "Russia will come to terms with itself only if the West firmly supports these countries’ independence over a prolonged period of time." It will "realize that it is in its own long-term interest to break its historical pattern, concentrate on its domestic development, and build peaceful and respectful relations with its neighbors." Indeed, Russia is a resource-rich country and its people are well educated. With fundamental reforms and modernisation, it has the potiential to be "a stable, prosperous, and peaceful Russia."
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Godfree Roberts Jan 16, 2017

"Under Putin, Russia has invaded and occupied parts of Georgia, annexed Crimea from Ukraine, and militarily propped up two sham “republics” in Eastern Ukraine. "
Baloney.
The OSCE blamed Georgia for that dustup.
A legally independent Crimea applied for confederation with Russia and was accepted.
Russia is as free as the US to prop up any government it wishes.
- Jose araujo Jan 19, 2017
  
  @ DL, couldn't the same thing be argued to Kosovo?
  
  Its my understanding that people in Crimea aren't Ukrainians in the sense Crimeans are Tartar and Ukraine are Slave..
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- Jose araujo Jan 17, 2017
  
  Ted, if we are being honest, the elected pro-russia president of Ukraine was deposed by a coup.
  
  Taking into consideration that Crimea was a gift to the Ukraine from Russia, I don't see any problems believeing they wanted to go back to Russia.
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- Ted Smith Jan 17, 2017
  
  The 2014 secession referendum in Crimea is recognised only by Russia, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea, Sudan, Syria,Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
  
  Is this what you mean by "legally independent"? If so, I think I might secede my apartment from the UK.
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Michael Public Jan 16, 2017

Author has a forked tongue. Everything he says seemingly makes sense except the point he really wishes to make that Nato must move onto Russias doorstep. It is like trying to catch a tiger by the tail, if you try hard enough you may actually catch it tail for a moment but then it will turn on you in with curry, and the world will risk nuclear war. Highly irresponsible advice you give.
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Jan Czaja Jan 16, 2017

I believe that Mr. Bildt's analysis misses a crucial factor and needs to go back further in time to Mongol subjegation and the subsequent events. These events center on the rise and triumph of Moscow over other Russian duchies, including Western civilization oriented ones such as Pskov and Novgorod. I will venture a guess that were these entities successful in unifiying Russia rather than Asian oriented Moscow, Russia would probably be an integral part of Europe since re-establishing its independence. This wasn't the case hence Russia will continue to be torn between East and West, without being part of neither. As such, it will probably continue its current aggressive policy of trying to keep its immediate neighbirs within its own sphere of influence. All Europe can do at this time is to unifying and build up its own defense capability as Russia won't change anytime soon. Definitely not while Vlad is the Tsar.
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Walter Gingery Jan 16, 2017

Here's the paradox: Russia cannot be secure as long as the adjacent countries are independent. Russia cannot be peaceful as long as it is insecure. Russia cannot be prosperous as long as it is not peaceful. Therefore, Russia cannot be stable, prosperous AND peaceful.
- Ga Steli Jan 17, 2017
  
  "Russia cannot be secure as long as the adjacent countries are independent." And why is this? And when these adjacent countries are secured then the countries adjacent to them will need securing. Why not try trading with your neighbors instead of subduing them?
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