[The Sources of Russian Aggression: Is Russia a Realist Power?, by Sumantra Maitra, Lexington Books, 2024; 205 pages]
One of many unlucky realities of the international coverage debate in America is that few Individuals are paying a lot consideration. This normal stage of public ignorance makes it a lot simpler for the American foreign-policy elites to then feed the American public no matter lies swimsuit the regime’s agenda.
This has definitely been the case with the US’s present proxy struggle towards the Russians in Ukraine. Within the early months of the 2022 Russian invasion there was seemingly no finish to the regime’s spinning of untamed yarns making an attempt to persuade us that Putin is the brand new Hitler, that Moscow will quickly re-create the Soviet Union, and that something in need of the US launching World Conflict III is akin to “appeasement” within the model of Munch, 1938.
So what does inspire Russian state actions in Ukraine? To assist us perceive the reply to this query we will look to a brand new ebook from Sumantra Maitra, The Sources of Russian Aggression.
Maitra’s objective right here is to point out how Russia’s international coverage of the previous thirty years follows a reasonably predictable sample that may be properly defined by the insights of structural realism. Furthermore, Maitra goes on as an instance how Moscow’s conduct within the worldwide realm is that of a conservative and defensive realist nice energy. Removed from being a Hitlerish regime bent on international conquest, Moscow has very particular and restricted objectives. Furthermore, these objectives might have been anticipated by Washington, and the present battle prevented.
Russia and the Realist Mannequin
Amongst worldwide relations students, realists have develop into a few of the most trenchant critics of American policymakers who obsess over countering the Russian “threat.” John Mearsheimer is probably essentially the most well-known realist scholar for the time being, and he has develop into notable for his prescient observations about how relentless NATO growth eastward has precipitated pointless battle between NATO and Moscow. It ought to shock nobody, then, that realist students will not be precisely common in Washington. In spite of everything, the one acceptable narrative in Washington is the one wherein the US is the nice ethical crusader nation and each different regime is both insane or hellbent on international domination.
Opposite to the handy beltway narrative, Maitra illustrates how Moscow’s conduct within the worldwide realm is that of a established order energy. That’s, the Russian regime’s foreign-policy interventions are geared towards upkeep reasonably than growth.
Via his detailed evaluation of the occasions main as much as at the moment’s struggle in Ukraine, Maitra exhibits how Moscow’s actions have been fairly predictable and rational inside a realist framework.
What precisely is realism? As used right here by Maitra, it’s the “structural realist” or neorealist principle that posits sure assumptions in regards to the conduct of nice powers (i.e., The US, Russia, China). Central to all that is the belief that nice powers will just about all the time “balance” towards threats offered by the dominant nice energy. Within the present world, the dominant energy is the US, and we will count on all different nice powers to hunt methods to counter US projections of energy. This conduct isn’t depending on the professed ethical or ideological framework inside every nice energy. Slightly, nice powers act to protect their place inside the worldwide system no matter their inside methods of presidency. On this context, Maitra exhibits that Russia is a “security maximizer” and never a “power maximizer.” As we’d count on inside a defensive realist framework, Russia seeks to protect its stage of energy relative to different states, however this doesn’t require that Russia develop into a hegemon.
Maitra additionally notes a key side of balancing: “states actually balance against threats and not just power alone.” From this Maitra attracts an essential conclusion: “Russian threat perceptions [are] dependent on aggregate power and offensive capabilities as well as perceived offensive intentions. The greater the perceived threat, the greater the balancing action observable.”
Thus, the mere existence of the US or NATO has by no means been sufficient to immediate an aggressive response from Moscow. Slightly, it’s the growth of the risk posed by NATO and the US which have led to escalating tensions, culminating within the present navy response from Moscow.
30 Years of Escalations from NATO and the US
Maitra offers a major quantity of historic evaluation right here, specializing in NATO enlargement all through the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s, and eventually coming to a head in 2008 with the Russo-Georgian struggle.
Maitra paperwork how US secretary of state James Baker had negotiated for the reunification of Germany by promising the Soviets in 1990 that NATO would transfer “not one inch eastward.” By 1992, nonetheless, NATO enlargement had develop into a rising objective for each the US and various European states. As soon as once more, NATO placated the Russians by claiming that even after Poland and Hungary joined NATO, no navy {hardware} could be positioned in these new member states. That pledge was subsequently damaged. Thus, a sample emerged wherein NATO, a navy alliance that was de facto geared towards containing the Russian state, moved its devices of energy ever nearer to the Russian border.
Finally, this mixture of heightened energy, coupled with NATO’s ever nearer proximity to Russian territory, meant the vary of “balancing actions” entertained by Moscow continued to develop.
This course of lastly provoked a real navy response to open and specific efforts by NATO to convey Georgia into the alliance. Maitra exhibits that in contrast to different earlier NATO inductees, Georgia was perceived by Russia to be key to Russian safety pursuits. A Russian navy response subsequently appeared justified to Russian international coverage elites when, on August 7, 2008, Georgian forces shelled Russian allies within the breakaway area of South Ossetia. This led to open fight between Georgian forces and Russian peacekeepers.
Importantly, nonetheless, as soon as Moscow achieved its objective of interrupting NATO growth into Georgia, Moscow ended hostilities and contented itself with “frozen conflicts” within the area. This, Maitra exhibits, is attribute of a established order energy involved with upkeep reasonably than growth.
The Georgian struggle proved to be one thing of a preview of the Russo-Ukrainian struggle, though the struggle in Ukraine is on a a lot bigger scale.
In 2014, after one more “color revolution” and the rise of US and NGO-backed anti-Russian policymakers in Kyiv, Russia perceived that it might completely lose entry to navy sources thought to be completely important by Russian elites.
Particularly, Maitra particulars how Russian navy belongings in Crimea—particularly the naval base internet hosting Russia’s Black Sea Fleet—weren’t one thing Moscow might tolerate shedding. Thus, the 2014 annexation of Crimea quickly adopted. Maitra notes that different Russian interventions in Ukraine have been centered on sustaining different sources that Moscow deemed important. Russia’s navy logistics networks had come to depend on shut ties with japanese Ukraine. For instance, Maitra writes that “critical Ukrainian components and their servicing comprise up to 80 percent of Russia’s strategic missiles forces.” Thus, from the Russian perspective, “without Eastern Ukraine, Russian nuclear deterrence, and its naval forces, would collapse.” All this, mixed with the necessity to hold entry to Crimea’s naval sources, just about assured that Moscow would tremendously escalate its balancing efforts towards NATO.
These particulars additionally go a great distance towards explaining why Russia has not responded with the identical stage of resistance to NATO growth in Finland, and even the Baltics, that are each on Russia’s predominant, non-Kaliningrad border. Merely put, the specter of NATO growth into Ukraine poses a far higher danger to Moscow than NATO growth into different states of central and japanese Europe.
So, what’s to be discovered from all this? Central to Maitra’s conclusions is the proof that Russia isn’t a revisionist energy. Within the examples offered, Russian aggression is an effort to protect the present system, and protect Russian state entry to key strategic territories and sources. As within the case of Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014, Russian intervention ended as soon as Moscow was happy it had prevented any sizable adjustments to the worldwide order in Russia’s close to overseas.
None of which means Moscow is “the good guy” within the present worldwide order. After we are coping with states—particularly enormous ones, just like the US and Russia, that are each possessed of stunning quantities of coercive energy—there is no such thing as a “good guy.” However, revisionist states like the US—eternally pledging new wars for “democracy” and “fighting terror” whereas bombing half a dozen international locations at any given time—pose a really international hazard. The capricious angle towards nuclear struggle amongst regime apologists within the US—in response to conflicts that don’t have anything to do with defending key American pursuits—has been particularly harmful.
Clearly, Maitra’s interpretation poses a problem to the various narratives claiming that Russia is a revisionist energy searching for to remake japanese Europe, or perhaps even Eurasia. Which narrative prevails in Washington and amongst members of the general public shall be determinant of what kind of intervention Washington can demand the American folks tolerate and fund. If Russia is a defensive realist energy, then this additional strengthens the concept the US has no curiosity in any respect in “containing” Russia or additional increasing NATO.
