Some Fundamentals of Russian National Security Policy
Photo by Egor Filin
It’s often stated that useful collaboration with Russia is not possible. Is this true? Not really. There are some areas where useful collaboration would be difficult due to Russian ideological commitments. But there are areas where dialogue and diplomacy could be rewarding—such as arms control and disarmament—despite misunderstandings and disagreements that may occur along the way. Soviet-American arms control talks over 20 years were protracted but ultimately successful. Moscow was supportive of the negotiations for the Iran nuclear accord in 2015 as well as the removal of chemical weapons from Iraq in 2011.
Unfortunately, U.S. politicians, policy makers, and their media mainstream echo chamber are making it difficult to engage Russia because they exaggerate and worst-case both the scale of Russian weaponry and the menace of Russian expansionism and adventurism. The fact that the Russian military has performed so poorly against a much weaker state on its borders is rarely taken into account. The fact that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has strengthened the European alliance and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is typically ignored.
The lack of international experience of key personnel throughout the Trump administration complicates the picture. There is no Russian specialist in the administration, for example. The fact that the United States and Russia are so different in terms of geography and history should lead us to review some fundamental truths of Russian foreign policy and national security policy in order to understand the possibility of a path forward. This is particularly important at this juncture because the war in Ukraine has brought the United States and Russia into direct competition on a sensitive geopolitical front in Central Europe..
I’m putting forward these talking points in order to help understand factors that play a major role in formulating Russian behavior. Today’s Russia bears the heavy burden of its historical baggage. The authoritarian nature of the Russian state and the powerful role of the Russian government are unlikely to change. State power will always dominate individual Russian rights; subjugation to the state will be seen as essential to national survival. Mikhail Gorbachev is still viewed as a subject of scorn because his reforms suggested possible concessions to constitutionalism or individual rights, which would threaten Russian “greatness.”
Submission to the state is accepted, part of a blind faith that goes beyond patriotism. Russians support strong, central authority that is all-powerful. There is great support for Vladimir Putin despite his costly war, and even signs of nostalgia for Joseph Stalin and his iron rule. Putin has successfully convinced the population that the current war is being waged against the United States and the West, not merely Ukraine. The expansion of Western military power throughout East Europe will ultimately have to be addressed.
Russia’s technological and economic backwardness has always set it apart from the West. Russia is the only European country that owes little to the common cultural and spiritual heritage of the West. Russian exceptionalism is manifested in the idea of Russian moral superiority and the “idea” that Russians are able to suffer more than their Western counterparts. The “idea” of Western freedom is viewed as an example of disorder and discontinuity.
Submission to the state is the accepted norm, and any weakness in central authority is seen as creating the possibility of disorder and discontinuity. Freedom of the press, so essential to U.S. national security, is anathema to Russia. The Russian folk saying “Don’t carry garbage outside the hut” refers to the vulnerability associated with allowing adversaries to gain access to Russia weakness.
For these reasons, it is impossible to imagine Putin making major concessions to end the war with Ukraine, let alone to accept defeat. Putin will not lose this war, and it hard to imagine Ukraine winning it. Much has gone wrong for Russia’s military forces, including Ukraine’s ability to repel the initial Russian advance, Western unity to address the Russian challenge, and the strengthening of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The added membership to NATO (Sweden and Finland) adds an additional 830-mile border between Russia and NATO, and nearly every NATO member is increasing defense spending. Even if Russia maintains control of most of that part of Ukraine it currently occupies, a smaller Ukraine will be a battle-tested military with a special relationship with the West.
The Russian-Ukrainian war can only be settled with dialogue and diplomacy, which could also be said for the current U.S. struggle with Iran regarding Tehran’s nuclear program as well as the Israeli-Palestinian struggle to provide a two-state solution in the Middle East. Simply providing more weaponry to Ukraine and to Israel won’t lead to geopolitical success, and the continued use of military force against Iran won’t end the threat of Iran as a future nuclear weapons state. In all of these scenarios, continued fighting will simply produce more death and destruction, and will make the international situation more unstable and unpredictable. If Iran becomes a nuclear weapons state, there is the risk of greater proliferation of such states.
Sadly, there is no statesman in the global picture with the credibility and the standing to move these scenarios in a more peaceful direction. We are in the hands of a diabolical triumvirate (Putin, Netanyahu, Trump) who lack the skills and the experiences to move the international situation in a more benign direction. The absence of skilled U.S. diplomats at this particular juncture as well as the severe cuts at the Department of State and the National Security Council are particularly appalling and threatening. The notion that Marco Rubio can serve as both Secretary of State and acting national security adviser is laughable. The politicization of the intelligence community is another hindrance.