Russia imagines itself to be a world power, but it is just an angry bully with an inferiority complex.
If you’re of a liberal mind, or grew up in the liberal democracies of the West – or the liberal democracy you thought South Africa might become in 1994 – it can be hard to fathom the geopolitical outlook of autocratic countries.
By ‘liberal democracy’, I mean to refer to countries that to a significant degree meet or aspire to the following ideals: holding regularly scheduled elections in which no party with substantial support is excluded and all adults in good standing have an equal vote; having a de facto constitution that specifies the powers of government, shields citizens from the abuse of state power, and codifies rights commensurate with secular humanist ideals; separating the powers of the executive, the legislature and the judiciary; separating church and state and guaranteeing not only freedom of religion, but also freedom from religion; upholding the rule of law for all citizens, up to and including political leaders; maintaining an open society in which everyone, no matter their identity, has the same rights and liberties and is equal before the law; pursuing a largely free market economy with secure property rights; and respecting the sovereignty of other countries.
Even the rules-based international order seems to assume that countries will largely act towards each other as the citizens of a liberal democracy would do: live and let live, recognising each other’s rights to life, liberty and property, and generally being benevolent and inclined to contribute towards a prosperous, peaceful society.
That isn’t so, however. The leaders, and often the citizens, of countries that do not believe in the principles and values that characterise liberal democracies, think and act entirely differently.
Kremlin leak
If you didn’t think the liberal democracies of the West were embroiled in a cold war against authoritarian countries, one need look no further than a recently leaked secret addendum to Russia’s official Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation.
The official, public document describes ‘Russia’s place in the world’ as ‘building a multipolar international system, as well as ensuring conditions for the peaceful progressive development of humanity on the basis of a unifying and constructive agenda’.
It says that ‘Russia does not consider itself an enemy of the West … and has no ill intentions toward it’.
It talks of ‘the democratisation of international relations’, ‘sovereign equality’ and the strengthening of Russia’s position on the global stage.
These are lovely bromides, which paint Russia as a benevolent, peaceful member of the international world order.
In the secret addendum, however, Russia says how it really feels.
I don’t read Russian, so I’m relying on reporting by the Washington Post, and since the Post article is likely paywalled, I’ll summarise the addendum’s content here.
‘Unfriendly countries’
According to the Post, the addendum ‘calls for an “offensive information campaign” and other measures spanning “the military-political, economic and trade and informational psychological spheres” against a “coalition of unfriendly countries” led by the United States’.
It quotes: ‘We need to continue adjusting our approach to relations with unfriendly states. It’s important to create a mechanism for finding the vulnerable points of their external and internal policies with the aim of developing practical steps to weaken Russia’s opponents.’
Previous reporting by the Post, based on Kremlin documents, found that Russia is seeking to subvert Western support for Ukraine and disrupt the domestic politics of the United States and European countries, through propaganda campaigns supporting isolationist and extremist policies.
The secret addendum, says the Post, ‘claims that the United States is leading a coalition of “unfriendly countries” aimed at weakening Russia because Moscow is “a threat to Western global hegemony”’.
The paper quotes the Russian Foreign Ministry as saying: ‘As we have stated several times on different levels, we can confirm the mood is to decisively combat the aggressive steps taken by the collective West as part of the hybrid war launched against Russia.’
It also quotes experts who claim that Russia is intent on creating difficulties for the US in many regions in the world, including by destabilising countries around the world, facilitating the rise to power of far-left and far-right forces, stoking conflict between the US and China over Taiwan, and escalating conflict in the Middle East.
Distorted self-image
All of this raises some troubling questions about Russia’s self-image.
For a start, Russia is nothing great. It speaks of itself in grandiose terms, recalling a thousand years of history, its role in winning World War II, its successor status to the (failed and brutal) Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and so on.
But in reality, it is at best a medium-sized country.
The GDP of the US is 14.5 times larger than that of Russia, and the GDP of China is 9.5 times larger.
In the BRICS group of countries, it comes fourth, and represents only 7.2% of the group’s total GDP. (It so small, it almost justifies South Africa’s inclusion in BRICS.)
In the world GDP rankings, it comes 11th, after that global powerhouse, Canada, and just ahead of Mexico.
More importantly, Russia’s GDP has been stagnant for over a decade. It is not, and has never been, ‘a threat to Western global hegemony’. If any nation can claim that mantle, it is China, not Russia.
The US and other ‘unfriendly countries’ don’t need to bother to weaken Russia. It is doing a perfectly good job all by itself, thanks to its state-crony-corporate economy and its illiberal policies.
By contrast, Russia has just expressed its deliberate intent to weaken countries it perceives to be its enemies. When it accuses other countries of trying to weaken it, Russia is projecting its own thoughts, feelings, and behaviours onto others.
Aggressor
The Foreign Ministry statement is equally fantastic. What are these ‘aggressive steps taken by the collective West as part of the hybrid war launched against Russia’?
For all their mistakes, missteps and questionable wars involving other countries, nobody in the West ever took aggressive steps against Russia.
Russia’s neighbours, by contrast, have always felt threatened by it.
Since the fall of the USSR and the formation of the present Russian Federation, Russia has gone to war to overthrow the first democratically elected government of Georgia, before carving it up by supporting the de facto secession oftwo separate regions of Georgia, which Russia now occupies.
Russia has gone to war against Moldova, in support of Transnistria’s secession, which it has de facto achieved even if Moldova does not formally recognise it.
Most notably, it has been at war with Ukraine since 2014, when it first conquered and annexed the Crimean Peninsula, then instigated separatist movements in the Donbas region in the south-east, and ultimately launched a full invasion.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has woven a rich fiction in justification of Russia’s right not only to go to war against Ukraine, but to annex it. He argued that Ukraine is an ‘artificial country’, that despite its sovereign status and its own rich history has no right to exist.
Revanchism
Putin argued that ‘NATO expansion’ posed a threat to Russia, which is nonsense.
The North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation is not an aggressive alliance that seeks to conquer territory by war. It is a defensive alliance.
Any country that seeks to join a defensive alliance should be entitled to do so without the interference of third parties. This poses no threat to anyone, other than would-be aggressors, which Russia turned out to be.
Again, it is Putin who has expressed grand revanchist sentiments.
Depending on what day it is, he either wishes to restore the Russian Empire of Peter the Great, or restore Russia to what he imagines to be its former glory as the USSR. Either poses a direct threat of aggression and annexation to all former USSR countries and close neighbours like Finland.
The only steps the West has ever taken against Russia is to assist victims of Russian aggression with their defence.
Russian lies
The secret addendum that was leaked exposes Russia’s official position (‘Russia does not consider itself an enemy of the West … and has no ill intentions toward it.’) to be a blatant lie.
It is intended to lull the West into a false sense of security, when it really faces an expansionist power seeking to reclaim its position as a superpower by means of war, both hot and cold.
Russia explicitly means the West harm, and its various propaganda and disinformation campaigns are actively doing harm, right now.
The West is locked in a war against Russia, yes, but it is a war of Russia’s making.
Russia’s leader does not know how to strengthen his country and its economy, other than by weakening its enemies and strutting around, bare chested, brandishing nuclear pistols.
Inferiority complex
Russia, like its leader, is a macho bully with an inferiority complex, and that makes it dangerous.
Reluctant though it might be, the West needs to defend itself. It needs to fight Russia not because it has anything to gain by a weaker Russia – since Russia could hardly be any weaker and less significant than it already is – but because it has much to lose if Russia’s hostility and aggression go unopposed.
The veil has been lifted on Russia’s true intentions towards the West, and they are openly hostile. It might be weak, but it is causing a great deal of damage.
[Image: A map of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from 1989, showing the revanchist ambitions of today’s Russia. Source: Wikimedia Commons.]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
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