Foreign policy: Determined to flex muscles

Quote: Underlying Russia’s policy is the view, widely shared in the Russian elite, that the west exploited Russia’s weakness in the 1990s to push eastwards with the expansion of Nato and the EU – and Moscow got nothing in return. Mr Putin, in the Russian view, tried to establish a partnership in the early 2000s by offering to work with Nato and co-operate in fighting global terrorism. But he was rebuffed. The US abandoned the anti-ballistic missile treaty, the cornerstone of cold war security agreements, pressed ahead with further Nato expansion, launched a unilateral war in Iraq and interfered deep inside the former Soviet Union by backing popular revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia. Sergei Rogov, the director of the institute of the USA and Canada at the Russian Academy of Sciences, says bluntly: “We are now very close to a new cold war which will not be a repetition of the original cold war since Russia is not a superpower and it will probably never again be a superpower. But it will be a cold war with a very adversarial relationship with an arms race, political zero sum games, economic confrontation and ideological warfare.”
Others are less hawkish. But even among liberal experts there is a sense that Russia should stand up for itself in a way that it did not a few years ago. Andrei Klimov, head of the Duma’s sub-committee on European co-operation, says: “If people want to do with Russia as they wish, it will be a bad mistake.”
Russia has three overriding aims: to be treated with respect by the west; to project its power in the world, particularly through energy policy; and to establish itself as the dominant voice in the former Soviet Union. Andranik Migranyan head of the Kremlin-oriented Russian Public Chamber Commission on Globalisation, National Strategy and Development, says: “Russia is trying to play a more independent role in world politics, especially in energy politics. Will the west accept this or try to push back?”
In practice, Moscow has challenged the US over Iraq, Iran, the Middle East and Kosovo. And it defends the rights of Gazprom, the state-controlled energy giant, and other companies to expand their commercial interests abroad. Arguments over all these issues are likely to continue, despite all the declarations made at Sochi. Russia particularly relishes appearing as the defender of the United Nations and international law in these disputes and portraying the US as a law-breaker, particularly in attacking Iraq and supporting Kosovo’s independence.
However, the main differences between Russia and the west will remain in the former Communist countries. Russia especially resents what it sees as western efforts to prise Ukraine out if its grip. As Sergei Markov, an analyst close to the Kremlin, says: “Ukraine isn’t just another country for us. It’s our red line. Many people ask, ‘is Poland a red line?’ No. The Baltic states? No. Even Georgia? No. But Ukraine, yes. The red line is the pursuit of Nato membership.” Mr Markov denies he is questioning Ukrainian independence.
But, like many Russians, he argues that 1,000 years of history unite Russia and Ukraine.

Full article: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/887f0894-0b6c-11dd-8ccf-0000779fd2ac,s01=1.html

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