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Moscow presents a dual challenge for the West: its neo-imperial
ambitions, as evident in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the
looming prospect of Russia’s state rupture. While much has been
written about Moscow’s expansionism, less attention has been paid to
the shaky pillars of the Russian Federation. The two factors are
closely related, as the Kremlin will become more aggressive
internationally to disguise its internal fissures. Escalating
internal problems have convinced Moscow that a bolder and riskier
foreign policy strategy can bring domestic benefits by mobilizing
citizens around “fortress Russia” and silencing dissent. However,
this will boomerang against the regime if the war in Ukraine is
prolonged, costly, and heavily sanctioned. Both re-imperialization
and fragmentation will confront the Western alliance with critical
policy decisions in deterring and defending itself from Russia’s
attacks while simultaneously managing Russia’s demise as a single
state.
The Kremlin has pursued a policy of imperial restoration by
partitioning states along its borders, undercutting U.S. influence
in Europe, and undermining the NATO alliance. President Vladimir
Putin has bemoaned the expiration of the Soviet Union not only as a
disaster but also as the demise of “historical Russia.” This reveals
a deeply rooted conviction that the multi-national construct was
simply a disguise for a Russian imperium. Kremlin officials continue
to believe in global empires and assert that the world should be
organized on a “multipolar” basis with small countries orbiting
around powerful centers. The Kremlin views its “pole of power” as
consisting of Eurasia, or the northern Eurasian landmass, and as
much of Europe as possible, especially those regions that were part
of the Russian sphere in the Soviet or even Tsarist periods.
Unlike other imperial states that discarded and liberated themselves
from their overseas empires, Russia needs liberation from itself.
Russia became an empire before Russians became a nation and before
Russia could evolve into a nation-state. As an empire, Russia
focused on its territorial size and largely neglected
nation-building. It expanded contiguously by incorporating numerous
ethnic groups whose national identities could not be fully
assimilated and Russified. Even after the disintegration of the
Soviet Union, the territory lost by Moscow was smaller than that
surrendered by Western empires following decolonization.
Despite assertive rhetoric and actions, Putin has failed to
transform Russia into a major “pole of power” or a genuine source of
political, economic, and cultural attraction for neighboring states.
Invasions of neighbors and threats against Western countries are not
signs of strength but frustration in cowering them into submission.
Instead of successful empire-building, the Putin regime has
truncated parts of neighboring countries but failed to gain
international legitimacy for its acquisitions. In addition, unlike
voluntary unions, state conquests intensify the economic and
security burdens on the center with only short-term domestic
benefits of patriotic mobilization.
The Russian Federation is also a failed state. It was constructed as
the successor to the defunct Soviet Union but confronts crippling
challenges to its own survival. In the last three decades, attempts
to transform Russia into a nation-state, a civic-state, or a stable
imperial-state have proved futile. The federation is based on
brittle historical and ideological foundations and has failed to
generate a unified national identity. Instead, there is a persistent
struggle over Russia’s future between nationalists, imperialists,
centralists, liberals, and federalists through brewing
confrontations between Moscow and the country’s diverse regions and
ethnic republics. State officials appear to be cognizant of the
oncoming dangers. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has compared Russia
to the former Yugoslav Federation, complaining about external
pressures in combination with internal threats that could divide the
country along nationality, class, and religious lines and result in
disintegration. It is Moscow’s policies of hyper-centralization,
regional exploitation, economic mismanagement, deepening repression,
and manipulation of Russian ethnonationalism that could drive the
country toward a violent implosion instead of the relatively
peaceful rupture witnessed during the dismantling of the Soviet
Union.
In a recent video conference, Putin rejected a proposal to let
Russian regions secede if they no longer want to be part of the
state. He warned of a repeat of the bloody wars in a collapsing
Yugoslavia during the 1990s and revealed that there were 2,000
territorial claims nationwide that should be treated “very
seriously, as they could divide up Russia. Putin’s admission
indicates that the country’s domestic conditions are deteriorating
on economic, demographic, social, regional, ethnic, and political
fronts.
Russia’s officials display high anxiety about state disintegration
through a repetition of Soviet Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev’s
attempts at reforming communism in the late 1980s. Paradoxically,
such fears will continue to preclude the economic and political
reforms that are necessary to prevent a systemic collapse. Putin and
his security services, Kremlin-tied oligarchs, corrupt officials,
and the privileged class of civil servants are not prepared to
endanger their power and purses by pursuing reforms that would give
citizens a choice through democratic elections. On the other hand,
without economic modernization and diversification in combination
with democratization, decentralization, and genuine federalism,
Russia will slide toward an existential crisis.
Russia’s state failure is exacerbated by a hazardous confluence of
factors, including an inability to ensure consistent economic
growth, stark socio-economic inequalities, growing demographic
defects, widening disparities between Moscow and the federal
subjects, a precarious political pyramid based on personalism and
clientelism, deepening distrust of government institutions and
policies, increasing public alienation from a corrupt ruling elite,
and a growing disbelief in state propaganda. More comprehensive
repression to stifle opposition and maintain state integrity in
deteriorating economic conditions driven by more effective Western
sanctions will raise the prospects for elite power struggles and
public revolts.
Russia has displayed prolonged economic decay with short-term cycles
of recovery. Russia is the world’s sixth-largest economy but is
increasingly dwarfed by the United States, China, and the European
Union. It only generates 3 percent of global GDP compared to about
16 percent by the United States and 18 percent by China. Economic
performance alone does not determine strategic ambitions or
short-term capabilities, but it will impact domestic conditions as
the regime overstretches and miscalculates its potential. As a major
exporter of crude oil and natural gas, together with assorted
minerals and metals, the Russian economy’s performance remains
highly sensitive to significant swings in world commodity prices,
and the prospect of a Western energy embargo. In 2020, Russia’s
economy shrank by about 3 percent during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Although growth was restored during the second half of 2021, future
projections highlighted deep-rooted structural weaknesses even
before the imposition of financial sanctions that will see the
growth rate plummet.
Although the Russian Federation does not face outright “demographic
collapse,” negative population trends will undermine the country’s
stability. These include a steadily shrinking ethnic Russian
population, especially in the majority of the twenty-two ethnic
republics; growing population disparities between inner Russia and
Moscow’s Siberian, Arctic, and Far Eastern possessions; stark
population differences between large metropolises and smaller
cities, towns, and villages; reductions in the working labor pool; a
steadily aging population; consistently high mortality rates and low
birth rates; the high outflow of well-educated laborers; and
declining health care and other social services that shorten
lifespans and undermine economic growth.
Russia’s population has steadily declined from the 147.4 million
recorded in the last Soviet census of 1989 to 142.9 million
according to the 2010 census. The numbers subsequently increased
because of the migration of ethnic Russians from neighboring states,
but the pool of newcomers has dwindled. Low birth rates in the 1990s
ensured a smaller number of women of childbearing age in the current
decade and this negative loop will continue into the foreseeable
future. Regularly published data indicates that the population
continues to fall. According to the State Statistical Service,
Rosstat, Russia’s population stood at 146.24 million in January
2021, down from 146.75 million the previous year—a fifteen-year
record of decline. Rosstat also predicted that deaths will continue
to outnumber live births over the next fifteen years and in one
worst-case scenario, the population would fall to 134.2 million
during that time.
Russia is an economically, socially, and regionally fragmented
country, consisting of a few developed cities and micro-regions and
a vast impoverished and disconnected hinterland. Collapsing
transportation links, including air and rail connections, between
regional capitals and smaller towns are isolating many regions from
the rest of the country. The population of Siberia, the High North,
and the Pacific region continues to decline. An estimated 40 million
people in smaller cities and towns are especially neglected by the
government and face acute poverty.
Regional restlessness is based on an accumulation of grievances,
including economic stagnation, official corruption, state
exploitation of regional resources, inadequate social services, and
the absence of authentic federalism, local democracy, regionalist
parties, or governmental accountability. The Kremlin views the
country’s regions both as exploitable resources and also as
liabilities that need to be suppressed to prevent fragmentation.
Throughout its imperial history, Russia’s rulers have harbored a
neurotic fear not only of enemies outside the empire’s borders but
also of the subject peoples within them. Because economic
modernization would not only require democratization but
far-reaching decentralization, regional autonomy is viewed as a
threat to the autocratic center and the continuity of the state.
Moscow’s assertive foreign policies serve to disguise Russia’s
domestic decline and state failure. Indeed, escalating internal
vulnerabilities are likely to make the Russian regime more
aggressive and confrontational to demonstrate its strength before
its capabilities seriously dissipate. To ensure its survival Russia
needs to develop into a genuine federal democracy with a growing
economy. But with no democratization on the horizon and economic
conditions deteriorating amid punishing Western sanctions for its
invasion of Ukraine, the federal structure will become increasingly
ungovernable.
Extensive public protests in Belarus in the summer of 2020 over
blatant election fraud were an early warning for Moscow.
Conventional wisdom about a passive Belarusian public mirrors the
widely held image of Russian citizens. Support for protesting
Belarusian citizens was reported in various parts of Russia and
although the rallies were eventually subdued, similarly to Russia,
the causes of the protests were not addressed. The unexpected
demonstrations and storming of government buildings in Kazakhstan in
early January 2022 in response to rising fuel prices was another
reminder to Moscow that public anger simmers below the surface. The
appearance of stability and public passivity, for which Belarus and
Kazakhstan have been renowned, cannot be taken for granted in Russia
either. A military quagmire in Ukraine with mounting losses for
Russia’s armed forces and punishing Western sanctions that squeeze
the economy and alienate Kremlin “oligarchs” will not be
sustainable. Regimes that lose wars or cannot win them when they
have staked so much on victory invariably collapse in Russia. Power
struggles within the ruling stratum can then explode in full force.
The Russian state’s accelerated decline and the emergence of
quasi-independent entities will challenge the NATO alliance’s
ability to respond. One cannot assume that Russia’s fracture will be
swift through a sudden collapse of the government or by a state-wide
revolution. It is more likely to be an evolving process that
accelerates at critical junctures. The triggers for rupture can
include an attempted transfer of power by Putin to a successor; an
explosive protest against economic impoverishment; an inter-ethnic
clash that escalates into a wider conflict; a violent provocation by
hard-liners or nationalists that escapes police control; mutinies in
the military as a result of the failed war in Ukraine; or
intra-military clashes based on ethnic allegiance.
State rupture will also impact neighboring countries. Some will be
susceptible to conflict spillover or subject to Moscow’s
provocations as the Kremlin seeks to divert attention from domestic
upheaval. Other states will benefit from Russia’s cleavages by
easing their security concerns and regaining lost territories. A
federal collapse will also impact major powers’ positions and
strategies and could lead to significant strategic realignments that
further raise China’s stature. The United States needs to develop an
anticipatory strategy for managing Russia’s demise by supporting
regionalism and federalism, acknowledging aspirations to sovereignty
and separation, calibrating the position of other major powers,
developing linkages with nascent state entities, strengthening the
security of countries bordering Russia, and promoting
transatlanticism and transpacificism among emerging states.
Neglecting Russia’s state failure could prove more damaging to
Western interests than preparing to manage its international
repercussions. The sudden collapse of the Soviet Union over thirty
years ago should serve as a lesson that geopolitical revolutions
occur regardless of the Kremlin’s denials or the West’s adherence to
a transient status quo. |
