Russia’s
internal pathologies are creating a zone of instability in its periphery that
could easily spread to the rest of the world.
The war in Ukraine is entering a new stage. Although
the shelling has stopped as of earlier this month, Russian troops in our
country are attempting to implement Vladimir Putin’s strategy of undermining
Ukraine’s independence and freedom. In response to this aggression, Ukraine
mobilized its people, built up its military and is now holding the line between
Putin and Europe. In doing so Ukraine has demonstrated that it can be an actor
on the world stage.
However, we cannot effectively
withstand the full force of Russian aggression if we fail to clearly comprehend
the scope of the events and understand the place and role of our struggle in
the global context. The conflict in eastern Ukraine has a complex and long-term
character. Together with military conflicts in the Middle East, instability in
Northern Africa, growing tension in relations between China on the one hand and
Japan and Vietnam on the other, as well as aggressive provocation of DPRK
against South Korea, the war in eastern Ukraine is a symptom of the crisis of
the global system of international security and increasing destabilization of
world order more broadly.
Very likely, in the near
future these conflicts will intensify and create new zones of instability that
may require increasing direct or indirect military involvement of such
countries as the U.S., EU member-states, China, the Russian Federation, India,
Pakistan, Turkey, and Iran among others.
These threatening tendencies
can bring the world to the brink of a worldwide armed conflict that could
translate into a full-scale war involving the use of nuclear weapons as well as
other weapons of mass destruction, or a welter of smaller conflicts of varying
intensity. In either case, the result would be the creation of a new world
disorder.
For Ukraine this means the
possibility of being dragged into a continental war, the likelihood of which
increases because of the militaristic psychosis enveloping the Russian
Federation. This militarist insanity intensifies due to the Kremlin’s complete
incapacity to solve urgent domestic political, economic and social problems
without the employment of imperial-chauvinistic rhetoric and the creation of
phantom external enemies. In contemporary Russia, psychological hang-ups and
propaganda clichés of Stalin’s USSR are whimsically intertwined with
stereotypes from Hitler’s Germany: a notion of “besieged fortress” is surreally
combined with allegations of “back-stabbing” by “treacherous traitors.” From
the TV screens, billionaires talk about the need to maintain the social
standards of workers at Uralvagonzavod at the same time as bureaucrats and
clergy proselytize Russian exceptionalism and superiority.
Simultaneously, Putin’s regime
is quickly relinquishing its vestigial “democratic facade” and employing
increasingly more totalitarian practices of governing society and state.
Integral to this process is the infringement of economic freedoms, the
shrinking of the free market and Russia’s tendency toward self-isolation from
the global markets, which will further deepen its economic crisis,
technological backwardness and social degradation. An apt example of the
economic and social insanity engulfing Russia is its current battle on the
“sanctioned produce.” Russian media proudly report from the front lines of this
“war” about the burning of Ukrainian ducklings and the crushing with bulldozers
of Spanish peaches.
The processes of deep economic
isolation and social degradation in Russia that started decades ago and have
only intensified since the beginning of the aggression against Ukraine in
February 2014, will yield, in the near future, a sharp weakening and profound
destabilization of the Russian Federation. Current processes and tendencies in
Russia bear an uncanny resemblance to those that took place in the late USSR.
The absence of rational motivation for development, the monopolization and
harsh administrative handling of the economy, the despotism of military and
security structures, the hyper-centralization of power and the lack of
alternatives to personalized decision making at the top: this entire Stalinist
skeleton of the Soviet empire could not withstand the consistent and
coordinated political and economic pressure of the West at the end of the
previous century. Their firm position, combined with the complex of sanctions
and restrictions of the Cold War, allowed the leading democracies of the world
to prevail over the Evil Empire. The Soviet Union disintegrated into fifteen
states, Germany was reunited and Eastern Europe liberated from Soviet imperial
clutches. However, concerned with preserving the Soviet nuclear inheritance,
the West tried to prevent further disintegration of the remnants of the empire.
By lifting all restrictions,
extending credits and helping Russia overcome its technological backwardness,
the West created conditions for socio-economic stabilization of the Russian
Federation, allowed it to cruelly snuff out the national liberation movement in
the Caucasus and take under full control all multinational constituents of the
Federation. However, the Russian Federation failed to adapt to the democratic
rules of peaceful coexistence and cooperation. Putin’s third presidential term
has clearly underscored the dominant political trait of today’s Russia: the
ideology of imperial revanchism. In his attempt to fit Russia into the
“Procrustean bed” of the old empire, Putin is leading the country toward an
irreversible collapse by launching processes similar to those that precipitated
the breakdown of the Soviet Union. Aggression, degradation, decline and collapse
– this is the pattern confirmed by the history of many empires and which in
today’s world will only transpire at an accelerated pace. Therefore, there is a
real possibility that Russia may cease to exist in it present borders.
Indeed, the pull of the regions
away from the Moscow center is growing. Take the North Caucasus, for example.
Although the Chechen boss Ramzan Kadyrov outwardly acts as a loyal vassal of
Putin, his loyalty is only as deep as the hefty financial support he receives
from Moscow. In real terms, the Chechen republic isde facto independent:
the Russian law-enforcement agencies must ask Kadyrov’s permission to operate
on the Chechen territory and the Russian legal system is being gradually
replaced by Sharia law. Skirmishes and tensions continue in Dagestan,
Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria.
Federal Security Service,
successor of the KGB, keeps close tabs on the national liberation movements of
the Chuvash, Mari, Tatar, Bashkir and the Volga peoples. For instance, in July
2015 a Bashkir man, Airat Dilmukhametov, was sentenced to three years of hard
labor for publishing an article on the internet calling his people to struggle
for their freedom. Such harsh punishments are an indicator of the growing
apprehension of the Russian security structures.
The Urals, Siberia and the Far
East all have a rich history and ancient traditions of statehood. In August
2014, Novosibirsk and other Siberian cities were engulfed by a wave of popular
protests calling for restoration of sovereignty in these lands. It is hardly
coincidental that the direct Russian military intrusion into eastern Ukraine
happened exactly at the same time.
Economic decline gave rise to
renewed calls for sovereignty in the Kaliningrad oblast, a Russian enclave
between Poland and Lithuania. The citizens of the northern region of Karelia
repeatedly compare their impoverished state to the flourishing in the
neighboring and ethnically kindred Finland.
Additional tensions arise from
the continued labor migration from China to Siberia and the Russian Far East,
the Chinese lease of large tracts of Russian soil, as well as thousands of
kilometers of border dividing vast sparsely populated Russian lands from
heavily populated China.
In August 2015, one of the few
remaining independent Russian analysts, Vladislav Inozemtsev, published an
article titled “Impossibility of Disintegration” which attests to deep
anxieties of the Russian establishment about territorial integrity. The
impending catastrophe is occupying the minds of pragmatic members of the
Russian elite. It is time the world prepared for it as well. The future of the
Russian nuclear arsenal is the key question of the global security, which must
be solved in close cooperation of all nuclear weapons states. It is not too
late to start discussing safe and controlled dismantlement of the nuclear legacy
of the former empire.
The more complicated the
situation inside Russia, the more aggressive its foreign policy will become. It
is this tendency that explains Kremlin’s persistent attempts to get involved in
the complex processes in the Middle East. In his desire to prop up his fellow
dictator Syrian president Bashar al Assad, Putin increases Russian military
presence in the eastern Mediterranean under the hypocritical cover of struggle
against the Islamic State.
All of this will only
exacerbate destructive processes within Russia. Such destabilization and agony
will inevitably translate into profound and unpredictable deterioration of the
security situation within the Russian Federation as well as along its borders.
These are challenges of global scope and our country stands at their epicenter.
In short- and medium-term, the security threats facing Ukraine stem from a
complex combination of both internal and external challenges. The reaction to
these threats must also have a systemic character: they must be countered with
common mission and under united leadership while making flexible use of all
available forces and methods of political, diplomatic, military, economic and
informational struggle.
Taking into consideration Russia’s chosen paradigm of aggression, combined
with its political and economic situation, the Ukrainian state must prepare for
the worst-case scenario.
Putin has taken to threatening
the democratic world with his military, and in particular with his nuclear
arsenal. In mid-August, Russian strategic air force held exercises that honed
nuclear missile strikes on the Straits of Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, and
practiced blockading the entrance of the U.S. Navy into the Black Sea. In
September, the Russian military is due to hold another set of large-scale
exercises of strategic armed forces, this time involving the entire Russian
nuclear triad.
The leading democratic
countries must understand that this totalitarian-militaristic agony and the
ensuing collapse of the Russian Federation are inevitable processes. They must
accept this calmly and rationally without aiding Russia in prolonging this
agony. Democratic nations must adjust their medium-term plans to provide for
isolation of this country. Accordingly, harsh sanctions must be viewed not as a
temporary campaign but as a coherent policy that facilitates conditions for the
self-destruction of the remnants of the aggressive empire.
Undoubtedly, in order to
prevent the spread of Russia’s self-defeating bellicosity and provocations,
NATO must be considerably strengthened by erecting a formidable barrier along
its entire eastern flank. Ukraine, which has been bravely countering the
aggressive designs of the Kremlin, has an important role to play in this
process. Therefore, reinforcing Ukraine’s military and technological capacity
contributes to the renewal of peace and security on the entire European
continent. It also reasserts a world order that rests not on nuclear might but
on reasonable, responsible and predictable behavior of the leading democracies
of the world.
Ukraine acknowledges with
gratitude the political and economic support extended by our strategic partners
in this difficult time. We hope that this support will continue and translate
into further dismantlement of barriers to military and technological
cooperation and the recognition of our right to pursue European integration, a
path chosen by the Ukrainian people.
Ukraine has many problems that
it must tackle on its own. Neither Europeans, nor Americans can overcome the
corruption that plagues us and the temptation to substitute painful systemic
reforms with flashy PR presentations. Only we Ukrainians can build for
ourselves a functioning modern, efficient state, strong army, effective police,
just courts and a stable competitive economy.
The most vitally important
task for Ukraine is the acceleration of the reform of security and defense
sectors—in particular, military reform.
Once again these are
challenges of a global character, since the stakes are not simply about
reforming and modernizing one country, but about our capacity to formulate a
new security order by reforming a number of international organizations in
which Ukraine participates and which are now in a state of deep crisis.
Ukraine must become one of the
key players in the region, the one establishing effective formats of
operational interaction with the states that are potential objects of Russian
aggression.
Ukraine’s development must be
based on practical implementation of humanistic values of the new Europe and
the open world which counterweights the belligerent and authoritarian Russian
chauvinism. The formulation of such doctrine in the humanitarian sphere is a
primary task for Ukrainian intellectuals and politicians today.
Freedom, the fundamental value
for Ukrainians, is the best environment for realizing intellectual potential of
an individual as the key capital in the modern world. Therefore, the reform of
the state apparatus must aim at creating effective conditions for the
development of each individual’s potential in all spheres of life. This must
become the key objective of the state: security of its citizens, their
development and wellbeing.
Only a state built upon the
trust of its citizens, based on justice and rule of law, and working for the
interests of its people and their development can create a new and effective
security system, reinstate and defend its borders and become an influential and
consequential subject of world politics.
Oleksandr
Turchynov is Secretary of the
Council of National Security and Defense of Ukraine.
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