Russia's aspirations
Russia, under President Vladimir Putin, is different from that under President Yeltsin. The President is responsible for a resurgent economy and a new wave of nationalism. A sea change is taking place. An ever-pricklier sense of national pride is seen across the board.
The President is using his country's resource to boost the military and flex Russia's muscle in global affairs. Eight years of Putin has instilled self-confidence among Russians. Russia, which went begging in the '90s to Western investors has an investment-grade credit rating and has the world's third largest foreign currency reserves of $470 billion.
The 'rouble' (Russian local currency), once shabbily printed, unloved and ever heading south, is strong and spruce. The economy is growing by more than 7% per cent and prediction has it that it will grow 2.5 times by 2020 to become world's fifth largest.
A robust middle class has emerged in the country and the trickle down effect from the super rich in their black limousines is evident in the colossal and crowded shopping malls in Moscow.
Russia has been flexing its muscles with neighbours. Pressure is put on neighbours Ukraine, Belarus Lithuania, with threats to natural gas supplies. Import of wine has stopped from Georgia. It cut coal exports, timber supplies and freight traffic to show its displeasure with Estonia.
Military spending is running at a post-Soviet record. New nuclear submarines, missiles, and aircraft have been commissioned.
The new approach is backed by a defence budget that has jumped by 25% per cent to $38 billion this year. The Defence Ministry has announced a $222 billion rearmament program. It is aimed at replacing half of the current military equipment by 2015. It includes new early-warning radar, new intercontinental missiles and a fleet of supersonic bombers.
The navy is to get more than 30 warships, including new aircraft carriers. Three new submarines will be commissioned and each will carry 12 missiles and its sister boats will carry 16 a piece.
There are plans for a "fifth generation" fighter with a low radar profile and claims the new Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles has stealth technology that will allow it to penetrate the US missile-shield.
Strategic bombers are back over the North Sea between Britain and Scandinavia for the first time in 17 years. A restored base in Syria will give the Russian navy a presence in the Mediterranean Sea and Indonesia signed a $1.2 billion deal to buy Russian submarines, tanks and helicopters last month.
US encroachment on Russia's traditional spheres of influence is resented in the Baltics, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Ukraine. Washington's hand is seen in the "colour" revolutions that swept away Moscow-friendly regimes in Georgia and Ukraine after 2003.
Poland and the Czech Republic have been warned that it would be "against their best interests" to allow parts of a new US missile shield to be sited on their soil. (Russia proposed to have this site in Azerbaijan).
The Kremlin insists that the myth of the Pax Americana "fell apart once and for all in Iraq", and the world must get used to a "strong, self-confident Russia." It resists tough sanctions on Iran, and Myanmar and bristles at the UN plan to give Kosovo independence, NATO's eastward expansion and the US missile shield.
Russia is selling arms to countries that are shunned by the US. Amid talk of a renewed arms race, a $1.2 billion all weather missile-defence system was sold to Iran, $3.5 billion of hardware to President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, and missiles to Syria.
Relations with the West, particularly with Britain, are at their worst in years. Moscow has suspended its participation in the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. Under the Treaty, adopted in 1990, Russia moved most of its tanks and other hardware east of the Urals. It no longer has to keep them there.
Observers believe it is largely a response to Western pressure. "The Americans are circling Russia with radars and installing anti-ballistic missiles close to our borders", says the defence commentator Colonel Viktor Litovkin.
He further adds, "It is a matter of serious concern. We are being provoked into a new arms race. That is not in Russia's interest. The Americans do not want another competitor and their moves to achieve global strike capability are quite provocative. NATO has assumed responsibility on a global scale for everything that happens. The West looks as if it is imposing its ideology on others, just as the former Soviet Union did. Fortunately we have recovered from this disease, but the Bush Administration has now caught it."
Besides, there is a renewed geopolitical drive, but it is pragmatic and less far-flung. What concerns Russia most are the countries immediately to its south; the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) brings together China, Russia, and four Central States-Kazakhstan, Tajikstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
The SCO is an intergovernmental international organization founded in Shanghai on 15 June 2001. Its member states cover an area of over 30 million sq km, or about three fifths of Eurasia, with a population of 1.455 billion, about a quarter of the world's total. Its working languages are Chinese and Russian. Later Mongolia, India, Pakistan and Iran joined as Observers. It is reported that they would become members later.
By virtue of SCO membership, member-states can partake of the various SCO projects, which in turn mean access to technology, increased investment and trade, infrastructure development such as banking, communication, etc. It would also have implications for global energy security.
Russia has real energy and financial clout and is prepared to use them politically. Europe is becoming increasingly dependent on gas from western Siberia. The Russians point out that energy has been synonymous with power and the Oil-rich countries in the Middle East have a lot of power in regional affairs.
Global energy is in a transitional stage and transitions can be difficult. Once OPEC supplied and the West consumed. Now the scenario has changed. Russia and Central Asia have become suppliers, and India and China have joined the consumers' club.
President Putin mocks the notion of "unipolar" American-dominated world. The point was emphasised recently as he and the Chinese President Hu Jintao watched their troops assault "terrorists" in joint manoeuvres in the Urals, while a mini-submarine planted titanium Russian flag on the seabed beneath the North Pole.
Commentators say that in recent years, President Putin has given three important insights of his mindset.
First, he said in his state of the nation in 2005: " The demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century". He said recently that it is time to "stop apologising" for Russia's past. Some say he means Stalin's cruelties to his people.
Second, he has made it clear that he is deeply mistrustful of the West, which he perceives as hell bent on belittling Russia and looting its resources. He gave the Americans a verbal kicking at the Munich Conference on Security Policy in February. He said: "The US has overstepped its borders in all spheres, economic, political and humanitarian. The number of people who died did not get less but increased. We see no kind of restraint. They have gone from one conflict to another without achieving a fully fledged solution to any of them,"
Third, he is proud of his KGB roots. He was a Colonel in KGB and Boris Yeltsin made him chief of KGB (now called FSB). He declared loyalty to KGB and secret police of Russia.
President Putin is hugely popular among people. He has 80% per cent approval ratings for his muscle flexing with the West. Putin's power base is strong. Parliamentary elections are due at the end of the year and the presidential poll to follow in March next year.
The Constitution requires Putin to stand down because he was elected President twice. He could return in 2012. Recently he announced that he would run in the parliamentary election and would become Prime Minister.
No body is in doubt that he would choose the President for 4 years and then he would again become President. He is for a long haul in Russia's seat of power and would restore the old glory of his nation as Tsar, Peter the Great (1672-1725) did. He is a great admirer of Peter the Great and was born, studied law and worked as a mayor in St. Petersberg.
The author is former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.
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