Vladimir Putin has won re-election by a good greater margin than expected. But he begins his fourth term as president amid antagonism from many world leaders over a nerve agent attack in Britain that hospitalized a former Russian spy and his daughter.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has made it clear that she thinks Russia does responsible for the poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury. It received formal support from France, Germany and the United States.
She described the attack as considered one of a protracted list of audacious foreign policy moves authorized by Moscow since Vladimir Putin returned to the presidency in 2012. These actions include the annexation of Crimea, military intervention in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, cyberattacks and election interference in the United States and Europe.
But while Russian foreign policy could seem reckless and unpredictable, Moscow’s words and actions usually are not the results of random aggression. They arrange themselves in numerous patterns. Understanding these patterns may also help us interpret and maybe predict Russia’s next moves on the world stage as Putin begins his fourth term as president.
Much of what we see in Russian foreign policy has much to do with a set of theoretical approaches from the diplomacy discipline called “realism.” Russia’s political leaders tend to treat foreign policy as a zero-sum game during which one country can only gain and the other lose. Their assessment of Russia’s place in the world is formed by very traditional ideas about what makes a rustic strong, powerful and revered. Having a big and well-armed army is high on the list.
Although Russia also uses more conventional foreign policy tools equivalent to diplomacy and trade, it relies – sometimes heavily – on a wide selection of covert instruments, especially those utilized by its intelligence and security services. Ethical concepts usually are not absent from the calculations of Russia’s political leaders – but they treat their ethical responsibility as protecting the interests of their very own country, reasonably than being guided by some abstract, philosophical principles of state behavior.
Russia considers these general principles of foreign policy to be universal. In other words, Putin and other senior Russian policymakers expect all countries to behave like Russia. Any claims by governments of other countries that they’ve completely different foreign policy motives – e.g. protecting human rights and supporting the development of democracy – are treated by Moscow only as a public relations exercise. This attitude helps explain why Russian officials be happy to deny Russia’s actions in highly unlikely ways. We saw an example of this in the spring of 2014, when Putin first denied after which admitted that the “little green men” deployed in Crimea were actually Russian military personnel.
Use of force
Each situation is different, and Russian policymakers calculate relative strengths and constraints when selecting which instruments to use to achieve Moscow’s foreign policy goals. This implies that the use of direct military force is just used when Moscow judges that the odds are strongly in Russia’s favor. Where the odds usually are not great, other, less confrontational but perhaps equally effective tools are used.
We can see how this works in practice if we compare Russia’s various behaviors in Ukraine. Sending troops to Crimea in 2014 was relatively low risk. There was chaos in the Ukrainian government and armed forces, and the local civilian population supported Russia. That said, Moscow still remained cautious and initially hid its troops in case things went terribly flawed.
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The risk was higher in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, but was managed in several ways. The military intervention was preceded by a propaganda campaign that exploited existing local fears about the intentions of the recent Ukrainian government, especially towards Russian speakers. The actual fighting takes place partly through proxies (local separatists supplied and directed by Moscow). The participation of Russian soldiers was presented as the actions of individual volunteers.
In each Crimea and Donbas, Moscow could ensure that it will not face a direct military confrontation with superior forces. Russia’s calculations are completely different when it comes to relations with NATO members. Russia may base its military exercises on fighting NATO forces, but that is just not an option in real life, except as a final resort. Propaganda, social media trolling and cyberattacks are much less dangerous methods of weakening a possible adversary.
The danger is that Moscow will underestimate the cumulative effects of its actions without the use of military force. With each recent provocative act, international tensions increase and with them the possibilities of a confrontation that can’t be easily denied or averted.
Russia may view the attack on Skripal as an isolated incident – as revenge against a traitor and a warning to others who may be tempted to betray their homeland. However, there are growing calls for Britain and other Western countries to take stronger motion against Moscow than expelling some diplomats and keeping the royal family away from the World Cup. If the West does indeed reach the end of its patience with Russia, the next six years of Putin’s presidency could grow to be much less comfortable.
