Russia's damaging inferiority complex

Alexander Golts, deputy editor of the excellent on-line publication Yezhednevny Zhurnal ("Daily Journal"), had some interesting comments in Monday's Moscow Times on the damaging impact of Russia's inferiority complex:

Russia's Economic Maneuvers
Moscow Times, Monday, August 15, 2005. Issue 3230. Page 8.
By Alexander Golts

Thirteen years ago, when Moscow and Beijing agreed that Russia would start shipping arms to China, the announcement made waves around the world. Military analysts began talking about the possibility of a new alliance between Moscow and Beijing that would take an anti-American tack.

Now these predictions appear to be coming true. On Thursday, Russia and China will commence their first joint military exercises, in which around 10,000 soldiers and officers will participate. [...]

In this complicated war game -- during which potential threats to the United States, China's biggest trading partner, are being meted out with great care -- maneuvers that can be interpreted in a variety of ways become all the more important. In any case, it is clear why Peace Mission 2005 is useful for China.

It is a lot less clear what these military exercises will do for Russia. It is not clear what exactly Moscow stands to gain from war games that present an apparent threat to the United States, a country with which Russia has a strategic partnership, as Russian authorities have announced on numerous occasions.

Yet, there is some clear-cut economic reasoning behind Russia's participation. China is the largest purchaser of Russian military hardware. Every year, it buys around $1 billion in weaponry from Russia. [...]

The military reasons why Russia is engaging in joint maneuvers with China are far more vague and nebulous. It seems that Russian military policy increasingly reflects the armed forces' inferiority complex. Without the resources to play a significant role in the Asian arena, Russia doing everything it can to make it seem as if it is an active participant in the region's affairs. In the process, Russia's leaders have resorted to anti-American saber rattling out of old habit.

For example, Russia's national security would only be enhanced if the coalition forces fighting in Afghanistan were finally to defeat the remnants of the Taliban. Yet at the recent summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, President Vladimir Putin suggested that the delegates discuss when coalition forces should be required to withdraw from military bases located in Central Asia. Not only do these bases supply the troops fighting in Afghanistan, but they also support stability in Central Asia itself, something which is also very much in Russia's interest.

In this instance, the desire to prove how important Russia is seems to have gotten the upper hand over common sense. Russia's participation in Peace Mission 2005 apparently has very similar motives.

Maybe a more personal version of this inferiority complex played some role in inspiring Putin's antics with the Tu-160 yesterday. There's certainly no common-sense reason for the leader of a so-called G-8 nation to risk his life playing fly-boy.

[Update:] The same Moscow Times op-ed page carried another insightful commentary piece about Russia's warming relationship with China, which it's clear that Russia is rushing into in order to restore its sense of being a world power. The reasoning must go something like, "well, we'll get together with the Chinese and show these Orange-Revolution-organizing Americans a thing or two."

At the Edge of the Middle Kingdom
By Andrei Piontkovsky

[...] Confrontation with the West and the development of a "strategic partnership" and effectively a military alliance with China will leave Russia not only marginalized but also subject to China's strategic interests. And it will lead in the end to the loss of control over the Far East and Siberia, first de facto and then de jure.

In an op-ed piece that appeared in Vedomosti in mid-July, Alexander Dugin, head of the International Eurasian Movement and one of Russia's leading apologists for "Asiope" (as opposed to Eurasia), called this a "great opportunity for Russia." In an earlier manifesto, Dugin wrote with pride: "In the 16th century, the Tatars passed the torch of Eurasian empire-building to Moscow."

Muscovy's Asiopeans have carried this torch for centuries now. But if they're honest with themselves, Asiopeans like Dugin have to understand that we're now in the process of handing it off. Five centuries is a good long stretch, after all, and in the 21st century, the time has come for Russia to make way for a much more promising builder of empires, the Middle Kingdom. Apparently, this is exactly what the leadership is preparing to do.

The Holy Asiopean Alliance of emperors Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao is the alliance of a rabbit and a boa constrictor. Its outcome is inevitable, and it will be swift.

We've been so desperate to hold together the tatters of our own "near abroad" that we failed to notice that we have now become part of China's "near abroad."

That last sentence is all the more scathing because it's dead accurate.