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  Putin’s Wars

  Putin’s Wars

  The Rise of Russia’s New Imperialism

  Marcel H. Van Herpen

  ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

  Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

  Published by Rowman & Littlefield

  4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

  www.rowman.com

  10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom

  Copyright © 2014 by [Author or Rowman & Littlefield]

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Herpen, Marcel van.

  Putin’s wars : the rise of Russia’s new imperialism / Marcel H. Van Herpen.

  pages cm

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-1-4422-3136-8 (cloth : alkaline paper) — ISBN 978-1-4422-3137-5 (paperback : alkaline paper) — ISBN 978-1-4422-3138-2 (electronic)

  1. Russia (Federation)—Relations—Russia (Federation)—Chechnia. 2. Chechnia (Russia)—Relations—Russia (Federation) 3. Chechnia (Russia)—History—Civil War, 1994– 4. Russia (Federation)—Relations—Georgia (Republic) 5. Georgia (Republic)—Relations—Russia (Federation) 6. South Ossetia War, 2008. 7. Putin, Vladimir Vladimirovich, 1952–—Military leadership. 8. Imperialism—History—21st century. 9. War crimes—History—21st century. 10. Genocide—History—21st century. I. Title.

  DK510.764.H47 2014

  327.47—dc23

  2013048469

  TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

  Printed in the United States of America

  To Valérie, Michiel, and Cyrille

  Author Note and Acknowledgments

  English quotes of Russian, French, German, Dutch, Italian, and Spanish works were translated by the author.

  In writing this book I owe a lot to the discussions with the members of the Russia Seminar of the Cicero Foundation. I want to thank Emma Gilligan, Hall Gardner, Christiane Haroche, Rona Heald, Albert van Driel, Peter Verwey, and Ernst Wolff, who read chapters of the book and gave useful feedback. I want to thank also Susan McEachern, Carolyn Broadwell-Tkach, and Jehanne Schweitzer, who, with great professionalism, shepherded the book through the editorial production process. Finally, I want also to thank my wife, Valérie, who gave me her patient support during the years of research and writing. I dedicate this book to her and to my two sons, Michiel and Cyrille, who share their father’s interest in Russian history.

  Glossary and Abbreviations

  ANC

  African National Congress

  ANI

  Associazione Nazionalista Italiana

  BBC

  British Broadcasting Corporation

  BRIC

  Acronym of grouping referring to Brazil, Russia, India, and China

  BRICS

  Acronym of grouping referring to Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa

  BRIICS

  Acronym of grouping referring to Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China, and South Africa

  CFE

  Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty

  CIA

  Central Intelligence Agency (USA)

  CIS

  Commonwealth of Independent States

  CaPRF

  Cossack Party of the Russian Federation

  Cheka

  All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage (Soviet secret service December 1917–1922)

  CPRF

  Communist Party of the Russian Federation

  CPSU

  Communist Party of the Soviet Union

  CSTO

  Collective Security Treaty Organization

  CU

  Customs Union

  DMD

  Dobrovolnye Molodezhnye Druzhiny (Voluntary Youth Militias)

  DPNI

  Dvizhenie protiv nelegalnoy immigratsii (“Movement Against Illegal Immigration,” extreme right organization)

  EU

  European Union

  EurAsEc

  Eurasian Economic Community

  FSB

  Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti (Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation)

  GDP

  Gross Domestic Product

  GRU

  Glavnoe Razvedyvatelnoe Upravlenie (“Main Intelligence Directorate,” Russian Military Foreign Intelligence Agency)

  HJ

  Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth)

  IMF

  International Monetary Fund

  ITAR-TASS

  Russian News Agency

  KGB

  Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (“Committee for State Security,” secret service of the Soviet Union)

  KOMSOMOL

  Kommunisticheskiy Soyuz Molodezhi (“Communist Youth Union,” youth department of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union)

  KTO

  kontrterroristicheskie operatsii (counterterrorist operations)

  LDPR

  Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia

  MAP

  Membership Action Plan (NATO)

  MID

  Ministerstvo Inostrannykh Del Rossiyskoy Federatsii (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation)

  NATO

  North Atlantic Treaty Organization

  NSDAP

  Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party)

  OPEC

  Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries

  PARNAS

  Partiya Narodnoy Svobody (“People’s Freedom Party”)

  ROC

  Russian Orthodox Church

  OAS

  Organisation de l’armée secrète (French far-right paramilitary organization)

  PACE

  Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

  PA CSTO

  Parliamentary Assembly of the CSTO

  PDPA

  People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (Communist Party of Afghanistan)

  RIA NOVOSTI

  Russian News Agency

  ROSMOLODEZH

  Russian Federal Youth Agency

  SA

  Sturm Abteilung (paramilitary organization of Hitler’s NSDAP)

  SCO

  Shanghai Cooperation Organization

  SdP

  Sudetendeutsche Partei (Sudeten German Party)

  SED

  Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Communist Party of the German Democratic Republic)

  UAV

  Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

  USA

  United States of America

  USSR

  Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

  VAD

  All-Russian Association of Militias

  VTsIOM

  All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (official state pollster)

  WTO

  World Trade Organization

  Introduction

  In December 1991 the Soviet Union ceased to exist. The end of the last European empire came suddenly and unexpectedly, not least for the Russians themselves. However, with hindsight it seemed to be the logical conclusion of a chapter in European history. Other European countries had gone do
wn the same road. Spain had already lost its colonies in the nineteenth century. France, Britain, Belgium, and the Netherlands had decolonized after World War II. Even Portugal, a colonialist “laggard” that clung to its possessions in Africa and Asia until the bitter end, had to give up its empire after the “carnation revolution” of 1974. Decolonization—until now—has seemed to be an irreversible process: once a former colony had obtained its independence, it was unlikely that the former colonial power could make a comeback. The history of European decolonization has been, so far, a linear and not a cyclical process. The chapter of European colonialism seems to be closed definitively, once and for all. But is it? Does this analysis also apply to Russia? This is the big question because not only the conditions under which Russia built its empire were quite different than for the other European countries, but also because the process of decolonization was different. Let us consider these differences. There are, at least, five:

  First, Russia did not build its empire overseas, as did the other European powers. Its empire was contiguous and continental: the new lands it acquired were incorporated in one continuous landmass.

  Second, with shorter communication lines and no need to cross oceans, rebellions and independence movements in the colonized territories could be more easily repressed.

  Third, Russian empire building was also different because it did not come after the process of state-building, as was the case in Western Europe. In Russia it was an integral part of the process of state-building itself.

  Fourth, Russian empire building was neither casual, nor primarily driven by commercial interests, as was the case in Western Europe, but from the start, it had a clear geopolitical function, namely, to safeguard Russia’s borders against foreign invaders.

  Fifth, in Russian history periods of decolonization were never linear, nor irreversible. Decolonization was never definitive. When, for instance, after the Bolshevik Revolution, the colonized lands of the Russian empire were set free, they were soon afterwards reconquered by the Red Army.

  It is these five historical characteristics of Russian colonization and decolonization that one has to bear in mind when analyzing the behavior of the Russian leadership. The thesis of this book is that—unlike in Western Europe, where the process of decolonization was definitive—the same is not necessarily true for Russia. For the Russian state colonizing neighboring territories and subduing neighboring peoples has been a continuous process. It is, one could almost say, part of Russia’s genetic makeup. The central question with which we are confronted after the demise of the Soviet Union is whether this centuries-old urge to subdue and incorporate neighboring peoples has disappeared or if this imperial reflex might be making a comeback.

  Russia: A Post-Imperium?

  According to some authors the end of the Soviet Union sounded the death knell of Russian colonialism and imperialism. One of these authors is Dmitri Trenin, a Russian analyst and the head of the Moscow bureau of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In his book, with the telling title Post-Imperium, he tries to reassure the reader that “Russia has abandoned the age-old pattern of territorial growth. A merger with Belarus was not pursued as a priority. Abkhazia and South Ossetia were turned into military buffers, but only in extremis.”[1] In his book Trenin repeats this reassuring mantra again and again. He writes: “The days of the Russian empire are gone; Russia has entered a post-imperial world;”[2] or: “Russia will never again be an empire;”[3] and again: “The Russian empire is over, never to return. The enterprise that had lasted for hundreds of years simply lost the drive. The élan is gone. In the two decades since the collapse, imperial restoration was never considered seriously by the leaders, nor demanded by a wider public.”[4] Trenin gives several arguments for his thesis. The first of these is the presence in Russia of an empire fatigue. Russians, he argues, are no longer willing to pay for an empire: “At the top, there was neither money nor strong will for irredentism.”[5] Instead of an empire, he continues, Russia has only the desire to become a “great power.” The difference between the two is, in his opinion, that great powers are selfish. They don’t want to spend money on behalf of other nations. “Empires,” writes the author, “for all the coercion they necessarily entail, do produce some public goods, in the name of a special mission. Great powers can be at least equally brutish and oppressive, but they are essentially selfish creatures.”

  However, the sudden eclipse of Russia’s eternal imperial drive cannot be explained exclusively by “selfishness.” Trenin gives a second reason, which is the growing xenophobia in the Russian population. Although xenophobia may be an ugly, anti-humanist attitude, in Russia’s case, it would have some positive effects. “What the rise in xenophobia, the upsurge of chauvinism, and the spread of anti-government violence also tell,” writes the author, “is that there is no appetite whatsoever for a new edition of empire, only residual nostalgia for the old days.”[6] Like Bernard Mandeville, who in his Fable of the Bees explained how public benefits could emerge from private vices, Dmitri Trenin explains how in contemporary Russia private vices, such as xenophobia and egoism, result in a public benefit: the lack of appetite in the Russian population for the restoration of the lost empire.

  However, the problem with Trenin’s analysis is not only that it is too simple, but also that it contradicts the facts. One of these facts is that during Putin’s reign the phase of “empire fatigue” has definitively come to an end. Under the guise of the “Eurasian Customs Union,” “Eurasian Economic Union,” and—most recently—“Eurasian Union,” new efforts of empire building have begun. As concerns xenophobia, presented by Trenin as an effective antidote against empire building, history shows that xenophobia, far from eliminating an imperialist drive, it often accompanies it. One does not have to go back to the 1930s to find extremely xenophobic regimes that at the same time were expansionist and imperialist. A good example of this combination in contemporary Russia is the leader of the Liberal-Democratic Party in the Duma, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who, in his book Poslednyy brosok na yug (Last Push to the South), likens immigrants to Russia from the Caucasus or Central Asia to “cockroaches” (tarakany) who should be expelled from the European center of Russia.[7] This does not prevent Zhirinovsky from pleading for a reconquest of both the Soviet and tsarist empires (the latter included parts of contemporary Poland and Finland). Zhirinovsky even claims Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan as exclusive spheres of influence, not excluding that “Russia gets a frontier with India.”[8] Trenin’s argument that the widespread xenophobia in Russia will prevent Russia from becoming imperialist is therefore not valid. In fact the contrary is true: ultranationalism and imperial chauvinism are often most developed in xenophobic and racist countries.

  Ironically, Trenin mentions in his book a number of facts that undermine his own theory of Russia as a post-imperium. These facts are rather disconcerting. When Trenin mentions how Putin called the demise of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century,” he writes that “Putin’s words were interpreted as evidence of an active Kremlin nostalgia for the recently lost empire, and even as a sign of his intention to bring back the USSR. This was a misinterpretation.”[9] Trenin is certainly right that Putin did not want to bring back the USSR—because, as he rightly stresses, Putin “blamed the non-performing communist system for losing the Soviet Union.” But a Russian empire does not have to be a communist empire, as the tsarist experience proves. Trenin also mentions Putin’s remark at the Bucharest NATO summit in April 2008 that Ukraine “was not even a state” and “would break apart.” This was, according to Trenin, neither an expression of Russian imperial arrogance and contempt, nor a barely disguised threat. Putin, he wrote, “was probably highlighting the brittleness of Ukraine’s unity, which would not survive a serious test.”[10]

  But if Putin was completely free of any annexationist fervor, why, in 2003, did he propose that Belarus return to Russia and join the Russian Federation as six oblasts (provinces
), a proposition that was refused by Belarus? As long ago as 1993, the Supreme Soviet laid claim to the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol.[11] However, if Putin’s objectives are so radically different, why would his government distribute Russian passports in the Crimea and in Eastern Ukraine, knowing that the Ukrainian Constitution strictly forbade dual nationality? And why was this distribution of Russian passports accompanied in August 2008 by Medvedev’s introduction of “five foreign policy principles,” which included the right for the Kremlin to protect Russians “wherever they are” and intervene on their behalf? These principles were applied in the case of Georgia, which was invaded in August 2008. And why, after the Orange Revolution, did Russian politicians speak out in favor of the “federalization” of Ukraine?[12] As Trenin himself writes, this proposal was interpreted by Ukrainian politicians as “paving the way to its breakup and the absorption of its eastern and southern regions by Russia.” And why, in 2003, did Putin equally propose the federalization of Moldova?[13] Was it not because it would make a breakup of that state easier and bring the breakaway province of Transnistria definitively back within Moscow’s sphere of influence? Trenin also mentions that after the Ukrainian bid for a route into NATO, “some not entirely academic quarters in Moscow played with the idea of a major geopolitical redesign of the northern Black Sea area, under which southern Ukraine, from the Crimea to Odessa, would secede from Kiev and form a Moscow-friendly buffer state, ‘Novorossiya’—New Russia. As part of that grand scheme, tiny Transnistria would either be affiliated with that state or absorbed by it. The rest of Moldova could then be annexed by Romania.”[14] These sentences need to be read very carefully: for “some not entirely academic quarters in Moscow,” one could read: the Kremlin or Kremlin-related politicians. For “played with the idea of a major geopolitical redesign,” one could read: military intervention in order to break up Ukraine, an internationally recognized sovereign state (also recognized by Russia). Moreover, the creation of a Russia-friendly “buffer state” has traditionally, in Russian politics, led to that state becoming part of Russia. One could be tempted to see some historical parallels. But, of course, you need not. Because Trenin is reassuring us: Putin’s Russia has no plans to reconquer its lost empire. Russia is a post-empire and intends to remain so.