Putin Aims For Global Recognition with His Eurasia Plan

In a recent conversation about the Ukraine crisis German Chancellor Merkel reportedly told President Obama that "Putin is living in another world"..seeking to explain Putin's seemingly reckless actions. Other commentators have found him irrational. Yet for the past few weeks, Putin has been the master of the game, unleashing surprises, creating facts on the ground, defying Westerns sanctions, astounding all with the audacity of his nationalistic agenda and ambitions. Contrary to the Merkel's remark, we must operate in this world. So we should make an effort to understand and analyse Putin and his mind-set.

Western leaders inhabited it until a few decades ago; Asian leaders still play by its rules. It's the world of geopolitics, of great power competition, tailored to Russia's peculiar circumstances. Moreover; to students of Russian History, Putin is a familiar figure, heir to century long tradition of Russian strategic thinking, what Russians called "the great power school" of international relations.It's grounded around four key ideas.

(1) Sovereign states are the central actors in world affairs, as they have been since the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648. Private companies, NGOs and other non state entities are not autonomous actors pursuing their own parochial interests, but rather instruments of state power.

(2) Conflicts are inevitable because sovereign states, by their very nature, seek to enhance their power and prestige, in competition with another.

(3) Hard power is the coin of the realm, in a world of disharmony and conflict.

(4) Only great powers can truly pursue independent foreign policies. They are by definition, the few countries that determine the structure, substance and direction of global affairs.

In line with this thinking; Putin has devoted himself, since he rose to power 14 years ago, to restoring Russia as a great power, after the humiliation of 1990s. "For the first time in the past 300 years" -he wrote as he assumed power-, "Russia is facing a real threat of sliding to the second even third echelon of world states. We are running out of time to counter this threat. We must strain all intellectual, physical and moral forces..."

The path to restore the greatness, in his agenda, was grounded in the Russian idea of a mix of patriotism, power, statehood and social solidarity. In his first two terms as president, Putin rebuilt a centralized state and engineered an economic recovery. For the past several years, he has focused on regenerating Russia's hard power by;

• steadily increasing defense spending
• modernizing military
• establishing Division level rapid reaction forces and
• forming a new Special Spetsnaz army.

With the annexation of Crimea; he has boldly declared an end to 35 years of geopolitical retreat, which began with Brejnev's ill fated invasion of Afghanistan and shaken with his effort in 2008,to deter Georgia's Abkhazia policies. There was nothing irrational in this approach and no effort to hide his goals. No one should have been surprised, as Putin moved step by step in fulfilling his desire on Ukraine, even if his success has been greater than anyone would have predicted in 2000.

For the West, the question is how far Putin intends to press Russia's geopolitical advance. Are there any geographical limits to his plans...Here too, Russian tradition offer some clues.

Russia lies on the nearly Eurasian plain, a vast expanse stretching from Eastern Europe to the Pacific. Strategic depth is essential to its security. Consequently Russian leaders have sought to push borders as far away as possible, from the Russia's heartland centered on Moscow. Russia's expansion has ended not so much when it ran into defensible physical barriers as when it came up against countervailing powers like Germany-Austria-Poland in the west; China in the east; and Anglo-Saxon powers of Britain, United States in the south. Those powers defined Russia's strategic space.

Today the former Soviet space, with the exceptions of the Baltics and Russia itself, is a region of fragile states, corrupt elites and pervasive poverty that offers little resistance to a dynamic Russia. It was not like this so long ago. In the years after Soviet collapse, Moscow watched with growing concern as outside powers, first of all US, and non-state forces, especially radical Islamic groups penetrated into the region, eroding Russia's presence and threatening its security. Until Putin began to rebuild the state however, Russia did not have the will and wherewithal to resist or counter this pressure.

Two events in 2004, -Chechen attack against a school in Beslan in north Caucasus; and the orange revolution in Ukraine- linked the various threats together in Putin's mind and drove home the dimensions of the challenge. The Beslan School attack persuaded him that the United States was using counterterrorism as a smoke screen for geopolitical advance, because it was not above using what he saw as Chechen terrorists "to bite off a juicy pie" of Russia, as he put it in an interview. The Orange Revolution made the link in his mind between America's democracy promotion and its geopolitical advance into Russia's strategic space. Indeed; he thought that event was a dress rehearsal for Washington's plans over Russia itself. In response, Putin began to elaborate a coherent policy, combining military-economic and soft-power instruments to counter American policies and reassert Russia's primacy across the former Soviet space. There followed sharper albeit largely covert competition in Central Asia; gas wars against Ukraine and Georgia; the seizure of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from -a regional US ally- Tbilisi in 2008; and annexation of Crimea. 

In 2011, Putin announced his long-term ambition, to draw all the former Soviet states into a Eurasian Union, which Russia would dominate due to its economic and military superiority. Ukraine is now the central and the most essential battlefield for this vision, for without Ukraine the union makes neither economic, nor strategic sense, given the Ukraine's great potential and strategic location between Europe and Russia.

The way to stymie Russian expansion is not by denying visas and freezing assets of Russian officials, business associates. The US and West's current approach tells to public that they've caught off-guarded and did not have any preventive or deterrent strategy against Moscow. National security always trumps economic well-being, in Putin's world. Rather; history indicates that the way to stop Russia is to organize regions along its periphery. The West has already done that in Eastern Europe and Baltics, now safely anchored in EU and NATO ranks, although the states there, will require reassurance and continued support for deepening integration into European institutions.

But Ukraine, like Moldova and Caucasian States, teeters on the edge of becoming a failed state. Consolidating it as a modern state is an enormous task, requiring wholesale replacement of a predatory elite that has sabotaged economic development. (According to IMF, Ukraine's economy as grown by about a quarter since 1992, while Russia's has more than doubled.) Putin is betting that the West lacks the resources, the vision and the patience to consolidate Ukraine. He believes that history is on his side since he's been asserting and politically preparing Ukrainians for some time. This is his most important advantage.

-----By Thomas Graham----------------------------------------------------------------

Expected Developments

NATO-Ukraine relations were built up on a "Distinctive Partnership" level since 1997.  NUC (NATO Ukraine commission) helped to reinforce a practical cooperation, NATO supported some initiatives in Ukraine and Ukraine -symbolically- supported NATO missions in Kosovo, Afghanistan as well as Somalia, as the only Eastern Europe country contributing to all ongoing NATO led operations. 

I will not go to the details regarding Ukraine's strategical importance for Russia, or Crimea's geopolitical/strategic importance for Putin government. But, considering the political imbalance in Ukraine and the public/political turbulence Kiev government has been facing for almost a decade, I believe Putin's last move should not be regarded as a "surprise". So I believe NATO must have a contingency plan to handle this "awaited crisis" and still evaluating the best method to give a deterrent message.

Speaking of this contingency plan; Turkey, Poland, Germany, Romania will be main actors in this plan. But I significantly point out Turkey, because Turkey;

a. has a large and operational military structure, 

b. has a long and positive history with successive Ukraine governments,

c. is able to control Black Sea routes to Crimea and Ukraine,

d. is controlling the Dardanelles and Bosporus, the main sea-passage to the large Black Sea basin.

e. has a significantly large public, who will object the Russian occupation of Crimea, due to the historical reasons.

Turkey on the other hand, is dependent to Russian oil and gas, especially after Iran's refusal to increase the volume of Turkey's natural-gas acquisition 3 weeks ago. Considering the fact that Turkish government is quiet busy with upcoming local elections, as well as scandals that's been shaking the public since December 2013, it will not be wrong to say that Ukraine and Crimea is not in Erdogan's agenda as a priority. But, should NATO and US speed up a deterrent response and be ready to initiate, Turkey will most probably support it.

In situations like this (e.g North Korea in 2013, Libya 2012) NATO always waits for a UN resolution followed by an international denouncement. So,following a couple of serious UN meetings and a couple of air force maneuvers, NATO's primary reaction will most probably be a peace keeping exercise, inclusively in Poland, Romania and Turkey. This exercise will most probably include a sea-phase and NATO vessels' existence over the Black Sea region might well be used as a negotiation issue with Russia. As of March 11, NATO started  air war games in Poland and US jets are dispatched in the exercises. I believe we will witness similar deterrent exercises during April and May.