Chapter 6

Conclusion: Russia Under Construction

The Russian Federation was established in 1991. It emerged from a period of

turbulent transformations in the international system out of the rubble of the
Soviet Union. It came into existence as the legal successor to the USSR, a
country that is logically considered to have been a form of the same empire that
from the times of Ivan the Terrible until the twentieth century expanded from
the lowlands surrounding the Volga to the sprawling distances of Eastern Europe
and Northern Eurasia.
At the same time, however, the Russian Federation emerged as a new state
unit under completely new international conditions. In other words, neither tsarist
Russia nor the Soviet Union was completely similar to the Russian Federation in
terms of its geographic location, political organization or the method of operation
of its economic system. The country also found itself in a different configuration
of the international system. Russia was faced with the problem of finding its place
in international politics, its own self-importance and its own methods of operation.
In this book, I have attempted to point out that throughout the whole examined
period, Russia has been in a turbulent period of constructing the meaning of where
and what is the “New Russia.” Russia, simply, has long been “under construction”.
Social construction, however, is a lasting process that takes place even in states
that have existed for extremely long periods of time and in relative stability. The
development of national identities, concepts on the location of a given country in
the world, the threats and opportunities that open up to it, justice and the legitimacy
of its internal organization—all these take shape over time in all countries in
the world. There is no final state when this process of constant negotiations and
the transformation of ideas, which build the framework for each social system,
including nation states, comes to an end. Of course the Russian Federation—a
state established in a historically exceptional situation, and one that has inherited
the many traits and ambitions of a superpower—has gone through a very dramatic,
perhaps even “compact” process of searching for its own place in the world and its
own methods of operation.
This book should aid the reader in viewing this process in its complexity, while
taking into consideration the influence of various concepts and images of Russia
and the rest of the world, which have not completely changed after the collapse of
the USSR and now must find their own voice in a new environment. In the second
level of this work, we have pointed out the crucial and prominent role that Western
states, and mainly the USA, have played in this process. The process of social
construction is a process that takes place always in interaction with other actors,
and the actor that has played an extraordinary role in the case of Russia is the West.
152 Misunderstanding Russia

I dare not predict whether the pace of transformations of Russian domestic

and foreign policy will now take on a freer tempo under the long-term leadership
of President Putin and his potential successors headed by a stably operating
regime, or whether Russia will take another dramatic turn in its development in
upcoming presidential elections. So far it seems that the situation has remained
stable since the parliamentary elections in 2007, when United Russia took
a comfortable majority in the Russian Duma. The opposition to the current
regime, however, has grown in force and is gaining more and more charismatic
and influential individuals—such as former Prime Minister Kasyanov, one of
Yeltsin’s protégés; the reputedly “sexiest” politician in the Russian Federation,
Boris Nemtsov; or the “scapegoat” of the current regime, blogger Alexei
Navalny. Thus, the Russian opposition is no longer just a group of extremists
and radicals who are connected merely by their defiance of the current regime
and who are incapable of taking the helm of the country. On the other hand, even
this new Russian opposition has not been able to defeat or even realistically
threaten the candidates of United Russia in any elections that have taken place.
The current regime supports this situation by providing advantageous conditions
to its candidates and evidently modifying election results which are put in place
to ensure comfortable majorities rather than victories themselves. Defeat has
never been a part of the Russian electoral program; nor has it in gubernatorial
elections or those for Moscow’s mayors, and thus can hardly be a part of the
program in the presidential battle, no less against Putin himself.
The conditions under which the regime operates, however, may undergo
dramatic changes—Putin so far has been without a doubt a skillful politician, but
also a child of fortune. Entering office after a Russian currency collapse at a time
of unprecedented rises in the prices of important raw materials that Russia was
able to export in a globally attractive scale and quality, all just before terrorist
attacks opened the space for a completely new concept of relations with the USA;
leaving office after the onset of an economic crisis and famously returning at a
time of economic rehabilitation—this is a scenario that cannot take place thanks to
mere political calculation. At the same time, it is a scenario that supports Putin’s
efforts to build his own version of Russia in the eyes of the public. However,
similar external and internal events can at the same time undermine the popularity
of the current regime and open a path for citizens to begin to heed the version of
Russia that is being offered by the opposition.
As we have seen in this book, the process of “Russia under construction” is a
process that is taking place in a new country and under new conditions, but at the
same time is not taking place in a political vacuum. The Russian perceptions of the
international system and of itself are older than the beginning of the nineties, when
the Russian Federation was established. Russians of course see themselves as the
heirs to the forms of the country that Russia possessed in the past and derive from
them their expectations and concepts of the world and of themselves. Similarly to
other players, they have certain concepts about what Russia is and how to behave
toward it despite all the restarts in mutual relations. It is these ideas that determine
 Conclusion: Russia Under Construction 153

the acceptable and desired content for Russian politics, which lend a certain sense
to Russian behavior and legitimize its domestic policy transformations.
In the chapter on the ideological foundations of Russian foreign policy, we
introduced a number of rather lasting characteristics that form the Russian identity
and the perception of Russia’s role in regard to its citizens and the international
system. We have labeled the conviction of the exceptional position of global
power that Russia holds and enjoys in the international system as the most
prominent of these ideas. Proof of this can be found not only in previous chapters
but also in the chapter in which we analyzed the official documents of foreign
and security policy of the Russian Federation, which are the official and practical
embodiment of Russia’s concepts of the world—this means they are a certain form
of institutionalized norms, as was mentioned in the introduction. As such, they
summarize the influence of these aforementioned concepts on the enforcement
of practical policy and also create certain borders for the leaders of the Russian
Federation. These Russian foreign policy documents and security doctrines at
the same time substantiate the Russian Federation’s global interests and the ever-
growing self-importance and assertiveness in reaching them. Russian leaders, via
these official documents, truly declare their belief in the fact that Russia is an
international superpower.
From this point, it is only a small, additional step to involve Western countries
in our analysis. For these purposes, we can use the famous concept established by
Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde, who deal with how a certain issue
becomes a threat or, in other terms, what makes up the construction of a threat. In
short, the securitizing actor must successfully convince his public that a certain
issue, phenomenon or actor represents a threat, and that it is necessary to accept
measures in order to eliminate their possible impacts (Buzan, Wæver and de
Wilde, 1998, p. 25). We can assume that a parallel can be found in Russian concepts
of their own position as a world power. Russians and Russian political leaders can
be deeply and honestly convinced that the Russian Federation is a superpower; but
for this to actually happen, this view of Russia must be accepted by an “audience,”
by leaders and then by the public of other states of the international system, who
will then behave according to this conviction in practical politics—for example by
discussing their moves in the international system with Russia. The country whose
acknowledgment is absolutely crucial for any country aspiring to superpower
status was in the 1990s and still without a doubt is the USA. If America does not
acknowledge the fact that it is necessary to discuss their activities with the Russian
Federation or define their behavior according to Russia, the country will not be a
global power however strongly other less significant actors in the international
system attempt to convince it of this fact. And—extremely importantly—if
Russian politicians cannot prove to their public, which is convinced that it lives
in an extraordinary country, that they are respected as leaders of the world power
in the international arena, their foreign policy is not understood as successful
at home. This subsequently has far-reaching domestic political impacts for the
legitimacy and support of any given Russian regime.
154 Misunderstanding Russia

We have already paid significant attention to pointing out that Western

countries, and mainly the USA, are therefore the prominent addressees of Russian
foreign policy steps. We have completed an analysis of the statements of the
crucial leader of the Russian political system, President Putin, which shows that
Western countries, and especially the USA, enjoy an exclusive position among
all the actors of the international system. The connection between the consistent
efforts of the Russian Federation in gaining acknowledgment as a superpower and
the basically privileged right of Western countries in acknowledging this status
for Russia has led us to the hypothesis that the specific strategy of Russian foreign
policy is merely made up of various tactics used to achieve this same goal in terms
of the same addressee. If we can again paraphrase the concept of securitization,
Russian foreign policy strategies of cooperation with the West, the balancing of
the West by coalitions with other actors and sometimes the attempts at intimidating
the West, are only techniques of “playing superpower,” where the actor playing
this role—the Russian Federation—selects various persuasive tactics to convince
crucial members of the public that the Russian Federation is truly a superpower.
As we have attempted to point out in the final chapter before this conclusion,
relations between Russia and the West are even deeper and more complex than it
may seem from the mere race for superpower status. There is no need to hesitate
here in using the term Orientalism. Russians’ concepts of what is and what is not
legitimate in their own country are, in my opinion, created to an extremely large
extent by their view of the West, although this view is very vicarious and indirect.
The Russian Federation has not undergone a transformation only in terms of the
international system, but has passed through a transformation of its political and
economic system. Both of these transformations have taken place via the adoption
of Western models of representative democracy and capitalist economics. Not
one of these models has succeeded in the Russian environment, for reasons that
we have substantially explored previously, which has led (unfortunately) to the
discrediting of both concepts and opened the path to a “Putinized” version of
democracy and capitalism.
Because both these concepts have been introduced in Russia openly according
to Western models and with clear Western support (including the provision of
consultants and experts), their failure in the fight for Russian “hearts and minds”
has led inevitably to Russia to begin defining itself against the West. In terms of
Said’s Orientalism, this means beginning to build the legitimacy of a different and
unique system based on their concept of Western models of states’ operation.
This differentness then manifested itself in the quality of relations with Western
countries, which of course perceive the deviations from Western democratic
standards and the various steps of the state in the economic sphere (mainly in
the battle with oligarchs) as a regression away from the desired state of affairs.
This inevitably manifests itself in the quality of mutual relations and legitimizes
Russia’s assertive foreign policy, which we know under the term multi-vector
policy, the goal of which, as we have mentioned, is to acquire a sufficient number
of allies and engagements in problematic areas in the international system for
 Conclusion: Russia Under Construction 155

Russia to gain the position of superpower, as it cannot gain this position in terms
of bilateral relations. Relations between Russia and the West thus surpass the
framework of traditional bilateral relations, and even some other special ties.
This is a complex and deeply constitutive process of forming domestic policy
and foreign policy strategies of the Russian Federation. It would of course be unfair
to state that the West or the USA directly carries responsibility for the current
shape of the Russian Federation. We can return here to Ted Hopf, mentioned in
the introduction, who points out that the process of social construction is a process
directed and controlled by one individual or groups of individuals or actors. This
applies without doubt to Russia and Russian foreign policy. In the conclusion of
this analysis, it is however evident that the role of Western countries in “Russia’s
construction” is absolutely exceptional, and this is a fact that Western analysts and
leaders should be aware of.