Russia's Illusory Ambitions

LOSING A GRIP ON EURASIA

Although a children's story may seem an inappropriate analogy to describe Russian power, A. A. Milne's tale of the honey-seeking bear who wedges himself in a rabbit hole describes Moscow's strategic situation better than the usual hypotheses. Like the bear, Russia finds itself in a "great tightness," caught between its lofty ambitions and reduced capabilities. While the Russian bear struggles to extricate itself from its predicament, the consolidation of new states like Ukraine and Uzbekistan, the rise of China, and the ambitions of rimland states finally freed from the constraints of the superpower rivalry and able to pursue genuinely autonomous foreign policies are transforming the rest of Eurasia. The result is likely to be a Eurasia defined less by Russian power than by competition to fill the vacuum that Russia's troubles have created.

Understanding the Eurasia to come requires an understanding of the constraints on Russian power. The legacy of czarist and especially Soviet power continues to affect Russia's role in the world. Many Russians cannot conceive of abandoning their country's tradition as a great power. Russia's neighbors are all too familiar with that tradition, and view current Russian actions through its prism. Western observers, even when sharply divided in their assessments of Russia's progress, still use a vocabulary that exaggerates the country's capabilities for constructive or destructive behavior. When discussing Russian power, everyone still tends to leap from tactical observations to strategic speculation. However appropriate this approach may have been for the U.S.S.R., which possessed formidable diplomatic and military instruments and a well-articulated set of national interests, it is singularly unsuited to today's Russia and broader Eurasian trends.

Russia is an inward-looking state. It has accomplished much in the past five years, but immense political and economic difficulties remain. Its military has conducted the largest strategic withdrawal in history. At this time of reduced capacity, Russia must confront the most significant transformation of its surrounding strategic environment in the past five centuries -- the greatest change since the rise of Muscovy. The Russia that emerges and the Eurasia that forms around it will define the real dangers and opportunities of the next century.

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