Russia. A History

A fourth issue was NATO expansion: to Moscow’s consternation, NATO—under American leadership—actively recruited and incorporated former Warsaw bloc countries and even former Soviet republics. Russia grew increasingly alarmed as NATO expanded eastward, encompassing former Warsaw Pact countries and former Soviet republics in the Baltics, with the ex-communist lands coming to comprise 40 per cent of NATO membership. Nor did the campaign show any signs of stopping: the United States vigorously supported the inclusion of Ukraine and Georgia, especially after their ‘orange’ and ‘rose’ revolutions brought pro-Western regimes to power. Some European members of NATO opposed the American démarche, partly because of Russia’s opposition but also because neither Ukraine nor Georgia met the prerequisites for membership. Washington none the less extracted a NATO declaration of ‘intent’ to initiate the process of admission to NATO. Putin in turn protested that some in the West ‘have not been able to move on from the stereotypes of bloc thinking and prejudices, which are a carry-over from the epoch of global confrontation’. All this led to a famous Putin outburst about American hegemonism in a Munich conference in February 2007: ‘The United States has overstepped its borders in all spheres—economic, political, and humanitarian—and has imposed itself on other states.’

The mounting tensions with Washington encouraged Moscow to strengthen its ties to Europe. Not only was the latter its main trade partner, but it was also a natural partner for Russia as a ‘European’ country. Closer relations, however, proved elusive, in large measure because of recurring reports about military abuses in Chechnya and other human rights violations—which Moscow dismissed as unacceptable interference in its internal affairs. Tensions were also inflamed by Russia’s conflict with Ukraine over natural gas exports: Moscow’s decision to shut down the gas pipelines in January 2006 and January 2009 caused considerable hardship in Europe, which relied on Russia for a quarter of its natural gas and suspected that Russia was not only putting pressure on Ukraine but also indulging in political pressure and blackmail.

Amidst these complications, Putin—the ‘Europeanist’—gradually began to reorient strategy to the East, especially China. The latter was a major target of arms exports and shared many of Russia’s foreign policy aims—especially, its concern about the ‘unipolar hegemonism’ of the United States, the latter’s penchant for ‘humanitarian intervention’ and violation of state sovereignty, NATO enlargement, and the Islamist fundamentalism which threatened both Russia and China. In 2001, the ‘Shanghai Five’, established five years earlier by Russia, China, and three former Soviet republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan), was reconstituted as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), tasked not only with promoting economic relations but also with coordinating policy and enhancing mutual ties. In 2004 SCO established an ‘anti-terrorist centre’ to combat the radical Islamist movements and the following year resolved to reduce American influence and military presence in the region. In August 2005 Russia and China held their first joint military exercises, underscoring that SCO and their bilateral ties had moved significantly beyond the economic sphere.