✪ Michael Kofman Andrea Kendall-Taylor
(Originally published in Foreign Affairs)
Recently, the border situation between Russia and Ukraine has been tense. On December 11, 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden said he had told Putin that Russia would pay a "heavy price" and would face "devastating economic consequences" if it invaded Ukraine. Earlier, Biden had declared that Russia was "an economy with only nuclear weapons and oil wells." The question is, will Russia really be as desperate and admit its demise, as U.S. leaders believe?
According to this article, Russia is not as vulnerable as some politicians believe. Although the total volume of the Russian economy has stagnated, it is still very large. Although the population is constantly decreasing, the demographic structure is still improving, and it has been actively absorbing excellent immigrants. In terms of military power, through continuous reform and financial investment in recent years, it still has a strong power and maintains a deterrent to Russia's traditional sphere of influence. Moreover, it is unrealistic to hope for major changes in Russia after Putin leaves office. Therefore, the author believes that the United States must readjust its strategic deployment and abandon the dream of Russia's weakening of the west.
The authors point out that the United States has seriously misjudged the situation of its strategic opponents, and it is necessary to avoid paying too much attention to China in the future to ignore other important issues such as Russia. U.S. leaders should see Russia not as a declining power, but as a lasting power — and a frank dialogue about the country's true capabilities and weaknesses. Rethinking U.S. assumptions about Russian power would allow policymakers to deal with a capable adversary.
This article was originally published in Foreign Affairs, Volume 6, 2021, originally titled "The Dream of Russia's Decline", compiled and first published by the public title of "Law and Italy To See the World", which only represents the author's views and is for the consideration of all the monarchs.
The Dream of Russia's Decline: Why Moscow Will Maintain Its Global Influence
Public statements by the Obama administration, early national security planning documents and initial diplomatic attempts have all suggested that the U.S. government has shifted its national strategic focus to the Asia-Pacific region, while the question of how to deal with Russia remained on the back burner until April when Russian troops regrouped on the Ukrainian border. The crisis was a reminder that it was dangerous to ignore Russia — but in July, President Joe Biden declared that Russia was "an economy with only nuclear weapons and oil wells."
Biden is not the first U.S. leader to think along these lines. Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. politicians have said from time to time that Russia's days as a truly global power are numbered. In 2014, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, called Russia "a gas station disguised as a nation." That same year, U.S. President Barack Obama dismissed Russia as nothing more than a "regional power." Shortly thereafter, Russia successfully intervened in the War in Syria, in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, in the political crisis in Venezuela and in the civil war in Libya. However, Russia is still considered a paper tiger.
The problem is that the reasons for Russia's decline have been exaggerated. Many things don't have as much impact on Russia as many in the United States think, such as Russia's shrinking population and resource-dependent economy. Nor should the United States expect Russian President Vladimir Putin to automatically abandon confrontation after he leaves office. Putin's foreign policy is widely supported by Russia's ruling elite, and his political legacy will include a host of unresolved disputes, chief among which is the annexation of Crimea. Any disagreements with the United States will continue.
In short, Washington cannot sit idly by and wait for Russia's decline. U.S. leaders should see Russia not as a declining power, but as a lasting power — and a frank dialogue about the country's true capabilities and weaknesses. Rethinking U.S. assumptions about Russian power would allow policymakers to deal with a capable adversary.
▍ False assumptions
Expectations of Russia's decline contain important facts. The country's economy is stagnant, with few sources of value other than the exploitation and export of natural resources. The entire system is rife with corruption, dominated by inefficient state-owned or state-controlled enterprises, and international sanctions limit access to capital and technology. Russia's efforts to develop, retain, and attract talent; the country's chronic lack of funding for scientific research; and bureaucratic mismanagement hamper technological innovation. As a result, Russia lags far behind the United States and China in most indicators of scientific and technological development. Military spending has largely stagnated over the past four years, with the population expected to shrink by 10 million by 2050.
Faced with such a bleak outlook, one would naturally assume that Russia's destructive and hostile capabilities on the international stage would soon diminish – and that it would deplete sufficient resources to sustain its aggressive foreign policy. But the data do not reflect a more comprehensive picture. They highlighted Russia's weaknesses and downplayed its strengths. As Herman Grave, head of Russia's largest bank in 2016, put it, Russia may be a "slow-paced country," but its economic, demographic and military potential will remain, not decline sharply.
Consider the economy of this country, although it may be stagnant, but its size and resilience are still greater than many people think. Analysts note that Russia's $1.5 trillion GDP is comparable to Italy or Texas. But that $1.5 trillion is calculated at market exchange rates. If purchasing power parity is taken into account, Russia's GDP would soar to $4.1 trillion, making it the second-largest economy in Europe and the sixth-largest in the world. Neither measure is completely accurate — one may be undervalued, the other may be overestimated — but the comparison suggests that Russia's economy is far less small than conventional wisdom suggests. In any case, raw GDP is often a poor measure of geopolitical power: it is no longer easily translated into military potential or international influence.
To be sure, Russia's economy is not friendly to its citizens. Russia's real disposable income is now 10 percent lower than it was in 2013, erasing nearly a decade of growth. But macroeconomic indicators are stable enough that Russia can project its strength well in the future. After Russia annexed Crimea and occupied eastern Ukraine in 2014, international sanctions and falling oil prices caused the country's economy to plummet. In the years since, however, the government has reined in spending, adapted to low oil prices, and created a budget surplus and growing funding reserves. According to the latest estimates, as of August 2021, Russia's National Wealth Fund is worth about $185 billion and its foreign exchange reserves are $615 billion – which is hardly a picture of poverty. A new import substitution policy in response to international sanctions has reinvigorated the agricultural sector, which now generates more than $30 billion in annual export revenues. Russia has also shifted its trade focus from the West to China, which is now Russia's largest trading partner. By 2024, Sino-Russian trade is expected to exceed $200 billion, double that of 2013.
What about Russia's dependence on the extractive industries? Oil and gas sales still account for 30-40% of the government budget, which means it may be difficult to pull out of fossil fuel sales in the future. But it's unclear exactly how close that future really is. Moreover, the price of energy production in Russia is so low that other energy exporters are likely to be squeezed before their budgets are tightened. Russia is the EU's main energy supplier, and the EU's dependence on Russia has only increased over the past decade: 41 percent of the EU's natural gas, 27 percent of its oil and 47 percent of its solid fossil fuels come from Russia. The problem for Russia is that its resources are not unlimited. Russia's oil production will peak in the next decade, which means the country's ability to export easily exploitable (and therefore cheap) oil will reach its ceiling.
At the same time, although Russia lags behind the United States in technological innovation, it still ranks among the top ten in the world in terms of R&D spending. In the case of AI, it may even matter whether the state is a leader or a follower: Given the many applications and commercial uses of the technology, Russia may achieve some latecomer advantages while leaving the United States and China with the costs and risks of pioneering its development. In addition, Russia's tech industry, while struggling, still has room to live, developing platforms like Facebook, Google and other popular online platforms that have been quite successful in Russia.
▍ Demographics and national strength
One of the most common misconceptions about Russia is that the country's demographic outlook will greatly limit its ability to go into the future. This demographic determinism has historically been unable to predict Russia's fate. According to the United Nations, Russia's population will shrink by about 7 percent by 2050; more pessimistically, a drop of up to 11 percent. Even in the latter case, Russia will still be the most populous country in Europe and Eurasia. It may lag behind the highly developed Western countries in terms of life expectancy and mortality, but since the 1990s it has significantly narrowed these gaps and is therefore not on the verge of population collapse.
More importantly, we need to rethink the correlation between demographics and national power. Modern powers are defined not by the size of their populations, but by the quality of their population: indicators such as the health of the people, the level of education, and the productivity of labor. If not, countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia and Nigeria would be among the most powerful in the world. As the American scholar Hal Brands has written, "Everything is equal, and countries with healthy demographics are more likely to create wealth than their competitors." "In this regard, Russia has made considerable progress since the 1990s: a decline in mortality, an increase in life expectancy, an increase in fertility. Until 2015, Russia had been steadily rising on indicators such as the United Nations Human Development Index and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Labor Productivity Indicators. A recession has slowed this trend and ruined some progress. But the overall situation in Russia has improved significantly from the demographic crisis of the 1990s and the projections of the end of the population at the beginning of this century.
Many of Russia's smartest people have left Russia. However, its economic impact is difficult to measure. Even if many of Russia's middle class, which is crucial to the knowledge economy, leave, Russia could benefit from the massive migration of former Soviet job seekers. Russia's demographic data consists of a mixture of indicators that show improvements in quality and declines in quantity. At the same time, the demographic outlook of the United States and many of its allies is equally problematic, though perhaps not as serious.
▍ Military strength
Most importantly, Russia remains a military force that cannot be ignored. Historically, military power has been a force that compensates for the country's relatively monolithic economy, technological backwardness and lack of political dynamism. This partly explains why Russia has been able to maintain long-term competition with more economically powerful countries in the past, whether it is the United States or the British Empire. After the early troughs of the post-Soviet era, Russia's military power has recovered and will only improve in the next decade.
When it comes to nuclear weapons technology, Russia remains the main adversary of the United States. In addition to NATO, it has the most powerful conventional military force in Europe, which was rebuilt after a period of military reform and investment since 2008. This shift was largely ignored before 2014, which explains why Russia's military operations in Ukraine and later in Syria surprised many analysts. Today, the Russian army's combat readiness, mobility and technical capabilities have reached the highest level in decades. NATO is still nominally dominant, but much of the situation in the war is uncertain, and NATO's apparent superiority does not guarantee victory or the ability to deter Russia within the scope of a possible conflict. Russia has also sent a fleet of flexible special forces, mercenaries and military intelligence personnel. This doesn't take into account its leading position in space and its powerful cyberwarfare capabilities. This was demonstrated recently by the so-called Solar Winds intrusion, in which Russian hackers infiltrated and monitored several U.S. government agencies.
Adjusted for purchasing power parity and the characteristics of self-sufficient defense sectors such as Russia, analysts estimate that Russia's annual defense spending is between $150 billion and $180 billion, well above the market exchange rate of $58 billion. Half of Russia's annual defense budget is spent on purchasing new weapons, modernizing old ones, and researching military technology, a much higher proportion than most Western militaries spend in these areas. Moreover, these are conservative estimates, as some of Russia's spending remains hidden, obscure or secretive. Using these generous budgets, Russian military-industrial enterprises have developed many next-generation weapons, from hypersonic missiles to directed energy weapons such as lasers, electronic warfare systems, advanced submarines, integrated air defense systems, and various types of anti-satellite weapons.
The Russian army is not without problems and is still lagging behind in some areas. In practice, however, Russia is well positioned to maintain dominance in the traditional Soviet sphere of influence and challenge U.S. interests in other regions such as the Middle East. Russia has retained the necessary air and sea transport capabilities to deploy troops at a certain distance from the border. Despite the triple blow of recession, low oil prices and international sanctions, its defense spending looks stable at current levels. The Russian military still sees itself at a relative disadvantage, but they are increasingly convinced that even the absence of nuclear weapons can deter NATO, and that the outcome of a long war between Russia and NATO forces is difficult to predict. In this case, the United States and its allies should no longer see Russia as a mere "saboteur," but should recognize it as an important military adversary in capability and intent.
Pictured is a military parade in Moscow in August 2021, image source: foreign affairs
▍ Putin's term of office
Inextricably linked to Russia's decline is the notion that the United States faces primarily Putin's problems — that once the Russian president leaves office, Russia's foreign policy will become less assertive. But that's unlikely to be the case. First, Putin could legally stay in office until 2036 thanks to a referendum he pushed last year that allowed him to serve two more six-year terms after his term expires in 2024. Research conducted by Kendall Taylor and political scientist Erica Frantz shows that longevity is common for leaders like the Russian president. In the post-Cold War era, dictators like Putin who reigned for 20 years lived to be at least 65 years old, with an average of 36 years in power concentrating power in their own hands.
Research on political leaders also suggests that once Putin steps down – even sooner than expected – there are few prospects for substantial improvement in politics. For the most part, the regimes created by these long-term leaders will persist, or another regime will emerge.
Unless Putin's departure brings about a major shift in the ruling elite, key pillars of Russian foreign policy, such as Russia's view of retaining its sphere of influence in the post-Soviet region, will remain at odds with the values of the United States and its allies. In short, U.S. policymakers must be prepared that the contours of Russian foreign policy and its intention to undermine U.S. interests will continue long after Putin leaves office.
▍ Persistent threats
The United States should see Russia not as a declining power, but as a lasting power that is willing and capable of threatening U.S. national security interests for at least 10 to 20 years. As political scientist Kathryn Stoner put it, Russia is a "good enough" power with the ability to influence global affairs and, in essence, U.S. interests. The former Soviet Union remains a powder keg and the impact of the collapse of the Soviet Union must still be considered. As historian Serhii Plokhy aptly put it, disintegration should not be seen as an event, but as a process. So no matter how much Washington wants to focus on the Indo-Pacific, it must consider the prospect of another Russo-Ukrainian war, a military conflict triggered by political turmoil in Belarus, or a crisis similar to the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.
Russia has military bases in the Caucasus, Central Asia, Europe and the Middle East, and its military is often close to NATO forces. In indirect warfare, Moscow's track record of election interference and hacking shows that it is capable and willing to use emerging technologies against the United States and its allies. It is also worth emphasizing that Russia can easily jeopardize U.S. interests. Russia's military interventions in Ukraine, Syria and Libya, while limited, are inexpensive. The same goes for its cyberattacks and attempts to create disinformation.
▍ Adjust the strategic deployment of Russia
The United States must set aside Russia's perception that it is cornered and admits its demise, and lash out at it. In fact, there is little evidence that Russian leaders view their country in this way — instead, they see Russia as the center of power in their own region, a confident global player. Events such as america's failed withdrawal from Afghanistan will only reinforce Russia's perception that it is the United States that is in decline. Ignoring this view would create false expectations about Russia's behavior, making it impossible for the United States and its allies to predict Russia's actions.
The Biden administration has taken steps in the right direction. One of them is to strengthen the resilience of democratic institutions. By elevating cybersecurity to national security priorities, strengthening critical infrastructure, improving the information ecosystem, and rooting out corrupt forces that Russia has fostered to subvert democracy, the United States and its allies can be a major source of Russian influence abroad. At the same time, the government is committed to pursuing arms control and strategic stability against Russia, which should extend to cyberspace and space, which will set the necessary barriers for a long-term confrontation.
In the future, however, the United States must avoid focusing too much on China to ignore other important issues such as Russia. The Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, one of the Biden administration's earliest national security analysis reports, was a fairly in-depth discussion of China, but little about Russia. Future strategy documents, such as the forthcoming National Security and Defence Strategy, should correct this imbalance.
The same approach should guide the government's defense budget. Russia's military threat has not diminished, but U.S. defense budget funding has decreased: since 2020, successive budget calls have cut support for European deterrence programs (the United States will strengthen its military presence in Europe after Russia annexed Crimea), most recently by 19 percent. As the Biden administration hopes, reallocating that money to East Asia is unlikely to have a clear impact on China's military balance. The amount involved is too small, but this will create unnecessary risks in Europe.
NATO will play a central role in this effort. The coalition recently began updating its official guidance documents, and the United States must ensure that Russia remains its priority. The United States should also continue to encourage its European allies and partners to assume greater deterrence and defense responsibilities on the continent. The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has rekindled calls for Europe to strengthen its own capabilities. It is time to strengthen the European countries within NATO through careful transatlantic coordination and practical measures.
Finally, the United States must work more boldly to defend democracy from external subversion. The United States and its allies and partners should step up their collective response to Moscow's cyberwarfare, election interference, and other actions that threaten the health of its political and economic system. For example, they should agree to collective action against any foreign interference in the election. Addressing this threat also requires working with like-minded democratic partners in international organizations such as the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
When it comes to relations with Russia, Biden administration officials like to say that the United States "can chew gum while walking." Now they have to prove it.
This article was originally published in Foreign Affairs, Volume 6, 2021, and was originally titled "The Dream of Russia's Decline: Why Moscow Will Maintain Global Influence." The article only represents the author's own views, welcome to share, media reprint please contact the copyright owner.