Getting closer to Russia? Not yet –

Recently – as runoffs for Romania’s presidency are heating up --, some SocDem and National Liberal politicians lauds the need for closer relationship with Russia – mainly because energy security reasons, they say. But, in our opinion, Moscow cannot provide its neighbours with a mutual profitable co-operation paradigm, as the Russia's contemporary leaders have chosen a model that cannot hold longer – i.e. growth without development, capitalism without democracy, and great-power policies without international appeal.

“Two decades after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan and the fall of the Berlin Wall, and nearly 20 years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia has shed communism and lost its historical empire. But it has not yet found a new role. Instead, it sits uncomfortably on the periphery of both Europe and Asia while apprehensively rubbing shoulders with the Muslim world.”

“Throughout the 1990s, Moscow attempted to integrate into, and then with, the West. These efforts failed, both because the West lacked the will to adopt Russia as one of its own and because Russian elites chose to embrace a corporatist and conservative policy agenda at home and abroad.”

“As a result, in the second presidential term of Vladimir Putin, Russia abandoned its goal of joining the West and returned to its default option of behaving as an independent great power. It redefined its objectives: soft dominance in its immediate neighbourhood; equality with the world's principal power centres, China, the European Union, and the United States; and membership in a global multi-polar order.”

“Half a decade later, this policy course has revealed its failures and flaws. Most are rooted in the Russian government's inability and unwillingness to reform the country's energy-dependent economy, the non-competitive nature of Russian politics, and a trend toward nationalism and isolationism. In terms of foreign policy, Russia's leaders have failed to close the book on the lost Soviet empire. It is as if they exited the twentieth century through two doors at the same time: one leading to the globalized market of the twenty-first century and the other opening onto the Great Game of the nineteenth century.”

“As the current global economic crisis has demonstrated, the model that Russia's contemporary leaders have chosen -- growth without development, capitalism without democracy, and great-power policies without international appeal -- cannot hold forever. Not only will Russia fail to achieve its principal foreign policy objectives, it will fall further behind in a world increasingly defined by instant communication and open borders, leading to dangers not merely to its status but also to its existence. Russia's foreign policy needs more than a reset: it requires a new strategy and new policy instruments and mechanisms to implement it.” *

*) “RUSSIA REBORN”, by DMITRI TRENIN (Director of the Carnegie Moscow Centre), in Foreign Affairs – November / December, 2009 issue.