By Amin Saikal Friday 7 Mar 2014,
Photo: Russian President Vladimir Putin has positioned himself to be a powerful world player. (AFP: Anthony Devlin)
Regardless of the outcome of the Ukraine crisis, Putin has positioned himself as an influential foreign policy actor and the US will not be able to ignore him, writes Amin Saikal.
For the time being, Russian President Vladimir Putin has checkmated the United States and its allies. The vote by the Crimean Parliament to hold a referendum to join Russia strongly reinforces his position. He has methodically used America's decline in world politics to elevate his and Russia's position as a major player on the world stage. If he succeeds in dismembering Ukraine, he will set the tone for a new post-Cold War Europe and, for that matter, world order, with Russia being a critical actor.
The US and its allies rejoiced over the breakup of the Soviet Union in December 1991, which was a serious blow to "mother" Russia, and a piercing experience for someone as authoritarian and nationalist as Putin. The US and its allies celebrated the demise of the USSR as the triumph of liberalism over communism and capitalism over socialism. Washington entertained the idea of a one-superpower world, and rapidly sought to shape a post-Cold War world order that would be in accord with its ideological and geopolitical preferences, and NATO embarked on a process of expanding right up to Russia's borders.
The 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks on the United States helped in the process. The born-again Christian, Republican president George W. Bush, stimulated by American neo-conservatives and ultra-nationalists, set out on a series of foreign policy ventures, ranging from Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan to the invasion of Iraq and the general "war on terror", with none of them succeeding in achieving their desirable objectives to the extent that had been projected.
His Democrat successor, President Barack Obama, found it appropriate to retreat from Bush's bellicose approach and to pursue a more nuanced foreign policy to disentangle the United States from the ongoing conflicts and avoid involvement in any more. Hence his decisions to make a complete troop withdrawal from Iraq by the end of 2011; to terminate America's combat operations in Afghanistan by the end of this year; to avoid an intervention in Syria; to find a place for the US between different friendly and adversarial forces in an ever growing turbulent Middle East; and to engage in a policy of collaboration and containment towards China and Russia.
Just in the same way that Bush's policy behaviour had failed to produce the desired results, Obama's approach has equally proved to be unproductive and confusing. They have critically contributed to the generation of a strategic situation in which an increasingly powerful China and assertive Russia have been able to exploit it in support of their respective strategic and security interests.
Putin has drawn on these and America's inaction on the Russian military takeover of Russian-dominated Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia in 2008, to make his boldest move yet: a serious military incursion into Crimea, part of the politically volatile Ukraine and home for Russia's Black Sea naval base, and to eye most of eastern Ukraine along the border with Russia.
He has rationalized his move on the need for stability in Crimea and for protecting Ukraine's Russian citizens, who make up 17 per cent of the country's total population of 45 million. He has also indicated that Russia has the right to safeguard Russians wherever they are - this means in all of the former non-Russian Soviet republics and East European satellites, which contain Russian minorities. His Ukraine adventure signals a clear warning, as his Georgia campaign did, to all these former republics and satellites, especially those that have not joined NATO yet, not to engage in domestic and foreign policy activities that may be perceived as jeopardizing Russia's strategic and security interests.
Putin's actions may well be in violation of international law, as touted in the West. But this does not seem to concern him. He has already made it clear that the US and its allies have flaunted international law whenever it has suited them, mentioning the US-led invasion of Iraq and NATO intervention in Libya as prime examples. Nor does he appear to be troubled by the threat of Western sanctions. He knows that there is not as much unity of purpose across the Atlantic on the issue as to make such sanctions really effective, and that Europe needs Russia more than the other way around, given Russia's supply of energy to Europe.
Regardless of the outcome of the Ukraine crisis, Putin has now positioned himself as an influential foreign policy actor. The US and its allies will not be able to ignore him when it comes to generating a stable European or Middle Eastern or world order, unless they manage to ease him out of Ukraine. The chances are now that the world could easily revisit the Cold War era.
Amin Saikal is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy Fellow at the Australian National University. View his full profile here.
Putin's show of power pays off - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
