Pavel Baev

The Russian Army in a time of troubles

PART ONE: GENERALLY SPEAKING The Russian Army and Politics in Historical Perspective Russias Security Interests and the Army PART TWO: BEING MORE SPECIFIC The Feasibility of Political Control of the Army Europeanizing the Russian Army PART THREE: THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS Handling Conflicts in the Post-Soviet Space The Russian Army as Peace-Keeper Russian Peace-Keeping and European Security PART FOUR: OUTLOOK Through the Fog of War

A Matrix for Post-Soviet ‘Color Revolutions’: Exorcising the Devil from the Details

The spectacular and unexpected explosion of revolutionary energy in the Arab world since the start of 2011 makes it more relevant to re-examine the chain of attempts to depose the quasi-democratic regimes in the states that emerged from the break-up of the USSR. Often called “color revolutions”, these attempts brought some remarkable results in the mid-2000s, but—against common perceptions—continue. The analysis shows that the rate of success in the collection of 13 cases is close to 50%, but the track record of post-revolutionary development is rather disappointing. Nothing in the processed data suggests a decline in the dynamics of the revolutionary processes in the former Soviet space, but the diminishing attention from the West and the ageing of autocracies (particularly in Central Asia) could make the forthcoming revolutions uglier as they drive state failure stronger than democratic change. The most complex situation matures in Russia, which has assumed the leadership role in suppressing the wave of revolutions but is experiencing a crisis of its corrupt and un-modernizable authoritarian regime.

From European to Eurasian energy security: Russia needs and energy Perestroika

Political attention in Europe and the US to the problem of energy security has significantly diminished, and there is more to this shift that just the impact of financial crisis in the EU and the effect of the ‘shale gas revolution’. In the middle of the past decade, some fundamental decisions were made in the European Commission regarding the liberalization and diversification of the energy supplies, but the economic underpinning of these decisions has vastly changed. The whole set of energy directive is now pointing in the wrong direction, but rethinking of past mistakes is lagging, so the energy policy is left in its bureaucratic ‘box’. Russia is set to remain locked in the European gas market but is very slow in adapting to the changes in it. Both Russia and the EU remain in denial that the time for their energy-geopolitical games is over as the nexus of energy flows is fast shifting to Asia-Pacific.

Russia Aspires to the Status of ‘Energy Superpower’

Abstract Russias evolving ‘energy ideology’ and its approach to defining its role in the global energy markets with the particular focus on the interests in and intentions for Asia have drawn considerable attention. Russias claim for the role of ‘global energy security provider’, advanced with much aplomb in the context of the G8 chairmanship, is, however, undermined by the stagnation in the oil and gas production and increasing shortages of electricity. Given Russias increasing unreliability as the key supplier, its claim for the status of ‘energy superpower’ has shrivelled like a punctured balloon. The article, in particular, analyses the developments, problems and prospects in the three key sectors—oil, gas and nuclear energy—and argues that Russias ‘energy ideology’ remains raw and inconsistent and has only helped contribute to the global ‘energy insecurity’.

Defining Civil War by Examining Post-Soviet Conflicts

Great many violent events happened during 1991–2005 in the 12 states that emerged after the collapse of the USSR but only a few civil wars are registered in the major datasets. That brings up a number of questions about the operational definitions of civil war that generally point in the direction of shifting the research attention from refining the quantitative parameters to grasping the essense of the phenomena in question. It is proposed that civil war partially overlaps with several other type of violent crisis: inter-state wars, civil unrest and revolutions, internal repression, military coups and mutinies, banditry and organized crime, and terrorism. These overlaps create six ‘gray zones’ where only very nuanced examination rather than application of rigid criteria could help in distinguishing civil wars from other crises. Therefore, data collection based on a single “robust” definition, which incorporates several verifiable parameters, is not necessarily the only path to scientific knowledge about civil wars.

Russia as Opportunist or Spoiler in the Middle East

The severe and fast-evolving Ukraine crisis has required a great concentration of Russia’s political efforts and is having a massive impact on Russian policymaking, including in the Middle East. This region provides the best opportunity for Moscow to reassert its status as a key player in the global arena, and the deep fall of oil prices makes Russia particularly attentive to regional conflict developments. One of the main motivations for Russia is the pronounced desire to demonstrate its capacity to thwart US policy, but another is to prove its value to China as a strategic partner. Russia’s reach remains limited but it will continue to look for opportunities to make a difference.

Putin's Counter-Terrorism: The Parameters of a Strategic Dead-End

Russia’s struggle against terrorism has been used instrumentally by President Putin for achieving a range of international and domestic political goals. This trademark instrumentalization, however, has been stretched beyond its limits. The stagnant and deeply criminalized hostilities in Chechnya are now resonating across the North Caucasus; for a long time, Chechnya has been an isolated ‘black hole’–but now it is rather the eye of the storm engulfing the whole region. The Kremlin cannot organize a real public mobilization for this war since it does not have anything resembling a positive program and its own cadres are too infected by corruption to make a sustained effort. The massacre in Beslan in September 2004 momentarily undermined the confidence in Putin’s ‘inner circle’ that continuing the ‘virtual’ war against terrorism was more important than winning the physical one. However, no coherent system of counter-terrorist measures has been implemented and the results of this failure are gradually accumulating. Seeking to use the threat of terrorism for deterring the threat of ‘colored revolutions’, Moscow has arrived to a position where its policies become incompatible with international efforts aimed at advancing stability through support for democracy.

Putin's western choice: too good to be true?

This article examines Russias pro-Western shift in the aftermath of the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. The shift in Russias policy has taken many in the West by surprise, and there has not been a coherent response to it. The article attempts to assess the cumulative impact of countervailing forces in Russia in order to offer an opinion about the sustainability of Russias current European orientation. There are strong domestic forces opposing Putins Western choice, which will likely reassert themselves sooner or later.

Examining the ‘terrorism–war’ dichotomy in the ‘Russia–Chechnya’ case

Terrorism has become a part of our habitat but conceptualization of this phenomenon, as well as formulation of a coherent counter-terrorist doctrine, are lagging behind. One reason for this may be a common linking of terrorism with war which reduces the complex dichotomy of these two phenomena to a simple two-step sequence. The article introduces a schematic model of the external formatting context of the ‘war–terrorism’ dichotomy and applies it to the specific case of terrorism in the Second Chechen war. The underlying question is whether the apparent deadlock in this conflict is the result of Russias inability to achieve its goals due to weakness of its military muscle – or of the continuing instrumentalization of hostilities by its leadership towards a range of internal and external political goals. The analysis shows not only how a secessionist conflict can develop a terrorist dimension in response to a brutal application of force, but also how this dimension could be utilized for consolidating the hegemonic power that controls the war. Instead of measuring the ‘terrorism–war’ dichotomy as an external impact (or ‘risk’) for a state system, we should rather contemplate its functions inside this system.

The military dimension of Russia’s connection with Europe

ABSTRACT The Russian challenge to the European security system is internal rather than external, because despite all the political efforts at distancing Russia from Europe, the indivisibility remains undiminished. The underlying assumption for Russia’s course is that the West is in irreversible decline, and the conclusion about the dissolution of the West-controlled world order is established in the key doctrinal documents. Instead of passively waiting for this meltdown to develop, it makes perfect sense for the Russian leadership to accelerate it pro-actively, using various levers, including military force. Moscow acts on the assumption that its “unconventional” methods could yield results only if augmented by military threats, against which the Europeans cannot master convincing counter-argument. The imperative to sustain and update credibility of these threats necessitates allocation of greater share of available resources to military build-up, which clashes with economic rationale of reducing this burden in the situation of protracted stagnation.