Pavel K. Baev

The Evolution of Putin's Regime : Inner Circles and Outer Walls

PAVEL K. BAEV is a senior researcher at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, Norway. The Norwegian Defense Ministry provided support for this project. An earlier version of this article was presented at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs seminar “Russian Elections and Russia’s European Choice,” Helsinki, January 16, 2004. The author is grateful to Stephen Hanson and other PONARS colleagues who offered their comments on an earlier draft of the article, as well as to two anonymous referees. The Evolution of Putin’s Regime Inner Circles and Outer Walls

Assessing Russia's cards: three petty games in Central Asia

Moscows growing influence in Central Asia stems from the evolution of the regions five states in close correspondence with Vladimir Putins semi‐authoritarian model. Absent adequate resources and consistent policies, however, Russia must engage in complicated manoeuvring in order to advance its interests. The result is not overt geopolitical competition with the West—often defined by the tired notion of the ‘Great Game’—but rather a series of at least three separate intrigues, or ‘petty games’.

Can Russia keep its special ties with Vietnam while moving closer and closer to China

While entering into a deep confrontation with the West in the context of the Ukrainian crisis, Russia has sought to uphold its international profile by upgrading its strategic partnership with China and adding new economic content to it, first of all in energy deals. At the same time, Moscow is aware of the risks related to becoming a minor partner to powerful China and to diminishing its ability to make its own contributions to forming the global agenda. One way of avoiding too much dependence on Chinese patronage would be to retain and cultivate the traditional ties with Vietnam and perhaps even play a pacifying role in the oscillating Chinese-Vietnamese tensions. Russian energy companies are exploring opportunities for further advancing offshore oil and gas projects in the South China Sea, although the profitability of these projects remains rather low. Russia has delivered two out of six contracted Kilo class submarines to Vietnam, but its role as the main provider of weapons may now be challenged by the USA and Japan. The prospects for maintaining or expanding Russia’s security and energy connections with Vietnam is thus a demanding topic for analysis, which may throw light also on the all-important trilateral relationship between China, the USA and Japan.

Russia's stance against secessions: From Chechnya to Kosovo

Russias policy towards, and interventions in, secessionist conflicts inside the state, in the immediate neighbourhood, and in Europe generally, has changed profoundly from the early 1990s. It is the fear of disintegration that is now the major factor in Moscows policy making. Russia is set on the path of strategic retreat, which still allows for some interference, but hardly for constructive engagement. In the near future, there are several specifically European factors that define the perspective of a new wave of secessionist conflicts in the region. Neither European political networks built around the OSCE, nor military ties, centred on NATO, are reliable enough to compensate for Russias withdrawal. The alarming perspective of escalation of instabilities can only be addressed if Europe together with Russia will move forward in developing political and legal frameworks for dealing with secessionist situations.

Russia's policies in the Southern Caucasus and the Caspian area

During the first year of Putins presidency, Russias policy has become better coordinated and more firmly controlled by the Kremlin, however, it still has no clear and realistic aims and continues to rest on an insufficient and shrinking resource base; the Russian leadership has no strategy for the Southern Caucasus and pays far too little attention to the potentially grave problems there. The economic interests have been proclaimed to be the core of Russias strategy for the mid‐term, but no comprehensible assessment of these interests has been offered. Russia has intensified bilaterial contacts with Azerbaijan and put Georgia under considerable pressure, still there is hardly anything resembling a strategic course behind the day‐to‐day activities. Moscow finds the CIS structures to be of very little use, and has grown increasingly reluctant to cooperate with international organizations in the Southern Caucasus. Overall, policy‐makers in Moscow have reasons to assume that the international setting in the Southern Caucasus is now more favourable for advancing Russias interests than it was a few years ago. The recent US initiative regarding Nagorno‐Karabakh might upset these assumptions, but more fundamentally, Russia remains unprepared to meet the new security challenges that are growing in the Southern Caucasus.

External interventions in secessionist conflicts in Europe in the 1990s

Secessionist conflicts have become a major feature of the European political landscape in the 1990s. International response to them have varied from full‐scale military interventions to half‐hearted mediation, generally providing for freezing of most active hostilities and for addressing most urgent humanitarian needs. Europe in the 1990s saw more ‘peace’ operations on its soil than any other region in the world, but still was not able to find a satisfactory answer. Kosovo is a tragic illustration of that, and the deployment of NATO troops after a massive use of airpower still lacks the framework political plan and appears very tentative and opportunistic. Several specifically European factors define the perspective of a possible new wave of secessionist conflicts in the region.