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Understanding Russia: identity and Russian foreign policy
Neil MacFarlane

Russia's relations with EU member states and with the west more broadly are deteriorating. The most recent evidence for this lies in the dispute over the reinforcement of Russian peacekeeping forces in Abkhazia in early May 2008. This is merely the latest episode in a pattern of decay evident in disputes over the roles and activities of Russia, the EU and Nato in their shared neighbourhood. These include disagreements over Kosovo, growing concern over energy dependence and (alleged) politically motivated manipulation of energy supplies by Russia, and US plans to install anti-missile defences in central Europe.

In the wider world, Russia could hardly be accused of sharing the western agenda of democratisation, human rights, humanitarian activism (including the use of force in crisis response), or the re-definition of sovereignty implicit in that agenda. Underlying these tensions are shifts in the distribution of power owing to Russia's recovery, which has been fuelled by energy exports and high prices in global hydrocarbon markets.

The empirical record is reasonably clear. No doubt growing Russian power has something to do with it. Emerging or re-emerging powers frequently have revisionist counter-hegemonic agendas. But this does not explain why Russia would choose to deploy its power and conduct its external relations in this way. Such choices reflect at least in part how a state and society understand the world around them, and also what values they entertain. That is to say, the challenge rests to some extent on matters of identity.

In this short article, I address the identity dimension of contemporary Russian foreign policy. I start with a brief account of its geographical and historical roots. I then examine the effects of the Soviet collapse and the western response on Russian perceptions of international relations. I conclude with a discussion of identity in the Putin era with an emphasis on Russia's approach to international relations and foreign policy.

Identity is only one set of factors impinging on decision-making, and outsiders inevitably face a handicap in addressing Russian perceptions of the world. Furthermore, analyses of "national identity" tend to suppress substantial variations in perspectives on international affairs. Russia is a very large, vibrant, multifaceted and pluralistic society. There are many different Russian perspectives on the issues arising in this piece. None the less, the trends in elite thinking on foreign affairs under Vladimir Putin are reasonably clear. It is these trends that I focus upon.

The geographical and historical inheritance
Russia occupies a very specific space in international politics and history. It is the largest state in Europe and also the largest in Asia. It faces both west into Europe and east and south into Asia. It has few natural borders and, over its long history, it has faced substantial security threats from both directions: the Mongols and the Turks from the east and south; and the Poles, Lithuanians, Swedes, French and Germans from the north and west. Although one should avoid geographical determinism in the analysis of state behaviour, the result of Russia's geography is an ambiguity over where it belongs. Is it part of Europe? Is it part of Asia? Is it a bridge between the two, its culture a creative synthesis of the characteristics of both regions?

This ambiguity was strengthened by the historical consequences of the invasion of the Mongols in the 13th century and the long period of Tatar tutelage that followed. Although Kievan Rus' was very much a part of the European mainstream, after the Mongol invasion, the region that became Russia was cut off for several hundred years, and "missed" the Renaissance. Its resurgence as an autocratic state rendered it largely immune to the liberalising currents of the Enlightenment in the 18th century, despite the flirtation of Catherine the Great with the ideas of Voltaire and the French Encyclopédistes. In the meantime, repeated invasion and despoliation generated a deep sense of threat, an emphasis on state power and social cohesion, a reliance on military force, and a long historical preoccupation with expansion into, and control of, neighbouring territories. Expansion brought Russian control over other peoples, an imperial heritage, and further ambiguity over its identity, captured in the distinction between russkii and rossianin.

By the 18th century, expansion had also brought Russia status as a great power in the European international system, a position maintained throughout its modern history to the point that in the cold war it became one of the two principal contenders for global power. Russians became used to and proud of this position in global affairs, and the status it conferred on their state. The east-west, Europe-Asia question has been amply explored in Russian literature and political writing since at least the early 19th century. The major question in this exploration has been whether Russia should strive towards emulation of Europe (or the west more broadly) or seek its own distinctive synthetic identity. An early manifestation was the debate between the slavophiles and westernisers in the middle of the 19th century. A recent analogue has been the debate over westernisation or Eurasianism since the collapse of the USSR. An associated theme has been the question of mission and the superiority (or not) of the Russian model and identity. Russian commentary on the special purpose of its culture dates back to the fall of Constantinople at the end of the 15th century, which prompted the idea that Moscow was the third or new Rome. This theme was evident also in the slavophile critique of Europe in the 19th century, and extended into the Marxist-Leninist period of the 20th century. The clashing missionary identities of the USSR and the US were an important ideational dimension of the coldwar.

After the fall
The collapse of the USSR put a halt to such hubris, on the Russian, if not the American, side. Russia lost its sphere of influence in eastern Europe, as well as a large part of the territory which the Empire had accumulated over the last 400 years. The central state lost much of its authority, both over the territories remaining within its sovereignty and over Russian society. Its economy largely collapsed and its people experienced considerable privation. In international relations, Russia lost its status as the principal interlocutor of the United States, and was ignored in major decisions, such as policy in the western Balkans and Nato enlargement, which impinged directly on the perceived vital interests of the Russian Federation. The gap between Russia's self-image as a coequal great power and the apparent reality that others (and notably the United States) did not treat it as an equal partner produced a condition akin to ressentiment.

More prosaically, the rapid engagement of international institutions and foreign government agencies in the process of political and economic transition in Russia generated considerable resentment of what was perceived as interference in Russia's domestic affairs. This engagement accompanied the deterioration in Russian political and economic conditions characteristic of much of the Yeltsin period, which contributed to a delegitimation of the liberal and democratic agenda promoted by international players active inside Russia. These sentiments produced half-hearted efforts to challenge American unipolarity from 1993 onward. Russian discourse on the desirability of a multi-polar system is a case in point, as is the emphasis placed on the significance of the United Nations and its security council (where Russia as a permanent member enjoys veto powers) in international affairs. The problem was that Russia did not have the power-political basis to underpin the challenge. Outsiders did not hesitate to drive that point home, as was evident in Nato's enlargement decisions and the invasion of Kosovo in 1999.

The Putin period
In the early years of the Putin era, identity concerns took a back seat to efforts at internal reconsolidation. The priority was the re-establishment of state control and the reassertion of executive control within the state, the resuscitation of the economy, and the reduction of dependence on outsiders (the latter mightily assisted by rising prices for Russian energy exports). The effort to set Russia back on its feet favoured a cooperative approach to foreign relations, although the nature of domestic political and economic development profoundly challenged western liberal preferences.

Once the books were balanced and the political situation stabilised, it became possible for Russia to think in a more discerning way about its role in international affairs. In this phase, issues of identity have taken a more important place. Analysis of the history of Russian perspectives on their place in the world would suggest that a newly resurgent Russia would more actively challenge the international status quo in order to re-establish what Russian elites perceive to be their appropriate place in the governance of the international system. Russia would more actively resist American agendas in international affairs and attempt to balance American power. It would be less patient with international engagement in its internal affairs and would reassert an indigenous model of governance. It would attempt to reassert control, if not sovereignty, in its immediate neighbourhood. And it would seek to use leverage at its disposal in pursuit of its perceived interests with third parties such as European states. Russia's enthusiastic embrace of the Shanghai Cooperation Initiative- which aims to limit American power in central Asia, prevent any further "colour revolutions", and constantly reiterates the principle of mutual respect for sovereignty-suggests that this is exactly the stance Russia is adopting.

Conclusion
Russia's identity in international affairs reflects a number of deep historical characteristics: vulnerability and a history of invasion; an emphasis on the strength of the state and the role of power in international relations; the subjugation of neighbouring territories and an imperial heritage; ambiguity about Russia's place between Europe and Asia and an emphasis on Russia's distinctiveness with respect to both; and a striving for recognition and respect as a coequal great power. The recent history of shrinkage, collapse, external engagement, and relegation to the second tier of states flies in the face of these deep historical factors, and has occasioned deep resentment. Russia's more recent stabilisation and reconsolidation- and the attendant restoration of confidence among Russian elites regarding their state's place in world affairs-have occasioned a reassertion of a number of these deeper elements of Russian identity in what is an increasingly assertive foreign policy. Given the nature of the 2007-2008 political transition in Russia, this trend may be expected to continue.

For these reasons, we may expect growing difficulties in Europe's and America's relations with the Russian Federation. In the current discussion of security policy, it is fashionable to emphasise transnational issues outside the statist frame of power politics. The re-emergence of Russia suggests that we may have been too quick to abandon traditional realist analysis of international relations. Certainly the Russians have not done so.

Analysis of state behaviour in terms of identity has a slightly determinist bias which should be avoided. Although culturally and historically based cognitive structures are important in affecting the way in which a society interprets and reacts to events in its environment, they are only part of the causal nexus. Contingent factors also play a significant role. The way the USSR collapsed was in considerable measure an accident. The extreme economic and political difficulties experienced by Russia in the 1990s were not inevitable. The dismissive treatment of Russia during that period was simply bad policy. But we are where we are. Now the challenge is to construct an effective response to Russia's re-emergence; this will be a fundamental challenge in international relations over the next decade. The west needs to avoid repeating the mistakes it made over the past 15 years. How can Europe and the United States respect Russia's resurgent power and perspectives of world politics without compromising their own interpretations of international order, norms and interests? A response that fails to take into account the basis of Russian policy in a deeply rooted identity is likely to fail.

NEIL MACFARLANE is head of the Department of Politics and International Relations, and Lester B Pearson Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford.