To help you understand the answer to this question, we can turn to a new book by Sumantra Maitra, The Sources of Russian Aggression. Maitra\u2019s goal here is to show how Russia\u2019s foreign policy over the past thirty years has followed a fairly predictable pattern that can be well explained by the ideas of a structural realist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Furthermore, Maitra goes on to show how Moscow\u2019s behavior in the international arena is that of a conservative and defensive great power based on realist assumptions. Far from being a Hitlerite regime aiming for global domination, Moscow has very specific and limited goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moreover, these goals could have been foreseen by Washington and the current conflict could have been avoided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russia and the Realist Model of Geopolitics<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Among international relations scholars, realists have become some of the most vocal critics of American policymakers obsessed with confronting the Russian \u201cthreat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n John Mearsheimer is perhaps the best-known realist scholar at the moment, and he has become notable for his prescient observations about how NATO\u2019s relentless eastward expansion has precipitated unnecessary conflict between NATO and Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It should come as no surprise, then, that adherents of the realist school are not exactly popular in Washington. Ultimately, the only acceptable narrative in Washington is one in which the US is the great nation engaged in a moral-political crusade under the banner of liberal democracy and every other regime is either paranoid or symbolizes \u201cLuciferian\u201d forces that desire global domination while in essence what is threatened is the unipolar world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In contrast to the convenient narrative, Maitra shows how Moscow\u2019s behavior in the international sphere is that of a status quo power. That is, the Russian regime\u2019s foreign policy interventions are oriented towards the maintenance of the current regime and are not a revisionist force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through his detailed analysis of the events that led to the current war in Ukraine, Maitra shows how Moscow\u2019s actions were quite predictable and rational within a realist framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What exactly is realism?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As used here by Maitra, it is the \u201cstructural realist\u201d or neorealist theory that makes certain assumptions about the behavior of great powers (i.e., the United States, Russia, China).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Central to all of this is the assumption that great powers will essentially always \u201cbalance\u201d against the threats posed by the dominant great power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In today\u2019s world, the dominant power is the United States, and we can expect all other great powers to seek ways to counterbalance US power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This behavior does not depend on the stated moral or ideological framework of each great power. Rather, great powers act to maintain their power and their place in the international system, regardless of their internal systems of governance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maitra shows that Russia is what is called a \u201csecurity maximizer\u201d rather than a \u201cpower maximizer\u201d or revisionist actor. As we might expect within a defensive realist framework, Russia seeks to maintain its level of power relative to other states, but this does not require Russia to become a hegemon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maitra also notes a key aspect of balancing: \u201cstates actually balance against threats, not just power.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n From this we can draw an important conclusion. And he continues: \u201cPerceptions of the Russian threat [depend] on overall power and offensive capabilities as well as perceived aggressive intentions. The greater the perceived threat, the greater the balancing action that can be observed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, the mere existence of the United States or NATO has never been enough to provoke an aggressive response from Moscow. Rather, it is the extension of the threat by NATO and the US that has led to an escalation of tensions, culminating in the current military response from Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 30 Years of NATO and US Escalations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Maitra does a significant amount of historical analysis here, focusing on NATO enlargement during the 1990s and early 2000s, and finally culminating in 2008 with the Russo-Georgian War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She documents how US Secretary of State James Baker negotiated German reunification by promising the Soviets in 1990 that NATO would not move \u201can inch eastward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n By 1992, however, NATO enlargement had become a sought-after goal for both the US and some European states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once again, NATO reassured the Russians by claiming that even after Poland and Hungary joined NATO, no military hardware could be stationed in these new member states. Thus, a pattern emerged in which NATO, a military alliance that was de facto oriented toward containing the Russian state, moved military power ever closer to the Russian border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, this combination of increased power, coupled with NATO\u2019s ever closer proximity to Russian territory, meant that the range of \u201cbalancing actions\u201d that Moscow had to take continued to grow. <\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n This process eventually provoked a genuine military response to NATO\u2019s open and explicit efforts to bring Georgia into the alliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maitra shows that unlike other previous NATO members, Georgia was seen by Russia as key to Russian security interests. A Russian military response therefore seemed justified to Russian foreign policy elites when, on August 7, 2008, Georgian forces bombed Russian allies in the breakaway region of South Ossetia. This led to open combat between Georgian forces and Russian peacekeepers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Significantly, however, once Moscow achieved its goal of halting NATO expansion into Georgia, Moscow ended hostilities and settled for what are called \u201cfrozen conflicts\u201d in the region. This, according to Maitra, is characteristic of an existing state that is oriented towards the maintenance of the status quo and is not a revisionist force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The war in Georgia turned out to be something of a prologue to the Russo-Ukrainian war, although the war in Ukraine developed on a much larger scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2014, after yet another \u201ccolor revolution\u201d and the rise of anti-Russian policies shaped by the US and NGOs in Kiev, Russia realized that it could permanently lose access to military resources that were considered absolutely necessary by Russian elites. In particular, Maitra reports that Russian military assets in Crimea – especially the naval base that hosts the Russian Black Sea Fleet – were not something Moscow could afford to lose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The annexation of Crimea soon followed in 2014<\/strong> Russia\u2019s military logistics networks relied on close ties to eastern Ukraine. All of this, combined with the need to preserve Crimea\u2019s naval assets, effectively guaranteed that Moscow would greatly escalate its efforts to counterbalance NATO expansion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These details also explain why Russia has not responded with the same level of resistance to NATO expansion into Finland or even the Baltics, both of which are on Russia\u2019s main borders, outside of Kaliningrad. Simply put, the threat of NATO expansion into Ukraine poses a much greater risk to Moscow than NATO expansion into other Central and Eastern European states. Central to Maitra\u2019s conclusions is the demonstration that Russia is a status quo power, not a revisionist one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the examples presented, Russian aggression is an attempt to preserve the current system and the Russian state\u2019s access to key strategic territories and resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As in the case of Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014, Russian intervention ended once Moscow was satisfied that it had prevented significant changes in the international order in Russia\u2019s immediate abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n None of this is to say that Moscow is \u201cthe good guy\u201d in the current international order. When dealing with states\u2014especially great powers like the US and Russia, both of which wield staggering amounts of coercive power\u2014there is no room for good manners\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, revisionist states like the United States\u2014always promising new wars for \u201cdemocracy\u201d and \u201cfighting terrorism\u201d while bombing half a dozen countries at any given time\u2014pose a truly global danger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The capricious attitude toward nuclear war by the US establishment\u2014in response to conflicts that have nothing to do with protecting core American interests\u2014has been particularly dangerous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Obviously, Maitra’s interpretation poses a challenge to the many narratives that argue that Russia is a revisionist power seeking to reconstruct Eastern Europe, or perhaps even Eurasia.<\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Which narrative prevails in Washington and among members of the public will determine the kind of intervention that Washington can demand the American people tolerate and fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If Russia is a defensive realist power, then this further reinforces the idea that the United States has no interest in \u201ccontainment\u201d of Russia or further expanding NATO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, many of the most influential voices in Washington continue to push for greater escalation and the narrative that Russia is the new Nazi Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It remains to be seen whether the incoming Trump administration, which has proclaimed a more realistic position toward Moscow, will counter the establishment\u2019s drive for war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The principles of Thucydides that Vladimir Putin espouses and which shaped his geopolitical thinking are that the strong act according to their power and the weak according to their need. One of the unfortunate realities of the American foreign policy debate is that few American citizens pay much attention to what the elites are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[836,3],"tags":[5602,5459,58,1752,70,1166],"class_list":["post-21952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-geopolitical","category-geopolitical","tag-deep-state","tag-history","tag-russia","tag-thucydides","tag-usa","tag-vladimir-putin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21952"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21957,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21952\/revisions\/21957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
This commitment was subsequently broken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image-130-748x1024.png\")
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Maitra notes that other Russian interventions in Ukraine focused on preserving other assets that Moscow deemed necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, Maitra writes that \u201ccritical Ukrainian components and their servicing constitute up to 80 percent of Russia\u2019s strategic missile forces.\u201d Thus, from the Russian perspective, \u201cwithout eastern Ukraine, Russia\u2019s nuclear deterrence strategy and naval forces would collapse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So what should we learn from all this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image-131-1024x739.png\")
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