Brian M Downing
Earlier this year Putin’s strategic position was quite good. The alliance with China was sound, Iran and Venezuela were defying American threats, and Turkey was moving away from NATO. Then came a political crisis in Belarus, a war in the Caucasus, and more recently an upheaval in Kyrgyzstan. The Kremlin’s watchtowers must be on alert.
Russia’s vast periphery presents advantages for power projection but also an array of disadvantages. Russian culture has a paranoid-style, born not from internet chatter but from devastating invasions by Mongol hosts, Napoleon’s army, and Hitler’s Wehrmacht. The latter attack killed 27 million Soviet citizens. Some Russians can recall those days, other learned of them from elders.
Concerns are more acute in Vladimir Putin. His outlooks were formed as a boy by WW2 lore in Leningrad, which the Third Reich besieged for three years, and KGB service, during which his country collapsed and its borders lay open.
Belarus
Once closely aligned with Russia, Belarus adopted a triangulation policy – playing off Moscow and Washington against one another and gaining leverage with both. (Turkey has been doing the same.) Putin was of course annoyed, especially when Belarusian president Lukashenko agreed to buy natural gas from the US, instead of Russia.
Now Lukashenko’s grip is slipping. Last August’s election brought claims of fraud and Belarusians have been on the streets ever since. Lukashenko has moved closer to Putin and adopted a policy of rolling repression – arresting or exiling leaders and randomly snatching protesters off the streets. Demonstrations continue.
Minsk and Moscow must be contemplating a forceful repression – something similar to crackdowns in Iran and Egypt. The outcome cannot be known. It could, given the global youth protest culture, which is often quite violent, lead to protracted street fighting. A sniper can tie down a platoon, a Molotov can knock out armor. European youths – progressives and ultra-nationalists alike – might stream in to help.
Security forces would be greatly outnumbered. Some might quit their units or even turn their weapons against the government. The same might hold for whole army units. The military, after all, is composed mainly of short-term conscripts.
Putin might worry that Lukashenko’s regime gives way and the opposition seeks to ensure against Russian interference by expanding commercial relations with the West. It might contemplate joint military exercises one day.
Any new government in Minsk would do well to continue Lukashenko’s triangulation policy. The West is unlikely to become too close for fear of inciting Putin. The West might not be hopeful about liberal democracy in Eastern Europe. The region seems more disposed to populist-authoritarian leaders, as in Poland and Hungary.
Regardless of the outcome, Putin will have to govern his own youth population which has now seen an autocrat rig elections and face the consequences.
The Caucasus
The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh has reignited. Putin knows that just to the north – inside Russian territory – are oil assets and restive Muslims with histories of insurrection, terrorism, and jihadism.
One concern is that the conflict could spread. This is unlikely as both sides rely on Russian and Iranian military hardware and neither has any inclination to make it larger. International pressure for a ceasefire is nearly unanimous.
A second concern is the behavior of Turkey. Erdogan supported the Azerbaijani offensive and is causing trouble for Russia from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Putin has skillfully established good ties with Erdogan, even though the two were at daggers drawn only a few years ago. NATO can no longer rely on its Turkish member and the US may lose its Incirlik airbase.
But Russian-Turkish cordiality has reached problems. Turkish support for Azerbaijan conflicts with Russia’s interests in Armenia, where Moscow has one of its growing number of airbases in the Middle East.
In the Mediterranean, Turkish troops occupy northern Syria and may do so indefinitely. Turkish ships ply Greek waters, beneath which are hydrocarbons. Ankara has even questioned Greece’s longstanding sovereignty over several Aegean islands. Russia has no direct interest here but it wants an orderly development of the gas fields beneath the eastern Med, where Russian firms are developing Israeli tracts.
In Libya, Russia backed Khalifa Haftar’s campaign to take Benghazi and control the country. Turkey intervened with drones and Syrian mercenaries, and drove Haftar back. Putin and Erdogan may be working out a partition of Libya, though not entirely amicably as Russian plans for the whole country have been foiled.
A third concern for Putin is that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which pits Christians against Muslims, could, if it goes on, attract foreign fighters from the Levant and Russia’s Chechen and Dagestani populations. The Levant with all its jihadis, guns for hire, and experienced smugglers, isn’t far.
© 2020 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.