Why Russia Matters Less Than We Think

Russia is enjoying a resurgence in popularity among Americans. The fur hat, or mexovaya chopka, is now worn by hipsters and CNN news anchors alike. The New York City subway is emblazoned with Stolichnaya vodka ads mimicking Soviet agitprop. And Russian President Vladimir Putin just got crowned TIME Magazine's person of the year.

All of which begs the question: Why do we suddenly care so much about Russia? Its economy is still smaller than Portugal's, its nuclear stockpile is no match for our own (not to mention its Soviet-era early warning radars barely work), and its foreign ambitions, as George Kennan predicted generations ago, have been mostly contained. Plus, given its current demographic trends, some analysts predict Russia's population could sink below 100 million by 2050, making it smaller than Mexico.

Yet for some reason, Washington has worked itself into a lather worrying about Russia. It shouldn't. Not that Russia doesn't matter--it does. But much like Paris Hilton or Nicole Richie, its importance derives from the fact that the American media pays such close attention to it. Despite the fact that Putin looks like a low-ranking KGB technocrat, his mug shot seems to move magazines (not to mention the zillion fawning stories written about Garry Kasparov, despite his zero popularity rating among Russians and his camp that included fascists).

Here's a closer look at why Russia is less important than previously thought.

Russia is a nuclear Wal-Mart. Not really. The threat of a loose nuke from a Russian silo falling into the hands of a terrorist is real but probably overstated, mostly in part to American safeguards like Nunn-Lugar. "Plutonium is not falling off the shelves there," Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations told me. To date, there has been no evidence of any attempts by terrorists to steal enough nuclear material to make a bomb (though that is not to discount the existence of a black market for loose nukes). Pakistan, especially in light of recent events, is a far bigger threat in this regard than Russia.

Russia is an energy powerhouse. Maybe, but little of its natural gas goes toward American consumers (indeed, Stolichnaya ads notwithstanding, we do remarkably little trade with Russia). Even Moscow's energy imports to Western Europe are dwindling, as its share in natural gas imports shrunk from 50 percent to 42 percent between 2000 and 2005. Better to pay closer attention to the politics of Nigeria or Venezuela.

Russia's economy is resurgent. Yes, but contrary to claims by Russian officials that theirs will be the fifth largest economy by 2020, Russia is still light years behind the rest of Europe. As Stephen Sestanovich of the Council on Foreign Relations points out in the Wall Street Journal, Russia's economy, despite its strong growth, has only just eclipsed the Benelux countries (when the purchasing power parity metric is scrapped).

Russia is creating a new cold war by pulling out of conventional arms treaties. That is a gross overstatement. After all, the 1990 CFE treaty, which established equal quotas for battle tanks, heavy artillery, and combat aircraft, technically only applied to members of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, which is long defunct. Though revised in 1999, no member of NATO would ratify the new treaty until Moscow removed its troops from Moldova and Georgia. Hence, the CFE was always a vestige of a bygone era that has lost its relevance.

Russia is rearming Iran. Yes, Russia is now the largest supplier of arms to the developing world, but the arms it sells Iran should be taken in context. They are a pittance compared to its arms sales with India or China. Plus, its shipment of nuclear fuel to Iran, while timed to coincide with the release of the recent NIE, mostly to power the peaceful civilian reactor at Bushehr, has long been foreseen. Even a few Clinton-era arms negotiators came out a few years back to say we were too obsessed with Russia's nuclear dealings with Iran.

Russia is forming a pact with China to curb U.S. interests. Yes, China and Russia have seen their relations improve in recent years and even held joint military exercises, under the auspices of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. But mutual distrust--and border disputes--still lingers and it is premature to call the SCO the second coming of the Warsaw Pact. Plus, neither Moscow nor Beijing will allow the SCO check their own neo-imperialistic ambitions in Central Asia.

President Putin is overseeing a dictatorship. Yes, but that seems to assume that his autocracy came out of left field. Let's be certain: Russia has never been a democracy, not under Yeltsin, not under Putin. Elections were rigged in 1996, just as they were late last year. Yes, there were more media freedoms in the 1990s, but there were still contract killings and the "family" of goons surrounding Yeltsin, including his bodyguard, was just as creepy and corrupt as the siloviki that pull strings today.

The main reason Russia matters on the world stage is not its abundance of energy, not its nuclear stockpile, not its neo-imperialistic ambitions. No, Russia's main trump card is its UN Security Council veto. Hence, Russian cooperation is necessary on a number of tricky issues, from North Korea to Iranian nukes. But our obsession with Russia should not distract us from more pressing concerns elsewhere.

Comments

[blackwell98]

PNAC is partly about keeping Russia strategically bottled up isnt it? Keeping Russia from controlling the oil and gas in the old republics.
Making the pipelines flow away from Russia not towards Russia. The Great Game Rev. 3.

Putin is no dummy and has played his cards very well. I wish our fearless leadership was half as smart.

[peterg76]

The US ignores foreign matters that don't impact on their own narrowly-focused, short-term interests.

This has not worked out so well.

[factanonverba]

I disagree on a number of levels.

Russia's ambitions outstrips those of Mexico even if Russia's population to fall.
When was the last time Portugal launched a cyber-attack on it neighbor? Russia brought down Estonia's networks this past summer.
So say better pay attention to the politics of Nigeria or Venezuela more than Russia. So I must ask which of the following three countries has a leader with a fortune of $40 billion Euros: Venezuela, Nigeria or Russia. A follow-on question is how did Putin amass said fortune? That should give you pause to consider how seriously amiss the situation in Russia is today. It is a kleptocracy and when compared Nigeria looks rather benign.

Of course, I still the greater dangers to world peace are still the United States followed by China and an imploding Pakistan.

[outnow]

Lionel Beechner seems to discount the fact than being a nuclear power with oil and vast resources makes a country important in the world today. It's veto on the UN Security Council may be a trump card but why go to such great lengths to underestimate the other strengths and the "threat" of this former rival?

Maybe the United States has some "deal" with Russia or that the terrorist threat is the "new game" for the MIC and the CFR for their "grand chess board game."

Us little guys are not supposed to know the great secrets of the world. We therefore have the privilege to vote in our "former democracy" without knowing what really going on. JKF gave a good speech about this fact to the press before he was murdered.

The imperial architects of the GWOT from across the international political spectrum and its multinational universe of operatives, intelligence proprietaries, cut outs, and political and media fronts wish us to focus our fears on the "new enemy."

That's fine with me, you just tell us who to be afraid of and we'll go along with that. Every since I was seven years old, I have been hiding under my desk for the terror of Russia and now they don't even sell us bomb shelters anymore.

After fifty years of being frightened by the MIC of a common enemy why do I feel manipulated?

[simon111]

I want to point out that some of your facts are incorrect. According to the CIA Worldfactbook, Russia's GDP is 4 times that of Portugal's if measured nominally and 8 times as big if measured according to PPP measurement.

The comment about the size of Russia's nuclear stockpile is wrong as well. According to Wikipedia, Russia has the largest stockpile in the world, 5830 active warheads and 16000 total warheads. This is slightly larger that the US stockpile, and miles ahead of any other country.

I have to conclude that you are using false premises to draw a false conclusion. By this data alone, Russia does matter more than your article would suggest.

[simon111]

I want to point out that some of these claims are incorrect. According to the CIA Worldfactbook, Russia's GDP is 4 times that of Portugal's if measured nominally and 8 times as big if measured according to PPP measurement.

The comment about the size of Russia's nuclear stockpile is wrong as well. According to Wikipedia, Russia has the largest stockpile in the world, 5830 active warheads and 16000 total warheads. This is slightly larger that the US stockpile, and miles ahead of any other country.

This leads me to believe that Russia does indeed matter and will continue to matter as their economy is growing at 6% or 7% anually. Recently all the world's major automakers have announced plans to set up factories in Russia as Russia is expected to be Europe's 2nd largest car market within a few years.

[GoneTheSun]

4) The next three topics are essentially all the same and can be summarized as: Russia is a significant world military exporter and signatory of arms control agreements with the US and NATO. You mention Iran, fail to mention arms sales to Venezuela, and while mentioning China and India, you apparently consider Rosboronexports sales to those nations unworthy of U.S. attention. Rosboronexport sales will exceed $7 billion in 2007. Russian arms export orders or agreements currently exceed $32 billion, with roughly $24 billion coming form Rosboronexport alone. If you consider such arming of the world outside of the US sphere of influence insignificant - then Houston, we have a problem.

You also grossly distort and underestimate Russia's military technology. Equipment may rust, but the technology doesn't disappear. There are real strengths and weaknesses in Russia's military prowess, but you don't touch upon any of them - you simply dismiss Russia as incapable.

And yes, our expansion of NATO and military excursions in Central Asia have pushed China and Russia to preliminarily form the SCO. This is a policy failure for the US that could be problematic for decades to come, particularly if India joins (they are currently an observer nation).

5) Russia a dictatorship? Even with the autocratic nature of Russian government acknowledge, you couldn't convince any Russian that Putin is more of a dictator than say, George Bush. I could detail the faults of the Russian government and it's constraints of NGOs and TV/Newspapers, but in the end it isn't a significant contributor to the importance of Russian-American relations.

6) Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security council and as such, requires our attention for any cooperation on international peace and security issues. You dismiss this as not rising to relevance among your other points. There is no good reason for this, unless you believe that the Bush Administrations "Go it Alone" policy is sustainable. My opinion is this Bush policy is costly, unsustainable, and will have relevant backlash towards US foreign policy initiatives for decades to come.

[GoneTheSun]

Childishly easily to torpedo your assertions. I would actually make the case that Americans pay less attention to Russia than they should.

1) Russia Nuclear Wal-Mart. This a "straw-man" argument or point. You construct an easily dismissed falsehood, and present it as some representation of the truth.

No one has considered Russia a "nuclear Wal-Mart" since the chaos of the early to mid-nineties. As you point out, their nuclear arms are well secured. However, the Nunn-Luger legislation continues to fund and have limited oversight of the destruction of chemical weapons in Russia, which are abundant and less secured in many remote villages in Russia. I would point you to recent October 22, 2007 Chemical and Engineering News article "Chemical Arms Disposal in Russia" by Lois R. Ember for details of the progress and security of that program - which is clearly not all that we would desire.

2) Russia as an energy powerhouse. Yes, and you grossly understate both Russia's proven reserves and exports of oil and natural gas. You dismiss their exports of natural gas as diminishing towards Europe, while ignoring their increased export of gas to other parts of the world. The fact remains, Russia passed Saudi Arabia as the largest producer of oil, and even if the US does not import large quantities of Russian oil and gas, Russia still greatly influences the market where we buy these necessary energy products. Nigeria and Venezuela do not even come close to having that sort of influence on the oil and gas markets.

3) Russian economy is resurgent. Yes, and you fail to examine the rate of Russia's economic growth and increase in foreign investment in that nation. You simply dismiss it as being smaller than Portugal's economy. Of course, if Portugal's economy was growing as quickly as Russia's, you can be sure that American business men and political leaders would be taking notice. I'll also add that your citing the population decline of Russia is cherry-picking statistics.

[plutorage]

What an interesting post. I remember well the same article about Pakistan in the Clinton years. I always wonder about pieces like this. A long, enumerated article on why something isn't important. Facially, the motivation for the article is to deny the apparent. We are told that Russia has become important in this and that way based on observations. We are then told that Russia is not important for such and such reason.

Makes you wonder if there is something important going on that we kids are not supposed to know about.

[HeevenSteven]

Yeah, well, our military-industrial complex needs all the enemies it can drum up, so let's not let facts get in the way of bigger defense budgets.

[Mrozek]

Lionel Beehner misunderstands Russia. Only he German economy is bigger today (PPP basis) in Europe... Moscow is the largest city in Europe... the ruble is a stable and desired currency... Russia has a major illegal immigration problem, far worse that the US... everybody wants to live in Russia...and there is a very strong German-Russian integration going on at various levels.

Gazprom - the Russian energy giant partially owned by Germans... Schroeder ex-chancellor runs the huge gas-pipeline project to connect the two countries... the US does not understand the depth of German-Russian cooperation.

Merkel is a fluent Russian speaker and Putin speaks German at home with his daughters.

It is unfortunate that Russian news to the US are filtered through the anti-Russian British media... if you read German papers, you get a totally different view...

[oldpotsmuggler]

A point needing to be reckoned with is that U.S. multinationals have designs on Russia from multi perspectives. Natural resources (where Russia is still a world class heavy weight), as a market for goods (not inconsequential and growing), and inexpensive well educated labor. This is a constituency that you under estimate the importance of only at your own peril, and I can guarantee you that these big boys would trade Russia for Portugal in an instant if it really had to be one or the other.

Which brings up the whole subject of beneficial alliances, and the fact that there is vast untapped potential here for those wanting to try to make the investment. We prefer (except for those shrewd business people at the multinationals), however, to act like no one else matters quite so much as ourselves and tons of opportunities flow past our upturned noses.