Putin's Wars

English quotes of Russian, French, German, Dutch, Italian, and Spanish works were
translated by the author.

In writing this book I owe a lot to the discussions with the members of the Russia
Seminar of the Cicero Foundation. I want to thank Emma Gilligan, Hall Gardner, Christiane
Haroche, Rona Heald, Albert van Driel, Peter Verwey, and Ernst Wolff, who read chapters
of the book and gave useful feedback. I want to thank also Susan McEachern, Carolyn
Broadwell-Tkach, and Jehanne Schweitzer, who, with great professionalism, shepherded
the book through the editorial production process. Finally, I want also to thank my
wife, Valérie, who gave me her patient support during the years of research and writing.
I dedicate this book to her and to my two sons, Michiel and Cyrille, who share their
father’s interest in Russian history.

In December 1991 the Soviet Union ceased to exist. The end of the last European empire
came suddenly and unexpectedly, not least for the Russians themselves. However, with
hindsight it seemed to be the logical conclusion of a chapter in European history.
Other European countries had gone down the same road. Spain had already lost its colonies
in the nineteenth century. France, Britain, Belgium, and the Netherlands had decolonized
after World War II. Even Portugal, a colonialist “laggard” that clung to its possessions
in Africa and Asia until the bitter end, had to give up its empire after the “carnation
revolution” of 1974. Decolonization—until now—has seemed to be an irreversible process:
once a former colony had obtained its independence, it was unlikely that the former
colonial power could make a comeback. The history of European decolonization has been,
so far, a linear and not a cyclical process. The chapter of European colonialism seems
to be closed definitively, once and for all. But is it? Does this analysis also apply
to Russia? This is the big question because not only the conditions under which Russia
built its empire were quite different than for the other European countries, but also
because the process of decolonization was different. Let us consider these differences.
There are, at least, five:

• First, Russia did not build its empire overseas, as did the other European powers.
  Its empire was contiguous and continental: the new lands it acquired were incorporated
  in one continuous landmass.
  

• Second, with shorter communication lines and no need to cross oceans, rebellions and
  independence movements in the colonized territories could be more easily repressed.
  

• Third, Russian empire building was also different because it did not come
  after
  the process of state-building, as was the case in Western Europe. In Russia it was
  an integral part of the process of state-building itself.
  

• Fourth, Russian empire building was neither casual, nor primarily driven by commercial
  interests, as was the case in Western Europe, but from the start, it had a clear geopolitical
  function, namely, to safeguard Russia’s borders against foreign invaders.
  

• Fifth, in Russian history periods of decolonization were never linear, nor irreversible.
  Decolonization was never definitive. When, for instance, after the Bolshevik Revolution,
  the colonized lands of the Russian empire were set free, they were soon afterwards
  reconquered by the Red Army.
  

It is these five historical characteristics of Russian colonization and decolonization
that one has to bear in mind when analyzing the behavior of the Russian leadership.
The thesis of this book is that—unlike in Western Europe, where the process of decolonization
was definitive—the same is not necessarily true for Russia. For the Russian state
colonizing neighboring territories and subduing neighboring peoples has been a continuous
process. It is, one could almost say, part of Russia’s genetic makeup. The central
question with which we are confronted after the demise of the Soviet Union is whether
this centuries-old urge to subdue and incorporate neighboring peoples has disappeared
or if this imperial reflex might be making a comeback.

According to some authors the end of the Soviet Union sounded the death knell of Russian
colonialism and imperialism. One of these authors is Dmitri Trenin, a Russian analyst
and the head of the Moscow bureau of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
In his book, with the telling title
Post-Imperium
, he tries to reassure the reader that “Russia has abandoned the age-old pattern of
territorial growth. A merger with Belarus was not pursued as a priority. Abkhazia
and South Ossetia were turned into military buffers, but only in extremis.”
^[1]
In his book Trenin repeats this reassuring mantra again and again. He writes: “The
days of the Russian empire are gone; Russia has entered a post-imperial world;”
^[2]
or: “Russia will never again be an empire;”
^[3]
and again: “The Russian empire is over, never to return. The enterprise that had
lasted for hundreds of years simply lost the drive. The élan is gone. In the two decades
since the collapse, imperial restoration was never considered seriously by the leaders,
nor demanded by a wider public.”
^[4]
Trenin gives several arguments for his thesis. The first of these is the presence
in Russia of an
empire fatigue.
Russians, he argues, are no longer willing to pay for an empire: “At the top, there
was neither money nor strong will for irredentism.”
^[5]
Instead of an empire, he continues, Russia has only the desire to become a “great
power.” The difference between the two is, in his opinion, that great powers are selfish.
They don’t want to spend money on behalf of other nations. “Empires,” writes the author,
“for all the coercion they necessarily entail, do produce some public goods, in the
name of a special mission. Great powers can be at least equally brutish and oppressive,
but they are essentially selfish creatures.”