The Russia-Belarus Union State is only one piece in the mosaic of Russia’s neoimperialist
strategy. Because this model of a reintegration of the former Soviet Union, focusing
on a direct
political
integration, has shown its limitations, being too dependent on the whims of the political
leadership of Russia’s partner country, Moscow had already developed a parallel approach,
based on
economic
integration. Although this approach initially seemed less promising than straightforward
political integration, it might, in the end, prove more successful. There are two
reasons for this: first, because it is more focused on
mutual
economic benefits, and, second, because it is experienced by Russia’s partners as
less threatening
to their national sovereignty. Economic cooperation projects had already started
under Yeltsin. On March 29, 1996, the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEc) was founded
with Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan as its members. During Putin’s reign, in October
2000, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan joined, followed by Uzbekistan in January 2006. The
goal of the Eurasian Economic Community was to create a Free Trade Area among its
six member states.
However, the three founding members of EurAsEc—Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan—decided
to go further and form an inner circle with a fully fledged customs union, leading
to a single market. The Customs Union (
Tamozhennyy Soyuz
) was ratified on July 5, 2010. It included plans to adopt a common currency. In this
instance, Russia was following the logic of European integration in which a deepening
of
economic
integration leads, via a process of functional
spillover
, to a gradual
political
integration of the member states. Unlike the Union State the Customs Union is making
progress and Russian officials are busy expanding its scope beyond the existing three
members. Ukraine, here again, is the main target. The Ukrainian Economy Minister,
Vasyl Tsushko, announced in December 2010 that Ukraine will act as an observer in
the negotiations between Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan on the creation of a Customs
Union.
[24]
He emphasized that “it is interesting for us to see what they are discussing there.”
According to him, “Ukraine is not yet considering participating in the customs union.”
It would be “primarily interested in [the] creation of a free trade zone within the
Commonwealth of Independent States.”
[25]
But Russia is constantly raising its pressure on the Ukrainian government. In July
2012 Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said that Kiev and Moscow “were discussing,
are discussing, and will continue to discuss” the question of Ukraine’s joining of
the Customs Union, a question, he said, that was “directly connected with national
interests.”
[26]
Yanukovych was also discussing with the EU. After six years of negotiations he was
expected to sign an Association Agreement with the EU during the Eastern Partnership
summit, organized on November 28–29, 2013, in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. At the
last minute, however, he refused to sign and turned to Moscow. Putin had offered $15
billion in loans and an important discount in the price of imported gas. Yanukovych’s
U-turn led to massive demonstrations in the center of Kiev.
The great geopolitical interests that are at stake here must not be underestimated
and the choices that are made now will have deep and lasting consequences for the
future of the European continent. What, exactly, is at stake becomes clear from the
comment of the EU Commissioner for Enlargement, Štefan Füle, who said that the “creation
of a free trade zone between Ukraine and the European Union, to which Ukraine aspires,
is incompatible with Ukrainian membership of the [Russia dominated] Common Economic
Area’s customs union.”
[27]
Anders Åslund, a political analyst, declared that he “does not believe there are
any real economic benefits in the customs union for Russia.”
[28]
Economic benefits were certainly not Putin’s main motivation for launching this
project. In the long run also the benefits for the eventual partner countries are
restricted—in particular for Ukraine. Putin, however, did his best to minimize the
benefits for Ukraine of an association agreement with the EU, saying that “Ukraine
sells Europe two litres of milk, [while] the Customs Union brings her 9 billion dollar
per year.”
[29]
One may ask oneself why the customs union—despite its limited economic rationale
for Russia—is so important for Moscow. One reason was possibly Russia’s aspiration
to become a member of the World Trade Organization. After the Russian invasion and
dismemberment of Georgia it was clear that Georgia, which already was a WTO member,
would be inclined to block Russian membership. Putin first declared that Russia was
no longer interested in becoming a member of the WTO. Later, however, he changed his
tactics, and in June 2009 he announced that Russia wanted to join the WTO as a single
customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan. This collective application would make
it more difficult for Georgia to block Russia’s WTO membership. But this option had
to be dropped because there were too many technical obstacles. Thereupon Moscow declared
that the three countries would negotiate individually, but harmonize their positions
and enter the WTO together. Putin sought—and got—the support of the United States
and the European Union to put pressure on Tbilisi. Things were, however, not so easy.
The government of Mikheil Saakashvili said it could accept a Russian WTO membership
only if Georgian customs officials would man the border posts in Abkhazia and South
Ossetia, a demand that was unacceptable to Moscow because it would mean that the Kremlin
would recognize Georgian sovereignty over the two breakaway territories.
[30]
Finally, in November 2011, a compromise was signed, brokered by the Swiss government.
The parties agreed on international monitoring of trade along the mutual borders of
Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
WTO membership, however, was not the real reason behind the launch of the customs
union. The real reason was
political
rather than economic. The customs union served the same goal as the other Russian
projects in the post-Soviet space, which is to reestablish Russian hegemony over the
former Soviet republics. Moscow is ready to pay and does not hesitate to take up its
former Soviet-era role when it generously subventioned the economies of the other
republics. In the year 2011 the price Moscow was ready to pay for its customs union
with Belarus, for instance, amounted to cancelling the customs duties for oil exported
to Belarus, which cost the Russian budget about $2 billion.
[31]
Putin boasted in July 2012 that due to the low energy prices Belarusian GDP was
raised with 16 percent.
[32]
In the meantime Russian officials are busy traveling around in the post-Soviet
space, proselytizing and spreading the word. One of the envoys, Georgy Petrov, vice
president of the trade-industrial chamber of Russia, went to Yerevan in December 2010
to woo the Armenians. According to an Armenian news agency, “Petrov implied Armenia’s
joining the union will be advantageous for the country.”
[33]
Another vector used to project Russian power in the post-Soviet space is security
cooperation. This was originally organized within the framework of the CIS. Immediately
after the demise of the Soviet Union, in May 1992, a Treaty on Collective Security,
the “Tashkent Treaty,” was signed. It was Putin, who, in May 2002, took the initiative
to transform this platform and make it into a new, separate organization and rename
it the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Six former Soviet republics
became members of this mini-Warsaw Pact: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan (the core states
that also form the customs union), plus Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Armenia. Uzbekistan
joined in 2006. The member states are not allowed to join other military alliances,
and there is a collective security guarantee (article 4), similar to article 5 of
the Washington Treaty. Membership is made attractive by Moscow by offering the member
states the possibility of buying military equipment in Russia at cost price. With
the CSTO Moscow pursued two main objectives:
First, to bind the participating countries in such a way that it would become more
difficult to leave the organization.
Second, to declare an exclusive zone of operation from which other security organizations
and third countries (meaning: NATO, but implicitly also China) are excluded.
The first objective is pursued by a progressive integration of the command and control
functions, including a common air defense, and the formation of a CSTO rapid reaction
force. The second goal—to claim for the CSTO an exclusive zone of operation from which
other security organizations are excluded—was one of the objectives of President Medvedev’s
proposal for a new Pan European security treaty, launched in 2008.
[34]
Neither NATO, nor the United States, has agreed to grant Moscow via the CSTO such
an exclusive
droit de regard
in the former Soviet space. Moscow, however, will continue its efforts to become the
“Gendarme of Eurasia.”
[35]
That this role for the Kremlin also has its limitations became clear in June 2010,
when during the ethnic violence in Kyrgyzstan the Kyrgyz government asked for Russian
peacekeepers in the region and Moscow did not respond—notwithstanding the fact that
the events took place in a region in which Moscow claims to have “privileged interests.”
Apparently the Kremlin knew that peacekeeping in this case would not bring any direct
benefits to Russia, but would rather be an ungrateful and costly job. These were not
the only problems. After his comeback as president in May 2012, Putin went to Uzbekistan.
According to Fyodor Lukyanov this visit was “an attempt to reset relations with this
recalcitrant and most unreliable CSTO ally whose position stands in the way of making
this organization a working military and political alliance.”
[36]
Putin’s visit did not help. On June 28, 2012, Uzbekistan, the country that has
the most significant armed forces in Central Asia, suddenly suspended its membership
of the organization. The reason was the deep mistrust in Tashkent concerning the Russian
intentions. These intentions evoke the specter of the infamous Brezhnev doctrine,
because they include
inter alia
“to lower the threshold for intervention within the organization’s region, shift
the respective decisionmaking mechanisms from a consensus to a majority rule, and
develop a joint task force.”
[37]
According to the defense specialist Vladimir Socor, Uzbekistan’s departure showed
that “this organization is purely symbolic. . . . The CSTO is mainly a symbol of Russia’s
aspiration to become a great power and to be regarded as the leader of a bloc.”
[38]
But also symbolic organizations can bite. On April 11, 2013, Serbia was granted
observer status at the Parliamentary Assembly of the CSTO (PA CSTO), showing that
the CSTO had a certain attraction for a future EU member state. Afghanistan was equally
granted observer status. “This is another confirmation,” said Sergey Naryshkin, president
of the Duma and the Parliamentary Assembly of the CSTO, “that the PA CSTO has weight
and is taken seriously on the international stage.”
[39]
Another initiative that needs to be mentioned here is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO). This forum also has its origin in the Yeltsin era. “Steps toward a closer Russian-Chinese
relationship were outlined in March 1992 in a policy paper by Yeltsin’s former political
advisor, Sergei Stankevich.”
[40]
It led to the foundation, in 1996, of the Shanghai Five, consisting of Russia,
China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan and emerged from the border talks between
China and the Soviet successor states. It was—again—Vladimir Putin, who took the initiative
to expand this organization and give it a more powerful structure. In 2001, when Uzbekistan
joined the organization, it got its new name and began to implement many activities,
ranging from fighting terrorism and drugs trafficking to economic and cultural cooperation
and the organization of joint military exercises. Pakistan, India, and Iran were invited
as observers, while the United States was refused observer status. The SCO proudly
claimed that—including the observer states—it represented “half of humanity.” The
organization has an undeniable anti-US and anti-NATO focus. Used by Putin to project
Russia’s power in the region, it is, however, a double-edged sword, and for Moscow
it also brings inconveniences. Although it may be instrumental to the Kremlin’s objective
of keeping NATO and the United States out of Central Asia, it simultaneously facilitates
the Chinese penetration of the Central Asian republics. This penetration has for the
moment a predominantly economic character, but it will undoubtedly soon acquire more
political dimensions. For this reason two opposition politicians, Boris Nemtsov and
Vladimir Milov, severely criticized Putin’s China policy. “It would be more appropriate
to call Putin’s policy toward China ‘capitulationist,’” they wrote. “In the years
of Putin’s rule the Russian military-industrial complex has, in particular, armed
the Chinese army.”
[41]
In the medium term, and certainly in the long run, the SCO could, indeed, become
an asset for Beijing more than for Moscow, and their struggle for influence, markets,
and energy, in the countries of Central Asia could soon become a zero-sum game.