What could be more romantic and inspiring than a bold attack against all one’s enemies, heedless of the balance of forces? Thus did Prince Igor, outnumbered and without allies, charge the Polovtsian host. He was defeated but left a glorious memory in song.
Think about The Song of Igor’s Campaign, and Tsar Prime Minister Putin’s actions become explicable. Try to fit them into a rational geopolitical framework, and they remain an enigma.
Over the past few weeks, the Putin government has in effect declared that it has no interest in friendly relations with the world’s democracies. It has –
invaded a small, pro-Western country on a contrived pretext,
routinely violated the cease fire agreement arranged by well-meaning Western intermediaries,
threatened military action against other neighbors,
dissolved its ties with NATO,
announced that it no longer has any interest in joining the World Trade Organization,
discouraged Congressional ratification of a pact that would allow it to sell uranium to the United States, and
unleashed a barrage of childish insults against world leaders who dare oppose or criticize it.
As the French foreign minister put it, after President Sarkozy’s failed attempts to act as an honest broker, Russia “is an international outlaw”.
From the point of view of national self-interest, however narrowly conceived, these actions are senseless. Russia is not a superpower that can scoff at the rest of the world, and domination over tiny, impoverished Georgia strengthens it by no more than a nano-whit. The expenses of the invasion almost certainly exceeded all of its tangible benefits.
Lingering memories of the Cold War tend to fog our recognition of how weak contemporary Russia is in comparison to the powers that it is now striving to offend. A few statistics:
Russia’s population is 140 million and declining by nearly a million a year. The death rate exceeds the birth rate by 5 per 1,000 inhabitants. Net immigration is barely above nil. America’s population is twice as large and growing. The European Union’s is bigger still.
Russia’s gross domestic product is between $1.3 trillion (exchange rate) and $2.1 trillion (purchasing power parity). Either figure is significantly less than the U.S. government’s annual revenue and is on the order of one-fifteenth that of the combined U.S. and E.U.
After several years of sharp increases, Russia’s military budget stands at 775 million rubles, which translates to between $30 billion and $50 billion. That’s not much more than a rounding error at the Pentagon.
As summarized by GlobalSecurity.org:
Russia’s efforts to transform its Soviet-legacy military into a smaller, lighter and more mobile force continue to be hampered by an ossified military leadership, discipline problems, limited funding and demographics. Some steps by the Government of Russia suggested a desire to reform. There has been an increased emphasis on practical training, such as the Mobility 2004 Exercises, and the government is introducing bills to improve the organization of the military.
Despite increases in the budget, however, defense spending remains entirely inadequate to sustain Russia’s oversized military. Current troop strength, estimated at one million, is large in comparison to Russia’s GDP and military budget, which continues to make the process of transformation to a professional army difficult. This was in part the result of the Soviet legacy and military thinking that has changed little since the Cold War. Senior Russian leaders continue to emphasize a reliance on a large strategic nuclear force capable of deterring a massive nuclear attack.
In 2002, a conscript’s salary was only 100 rubles a month, or roughly $3.50. Theoretically, the army provides all necessities, however, housing and food shortages continue to plague the armed forces. Problems with both discipline and brutal hazing are common as well. HIV infection rates in the Russian army are estimated to be between two to five times higher than in the general population, and tuberculosis is a persistent problem.
Further distinguishing the present era from the Cold War, Moscow cannot draw backing from a worldwide network of ideological allies. Enthusiasm for neo-tsarism stops at the border, and the country’s only significant allies are Islamic despotisms, with which it has nothing in common but enmity toward the West.
Regardless of how sluggishly the West has responded to the Georgian crisis, this is a game in which the neo-tsarists run huge risks for the prospect of paltry reward. “Russia is dangerous but weak.” To take just one crucial point, the Russian economy depends on oil and natural gas exports, which generate one-fifth of its gross domestic product and all of its foreign exchange surplus.
There’s bad news here, too. Oil production is set to decline this year for the first time in a decade, a decline that is widely expected to accelerate rapidly in 2010. Of Russia’s 14 largest oil fields, seven are more than 50% depleted. Production at its four largest gas fields is also in decline. Russia drilled about four million feet of new wells last year. In 1990, it drilled 17 million.
None of this is because Russia is necessarily running out of oil and gas: Existing fields could be better managed, and huge expanses of territory remain unexplored. Instead, it is a function of underinvestment, incompetence, corruption, political interference and crude profiteering.
Corruption, political interference and crude profiteering are obstacles that must be overcome internally, but the best sources of capital and technical expertise are in the West. How likely is it now that Western investors will flock to the Russian oil fields?
Let’s suppose, though, that Moscow presses ahead without regard to such detriments, makes common cause with Islamofascism and inflicts grave damage on the enemies it has chosen. What sort of “victory” will that be? Russia will still be poor. Rebuilding through foreign investment will be impossible, because everyone else will be poor, too. At the same time, its diminishing population will make it a target for Islamofascist takeover. (The one subgroup that is not declining is the Moslems, now ten or 15 percent, eventually to be a much bigger slice of a markedly smaller pie.) Next to that outcome, Pyrrhus won a stupendous triumph.
Prince Igor lost his battle but left behind a magnificent poem. No bard will have cause to sing the praises of his latter day imitator.
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