Is NATO really a threat to Russia?
And, if not, then why didn't it dissolve itself after the fall of the Soviet Union?
What are we to make of opinion pieces like this?: Simon Tisdal in The Guardian blares, “Wanted: Russian revolution to topple tyrant. Internal applicants welcome.” [1]
The idea of Putin remaining in power, even if a Ukraine settlement is eventually patched together, is both impractical and obscene. By his inhuman actions, Russia’s dictator has placed himself beyond the pale. He’s a menace to universal order, an affront to common decency. He simply cannot be trusted.
Obscene! Inhuman! A menace! And, whose “universal order” is that?—that same emerging New World Order that gave us interventions in Iraq, Iraq again, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan?
In this short note the Naïve Economist poses two questions: Why didn’t NATO dissolve itself after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and, for its part, why doesn’t Putin’s clique of kleptocrats divert its energies from its apparent program of irredentism to addressing serious internal problems such as the emerging prospect of severe demographic decline?
The Naïve Economist doesn’t have definitive answers. Just questions.
In April 2008 American president George W. Bush proposed launching formal process for admitting the former Soviet Republics of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. In August 2008, Russian troops seized the South Ossetia region of Georgia. To date, neither Georgia nor Ukraine have joined NATO. Perhaps NATO got the memo: It should tread more carefully or not at all.
It is hard not to imagine that Russia’s advance into South Ossetia stalled the admissions of Georgia and Ukraine to NATO. But, if so, why didn’t Russia do anything about the admissions of the other countries of Central Europe and Eastern Europe into NATO by 2004? Because it was either unprepared or too weak to do anything about it? Bigger question: What threat would Russia have to perceive from countries on its border joining NATO? Isn’t NATO harmless?
It is hard to imagine that most casual observers had known anything about South Ossetia before 2008, but the incursion into South Ossetia does fit a simple narrative: Putin is intent on restoring the geographic scope and scale of Soviet Empire. Glory! The South Ossetia exercise amounts to nibbling around the edges. If he could absorb the whole of Georgia, he would. If he could absorb the greatest prize, the whole of Ukraine, he would. This business of NATO being a threat to Russia is just a transparent dodge.
But that just raises more questions. It is a puzzle about why NATO didn’t dissolve itself after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Perhaps sensing that something was not quite right with NATO, Putin himself went so far as to advance the idea of Russia joining NATO. In 2001 Jonathan Rausch observed in The Atlantic that:
On July 18 [2001], the globe shifted a few degrees on its axis. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, said that Russia does not see NATO as a hostile organization, but also does not see why NATO is needed. Nothing new there. But then he said: "The simplest [solution] is to dissolve NATO, but this is not on the agenda. The second possible option is to include Russia in NATO. This also creates a single defense and security space."[2]
Hint: Russia did see NATO as a hostile organization. (Why?) Hostile or benign, the proposal to join NATO did not go anywhere. Rausch continued:
If NATO keeps growing without making a positive effort to draw in Moscow, Moscow will respond, probably by shopping around for countervailing coalitions. The most logical partner for a "Stop America" coalition would be Beijing.
Note it’s “Stop America,” not “Stop NATO,” because the perception was and is that NATO really is just an agent of the United States. Keep that in mind. And, meanwhile, we have now started hearing noises about Russia trying to secure some type of détente with China. That would be consistent with Russia genuinely being concerned that NATO poses a threat. That would not excuse irredentist projects like nibbling away at Ukraine, but it does require us to ask if NATO is as much or more of a source of instability as stability.
While we are posing questions to NATO, we can also pose questions to Putin. Putin’s clique of kleptocrats would seem to have bigger things to worry about than the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO. Demographic decline is not a phenomenon unique to Russia, but it appears to be more extreme there than it is even in East Asia or Western Europe. (I would direct the reader to “Russia is Dying Out,” a very nice essay in UnHerd from March 28.[3]) Young people are not raising families, and many of them are looking to secure employment in the West. There are, for example, any number of smart young Russians and other Eastern Europeans who work as wait staff in the expensive restaurants of places like Miami Beach. They seem far more capable and enterprising than the average person on the street. And, yet there they are waiting on those same people. From the prospect of such enterprising young people, what is the matter with Russia?
One might suggest that the economies of the United States and Western Europe are not doing a very good job of enabling young people to secure good employment and to invest time and energy in raising families. Perhaps in Russia the problem is more severe. A system of government of the oligarchs, by the oligarchs, and for the oligarchs is not performing for the people. It does not provide a level playing field for young people to invest in their futures… in Russia. They take their business elsewhere.
In a future essay I may take up this theme of government “by the oligarchs” but situate it within the context of the Great Migration of African Americans from the American South to industrial jobs in the north starting around World War I. The mass migration continued through the 1920’s, may have suspended itself during the Great Depression, but picked up again during World War II and continued all the way into the 1970’s. People voted with their feet, and the old system in the South eventually collapsed.
But, back to The Guardian. Even if Putin’s clique were to depose him, then what? The West would still have a relationship to manage going forward. What ultimate vision of that relationship do proponents of coups, assassinations and war contemplate?
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/26/wanted-russian-revolution-to-topple-tyrant-putin-internal-applicants-welcome
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2001/08/putin-is-right-russia-belongs-in-nato/377557/