Top Russian expert Andrey Kortunov published a piece at the US’ influential Foreign Affairs journal about “The Coming Risks to Russian Power”. According to him, “Volatility and instability, active conflicts and arms races across several regions, economic decoupling and the retreat of globalization, the worldwide rise of nationalism and populism, the discounting of soft power and fissures in the Western alliance—all these features of the existing international order work to Moscow’s advantage.”
Kortunov explained that “A divided, resource-scarce world also magnifies the leverage that Russia’s vast natural endowments give it.” Moreover, “A fiercely competitive, volatile environment also raises the value of Russia’s centralized economic and political systems.” Essentially, “As long as the international system favors rivalry over cooperation, security over prosperity, regionalization over globalization, and sovereignty over interdependence, Russia will remain in the top tier of global politics.”
The risk for Russia, Kortunov warned, is when the international order inevitably begins to stabilize. In his assessment, Russia could be isolated from “emerging high-value global supply chains”, and it could fall behind the US and China “without a strong civilian high-tech ecosystem”. It’ll also continue struggling to attract “large-scale foreign direct investment”. “[Russia’s] highly centralized decision-making…has also suffocated the entrepreneurial energy the country needs”. He then shared three policy suggestions.
Kortunov declared that “Restoring ties with the EU matters most of all” and that “It is also in Russia’s own interest to do its part to uphold international legal norms…even when that means making concessions and giving up potential short-term gains.” Finally, it must stop “clinging too tightly to its preference for stability over change…(because) that preference can also harden into a refusal to adapt—a calcification that has pushed great powers to the sidelines before.” That’s a lot to unpack.
For starters, it’s debatable that Russia benefits from global chaos like the West has repeatedly claimed, but Kortunov is correct in noting that Russia has navigated this uncertainty impressively well. Regarding the risks that he outlined, they already exist and are being addressed, though it’s premature to assess the success of the Kremlin’s solutions. As for Kortunov’s suggestions, with all due respect to him, the first is unrealistic, the second scandalously hints at concessions to Ukraine, and only the third is reasonable.
Taken together, his three suggestions can be understood in reverse order as an implied proposal for the Kremlin to entertain the bold foreign policy move of making concessions to Ukraine for the purpose of restoring ties with the EU, the outcome of which can’t be taken for granted even if Putin agreed to this. To be sure, bold policies could be to Russia’s benefit, but these should concern more measured escalations in Ukraine to restore deterrence with the West instead of implied concessions to Ukraine.
To sum up Kortunov’s latest article, he argues that Russia thrives in global chaos and languishes when the international order is stable, so it should finally embrace change for once by proactively pursuing policies that would enable it to flexibly adapt to the new order that’s emerging. It can be intuited from what he wrote that he envisages economic, political, and foreign policy reforms, the latter scandalously hinting at a pro-EU pivot facilitated by concessions to Ukraine, which Putin likely won’t ever agree to.
