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Russia and the New World Disorder
The Russian annexation of Crimea was one of the great strategic shocks of the past twenty-five years. For many in the West, Moscow's actions in early 2014 marked the end of illusions about cooperation, and the return to geopolitical and ideological confrontation. Russia, for so long a peripheral presence, had become the central actor in a new global drama. In this groundbreaking book, renowned scholar Bobo Lo analyzes the broader context of the crisis by examining the interplay between Russian foreign policy and an increasingly anarchic international environment. He argues that Moscow's approach to regional and global affairs reflects the tension between two very different worlds—the perceptual and the actual. The Kremlin highlights the decline of the West, a resurgent Russia, and the emergence of a new multipolar order. But this idealized view is contradicted by a world disorder that challenges core assumptions about the dominance of great powers and the utility of military might. Its lesson is that only those states that embrace change will prosper in the twenty-first century. A Russia able to redefine itself as a modern power would exert a critical influence in many areas of international politics. But a Russia that rests on an outdated sense of entitlement may end up instead as one of the principal casualties of global transformation.
365 pages, Paperback
First published July 31, 2014
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January 27, 2025
(The English review is placed beneath the Russian one)
Хотя по многим позициям я с автором этой книги согласен, однако в книге присутствуют детали, которые могу говорить в пользу того, что автор просто использует превалирующую точку зрения на Западе в отношении России, которую он переписывает на свой лад.
The most existential fear is that of losing sovereignty and territorial integrity. This is a natural reaction to having been subject to repeated invasion: the Mongol onslaught in the thirteenth century, followed by three centuries of occupation (the “Mongol yoke”), Napoleon’s invasion in 1812, and Hitler’s devastating offensive in June 1941 and the ravaging of vast tracts of the western Soviet Union. At other times Russia has been attacked and occupied by Poles, Swedes, Turks, and Persians.
<...>
Although there were justified fears on these counts, for Putin and his associates— and many ordinary Russians— the real disaster was the transformation of the world’s second superpower into an impotent also-ran.
<...>
In foreign affairs the “new Russia” was reduced to the status of supplicant to the West— constantly scrabbling around for money, while being endlessly criticized and patronized. Mean-while, NATO expanded into areas that Moscow had controlled for decades.
Откуда англоязычные авторы берут весь этот бред? Не, ну правда, кто им всё это говорит? Такое чувство, что сами иностранцы это придумывают, а потом верят в то, что сами придумали. Если и есть какой-то страх, то это страх экспансии Китая, а не экспансии Польши или Прибалтийских стран (в сторону РФ). И как быть с тем фактом, что богатые русские покупают недвижимость в странах этого самого НАТО, если они его так бояться? В общем, бред какой-то.
Ну и конечно не обошлось без Сталина, которого якобы вся Россия носит на руках.
Many Russians credit him with establishing the Soviet Union as a global power and developed industrial society. They hold him up as the great leader who crushed Nazi Germany and saved the Motherland. And they view him as the ideal of the strong ruler, harsh certainly, but the only possible kind for a country that would otherwise descend into chaos and be picked off by foreign powers.
Хотя я и не отрицаю популярность Сталина в некоторых группах россиян, я бы не стал утверждать, что многие россияне считают его великим лидером. К примеру, на Северном Кавказе к Сталину совсем другое отношение. Да и в целом, в крупных городах его видят скорее как красного диктатора, а не как спасителя отечества. В России "слава" Сталина объясняется главным образом несправедливостью ельцинско-путинской власти, поэтому ещё в 90-ые годы люди любили говорить "Сталина на вас нет" имея в виду, что Сталин бы всех этих жуликов и воров поставил бы к стенке и расстрелял бы. Сталин умел создавать видимость «народного» не коррупционного лидера (в реальности Сталин жил очень и очень, т.е. он себе ни в чём не отказывал), но он был самым кровавым диктатором в истории России, погубивший больше всего русских. Тут есть одна проблема, которую многие иностранцы не могут понять: нынешняя Россия не способна или, вернее, не готова дать оценку своему коммунистическому прошлому. С одной стороны, россиянами манипулирует правящая элита, но с другой, сами россияне не знают где искать справедливость и управы на российский чиновнический аппарат который душит Россию. Вот поэтому некоторые граждане России и обращаются к таким радикалам как Сталин и Ленин (которые, как правильно отмечает книга «Номенклатура», и были создателями той политической системы, которая существует в России даже сегодня). Если построить в России полноценную и реальную демократию, тогда все эти сталины и ленины отправятся на помойку истории. В данном случаи можно вспомнить историю ФРГ, в которой до 70-ых годов был популярен Гитлер. Так что на поддержку Сталина не стоит смотреть как на реальную поддержку сталинского политического режима и отсутствие политической поддержки КПРФ это отлично показывает (КПРФ не были всегда такими клоунами, какими они стали сегодня).
However, Putin recognized that a compliant approach toward regime change in Kyiv could have critical consequences for his own popularity and credibility. He felt he needed to reaffirm that he was strong, that Russia was very much a great power, and that the West could not take liberties at its (and his) expense.
Опять же, я согласен с тем, что политическая потеря Украины могла выставить Путина в глазах россиян как слабого политика, т.е. Путин бы превратился в глазах россиян в Ельцина 2.0.
In this he acts on the presumption that Russians are well used to enduring great hardship and making huge sacrifices, but will never forgive weakness in those who rule them.
Но вот дальше опять идёт очень странная фраза. Откуда автор это решил? За три года войны я что-то не заметил, что россияне согласны терпеть лишения, лишь бы не показаться слабыми. Как раз всё обстоит в точности на оборот, ибо, чем дольше тянутся боевые действия, тем больше россиян за мир без предварительных условий даже в таких провластных социологических опросах какие сегодня только и проводятся в РФ. Так что тут автор полностью ошибается. Комфорт и финансовое благополучие у россиян стоят выше, чем имперские завоевания и даже "политическая слабость". Если автор имеет в виду Ельцина, при котором Россия была слабая, из-за чего народ его ненавидел, то тогда автор просто не понял, что определяющим были не уступки Ельцина НАТО, а бандитизм, нищета и всеобщая коррупция. Однако если принять эту точку зрения, тогда разрушится вся конструкция «России как империя», т.е. что Россия не может существовать, не проводя имперскую политику. Это утверждение ложное, но для многих западных аналитиков оно хоть и ложное, но очень удобное, ибо очень просто объясняет логику Путина. Но я повторю: это ложное утверждение. Путина интересует только одно - его власть над страной. Построение империи его не интересует вообще, ибо в противном случаи Украина была бы целиком в составе России, как это показал опыт подавления волнений во времена существования СССР, который как раз и был империей и действительно проводил имперскую политику. Так что не нужно льстить Путину и оскорблять само понятие империи.
So far, however, this discontent has been limited to domestic affairs. The Russian population has shown little interest in foreign policy, and has sup-ported the Kremlin in any case. It enthusiastically approved the annexation of Crimea, and has been highly receptive to Putin’s account of developments in eastern Ukraine and relations with the West. More generally it buys into the official narrative of a wronged Russia. A 2012 Pew Global Attitudes survey found that 73 percent of respondents believed that Russia deserved more respect from “other countries,” in other words the West. Subsequent Western sanctions have only strengthened such sentiments.
<...>
These are not game- changers— at least not yet— but buttress an already strong institutional and philosophical conservatism within the Putin elite.
Автор как будто не понимает, что в России, начиная с 1996 года, российская власть не спрашивает у народа, какую политику хочет видеть российский народ (конечно, полностью идти против мнения народа власть тоже не может, поэтому тут очень специфические отношения). А вот если спросить российский народ, что он на самом деле желает, то можно обнаружить что большинство желает построение сильной экономики, инвестиции в здравоохранение, инфраструктуру, науку, образование, а не инвестиции в "традиционные ценности" и антизападную риторику и экспансионизм. Россияне хотят путешествовать по миру, а не сидеть в окопах Донбасса. По мне, это очевидно, но почему таких простых вещей не понимает автор, мне не понятно. Хотя автор видит, как ведут себя очень богатые русские, которые скупают недвижимость в Майями.
Я остановился на теме русского национализма, ибо это стало последней каплей, после которой я посчитал, что такую мутатень я просто не могу дальше читать.
Official nationalism has acquired a more aggressive dimension that goes beyond the usual reiteration of Russia’s “rights” in the international system.
This raises the specter of territorial revisions on the basis of concepts such as Novorossiya (“New Russia”), and arrogates to Moscow the right to intervene forcibly on behalf of expatriate Russians, especially those living in the post-Soviet neighborhood. The ongoing Ukraine crisis has highlighted this new strain.
<...>
The government has from time to time tolerated ultra-nationalist violence, particularly when perpetrated against “people of Caucasian nationality” —Chechens, Ingush, Dagestanis, and others.
Прежде чем рассуждать на тему русского национализма неплохо ознакомится с этим самым русским национализмом, к примеру, прочитав книгу «Кровь и почва русской истории». Путин проводит самую антирусскую политику, какую только можно проводить. Более антирусскую политику проводили только Советы, ибо именно на костях русских людей и был воздвигнут этот исполин на глиняных ногах под названием СССР (см. книгу «Кровь и почва русской истории»). Первый с кем Путин начал бороться были как раз русские националисты, лидеры которых прошли через репрессии и тюрьму. Думаю, это объяснялось тем, что Путин увидел в Оранжевой революции, что именно националисты и стали тем ледоколом, которым сломали режим.
Although I agree with the author of this book on many points, there are details in the book that might suggest that the author is simply using the prevailing viewpoint in the West regarding Russia, which he is rewriting to his own liking.
The most existential fear is that of losing sovereignty and territorial integrity. This is a natural reaction to having been subject to repeated invasion: the Mongol onslaught in the thirteenth century, followed by three centuries of occupation (the “Mongol yoke”), Napoleon’s invasion in 1812, and Hitler’s devastating offensive in June 1941 and the ravaging of vast tracts of the western Soviet Union. At other times Russia has been attacked and occupied by Poles, Swedes, Turks, and Persians.
<...>
Although there were justified fears on these counts, for Putin and his associates— and many ordinary Russians— the real disaster was the transformation of the world’s second superpower into an impotent also-ran.
<...>
In foreign affairs the “new Russia” was reduced to the status of supplicant to the West— constantly scrabbling around for money, while being endlessly criticized and patronized. Mean-while, NATO expanded into areas that Moscow had controlled for decades.
Where do English-speaking authors get all this nonsense from? No, really, who tells them all this? It feels like the foreigners themselves are making it up and then believing what they made up. If there is any fear, it is the fear of China's expansion, not the expansion of Poland or the Baltic states (towards Russia). And what about the fact that rich Russians buy real estate in the countries of this very NATO if they are so afraid of it? In general, it's nonsense.
And of course, it did not do without Stalin, whom, allegedly all Russia carries on its hands.
Many Russians credit him with establishing the Soviet Union as a global power and developed industrial society. They hold him up as the great leader who crushed Nazi Germany and saved the Motherland. And they view him as the ideal of the strong ruler, harsh certainly, but the only possible kind for a country that would otherwise descend into chaos and be picked off by foreign powers.
While I do not deny Stalin's popularity among some groups of Russians, I would not say that many Russians consider him a great leader. For example, in the North Caucasus, Stalin is viewed quite differently. And in general, in large cities, he is seen more as a red dictator than as the savior of the fatherland. In Russia, Stalin's “fame” is mainly due to the injustice of the Yeltsin-Putin government, so back in the 90s, people liked to say “Stalin is not on you!”, meaning that Stalin would have put all those crooks and thieves against the wall and shot them. Stalin was able to create the appearance of a “popular” non-corrupt leader, but he was the bloodiest dictator in the history of Russia, who killed the most Russians. There is one problem that many foreigners cannot understand: today's Russia is not able or, rather, not ready to evaluate its communist past. On the one hand, Russians are manipulated by the ruling elite, on the other hand, Russians themselves do not know where to look for justice and control of the Russian bureaucratic apparatus that strangles Russia. That is why some Russian citizens turn to such radicals as Stalin and Lenin (who, as the book “Nomenklatura” correctly points out, were the creators of the political system that exists in Russia even today). If we build a full-fledged and real democracy in Russia, then all these Stalinists and Lenins will go to the dustbin of history. In this case, we can recall the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, in which Hitler was popular until the 70s. So support for Stalin should not be looked at as real support for the Stalinist political regime and the lack of political support for the CPRF shows this perfectly (the CPRF were not always the clowns they have become today).
However, Putin recognized that a compliant approach toward regime change in Kyiv could have critical consequences for his own popularity and credibility. He felt he needed to reaffirm that he was strong, that Russia was very much a great power, and that the West could not take liberties at its (and his) expense.
Again, I agree that the political loss of Ukraine could have made Putin look like a weak politician in the eyes of Russians, i.e. Putin would have turned into Yeltsin 2.0 in the eyes of Russians.
In this he acts on the presumption that Russians are well used to enduring great hardship and making huge sacrifices, but will never forgive weakness in those who rule them.
But here comes a very strange phrase again. Where did the author get this idea from? In three years of war, I have not noticed that Russians agree to endure hardship as long as they do not appear weak. Everything is exactly the opposite, because the longer the hostilities last, the more Russians are in favor of peace without preconditions, even in such pro-government sociological polls as are only conducted in Russia today. So the author is completely wrong here. Russians value comfort and financial well-being above imperial conquests and even “political weakness”. If the author means Yeltsin, under whom Russia was weak, because of which the people hated him, then the author simply did not realize that the determining factor was not Yeltsin's concessions to NATO, but banditry, poverty and general corruption. However, if one accepts this point of view, then the whole construct of “Russia as an empire” is destroyed, i.e. that Russia cannot exist without pursuing an imperial policy. This statement is false, but for many Western analysts, although it is false it is very convenient because it explains Putin's logic in a very simple way. But I repeat: it is a false statement. Putin is only interested in one thing - his power over the country. He is not interested in empire building at all, because otherwise Ukraine would be entirely part of Russia, as the experience of suppressing unrest during the existence of the USSR, which was an empire and really pursued an imperial policy, has shown. So there is no need to flatter Putin and insult the very concept of empire.
So far, however, this discontent has been limited to domestic affairs. The Russian population has shown little interest in foreign policy, and has sup-ported the Kremlin in any case. It enthusiastically approved the annexation of Crimea, and has been highly receptive to Putin’s account of developments in eastern Ukraine and relations with the West. More generally it buys into the official narrative of a wronged Russia. A 2012 Pew Global Attitudes survey found that 73 percent of respondents believed that Russia deserved more respect from “other countries,” in other words the West. Subsequent Western sanctions have only strengthened such sentiments.
<...>
These are not game- changers— at least not yet— but buttress an already strong institutional and philosophical conservatism within the Putin elite.
It is as if the author does not realize that in Russia, since 1996, the Russian authorities have not asked the people what kind of policy the Russian people want to see (of course, the authorities cannot go completely against the opinion of the people either, so there is a very specific relationship here). But if you ask the Russian people what they really want, you will find that most of them want to build a strong economy, invest in health care, infrastructure, science, and education, and not invest in “traditional values” and anti-Western rhetoric and expansionism. Russians want to travel the world, not sit in the trenches of Donbass. To me, this is obvious, but why such simple things the author does not understand, I do not understand. The author also sees how very rich Russians who buy real estate in Miami behave.
I stopped on the topic of Russian nationalism, for it was the last straw, after which I considered that such rubbish I simply cannot read further.
Official nationalism has acquired a more aggressive dimension that goes beyond the usual reiteration of Russia’s “rights” in the international system.
This raises the specter of territorial revisions on the basis of concepts such as Novorossiya (“New Russia”), and arrogates to Moscow the right to intervene forcibly on behalf of expatriate Russians, especially those living in the post-Soviet neighborhood. The ongoing Ukraine crisis has highlighted this new strain.
<...>
The government has from time to time tolerated ultra-nationalist violence, particularly when perpetrated against “people of Caucasian nationality” —Chechens, Ingush, Dagestanis, and others.
Before discussing Russian nationalism it is sound to familiarize yourself with this very Russian nationalism, for example, by reading the book “The Blood and Soil of Russian History”. Putin is pursuing the most anti-Russian policy that can be pursued. Only the Soviets pursued a more anti-Russian policy, for it was on the bones of the Russian people that this giant on clay feet called the USSR was erected (you can read more in detail in the book “The Blood and Soil of Russian History”). The first people Putin started to fight were Russian nationalists, whose leaders had gone through repression and prison. I think it was because Putin saw in the Orange Revolution that the nationalists were the icebreaker that broke the regime.
Хотя по многим позициям я с автором этой книги согласен, однако в книге присутствуют детали, которые могу говорить в пользу того, что автор просто использует превалирующую точку зрения на Западе в отношении России, которую он переписывает на свой лад.
The most existential fear is that of losing sovereignty and territorial integrity. This is a natural reaction to having been subject to repeated invasion: the Mongol onslaught in the thirteenth century, followed by three centuries of occupation (the “Mongol yoke”), Napoleon’s invasion in 1812, and Hitler’s devastating offensive in June 1941 and the ravaging of vast tracts of the western Soviet Union. At other times Russia has been attacked and occupied by Poles, Swedes, Turks, and Persians.
<...>
Although there were justified fears on these counts, for Putin and his associates— and many ordinary Russians— the real disaster was the transformation of the world’s second superpower into an impotent also-ran.
<...>
In foreign affairs the “new Russia” was reduced to the status of supplicant to the West— constantly scrabbling around for money, while being endlessly criticized and patronized. Mean-while, NATO expanded into areas that Moscow had controlled for decades.
Откуда англоязычные авторы берут весь этот бред? Не, ну правда, кто им всё это говорит? Такое чувство, что сами иностранцы это придумывают, а потом верят в то, что сами придумали. Если и есть какой-то страх, то это страх экспансии Китая, а не экспансии Польши или Прибалтийских стран (в сторону РФ). И как быть с тем фактом, что богатые русские покупают недвижимость в странах этого самого НАТО, если они его так бояться? В общем, бред какой-то.
Ну и конечно не обошлось без Сталина, которого якобы вся Россия носит на руках.
Many Russians credit him with establishing the Soviet Union as a global power and developed industrial society. They hold him up as the great leader who crushed Nazi Germany and saved the Motherland. And they view him as the ideal of the strong ruler, harsh certainly, but the only possible kind for a country that would otherwise descend into chaos and be picked off by foreign powers.
Хотя я и не отрицаю популярность Сталина в некоторых группах россиян, я бы не стал утверждать, что многие россияне считают его великим лидером. К примеру, на Северном Кавказе к Сталину совсем другое отношение. Да и в целом, в крупных городах его видят скорее как красного диктатора, а не как спасителя отечества. В России "слава" Сталина объясняется главным образом несправедливостью ельцинско-путинской власти, поэтому ещё в 90-ые годы люди любили говорить "Сталина на вас нет" имея в виду, что Сталин бы всех этих жуликов и воров поставил бы к стенке и расстрелял бы. Сталин умел создавать видимость «народного» не коррупционного лидера (в реальности Сталин жил очень и очень, т.е. он себе ни в чём не отказывал), но он был самым кровавым диктатором в истории России, погубивший больше всего русских. Тут есть одна проблема, которую многие иностранцы не могут понять: нынешняя Россия не способна или, вернее, не готова дать оценку своему коммунистическому прошлому. С одной стороны, россиянами манипулирует правящая элита, но с другой, сами россияне не знают где искать справедливость и управы на российский чиновнический аппарат который душит Россию. Вот поэтому некоторые граждане России и обращаются к таким радикалам как Сталин и Ленин (которые, как правильно отмечает книга «Номенклатура», и были создателями той политической системы, которая существует в России даже сегодня). Если построить в России полноценную и реальную демократию, тогда все эти сталины и ленины отправятся на помойку истории. В данном случаи можно вспомнить историю ФРГ, в которой до 70-ых годов был популярен Гитлер. Так что на поддержку Сталина не стоит смотреть как на реальную поддержку сталинского политического режима и отсутствие политической поддержки КПРФ это отлично показывает (КПРФ не были всегда такими клоунами, какими они стали сегодня).
However, Putin recognized that a compliant approach toward regime change in Kyiv could have critical consequences for his own popularity and credibility. He felt he needed to reaffirm that he was strong, that Russia was very much a great power, and that the West could not take liberties at its (and his) expense.
Опять же, я согласен с тем, что политическая потеря Украины могла выставить Путина в глазах россиян как слабого политика, т.е. Путин бы превратился в глазах россиян в Ельцина 2.0.
In this he acts on the presumption that Russians are well used to enduring great hardship and making huge sacrifices, but will never forgive weakness in those who rule them.
Но вот дальше опять идёт очень странная фраза. Откуда автор это решил? За три года войны я что-то не заметил, что россияне согласны терпеть лишения, лишь бы не показаться слабыми. Как раз всё обстоит в точности на оборот, ибо, чем дольше тянутся боевые действия, тем больше россиян за мир без предварительных условий даже в таких провластных социологических опросах какие сегодня только и проводятся в РФ. Так что тут автор полностью ошибается. Комфорт и финансовое благополучие у россиян стоят выше, чем имперские завоевания и даже "политическая слабость". Если автор имеет в виду Ельцина, при котором Россия была слабая, из-за чего народ его ненавидел, то тогда автор просто не понял, что определяющим были не уступки Ельцина НАТО, а бандитизм, нищета и всеобщая коррупция. Однако если принять эту точку зрения, тогда разрушится вся конструкция «России как империя», т.е. что Россия не может существовать, не проводя имперскую политику. Это утверждение ложное, но для многих западных аналитиков оно хоть и ложное, но очень удобное, ибо очень просто объясняет логику Путина. Но я повторю: это ложное утверждение. Путина интересует только одно - его власть над страной. Построение империи его не интересует вообще, ибо в противном случаи Украина была бы целиком в составе России, как это показал опыт подавления волнений во времена существования СССР, который как раз и был империей и действительно проводил имперскую политику. Так что не нужно льстить Путину и оскорблять само понятие империи.
So far, however, this discontent has been limited to domestic affairs. The Russian population has shown little interest in foreign policy, and has sup-ported the Kremlin in any case. It enthusiastically approved the annexation of Crimea, and has been highly receptive to Putin’s account of developments in eastern Ukraine and relations with the West. More generally it buys into the official narrative of a wronged Russia. A 2012 Pew Global Attitudes survey found that 73 percent of respondents believed that Russia deserved more respect from “other countries,” in other words the West. Subsequent Western sanctions have only strengthened such sentiments.
<...>
These are not game- changers— at least not yet— but buttress an already strong institutional and philosophical conservatism within the Putin elite.
Автор как будто не понимает, что в России, начиная с 1996 года, российская власть не спрашивает у народа, какую политику хочет видеть российский народ (конечно, полностью идти против мнения народа власть тоже не может, поэтому тут очень специфические отношения). А вот если спросить российский народ, что он на самом деле желает, то можно обнаружить что большинство желает построение сильной экономики, инвестиции в здравоохранение, инфраструктуру, науку, образование, а не инвестиции в "традиционные ценности" и антизападную риторику и экспансионизм. Россияне хотят путешествовать по миру, а не сидеть в окопах Донбасса. По мне, это очевидно, но почему таких простых вещей не понимает автор, мне не понятно. Хотя автор видит, как ведут себя очень богатые русские, которые скупают недвижимость в Майями.
Я остановился на теме русского национализма, ибо это стало последней каплей, после которой я посчитал, что такую мутатень я просто не могу дальше читать.
Official nationalism has acquired a more aggressive dimension that goes beyond the usual reiteration of Russia’s “rights” in the international system.
This raises the specter of territorial revisions on the basis of concepts such as Novorossiya (“New Russia”), and arrogates to Moscow the right to intervene forcibly on behalf of expatriate Russians, especially those living in the post-Soviet neighborhood. The ongoing Ukraine crisis has highlighted this new strain.
<...>
The government has from time to time tolerated ultra-nationalist violence, particularly when perpetrated against “people of Caucasian nationality” —Chechens, Ingush, Dagestanis, and others.
Прежде чем рассуждать на тему русского национализма неплохо ознакомится с этим самым русским национализмом, к примеру, прочитав книгу «Кровь и почва русской истории». Путин проводит самую антирусскую политику, какую только можно проводить. Более антирусскую политику проводили только Советы, ибо именно на костях русских людей и был воздвигнут этот исполин на глиняных ногах под названием СССР (см. книгу «Кровь и почва русской истории»). Первый с кем Путин начал бороться были как раз русские националисты, лидеры которых прошли через репрессии и тюрьму. Думаю, это объяснялось тем, что Путин увидел в Оранжевой революции, что именно националисты и стали тем ледоколом, которым сломали режим.
Although I agree with the author of this book on many points, there are details in the book that might suggest that the author is simply using the prevailing viewpoint in the West regarding Russia, which he is rewriting to his own liking.
The most existential fear is that of losing sovereignty and territorial integrity. This is a natural reaction to having been subject to repeated invasion: the Mongol onslaught in the thirteenth century, followed by three centuries of occupation (the “Mongol yoke”), Napoleon’s invasion in 1812, and Hitler’s devastating offensive in June 1941 and the ravaging of vast tracts of the western Soviet Union. At other times Russia has been attacked and occupied by Poles, Swedes, Turks, and Persians.
<...>
Although there were justified fears on these counts, for Putin and his associates— and many ordinary Russians— the real disaster was the transformation of the world’s second superpower into an impotent also-ran.
<...>
In foreign affairs the “new Russia” was reduced to the status of supplicant to the West— constantly scrabbling around for money, while being endlessly criticized and patronized. Mean-while, NATO expanded into areas that Moscow had controlled for decades.
Where do English-speaking authors get all this nonsense from? No, really, who tells them all this? It feels like the foreigners themselves are making it up and then believing what they made up. If there is any fear, it is the fear of China's expansion, not the expansion of Poland or the Baltic states (towards Russia). And what about the fact that rich Russians buy real estate in the countries of this very NATO if they are so afraid of it? In general, it's nonsense.
And of course, it did not do without Stalin, whom, allegedly all Russia carries on its hands.
Many Russians credit him with establishing the Soviet Union as a global power and developed industrial society. They hold him up as the great leader who crushed Nazi Germany and saved the Motherland. And they view him as the ideal of the strong ruler, harsh certainly, but the only possible kind for a country that would otherwise descend into chaos and be picked off by foreign powers.
While I do not deny Stalin's popularity among some groups of Russians, I would not say that many Russians consider him a great leader. For example, in the North Caucasus, Stalin is viewed quite differently. And in general, in large cities, he is seen more as a red dictator than as the savior of the fatherland. In Russia, Stalin's “fame” is mainly due to the injustice of the Yeltsin-Putin government, so back in the 90s, people liked to say “Stalin is not on you!”, meaning that Stalin would have put all those crooks and thieves against the wall and shot them. Stalin was able to create the appearance of a “popular” non-corrupt leader, but he was the bloodiest dictator in the history of Russia, who killed the most Russians. There is one problem that many foreigners cannot understand: today's Russia is not able or, rather, not ready to evaluate its communist past. On the one hand, Russians are manipulated by the ruling elite, on the other hand, Russians themselves do not know where to look for justice and control of the Russian bureaucratic apparatus that strangles Russia. That is why some Russian citizens turn to such radicals as Stalin and Lenin (who, as the book “Nomenklatura” correctly points out, were the creators of the political system that exists in Russia even today). If we build a full-fledged and real democracy in Russia, then all these Stalinists and Lenins will go to the dustbin of history. In this case, we can recall the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, in which Hitler was popular until the 70s. So support for Stalin should not be looked at as real support for the Stalinist political regime and the lack of political support for the CPRF shows this perfectly (the CPRF were not always the clowns they have become today).
However, Putin recognized that a compliant approach toward regime change in Kyiv could have critical consequences for his own popularity and credibility. He felt he needed to reaffirm that he was strong, that Russia was very much a great power, and that the West could not take liberties at its (and his) expense.
Again, I agree that the political loss of Ukraine could have made Putin look like a weak politician in the eyes of Russians, i.e. Putin would have turned into Yeltsin 2.0 in the eyes of Russians.
In this he acts on the presumption that Russians are well used to enduring great hardship and making huge sacrifices, but will never forgive weakness in those who rule them.
But here comes a very strange phrase again. Where did the author get this idea from? In three years of war, I have not noticed that Russians agree to endure hardship as long as they do not appear weak. Everything is exactly the opposite, because the longer the hostilities last, the more Russians are in favor of peace without preconditions, even in such pro-government sociological polls as are only conducted in Russia today. So the author is completely wrong here. Russians value comfort and financial well-being above imperial conquests and even “political weakness”. If the author means Yeltsin, under whom Russia was weak, because of which the people hated him, then the author simply did not realize that the determining factor was not Yeltsin's concessions to NATO, but banditry, poverty and general corruption. However, if one accepts this point of view, then the whole construct of “Russia as an empire” is destroyed, i.e. that Russia cannot exist without pursuing an imperial policy. This statement is false, but for many Western analysts, although it is false it is very convenient because it explains Putin's logic in a very simple way. But I repeat: it is a false statement. Putin is only interested in one thing - his power over the country. He is not interested in empire building at all, because otherwise Ukraine would be entirely part of Russia, as the experience of suppressing unrest during the existence of the USSR, which was an empire and really pursued an imperial policy, has shown. So there is no need to flatter Putin and insult the very concept of empire.
So far, however, this discontent has been limited to domestic affairs. The Russian population has shown little interest in foreign policy, and has sup-ported the Kremlin in any case. It enthusiastically approved the annexation of Crimea, and has been highly receptive to Putin’s account of developments in eastern Ukraine and relations with the West. More generally it buys into the official narrative of a wronged Russia. A 2012 Pew Global Attitudes survey found that 73 percent of respondents believed that Russia deserved more respect from “other countries,” in other words the West. Subsequent Western sanctions have only strengthened such sentiments.
<...>
These are not game- changers— at least not yet— but buttress an already strong institutional and philosophical conservatism within the Putin elite.
It is as if the author does not realize that in Russia, since 1996, the Russian authorities have not asked the people what kind of policy the Russian people want to see (of course, the authorities cannot go completely against the opinion of the people either, so there is a very specific relationship here). But if you ask the Russian people what they really want, you will find that most of them want to build a strong economy, invest in health care, infrastructure, science, and education, and not invest in “traditional values” and anti-Western rhetoric and expansionism. Russians want to travel the world, not sit in the trenches of Donbass. To me, this is obvious, but why such simple things the author does not understand, I do not understand. The author also sees how very rich Russians who buy real estate in Miami behave.
I stopped on the topic of Russian nationalism, for it was the last straw, after which I considered that such rubbish I simply cannot read further.
Official nationalism has acquired a more aggressive dimension that goes beyond the usual reiteration of Russia’s “rights” in the international system.
This raises the specter of territorial revisions on the basis of concepts such as Novorossiya (“New Russia”), and arrogates to Moscow the right to intervene forcibly on behalf of expatriate Russians, especially those living in the post-Soviet neighborhood. The ongoing Ukraine crisis has highlighted this new strain.
<...>
The government has from time to time tolerated ultra-nationalist violence, particularly when perpetrated against “people of Caucasian nationality” —Chechens, Ingush, Dagestanis, and others.
Before discussing Russian nationalism it is sound to familiarize yourself with this very Russian nationalism, for example, by reading the book “The Blood and Soil of Russian History”. Putin is pursuing the most anti-Russian policy that can be pursued. Only the Soviets pursued a more anti-Russian policy, for it was on the bones of the Russian people that this giant on clay feet called the USSR was erected (you can read more in detail in the book “The Blood and Soil of Russian History”). The first people Putin started to fight were Russian nationalists, whose leaders had gone through repression and prison. I think it was because Putin saw in the Orange Revolution that the nationalists were the icebreaker that broke the regime.
January 16, 2022
A great book that perfectly captures Russia's complex relationships with other countries. It provides a clearer picture of what Russia wants or, rather, doesn't want. I wish I could have read the book when it appeared, because reading it now feels like some chapters are waiting to be added.
February 17, 2026
Today's Grand Chessboard, with Ukraine as the black queen.
This is a very long book review – my reading notes, and reactions, as much as a review. In brief, it is an excellent book, touching on all of the relevant topics. Bobo Lo has a deep knowledge of Russia, and is able to describe in excellent detail the weaknesses in the way Russia manages its affairs. Though not his central theme, he also writes accurately on the west's misperceptions about Russia.
Dr. Lo writes on behalf of the Brookings Institute, a very establishment, left-centrist think tank in Washington D.C. This book's intended audience will be diplomats and academics. Though he pitches it towards Russia itself, it is unlikely to be widely read there. The academic English makes it inaccessible, the source makes it suspect, and the message will be unwelcome.
The book is divided into three parts: background, then specifics elements of Russian foreign policy, and lastly a look to the future, what would be best for Russia to do, and what they are most likely to do. Here is the table of contents:
Part I: Context
1 The Domestic Context of Russian Foreign Policy
2 Two Worlds
Part II: Performance
3 Russia and Global Governance
4 A Postmodern Empire
5 A Turn to the East
6 Engaging with the West
Part III: Possibilities
7 A New Foreign Policy for a New Russia
8 Russia and the World in 2030
The book is strong on diplomacy and foreign relations, somewhat weaker in its analysis of economic and business trends, and relatively silent on demographic trends.
The book is well conceived for its audience. It will be a must-read for people dealing with Russia in the realms of diplomacy, defense and business. Truly a five-star effort.
That's the end of a short review. Here follow my reading notes
Dr. Lo claims that you cannot know what is going on inside the Kremlin. Those who know don't say, and those who say don't know. Putin, however, is a known quantity. People continue to fall out of his favor, and people who know him intimately have given extensive interviews. For an example, google " Yuri Shvets." What comes out is the following:
1. He never impressed anybody as a genius during his rise to power. Yeltsin picked him from obscurity because he thought he was a guy who could be trusted not to disrupt Yeltsin family interests.
2. He has surrounded himself with people from his days as deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. People he has known a long time and whom he trusts. As Custine says in "letters from Russia" this has been the trait of czars throughout history. The nature of power in Russia may be absolute, but it is not possible to delegate effectively. Witness how ineffective Medvedev was and remains. Putin cannot trust him to take initiative. The same is true for the others from the Petersburg days. The result is that Putin suffers from a lack of good advice, the lack of a kitchen cabinet that will refine his ideas. He also lacks truly competent subordinates fishing carry out his plans.
3. He is described in his youth as a man who drank excessively and was unfaithful to his wife. He is narcissistic – wedded to his workout regimes and facelifts in Botox. Projecting his masculinity, as Dr. Lo sells, seems to be an important psychological trait.
Lo accepts without question the liberal agenda of the West. He does not give any credence to Putin's view that global warming is a canard, a liberal ploy to seize power – a position held by a significant number of serious scientists in the West, expressed in recent books such as The Neglected Sun – Why the Sun Precludes Climate Catastrophe. He criticizes Putin's refusal to share world concern about famine, water shortages and the like. The opposite side of the coin is that Europe is being inundated with immigrants that it is unable to assimilate but unwilling to identify as such. Uncritically accepting the modern liberal European view appears to me to be a cultural blindness on Lo's part. Putin's notion of what we owe our fellow man – less than what we owe ourselves and our progeny - appears to be closer to the world consensus than that of the altruistic West.
Putin and the West both tend to overestimate their strength with regard to Ukraine. Many Ukrainians are skeptical about the multiculturalism and destruction of the family taking place in Western Europe. For instance, there was little sense that Putin had overstepped himself in the Pussy Riot and the gay propaganda cases, which took place before the invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainians are culturally conservative. Their orientation toward the West is a pragmatic matter – the West is where the jobs are, and where they would like to shop and vacation. Culturally they still have more affinity for the conservative Orthodox Christianity that Putin hypocritically espouses.
Ukrainian culture is not identical to Russian. There is a continuum, albeit with a somewhat steeper cline on the eastern border of Ukraine. The Russians, as [[ASIN:B00HO11CMS The Marquis de Custine]] wrote, are a docile people who are inclined to tolerate and even support a strong czar. They put up with Ivan the Terrible and Stalin. As [[ASIN:0465031471 Timothy Snyder]] writes, Ukrainians suffered as these despots impose their will on them as well. Ukrainians were diluted as Catherine the great and Stalin settled thousands of ethnic Russians among them, and scattered Ukrainians throughout the Russian Far East. Nonetheless, Ukrainians are more like their neighbors to the west in their sense of freedom and fair play. Yanukovych and Putin underestimated the degree to which Ukrainians are not like Russians. Yanukovych thought that he could steal as wantonly as Putin does in Russia, and Putin expected the citizens of Crimea and Donbas would embrace the Russians. Both were disappointed; their control comes through repression, not the love of the citizenry.
The West, however, also misjudged the Ukrainians. They conflated Ukraine's desire to conclude an association agreement with the European Union with the desire to join the union. No, the Ukrainians mostly wanted travel and trade. American neocons such as Victoria Newland were disappointed that for the most part Ukrainians just wanted Yanukovych out.
Dr. Lo does not talk about the Yanukovych depredations during the years between 2004 and his ouster in 2014. The theft was [[ASIN:0954376412 blatant and shameless]]. It was also artless. One could say that he broke as much as he stole. His behavior discouraged foreign companies from investing. The grain embargo he imposed in 2011 in order to enrich himself through granting licenses to his friends was immensely harmful to farmers and international grain traders such as Cargill. It was a badly executed theft. The vicious tactics of his tax police collecting from small entrepreneurs, while the oligarchs were blatantly able to shift their profits offshore, created a great deal of resentment. The Ukrainians resented Russia as much for their support of Yanukovych as for anything else.
Lo absolutely gets it right when he says it is richly ironic that Putin has developed a reputation in the West is a clever chess player. His lack of strategic insight or sense of danger points to just the opposite – as no less of an authority than former world chess champion Garry Kasparov has it observed. This is absolutely true. He is playing it by ear.
The blunders are evident even to a civilian such as myself. He moves his troops all over the place along the Ukrainian border, placing between 50,000 and 100,000 of them in the border stretch between Rostov on Don and Chernigov. He sent a similar number on exercises and the Russian Arctic just to make a point. Such misuse of the military is incredibly demoralizing to the troops. A soldier wants to feel he is being used effectively, and Russian troops cannot feel anything other than being jerked around. The same goes for the troops that he has actually deployed in the Donbas. His commitment to deception dictates that support for the separatists must be arm's-length. The supplies he gives them, and the financial support he gives to the civilians in those occupied areas, is intermittent. Russia cannot afford more, either financially, or to be seen giving more. He denies Russian soldiers when they are captured or killed. This means that Russian staying power in Ukraine must be limited.
Dr. Lo writes aptly. "It is difficult to identify a cohesive Russian strategy toward Ukraine. Instead there is an odd mélange of mystical vision, historical and geopolitical anxieties, feelings of strategic entitlement, gut instincts, and tactical dexterity. Putin's approach reflects the contradictory influences of the two worlds that shaped his foreign-policy more generally. On the one hand, the Kremlin conceives of Ukraine, and Russia's relationship with it, in terms of historical inevitabilities. On the other hand, developments in the real world act as a constant reminder of the artificiality of such hopes."
He divides the former Soviet Union countries into three tiers on the basis of Russia's level of interest in them. At the top of the first tier is Ukraine, in a class by itself. Also of great interest are Belarus, the other fully Slavic country in the FSU, and Kazakhstan, physically the largest and the closest to Russia. The second tier consists of smaller countries that are not quite so central to Russia's interest: Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The third category is the leftovers: Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Armenia.
Dr. Lo uses quotes from several places to express the idea that without Ukraine, Russia is just an ordinary country. He quotes Putin telling Bush in 2008 that Ukraine is "not really a country." Russia cannot seem to let it go. I will provide a bit of history that Dr. Lo does not. Kiev is the historic center of the Slavic peoples, who coalesced into Kevin Rus in the first millennium A.D. It held sway for a couple of centuries, but was riven by dynastic infighting. There was seldom an adequate plan of succession when a powerful leader died. In the 13th century the Mongols swept in with superior fighting tactics – mainly their horses – and conquered most of what is now both Russia and Ukraine. The Mongols were never as good at administration as they were at conquest, and when they receded in the 15th century Moscow to came out to be more powerful than Kiev. Each government seems to be involved in interminable wars, Ukraine the more so because its geography has it surrounded by enemies: Turkey, Romania, Hungary, the German states, Poland, Lithuania and Russia. In the 17th century Ukraine fought off the Turkic Tatars to their South only to be attacked from the west by the Poles. They ran into the embrace of Russia, which did not let go.
The Russians were not kind masters. Catherine the great brought in Russians and Germans to settle the steppes which had been freed from the Tatars. Stalin moved Ukrainians out by the thousands to populate Siberia, moved Russians in to fill the vacuum, and lead the Holodomor which killed 3 million people (by Dr. Lo's reckoning – it could have been twice as many). They forced the Russian language on the Ukrainian people.
The upshot is that Ukraine is the largest bilingual country in the world. More than half the population speaks both languages fluently. Putin would like to pretend that Ukrainian is no more than a dialect of Russian, but it is vastly more than that. This reviewer found it easy to learn Portuguese on the strength of a knowledge of Spanish. Learning Ukrainian on the strength of Russian turns out to be more difficult. There are significant differences in the root words of the vocabulary – Ukrainian is closer to Western European languages – and far from trivial differences in the sound structure: consonants and vowels.
Dr. Lo cites a statistic that Ukraine is 17% ethnically Russian. That kind of number that is very difficult to know, and would change significantly depending on who was asking the question and how it was phrased. A respondent would be stupid to call himself a Ukrainian in the Crimea of 2015, or a Russian in Lviv. Since most speak both languages and pretty much looks the same the answer will often be whatever is most convenient at the time. This reviewer's wife speaks native Russian – the language she used in school – whereas her parents speak native Ukrainian, the language they used in school.
The Russian exercise of power has always been heavy-handed. The czars were despots. [[ASIN:B00HO11CMS The Marquis de Custine]] captured their essence, Tocqueville wrote about them, Russian literature describes him in these terms, [[ASIN:0061138827 Archie Brown]] writes that Soviet history is a long reign of terror. Putin follows in this bloodthirsty, ham-fisted tradition.
During the Yushenko and Yanukovych years Putin would clamor for higher prices for natural gas, then turn the gas off in the middle of winter (2006, 2009) if he didn't get his way, freezing hapless souls in Western Europe – not a good idea. He would arbitrarily ban imports of foodstuffs from Ukraine such as candies, meats, wheat and other commodities. The pretexts were transparently contrived: veterinary inspections and the like. Archie Brown wrote of the Communists that they not only lied, but they lied in such a way that you knew they were lying. It was a demonstration of power to force people to swallow obvious lies. Putin seems to operate on the same principle. Today he is lying about the absence of Russian soldiers in Ukraine and guilt in downing MH17, among other things. This lack of diplomacy does not work in the 20th century. The victims can fight back, among other things by simply publicizing Putin's bad behavior. He is in bad odor throughout the world for his transgressions.
Dr. Lo often cites the extreme corruption in Russia. He says that the APEC (Asian-Pacific economic conference) in Vladivostok in 2012 cost $22 billion, 50 percent more than the London Olympics a month earlier. To put this into perspective, it is roughly 1 percent of Russian GDP of 2 trillion. The Sochi Olympics cost 2%, and the World Cup soccer championships will also be vastly expensive. All these projects are dogged by mismanagement and cost overruns. Instead of displaying Russian prowess, they showcase the worst aspects of a dictatorial economy. For an appreciation of how deeply ingrained these practices are in Russian culture, read [[ASIN:0801473527 How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business]].
Dr. Lo repeatedly says that the Russian orientation has always been toward Europe rather than Asia. Although it likes to call itself Eurasian, 80 percent of the population lives west of the Urals. The people are European. They simply do not understand Asians very well. There is a collective desire to distance themselves from the Mongols, who dominated them for two centuries. The historical orientation established by Peter the Great and Catherine the great was toward the west, from which they borrowed what they could of Enlightenment ideas and modern methods in manufacture, agriculture, science and literature. Although Russia participates in many Asia-Pacific groups, it appears not to take a leadership role.
Dr. Lo repeats often that the mindset of Russian diplomacy is that of a big power. It jealously guards its prerogatives as a nation sitting at the big table with the world level players: the United States, Japan, China, and the European Union. Russia displays little finesse in dealing with smaller countries, and shows little appreciation of the power these can wield in the modern information oriented world. This is especially true in Asia. Outside of China, Russia has relatively few important trade relationships. Russia simply has little to contribute in Asia.
Dr. Lo writes "… Russia is generally viewed in a negative light – as a country with a stagnant political system, non-modernizing economy, and complacent elite. Many Asians doubt its capacity and commitment to contribute meaningfully, except as an exporter of natural resources and weapons."
The backwardness of the Russian Far East is a drag on Russian aspirations to be accepted by the Asian countries. This area has historically been poorly managed by tsars, commissars and now Putin. The rest of Asia looks at it as a source of natural resources and as a market. It certainly does not give Asia any prestige. [[ASIN:0307389049 The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival]] gives a clear portrayal of life in contemporary Siberia.
Dr. Lo repeatedly says that Russia's Asia policy is very Sinocentric. Russia shares a 4000 km border with China and depends on China to at least be neutral in the scraps that Russia picks elsewhere in the world, notably Ukraine and Georgia. Russia lacks the finesse, the resource, and the shared interest that would draw it into greater partnership with others.
Dr. Lo writes "To alter this fate Moscow will need to recognize that tired strategic habits and an indigenous neo-conservatism offer Russia nothing. But such a message is not easily absorbed. Today the Kremlin's self-satisfaction appears stronger than ever, driven by the anticipation of a new multipolar order in which Russia stands as an equal with the United States and China. As long as this illusion persists, the likelihood of a productive approach toward Asia will be slim, and the “turn to the East” will remain a fantasy." To me that is the essence of his message, despite sounding a somewhat hopeful tone in the conclusion.
I add that the stove pipe, totally hierarchical decision-making structure that has always persisted in Russia is antithetical toward good diplomacy. Diplomats by their nature have to be empowered to engage in their opposite numbers and to work out creative solutions to mutual interests. They need to be heard and appreciated, and they need some authority. Moscow has never granted either.
(Remainder of review in comment).
This is a very long book review – my reading notes, and reactions, as much as a review. In brief, it is an excellent book, touching on all of the relevant topics. Bobo Lo has a deep knowledge of Russia, and is able to describe in excellent detail the weaknesses in the way Russia manages its affairs. Though not his central theme, he also writes accurately on the west's misperceptions about Russia.
Dr. Lo writes on behalf of the Brookings Institute, a very establishment, left-centrist think tank in Washington D.C. This book's intended audience will be diplomats and academics. Though he pitches it towards Russia itself, it is unlikely to be widely read there. The academic English makes it inaccessible, the source makes it suspect, and the message will be unwelcome.
The book is divided into three parts: background, then specifics elements of Russian foreign policy, and lastly a look to the future, what would be best for Russia to do, and what they are most likely to do. Here is the table of contents:
Part I: Context
1 The Domestic Context of Russian Foreign Policy
2 Two Worlds
Part II: Performance
3 Russia and Global Governance
4 A Postmodern Empire
5 A Turn to the East
6 Engaging with the West
Part III: Possibilities
7 A New Foreign Policy for a New Russia
8 Russia and the World in 2030
The book is strong on diplomacy and foreign relations, somewhat weaker in its analysis of economic and business trends, and relatively silent on demographic trends.
The book is well conceived for its audience. It will be a must-read for people dealing with Russia in the realms of diplomacy, defense and business. Truly a five-star effort.
That's the end of a short review. Here follow my reading notes
Dr. Lo claims that you cannot know what is going on inside the Kremlin. Those who know don't say, and those who say don't know. Putin, however, is a known quantity. People continue to fall out of his favor, and people who know him intimately have given extensive interviews. For an example, google " Yuri Shvets." What comes out is the following:
1. He never impressed anybody as a genius during his rise to power. Yeltsin picked him from obscurity because he thought he was a guy who could be trusted not to disrupt Yeltsin family interests.
2. He has surrounded himself with people from his days as deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. People he has known a long time and whom he trusts. As Custine says in "letters from Russia" this has been the trait of czars throughout history. The nature of power in Russia may be absolute, but it is not possible to delegate effectively. Witness how ineffective Medvedev was and remains. Putin cannot trust him to take initiative. The same is true for the others from the Petersburg days. The result is that Putin suffers from a lack of good advice, the lack of a kitchen cabinet that will refine his ideas. He also lacks truly competent subordinates fishing carry out his plans.
3. He is described in his youth as a man who drank excessively and was unfaithful to his wife. He is narcissistic – wedded to his workout regimes and facelifts in Botox. Projecting his masculinity, as Dr. Lo sells, seems to be an important psychological trait.
Lo accepts without question the liberal agenda of the West. He does not give any credence to Putin's view that global warming is a canard, a liberal ploy to seize power – a position held by a significant number of serious scientists in the West, expressed in recent books such as The Neglected Sun – Why the Sun Precludes Climate Catastrophe. He criticizes Putin's refusal to share world concern about famine, water shortages and the like. The opposite side of the coin is that Europe is being inundated with immigrants that it is unable to assimilate but unwilling to identify as such. Uncritically accepting the modern liberal European view appears to me to be a cultural blindness on Lo's part. Putin's notion of what we owe our fellow man – less than what we owe ourselves and our progeny - appears to be closer to the world consensus than that of the altruistic West.
Putin and the West both tend to overestimate their strength with regard to Ukraine. Many Ukrainians are skeptical about the multiculturalism and destruction of the family taking place in Western Europe. For instance, there was little sense that Putin had overstepped himself in the Pussy Riot and the gay propaganda cases, which took place before the invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainians are culturally conservative. Their orientation toward the West is a pragmatic matter – the West is where the jobs are, and where they would like to shop and vacation. Culturally they still have more affinity for the conservative Orthodox Christianity that Putin hypocritically espouses.
Ukrainian culture is not identical to Russian. There is a continuum, albeit with a somewhat steeper cline on the eastern border of Ukraine. The Russians, as [[ASIN:B00HO11CMS The Marquis de Custine]] wrote, are a docile people who are inclined to tolerate and even support a strong czar. They put up with Ivan the Terrible and Stalin. As [[ASIN:0465031471 Timothy Snyder]] writes, Ukrainians suffered as these despots impose their will on them as well. Ukrainians were diluted as Catherine the great and Stalin settled thousands of ethnic Russians among them, and scattered Ukrainians throughout the Russian Far East. Nonetheless, Ukrainians are more like their neighbors to the west in their sense of freedom and fair play. Yanukovych and Putin underestimated the degree to which Ukrainians are not like Russians. Yanukovych thought that he could steal as wantonly as Putin does in Russia, and Putin expected the citizens of Crimea and Donbas would embrace the Russians. Both were disappointed; their control comes through repression, not the love of the citizenry.
The West, however, also misjudged the Ukrainians. They conflated Ukraine's desire to conclude an association agreement with the European Union with the desire to join the union. No, the Ukrainians mostly wanted travel and trade. American neocons such as Victoria Newland were disappointed that for the most part Ukrainians just wanted Yanukovych out.
Dr. Lo does not talk about the Yanukovych depredations during the years between 2004 and his ouster in 2014. The theft was [[ASIN:0954376412 blatant and shameless]]. It was also artless. One could say that he broke as much as he stole. His behavior discouraged foreign companies from investing. The grain embargo he imposed in 2011 in order to enrich himself through granting licenses to his friends was immensely harmful to farmers and international grain traders such as Cargill. It was a badly executed theft. The vicious tactics of his tax police collecting from small entrepreneurs, while the oligarchs were blatantly able to shift their profits offshore, created a great deal of resentment. The Ukrainians resented Russia as much for their support of Yanukovych as for anything else.
Lo absolutely gets it right when he says it is richly ironic that Putin has developed a reputation in the West is a clever chess player. His lack of strategic insight or sense of danger points to just the opposite – as no less of an authority than former world chess champion Garry Kasparov has it observed. This is absolutely true. He is playing it by ear.
The blunders are evident even to a civilian such as myself. He moves his troops all over the place along the Ukrainian border, placing between 50,000 and 100,000 of them in the border stretch between Rostov on Don and Chernigov. He sent a similar number on exercises and the Russian Arctic just to make a point. Such misuse of the military is incredibly demoralizing to the troops. A soldier wants to feel he is being used effectively, and Russian troops cannot feel anything other than being jerked around. The same goes for the troops that he has actually deployed in the Donbas. His commitment to deception dictates that support for the separatists must be arm's-length. The supplies he gives them, and the financial support he gives to the civilians in those occupied areas, is intermittent. Russia cannot afford more, either financially, or to be seen giving more. He denies Russian soldiers when they are captured or killed. This means that Russian staying power in Ukraine must be limited.
Dr. Lo writes aptly. "It is difficult to identify a cohesive Russian strategy toward Ukraine. Instead there is an odd mélange of mystical vision, historical and geopolitical anxieties, feelings of strategic entitlement, gut instincts, and tactical dexterity. Putin's approach reflects the contradictory influences of the two worlds that shaped his foreign-policy more generally. On the one hand, the Kremlin conceives of Ukraine, and Russia's relationship with it, in terms of historical inevitabilities. On the other hand, developments in the real world act as a constant reminder of the artificiality of such hopes."
He divides the former Soviet Union countries into three tiers on the basis of Russia's level of interest in them. At the top of the first tier is Ukraine, in a class by itself. Also of great interest are Belarus, the other fully Slavic country in the FSU, and Kazakhstan, physically the largest and the closest to Russia. The second tier consists of smaller countries that are not quite so central to Russia's interest: Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The third category is the leftovers: Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Armenia.
Dr. Lo uses quotes from several places to express the idea that without Ukraine, Russia is just an ordinary country. He quotes Putin telling Bush in 2008 that Ukraine is "not really a country." Russia cannot seem to let it go. I will provide a bit of history that Dr. Lo does not. Kiev is the historic center of the Slavic peoples, who coalesced into Kevin Rus in the first millennium A.D. It held sway for a couple of centuries, but was riven by dynastic infighting. There was seldom an adequate plan of succession when a powerful leader died. In the 13th century the Mongols swept in with superior fighting tactics – mainly their horses – and conquered most of what is now both Russia and Ukraine. The Mongols were never as good at administration as they were at conquest, and when they receded in the 15th century Moscow to came out to be more powerful than Kiev. Each government seems to be involved in interminable wars, Ukraine the more so because its geography has it surrounded by enemies: Turkey, Romania, Hungary, the German states, Poland, Lithuania and Russia. In the 17th century Ukraine fought off the Turkic Tatars to their South only to be attacked from the west by the Poles. They ran into the embrace of Russia, which did not let go.
The Russians were not kind masters. Catherine the great brought in Russians and Germans to settle the steppes which had been freed from the Tatars. Stalin moved Ukrainians out by the thousands to populate Siberia, moved Russians in to fill the vacuum, and lead the Holodomor which killed 3 million people (by Dr. Lo's reckoning – it could have been twice as many). They forced the Russian language on the Ukrainian people.
The upshot is that Ukraine is the largest bilingual country in the world. More than half the population speaks both languages fluently. Putin would like to pretend that Ukrainian is no more than a dialect of Russian, but it is vastly more than that. This reviewer found it easy to learn Portuguese on the strength of a knowledge of Spanish. Learning Ukrainian on the strength of Russian turns out to be more difficult. There are significant differences in the root words of the vocabulary – Ukrainian is closer to Western European languages – and far from trivial differences in the sound structure: consonants and vowels.
Dr. Lo cites a statistic that Ukraine is 17% ethnically Russian. That kind of number that is very difficult to know, and would change significantly depending on who was asking the question and how it was phrased. A respondent would be stupid to call himself a Ukrainian in the Crimea of 2015, or a Russian in Lviv. Since most speak both languages and pretty much looks the same the answer will often be whatever is most convenient at the time. This reviewer's wife speaks native Russian – the language she used in school – whereas her parents speak native Ukrainian, the language they used in school.
The Russian exercise of power has always been heavy-handed. The czars were despots. [[ASIN:B00HO11CMS The Marquis de Custine]] captured their essence, Tocqueville wrote about them, Russian literature describes him in these terms, [[ASIN:0061138827 Archie Brown]] writes that Soviet history is a long reign of terror. Putin follows in this bloodthirsty, ham-fisted tradition.
During the Yushenko and Yanukovych years Putin would clamor for higher prices for natural gas, then turn the gas off in the middle of winter (2006, 2009) if he didn't get his way, freezing hapless souls in Western Europe – not a good idea. He would arbitrarily ban imports of foodstuffs from Ukraine such as candies, meats, wheat and other commodities. The pretexts were transparently contrived: veterinary inspections and the like. Archie Brown wrote of the Communists that they not only lied, but they lied in such a way that you knew they were lying. It was a demonstration of power to force people to swallow obvious lies. Putin seems to operate on the same principle. Today he is lying about the absence of Russian soldiers in Ukraine and guilt in downing MH17, among other things. This lack of diplomacy does not work in the 20th century. The victims can fight back, among other things by simply publicizing Putin's bad behavior. He is in bad odor throughout the world for his transgressions.
Dr. Lo often cites the extreme corruption in Russia. He says that the APEC (Asian-Pacific economic conference) in Vladivostok in 2012 cost $22 billion, 50 percent more than the London Olympics a month earlier. To put this into perspective, it is roughly 1 percent of Russian GDP of 2 trillion. The Sochi Olympics cost 2%, and the World Cup soccer championships will also be vastly expensive. All these projects are dogged by mismanagement and cost overruns. Instead of displaying Russian prowess, they showcase the worst aspects of a dictatorial economy. For an appreciation of how deeply ingrained these practices are in Russian culture, read [[ASIN:0801473527 How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business]].
Dr. Lo repeatedly says that the Russian orientation has always been toward Europe rather than Asia. Although it likes to call itself Eurasian, 80 percent of the population lives west of the Urals. The people are European. They simply do not understand Asians very well. There is a collective desire to distance themselves from the Mongols, who dominated them for two centuries. The historical orientation established by Peter the Great and Catherine the great was toward the west, from which they borrowed what they could of Enlightenment ideas and modern methods in manufacture, agriculture, science and literature. Although Russia participates in many Asia-Pacific groups, it appears not to take a leadership role.
Dr. Lo repeats often that the mindset of Russian diplomacy is that of a big power. It jealously guards its prerogatives as a nation sitting at the big table with the world level players: the United States, Japan, China, and the European Union. Russia displays little finesse in dealing with smaller countries, and shows little appreciation of the power these can wield in the modern information oriented world. This is especially true in Asia. Outside of China, Russia has relatively few important trade relationships. Russia simply has little to contribute in Asia.
Dr. Lo writes "… Russia is generally viewed in a negative light – as a country with a stagnant political system, non-modernizing economy, and complacent elite. Many Asians doubt its capacity and commitment to contribute meaningfully, except as an exporter of natural resources and weapons."
The backwardness of the Russian Far East is a drag on Russian aspirations to be accepted by the Asian countries. This area has historically been poorly managed by tsars, commissars and now Putin. The rest of Asia looks at it as a source of natural resources and as a market. It certainly does not give Asia any prestige. [[ASIN:0307389049 The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival]] gives a clear portrayal of life in contemporary Siberia.
Dr. Lo repeatedly says that Russia's Asia policy is very Sinocentric. Russia shares a 4000 km border with China and depends on China to at least be neutral in the scraps that Russia picks elsewhere in the world, notably Ukraine and Georgia. Russia lacks the finesse, the resource, and the shared interest that would draw it into greater partnership with others.
Dr. Lo writes "To alter this fate Moscow will need to recognize that tired strategic habits and an indigenous neo-conservatism offer Russia nothing. But such a message is not easily absorbed. Today the Kremlin's self-satisfaction appears stronger than ever, driven by the anticipation of a new multipolar order in which Russia stands as an equal with the United States and China. As long as this illusion persists, the likelihood of a productive approach toward Asia will be slim, and the “turn to the East” will remain a fantasy." To me that is the essence of his message, despite sounding a somewhat hopeful tone in the conclusion.
I add that the stove pipe, totally hierarchical decision-making structure that has always persisted in Russia is antithetical toward good diplomacy. Diplomats by their nature have to be empowered to engage in their opposite numbers and to work out creative solutions to mutual interests. They need to be heard and appreciated, and they need some authority. Moscow has never granted either.
(Remainder of review in comment).
September 30, 2015
This book reads very well but could use some insight from IR theory, to put his historical and cultural analysis into a stronger framework. Lo obviously knows a lot about Russia; I'm just not sure how well his conclusions will hold up over time. I vote for his strong authoritarian model prediction, esp. given the Syrian intervention underway today and Putin's performance at the UN this week. Anyone interested in Russia and interpreting events must read this book, whatever its flaws.
March 24, 2018
Bobo Lo has written an outstanding analytical work that is a sharp take on the drivers of Russian foreign policy. A necessary corrective to the prevailing view that President Putin's Russia has gone from success to success, Russia and the New World Disorder distinguishes between tactical moves and long term strategic trends that are not promising for a Russia that cannot readily adapt to a rapidly changing world. He successfully outlines Moscow's imperial pretensions and inability to acknowledge that the 21st century will be driven by more than great power politics and military might. The conclusion laying out four possibilities for the future was thought provoking.
October 20, 2021
Great book on Russian foreign policy in the contemporary world. Some of the more forward-looking chapters are a bit dated now, but that doesn't take away from the validity of his overall insights and conclusions.
November 18, 2017
systematic but not at all convincing.
May 21, 2023
Good:
a. Could have a quick view of Russia and its foreign policy
Bad:
a. the author is very ambitious to cover as much as he could, as a result, introduction turns vague
a. Could have a quick view of Russia and its foreign policy
Bad:
a. the author is very ambitious to cover as much as he could, as a result, introduction turns vague
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews