Who says Russia has no soft power?
Well, Robert Amsterdam, for one. He has argued that the Russian invasion of Georgia illustrated its woeful loss of any sort of diplomatic legitimacy.
Outside of polite society, it has been a point beaten to death by such brownshirted bloggers as la Russophobe: “Russia's need to rely on physical force obviously shows that even in regard to a tiny country like Georgia (population less than half the city of Moscow), Russia lacks any other way to deal with a crisis”.
Unfortunately, these sentiments have got the upper hand since the Georgian war, but it was not always so. For example, in a 2006 report for the Brookings Institution, Fiona Hill wrote that
It is by no means assured that Russia's increasing soft power will be used to positive effect. But the prospect is clearly there‚ and should be encouraging Russia's current leadership to chart a new regional policy for itself in Eurasia.
Such optimism seemed quaint during the Georgian War, but as the smoke clears, it now seems that Russian soft power might have been strengthened, not weakened, by the war.
According to the BBC, today's signing of an agreement to resolve the status of another disputed region - Nagorno-Karabakh - by Armenia and Azerbaijan in Moscow, may have been spurned on by Moscow's ‘hard power’ actions in August:
“Correspondents say Russia's brief war with Georgia in August has given impetus to international efforts to resolve disputes in the Caucasus, a region where Moscow is seeking greater influence”
3 Comments So Far»
interesting blog
http://low-intensity-conflict-review.blogspot.com/
Soft power really isn't the same thing as diplomatic legitimacy… For example, during the two Bush administrations, I’d argue that U.S. soft power has been nearly completely wiped out, yet still Washington's record of working within international institutions still maintains a certain (if imperfect) level of diplomatic legitimacy.
Russia's lack of soft power goes beyond their inability to get any other country outside of Nicaragua to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia (I mean really, how hard is it to get Lukashenko?). Soft power is often cultural and ideological, which leads countries to embrace not only the ideals, business arrangements, and governing models of one country, but also to watch a lot of their movies, listen to their pop music, and wear their brands of clothing.
Further I’d say that the settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh is incomparable to the war in Georgia. Armenia is a client state of Moscow, and Baku is currently hedging its bets with the Kremlin until the new U.S. president is inaugurated.
I think it's important to make note of Russia's geography when you talk about its ability to project power (soft or hard, diplomatic or military etc) beyond its boarders. The primary characteristic of Russia's geography is its indefensibility. Unlike most countries Russia's heart (which I place in and around Moscow and is roughly equivalent to the geographic boundaries of the Muscovy Empire starting in about 1460) is completely open to attack.
This may not seem of great importance in the modern age with our plains, trains and cars but underestimating geography has lead to many a catastrophic event (and several in Russia). Geography still helps shape both the grand strategy and ideology of a country. Russia is in a situation in which because of its lack of defensible boarders it is constantly in need of expanding to defensible boarders. This creates two problems
1) Holding together a nation state of very different populations, and different civilizations (In the sense of the word used by Samuel Huntington in the "Clash of Civilizations")
2)Maintaining internal security
These are at times contradictory objectives. Chechnya is the perfect example; it is an important buffer state for Russia because it sits roughly in the middle of the Caucasus's. For all intensive purposes Chechnya, North Ossetia and Ingushetia are the four center squares of the chess board, and as always it is of great importance to control the center of the board. Maintaining the state requires maintaining Chechnya, but maintaining Chechnya requires maintaining the internal security of the region, this in turn often requires the use of military force which does not help in maintaining the state as whole. Essentially what we have is a situation in which the government of Russia must always and necessarily lean heavily on "hard power" because of the geographic situation the state finds itself in. Given that this is the situation Russia finds itself in it will necessarily always be more of a “hard” power state then “soft” power state
That being said to say that Russia has no soft power is absurd, depending of course on your definition of soft power. I for one describe it as any flexing of state power that is not militaristic in nature. If that is the case then Russia has a great deal of soft power either through its control of certain energy markets or through its ability to spend money (Russia does have the 3rd largest foreign currency reserves in the world after all) or, and most importantly perhaps, through it proxies and intelligence network. This last one may or may not fall into the category of soft power but it is certainly not military power in the traditional sense of the word.
The perfect example of this type of power is Russian language television in the Ukraine. The Ukraine under the rule of President Yuschenko has been on the path to becoming part of a Euro-Atlantic sphere of influence for some time. Those plans may have been completely derailed by the Georgian War and the shift of Prime Minster Yulia Timoshenko into a more Russian sphere of influence, but only time and elections some time this year will tell. Turning back to the Russian Language Channels though, Russian-language television channels have a very large viewership in Ukraine (roughly 30% of Ukrainians speak Russian) and are continually criticizing the pro-Western Yushchenko administration inside the country. For example, during the Russian-Georgian war in August, the Russian channels blasted Yushchenko regularly, emphasizing the fact that Ukraine was supplying arms to Georgia. This is an obvious example of power projection via soft methods in a critical Russian buffer state. The fact that Yushchenko had to shut down a few of these channels this week (for political reasons) only highlights the Russian ability to affect the politics of the region with out using the military.
One last comment, as James (the Commenter before me) stated "soft power is often cultural and ideological" from that prospective Russia certainly lacks soft power, Russian culture is sort of an enigma, as far as I can tell (and this is purely antidotal) it's a melting pot of many different people, places and ideas with out any single unifying themes. I would argue further that this is again a result of Russia's geography. Muscovy in and around 1460 is Russia but now Russia also includes the Caucuses one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse regions in the world, it includes the vastness of Siberia and its local Asian peoples; it includes St. Petersburg and its very European like feel. Unlike the US, which is also a melting pot of culture, all these groups did not choose (necessarily) to be part of Russia, as such they did not all choose to partake in a common Russian ideology or culture.
The process of Russification was never something the pre Soviet Union Russia really pursued, as such the states that became part of Russia during that time never really integrated themselves into the culture. That being said the Soviet Union period created a common ideology that many of these states could partake in. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union though most of these states have resorted back to some form of nationalism, this nationalism often harkens back to some immemorial past that is Pre-Russian. This process in no way leads to the creation of a common shared Russian culture. If culture is indeed a central component to soft power (and I believe it is impart) then Russia's soft power is decidedly one sided and is little more then power politics.
On the Author: I am 23 year old Philosophy Major who is currently working for a Venture Cap Firm in Boston. I hope in the next year or two to go back to graduate school and pursue a higher degree in political science/international relations. My central interests are in Russia and Central Asia, I am particularly interested in the importance of geography and the clash of civilizations that has been occurring in and around the confluence of Asia and Europe since what seems like the beginning of time. I have started a blog to study these issues, if you are interested please visit http://www.evocatuscap.com in the up coming days for my first post on geopolitical methodology, nationalism, civilization and ideology in and around Russia and Central Asia.
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