The Social Construction of Russia's Resurgence: Aspirations, Identity, and Security Interests

6. The Post-Soviet Creation of Russia’s Security Interests in Europe

SIX The Post-Soviet Creation of Russia’s Security Interests in Europe Europe after the end of the Cold War saw major transformations in the definitions of security interests. Ethnic conflict, humanitarian crises, extension of the liberal zone of peace, and transnational terrorism replaced territorial defense and power balancing as the primary security concerns for European security officials over the 1991–2004 period. Despite the changed security environment in Europe and internal agreement that Europe posed no threat to Russia, Russian political elites throughout the post–Cold War era did not share Europeans’ new definitions of security interests. Their predominant frame of European security in Russia invoked the nineteenth—rather than the twenty-first—century by reducing Europe to the key area in which the global hierarchy of international status was to be determined. The perception grew over the 1990s that, when it came to security concerns, Europeans and Russians were living in different historical epochs.1 During this period, Europeans and Americans were focused on post– Cold War security tasks, in the form of civil wars and ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, transforming NATO from an anti-Soviet alliance to take on humanitarian and counterterrorism roles, facilitating democratization of the postcommunist countries through enlargement of European security institutions, figuring out a common European foreign and defense policy, strengthening Russia’s democratic transformation, and preventing proliferation of nuclear materials. Russian political elites, in contrast, were seeking to restore a positive image of themselves as a vital European and therefore global world power, as Russia had been since Peter the Great. European security issues were not considered in their own right but rather in terms of their contribution 145 to Russia’s ranking relative to the United States in a global status hierarchy . Instead of adapting to the new environment in Europe and new definitions of security and calculating their interests on the basis of material threats and capabilities, Russian political elites defined Russia’s European security interests in terms of their historical aspirations to reclaim Russia’s global status as a great power. As a result, European security, for Russian political elites, was reduced to the effect NATO had on Russia’s standing as a great power. Russian security policy toward Europe (and globally) throughout the post-Soviet period was driven by this status competition. This competitive orientation was bounded within an overarching commitment to cooperation with the West, however, and Russian foreign policy regarding European security alternated between moves for closer and deeper cooperation and hostile rhetoric and demands for recognition of Russia’s equal right to shape Europe’s future. This chapter seeks to explain why Russian political elites defined Russia’s national interests regarding European security issues as part of a competition for social status with the United States and why Russian policy remained oriented toward “competition within cooperation” or “competitive engagement” throughout the post-Soviet period. It argues that historical aspirations drove Russian political elites to view European security in largely nineteenth-century terms as reflecting Russia’s standing in a global power concert and oriented them toward status competition with the United States. That this competition remained bounded by an overarching interest in cooperation was the result of two factors: the designation of the West, particularly Europe, as one of Russia’s ingroups in Western and statist national self-images; and the efficacy tests applied by Westernizers and statist developmentalists to calls for confrontation with the West. Alternative Explanations of Russian Interests in European Security A structural constructivist explanation of identity and interests assumes that identity develops through the process of “mirror-imaging.” In this view, Russia develops its sense of who it is and how it should behave based on how others behave toward it. The behavior of NATO members should generate Russia’s identity and interests regarding European secu146 THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF RUSSIA'S RESURGENCE rity.2 This explanation would expect successive rounds of NATO expansion , NATO’s war against Serbia, and its operations in the former Soviet republics and Afghanistan to produce a Russian security identity as the foe of “U.S.-led NATO” and to produce interests in confronting NATO. While NATO’s behavior did produce hostility among Russian officials and political elites, such hostility largely remained rhetorical and never turned into confrontation. Moreover, Russians developed a quite different identity than that of the enemy of NATO...