Biden: Russia is Shrinking and Pragmatic

This is nothing but political bluster to shore up some political careers and positioning in Washington and Brussels. We have constantly seen this when Georgia was invaded last year, and when the gas to Ukraine was cut-off several times.

Reality is that when Russia takes real action in its own backyard, nobody around has the cojones to take real action to counter Russia. Europe has already seen how disastrous a real confrontation with Russia can become for them in the past few centuries, even at times when Russia was viewed as infinitely weaker and backwards.

Talvez, João, talvez. But then again political will ends up coming from somewhere. I'm not sure we can write off Biden's remarks as meaningless so quickly. Maybe, but I'm just not that sure yet.

Political power may have come from the barrel of a gun in the past; today, in Russia's context, it comes from the gas in the pipelines. It has become a lot more efficient and cost-effective to exercise. You hint at exercising that power, you potentially kill off the political will to resist completely (as shown last August and this January). Nobody wants to piss off the country holding over 25% of the world's gas reserves when winter is coming up. It's just not good ''business practice'', literally. America may not be directly dependent on Russian oil/gas, but it will feel the impact when Europe (whose support it needs to do anything with it comes to Russia) ends up bending to Russia. Nabucco will only make the game a lot more interesting and exciting for political armchair generals to watch; Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan will have the pleasure to play with Europe, Russia and Iran as they will have multiple reserve routes to send their gas; but in the case of Nabucco, they will be aware of the ''red-lines'' not to cross when playing the game as that particular pipeline will be crossing Georgia.

Sure, Russia is weak, has been for a significant portion of its history; however if Biden states that Russia will bend due to weakness, I'm afraid to say that he is either playing the classical game of political bluster to cover his flank domestically (nothing wrong with that, he's a politician who needs to make a living after all), or he is completely ignorant of Russian history and Russia itself. Take 1945, when the Soviet Union was much weaker than Russia today, whose economy and demographics had been horrendously mutilated by the war and Stalin's purges, whose political system was arguably a lot more unstable than today's Russia and whose strategic and military position vis-a-vis the West was completely inferior at a time when the US enjoyed a monopoly on nuclear technology and long-range bombing. The attempt to ''bend'' Russia (I believe the semantic expression back there was ''to contain'') led to decades of Cold War, which ended not because of the success of the containment strategy, but because of the success the Soviet system achieved in fortifying itself to the point where nothing could threaten it anymore (which ironically led to the disintegration of the system as the system was only legitimized by the existence of an external threat).

Political bluster or not, not only does the west not have the cojones to go down this path again, Biden's words are music to силовики who need an external threat to legitimize their system.

I love how Russian politicians don't know how to react to these mixed signals (Obama's "reset" and Biden's harsh comments). This is exactly the kind of thing I've come to expect from Russian politicians (Medvedev on rule of law and Putin slamming Mechel). Maybe the Americans just want to play the same game to keep the Russians on their toes.

Medvedev and Putin know perfectly well how to act. They know perfectly well that the "reset" is a sham, and that the USG remains every bit as hostile to Russia and her interests as before. What the GoR will do is continue both to assist NATO in Afghanistan and to increase their financial self-reliance. That way the US will need Russia more.

These are not mixed signals Robert, Obama is trying launching ''the reset'' and Biden is seeking to protect the administration's domestic flank against potential criticism from the GOP that Obama is bowing to a Russian sphere of influence in exchange for a reset.

Essentially, Obama is covering his rear end; if the reset actually works and if Russia's neighbours end up become more dependent politically on Moscow as a result of American inaction when it comes to real moves in trying to counter Russia, Obama can argue that he ''took a shot'', at least rhetorically to resist Russia's sphere of influence. This will most likely be the case as Europe has no appetite for real action against Russia and the US has a lot more to lose than a weak Russia which has already lost a lot in the past 2 decades.

I basically think you're right in your analysis, João -- but there's still some will left in America. Conservatives of all kinds are usually tough on Russia and her expansionist tendencies; they will tend to want to play the game, not just back off. (True, they are losing popularity in America right now.)

I'm not sure you can say America depends on Europe when it wants to do something about Russia. Yes, there's NATO of course; but I think America can very well follow its own path if need be. If America decides to support Georgia against Russian intimidation, for instance, it could very well do that without the support of European partners. (Of course, given the crisis in America, it's not clear that America will want to do that. Only if she also wants to play the game of finding an external distraction.)

Indeed, the fact that Russia is weak doesn't mean it's ready to fall. You are quite right in pointing out that Russia has been weak in many moments in its history without falling apart. Curiously, the moments when it did fall apart didn't look dangerous to the outside world -- Mr Gorbachev's perestoika and its aftermath came as a big surprise. One wonders if the lesson from history isn't that Russia doesn't collapse when it looks as if it should, but it does when it looks as if it shouldn't.

Asehpe, the problem is that Russia, as far as the centres of political, economic and military gravity are concerned, hasn't really been easily accessible geographically without Europe. Any meaningful American action to counter Russia would most definitely require using Europe (territories, infrastructure, bases, etc...), which would inevitably require the consent of Europe (something which a lot of European countries are not really excited about when it comes to aggravating Moscow, as we have seen recently).

Take Georgia for example; any action by America to meaningfully support that country would require full Turkish support; under the 1936 Montreux Convention, Turkey has restrictions on the passage of non-Turkish military vessels through the Dardanelles, Marmara and Bosporus and you can certainly expect Russia to apply pressure on Turkey (which which has very important ties, e.g. 60% of its gas comes from Russia) to enforce this international treaty to the fullest extent possible. This isn't like the 1996 Taiwan straits crisis where the US can easily deploy an aircraft carrier battle group to send China a strong message; Montreux outlaws aircraft carriers from crossing the Turkish straights, although the Russians send the Kuznetsov back and forth all the time cause the Russian carrier is classified as a heavy cruiser, which is allowed under the convention. Don't think the Turks will bend to the US at any price (they didn't over a transit request to invade Iraq from the north back in 2003). It would be unrealistic to expect American airlifts into Georgia during a full blown conflict as Georgian airfields would be unusable as they would be legitimate military targets.

I am of the opinion that Russia's inherent weakness allows its authoritarian system to thrive. Regional security has always been a Russian obsession, and this is not a 19th or 20th century phenomenon, it goes back to the times of 14th century Muscovy, arguably the first state in the world to set-up borders to control the inflow of foreign influence and ensure security at a time when when the Grand Duchy faced constant external threats from all directions.

By the time the Soviet Union either reached or surpassed the strategic and conventional military capabilities of the west (late 1970s and early 1980s), and when it's population was probably enjoying the highest standard of living it had ever enjoyed in its history, the state was finding it increasingly difficult to justify it's authoritarian nature; nothing could threaten the USSR, so why then such a police state with a massive security apparatus? The result was perestroika and the dismantlement of an imperial apparatus that was, back then in the eyes of many Russians, unnecessary.

I think that closing the doors to NATO expansion, dismantling the Missile Defense Shield and toning down these special partnerships with ex-Soviet countries would be a lot more effective in curbing Russian authoritarianism and getting Russia to cooperate. The Putin-Medvedev duo would find it very difficult to justify the legitimacy of the authoritarian political apparatus they are running in the absence of an external threat. A weak Russia with no external threat would also not move to regain control of it's neighbours; doing so would be an economically expensive undertaking and Russia has learned over the past century how subsidizing and directly running 14 republics will drain its finances and be economically, politically and strategically unprofitable.

I see your point now. Still, considering that most of the former Eastern Europe is clearly pro-American, I think the US could probably count on a lot of support. I don't think American hands are so tied as you claim--even Turkey might take the American side if it thought Russian oil and gaz intimidation was against its interests in the long run, but in any case Eastern Europe, from Estonia to Romania (and even perhaps Bulgaria, though this one is a little more iffy) certainly would. Wouldn't it be possible to base a pro-Georgian action on other Black Sea allies like Romania?

You make an interesting proposition -- if Russia is 'satisfied' by having no threats to point to (i.e. no NATO expansion, toned-down Eastern Partnerships, etc.), it might have no external pretext ('threat') to justify its authoritarianism. Again, I see your point, and you do have some interesting arguments. Yet I tend to disagree, because (a) the memory of the old 'threats' could be exploited still ('the US/Europe say they now don't want to threaten us and act the part, but how do you know for sure? they've done this before', etc. etc. etc.), and (b) an external pretext ('threat') is always easy to come up with, even if limited to the old Post-Sovietic space (say, 'historical revisionism in the Baltic States and the Ukraine', etc. -- let's say they add this is being 'secretly supported by hostile elements in Europe and in the US'). In other words, given the level of animosity the ex-Eastern European countries have towards Russia, I'm sure the Russian government could go on fuelling anti-foreign feelings based on foreign 'threats' for quite a while.

Judging by the Cold War, the people would only stop supporting their government view if the West became again a place Russians envied -- and if they woke up to the fact that their government is a liability (it's lying to them, it's making life harder for them than it would otherwise be, etc.). Given the current they-are-threatening-us climate (so that Russians don't believe anything they read from non-Russian sources), this looks very unlikely. And I don't see this changing even if the West suddenly became as friendly as possible.

Again, maybe a strong economic crisis could do the trick (I think the economy was more a problem to the old URSS than the mere absence of external threats -- after all, Reagan had just promised to go ahead with his "Star Wars" plan; that certainly could be seen in Russia as a big external threat -- plus the personality of the people in charge; if they had had Mr Putin instead of Mr Gorbachëv, this wouldn't have happened).

Sure, much of Eastern Europe is pro-American, but would it be in their national interest to aggravate their biggest energy supplier over a far away conflict in Georgia? Modern nations-states ultimately take decisions that suit their only own national interests (or elite political interests) in the end of the day, even the most ardent ideologues will succumb to that.

Russia can still pull a lot of strings within the EU via it's divide and rule strategy of splitting old and new Europe; it can pursue this strategy in even more creative ways if it chooses to do so.

I doubt Turkey would take the American side ardently over it's dependence on Russian oil & gas; the very fact that Turkey is so dependent on Russian oil & gas will force it to sweeten up to Russia, in hopes that pipelines in Georgia don't get harmed.

Sure, you could try basing a pro-Georgian action in Romania and Bulgaria (both dependent on Russian gas by the way, with Bulgaria being 100% dependent), question is, how will the military resources get there? You would still need the Turkish straits if you want some meaningful with teeth.

True that Russia won't open up overnight if it all of a sudden finds itself without external threats. Perestroika and the opening up of the USSR didn't happen overnight. The offer of closing NATO expansion and disengaging the former east bloc militarily and politically would have to be very strong and decisive, with real action. It could amount to ''capitulating'' to Russia's resurgence in the eyes of Washington politicians, but just imagine how the Kremlin would see it: a poisonous offer which would be to good for them to reject.