The Sources of Russia's Insecurity
2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 52; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/00396331003612471
ISSN1468-2699
Autores Tópico(s)European and Russian Geopolitical Military Strategies
ResumoAbstract Historically, ensuring Russia's survival and territorial integrity was the top priority for Russia's leaders. The challenge arose from Russia's geopolitical setting and political system. This task remains the top priority today, despite claims that Russia has returned as a great power. For the first time in modern history, Russia is surrounded by more dynamic states and regions, and these poles of power and attraction threaten to pull it apart over time. To survive, Russia must modernise. Success will require a concerted effort to deal with a range of pressing socio-economic and political issues. Most challenging will be reordering the traditional relationship between state and society to nurture society and mobilise it for this task. Notes Geoffrey Hosking, Russia: People and Empire, 1552–1917 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 41. Dmitriy Medvedev, 'Zaklyuchitel'noye slovo na soveshchanii po voprosam sotsial'noekonomicheskogo rasvitiya Kamchatskogo kraya' [Concluding Remarks at the Conference on Issues of the Socio-Economic Development of Kamchatskiy Kray], Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, 28 September 2008, http://news.kremlin.ru/transcripts/1518. Vladimir Putin, 'Vstupitel'noye slovo na soveshchanii "O perspektivakhtivakh razvitiya Dal'nego Vostoka i Zabaykal'ya"' [Introductory Remarks at the Conference 'On the Perspectives for the Development of the Far East and Transbaikal Region'], Blagoveshchensk, 21 July 2000, http://archive.kremlin.ru/appears/2000/07/21/0000_type-63374type63378_28796.shtml. Vasiliy Osipovich Klyuchevskiy, Sochineniya v devyati tomakh [Works in Nine Volumes], Vol. 1: Kurs russkoy istorii [Course on Russian History] (Moscow: Mysl', 1987), pp. 49–50. William C. Fuller, Jr, Strategy and Power in Russia 1600–1914 (New York: The Free Press, 1992), p. 105; Hosking, Russia, pp. 190–1. Fuller, Strategy and Power in Russia, pp. 94–8, 132–9. For Malia's most comprehensive articulation of this viewpoint, see Martin Malia, Russia under Western Eyes from the Bronze Horseman to the Lenin Mausoleum (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999). For a thorough description of the Russian patrimonial state, see Richard Pipes, Russia under the Old Regime (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1974). Ibid., p. 21. See Walter M. Pinter and Don Karl Rowney, 'Officialdom and Bureaucratization: Conclusion', in Walter McKenzie Pinter and Don Karl Rowney (eds), Russian Officialdom: The Bureaucratization of Russian Society from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), pp. 377–8. As Edward L. Keenan wrote: 'The idea of a strong tsar was essential both to the princely clans and to the non-princely bureaucrats as the warrant of their own power and of the legitimacy of their position—and as protection against one another … It mattered little, in most generations, who was at the center of this system, but it was crucially important that someone be, and that the common allegiance to him be at least nominally unconditional' (emphasis in original.) See Edward L. Keenan, 'Muscovite Political Folkways', Russian Review, vol. 45, no. 2, April 1986, pp. 141–2. What Richard Pipes wrote of the peasant of 1900 was true earlier: he 'owed loyalty only to his village and canton; at most he was conscious of some vague allegiance to his province. His sense of national identity was confined to respect for the Tsar and suspicion of foreigners.' See Richard Pipes, The Russian Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), pp. 91–2; see also Pipes, Old Regime, pp. 161–2; and Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy: Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia, and Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 166–79. See Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geopolitical Imperatives (New York: Basic Books, 1997), pp. 194–215. Gross national income figures at purchasing power parity (GNI PPP) derived from World Development Indicators available at http://www.worldbank.org. See 'China vs. Russia: Wealth Creation vs. Poverty Reduction', Hoover Daily Report, 25 April 2005, http://www.hoover.org/pubaffairs/dailyreport/archive/3582641.html#n1. Derived from Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Populations Prospects: The 2008 Revision, Population Database, http://esa.un.org/unpp. Gross national income figures at purchasing power parity (GNI PPP) derived from World Development Indicators available at http://www.worldbank.org. See Sebastien Peyrouse, The Economic Aspects of Chinese–CentralAsia Rapprochement, Central Asia – Caucasus Institute, Silk Road Studies Program, Silk Road Paper, September 2007, http://www.silkroadstudies.org/new/docs/Silkroadpapers/2007/0709China-Central_Asia.pdf. Putin, 'Vstupitel'noye slovo'. Anatoly G. Vishnevsky, Sergei N. Bobylev et al., National Human Development Report, Russian Federation, 2008: Russia Facing Demographic Challenges (Moscow: UNDP, 2009), pp. 14, 89–110. This report underscores the need for immigration to meet Russia's labour needs. Lev Gudkov, 'Struktura i kharakter natsional'noy identichnosti v Rossii' [The Structure and Character of National Identity in Russia], 5 April 2004, http://www.polit.ru/research/2004/04/05/national_identity.html. See Dmitry Medvedev, 'Rossiya, vpered!' [Go, Russia!], 10 September 2009, http://kremlin.ru/news/5413; Dmitry Medvedev, 'Poslaniye Federal'nomu Sobraniyu Rossiyskoy Federatsii' [Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russia Federation], 12 November 2009, http://kremlin.ru/transcripts/5979. Additional informationNotes on contributorsThomas Graham Thomas Graham was Senior Director for Russia on the US National Security Council staff 2004–07.
Referência(s)