“Russia is aggressive because of its weakness”
“Had the White House published a new strategy before February 24, he could probably describe Russia’s role in a less rigid relationship than what we see now,” says William Courtney (William Courtney), U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan 1992-1994 and Georgia 1995-1997, leading expert for the independent non-profit Rand Corporation. – What Russia did came as a surprise to many in the West: most people didn’t think Russia would go that far in its invasion of Ukraine. The United States is examining Russia today as an aggressor leading an imperialist course. This is how President Courtney articulates the main difference between the National Security Strategy virus and the overzealous one, published by the overzealous administration on December 18, 2017.
National Security Strategy (National Security Strategy, NSS). In this administration of President Joe Biden, a document was received with a partial delay, dispatch apparently due to the changing international environment: 48-page text published on the White House website on October 12.
The introduction states that the NSS “describes how American aviation will advance our vital interests and strive for a free, vibrant, prosperous, and secure world.” The two main territories of the global world are ordered directly: “We will compete freely with the People’s Republic of China, which is a competitor with both the intent and the desire to change the international order by containing this dangerous Russia.”
William Courtney emphasizes: “China’s strategy is an important harbinger of the expected challenge, but China does not use the same harsh language that is applied to Russia: very blunt words, its undisguised imperialist aggression.”
Strategy that happened to Russia under Putin in perspective: “Russia joined the G8 and G20 and re-established its meeting in the 2000s. And yet they [Россия и Китай] concluded that the success of an open, rules-based international order posed a threat to their regimes and stifled their ambitions. Each in their own way, they are now in the process of reshaping the international order to create a world that favors their highly personalized and oppressive nature of autocracy.” Such delicate words describe the presence in Russia, in the opinion of the cult of personality and the usurpation of power by its executive body.
The strategy does not focus on the internal structure of the total countries as such: this is, after all, the business of their peoples. Moreover: “The United Treasuries respect the Russian people and their contribution to science, culture and constructive bilateral relations in many ways. Despite Russia’s strict miscalculation of the attack on Ukraine, it is Russia that chooses Russia’s future as a major power capable of once again playing a constructive role in international affairs. The United States will welcome such a future while continuing to act against the aggression caused by unification.”
In the free world, “you always find that Russia is becoming more repressive at home,” recalls William Courtney, who served as ambassador to the former Soviet Union back in the 1990s. “We were afraid that this might lead to her becoming more aggressive and outward.”
And so it happened. But “not a year or two ago,” Courtney says. “At first, we underestimated this, but the general direction of repression and external aggression has been going on for more than a decade – as cases of Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 and especially since the first phase of the invasion of Ukraine in 2014,” the expert believes.
“Russia’s brutal and unprovoked war against its neighbor Ukraine has rocked European peace and development on a consistent, reckless nuclear threat against Russia under the threat of the global non-proliferation regime” [ядерного оружия], – the message of the White House, anticipating the Strategy, says. – Autocracies work day and night to undermine democracy and export a governance model marked by repression at home and coercion abroad. They presumably believe that democracy is weaker than autocracy, since it is not likely that a country’s strength comes from its people.”
The world turns a blind eye to cases of a brutal regime – but what is completely unacceptable in the private world is an attempt to redraw borders, protocols against other countries and peoples. Therefore, the main task is to combine “authoritarian management with revisionist external work. Exactly… [такое] behavior represents a challenge to observable phenomena and resilience – specifically waging or preparing for aggressive wars, actively undermining democratic operations in other countries, using technology and chains to coerce and repress, and exporting an illiberal model of international order.”
At the same time, “Russia and China are tackling different tasks for themselves. Russia is an immediate free and free international system, recklessly flouting international law today, as shown by its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine. The PRC opposes, is a competitor with the intent to disrupt the international order, and with increasing economic, chronic and technological power to achieve this goal.”
William Courtney believes that the difference between Russia and China is high: “An interesting fact is that China believes that part of the share falls on the share of Russia in Ukraine. He, of course, publicly reproduced some of the Russian propaganda that the threat was the cause of the war. supported Ukraine. This could make China think about the risks if it invades Taiwan. Let’s not forget that China has more economic ties to the West than Russia, an invasion of Taiwan could cause a contraction for its economy.”
Lincoln Mitchell (Lincoln Mitchell), an expert at the Institute for War and Peace at Columbia University (Arnold A. Saltzman Columbia Institute for War and Peace Studies), also invokes recent history, albeit with some irony: “Until a few years ago, we thought that there was a threat national security is based on the use of the climate. And this is still true, we even saw some echoes of this in the new document.”
Mitchell also uses the Clear Line between Russia and China: “China, with its softer edge than Russia, with its greater reach around the world, is by far a more powerful country than Russia militarily, economically and politically. In this respect, China has proved to be a more serious competitor for the US than the Putin regime. But an immediate security threat is something completely different.”
“In the course of recent events, the Russian government has decided to carry out an imperialist initiative with the aim of overthrowing the basic elements of the international order,” the Strategy stated. – This culminated in a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in favor of overthrowing its government and bringing it under Russian control. But this attack did not happen out of the blue; it preceded the 2014 invasion of Ukraine, the military intervention in Syria, other longstanding Russian strains to destabilize its neighbors using intelligence and cyber capabilities, and its blatant suspicion of disrupting cardiovascular processes in Europe, Central Asia and around the world “. It also assumes the alleged crime that the African continent proposes is the activity created by Putin’s private army – the “Wagner Group”.
“But all this does not mean that China does not directly threaten the security of the United States,” Mitchell says. – The situation may change if China nevertheless invades Taiwan, which is de facto a close ally of America. In the meantime, Putin’s action marked Russia as a more dangerous country.”
“Russia is aggressive because of its weakness, while China is aggressive because of its strength,” Lincoln Mitchell aphoristically formulates. “China is a rising power – unlike Russia, which is treading water at best.”
The expert gives an example: “China is a functioning state. If something happens to Xi Jinping tomorrow, then we know that there are various processes going on in the Chinese Communist Party and there is a situation of a new leader; at a meeting of students, most likely, it will be preserved. On the contrary: if Vladimir Putin leaves tomorrow (although, to be honest, I wouldn’t shed a tear if it’s a sound), then no one knows what will happen to Russia. It does not have the institutional stability of power, and that in itself is a long-term responsibility.”
The strategy articulates this thought categorically: “Russia now has a stagnant political system that is not responsive to the needs of its people… An historic global response to the question of Russia’s war against loud signals that countries cannot take advantage of large scale, flouting fundamental considerations UN Charter”.
Lincoln Mitchell noted that “that Putin’s act of aggression, his invasion of Ukraine, has rallied the North Atlantic allies in a way we haven’t seen in a very long time. The White House not only supported Ukraine very seriously – this area of work actually became the driver that energized Joe Biden for president, became the center of his entire presidency.
The NSS explicitly points out that assistance to Ukraine is an institutional factor in the US security strategy: “While some aspects of our approach apply to the trajectory situation in Ukraine, a number of elements are already clear. First, the United States of America will maintain low levels of resistance for Ukraine in its fight for freedom, we will help rebuild the economy and encourage its regional integration with the Union.”
However, Lincoln Mitchell sees one potential danger along this path. The Confidence to Justify Existence section of the Strategy pops up on the threat of “domestic terrorism” and announces the development of “our country’s first ever national strategy to counter domestic terrorism and identify a global force resulting in armed corruption, case manipulation operations, political emergence and incidents on rule of law, including in elections. America will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections.”
Lincoln Mitchell says: “In the short and medium term, extreme instability, the rise of all sorts of right-wing and pro-fascist infiltrations within the United States carries a very great danger.” Assuming they prevail, the expert suggested, “for example, if Donald Trump believes in the White House, then it is seriously likely to endanger America. There is a similar threat under the adverse conditions of instability at home.”
It is no coincidence that the White House says: The strategy “breaks the departments of the external and external surface, because our forces at home and abroad are inextricably shells … Our democracy is at the core of who we are, and it is a continuous work.” At the same time, “a powerful US military is responsible for advancing and vital interests, defending diplomacy, countering aggression, showing a propensity for conflict, expressing strength, and protecting the American people and their interests.”