Russia: A Revanchist State

Abstract

Had Vladimir Putin not ascended to the top of the Russian political system, Moscow might have been content to play the role of an emerging economic and political entity. This was the hope of the West when, post-Cold War, Russia was invited to join the Bretton Woods institutions—the IMF and the World Bank—and its application of membership in the WTO was given Western support. In addition, Moscow was invited to become a member of the exclusive club of rich nations. Its admission turned the G7 into the G8.

But once in power, Putin was not willing to reduce his country to the status of a small global power relative to the United States and Germany in the G8 cluster and China outside it. The Russian president was both nostalgic about the past and impatient about the future. During his second tenure he made attempts to resurrect the Soviet Union by using force at times to change the boundaries of Russia. In this endeavor the Crimean Peninsula was taken from Ukraine and reintegrated with Russia. At the same time, Moscow has been busy carving out some other bits of Ukraine where significant numbers of Russians are resident. Not only that, Moscow tried hard to develop what it hoped would be strong relations with the countries in Central Asia that were once part of the Soviet Union. This chapter attempts to answer the question: how should Russia under Putin be viewed?