Below
is a portion of an article Scott Ritter wrote for the publication Energy
Intelligence entitled “The Great Decoupling: How Western Sanctions Are Pushing
Moscow East”.
Putin
undoubtedly saw the promise of a Russian economy guided by the principles of
capitalism. But he faced the reality that, under Yeltsin, Russia had sold
itself to outside interests which, in concert with an increasingly corrupt
oligarch class, was throttling Russia’s economic potential. Putin also brought
to the Russian presidency a strongly held belief that Russia needed to restore
its position as a great power — not fully elevated to the status of the former
Soviet Union, but at least equal to other world powers as part of a
multilateral approach to global geopolitics.
All Except Russia
Putin’s
efforts put him at odds with the US and Western Europe, which had taken
advantage of the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European
satellites to create a new European security framework that sought to unify all of Europe under a
single economic, political and military umbrella — all of Europe, that is,
except Russia.
Russia’s role in this great
transformation was to remain militarily weak and politically compliant. Putin’s
efforts at restoring Russia as a great power threw a wrench into this plan, and
Russia found itself increasingly viewed as a threat by both the US and Europe. Putin’s suppression of the oligarchs, where he allowed them to retain
their wealth and assets in exchange for their retreat from politics, weakened
Western access to and control of Russian domestic affairs.
Moreover,
Russian pushback against the expansion of Nato into Eastern Europe, when
combined with the US-initiated termination of some core Cold War arms control
treaty relationships, transformed
Russia from a political nuisance into a geopolitical rival.
Russia’s
war with Georgia in 2008 and annexation of Crimea in 2014 opened the door to
US-led economic sanctions designed to punish Russia for its actions. These sanctions, when coupled
with similar US sanctioning of Iran, forced Russia to confront the reality that
the era of unconstrained economic association with the West was ending.
Pivoting East
Russia, together with China, began looking
for alternatives to the US dollar-dominated model of global economic interaction.
In doing so, they began to find common cause in crafting a geopolitical
alternative to the US-led “rules-based international order,” which had
dominated the global political and economic scaffolding constructed at the end
of World War II.
Any
Russian pivot to the East, however, was constrained by the reality that the
Russian economy remained inextricably intertwined with the West. Not only was
the Russian oligarchs’ wealth squirreled away in offshore shelters, but there
was an entire class of Russian citizens whose daily livelihood was woven into
the fabric of an economy that had absorbed Western businesses and practices. Any attempt at a divorce from
the West would transform what had been a largely pro-Western Russian middle
class into a politically active constituency that, if coupled to a hobbled but
still powerful oligarch class, could challenge Putin’s hold on power.
Strategic Error
But
Biden and his European allies decided to drop their “Keep your friends close
but your enemies closer” approach in favor of the opposite.
The
mistake was to believe that bringing enough pain to bear on the Russian people
would prompt a political backlash that could lead to Putin’s removal from
power. But for this pain to bring meaningful domestic political change, Russia
would need to retain some economic connectivity with the West. Otherwise, the
pain would be intense, but short-lived.
Left to his own devices, Putin would never
have been able to divorce Russia from the West, and thus insulate Russian
society — and, by extension, his ability to govern — from Western sanctions.
Here, the US and Europe are doing Putin a huge favor, with current sweeping
sanctions giving him the ability to separate Russia from its economic
association with the West without the politically fatal consequences of being
seen to do this on his own volition.
Thanks
to the US-led
sanctions, Putin will now be able to neuter the Russian oligarch class for
good. The sanctions have likewise politically neutralized that portion of the
Russian middle class that was economically married to Western businesses,
goods, services — and mystique.
Putin has been granted his divorce
without so far paying any meaningful political price. While the US and Europe may claim that
Putin brought this on by invading Ukraine, to the Russian people, US and
European actions led to the divorce. The demonization of everything
Russia-related by many in the West only helps the Russian government deflect
blame from itself, and onto the West. The West made it personal.
“I assure you,” Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov told the press on Mar. 10, “we will overcome adversity, and we
will do everything to no longer depend on the West in any strategic sectors of
our life that are of decisive importance for our people.” Russia, Lavrov said,
“will no longer depend on any Western companies.”
As Lavrov delivered his remarks, Deputy
Chairman of the Security Council of Russia Dmitri Medvedev announced that the
government was considering the possibility of nationalizing or bankrupting the
property of foreign companies leaving Russia. The decoupling has begun.
Scott
Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer whose service over a
20-plus-year career included tours of duty in the former Soviet Union
implementing arms control agreements, serving on the staff of US Gen. Norman
Schwarzkopf during the Gulf War and later as a chief weapons inspector with the
UN in Iraq from 1991-98. The views expressed in this article are those of the
author.
Recent Scott Ritter
tweets
Since 2015 there has been a
direct pipeline from the NATO facility in Yavoriv, where the US Army oversaw
the training of 5 battalions of Ukrainian armed forces per year to NATO
standards, to the fighting in Donbas. Eight years, 40 battalions. To pretend we
(the U.S. and NATO) are innocent is false.
Twitter · 2 days ago
Remember when @TulsiGabbard
was called a traitor for pointing out that the Al-Qaeda jihadists in Syria were
likely responsible for chemical weapons usage in Syria that had been wrongly
attributed to the Syrian government using manufactured evidence? Turns out she
was right.
Twitter · 1 day ago
What kind of friend trains
you to fight the neighborhood tough guy, promises he will be in your corner for
the whole fight, then walks away when the bell for round one sounds? Ukraine is
the latest reminder that America sucks as a friend and Ally. Ask Georgia. Ask
Afghanistan.
Twitter · 2 days ago
1/3 Some harsh realities are
about to come home to roost in Ukraine. War is all about logistics; you can’t
fight if you don’t have food, water, fuel, and ammunition. People say Ukraine
enjoys the advantage of interior lines of communication. This is true, to a
point.
Twitter · 2 days ago
Let me be clear: if my
country formally declares a state of war to exist with Russia, then so be
it—I’ll act accordingly. But until that time, I will advocate for sound policy
that doesn’t have us defending undemocratic neo-Nazi facilitators and
supporters.
Twitter · 1 day ago
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