By Mamuka Tsereteli 
CEPA
February 9, 2024
 

A US strategy for the Black Sea is long overdue. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the involvement of the US, Europe, Iran, and North Korea, have created new geopolitical realities around the area.

While a broad range of political, maritime, economic, and energy security issues have increased the need for clarity in the US approach, one particular recent development is urgent and needs answers.

Russia’s Black Sea fleet has taken a beating from Ukraine. In all, 15 warships have been sunk and 12 damaged in the past two years, most recently the missile corvette Ivanovets on January 31.

That has forced Russia to look for harbors further east, such as Novorossiysk and Tuapse. But there is no safety from Ukrainian aerial and maritime drones there either, as indicated by a January 28 strike on the latter port’s oil refinery.

Recognizing the risk, Russia plans to reactivate a small Soviet-era military facility in Ochamchire in Abkhazia, a Georgian region illegally occupied by Russia. Currently, Ochamchire is a base for Russian FSB patrol boats and is not capable of harboring large naval vessels.

The decision has significant implications for Georgia and its Black Sea-Caspian neighbors, threatening the viability of important trade routes.

Here, some context is necessary. Georgia’s Black Sea ports are in close proximity to Ochamchire and are already serving as connecting links between Europe and wider areas of Central Asia, which includes a range of countries stretching from the South Caucasus to China’s western Xinjiang region.

Ochamchire is also fairly close to the potential point of entry for the planned subsea power cable connecting South Caucasus sources of green energy to the European Union (EU) countries of Romania and Hungary.

This strategic role of the Eastern Black Sea is frequently missing from EU and US policy documents.

Non-EU littoral states are not included in the Three Seas Initiative (3SI), for example. At the same time, the Black Sea ports of Georgia and the so-called “Middle Corridor,” linking the South Caucasus to Central Asia, provide Europe with access to vast resources of energy, metals, coal, cotton, and other goods, as well as to growing markets in an emerging region.

This latter role is particularly important; for Central and Eastern European states, saddled with a decades-long dependency on Russian resources and Russia-linked infrastructure, the South Caucasus and Central Asia can serve as a major potential alternative. This importance may only grow with the post-war development and reconstruction of Ukraine that will follow the current war.

The Middle Corridor, running between Kazakhstan and Georgian Black Sea ports and the Mediterranean ports of Turkey, allows Central Asian states to bypass the geopolitically unstable Russian route.

Some of the claims for this route are overblown. It’s unlikely it will become a major corridor connecting China and Europe. There are significant geographic, political, economic, and governance issues associated with this, meaning it will be unable to match maritime, or other land-based transportation options between China and the EU.

At the same time, the Middle Corridor is extremely important for the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

According to multiple studies, (see World Bank study, EBRD) the transshipment potential of the Middle Corridor between Europe and Asia via the Caspian Sea will continue to grow and play an increasingly important role between the growing economies of Central Asia/South Caucasus and EU and Mediterranean markets. This will require a combination of investment and efficiency measures and more vigorous intra-regional coordination.

The only suitable outlet for this route is Georgia; the other countries are landlocked and need to transit neighboring states to reach open seas and markets.

But the absence of firm security guarantees from NATO or other military allies also makes Georgia and its Black Sea ports vulnerable.

Russia’s willingness to use military force and gray zone attacks in the Black Sea increases political risk. One way to mitigate this is to engage as many countries as possible in trade and transit via Georgia. Once Georgian ports are important to others, such as Turkey, China, India, and the Gulf States, the pressure for peace can balance potential threats.

Georgia also needs to develop naval defense capabilities with drones and air defense systems and rebuild civil defense and military reserve systems to create at least a basic level of deterrent to Russian aggression.

The US Black Sea Strategy should incorporate support for the free flow of goods and mineral resources between Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

But most importantly, it should include a pathway to the development of the Black Sea security system for all littoral states, including Georgia, regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine. This is a vital American strategic interest, with implications beyond the Black Sea region.
 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Mamuka Tsereteli, Ph.D. is a Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council/Central Asia-Caucasus Institute

Thursday, 18 January 2024 18:17

Experts' Scenarios on Russia's Future

By Dr. S. Frederick Starr, ed.

January 18, 2024

Experts' Scenarios on Russia's Future

 
Screenshot 2024-01-18 at 1.16.39 PMWhat does Russia’s future hold? Of course, we don’t know. For a century 
determinists of various persuasions claimed to be able to predict future developments. They believed that a very few key economic or social indicators determined humankind’s future evolution. Nowadays all but the most diehard determinists accept that a broad range of factors contribute to the direction of change. We acknowledge that along with economic and social change, factors as diverse as the values and personalities of leaders, the dynamics of groups and bureaucracies, changing sources of energy, group and national psychology, and even changes in climate can all shape the future. 

These and many other factors could affect the outcome of Russia’s current war on the Ukraine and developments within the Russian Republic immediately thereafter.

Acknowledging that the future is indeed unknowable, it is nonetheless of great value to find out how a range of leading analysts perceive it. To which factors do they assign particular weight, and which do they downplay or ignore? Are there issues on which there exists a degree of 

consensus? And if there is consensus in any area, does it acknowledge the possible importance of what Donald Rumsfeld called the “unknown unknowns”?

To address these questions we asked many leading analysts and
commentators to set down their views on Russia’s future over the coming
decade. We made a point of asking for their views on what will happen,
and not what they believe should happen. This paper presents the
thoughts of 25 respondents from 16 countries. Of course, the list could
Experts’ Scenarios on Russia’s Futures have been extended indefinitely to assure that all of the main perspectives would be represented. But ars longa, vita brevis. We are deeply grateful to
those who found time to contribute to this compendium and acknowledge

the good intentions of the many others who were not able to do so.

Some readers may find in these pages convincing answers to their
questions about Russia’s immediate future. Others may reject them all,
while yet others—and these are our target audience—may be so inspired
or infuriated by what they find in this collection as to lead them to pen
their own prognostications

 

 

Click here to read the full article (PDF)

 S. Frederick Starr, Ph.D., is the founding chairman of the Central Asia- Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center, and a Distinguished Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council.

 

 

Thursday, 04 January 2024 17:01

Some Lessons for Putin from Ancient Rome

By S. Frederick Starr 
American Purpose
January 4, 2024
 
Vladimir Putin, having sidelined or destroyed all his domestic opponents, real or imagined, now surrounds himself with Romano-Byzantine pomp and grandeur. The theatrical civic festivals, processions of venerable prelates, cult of statues, embarrassing shows of piety, endless laying of wreaths, and choreographed entrances down halls lined with soldiers standing at attention—all trace directly back to czarism, to Byzantine Constantinople, and ultimately to imperial Rome. Indeed, Putin considers himself as Russia’s new “czar,” the Russified form of the Latin “Caesar.”
 
But besides all the parallel heroics, Roman history offers profound lessons for today’s world. All of America’s Founders saw the Roman Republic as the best model for their own constitution. Napoleon, Mussolini, and Hitler, by contrast, found in imperial Rome a stunning model for their own grandeur. True, some of Rome’s ancient chroniclers, including the celebrated Livy, so admired specific politicians that they saw only their good sides and ignored the problems and failures. Yet there were others, notably the pessimistic Sallust, who not only wrote bluntly of history’s painful issues but delved deep into their causes and consequences.
 
Is Putin likely to delve into the history of Rome for insights on his own situation? Unfortunately for Russia, Putin is not a reader, preferring instead to engage in exhibitionist athletic activities, preside at solemn ceremonies, or offer avuncular obiter dicta. However, if he would study the Roman past, he might come to realize that that model presents more than a few chilling prospects that he will ignore at his peril.
 
To take but one example, a glance at Roman history would remind Putin that self-declared victories may not be as victorious as he and Kremlin publicists want to think. Back in the 3rd century B.C., when Rome was still a small state in central Italy, it was attacked by a certain King Pyrrhus, a rival ruler from Epirus, a region along today’s border between Greece and Albania. In his first battles Pyrrhus routed the Roman legions, and celebrated accordingly. But matters did not end there.
 
Like Pyrrhus, Putin’s army scored some early victories in its war on Ukraine. As recently as December 1, Putin’s Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu was still claiming, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, that Russian forces “were advancing on all fronts.” Pyrrhus made similar false claims, only to discover that his own soldiers were no match for the determined Romans. As the Romans drove Pyrrhus’ army from the field, he groused, “If we win one more such victory against the Romans we will be utterly ruined,” which is exactly what happened. Pyrrhus’ statement gave Romans the term “Pyrrhic victory,” which we still use today. Putin should apply it to his “victories” at Bakhmut and Avdiivka.
 
Another crisis in Rome’s early formation as a nation occurred when a peasant uprising threatened Rome itself and, according to the historian Livy, caused panic in the Roman capital. In desperation, the elders turned to Lucius Cincinnatus, who was neither a military man nor a professional politician, but who had earned respect as an effective leader. It took Cincinnatus only fifteen days to turn the tide, after which he returned to his farm. George Washington rightly admired Cincinnatus and consciously emulated him, returning after the Battle of Yorktown to Mount Vernon. By contrast, Putin’s “special military operation,” planned as a three-day romp, is now approaching the end of its second year. Putin, no Cincinnatus, doomed himself to being a lifer.
 
Roman history is a millennium-long showcase of motivation or its absence. In this context, Putin might gain further insights by examining Rome’s centuries-long battle against the diverse tribes pressing the empire from the north. For centuries Rome’s legionnaires were well trained, disciplined, and committed. The list of their early victories is long. Both Julius Caesar and the philosopher-emperor-general Marcus Aurelius succeeded because they motivated and inspired their troops. But over time the Roman army was increasingly comprised of hirelings, déclassé men who fought not to save the empire but for money or a small piece of the bounty. Inflation and rising costs outpaced pay increases. Punishment was severe, in some cases including even crucifixion. In the end, Rome’s army eroded from within.
 
This is what is happening to the Russian army today. Putin attacked Ukraine in February 2022 with what was then an army of several hundred thousand trained professional soldiers. But after the Ukrainians killed more than 320,000 Russian troops, their replacements were unwilling and surly conscripts and even criminals dragooned from Russia’s jails. Putin quite understandably fears such soldiers. Putin’s army, like that of the late Roman Empire, is collapsing from within.
 
By contrast, Ukraine’s army at the time of the invasion was small and comprised mainly Soviet-trained holdovers. Both officers and troops of the line had to be quickly recruited from civilian professions and trained. Yet they quickly proved themselves to be disciplined and resourceful patriots, not tired time-servers. True, Ukraine is now conscripting troops, but these newcomers share their predecessors’ commitment to the nation and to their future lives in a free country.
 
Sheer spite and a passion for avenging past failures figured prominently in Putin’s decisions to invade both Georgia and Ukraine. Roman history suggests that this isn’t smart. Back in 220 B.C., Rome defeated its great enemy, the North African state of Carthage. Anticipating Putin, the Carthaginian general Hannibal sought revenge. Acting out of spite, he assembled 700,000 foot soldiers, 78,000 mounted calvary, and a force of war elephants, and crossed the Alps. Though he was a brilliant general, Hannibal’s war of spite turned into a disaster.
 
Why did Hannibal lose? Partly because of his sheer hubris and the spite that fed it, and also because the Romans avoided frontal battles and simply ground him down. They were prudently led by a general named Fabius Maximus, whom later Romans fondly remembered as “the Delayer.” Today it is the Ukrainians who are the Delayers. By grinding down Putin’s army and destroying its logistics they have positioned themselves for victory.
 
The Roman Republic fell not because of any mass uprising but because of the machinations of Julius Caesar. A victorious general, Caesar looked the hero as he was installed as imperator. As was customary at such ceremonies, an official retainer placed behind the inductee solemnly repeated over and over the admonition to “Look behind you!” Caesar failed to do so and underestimated the opposition of a handful of officials and generals who feared the rise of a dictator perpetuus. Even if Putin chooses not to read Cicero, Plutarch, or Cassius Dio, he could productively spend an evening watching a Moscow production of Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar.
 
Turning to a very different issue, Putin seems blithely to assume that whenever Russia defeats a neighboring country it can easily win the hearts and minds of the conquered, whether by persuasion or force. This is what many Roman generals and governors thought as well, but they were wrong—fatally so. Speaking of the impact of corrupt officials sent by Rome to the provinces, the great orator-politician Cicero declared to the Roman Senate, “You cannot imagine how deeply they hate us.” Does Putin understand this?
 
Finally, it is no secret that Russia today, like ancient Rome, is increasingly a land of immigrants; its economy depends on impoverished newcomers from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and elsewhere in Central Asia who fled to Russia in search of work. Yet Moscow treats them as third-class citizens and dragoons them as cannon fodder or “meat” to die by the thousands on the Ukrainian front. Rome faced a similar problem and wrestled with it unsuccessfully over several centuries. Over time the despised immigrants who poured across the Alps from Gaul demanded a voice in Roman affairs, and eventually took control of the western Roman Empire.
 
Sad to say, neither Putin himself nor any others of Russia’s core group of leaders show the slightest interest in learning from relevant examples from Roman history or, for that matter, from any other useable past. Together they provide living proof of American philosopher George Santayana’s adage that, “Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.” In Putin’s case, though, he seems never to have known it. 
 

ABOUT THE AUTHORSS. Frederick Starr, is a distinguished fellow specializing in Central Asia and the Caucasus at the American Foreign Policy Council and founding chairman of the Central Asia Caucasus Institute.

Monday, 23 October 2023 15:40

It's Time to Drop 'Eurasia'

By Frederick Starr 
American Purpose
October 18, 2023

 

A year and a half into Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s ambitions have become clear to all. Both expert and public opinion accept that his goal, at the very least, is to reassert Moscow’s control over all the former lands of the Soviet Union. What is yet to be understood is, first, the extent to which he informs and justifies his actions in terms of the much broader and more sinister theory of Eurasianism, and, second, that that theory has assumed the same place in Russia’s current ideology as Marxism-Leninism once filled under communism. The unification of all Eurasia under Moscow’s rule would give reality to what Putin smugly calls “the Russian World.”

Prior to 1990 few in the West had even heard the word “Eurasia,” but then, following the collapse of the USSR, it began appearing everywhere. Investors, eager to develop new markets in the fifteen successor states, seized on it as a convenient catch-all phrase covering the entirety of what had once been the USSR. Washington think tanks were quick to latch onto the fashionable new term, while academic programs across the United States that focused on Russian and Soviet studies quickly rebranded themselves. In 1992, Congress got in on the act by founding and endowing the Eurasia Foundation with the lofty purpose of promoting civil society across the former Soviet Union.

Many now use the term “Eurasia” as a way of speaking about the territory of the former Soviet Union without mentioning Russia, but others use it to denote anything from the former Soviet Union to all of the lands east of the Elbe. In most cases the adoption of the term “Eurasia” was seen as a timely and innocuous step carried out under the pressure of dramatic world events after 1991.

However, there are readily at hand more specific and appropriate alternatives to the term “Eurasia.” Thus, we might speak of the Russian Federation, Ukraine, or the countries of the Caucasus, Baltic region, or Central Asia singly or in any combination. Why, then, the preoccupation with the word “Eurasia”?

Initially a term used by mid-19th century geologists to characterize the continent of Europe and Asia, “Eurasia” entered the realm of geopolitics after World War I. In Prague, a group of anti-Bolshevik Russian émigré nationalists picked it up as part of their effort to rescue Russian nationalism from the grip of Lenin, Stalin, and the newly formed USSR. These anti-Soviet Russian thinkers took inspiration from the writings of a then-obscure English geographer named Halford Mackinder, who had divided the continental landmass into a vast “heartland” consisting of Russia and Central Asia and surrounded by diverse “rim lands.” Most geographers at the time held that political power derives from control of the world’s sea lanes. But Mackinder argued that the fate of Asia and Europe was in the hands of those controlling the heartland. He predicted that the struggle to control this vast and multicultural space would define the future.

The Prague-based Eurasianists acknowledged the diversity of peoples, cultures, and religions on the vast Asian plains but claimed that through intense interactions over the millennia, these diverse peoples had developed common and distinctive linguistic and cultural traits that contrast sharply with both Asia and Europe. Beneath their superficial differences, so the Eurasianists asserted, the varied peoples and tribes of these lands had evolved into a single mega-ethnos. Russia, then, is neither European nor Asian, but “Eurasian,” the main bearer not of European or Chinese values but of the ideals of primordial steppe tribes.

On the basis of these bizarre but thoroughly elaborated claims, the pioneering Eurasianists in Prague declared Russia’s utter independence from Europe and its rise as a continental power fated to dominate not just the old lands of Muscovy but all of Eurasia. The subsequent evolution of this fanciful theory has been brilliantly recounted by the English journalist Charles Clover in his important 2016 study, Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia’s New Nationalism. Appearing as it did just when the West was studiously side-stepping the implications of Putin’s seizure of Crimea and other Ukrainian territories, it was, shall we say, an “inconvenient truth.” But Clover gave us a landmark study that warrants far more attention than it has received to date.

Clover focuses above all on the enigmatic ethnologist, historian, and fabulist Lev Gumilev (1912–92), who brought the ruminations of czarist émigrés home to Russia. The son of two of Russia’s greatest poets, Gumilev (like both his parents) had suffered grievously under Moscow’s rule, spending nearly two decades in Stalin’s gulag. He emerged from the gulag less an enemy of communism, which he surely was, or a traditional Russian chauvinist who had made his peace with Moscow, and more the champion of the newly discovered super-nationality of Eurasia.

Yes, he acknowledged, there existed people who called themselves Turks, Mongols, Huns, and Slavs, and nomadic herdsmen and farmers, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and animists, all of whom spoke their own languages. Yet through their intense linguistic interpenetration over many centuries, so Gumilev argued, they had acquired a common identity. No longer were they Russians, Azeris, Tatars, or Uzbeks; now they had evolved into a super-ethnos, defined in opposition to both Asia and Europe. In spite of their great diversity in religion and cultural practices, Gumilev considered his Eurasians one people. Impelled by this vague and dubious claim, Gumilev turned his back on Europe and European culture, vigorously rejected democracy, and championed what was in effect an entirely new and grander form of Russian imperialism, one freed from both czarism and communism. In so doing, he laid the groundwork for post-Soviet Russia to reclaim its place in the world.

When Gumilev died in St. Petersburg in 1992, a deputy mayor of the city and forty-year-old veteran of the KGB named Vladimir Putin was among the thousands of the curious who lined the road to the cemetery. But the process by which young Putin progressed from observing a funeral cortege to fulsomely embracing the ideology espoused by the deceased and his heirs was neither linear nor swift.

The collapse of the USSR had brought in its wake the collapse of the Communist Party and the ideology that had served as its state religion. During the 1990s, Russians and their leaders, while struggling to fend off economic collapse, groped about for values that might replace the secular religion that the Communist Party had promoted for seven decades. In spite of having attended law school, Putin was by no means an intellectual and was incapable of devising what all agreed was an urgently needed new national ideology. Fortunately for him, there were many thinkers from whose works he could draw.

One whom Putin hailed as a “staunch patriot” was Ivan Ilyin (1883–1954), a monarchist, foe of communism, nationalist, and “Christian fascist” who had had many good things to say about Hitler. But since this savant had been dead for half a century, Putin could not turn to him for a program of action. Such was not the case with the former counterculture rock guitarist and now self-promoting ideological savant Alexander Dugin, who was very much alive.

Back in the Eighties, Dugin had been a dissident opposed to the turgid communist status quo and in search of a cause. He found it in Gumilev’s dream of Eurasia, which he deftly blended with ideas gleaned from direct contact with ultra-right thinkers and activists in France, Italy, and Belgium. No slacker, for this purpose Dugin had learned to speak both French and Italian. As he told Clover, “I absorbed this New Right model that resonated with Eurasianism very clearly.” Dugin then expounded these ideas in a long and rambling volume entitled The Foundations of Geopolitics, four Russian editions of which sold out immediately. Here Gumilev’s ideas on the world mission of Eurasia were blended with nuggets from both Mackinder and the new European ultra-right. The resulting amalgam demanded a powerful state to rule the entirety of Eurasia, eliminating national borders and without the inconvenience of elections, which Dugin staunchly opposed.

Dugin’s synthesis not only offered to fill Russia’s post-1991 ideological vacuum but it also gave Russia’s deep state—the military and the FSB, as the KGB has been renamed—a new and centrally important mission. This was Dugin’s message when he was repeatedly invited to give unpaid lectures at the army’s General Staff Academy. He also preached his theories to several of the new ultra-right political parties that emerged in Russia in those years but were largely ignored by Western experts on Russia. Through such lectures he successfully implanted the Eurasia ideology and ultra-right nationalistic ideas into Russia’s new elite. As he did so, he and his growing circle of followers came to identify the United States as the chief enemy of Russia and the emerging new Eurasia.

During the first years of his presidency, Putin made contact with Dugin and his Eurasian ideology and also with Gumilev’s ideas. By 2002 he was declaring to an audience in Kazakhstan that Russia had always conceived itself to be a Eurasian country. As Putin embraced the primordial notion of “Eurasia,” Dugin—the former dissident—embraced Putin and his vision of a new continent-spanning Russia. Soon Putin propagandists were rebranding themselves as “Asiatics.”

The dream of Eurasia came to fill the vacuum created by the collapse of the communist dream of a classless utopia. Putin promptly set about institutionalizing his new ideology. He demanded to join and then closed down the Central Asia Economic Union that the newly independent states of Central Asia had created, which he saw as a threat to his Eurasian dream. He promptly replaced it with his own Eurasian Economic Union, and set up a Eurasian Development Bank as Eurasia’s answer to the World Bank and other existing international financial institutions. Inspired by the Eurasian fantasy and invoking it to justify his actions, Putin in 2008 commanded the Russian army to hack off two province of the Republic of Georgia and, in 2014, to seize both Crimea and four provinces of eastern Ukraine, all of which the United Nations recognized as part of Ukraine.

To be sure, there were setbacks along the way. Thus, he tried to gain control of Kyrgyzstan and establish an air base to control the Ferghana Valley, the very heart of Central Asia. However, adroitly coordinated moves by China’s Hu Jintau and Uzbekistan‘s Islam Karimov stopped him cold. But overall, Dugin and champions of the new Eurasian ideology in Moscow’s deep state were ecstatic. They rejoiced that Russia had finally found for itself a new global mission that was more grand even than czarism or communism.

Dazzled by this bold new term but ignorant of its actual content, Turkish investors and the New York architectural firm of Swanke Hayden Connell built the Eurasia Center in Moscow, Europe’s seventh-tallest structure. At the same time a vast Eurasia Shopping Mall opened its doors in Changchun, China, and “Eurasia Universities” were founded in Armenia, Bangladesh, and China. These, along with the various American think tanks and university programs that had added the word Eurasia to their names, had yet to perceive that what they assumed was merely a fashionable new geographical term was in fact an aggressive ethnic, cultural, and geopolitical ideology that President Putin had successfully invoked to justify brutal assaults on several of Russia’s sovereign neighbors. For Putin, his Eurasia program was risk-free.

Did anyone in the West perceive that these separate actions may have been linked by an overall ideology and that Moscow’s actions on behalf of that concept were growing increasingly brazen? One of the few to do so was Zbigniew Brzezinski in his The Grand Chessboard, published three years before Putin assumed the presidency but while Russia’s war in Chechnya was already grinding away. Though he used the then-fashionable term Eurasia, Brzezinski was well aware of one of Dugin’s main sources, Mackinder, whose heartland theory he invoked to assert the gravity of Russia’s recent geopolitical moves:

Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power. . . . It is [therefore] imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. How America ‘manages’ Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions . . . rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent.

In spite of Brzezinski’s grim warnings, when he actually met Alexander Dugin in 2006 he dismissed him as a bizarre eccentric. Their meeting occurred because the author of this essay, puzzled by Americans’ disinterest in the provocations contained in Dugin’s published works, invited him to spend a week as his guest at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute in Washington. All those who met with Dugin during that visit dismissed him as a madman. Arguably the only American who took him seriously was political scientist John B. Dunlop, who had been writing on the rise of a new spirit of nationalism in Russia since before the collapse of the USSR. But when Dunlop testified before Congress on the new Russian nationalism his insights fell on deaf ears.

Back to Ukraine
Realists in the West are not deaf to the ideology of Eurasianism, but prefer to base their analyses on hard and measurable facts, not what they consider the ethereal ideas propounded by foreign globe-spinners. Concerned that a desperate Putin might be tempted to resort to nuclear weapons in Ukraine, their goal is to reach an agreement with Moscow that will end the fighting and open the way to negotiations. But they are utterly vague on whether such negotiations should require Russia to return all Ukrainian territories to Ukraine, and are silent on whether Moscow should also abandon lands it has seized from Georgia and Moldova or any of its many military bases abroad, all of which are used as instruments to control their involuntary hosts.

The obvious problem with the kind of negotiations demanded by isolationist forces in Washington is that they sideline the Ukrainians, who have paid for Putin’s adventure with thousands of lives, and subordinate their legitimate territorial claims to indeterminate negotiations conducted over their heads. Worse, they could leave intact post-Soviet Russia’s fictionalized national ideology of Eurasianism, which has taken deep root not only in Moscow’s intelligence agencies and parts of the military, but also in significant parts of the political elite and Russian public.

Back in 1932, after millions had died in Moscow’s brutal collectivization and man-made famines, Stalin called for a pause. However, in the same speech he suggested that after a brief respite, “We will hitch up our pants and continue once more.” Putin today appears as serious in his mission as Stalin, whom he admires. Viewed in this light, America’s goal beyond preserving Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity should be to assure the end of the ultra-nationalist imperial Eurasian ideology that gave rise to the war on Ukraine in the first place.

This brings us back to all those institutions that have rebranded themselves with the term “Eurasia.” In most cases these were understandable improvisations introduced under pressure of the titanic events of 1991. But after the publication of Clover’s landmark study in 2016, it should be understood that the term in its modern usage originated with the reactionary and nationalistic “Eurasianists” of the 1920s, that Lev Gumilev popularized it among dissident Russian intellectuals in the 1950s and 1960s, and that Vladimir Dugin then blended it with ideas drawn from Europe’s extreme right-wing ideologues and translated into a form that Vladimir Putin could embrace as Russia’s national ideology. “Eurasia,” Clover concludes, “is a new and fictitious continent which over time became ever more real,” even as it became more fictionalized. By now it is clear that the term “Eurasia” lacks scientific legitimacy and has been permanently stained by its intimate association with Russia’s repeated aggressions against its neighbors.

What must concern us today is how we use the word “Eurasia.” Writing in the 5th century B.C., the historian and general Thucydides noted how words changed their meaning over the course of the Persian Wars. This also happens today. For centuries the German word “Reich” meant simply a realm or state. However, the legacy of the three German Reichs of the years 1871–1945 was to taint the word to such a degree that its connotations today are overwhelmingly negative. Similarly, the Third Reich’s exploitation of the swastika as a symbol of the Aryan race and antisemitism killed its use in all contexts except within the Hindu world, where it originated as a sign of well-being. In the same way, the Japanese term “kamikaze” referred originally to the “divine wind” that sank the invading fleet of the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan and saved Japan. But after Togo’s air force exploited the term to denote suicide bombers sent to destroy the American Navy, it, too, gained a new meaning from which it will never escape.

Much the same can be said today of “Eurasia” and “Eurasianism.” The difference between them and “Reich,” “swastika,” and “kamikaze” is that even its original use by the so-called Eurasianists was the rallying cry of a perversely chauvinist ideology. By exploiting it as they did, Gumilev, Dugin, and Putin finished it off, leaving it in tatters.

Given this, those many worthy American and other institutions that have adopted the word, and the U.S. government as well, should consider a rebranding. This will be easy, since more accurate and less tendentious terms are readily at hand. Why not refer simply to Russia, Ukraine, or Belarus? In speaking of whole regions why not refer to the Baltic states, the Caucasus, or Central Asia, collective terms that—unlike “Eurasia”—accord with local usage in all the countries involved? And instead of “Inner Eurasia,” why not simply “Inner Asia” or the former term, “Uralo-Altaic lands”?

To be sure, this is but one of many steps that must be taken as we struggle to move beyond the present crisis. But it is an important one and should not be neglected.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Dr. Frederick Starr, is a distinguished fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council and founding chairman of the Central Asia Caucasus Institute.

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News

  • ASIA Spotlight with Prof. S. Frederick Starr on Unveiling Central Asia's Hidden Legacy
    Thursday, 28 December 2023 00:00

    On December 19th, 2023, at 7:30 PM IST, ASIA Spotlight Session has invited the renowned Prof. S Fredrick Starr, who elaborated on his acclaimed book, "The Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane." Moderated by Prof. Amogh Rai, Research Director at ASIA, the discussion unveiled the fascinating, yet lesser-known narrative of Central Asia's medieval enlightenment.

    The book sheds light on the remarkable minds from the Persianate and Turkic peoples, spanning from Kazakhstan to Xinjiang, China. "Lost Enlightenment" narrates how, between 800 and 1200, Central Asia pioneered global trade, economic development, urban sophistication, artistic refinement, and, most importantly, knowledge advancement across various fields. Explore the captivating journey that built a bridge to the modern world.

    To know watch the full conversation: #centralasia #goldenage #arabconquest #tamerlane #medievalenlightment #turkish #economicdevelopment #globaltrade

    Click here to watch on YouTube or scroll down to watch the full panel discussion.

  • Some Lessons for Putin from Ancient Rome
    Thursday, 04 January 2024 17:01
    By S. Frederick Starr 
    American Purpose
    January 4, 2024
     
    Vladimir Putin, having sidelined or destroyed all his domestic opponents, real or imagined, now surrounds himself with Romano-Byzantine pomp and grandeur. The theatrical civic festivals, processions of venerable prelates, cult of statues, embarrassing shows of piety, endless laying of wreaths, and choreographed entrances down halls lined with soldiers standing at attention—all trace directly back to czarism, to Byzantine Constantinople, and ultimately to imperial Rome. Indeed, Putin considers himself as Russia’s new “czar,” the Russified form of the Latin “Caesar.”
     
    But besides all the parallel heroics, Roman history offers profound lessons for today’s world. All of America’s Founders saw the Roman Republic as the best model for their own constitution. Napoleon, Mussolini, and Hitler, by contrast, found in imperial Rome a stunning model for their own grandeur. True, some of Rome’s ancient chroniclers, including the celebrated Livy, so admired specific politicians that they saw only their good sides and ignored the problems and failures. Yet there were others, notably the pessimistic Sallust, who not only wrote bluntly of history’s painful issues but delved deep into their causes and consequences.
     
    Is Putin likely to delve into the history of Rome for insights on his own situation? Unfortunately for Russia, Putin is not a reader, preferring instead to engage in exhibitionist athletic activities, preside at solemn ceremonies, or offer avuncular obiter dicta. However, if he would study the Roman past, he might come to realize that that model presents more than a few chilling prospects that he will ignore at his peril.
     
    To take but one example, a glance at Roman history would remind Putin that self-declared victories may not be as victorious as he and Kremlin publicists want to think. Back in the 3rd century B.C., when Rome was still a small state in central Italy, it was attacked by a certain King Pyrrhus, a rival ruler from Epirus, a region along today’s border between Greece and Albania. In his first battles Pyrrhus routed the Roman legions, and celebrated accordingly. But matters did not end there.
     
    Like Pyrrhus, Putin’s army scored some early victories in its war on Ukraine. As recently as December 1, Putin’s Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu was still claiming, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, that Russian forces “were advancing on all fronts.” Pyrrhus made similar false claims, only to discover that his own soldiers were no match for the determined Romans. As the Romans drove Pyrrhus’ army from the field, he groused, “If we win one more such victory against the Romans we will be utterly ruined,” which is exactly what happened. Pyrrhus’ statement gave Romans the term “Pyrrhic victory,” which we still use today. Putin should apply it to his “victories” at Bakhmut and Avdiivka.
     
    Another crisis in Rome’s early formation as a nation occurred when a peasant uprising threatened Rome itself and, according to the historian Livy, caused panic in the Roman capital. In desperation, the elders turned to Lucius Cincinnatus, who was neither a military man nor a professional politician, but who had earned respect as an effective leader. It took Cincinnatus only fifteen days to turn the tide, after which he returned to his farm. George Washington rightly admired Cincinnatus and consciously emulated him, returning after the Battle of Yorktown to Mount Vernon. By contrast, Putin’s “special military operation,” planned as a three-day romp, is now approaching the end of its second year. Putin, no Cincinnatus, doomed himself to being a lifer.
     
    Roman history is a millennium-long showcase of motivation or its absence. In this context, Putin might gain further insights by examining Rome’s centuries-long battle against the diverse tribes pressing the empire from the north. For centuries Rome’s legionnaires were well trained, disciplined, and committed. The list of their early victories is long. Both Julius Caesar and the philosopher-emperor-general Marcus Aurelius succeeded because they motivated and inspired their troops. But over time the Roman army was increasingly comprised of hirelings, déclassé men who fought not to save the empire but for money or a small piece of the bounty. Inflation and rising costs outpaced pay increases. Punishment was severe, in some cases including even crucifixion. In the end, Rome’s army eroded from within.
     
    This is what is happening to the Russian army today. Putin attacked Ukraine in February 2022 with what was then an army of several hundred thousand trained professional soldiers. But after the Ukrainians killed more than 320,000 Russian troops, their replacements were unwilling and surly conscripts and even criminals dragooned from Russia’s jails. Putin quite understandably fears such soldiers. Putin’s army, like that of the late Roman Empire, is collapsing from within.
     
    By contrast, Ukraine’s army at the time of the invasion was small and comprised mainly Soviet-trained holdovers. Both officers and troops of the line had to be quickly recruited from civilian professions and trained. Yet they quickly proved themselves to be disciplined and resourceful patriots, not tired time-servers. True, Ukraine is now conscripting troops, but these newcomers share their predecessors’ commitment to the nation and to their future lives in a free country.
     
    Sheer spite and a passion for avenging past failures figured prominently in Putin’s decisions to invade both Georgia and Ukraine. Roman history suggests that this isn’t smart. Back in 220 B.C., Rome defeated its great enemy, the North African state of Carthage. Anticipating Putin, the Carthaginian general Hannibal sought revenge. Acting out of spite, he assembled 700,000 foot soldiers, 78,000 mounted calvary, and a force of war elephants, and crossed the Alps. Though he was a brilliant general, Hannibal’s war of spite turned into a disaster.
     
    Why did Hannibal lose? Partly because of his sheer hubris and the spite that fed it, and also because the Romans avoided frontal battles and simply ground him down. They were prudently led by a general named Fabius Maximus, whom later Romans fondly remembered as “the Delayer.” Today it is the Ukrainians who are the Delayers. By grinding down Putin’s army and destroying its logistics they have positioned themselves for victory.
     
    The Roman Republic fell not because of any mass uprising but because of the machinations of Julius Caesar. A victorious general, Caesar looked the hero as he was installed as imperator. As was customary at such ceremonies, an official retainer placed behind the inductee solemnly repeated over and over the admonition to “Look behind you!” Caesar failed to do so and underestimated the opposition of a handful of officials and generals who feared the rise of a dictator perpetuus. Even if Putin chooses not to read Cicero, Plutarch, or Cassius Dio, he could productively spend an evening watching a Moscow production of Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar.
     
    Turning to a very different issue, Putin seems blithely to assume that whenever Russia defeats a neighboring country it can easily win the hearts and minds of the conquered, whether by persuasion or force. This is what many Roman generals and governors thought as well, but they were wrong—fatally so. Speaking of the impact of corrupt officials sent by Rome to the provinces, the great orator-politician Cicero declared to the Roman Senate, “You cannot imagine how deeply they hate us.” Does Putin understand this?
     
    Finally, it is no secret that Russia today, like ancient Rome, is increasingly a land of immigrants; its economy depends on impoverished newcomers from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and elsewhere in Central Asia who fled to Russia in search of work. Yet Moscow treats them as third-class citizens and dragoons them as cannon fodder or “meat” to die by the thousands on the Ukrainian front. Rome faced a similar problem and wrestled with it unsuccessfully over several centuries. Over time the despised immigrants who poured across the Alps from Gaul demanded a voice in Roman affairs, and eventually took control of the western Roman Empire.
     
    Sad to say, neither Putin himself nor any others of Russia’s core group of leaders show the slightest interest in learning from relevant examples from Roman history or, for that matter, from any other useable past. Together they provide living proof of American philosopher George Santayana’s adage that, “Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.” In Putin’s case, though, he seems never to have known it. 
     

    ABOUT THE AUTHORSS. Frederick Starr, is a distinguished fellow specializing in Central Asia and the Caucasus at the American Foreign Policy Council and founding chairman of the Central Asia Caucasus Institute.

    Additional Info
    • Author S. Frederick Starr
    • Publication Type Analysis
    • Published in/by American Purpose
    • Publishing date January 4, 2024
  • CACI Chairman S. Frederick Starr comments on "Preparing Now for a Post-Putin Russia"
    Friday, 03 November 2023 18:30

    Whether Russian President Vladimir Putin dies in office, is ousted in a palace coup, or relinquishes power for some unforeseen reason, the United States and its allies would face a radically different Russia with the Kremlin under new management. The geopolitical stakes mean that policymakers would be negligent not to plan for the consequences of a post-Putin Russia. On November 2, 2023, CACI Chairman S. Frederick Starr joined a panel organized by the Hudson Institute’s Center on Europe and Eurasia for a discussion on how US and allied policymakers can prepare for a Russia after Putin.

    Click here to watch on YouTube or scroll down to watch the full panel discussion.

  • Central Asia Diplomats Call for Closer Ties With US
    Monday, 26 June 2023 00:00

    REPRINTED with permission from Voice of America News
    By Navbahor Imamova

    WASHINGTON -- U.S.-based diplomats from Central Asia, a region long dominated by Russia and more recently China, say they are eager for more engagement with the United States.

    Many American foreign policy experts agree that a more robust relationship would be mutually beneficial, though U.S.-based nongovernmental organizations express deep concerns about human rights and authoritarian rule in the five countries: Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

    Michael Delaney, a former U.S. trade official, argued in favor of greater engagement this week at a webinar organized by the American-Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce.

    He noted that three of the five republics are World Trade Organization members and the other two are in the accession process — a goal actively encouraged by the U.S. government.

    "I've always believed that this is a geographically disadvantaged area. There are relatively small national economies," he said. But, he said, collectively the region represents a potentially more connected market, about 80 million people.

    Key issues

    In this virtual gathering, all five Central Asian ambassadors to Washington expressed eagerness to work on issues the U.S. has long pushed for, such as water and energy sustainability, security cooperation, environmental protection and climate, and connectivity.

    Kazakhstan's Ambassador Yerzhan Ashikbayev said that despite all factors, the United States does not want to leave the field to China, its global competitor, which actively invests in the region.

    "Recent visit by 20 companies to Kazakhstan as a part of certified U.S. trade mission, including technology giants like Apple, Microsoft, Google, but also other partners like Boeing, have shown a growing interest," Ashikbayev said.

    The Kazakh diplomat described a "synergy" of economies and diplomatic efforts. All Central Asian states are committed to dialogue, trade and multilateralism, he said. "As we are witnessing the return of the divisive bloc mentalities almost unseen for 30 years, it's in our best interest to prevent Central Asia from turning into another battleground of global powers."

    During his first tour of Central Asia earlier this year, Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, meeting separately with the foreign ministers of all five countries.

    That was deeply appreciated, said Meret Orazov, Turkmenistan's longtime ambassador, who also praised the regular bilateral consultations the U.S. holds with these countries.

    Uzbek Ambassador Furqat Sidiqov sees the U.S. as an important partner, with "long-standing friendship and cooperation which have only grown stronger over the years."

    "The U.S. has played a significant role in promoting dialogue and cooperation among the Central Asian nations through initiatives such as the C5+1," he said, referring to a diplomatic platform comprising Washington and the region's five governments.

    "This is where we address common concerns and enhance integration," said Sidiqov. "We encourage the U.S. to bolster this mechanism."

    Tashkent regards Afghanistan as key to Central Asia's development, potentially linking the landlocked region to the markets and seaports of South Asia. Sidiqov said his country counts on American assistance.

    'Possibility of positive change'

    Fred Starr, chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute in Washington, ardently advocates for the U.S. to adopt closer political, economic and people-to-people ties with the region.

    In a recent paper, he wrote that among dozens of officials, diplomats, entrepreneurs, experts, journalists and civil society leaders interviewed in Central Asia, "even those most critical of American positions saw the possibility of positive change and … all acknowledged that the need for change is on both sides, theirs as well as ours."

    This is the only region that doesn't have its own organization, said Starr, arguing that the U.S. could support this effort. "We have not done so, probably because we think that this is somehow going to interfere with their relations with their other big neighbors, the north and east, but it's not going to. It's not against anyone."

    "Easy to do, low cost, very big outcome," he added, also underscoring that "there is a feeling the U.S. should be much more attentive to security."

    "Japan, the European Union, Russia, China, their top leaders have visited. … No U.S. president has ever set foot in Central Asia," he said. He added that regional officials are left to wonder, "Are we so insignificant that they can't take the time to visit?"

    Starr urges U.S. President Joe Biden to convene the C5+1 in New York during the 78th session of the U.N. General Assembly in September. "This would not be a big drain on the president's time, but it would be symbolically extremely important," he said. "All of them want this to happen."

    Read at VOA News

  • Read CACI Chairman S. Frederick Starr's recent interview on the resurgence of Imperial Russia with The American Purpose
    Tuesday, 23 May 2023 00:00

    Why Russians Support the War: Jeffrey Gedmin interviews S. Frederick Starr on the resurgence of Imperial Russia.

    The American Purpose, May 23, 2023

    Jeffrey Gedmin: Do we have a Putin problem or a Russia problem today?

    S. Frederick Starr: We have a Putin problem because we have a Russia problem. Bluntly, the mass of Russians are passive and easily manipulated—down to the moment they aren’t. Two decades ago they made a deal with Vladimir Putin, as they have done with many of his predecessors: You give us a basic income, prospects for a better future, and a country we can take pride in, and we will give you a free hand. This is the same formula for autocracy that prevailed in Soviet times, and, before that, under the czars. The difference is that this time Russia’s leader—Putin—and his entourage have adopted a bizarre and dangerous ideology, “Eurasianism,” that empowers them to expand Russian power at will over the entire former territory of the USSR and even beyond. It is a grand and awful vision that puffs up ruler and ruled alike.

    What do most Russians think of this deal? It leaves them bereft of the normal rights of citizenship but free from its day-to-day responsibilities. So instead of debating, voting, and demonstrating, Russians store up their frustrations and then release them in elemental, often destructive, and usually futile acts of rebellion. This “Russia problem” leaves the prospect of change in Russia today in the hands of alienated members of Putin’s immediate entourage, many of whom share his vision of Russia’s destiny and are anyway subject to Putin’s ample levers for control. Thus, our “Putin problem” arises from our “Russia problem.”

    Click to continue reading...