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03.11.2005

Russia: the main problems and prospective

   

Gagik Ter-Harutyunyan 

Today the considerable part of RA political elite is very skeptical about Russia. Russia’s hesitating position in removing its military bases from Georgia, its equivocal policy implemented to Azerbaijan as well as the attempt to establish strategic relations with Turkey reduced that country’s authority in our community. Whereas, according to some important indices Russia is on the rise, which means that in our estimations concerning to that country should be considered the role it will undertake in the near future.

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Today the US is waging the same Cold war against Russia as in the Soviet period. However, in comparison with the previous one, today Russia hasn’t reinstated its former might, but the West has been proportionally developing during the last two decades. That’s to say today the continuous pressure on Russia is virtually more effective than it used to be in the past. Besides the US has fulfilled its strategy with new elements: one of them is the thesis that the Russian people are not able to protect their nuclear objects from “international terrorists”, that’s why the US should take the Russian nuclear arsenals under control. Let’s remind that according to a hypothesis, after coming to power M. Khodorkovsky must sell all the Russian sources of nuclear fuel to the US. At the same time there are also other scenes according to which American armed forces will realize a landing operation in Russia under the pretence of “securing Russian nuclear arsenal from terrorists”.

But the nuclear weapon remains the main pledge of Russia’s sovereignty. It makes that country spend the considerable part of sum assigned for security on preserving nuclear-strategic infrastructures. Here America repeats its Cold war period strategy methods directed to weaken the USSR economy. From the other hand the US and Great Britain further Russia to carry on a fierce struggle against terrorism in the Southern Caucasus. It partially reiterates the situation after the Second World War in the Eastern Ukraine and Baltic States (the struggle against Banderians and Forest Brothers), the difference is that in comparison with the past today Russia’s boarders are open. $2.3 billion assigned by Putin for the formation of Russia’s Southern frontier system (from Mongolia to the Black Sea) confirms the seriousness of this problem which goes with the allocation of extra military units in the Southern Caucuses.

The above mentioned realities make Russia direct the considerable part of its political, military and economic recourses to confront the new Cold war. At the same time the limitedness of its own resources make it look for strategic partners. The relations with Europe centered states, France and German, have become closer, but it’s obvious that these countries can’t be a full-fledged ally for Russia: at best the EU can have buffering acting in the future confrontations. In this case the cooperation with China in the framework of strengthening Shanghai Cooperation Organization seems to be more perspective. This is a comparatively new element in Russia’s policy if we don’t take into consideration Stalin-Mao short-term alliance. The priority of the USSR by that period was obvious but today the roles have changed. At the same time it seems that there aren’t other geopolitical alternatives for Russia. The evidence of it were Russian-China “Peaceful Mission-2005” military trainings during which were worked out the possible developments concerning to North Korea bat not Taiwan (as it was circulated in mass media). The Russian-China actions were probably a message to the US that military actions against North Korea will be counteracted.

However Russian-China military trainings were only a part of strategic actions undertaken by Russia. At the first stage the Russian Northern fleet with almost the whole staff put out to open sea and after corresponding maneuvers let off a ballistic missile from a nuclear submarine. Parallel to it TU-160 strategic bombers took off from Saratov oblast and hit targets in Vorkuta with cruise missile. A special attention should be paid to “Caspian Antiterrorism-2005” extensive military trainings at that period which were very close to the scene of a possible war.

Let’s point out that such an expansive complex of military actions wasn’t realized even in Soviet period. In that way Russia proved the international community that it is able to “wage war” in several arenas (it is considered that such actions may be carried out only by the US). Besides the success of military trainings are necessary for Russia to overcome the complex of inferiority resulted by the empire’s collapse.

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The considerable part of difficulties in Russia is conditioned by that country’s economic situation. Granted with rich natural resources Russia has only recently been included in the list of the top ten countries with the biggest economies taking only the last place. But that fact also proves that the country is developing. The preliminary budget for 2006 presented by Russian government is $176 billion, which exceeds the budget of $110, 9 billion for 2005 by 60% (let’s remember that the country’s budget for 1999 was $25 billion). According to some estimations if the price for a barrel of oil doesn’t go down $50 in the coming 8 years then in 2013 Russia’s GDP will rise to $2.8 trillion and the middle wage will reach $1400. Gold-currency reserves have also risen and are almost equal to the budget. In so called “stabilization fund” are accumulated multibillion sums resulted from levied supplementary sums of oil prices rise. It’s noteworthy that Putin has formed a “parallel government” under his leadership, which has a task to realize the projects of national importance through “stabilization fund”.

The growth in economy is conditioned by sharp rise of energy carriers’ prices in international market (during the last two years they have risen twice). At the same time it is well known that a considerable part of Russia’s energy sector or the whole economy is in hands of oligarchic capital. As the developments concerning to Berezovsky and Khodorkovsky show, such a situation sometimes gets out of the limits of economy and may become a subject of concern of national security and geopolitical problems.

Taking into consideration the above mentioned realities Putin’s administration tries to systematize its relations with oligarchs. Today the most pretentious ones among them are whether expelled (Berezovsky, Gusinsky) or imprisoned (Khodorkovsky). Another prominent oligarch, Chukotka’s governor Abramovich, in every possible way shows its neutral position to Putin’s administration. At the same time it transfers its capital to the West and invests it in European real estate and sports business. “Gasprom” is going to bye 72% of “Sibneft” shares belonging to Abramovich paying more then $13 billion for them (In 1996 Berezovsky and Abramovich bought “Sibneft” 130 times cheaper paying only $100 million for it). It is noteworthy that both in case of buying Khodorkovsky’s organizations (“Yukos” and the others) and “Sibneft” Russia gets the necessary sums from German leading banks (the Western other financial structures make a protest against it from time to time blaming German banks in Russian money “laundering”).

Putin tries to use the oligarchs faithful to Kremlin in favor of the country. For example Kremlin closely cooperates with oil oligarch Vekselberg who represented Shokhin (instead of Volsky) to be elected the chairman of Russia’s Industrial Chamber. The main magnate in aluminum business, Deripaska, today realizes Putin’s geo-economic tasks in CIS countries, mainly in Tajikistan (where a big electric power station is built). There is a general impression that with the oligarchs Putin tries to carry out a policy typical to tsarist palace, that’s to say to work with them on mutually beneficial bases. It is worth mentioning that the willingness of oligarchs to cooperate with Putin proves that today Russia is reinstated as a power center: it is well known that the representatives of international capital apprehend such realties very quickly.

It must be stated as a fact that owing to the policy carried by Kremlin the role of the state in economy’s oil-gas sector has substantially grown. If in the past the government controlled only 10-14% of that sector, after concluding “Sibneft”-”Gasprom” deal it will exceed 50%. It is distinctive that there are Putin administration members in the councils of energetic companies, that’s to say energetic business is under the full control of Kremlin.

At the same time it is not possible to solve the problems in economy succeeding only in energetic field. Today many reforms are carried out in the fields of health care, science and education. According to the decision made by the government in 2006 the doctors’ wages will be increased to $350, large sums are assigned for the field’s technically equipping. The main aim of the reforms in educational field was to introduce pan-Russian projects and 11 years in the school system. It is supposed that in the forthcoming 2 years in the field of science the financing for fundamental science will rise twice reaching $4 billion and the salary of people working in scientific institutions will reach $1,000 on average. Let’s notice that scientific community doesn’t appreciate Putin’s reforms yet. In any case according to official and non official information science in Russia is on rise.

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Summarizing we can state as a fact that thanks to some developments in economic and military fields Russia has stepped a new phase of development when that country tries to react to “the external world” more confidently and adequately. It’s also worth mentioning success of Russian policy in relations with Ukraine, Kyrgyzia and especially Uzbekistan, that’s to say with the countries which were considered “lost” for Russia. It proves that Russia’s political culture is also in progress. In this context the relations with Republic of Armenia may also step in a new stage.

From political standpoint Russia’s success is also conditioned by well known difficulties recently occurred between the US and the EU. At the same time Russia’s present situation is considerably conditioned by Putin’s personality, whose rating has reached a record level-49%, it means that the country’s future is still vague. In this sense are very important the presidential elections in 2008.


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