Can Moscow scale down inherited Soviet ambitions?
Great powers are a special breed. Until the First World War the Great Powers" were European entities. Membership in that club enabled its participants to extend their control beyond the Continent. These dependencies were by location but also by tradition population and development unlike the mother country". Due to the difference came the ability to discover to subjugate and to colonize. Europes dominance expressed its high development. The decisive advantage the knowledge the institutions the economy behind it was concentrated in that small area. For long these factors could not be copied outside the European cultures sphere.
A lesson of the world wars that ended the Eurocentric era is ignored. It is that no European nation no single traditional nation state can be a global power. Russia is the only country that has been under the old and under modern terms a Great Power. For that reason she could continue as a superpower" after the old systems eclipse.
This the British accepted without much trouble. Their influence exerted without the illusion of global grasp has been used with realistic wisdom. The Germans once totally defeated were grateful to survive and to be protected by a new far away superpower from an uncomfortably close one. In time through work and the resulting economic power they have recovered much of their international status. France had difficulties to accept new realities. The Great Nations" demonstrative pretensions of might such as expelling NATO are symbolic signs of grandeur pasted over a lesser substance.
The rest of Europes went beyond the revision of outdated power postures. Adaptation led to the error of the opposite. A symptom is the national security equivalent of making a career out of living on welfare. Not acquiring the power within their means became a strategy. NATO discovered that dependency and the corresponding lack of responsibility brings benefits. The provider of no cost security was a protector that had no alternative but to act as the defender of last resort.
Here again Russia appears as a special case. She had been the only Power in the European system with a pre-industrial base and a Eurasian location. The condition extends into our time. Her adjustment to modern realities is more complicated than that of the USA or China. Neither has been a traditional Great Power none of them is geographically European and both rose from insignificance to superpower status. Russia on the other hand became the first defeated major power of WWI. During a civil war and intervention she lost land and sovereignty. Thereafter as the depository of a secular faith the Soviet Union became a superpower after initially entering WWII on the wrong that is the losing side. However her system that received legitimacy and global goals from her ideology collapsed under the economic consequences of that irrational faith.
The Soviets misfortune might be Russias luck. Todays Russia has nearly shrunk to her core. In time the blessing of shedding flab could convince even the sulkers. However she has passed through the process without jettisoning all territories whose alien population represents in our age of nationalism a potential ethnic-religious risk.
Russias future depends on the inclinations and limitations of her unbound governors. The open questions related to adaptation transcend Russias state boundaries. Any stable European and transatlantic order or the security of these regions is limited by the extent of Russias intentions and participation. That is a consequence of more than her dominant size resources and population. The combination of these factors makes her into one of the superpowers. With that she is the only global player with a partially European base.
Since we live today and not yesterday or tomorrow the question is how Russias leaders will be able to retreat from Soviet goals and how that redefinition of the national interest will affect our lives.
There are global forces that threaten Russia as a culturally Christian and considering her goals of development in intent western country. Not the West is the source of this challenge. On the other hand opposing the West because of its cold war victory stimulates local forces. By a rational assessment of their real benefit and divorced from the dead issue of the USSR the returns appear to be small. This is increasingly so if the gains are compared to the price of revenge that will strengthen the global forces that were alluded to above.
Changed roles that entail reduced might can be difficult to accept. Russias goal of world domination has been a chimera once and it is a fools dream today. Meanwhile the countrys global role is unquestioned even by those that dread her motives. It is notable that hardly anyone in the USA rejects a comparable downgrading" through leveling. Possibly the acceptance of limited power depends on the psychological burden carried. America has always been a reluctant superpower. Total control might have been within her means: an intention it has never been.
Russias grappling with her changed possibilities are demonstrated by her role in Syria. Behind the policy we detect injured pride and a visceral resistance to events beyond her control. Quite likely the support for a locally rejected foreign autocracy has further causes. The claimed respect for sovereignty" sounds hollow. This suggests that leadership by a KGB Colonel (Putin) suffers from a worldview that reflects a Soviet perspective. Autocrats determine Russian policies and these feel kinship for challenged dictatorships. The stubborn vetoes in the SecCouncil" will produce international isolation and ostracism by the Arab world. The support of tyranny will strengthen regional suspicions. It will also convince states outside Russias sphere of facing an unpredictable entity led by an instinct to dominate that sabotages those beyond her immediate reach.
The record created in the Syrian crisis is also harmful in other ways. The efforts of Russias committed friends become unnecessarily burdened by Moscows comportment. Meanwhile the mortgage on a future Russian foreign policy once led by the desire for security through cooperation will grow.