Russia may look weak right now but that's a recession, not a new normal.
One of the big news stories this week is Azerbaijan’s anti-terrorist operation in Nagorno-Karabakh. Nagorno-Karabakh is a contested region with a lot of ethnic Armenians, and the last round of fighting over the area was in 2020. Traditionally Armenia is a Russian ally, and Azerbaijan is a Turkish ally. As I’ve argued before on the blog, I believe we are in a multipolar world, meaning that there are three or more great powers. Those being the USA, China, and Russia in order of power. The recent events in the Caucasus might appear to challenge that view, after all you would expect a great power to support its ally rather than mock it. Still Russia stood by when Azerbaijan launched its anti-terrorist operation in Nagorno-Karabakh. Does this mean that Russia has lost or given up its status as a great power?
I don’t think so. People in the West are quick to point out how poorly the war in Ukraine has gone for Russia. But the war has only gone poorly relative to people’s expectations of Russian power, in absolute terms Russia has still managed to occupy more than 15% of Ukraine’s area and has stood fast against Ukraine’s counter offensive even with all the Western gear and training Ukraine has received.
Meanwhile life goes on almost normally in Russia itself in spite of a bloody conflict and some of the most severe sanctions the US could dream up. Russia is clearly feeling the pain but it manages to go on in spite of many headwinds and I think a lot of commentators underestimate what that takes. Every state has a limited capacity to project power and Russia is so close to the limit that it has to make hard choices. The hard choice this time was to leave Armenia hanging, and as long as the war continues, I would expect Russia to leave its backyard to handle their own problems, even when rival regional or great powers are making moves.
That is sure to change when the war is over and Russia has more capacity to spare. For a while there was quite a lot of talk of Russia collapsing, especially after the battle of Kyiv and the liberation of Kharkiv. Now that seems far-fetched and I now highly doubt the Russians will come out of the war significantly weaker than when they started. The war in Ukraine consumes all of Russia’s energy at the moment but that recession of Russian power is temporary. Like an economic recession, it will right itself and continue to exert influence on the global stage.
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I've always been interested in politics, economics, and the interplay between. The blog is a place for me to explore different ideas and concepts relating to economics or politics, be that national or international. The goal for the blog is to make you think; to provide new perspectives.
Written by Karl Johansson
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Cover photo by Tembela Bohle from Pexels, edited by Karl Johansson
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