Russia Is Only A Threat If We Let It Be One

Mark Galeotti

Nuclear War, Russia

Russia is a declining power, a part-reformed, part-stagnant fragment of a shattered and spent empire.

Russia is a declining power, a part-reformed, part-stagnant fragment of a shattered and spent empire. Vladimir Putin, though, has perfected a foreign policy built on equal parts chutzpah, gamesmanship, and bluff. His aim, after all, is not to rebuild a Soviet Union 2.0, nor to spread any ideological message abroad. It is, rather, to force or persuade the outside world to conform to his will, to allow him to claim a sphere of influence and exempt Russia from those influences of the global order he finds constraining, from international law to human rights.

His is the geopolitics of extortion, to look threatening enough that the West decides it is best and easiest to let him have his way. Judging by articles such as Loren Thompson’s recent ‘Why The Baltic States Are Where Nuclear War Is Most Likely To Begin,’ he is having some success.

Thompson’s fundamental premise is that there is a serious risk of a Russian military assault on the Baltic States, and if the USA resists, this may escalate to a nuclear exchange. So Washington should “find a way of loosening the commitments it has made” to the Balts. In other words, NATO collective security and international law be damned, the Baltic States should be considered eminently dispensable in the name of realpolitik.

A grim prospect for the Balts and exactly what Putin wants to hear. However, I believe there are strong grounds to challenge the premises of this perspective and thus its conclusions. Indeed, I would suggest that the wisest, safest and well as most honourable approach is to provide the Balts (and other front line states) with every guarantee, and that this will best avert even the risk of a hot war.

(Recommended: Russia and America - Stumbling to War)

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