Russia's Great-Power Strategy
By George Friedman
Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report

Most speeches at diplomatic gatherings aren't worth the time it takes to
listen to them. On rare occasion, a speech is delivered that needs to be
listened to carefully. Russian President Vladimir Putin gave such a speech
over the weekend in Munich, at a meeting on international security. The
speech did not break new ground; it repeated things that the Russians have
been saying for quite a while. But the venue in which it was given and the
confidence with which it was asserted signify a new point in Russian
history. The Cold War has not returned, but Russia is now officially
asserting itself as a great power, and behaving accordingly.

At Munich, Putin launched a systematic attack on the role the United States
is playing in the world. He said: "One state, the United States, has
overstepped its national borders in every way ... This is nourishing an arms
race with the desire of countries to get nuclear weapons." In other words,
the United States has gone beyond its legitimate reach and is therefore
responsible for attempts by other countries -- an obvious reference to
Iran -- to acquire nuclear weapons.

Russia for some time has been in confrontation with the United States over
U.S. actions in the former Soviet Union (FSU). What the Russians perceive as
an American attempt to create a pro-U.S. regime in Ukraine triggered the
confrontation. But now, the issue goes beyond U.S. actions in the FSU. The
Russians are arguing that the unipolar world -- meaning that the United
States is the only global power and is surrounded by lesser, regional
powers -- is itself unacceptable. In other words, the United States sees
itself as the solution when it is, actually, the problem.

In his speech, Putin reached out to European states -- particularly Germany,
pointing out that it has close, but blunt, relations with Russia. The
Central Europeans showed themselves to be extremely wary about Putin's
speech, recognizing it for what it was -- a new level of assertiveness from
an historical enemy. Some German leaders appeared more understanding,
however: Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier made no mention of Putin's
speech in his own presentation to the conference, while Ruprecht Polenz,
chairman of the Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee, praised Putin's stance
on Iran. He also noted that the U.S. plans to deploy an anti-missile shield
in Poland and the Czech Republic was cause for concern -- and not only to
Russia.

Putin now clearly wants to escalate the confrontations with the United
States and likely wants to build a coalition to limit American power. The
gross imbalance of global power in the current system makes such
coalition-building inevitable -- and it makes sense that the Russians should
be taking the lead. The Europeans are risk-averse, and the Chinese do not
have much at risk in their dealings with the United States at the moment.
The Russians, however, have everything at risk. The United States is
intruding in the FSU, and an ideological success for the Americans in
Ukraine would leave the Russians permanently on the defensive.

The Russians need allies but are not likely to find them among other
great-power states. Fortunately for Moscow, the U.S. obsession with Iraq
creates alternative opportunities. First, the focus on Iraq prevents the
Americans from countering Russia elsewhere. Second, it gives the Russians
serious leverage against the United States -- for example, by shipping
weapons to key players in the region. Finally, there are Middle Eastern
states that seek great-power patronage. It is therefore no accident that
Putin's next stop, following the Munich conference, was in Saudi Arabia.
Having stabilized the situation in the former Soviet region, the Russians
now are constructing their follow-on strategy, and that concerns the Middle
East.

The Russian Interests

The Middle East is the pressure point to which the United States is most
sensitive. Its military commitment in Iraq, the confrontation with Iran, the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and oil in the Arabian Peninsula create a
situation such that pain in the region affects the United States intensely.
Therefore, it makes sense for the Russians to use all available means of
pressure in the Middle East in efforts to control U.S. behavior elsewhere,
particularly in the former Soviet Union.

Like the Americans, the Russians also have direct interests in the Middle
East. Energy is a primary one: Russia is not only a major exporter of energy
supplies, it is currently the world's top oil producer. The Russians have a
need to maintain robust energy prices, and working with the Iranians and
Saudis in some way to achieve this is directly in line with Moscow's
interest. To be more specific, the Russians do not want the Saudis
increasing oil production.

There are strategic interests in the Middle East as well. For example, the
Russians are still bogged down in Chechnya. It is Moscow's belief that if
Chechnya were to secede from the Russian Federation, a precedent would be
set that could lead to the dissolution of the Federation. Moscow will not
allow this. The Russians consistently have claimed that the Chechen
rebellion has been funded by "Wahhabis," by which they mean Saudis. Reaching
an accommodation with the Saudis, therefore, would have not only economic,
but also strategic, implications for the Russians.

On a broader level, the Russians retain important interests in the Caucasus
and in Central Asia. In both cases, their needs intersect with forces
originating in the Muslim world and trace, to some extent, back to the
Middle East. If the Russian strategy is to reassert a sphere of influence in
the former Soviet region, it follows that these regions must be secured.
That, in turn, inevitably involves the Russians in the Middle East.

Therefore, even if Russia is not in a position to pursue some of the
strategic goals that date back to the Soviet era and before -- such as
control of the Bosporus and projection of naval power into the
Mediterranean -- it nevertheless has a basic, ongoing interest in the
region. Russia has a need both to limit American power and to achieve direct
goals of its own. So it makes perfect sense for Putin to leave Munich and
embark on a tour of Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries.

The Complexities

But the Russians also have a problem. The strategic interests of Middle
Eastern states diverge, to say the least. The two main Islamic powers
between the Levant and the Hindu Kush are Saudi Arabia and Iran. The
Russians have things they want from each, but the Saudis and Iranians have
dramatically different interests. Saudi Arabia -- an Arab and primarily
Sunni kingdom -- is rich but militarily weak. The government's reliance on
outside help for national defense generates intense opposition within the
kingdom. Desert Storm, which established a basing arrangement for Western
troops within Saudi Arabia, was one of the driving forces behind the
creation of al Qaeda. Iran -- a predominantly Persian and Shiite power -- is
not nearly as rich as Saudi Arabia but militarily much more powerful. Iran
seeks to become the dominant power in the Persian Gulf -- out of both its
need to defend itself against aggression, and for controlling and exploiting
the oil wealth of the region.

Putting the split between Sunni and Shiite aside for the moment, there is
tremendous geopolitical asymmetry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Saudi
Arabia wants to limit Iranian power, while keeping its own dependence on
foreign powers at a minimum. That means that, though keeping energy prices
high might make financial sense for the kingdom, the fact that high energy
prices also strengthen the Iranians actually can be a more important
consideration, depending on circumstances. There is some evidence that
recent declines in oil prices are linked to decisions in Riyadh that are
aimed at increasing production, reducing prices and hurting the Iranians.

This creates a problem for Russia. While Moscow has substantial room for
maneuver, the fact is that lowered oil prices impact energy prices overall,
and therefore hurt the Russians. The Saudis, moreover, need the Iranians
blocked -- but without going so far as to permit foreign troops to be based
in Saudi Arabia itself. In other words, they want to see the United States
remain in Iraq, since the Americans serve as the perfect shield against the
Iranians so long as they remain there. Putin's criticisms of the United
States, as delivered in Munich, would have been applauded by Saudi Arabia
prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But in 2007, the results of that
invasion are exactly what the Saudis feared -- a collapsed Iraq and a
relatively powerful Iran. The Saudis now need the Americans to stay put in
the region.

The interests of Russia and Iran align more closely, but there are points of
divergence there as well. Both benefit from having the United States tied
up, militarily and politically, in wars, but Tehran would be delighted to
see a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq that leaves a power vacuum for Iran to fill.
The Russians would rather not see this outcome. First, they are quite happy
to have the United States bogged down in Iraq and would prefer that to
having the U.S. military freed for operations elsewhere. Second, they are
interested in a relationship with Iran but are not eager to drive the United
States and Saudi Arabia into closer relations. Third, the Russians do not
want to see Iran become the dominant power in the region. They want to use
Iran, but within certain manageable limits.

Russia has been supplying Iran with weapons. Of particular significance is
the supply of surface-to-air missiles that would raise the cost of U.S. air
operations against Iran. It is not clear whether the advanced S300PMU
surface-to-air missile has yet been delivered, although there has been some
discussion of this lately. If it were delivered, this would present
significant challenges for U.S. air operation over Iran. The Russians would
find this particularly advantageous, as the Iranians would absorb U.S.
attentions and, as in Vietnam, the Russians would benefit from extended,
fruitless commitments of U.S. military forces in regions not vital to
Russia.

Meanwhile, there are energy matters: The Russians, as we have said, are
interested in working with Iran to manage world oil prices. But at the same
time, they would not be averse to a U.S. attack that takes Iran's oil off
the market, spikes prices and enriches Russia.

Finally, it must be remembered that behind this complex relationship with
Iran, there historically has been animosity and rivalry between the two
countries. The Caucasus has been their battleground. For the moment, with
the collapse of the Soviet Union, there is a buffer there, but it is a
buffer in which Russians and Iranians are already dueling. So long as both
states are relatively weak, the buffer will maintain itself. But as they get
stronger, the Caucasus will become a battleground again. When Russian and
Iranian territories border each other, the two powers are rarely at peace.
Indeed, Iran frequently needs outside help to contain the Russians.

A Complicated Strategy

In sum, the Russian position in the Middle East is at least as complex as
the American one. Or perhaps even more so, since the Americans can leave and
the Russians always will live on the doorstep of the Middle East.
Historically, once the Russians start fishing in Middle Eastern waters, they
find themselves in a greater trap than the Americans. The opening moves are
easy. The duel between Saudi Arabia and Iran seems manageable. But as time
goes on, Putin's Soviet predecessors learned, the Middle East is a graveyard
of ambitions -- and not just American ambitions.

Russia wants to contain U.S. power, and manipulating the situation in the
Middle East certainly will cause the Americans substantial pain. But
whatever short-term advantages the Russians may be able to find and exploit
in the region, there is an order of complexity in Putin's maneuver that
might transcend any advantage they gain from boxing the Americans in.

In returning to "great power" status, Russia is using an obvious opening
gambit. But being obvious does not make it optimal.

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