Russia, deep in the gap
by tdaxp ~ January 23rd, 2009
I don’t agree with everything in this page by the Brookings Institution, but it makes the point that Russia was so disconnected from the world’s political and economic systems (that is, so deep in the gap), that it’s invasion of Georgia made sense.
Russia is a disconnected state that falls in the gaps of the world’s economy, similar to Venezuela, Iran, or Angola.
Reversing the Decline: An Agenda for U.S.-Russian Relations in 2009 – Brookings Institution
Building areas of cooperation not only can advance specific U.S. goals, it can reduce frictions on other issues. Further, the more there is to the bilateral relationship, the greater the interest it will hold for Russia, and the greater the leverage Washington will have with Moscow. The thin state of U.S.-Russian relations in August gave the Kremlin little reason for pause before answering the Georgian military incursion into South Ossetia with a large and disproportionate response. Washington should strive to build a relationship so that, should a similar crisis arise in the future, Russian concern about damaging relations with the United States would exercise a restraining influence.
Where I part company with Brookings is in the solution. Brookings seeks to build a liberal internationalist framework with Russia, in the same way that we created international institutions to help keep the peace in Europe. Unfortunately, this institutional or bureaucratic route to peace only works with countries that are already connected into the world economy, anyway.
You can add all the NATO-Russia, NATO-Iran, or NATO-Venezuela cooperation councils you want: without the harder structural and economic adjustments that help integrate markets, it’s all just words.
The New York Times uses top 1% of income, not wealth. From the legend:...
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:35 am
Like a “Gap” state, corruption in Russia rots from the top down. Steve LeVine has a good story about a shadowy middleman at the heart of the Russia-Ukraine dispute earlier this month.
http://oilandglory.com/2009/01/ukraine-and-russia-role-of-middleman.html
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Eddie,
Interesting piece about RosUkrEnergo [1].
It’s been a bad half-year for those who hoped for (and still hope) for Gazprom to buy-up energy assets throughout Europe.
The gap shouldn’t be allowed to spread disease, terrorism, or plague in the core. Nor it’s particularly obnoxious corruption.
It’s interesting how flagrant cash-based bribery is in Russia. It’s not even on the same level of the favor-and-relationship based corruption of, say, China or the Godfather movies…
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RosUkrEnergo
January 26th, 2009 at 6:30 am
Combine the flagrant cash-based bribery with the nihilistic violence. With Neo-Nazis and their nationalist seconds running around beating, raping & killing former Soviet colonials and their Russian friends, Russia is producing quite the social disaster. Not to mention violently intimidating any opponents.
January 26th, 2009 at 7:15 am
About two-thirds of the way down, Straftor [1] has a list of some of the journalists suspected to have been killed by the Russian government:
It’s hard to take seriously any model of the world that puts Russia on the same level as Poland, India, China, or Mexico.
[1] http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090121_killing_vienna_and_chechen_connection
January 26th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Doesn’t look like they were entirely ignorant of the need for market integration
“Expanding commercial links would add economic ballast that could cushion the overall relationship against differences on other issues. Specific steps include bringing Russia into the World Trade Organization, moving forward with the agreement on civil nuclear cooperation, and conferring permanent normal trade relations status on Russia by graduating it from the Jackson-Vanik Amendment.”
January 27th, 2009 at 4:39 am
Michael,
You’re correct that Brookings correctly sees Russia’s disconnectedness as a major problem. The problem with the Brookings perspective, though, is the liberal-internationalist idea that you can make a law that makes it all better.
Russia in the WTO would significantly reduce the political power of Ukraine and Georgia (who now have the power to block such a move), and increase the political power of Russia (which would then have a veto in the WTO).
However, countries like Venzuela, Saudi Arabia, Congo, Cuba, and Burma are already members of the WTO. [1]
WTO membership can be extremely valuable if a country has a wealth-producing economy that it is trying to integrate into the world.
If a state is a Gap dictatorship, though, it’s polite membership in a nice club.
As I concluded my post:
Unfortunately, this institutional or bureaucratic route to peace only works with countries that are already connected into the world economy, anyway.
You can add all the NATO-Russia, NATO-Iran, or NATO-Venezuela cooperation councils you want: without the harder structural and economic adjustments that help integrate markets, it’s all just words.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTO_accession_and_membership
January 29th, 2009 at 5:57 am
Since there doesn’t seem to be much that can be done about Russia in the near term, we might want to look at improving connectivity with Russia’s neighbors and helping them up the Gap-Seam-Core ladder. Ukraine, is the big one here. There are enough traditional ties with Russia that more connectedness with the Core will bleed over into Russia and, in the long run, help ease Russia’s climb to Core status.
There are also the Central Asian republics. China’s building of a railroad link connecting into the Kazakh railroad net is a really positive sign. The US can help this development with efforts to improve Turkey-Georgia-Azerbaijan transportation infrastructure and by routing some Afghanistan bound traffic via that route.
The announcement that some of the supplies for Afghanistan will be sent through Russia is a positive development because they will be going through the Central Asian republics on the way. As always, though, if the Russians have a monopoly, they will eventually shut it off because they are Russians and they cannot control their urge to screw with other people just because they can (as their European natural gas customers are discovering this winter).
January 29th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Well said.