The Putin leadership’s world view enjoys broad support across Russia’s elite. Simply put, key premises of this world view are as follows:
- The global system is ‘multipolar’. Russia is one of these ‘poles’, alongside the other great powers – the US and China – and more amorphous regional centres of power, notably Europe, and East and South Asia. Russia’s claims to great power status are based on its history, size, nuclear arsenal, permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council and leading position among the non-Baltic states of the former Soviet Union. Within this multipolar system, relative power is moving from the West to the non-Western world.
- State sovereignty is central to the international system. This is understood in Westphalian terms: sovereignty means control over territory and does not imply that rulers have obligations to those residing in that territory. Yet the principle of non-interference in states’ internal affairs is conditional: it applies to great powers, like Russia, which have spheres of influence (whether they acknowledge this or not), where their vital interests take precedence over those of all others, including the smaller countries in the regions concerned. Russia sees the non-Baltic former Soviet Union as its sphere of influence.
- Countries advance their interests by prevailing over competitors and enemies, using instruments of ‘hard power’: geopolitical, economic and military. Historically, Russia has spent heavily on defence as a proportion of GDP. Russian policymakers understand ‘soft power’ as a variant of hard power: another tool used to prevail over others by exploiting vulnerability, not to build influence by persuading them through force of example. This understanding of power assumes that Russia has no genuine friends and allies; ultimately, it must rely on itself to defend and promote its interests in a dangerous, unpredictable and unforgiving world.
- Russia was, is and always will be a great power, even when comparatively weak and isolated. Being a great power has internal and external dimensions. The internal dimensions are a powerful central state, to keep order and repel Western interference in its affairs, and an economy built around a large military-industrial complex. The external dimensions are the defence of Russia’s sovereignty, the safeguarding of its geopolitical autonomy and the recognition by others of its entitlement to be treated as a great power – in other words, its right to be consulted on all matters of international security.
Defeat in Ukraine would challenge this world view in painful ways. For sure, Russia would continue to deploy some formidable foreign policy capabilities. Its overseas diplomatic and intelligence-gathering presence would still be extensive. Its nuclear arsenal would still be the world’s largest. Despite the breakdown of economic relations with the West, it would remain a leading exporter of hydrocarbons, strategic metals, civil nuclear technology, foodstuffs and arms.
Yet Russia’s ability to project power and influence beyond its borders would have been greatly weakened. Above all, it would have lost Ukraine, the centrepiece of its self-proclaimed sphere of influence. Russia would remain the largest and most powerful country in the post-Soviet space, where it would almost certainly continue to assert its ‘privileged interests’. But its geopolitical position in the region would be diminished, creating new room for manoeuvre for its smaller neighbours and fresh opportunities for outsiders to become more involved. Such influence as Russia had exercised in parts of the West would have been mostly destroyed for the foreseeable future. The enlargement and rejuvenation of NATO and the EU would transform the balance of power in Europe to its detriment. Russia would continue to invest profitably in relations with sections of the Global South. Yet its influence there would still be held back by its modest economic offer and weak soft-power appeal. The relationship with China would be closer than ever, but with Russia now unquestionably the junior partner. Finally, Russia’s army would have sustained massive damage in Ukraine. Rebuilding conventional military power would be a priority for any post-Putin leader, yet an uncertain economic prognosis would curb the ability to do so. Meanwhile, Russia would be even more reliant on its nuclear arsenal as a deterrent and an emblem of its pretensions to great power status.
Rebuilding conventional military power would be a priority for any post-Putin leader, yet an uncertain economic prognosis would curb the ability to do so.
The outcome of the phase of active conflict in Ukraine envisioned here would therefore represent a strategic disaster for Russia. In theory, a new leadership would have space in which to reconsider the assumptions and miscalculations that had caused the defeat. That said, any soul-searching would probably be incomplete. The world view sketched at the start of this section has deep roots. It is not immutable, but it has been embedded in the minds of recent generations of decision-makers and the public. The outcome of the post-Putin succession described earlier does not suggest that a leadership with radically different ideas would take power following defeat in Ukraine. And an authoritarian political system would prevent an open debate about these issues. In other words, without far-reaching domestic political change, a major reappraisal of Russia’s place in the world would seem unlikely. If so, in this scenario the future direction of Russian foreign policy, as of its domestic governance, might lie somewhere between two poles.
At one pole would be a focus on authoritarian retrenchment. This approach would aim to create an external environment that enabled Russia to regroup domestically. Maintaining tight internal control, a new leadership would prioritize the slow reconstitution of economic and military power. In the meantime, it would attempt a limited recalibration of relations with the leading Western powers. An early opening for a cautious rapprochement could materialize following a Russian withdrawal from Ukraine and the lifting of some sanctions. The new president would perhaps not share Putin’s visceral animosity towards the West, nor his obsession with Ukraine. The initial stages of regime consolidation could see a new leadership revive more inclusive and formal policymaking processes, empowering the foreign ministry and other specialists and allowing more balanced flows of information to reach decision-makers. Business leaders, seeking further sanctions relief, might lobby the regime for a partial normalization of ties with the West (an approach which might also be promoted domestically as a way to lessen Russia’s growing dependence on China).
Over time, a pragmatic partial reassessment of Russian national interests could induce a new leadership to air other possibilities. These might include an attempt to restart strategic stability talks with the US – on the grounds that an arms race with a far wealthier and technologically more advanced adversary would be economically ruinous (and dangerous) – or exploratory exchanges over conventional arms in Europe, given that the continental military balance would have tilted sharply against Russia. Retrenchment could involve concentrating on priority regions such as the post-Soviet space, the Middle East and East Asia. Russia would, however, continue to court opinion in parts of the Global South, not least at international and regional organizations.
Authoritarian retrenchment would have limits. Relations between Russia and the leading Western powers would remain confrontational. ‘The West’ would still be considered a real and present danger. The situation in Europe would generate profound differences between Russia and the leading Western powers: a final settlement in Ukraine, which would be recovering and rearming with Western support; the future of Belarus, which would acquire even greater strategic importance for Russian security planners; and wider regional issues, particularly Russia’s relations with NATO – enlarged, more vigilant and committed to higher defence spending. Conflicting interests and heightened mutual suspicion would hinder cooperation with the West further afield, for example over regional conflicts and proliferation. Nor would a new leadership in Moscow renounce Russia’s ambition to be – and be acknowledged as – a great power, however fanciful this seemed to outsiders, reconfirming an assumption of entitlement and aggravating a sense of grievance at perceived slights. A final source of friction would be Russia’s authoritarian political system, which would continue to attract condemnation by Western governments.
It is debatable whether Western governments would have much appetite for mending fences with Russia. Discussions about the further unwinding of sanctions would probably founder on disagreements over a final dispensation in Ukraine, especially if Russia tried to destabilize its neighbour. Western governments would be on their guard against hostile Russian covert state activity (such as espionage, cyber-enabled attacks or assassination attempts). Public anger towards Russia arising from the war in Ukraine could make it politically difficult, if not impossible, for Western leaders to respond positively to certain Russian overtures. For its part, Russia might react with fresh aggrievement and disappointment, cutting back such limited dialogue and cooperation as had been re-established.
Despite its limitations, a variant of authoritarian retrenchment might seem like a rational response to the challenges facing a post-Putin Russia. Yet it is possible to envisage an appreciably darker outcome in this scenario – that of hard-line isolationism. At this end of the spectrum of possibilities, defeat and humiliation in Ukraine, perhaps combined with an incomplete or contested regime consolidation and economic difficulties, could produce an embattled Russian leadership whose disposition was militantly anti-Western. Such a regime might actively undermine the stability of ‘unfriendly’ adjacent countries, starting with Ukraine (where the potentially unsettled post-war situations in Crimea and Donbas could present inviting targets for interference); prioritize cooperation with authoritarian neighbours to neutralize Western influence around Russia’s borders; be even more aggressive in its covert hostile activities against Western countries; step up attempts to divide NATO and the EU; oppose meaningful cooperation over arms control, proliferation and regional conflicts; and/or be even more closely aligned with authoritarian anti-Western leaderships such as in Iran. The outlook of such a Russian regime would be consistent with greater domestic authoritarianism and state control over the economy. For Western governments, hard-line isolationism would pose great problems in Europe, where constructive engagement with an authoritarian Russian leadership to manage the regional reverberations of the war might be well-nigh impossible.
Whichever course a post-Putin leadership adopted in this scenario, it would face an inescapable dilemma. The ambition to be an autonomous great power on a par with the US and China would persist, yet Russia would lack the capabilities required to achieve this goal. The divergence between ends and means would be especially stark in two spheres. First, Russia’s anaemic economy would almost certainly not create the wealth needed to pay for all the hard power tools that the political leadership wanted. Second, Russia would lag further behind the US and China. Its claim to great power equality with them has long been as much an aspiration as a reflection of reality. Yet by 2027, the gap between Russia, on the one hand, and the US and China, on the other, would be wider still, casting Russia’s comparative decline in an even less forgiving light.
