Putin’s Ideology of Multipolarism

Abstract

In his magisterial new analysis of Russian foreign policy under President Vladimir Putin, Russia and New World Disorder, Chatham House fellow Bobo Lo argues that Kremlin's understanding of current international environment is almost Marxist-Leninist in its teleological underpinnings. While in Soviet times Moscow's ideology foresaw inevitable triumph of socialism led by USSR, Lo describes Russia's current focus on inevitable decline of West and triumph of a non-Western (and even anti-Western) multipolar order in which Russia will play a key role. Lo believes that this ideologically tinged version of geopolitics leaves Putin poorly equipped to deal with complex global realities. Although Putin has scored tactical victories against U.S. president Barack Obama and other Western opponents through his quick and flexible actions in Ukraine and Syria, Lo argues that Putin's strategic vision is in contrast inflexible, flawed, and ultimately doomed to send Russia even further into relative decline because of its transparently instrumentalist cast. Most importantly, Lo observes that Kremlin's neo-imperial image of Russia's proper role in post-Soviet space will undermine its relationships in Eurasia.Russia and New World Disorder is comprehensive in scope, dealing with everything from foreign policy decision-making to a review of most pressing issues in current international environment. It includes sections on Russia's views of international governance and what Lo sees as Russia's imperial spirit (p. 101), as well as a broad overview of Russia's recent relationships with both East and West. Lo's 2008 book, Axis of Convenience: Moscow, Beijing, and New Geopolitics, focused on Russia's developing relationship with China, and many of his earlier observations on Russia's eastward turn are reprised and updated in this new volume. new book 's significant sections on Eurasia and Asia-Pacific region are particularly welcome in an academic environment that often privileges analysis of Russia's relations with West. Lo's discussion of how Russia defines Asianness is useful (pp. 133-34), as is his observation that Russia's Asia policy seems unduly centered on China.Lo also pays significant attention to potential future trajectories of Russian foreign policy. Chapter eight lays out four scenarios for Russia's foreign policy development by year 2030, based on differing predictions about direction of Russia's domestic political evolution. One weakness of this section is that scenarios are presented without any sense of political incentives and realities that would drive them-and without attention to myth-making philosophy of Putinism that Lo explores so well in earlier sections of book. He portrays a turn to second-wave liberalism (p. 239) as equally likely to develop as hard authoritarianism (p. 234) without much explanation of changes needed to achieve a more liberal outcome from where Russia is today. In chapter two, The Domestic Context of Foreign Policy, Lo deftly shows how Kremlin's foreign policy has matched and reinforced historical myths and resulting perceived interests held by much of Russian elite and mass public. As Lo writes, the stars are not aligned in favor of change (p. 37), so it is not clear what would drive such a liberal shift.In a departure from standard academic practice, Lo also includes a chapter (chapter seven, A New Foreign Policy for a New Russia) that prescribes not only what West should do toward Russia but also what Russia should do to reform its own foreign policy. …