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SCENARIOS Vilius Ivanauskas OF Tomas Janeliūnas Gražvydas Jasutis Laurynas Jonavičius SSIa’S Laurynas Kasčiūnas RU Vytautas Keršanskas DEVELOPMENT: Linas Kojala Implications for the Lithuanian and Regional Security SCENARIOS Vilius Ivanauskas OF Tomas Janeliūnas Gražvydas Jasutis Laurynas Jonavičius Laurynas Kasčiūnas RUSSIa’S Vytautas Keršanskas DEVELOPMENT: Linas Kojala Implications for the Lithuanian and Regional Security Vilnius, 2016 UDK 323(470) Ru-138 The research ant the publication was financed by Research Council of Lithuania according mean of appurtenance research projects, contract Nr. REP-7/2015. Review by: Dr. Nerijus Maliukevičius (VU Institute of International Relations and Political Science (IIRPS)) Dr. Giedrius Česnakas (Vytautas Magnus University) © Vilius Ivanauskas, 2016 © Tomas Janeliūnas, 2016 © Gražvydas Jasutis, 2016 © Laurynas Jonavičius, 2016 © Laurynas Kasčiūnas, 2016 © Vytautas Keršanskas, 2016 © Linas Kojala, 2016 © The Eastern Europe Studies Centre (EESC), 2016 © Aušra Lukošaitytė, translation, 2016 © Aukso žuvys, 2016 ISBN 978-609-8120-24-0 Content Introduction 7 Russian Conservatism: Making National Ideology Policy / Vilius Ivanauskas 13 and Influencing Russia’s Foreign Laurynas Jonavičius 54 Foreign Policy of a Limited Access Order: the case of Russia / The Functioning Vytautas ofKeršanskas Putin’s Government: 87 a Multi-Layered System of Elite Groups / Relations / Vytautas Keršanskas, Vilius Ivanauskas, KaliningradLaurynas Kasčiūnas Factor in the Lithuanian – Russian 121 between Belarus and Russia / Gražvydas Jasutis, TheLinas Question Kojala, Vilius of InterdependenceIvanauskas 161 Vilius Ivanauskas, Tomas Janeliūnas, Vytautas Keršanskas, Linas Kojala 199 Russian Foreign Policy Scenarios / Summary 237 Bibliography 254 CONTENT 5 Introduction Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, which began in 2014, has become the ref- erence point for the evaluation of the Kremlin’s foreign policy. The annexa- tion of Crimea was against the fundamental principles of the international law established after the Cold War and came as a big shock to the West. Unlike after Russo-Georgian War in 2008, this time NATO and the EU Member States demonstrated greater solidarity and reacted strongly to the growing aggressiveness of Russia. There’s an increasing awareness that, by trying to impede Ukraine’s cooperation with the EU and NATO, Russia seeks to change the balance of power in the entire European security sys- tem and that this poses new challenges to decision makers of both, Lithua- nia and the Western states. Russia’s growing aggressiveness and the escala- tion of tension between Russia and the West have brought to the forefront the issues of the Baltic States’ security, which for a long time were discussed in narrow circles only. Recently, the analysis of Russia’s foreign policy has become not only popular among academics and experts but also necessary for politicians and developers of foreign and security policy. It is no longer enough to react superficially to Russia’s routine actions, propaganda declarations or political provocations. There is a growing awareness that a deeper strategic approach to the relations with Russia is necessary, an approach based on profound assessment of the main driving force that makes Russia’s regime INTRODUCTION 7 behave as it does. Only having comprehended these underlying reasons, is it possible to begin thinking of the long-term security and foreign policy strategies for developing relations with Russia and strengthening national security. This monograph is an attempt to provide detailed answers to the fun- damental questions related to the security of Lithuania (and at the same time of the Baltic States): what is the impact of Russia’s domestic policies on its foreign policy? What key external and internal factors determine Russia’s priorities in foreign policy and security? On what ideologies does the Kremlin ground its actions in the international arena? What roles in Russia’s strategy for the Baltic States are played by hyper-militarized Kalin- ingrad Oblast and Belarus, which is closely integrated in the military area? What are the possible scenarios of Russia’s policy concerning the Baltic States? Although the internal factors most likely have the greatest influence on the Kremlin’s foreign policy, the study begins with the analysis of the external structural factors. According to most foreign researchers, Rus- sia (just like the former Soviet Union) has been especially sensitive to the external international changes. Historically, the Soviet and now Russian leaders have always feared the real or alleged danger of the European coun- tries and USA and reacted to it by changing their attitude towards the West. These reactions have been shifting from the attempts to move closer to the West, to become similar to the West and make use of the Western aid offered to the complete dismissal of the Western values and maximum confrontation with USA and Europe. Also, Russia (like the Soviet Union) has for a long time been particularly dependent on the export of energy resources, which underlies its economic power. That is why fluctuations of oil prices strongly affect the economic opportunities of contemporary Russia and, respectively, the power of its foreign and security policy. Thus, it is not surprising that it is during the period of Vladimir Putin’s rule, when global oil prices increased several times and Russia gained more con- fidence in its own power and began expanding its military forces and using actively the instruments of soft power abroad. It is precisely the interplay 8 SCENARIOS OF RUSSIA’S DEVELOPMENT: Implications for the Lithuanian and Regional Security of these two external factors – the U.S. international influence and fluc- tuations of oil prices – that can help to better understand why in some periods of time Russia’s elite is under pressure to look for cooperation pos- sibilities with the West and when it is willing to increase the level of con- frontation and hostility. What is interesting is that, although the internal political competition has been virtually eliminated since 2000, even in the closed regime of Putin, there exist opportunities to change the narrative on how the communication with USA and the West should proceed. This confirms once again the presumptions that Putin’s regime is not ideolog- ically “orthodox”; on the contrary, it is rather conformist and reactive to external conditions. However, it would be impossible to model the possible scenarios of Rus- sia’s foreign policy regarding Lithuania and other Baltic States without the thorough analysis of the foundations and functioning of Vladimir Putin’s regime. In order to explain the mechanism of Russia’s politics and the resulting foreign policy direction, this book looks into the key determinant variables: the prevailing ideology, the most important actors of domestic policy or their groups and their ideological views and interests in the inter- national arena. The primary focus of the book is on the study of the Rus- sian conservatism, which is used to explain the search for the national idea (ideology?) and its expression in foreign policy. The internal structural fac- tors form Russia’s Eurasianist direction as the dominant political doctrine, which defines and limits the balancing of the foreign policy and helps to explain its dynamics. Putin’s Russia has become the state in which the monopoly of power is shared by influential social groups that have formed the elite. The coalition of these groups will remain stable as long as all the groups receive suffi- cient compensation for not using to the full the power they possess and not devouring the alternative groups. Thus, it depends on the rents received by the elite groups, whether the political system of contemporary Russia will persist together with the state’s foreign policy. Although the form of Russia’s government is most often referred to as a sort of hybrid pseudo democratic regime, in fact, it is a kind of authoritarianism: in Russia, the INTRODUCTION 9 process of democratization has never been accomplished and has even been stopped. A political consensus was “indoctrinated” in Russia through the recognition of the domination of Vladimir Putin and the “United Russia”, and the remaining elite had to either adjust to this or lose its status. That is why the book also attempts to explain how such order of limited access affects the country’s foreign policy. Various prevailing definitions of the political system of post-commu- nist Russia are based on the common presumption that, while analyzing the concentration of power in the country, it is necessary to look into the functioning groups of influence: how they were formed, the ratio of polit- ical, economic and military actors, the role of formal and informal con- nections, and the interplay of different groups of influence. Although Rus- sia’s political system remains like a “black box”, which is difficult to open, the book offers a model of analyzing several layers of elite groups which encompasses the models explaining the interplay of influence groups act- ing around Putin. Based on this model, the main actors of Putin’s sys- tem are identified. Also, the authors note that the changes which began in 2015–2016 in the closest circle of Putin’s comrades may be a benchmark of a new stage of power consolidation in Russia. At the theoretical as well as political level, increasingly greater atten- tion is being payed to the militarization of Kaliningrad Oblast that Rus- sia is implementing, which is a vital dilemma from the perspective of the military security of Lithuania and the region. In September, 2014 NATO Summit in Wales adopted the decision to increase military support to the Baltic States and in this way implement the concept of deterring Russia, which may again use Kaliningrad as a geopolitical instrument to restrict the influence of the Alliance in the region. To NATO decisions, Russia responded by declaring an arms race and adopting the strategy of deter- ring the Alliance from the region. In this strategy, Kaliningrad militariza- tion plays an important role of a means to maintain the balance of power in the dialogue with the West.

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