Vital Interests: I would like to discuss Russian global adventurism. It's hard to avoid media stories that do not somehow involve Russia. Just today in the New York Times there was a front page article, “Russia Imports Election Tricks to Madagascar.” What are the Russians up to? Is this the same old story of Russia just wanting to be a player in the world, or is there something else going on?

Candace Rondeaux: There is a lot more continuity than novelty in Russian foreign policy. Many of the concerns and objectives of Moscow and the Kremlin are much the same as they were a hundred years ago insomuch as Russia desires to be a great power, desires to exercise it's right of trade and commerce, as well as international relations, across the global commons. 

The thing that is different about the recent turn of events involving Russia's adventures in Africa and the Middle East, is that it is a lot more aggressive.There seems to be a deeper integration between state enterprises and Russian power brokers who are both connected to Putin and the Kremlin. This is  more tightly controlled than you might have seen in the Soviet Union in terms of an overall campaign to project power and grow influence in areas where Russia has not had much, at least in recent years.

Obviously, the Russian outreach in Africa is becoming a concern to anybody who's watching either Africa or Russia or is concerned about stability in international affairs. In Africa, you have so many ongoing conflicts, and so many vulnerable governments that are often teetering on the edge, on the brink of collapse, in many cases. This makes a very ripe territory for Russia, which really seeks out new markets where the United States dares not tread either because it simply doesn't make sense from a political/economic point of view, or because those regimes are viewed as pariah regimes, and they come under United States or European Union sanctions, or both.

VI: You say there's continuity between the Russian Empire wanting to be a power in Europe and the Soviet Union’s ambition to spread communism. Are their contemporary global ambitions more of a threat than the communist ideological mandate of the Soviet era?

Candace Rondeaux: It does have some ideological components but they are hard to see because it's not the same kind of hard-edged, almost zealot-like ideology that we saw during the communist era of the Soviet Union. There are components of ideology though. A core component is this very conservative view of the role of the state in citizens' individual lives, and the control over public discourse. The ideology shows continuity insomuch as there is that totalitarian strain, autocratic strain, that leads from the Kremlin of the Soviet times to the Kremlin of the Putin era. 

I think the other components of ideology are conservative Christian Orthodox. There is the promotion, at least in Europe, of this idea of white nationalism, Christian Orthodox security.

Obviously that's not something that would sell very well in a place like Madagascar or Mozambique or in northern Libya where we've seen mercenaries operating on behalf of Russia, but the fundamental idea is that the state knows better than the citizens. Security is the state as opposed to the people being responsible for holding the state to account. It's a completely different ideology, but it is a very distinct ideology. 

We have yet, in the United States and probably in the EU, come to the realization that what we’re seeing is a new kind of fascism.

VI: Is it possible to dismiss what's happening in Russia as Putin using Russian nationalism to solidify his own popularity at home, to keep himself and his kleptocracy in power?"  

Candace Rondeaux: It is  always tempting to say, there's one way to look through the prism at this particular puzzle when oftentimes you could have multiple theories that are not mutually exclusive.

It is true that the adventurism in Ukraine and Syria specifically were timed just after the Russian elections in 2011 and 2012. It went so poorly for Putin, it was a wake-up call for the regime that it was on shaky ground in terms of public support.  When a country goes to war, the public tends to rally to the cause and with Ukraine we certainly saw that. Although in both instances, there's been a drop off of support, certainly in the case of Syria.

It is true that those two adventures were very much designed to speak to the domestic politics of the time. At the same time, there's something that people often miss, which is that Russia really only has a couple of big exports. One is oil and gas and the other is arms. 

Russia has been under sanctions, not just for Ukraine,  but also a number of oligarchs and industries have been under sanction for quite a long time because of accusations of being involved in organized crime. That has really hurt the Russian economy and put a crimp in the Putin regime's ability to influence people who might challenge the current status quo, and also it makes it difficult to draw in hard currency. People aren't exactly running to buy rubles on the marketplace.

The dollar is still king, and right after that, is the euro and the Swiss franc. In order to get that hard currency flowing back into a state that's on shaky ground, economically, Russia has had to drive hard bargains when it comes to the export of arms, oil, and energy infrastructure and extraction capabilities. Having access to the Black Sea as a passageway to the Mediterranean and then down to the Red Sea has been extremely crucial for Russia not just for domestic appearances , but also economically crucial for keeping the status quo inside of Russia.

VI: When we talk about governance in Russia, we certainly know a lot about Putin since he has been the main character for many years. Then there are the oligarchs and some military leaders in Putin’s orbit. Does this constitute the government of Russia?

Candace Rondeaux: Yes, this is what people who think about Russia and live in Russia talk about all the time. It's called Sistema, the system. The system is predicated on the idea that power corrupts and corrupts absolutely. Anybody who seeks to get by by doing good, or do good by getting by, has to buy into the model of kickbacks, bribery, tax avoidance, blackmail, and organized crime. That has been the mode of the Russian political economy, really even pre-dating the collapse of the Soviet Union, but I think obviously it became a cancer of the state in 1999 during the transition from Yeltsin to Putin..

Putin has tried to shape the Russian state, and I think he has done so quite successfully. He has managed to slowly but surely eliminate some of the more chaotic elements within the Sistema of black market power, and the security agencies hold on most of the state enterprises. 

Putin managed to very quickly send a message that he is not to be messed with, and anybody who wants to survive has to do the businesses his way. What that ultimately means is that you can always be caught up in charges of tax avoidance. You're always vulnerable, as a business person in Sistema, in Putin's world, to essentially blackmail.

VI: Within Putin’s Sistema is there a brain trust that formulates a grand strategy or are they totally opportunistic and looking for places in the world to exploit for economic opportunities and influence?

Candace Rondeaux: There is a grand strategy, in much the same way the United States has a grand strategy which is a deep dedication to the free flow of goods and a beneficial trading environment.  Generally, open access to the global commons. Russia, I think, feels strongly that it has a place in the world, and part of that is to challenge a unipolar world dominated by the United States and/or its allies, as in NATO. That grand strategy is as old as the Empire itself. I think the mindset of the Russian power brokers today in Moscow is to restore the Empire. That is very much part of the Russian grand strategy.

I think at the very highest level the aim is to try  to restore a place for the Empire in today’s world and not allow it to disintegrate as it had done obviously in the Soviet era. Thus the reach for Ukraine is about reconsolidating the Empire. There were other options available to Putin, in terms of projecting power, but instead he advocated, and others I think also advocated, for a land grab. 

That grand strategy is real. This idea of multipolarity has been around and been a central thread, certainly from the 1970s. Putin, being a former KGB agent, feels the need to reassert that view, which he inherited from those experiences.

VI: What you're saying is that this goes beyond meddling which is usually the word that's used to describe Russia these days. It meddles here, it meddles there - it meddles in elections, it meddles in trade relations, it meddles in conflicts - how does Russia always have its tentacles in countries throughout the world?

Candace Rondeaux: It meddles because that's what it can do. That is, Russia does not currently have the capacity to confront the U.S. directly.

VI: That's a tactic, in other words.

Candace Rondeaux: Yes. The United States, by comparison, has the ability not to just meddle, but to dominate. I don't think you could say that of too many other states in the world today, that  they're both willing and able to intervene and occupy. That is the qualitative difference between not only the grand strategy or tactics, but really the world you deal with, the Weltanschauung that it forms. Russia understands that it is a country with the world's largest land mass.

There are a couple of different ways to use power and pursue grand strategy, one, is try and occupy. Russia has very rarely done that. You can make the argument that Ukraine is a very interesting exception to many rules, but ultimately it has always been situated between Europe and the Russian Empire, and it's kind of an easy situation.

In other cases, Russia didn't have colonies per se, like the US. I think that, within that parallel, there is a reason for the clashes.

VI: In terms of its economy  basically Russia produces oil and gas for export, and also arms. Is that enough to keep a Russian economy going? What is their economic outlook and prospects?

Candace Rondeaux: Some things have improved. I think it's important to recognize that under Putin, the longevity of the Russian people has increased. There has been a reversal of early mortality but still the drop in population is pretty significant. Demographically, Russia has many of the challenges it did as it entered the millennium. Economically, it's extremely difficult for the majority of the Russian people. Inequality is more severe than even in the United States. It is sharp.

In Moscow and St. Petersburg, maybe it is not so obvious, but in the hinterlands, many towns and villages are just falling into poverty. A good number are being depopulated, not simply because of the poverty, but because there really is no means by which to earn a living in the hinterlands nowadays. It's a very difficult situation for Russia because, in fact, none of the hard work of moving  away from a state-centeric economy has really been done.

VI: Does Putin talk about a 10-year plan or a 5-year plan for domestic consumption? Does he talk about economic restructuring and prospects for the future?

Candace Rondeaux: Yes. All types of experiments are going on. One very good example is Skolkovo which was a Putin/Medvedev adventure in trying to create a silicon valley of Russia. It's still going, but it wasn't launched with much fanfare. The idea was going to be Medvedev going to San Francisco and the big tech-savvy universities and high tech companies to forge partnerships. 

There was going to be this great hands across the water - or across the arctic -  moment. It all collapsed ultimately because it turned out that a lot of the Russian startup companies were caught stealing. There was a lot of American intellectual property  was stolen, and of course this then chilled the market. 

This is the fundamental  Russian problem, the challenge with the rule of law. In any other context, if Russia was south of the equator, we would view it as a failed state. Because of its landmass and its many great mineral riches, and in fact a very educated population, it has managed to creep along.

Ultimately this is a state that is on the verge of collapse, and I think everybody understands that. The only thing really holding it together is its ability to export arms and oil energy. Internally, the public is now beginning to wonder, I think quite anxiously, what will happen when Putin steps down. I think it might just be that he will step down, and the question is what's the succession plan?

VI: When we talk about great powers, if you compare Russia to China, that doesn't look very good in terms of their future prospects and the kind of technology development and resources that the Chinese are putting into this?

Candace Rondeaux: Russia is really afraid that China is going to eat its lunch, just like the United States and everybody else. That's the other thing that Russia has in common with the United States. The Eurasian Economic Union that Putin proposed back in 2012 and that was ultimately entered into by Kazakhstan and Belarus though rejected by Ukraine was meant to be a counterweight, on its face, to the EU but honestly, Russia was anticipating that in fact, China would start reaching deeper and deeper into its rear territories in Central Asia. It was meant to be a union between Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Ukraine. Obviously it's a completely failed experiment so far, but it certainly speaks to the anxiety that Russia has around China as a rival in the region and in the world.

VI: In other words, China is not really a partner?

Candace Rondeaux: China is a partner because of the configuration of the United Nations Security Council. I wonder, and I think many wonder if China would be such a good partner if India, for instance, was, or Brazil or both frankly, were admitted to the council as permanent members. That might really change the calculus of both Russia and the United States and China, because I think they would find they tend to compete in those two markets actually for a share of the pie. 

I think that's really the calculus a lot of times. Yes, there is a shared view on this need to check U.S.ambitions and overreach. In that sense they are united, but I do think that configuration in the United Nations Security Council would absolutely change the calculus of China and Russia, in fact, I could see them in competition more often than not.

VI: There's no real bond because of their shared communist legacies?

Candace Rondeaux: The common thread, again, is this very autocratic view that it is the state, and centralized authority, that really needs to be protected. It is not the rights of the people.

VI: As sentiment in Europe has cooled on the United States due to a lack of trust in the U.S.’s commitment, are the Russians trying to better relations with Europe?

Candace Rondeaux: I think they're trying.

VI: Certainly in Hungary and Poland?

 Candace Rondeaux: They are certainly trying in both. I think the wedge has always been, especially in the last five, six years, the existence of any kind Russian diaspora Eastern Europe as well as in the Baltic states.That's always going to be a wedge issue until Putin steps down, and there is a realization on the part of the Kremlin and the powers that be that in fact, that's a very dangerous book of matches to play with. I think, that realization will probably come due the minute that the United States does more to assert its own relationships in Europe, particularly reinforcing the alliance with NATO is critical.

Obviously, under this administration I expect to see that. I think there is significant anxiety in the Scandinavian countries and the Baltic states around rising Russian aggression. That is informing a lot of the conversation about the need for the European Union to stand up its own defenses, and I think that that is becoming a much more virulent strain in the conversation amongst European elites who are responsible for defense and security on the continent.

VI: Is this about new Russian missile technology,  the START treaty coming to an end, the lack of enthusiasm of the United States to re-negotiate it, and the prospect of an arms race with Europe once again caught in the middle?

Candace Rondeaux: I think that that's part of it. Some of this can be seen from the 2011 NATO response to  Libya’s civil war and the Qaddafi regime’scollapse. I think a lot of deep lessons were learned about the lack of preparedness on the part of NATO. At the end of the day, NATO has to borrow U.S. capability in terms of ISR, Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

I think that really stung because it was a situation in which, while Europe would prefer to do war its own way, it just can't without the United States and its various capabilities. 

 That’s when you start to see internal conversations in NATO, particularly amongst those who lie on the border with Russia and close to its orbit. There is rising anxiety about being dependent on the United States, it is more talked about.  And obviously Ukraine was a turning point for those who like Germany and France or others, more central to Europe.

VI:. How can the United States effectively counter this aggressive meddling that the Russians are engaging in?

Candace Rondeaux: I think in the same way there's more continuity, then novelty on the Russian side of international relations. From a US perspective, there is sound reason to return to some of the principles that Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and others asserted, and even Democrats prior to that, a much more aggressive hard line when it comes to insisting on the rule of law, insisting on international bargains that we have been accustomed to for the last seventy years. I do think, ultimately, if the United States wants to get its arms around the Russian problem or even frankly, the China problem, It is going to have to take a very hard look at expanding the UN Security Council. Many people think that that's right up there with abolishing the electoral college.

VI: How do you get rid of dysfunction, that's always the question?

Candace Rondeaux: I think any senior foreign policy scholar has to understand that the unipolar moment is definitely over. If you don't want  Russia, and relatedly China, becoming something in which dysfunction becomes dystopian, then it's going to be important to reassess international institutions that have been built over the last 70 years. There must be consideration to add more players to the club and balance a little better some of the needs of states in Latin America, in Africa, and Asia with a view to really influencing people back into the corner in favor of democracy.

Without that hardline view, and with any erosion of the sanctions regimes vis a vis Ukraine and/or Syria, where Russia is concerned, would be a disastrous mistake for the United States that we would never be able to unwind. In fact, there's a good case to be made that if there is any faltering in this current moves with the Normandy talks on the side of Russia, if you see return of aggression, then I think the United States should be prepared to offer more aid to Ukraine.

Candace Rondeaux is a Professor of Practice in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University and a Senior Fellow with the Center on the Future of War, a joint initiative of ASU and New America. She is also affiliated with ASU’s Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian and European Studies and she writes a weekly column for the World Politics Review on the intersection of security, strategy, international law and diplomacy. Before joining the Center to help shape its research enterprise, she previously served as a senior program officer at U.S. Institute of Peace where she launched the RESOLVE Network, a global research consortium on conflict and violent extremism and she served as a strategic advisor to the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. She spent five years living and working in South Asia where she served as senior analyst in Afghanistan for the International Crisis Group and as South Asia bureau chief for The Washington Post in Afghanistan and Pakistan.