A more sober and pragmatic version of Eurasianism was also advanced by the leader of Kazakstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev. Faced at home with an almost even demographic split between native Kazaks and Russian settlers and seeking a formula that would somewhat dilute Moscow’s pressures for political integration, Nazarbayev propagated the concept of the “Eurasian Union” as an alternative to the faceless and ineffective CIS. Although his version lacked the mystical content of the more traditional Eurasianist thinking and certainly did not posit a special missionary role for the Russians as leaders of Eurasia, it was derived from the notion that Eurasia—defined geographically in terms analogous to that of the Soviet Union—constituted an organic whole, which must also have a political dimension.
To a degree, the attempt to assign to the “near abroad” the highest priority in Russian geopolitical thinking was justified in the sense that some measure of order and accommodation between postimperial Russia and the newly independent states was an absolute necessity, in terms of security and economics. However, what gave much of the discussion a surrealistic touch was the lingering notion that in some fashion, whether it came about either voluntarily (because of economics) or as a consequence of Russia’s eventual recovery of its lost power—not to speak of Russia’s special Eurasian or Slavic mission—the political “integration” of the former empire was both desirable and feasible.
In this regard, the frequently invoked comparison with the EU neglects a crucial distinction: the EU, even allowing for Germany’s special influence, is not dominated by a single power that alone overshadows all the other members combined, in relative GNP, population, or territory. Nor is the EU the successor to a national empire, with the liberated members deeply suspicious that “integration” is a code word for renewed subordination. Even so, one can easily imagine what the reaction of the European states would have been if Germany had declared formally that its goal was to consolidate and expand its leading role in the EU along the lines of Russia’s pronouncement of September 1995 cited earlier.
The analogy with the EU suffers from yet another deficiency. The open and relatively developed Western European economies were ready for democratic integration, and the majority of Western Europeans perceived tangible economic and political benefits in such integration. The poorer West European countries were also able to benefit from substantial subsidies. In contrast, the newly independent states viewed Russia as politically unstable, as still entertaining domineering ambitions, and, economically, as an obstacle to their participation in the global economy and to their access to much-needed foreign investment.
Opposition to Moscow’s notions of “integration” was particularly strong in Ukraine. Its leaders quickly recognized that such “integration,” especially in light of Russian reservations regarding the legitimacy of Ukrainian independence, would eventually lead to the loss of national sovereignty. Moreover, the heavy-handed Russian treatment of the new Ukrainian state—its unwillingness to grant recognition of Ukraine’s borders, its questioning of Ukraine’s right to Crimea, its insistence on exclusive extraterritorial control over the port of Sevastopol—gave the aroused Ukrainian nationalism a distinctively anti-Russian edge. The self-definition of Ukrainian nationhood, during the critical formative stage in the history of the new state, was thus diverted from its traditional anti-Polish or anti-Romanian orientation and became focused instead on opposition to any Russian proposals for a more integrated CIS, for a special Slavic community (with Russia and Belarus), or for a Eurasian Union, deciphering them as Russian imperial tactics.
Ukraine’s determination to preserve its independence was encouraged by external support. Although initially the West, especially the United States, had been tardy in recognizing the geopolitical importance of a separate Ukrainian state, by the mid-1990s both America and Germany had become strong backers of Kiev’s separate identity. In July 1996, the U.S. secretary of defense declared, “I cannot overestimate the importance of Ukraine as an independent country to the security and stability of all of Europe,” while in September, the German chancellor—notwithstanding his strong support for President Yeltsin—went even further in declaring that “Ukraine’s firm place in Europe can no longer be challenged by anyone… No one will be able any more to dispute Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity.” American policy makers also came to describe the American-Ukrainian relationship as “a strategic partnership,” deliberately invoking the same phrase used to describe the American-Russian relationship.
Without Ukraine, as already noted, an imperial restoration based either on the CIS or on Eurasianism was not a viable option. An empire without Ukraine would eventually mean a Russia that would become more “Asianized” and more remote from Europe. Moreover, Eurasianism was also not especially appealing to the newly independent Central Asians, few of whom were eager for a new union with Moscow. Uzbekistan became particularly assertive in supporting Ukraine’s objections to any elevation of the CIS into a supranational entity and in opposing the Russian initiatives designed to enhance the CIS.
Other CIS states, also wary of Moscow’s intentions, tended to cluster around Ukraine and Uzbekistan in opposing or evading Moscow’s pressures for closer political and military integration. Moreover, a sense of national consciousness was deepening in almost all of the new states, a consciousness increasingly focused on repudiating past submission to Moscow as colonialism and on eradicating its various legacies. Thus, even the ethnically vulnerable Kazakstan joined the other Central Asian states in abandoning the Cyrillic alphabet and replacing it with the Latin script as adapted earlier by Turkey. In effect, by the mid-1990s a bloc, quietly led by Ukraine and comprising Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and sometimes also Kazakstan, Georgia, and Moldova, had informally emerged to obstruct Russian efforts to use the CIS as the tool for political integration.
Ukrainian insistence on only limited and largely economic integration had the further effect of depriving the notion of a “Slavic Union” of any practical meaning. Propagated by some Slavophiles and given prominence by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s support, this idea automatically became geopolitically meaningless once it was repudiated by Ukraine. It left Belarus alone with Russia; and it also implied a possible partition of Kazakstan, with its Russian-populated northern regions potentially part of such a union. Such an option was understandably not reassuring to the new rulers of Kazakstan and merely intensified the anti-Russian thrust of their nationalism. In Belarus, a Slavic Union without Ukraine meant nothing less than incorporation into Russia, thereby also igniting more volatile feelings of nationalist resentment.
These external obstacles to a “near abroad” policy were powerfully reinforced by an important internal restraint: the mood of the Russian people. Despite the rhetoric and the political agitation among the political elite regarding Russia’s special mission in the space of the former empire, the Russian people—partially out of sheer fatigue but also out of pure common sense—showed little enthusiasm for any ambitious program of imperial restoration. They favored open borders, open trade, freedom of movement, and special status for the Russian language, but political integration, especially if it was to involve economic costs or require bloodshed, evoked little enthusiasm.
The disintegration of the “union” was regretted, its restoration favored; but public reaction to the war in Chechnya indicated that any policy that went beyond the application of economic leverage and/or political pressure would lack popular support.
In brief, the ultimate geopolitical inadequacy of the “near abroad” priority was that Russia was not strong enough politically to impose its will and not attractive enough economically to be able to seduce the new states. Russian pressure merely made them seek more external ties, first and foremost with the West but in some cases also with China and the key Islamic countries to the south. When Russia threatened to form its own military bloc in response to NATO’s expansion, it begged the question “With whom?” And it begged the even more painful answer: at the most, maybe with Belarus and Tajikistan.
The new states, if anything, were increasingly inclined to distrust even perfectly legitimate and needed forms of economic integration with Russia, fearing their potential political consequences. At the same time, the notions of Russia’s alleged Eurasian mission and of the Slavic mystique served only to isolate Russia further from Europe and, more generally, from the West, thereby perpetuating the post-Soviet crisis and delaying the needed modernization and westernization of Russian society along the lines of what Kemal Ataturk did in Turkey in the wake of the Ottoman Empire’s collapse. The “near abroad” option thus offered Russia not a geopolitical solution but a geopolitical illusion.
If not a condominium with America and if not the “near abroad,” then what other geostrategic option was open to Russia? The failure of the Western orientation to produce the desired global coequality with America for a “democratic Russia,” which was more a slogan than reality, caused a letdown among the democrats, whereas the reluctant recognition that “reintegration” of the old empire was at best a remote possibility tempted some Russian geopoliticians to toy with the idea of some sort of counteralliance aimed at America’s hegemonic position in Eurasia.
In early 1996, President Yeltsin replaced his Western-oriented foreign minister, Kozyrev, with the more experienced but also orthodox former Communist international specialist Evgenniy Primakov, whose long-standing interest has been Iran and
