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NATIONAL RESEASRCH UNIVERSITY - HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

UNIVERSITY OF KENT

RESURGENCE OF A GREAT POWER: RUSSIA'S FOREIGN POLICY INSTRUMENTS

Master Dissertation by

Marc Pierre Andrй Demey

Master Programme `International Relations in Eurasia'

Field of Study 41.04.05 International Relations

Moscow, Russia 2020

Abstract

This paper aims to review Russia's main foreign policy instruments in the context of the growing multi-polarization of the world. For this endeavour, based on the study of the major schools of IR, we divided our work in three parts: Russia's military, Russia's instruments in the information war and Russia's economic tools. Our analysis demonstrated that Russia has at its disposal a wide variety of tools of different nature and unevenly developed to achieve its foreign policy goals. We concluded that although Russia's great power status rests for the major part on its reborn and particularly advanced military, Moscow has been successfully developing new non-military instruments to leverage its foreign policy.

Table of contents

Introduction

Methodology

Literature Review

Realism

Liberalism

Constructivism

THE INSTRUMENTS OF RUSSIA'S FOREIGN POLICY

Chapter 1: Russia's military instruments

a. The Russian Army

b. Military intervention

c. Arms selling

d. Military alliances and partnerships

Chapter 2: Information war

a. Coercive instruments

b. Non-Coercive Instruments

Chapter 3: Economic Tools

a. Petro-Carrots and Petro-sticks in Russia's near abroad

b. Russia's economic presence in the World

c. The Eurasian Economic Union

Conclusion

Bibliography

Resurgence of a Great Power: Russia's foreign policy instruments

What are Russia's foreign policy instruments in the context of the new Cold War?

Introduction

In March 2020, during the Covid-19 epidemic in Italy, Russia and China were blamed by some voices in Europe and in the US for instrumentalizing and for over-mediatizing their sanitary help to Italy. Indeed, those two countries would, according to the critics not be helping Italy purely altruistically but they were allegedly sending masks and respirators in order to improve their image and to increase their influence over the country (Le Monde, 2020). The fact is, that having received help from Russia and China, Rome asked for a similar help from the US, their traditional NATO allies (CNN, 2020). The 31^st of March 2020, even though the United States of America was at the time the most impacted country on Earth by the coronavirus in terms of number of people infected, Trump announced that the US will in a first time ship $100 Million worth of medical furniture to Italy and then send help to France and Spain (France24, 2020). One could easily argue that maybe this US support is also not so altruistic but a way to counter Russia's and China's move. A solid argument given the fact that a few weeks before that, Trump tried to buy to several German pharmaceutical companies the exclusivity on their potential production of Covid-19 vaccines at the expense of the German and European population (Independent, 2020).

This story along with plenty others teach us that in the contemporary world we assist to an endless competition of great powers in every domain. In January 2018, the National Defence Strategy made by the US department of defence described the brief moment of the post-Cold War unipolar world as follows: “For decades the United States has enjoyed uncontested or dominant superiority in every operating domain. We could generally deploy our forces when we wanted, assemble them where we wanted, and operate how we wanted. Today, every domain is contested--air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace” (Summary of the 2018 National Defence Strategy). Even Italy, a NATO country, a very loyal ally of the US during the Cold War and a founding member of the European Union is now the theatre for international rivalry. A similar situation would have been absolutely unthinkable 30 years ago. We assist today to the shift from a unipolar world led by the US and the West to a multipolar world, with several actors, some significantly stronger than others, which all want to maximize their gains and influence which mechanically creates constant geopolitical tensions. The geopolitical complexification of the World is the result of the reduction of the US relative strength in the World which was made possible by the apparition of rising powers. Indeed, the Chinese economic miracle initiated in December 1978 allowed China to become a very serious competitor to the US both economically and militarily. China made its first major geopolitical move in 2013, when Xi Jinping announced in Kazakhstan the Road and Belt initiative (Chinese Government, 2015). This new Silk Road program will have tremendous geopolitical consequences both in Eurasia and in Africa and can easily be compared to the US Marshall Plan. In addition, although Russia did not follow China's path economically, thanks to the 20 years-long work of Vladimir Putin, Russia managed to come back as a major military and geopolitical power in the World. Russia's successful intervention in Syria proved that alone, Russia could produce important geopolitical changes. Beside those two great powers, other regional powers are emerging or re-emerging such as India, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel and others. Surprisingly, it is alleged that Brazil, placed France as its number one military threat for the future 20 years (France24, 2020). It can seem bizarre at first glance but it illustrates perfectly the changes occurring now in global politics. In truth, the World is seemingly choosing another international relations school of thoughts, shifting from liberalism and integration to a realist world, more complex, illustrated by a spider web of conflicting interests, where alliances can be made and broken depending not on ideological principles and values but purely guided by egoistic interests. Even the US, which used to be after the 2^nd World War a country which emphasized the role of values in its foreign policy is taking a more realist approach on the impulse of its president Donald Trump. “The US post-Cold war policy was based on the assumption that engagement with rivals and their inclusion in international institutions and global commerce would turn them into benign actors and trustworthy partners. For the most part, this premise turned out to be false” (National Security Strategy, 2017).

In this context of the apparition of a new geopolitical game governed by new rules, we are going to analyze in this paper one of its major players: Russia.

As we all know, Russia, then the Soviet Union was a Superpower during the second half of the 20^th century, being one of the pole of the geopolitically bipolar world. With the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia lost a lot of its power on the international stage. Russia managed to keep the nuclear weapons of the USSR and its permanent seat at the UN Security Council but lost 35% of its territory, almost half of its population and a good part of its industry and resources (CIA Factbook, 2020). The country was in a deplorable state and inside the former super-power some socio-economic groups were in risk of famine in the early 90s (Liefert, 2004). Furthermore, the military was also in a critical state illustrated by the fact that Russia got defeated and humiliated by the minuscule state of Chechnya during the first Chechen war (1994-1996).

In a first time, the new Russia wanted to join the West and its institutions for example by joining NATO (The New York Times, 1991). To Boris Yeltsin, the end of the Cold War was not a US victory over the Soviet Union but a common victory of the US and Russia over communism. In this sense, Russia was willing to join the West but not as a subordinate, rather as a partner for European and Global security. According to Suslov and Karaganov, this was unacceptable for the US because the inclusion of Russia in NATO would have mechanically changed the balance of power within the alliance and would have prevented the US to be the unchallenged hegemon (Suslov & Karaganov, 2018). . For example, Russia would have never approved the NATO operation in Yugoslavia against the Serbs. It is precisely during the Yugoslavian episode that the first big geopolitical tensions between the West and Russia re-appeared. From then, periodical success was made but several geopolitical issues such as the war is Iraq, Libya and Ukraine inevitably led to the dramatic tensions that we are seeing today. This current tense geopolitical situation is often described as a “New Cold War” or as a “Second Cold War”. According to Sakwa, Suslov and others this situation is the consequence of deeply rooted systemic problems that come from the very ending of the First Cold War (Sakwa, 2019)(Suslov & Karaganov, 2018).

Because of this tense geopolitical environment, Russia, under the long polymorphous lead of Vladimir Putin gradually developed a strong and assertive foreign policy. In this dissertation, we are going to investigate and review the different tools and instruments of Russia's foreign policy.

Why this topic?

I think doing such an analysis is particularly relevant with regards to the context. Russia made a huge comeback and proved to the World that it was not a power to be underestimated. Indeed, American generals were promising that Russia's intervention in Syria would become the Iraq of Russia and would be a long lasting failure. Yet, so far the Russian campaign is particularly successful, especially given the rather low level of deployment compared to the recent US' full scale interventions or even to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Russia's renewed great power status is particularly interesting because although Russia is a great military power, considered the 2^nd in the World after the US, it is actually weak economically. Indeed, in GDP per Capita (PPP) Russia ranks 50^th, next to Kazakhstan, Greece and Latvia. In absolute numbers, Russia's GDP (Nominal) is almost equal to South Korea's, a country 170 times smaller in size and 3 times less populated. Despite this clear weakness, Russia is very active internationally, military or para-militarily in Syria and Ukraine, as well as diplomatically, particularly in the post-soviet space where it tries to keep its influence and even seem to have become the only country that can put at the same table the opposing Middle Eastern countries. Besides that, since the conflict in Ukraine and later since the 2016 American presidential election, Russia is on every mouth and is accused of carrying an information war against the West in order to influence the Western population for them to vote for parties more aligned with Russia and with Russia's values and vision. In this context where Russia is omnipresent, I think it is desperately needed to clarify what are Russia's real foreign policy instruments and how they operate in order to have an objective vision on the matter, not disturbed by the propaganda of one side or the other.

Methodology

In order, to fully apprehend Russia's foreign policy tools, we will in a first part, study in our literature review the different understandings of what are the instruments of a foreign policy according to the three most prominent International Relations' schools of thoughts: Realism, Liberalism and Constructivism. After we will have had clearly defined and understood the concepts and the frameworks designed to analyse foreign policies in general, we will in a second part apply it to Russia's contemporary foreign policy. Indeed, we will systematically review all the instruments recognized by these three theories in order to fully understand the dynamics of Russia exterior policy as one might argue that one theory is not fully right and absolute in its analysis but rather, that they each explain the World with different perspectives that all have their advantages and limitations.

Our first chapter will treat of Russia's military and how it uses it as an instrument of its foreign policy. Namely, we will talk about Russia's military interventions, Russia arms selling abroad, Russia's new weapons unveiled in 2018 and Russia's military alliances and military partnerships.

The second chapter will treat of the information war and the tools that Russia uses in this sphere. We will talk about coercive measures such as cyber-attacks, the spread of false information but we will also talk about Russia's new soft powers instruments to improve its image abroad and promote its world vision.

In the third and last chapter, we will discuss about Russia's economics assets that it uses as foreign policy tools. We will review Russia's dominant position in Europe in the sphere of oil and gas but also see that it has other economic assets such as the exportation of food and its savoir-faire in nuclear and fossil energy. Lastly, we will analyse the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and its implications for Russia's foreign policy.

In order to write this paper, we will use primary, secondary or any sources that can teach us about Russia. Primary sources will consist in interviews, statistical data or art whereas secondary sources will consist in academic books or articles.

The backbone of our paper will be to concretely list and study the inventory of the instruments and tools of Russia's foreign policy but not Russia's foreign policy itself. We will try to gradually go from the “Hardest” instruments in the first chapter to the “softest” in the last but we will see that in each chapter we will be able to see instruments categorized as such by the three schools of international relations that we are going to use.

Literature Review

As we announced in the methodology, in the literature review, we are going to analyse the three main schools of IR in order to select instruments which are legitimized by theory for our analysis of Russia. We will start with Realism then review Liberalism and finish with Constructivism. At the end of our short review of those theories, we will have a solid understanding of foreign policy instruments.

Realism

Realism is the oldest international relations theory that is still used today. Indeed, we can trace it back to ancient Greece and Thucydides' writings on the Peloponnese war (Thucydides, 431 bc). Realism is a theory based on two major ontological claims, firstly that it is in the human nature to fight and that therefore History will repeat itself in an endless recurrence of conflicts (Wight, 1960). Secondly, the structure of the international system is anarchical and survival depends only on your ability to take the good foreign policy choices. This Machiavellian world is characterized by states which selfishly maximize their interests, if necessary at the expense of others, with absolutely no moral considerations (Wivel, 2017). As Mearsheimer puts it: “Because other states are potential threats, and because there is no higher authority to come to their rescue when they dial 9-1-1, states cannot depend on others for their own security” (Mearsheimer, 2014, p. 33). Realists believe in perpetual competition between states, to them, only the balance of power decides the course of international affairs.

Based on those assumptions, several streams of Realism have thought about solutions to enforce peace in this anarchical and ruthless world. To defensive realists, the way to peace is to make alliances. To them, the key is to keep a as even as possible balance of power in order to make any conflicts between countries uncertain and therefore too risky to be started. In this sense, to defensive realists such as Kenneth Waltz, the ideal international order is a bipolar system of even strength (Waltz, 1979, pp. 171-172). Indeed, to him, the balance of power should be even so there should not be one power stronger than the other but at the same time, he thinks that the more actors there are, the more uncertain the World becomes because the multiplicity of players increases the risks for miscalculations and misperceptions and therefore bellicist over-reactions (Waltz, 1979, pp. 171-172). Lastly, to defensive realists, nuclear weapons are a good thing for international peace as they make war too costly to be made (Wivel, 2017).

On the other hand, offensive realists think that the way for a state to be secure is to maximize its strength in order to have the balance of power in its advantage (Layne, 1998). The ultimate way is to become the world or at least the regional hegemon. “Apprehensive about the ultimate intentions of other states, and aware that they operate in a self-help system, states quickly understand that the best way to ensure their survival is to be the most powerful state in the system” (Mearsheimer, 2014, p. 33). According to them, to achieve this favourable imbalance of power, military expansion is a valid option but not only. Aggressive diplomacy and hybrid warfare against opponents should also be used (Mearsheimer, 2014, pp. 147-162; Toft, 2005, pp. 385-386).

To sum up, realists believe that the instruments of foreign policies are linked with hard power, meaning in the ability to coerce others. To Joseph Nye, hard power as opposed to soft power is “"the ability to use the carrots and sticks of economic and military might to make others follow your will" (Nye, 2003). Carrots would be for a state to propose its military protection (vassalization) or trade deals that would be beneficial for it. On the other hand, stick would be coercive diplomacy, military intervention or economic sanctions. All of these instruments are aiming at influencing the balance of power in order, either to achieve an even balance of power (Defensive Realism) or an unbalanced balance of power in one state's advantage (Offensive Realism).

Liberalism

Even though Realism and Liberalism are completely opposite when it comes to their solutions to achieve peace, they share many ontological claims. For example, they both consider states as the main unit of International Relations (Shiraev & Zubok, 2019). Constructivism however, a recent theory but which is getting popular very rapidly, tries to take a completely different approach (Feklyunina, 2018). It blames Realism and Liberalism for being too materialistic in explaining International Relations. Indeed, the core argument of constructivism is that ideas are what shape the course of the world (Feklyunina, 2018). According to them, there is no such thing as a natural structural anarchy of the system but rather a succession of socially constructed elements that make us think that way. By thinking this, they reject the idea of determinism of war caused by human nature (Feklyunina, 2018). This is clearly stated in the title of one of the pillar work that developed the theory of constructivism in IR: Anarchy is What States Make of It: the Social Construction of Power Politics by Alexander Wendt. For Constructivists, what really matters for defining a states' foreign policy is the ideology and the set of values of their ruling elite. For Wendt: "the structures of human association are determined primarily by shared ideas rather than material forces, and that the identities and interests of purposive actors are constructed by these shared ideas rather than given by nature" (Wendt, 1999). Furthermore, for constructivists, discourse is where we take our knowledge from and because knowledge is socially constructed and because it is ideas that really matter, according to them, power is in the hand of the people that are able to shape discourse and thus reality (Tsygankov, 2018).

Because of the constructivist definition of power, when it comes to foreign policy instruments, this theory of international relations considers all tools that can shape discourse, influence people and produce knowledge (Feklyunina, 2018). The most obvious tools that come to mind when reading on constructivism is propaganda and media but also NGOs, think thanks, political parties and else. With constructivism, the concept of war of information takes all its sense because within this framework, conflicting powers do not look to materially destroy or harm one another but rather to “attack” their opponents' current ideas and values.

After having analysed the different approaches of the three main schools of international relations we can now proceed in our analysis of Russia's foreign policy instruments according to the plan established in the methodology.

foreign policy russia military economic

THE INSTRUMENTS OF RUSSIA'S FOREIGN POLICY

Chapter 1: Russia's military instruments

a. The Russian Army

Russia is ranked the second most powerful military power in the world after the US with a military budget of $65B in 2015 and with 1,000,000 active personnel (Konyshev & Sergunin, 2018). Although the military strength of Russia is what gives it its status of Great Power, especially given its rather weak economy, it is not Russia's main and most used foreign policy instrument. Indeed: “the use of military force is seen as a last resort, when other - non-military - means are exhausted, and it is done in a rather limited/selective way” (Konyshev & Sergunin, 2018). Although not often used, Russia's armed forces are particularly developed and recently proved their effectiveness in Syria. Even more, according to Suslov and Karaganov : “So far the only area where Russia has undergone profoundly successful modernization is its military” (Suslov & Karaganov, 2018).

In this part, we are going to review the state of Russia's military including the new weapons unveiled by Putin in 2018 that profoundly upgraded Russia's military might. Then we will talk about Russian military interventions, arms selling as foreign policy tools and lastly Russia's military alliances and partnerships.

To fully appreciate the Russian military one has to understand that Russia is a telluric regional power situated in the core of Eurasia. Indeed, Russia's military structure is fit to Russia's territory, geopolitics and geography. Indeed, the immediate surroundings of Russia are characterized by huge land masses that are mainly plains such as Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Therefore, Russia emphasizes more on land army. Russia has a considerable amount of armoured vehicles it inherited from the Soviet Union (Konyshev & Sergunin, 2018). However, Russia does not have a global reach and its position is cemented in Eurasia. The US on the contrary is a thalassocratic power of global reach. To be able of intervening in any places of the world, the US rely on their mighty fleet organized in different naval groups led by aircraft carriers and they rely on their enormous network of military bases abroad. As a matter of fact, the US has 610 bases abroad where 195 550 military personnel are stationed (Tenenbaum, 2020). On the other hand, all Russia's foreign bases (with the exception of Syria) are based in former soviet republics of its “near abroad”. Russia has bases in Tajikistan, Kirghizstan, Armenia, Transnistria (Moldova), Abkhazia and South Ossetia (Georgia). The total number of Russian troops stationed in those bases is 16 000, or 12 times less than the US (Tenenbaum, 2020). When it comes to its fleet, Russia is also severely lacking compared to the US. The US has 10 to 19 aircraft carriers depending on the definition we give to aircraft carriers. Indeed, the new US F-35B planes that have vertical landing and take off require much less space to operate and can therefore operate on smaller ships such as amphibious assault ship USS America (Farley, 2014). To compare, Russia has only one soviet made aircraft carrier.

However, when it comes to nuclear capabilities, Russia is on par with America and these two powers are far ahead when it comes to their inventory of nuclear warheads compared to the rest of the world. The ranking is as follows, Russia has 6500 warheads, then the US with 6185 and far behind France (300), China (290), the UK (215) and then the rest of nuclear doted countries have all less than 200 warheads (FAS, 2019). Furthermore, the US and Russia both have the “nuclear triad” which means that they are able to launch nuclear attacks, from land, air and sea.

Russia's military hardware is particularly good and Russian research is constantly developing cutting edge weapons for its personnel. Among their most advanced weapons we can here mention the S-400 anti-missile complex which is considered the best anti-missile complex in the world (S-500 are being developed), the new very promising T-14 Armata tank, the new 5-gen fighter Sukhoi Su-57 and the new AK-12 Kalashnikov (The National Interest, 2020)(CGTN, 2019). On top of that, in March 2018, Putin in a memorable announcement, disclosed that Russia is in power of the most advanced strategic nuclear weapons. He famously said: “No one listened to us then. So listen to us now […] you have failed to contain Russia” (Putin, 2018). Russian scientists have developed hypersonic nuclear missiles that can strike anywhere in the world and go up to the speed of Mach 27 (Avangard/Sarmat/Satan) as well as submarine drones equipped with nuclear warheads that can destroy naval groups or coastal cities (Putin, 2018). “The development and deployment of a series of high-tech strategic weapons, announced by President Putin in his 1 March 2018 address to the Federal Assembly, not only render most US investments in these fields obsolete, but guarantee for years, if not decades, the effectiveness of a Russian deterrent and its role as the main security provider globally and regionally” (Suslov & Karaganov, 2018). As a matter of fact, the speed of those weapons is so high that no anti-missile missiles can intercept them. So far, only Russia is in possession of such advanced weapons and the US have speed up their research to develop their own hypersonic missiles. Russia's military is today so technologically advanced that Putin said: “Not the Soviet Union, not Russia, we never strived to create threats to other countries and we always have been catching up, the atomic bomb was created by the US, means of delivering, carriers of nuclear weapons we did not have, we did not have a strategic aviation, we caught up, intercontinental ballistic missiles also did not appear in our country, the Soviet Union caught up, but today we have a unique situation in our new and current history, they are catching up with us, not in any country of the world they have hypersonic weapons at all, and hypersonic missiles of continental reach even less” (Putin, 2019).

One must remember that the Russian armed forces were in an absolute disastrous stage after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia got humiliated by the Chechens during the first Chechen (1994-1996) war because even if they got the advantage of numbers, they sent untrained, unmotivated and poorly equipped conscripts (Hodgson, 2003). Even more, the military doctrine at the time employed by Russia was designed to fight enormous conventional wars characterized by the massive use of tanks. This approach proved itself completely useless and even counter-productive against the Chechens (Hodgson, 2003). However, now the new and modernized Russian armed forces made Russia able to feel more confident and to transform its foreign policy to become more assertive. Indeed, recently Russia's military intervened in Crimea (2014) where it deployed up to 30,000 troops and in Syria (2015) (RIAC, 2019). Military interventions is now a useable and used tool of Russia's foreign policy.

b. Military intervention

Russia's successful operation in Syria completely redrew the cards of the World order in the way that it is the first time since the collapse of the USSR that Russia unilaterally conveyed a military operation in a country at war that is not situated in its traditional sphere of influence (Berryman, 2018). Indeed, Russia since 1991, militarily operated abroad in multiple countries such as Moldova (Transnistria), Ukraine (Crimea/Donbass), Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia) and Armenia (Nagorno-Karabakh) but never in a non-post-soviet country (Berryman, 2018). In Syria, the nature of Russia's aid is twofold, first, Russia is supplying arms, training and intelligence to the forces of Bashar al-Assad and secondly, a direct military aid in the form of peace keeping with its military police partly composed of Muslim Chechens and through air strikes with its aero-spatial forces and targeted operations with its special forces (RIAC, 2019). Russia has proven to be capable to convey a complex operation situated in a remote country and to successfully coordinate its three forces, land, sea and air with local forces (RIAC, 2019). This shows that Russia re-became a military great power capable of autonomously intervening in other countries. Arguably, the US and Russia are the sole countries able to accomplish such operations, even France who militarily intervened in Mali heavily relied on its allies' support in order to successfully deploy itself quickly in order to stop the southwards attack of the insurgents. At the time the French needed help notably in terms of aerial intelligence (drones) and in terms of troops transport (Le Figaro, 2013).

In Syria, Russia quickly deployed 10,000 troops and built a new base in Hmeimim as well as drastically modernized its Tartus seaport. In terms of military ability, Russia used all modern equipment such as drones, high-precision bombs, the creation of 3D maps, Sea-sent cruise missiles (Iskander), electronic warfare and satellite observation (RIAC, 2019) . Syria proved itself a fabulous testing range where new weapons were tested, improved or discarded. Another sign, that Russia re-became an independent military great power is its ability to continuously supply equipment to a remote area not only to its military but also to the local one. Indeed, Syrian forces eat Russian rations and have Russian made clothes. Russia is able to supply a continuous flux of equipment through what some have called the “Syrian Express”, a maritime supply channel (RIAC, 2019).

Also, in terms of the type of intervention, Russia's intervention in Syria, is comparable to an expeditionary force similar to what we saw in the 20^th century notably during the Russian and Spanish civil wars rather than a full fledge intervention as the US did in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam. Similarly to what happened in Spain where the conjoint aid of Italy and Germany substantially contributed to Franco's victory, Russia's intervention dramatically changed the course of the Syrian war. Indeed, in 2015, Bashar al-Assad regime was on the brink of being defeated and now has secured the overwhelming majority of the country and cities thanks to Russia's help. Russia's intervention changed the balance of power not only in Syria but in the region as a whole. It boosted the influence of Russia and Iran in the region and reduced the American one (RIAC, 2019). The successful results of this Russian expeditionary force could pave the way for a come back to a type of hybrid warfare that we saw during the 20^th century's civil wars. Turkey's intervention in Libya to try to stop Haftar's advance is a good example of this new trend. “Russia's remarkably successful involvement in Syria has enabled it to regain the status of a top-level player. For the first time in 30 years, Russia has proved capable of not just preventing regime change by projecting power in a country outside of the former USSR, but also of creating a new geopolitical environment disregarding US preferences. Russian success in Syria has influenced the Middle East more broadly by encouraging regional powers to diversify their foreign policy and security relationships.” (Suslov & Karaganov, 2018). Lastly, another positive outcome for Russia gained from its intervention in Syria is that it was a formidable advertising campaign for its weapon exportations.

c. Arms selling

During the Cold War, Russia, at the time, the Soviet Union was traditionally a major supplier of arms in the greater Middle East and in the World in general as in 1980, 34% of all arms sales where coming from the Soviet Union. To illustrate, the USSR was the major supplier for Syria, Libya, Iraq, India and Vietnam which were 5 of the 7th major arms importers. Even more, “In the period from 1979 to 1982, the Soviets were the major supplier of tanks, self-propelled guns, artillery, supersonic combat aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, guided-missile boats, subsonic aircraft, and helicopters” (Laird, 1984, p.196). When it comes to the destinations of these arms, 70% of Soviet's arms sales to non-communist countries where going to the Middle East.”

However, with the collapse of the country, Russia lost its rank as a major arms supplier. Also, with the end of the Cold War, military budgets in the world decreased. In this context, US' share in global arms sales went to become close to 50%, making it the uncontested world arms dealer (SIPRI database).

Yet, after the 2000s, Russia regained significant market shares in this sector and particularly in the Middle East which was an almost American monopoly since the 90s. It has happened because, the defence budgets of all those countries are on the rise which mechanically increases Russia's sales. Indeed, after the end of the Cold War, military budgets decreased because countries had faith in a brighter future. Yet, the Middle East is now the theatre of several conflicts like in Syria, Yemen, Libya and the tensions in these regions that result from historic geopolitical rivalry added to the Arab spring made the local countries to dramatically increase their security spending. As a matter of fact, Saudi Arabia was in 2018 the 3^rd highest defence spender after the US ($649B) and China ($250B) with a budget of 67 Billion dollars and the largest arms buyer in the world (SIPRI, 2019). Between 1991 and 1998 we assisted to a fall of world's military expenditure but since 1998 military budget have almost increased each year to get to their highest level ever now (SIPRI, 2019).

Today, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), from the period of 2014 to 2018, Russia was the second largest exporter of arms with 21% of market share, behind the US (36%) but ahead of France (6.8%), Germany (6.4%) and China (5.2%) (SIPRI, 2019). Although Russia did not manage to get back to its level of exports during the Soviet period, it managed to make a huge comeback from the 90s. As a matter of fact, in 1994, Russia's market share in international arms transfer was less than 10% (Anthony, 1998). Russia managed to more than double its market share in approximately 15 years.

Through arms selling, Russia is working towards one of its main foreign policy goals: making the world multi-polar. In the context of the new Cold War and multi-polarization of the world, we see that even the most loyal Middle Eastern countries to the US diversify their importation. Turkey, the second largest military of NATO in terms of personnel has bought to Russia new S-400 anti-missile complex instead of its western counterpart. The acquisition of this system put its membership in the alliance in jeopardy and isolated Erdogan in the Western World (RIAC, 2019). Turkey took such a risky decision because “the overwhelming majority of US allies and partners in Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa are clearly resistant to the either-or choice between the US on one hand and China and Russia on the other, and would prefer to diversify their foreign economic and security relationships” (Suslov & Karaganov, 2018). In the Middle East in particular, Russia has thanks to its intervention in Syria became one of the major player of the region. To illustrate, the Saudis which after the Quincy agreements were completely dependent on the US for their security are also expressing interest for the Russian S-400 missiles (The National Interest, 2020).

“The armies of more than ten states in the region now have Russian weapons: Algeria, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Bahrein, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Sudan. In 2013-2017, Russia's weapons and military equipment accounted for 59 per cent of Algeria's total military imports, 22 per cent of Iraq's military imports and 21 per cent of Egypt's military imports” (RIAC, 2019).

In addition, thanks to the efficiency of Russian military hardware, the supply of Russian equipment to a country can be a geopolitical game changer because this new equipment dramatically changes the tactical situation on the ground and thus the balance of power.

For example, in 2016, Russia delivered to Iran S-300 systems to protect its sky against airstrikes (Times of Israel, 2016). In a similar vein, Moscow delivered S-300 to Syria to protect itself against airstrikes. Israel's air force commander Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel said that the S-300 (in Iran) was a “significant challenge” (Times of Israel, 2016). For Moscow, delivering such weapons is dually beneficial. Firstly, it helps Moscow achieving its geopolitical goals because its supports Russia's allies and secondly, it puts such countries in a situation of dependency vis-а-vis Russia which increases Russia's influence on a country or a region.

d. Military alliances and partnerships

The Collective security treaty organization (CSTO) is the main inter-state military alliance that involves Russia today. Created in 2012 it counts: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia and Tajikistan as members. Being the Eurasian counterpart of NATO, the CSTO also is based on the principle “aggression against one is aggression against all” (Deyermond, 2018). In addition, members of the CSTO agree not to seek membership in another military alliance like NATO and in exchange for this guarantee they receive subsidies and discounts for Russian equipment. Lastly, the CSTO is also designed to foster cooperation to fight against crime, drug trafficking, terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (Deyermond, 2018).

It terms of budget, it is very far from NATO. Indeed, NATO's members' budget cumulate at approximately $1,520B in 2019 whereas the CSTO's was at $64B in 2018 (SIPRI, 2018, NATO, 2019). In actuality, the CSTO does not even have yet an integrated military budget like NATO's. However, the organization has developed several military formations all around the territory of its member states formed of different inter-state task forces designed to serve different purposes such as peacekeeping, fight against crime or external aggression (Deyermond, 2018).

For Russia, this alliance is a good way to keep its grasp on these former soviet states. The difference between the military strength of these countries compared to Russia's is so huge that it makes Russia De facto the absolute ruler of the alliance. However, on paper, the treaty of the alliance imply cooperation in any situations and not only in situations that favor Russia's interest. Indeed, several events in Armenia, Kirgizstan and Tajikistan led to tensions within the alliance. One of Russia's best ally, Belarus, commented through the voice of its president on the events in Kirgizstan: “What sort of organization is this one, if there is bloodshed in one of our member states and an anti-constitutional coup d'йtat takes place, and this body keeps silent?” “Why should my men fight in Kazakhstan? Mothers would ask me why I sent their sons to fight so far from Belarus. For what?” (The Moscow Times, 2009)(Reuters, 2010).

To sum up, the CSTO is indeed a tool of Russia's foreign policy in the post-soviet space but has shown its limits and is likely to break up at any moment like its predecessor the Collective Security Treaty (CST).

Although the CSTO is the only real military alliance that possesses Russia, Moscow has other military partnerships with other countries of the world. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is one and the biggest example of such partnerships. Created in 2001 to promote stability in central Asia by fighting against crime, terrorism, separatism and extremism. It was originally composed of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and later in 2017 accepted Pakistan and India as new members (Freire, 2018). Furthermore, it counts 4 more states as observer states, Belarus, Iran, Mongolia and Afghanistan and 6 more as dialogue partners, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Armenia, Cambodia, Nepal, and Azerbaijan. As a matter of fact, its members make more than half of the human population and cover 60% of the Eurasian landmass (Freire, 2018).

Russia and China have conducted several military exercises together under the SCO and the SCO members have signed an agreement to enhance economic cooperation in 2003. In 2005, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that the "Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is working to establish a rational and just world order" and that "The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation provides us with a unique opportunity to take part in the process of forming a fundamentally new model of geopolitical integration"(Lavrov, 2005). However, 15 years after this declaration, we do not see the real progresses of this organization. It is not even a proper military alliance as it does not have the principle of “aggression against one is aggression against all” and even worse, two members, namely India and Pakistan are often sporadically fighting each other. In addition, the organization does not seem to have a clear goal or is too large for all the countries to have the same one. Furthermore, the countries seem to have different priorities for the organisation illustrated by the fact that for example China wanted to make it a free trade area or Pakistan which wanted to create a new banking system to challenge the Western one. Nevertheless, all countries seem to agree on their hostility against a unipolar world led by the US and US' presence in Central Asia (Freire, 2018).

For Russia, the SCO is another area of cooperation with Eurasian countries and another way to keep Central Asian countries in its sphere of influence by keeping the US away and by creating an area of discussion with China which has also claims on the region. However, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation has failed so far to be a new geopolitical pole that could compete with the West.

Chapter 2: Information war

a. Coercive instruments

In this section, we are going to deal with probably the most controversial and currently discussed tool of the Russian foreign policy: The war of information. Wars of information are special in the sense that “The main battlefield is consciousness, perception and strategic calculus of the adversary, the main operational tool is informational struggle, aimed at imposing one's strategic will on the other side, perception, consequently, becomes a strategic centre of gravity in the campaign” (Adamsky, 2015).

Very interestingly, this tool can fit in the list of the three main schools of international relations that are Realism, Liberalism and Constructivism.

It can be a realist tool because the information war can be coercive through direct cyber-attacks for example against political institutions, political parties, and companies.

It can be a liberal tool because information war can include the fact of promoting one state's values, achievements and ideology through peaceful means such as the use of media.

Lastly, it is certainly a constructivist tool because it ultimately tries to shape the discourse over events, ideologies or history with the ultimate goal of shaping reality in people's mind.

Valery Gerasimov, the current Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces of said in 2013: “We observe in the 21th century a tendency of erasure between the state of war and the state of peace. […] non-military means have seen their importance increasing to achieve political and strategic goals, and in many cases, are much more efficient than the force of weapons. The methods of confrontation used, put the emphasis on a wide application of political, economic, informational, humanitarian and on other non-military means, implemented with the engagement of the protest potential of the population. All of this is strengthened by hidden military means, including by the set-up of information warfare and the action of Special Forces (Gerasimov, 2013).

Unlike what some western commentators saw, this statement was not the credo of the new “Gerasimov doctrine” of the “War of New Generation” as they say in Russian but the conclusions that took the Russian forces by looking at the Arab spring events of 2011 (Galeotti, 2018). That being said, Moscow is indeed very present in this spectrum of confrontation under different forms. Russia's tradition of disinformation and war of information probably is rooted in the first Soviet false flag operation conducted in 1923, operation “Trust”, designed to find, arrest and capture monarchists in the Soviet Union and abroad. Later, such technics were allegedly enhanced and more used under the supervision of KGB director Yuri Andropov (Jeangиne Vilmer, Escorcia, Guillaume, Herrera, 2018). However, Russia's modern strategy in the information war differs from the Soviet one in that Russia this time does not need to promote a complete different ideology. Russia started to seriously develop its strategy in the field of information after the revolutions of colours in Georgia (2003) and in Ukraine (2004) to counter Western ideas that led to these revolutions in Moscow's sphere of influence. It is in this spirit that for example Russia Today was created in 2005 (Jeangиne Vilmer, Escorcia, Guillaume, Herrera, 2018).

Today, Russia's instruments within the framework of the information war, on the spectrum from the most coercive to the least coercive, mainly are: direct cyber-attacks, search and divulgation of kompromats on political figures that have opposing interests with the Kremlin, the use of social media in warfare to target individuals notably in Ukraine or in the Baltics, disinformation campaigns during political elections in third countries by massively using bots or “trolls” and lastly media coverage of events to favour Moscow's interests (Jeangиne Vilmer, Escorcia, Guillaume, Herrera, 2018).