Window on Eurasia

Moscow’s Loss of Influence Abroad Said Product of Problems at Home

Paul Goble

Vienna, June 30, 2006 – Moscow has lost influence abroad not so much because of the loss of the former Soviet republics or the absence of human and natural resources but rather because the Russian government lacks the ability to mobilize the country for the achievement of common goals, according to one of Russia’s most controversial analysts.

In an essay posted online yesterday, Maksim Momot, who has outraged many by his comments about what he says is the coming collapse of the Russian Federation, argues that “ineffective administration within the country is depriving Moscow of the resources needed for the conduct of a successful foreign policy.”

As recent changes in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova show, Moscow is no longer predominant even in the area it calls its “near abroad.” And regarding the crisis involving Iran, Momot continues, “Russia can only put sticks in the wheels of America but is not able to insist on its own variant of the resolution” of that situation.

According to Momot, countries like Russia that are incapable of “undertaking joint actions” – and he argues that the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin falls in this category – “for the achievement of common goals, inevitably lose out to those who are able to do so”

[http://www.prognosis.ru/news/geopolitic/2006/6/29/momot.html].

One of the reasons for this situation, the Moscow analyst suggests, is the fact that the Russian government and the Russian people are not linked together by a tax system that forces the government to be responsive to the people and makes the people care about what their government does.

Indeed, he suggests, in an update of a common lament in Soviet times that “they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work,” the situation now is characterized by one in which by outspoken agreement, the citizens don’t pay taxes, and the government ignores the citizenry.”

But lack of a tax nexus between government and people is part of a
broader problem, Momot argues, one in which “the absence of effective
administration leads to a situation in which there is no possibility of
concentrating efforts, as a result of which 150 million people are not
able to cloth and feed one million people in the army and pay even a
minimally acceptable amount to teachers and scholars.”

The fact that people in public service positions that are not directly
connected to the economy and to the possibility of gaining access to
the money the economy generates, Momot says, means that Russia is also
rapidly losing the kind of professionals elsewhere that it desperately
needs.

“Work in foreign policy and state security requires the very highest
qualifications,” he writes, but the status of many positions in this
area – especially in the military – is now so low that even those
who might be interested in pursuing them out of a sense of public
service are seeking other jobs.

Meanwhile, those in power who do have access to the money provided by the economy have as “their basic goal” not the service of any national interest but rather “to remain in power for as long a period as possible and to obtain control over the most profitable economic
areas.”

Such “a goal” on the part of members of the country’s political elite, Momot says, “is incompatible with the foreign policy tasks of a large and potentially strong state.”

Momot concludes by suggesting that the situation of the Russian Federation today recalls that of the Ottoman Empire as it approached its end. As soon as the government of that empire lost the ability to organize and deploy resources for major tasks, it degenerated into “a semi-colony” under the control of other states.

In the case of the Ottomans, this process took “several centuries.”
But “in the century of the Internet,” this process will proceed much more quickly – especially if the population lacks the ability and the elite lacks the discipline to pursue national political tasks rather than narrow private economic interests.

Consequently, Momot ends with a prediction that many are certain to
dispute, unless the Russian government and the Russian people rectify this situation and soon, “it will hardly be possible to preserve even the current place of Russia on the international scene.”