Why Russia Is Really Weak

On the wider global stage, Putin displays seeming strength and new confidence. Russian support is key to the negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. Its Security Council veto gives it an important say on various international issues, from Kosovo's independence to the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon. Yet Putin's rhetoric increasingly strikes themes of Great Russia--imperial, nostalgic, nationalistic. However much it resonates with a particular Russian political class, that rhetoric can itself breed weakness.

You see this in the sharp rise of race-related hate crimes in Russia, most recently the clash between Russian xenophobes and Chechens in the north- western town of Kondopga, when a bar brawl triggered huge rallies of ultranationalists demanding the expulsion of ethnic minorities. Right-wing racism and Russia-for-Russians chauvinism augur ill for a multiethnic, multiconfessional Russia, which has near 25 million Muslims.

So, the received wisdom is wrong. What the West must live with is a weak Russia. And history shows that states that talk loudly while carrying a small stick often overreach, creating problems for themselves and others.

Menon is a professor of international relations at Lehigh University and a fellow at the New America Foundation. MOTYL teaches at Rutgers University.

© 2006