Russia's strategic outlook: hastening the decline of Western hegemony

Understanding Russia's foreign policy and geopolitical/military strategy through the work of Sergey Karaganov, one of Russia’s most influential (geo)political thinkers

Hi everyone. This is part two of a two-part breakdown of an important article by Sergey Karaganov, one of Russia’s most influential (geo)political thinkers, on the state of the West, and of West-Russia relations, and on the risk of conflict escalation. As I wrote:

We should be paying very close attention to what someone like Karaganov is thinking and writing — even if you think Russia is an enemy; indeed, especially so. Karaganov’s texts aren’t intended for the Western (or even Russian) general public; they are intended for the Russian intellectual and political elites — and Putin’s government itself — and so can’t be written off as propaganda. On the contrary, they offer a fascinating window into the debates currently occurring among Russian elites, and into the contemporary Russian mindset and “spirit” more in general.

In part one, I looked at Karaganov’s analysis of the structural factors contributing to the current unravelling of the international system, and the resulting multiplication of conflicts and hotspots — in Europe, the Pacific, the Middle East and elsewhere. I recommend you read the first part of the article before moving on to this one, as it provides some much-needed context. But if you’re too lazy to do that, here’s a brief summary of Karaganov’s points:

1. The crisis of capitalism: The modern capitalist model prioritises profit and fosters unnecessary consumption, leading to significant environmental degradation. This system’s encouragement of relentless consumerism has contributed to resource depletion and a detachment from sustainable living practices.

2. Global resource crisis: Major global issues such as pollution, climate change, and the scarcity of essential resources like fresh water remain unresolved. These challenges are exacerbated by growing consumerism and unequal resource distribution, leading to intensified competition and internal societal tensions.

3. Rising social inequality: Social inequality has been escalating since the collapse of the USSR, diminishing the middle class in the West and increasing visible wealth gaps. This trend contributes to societal instability and discontent.

4. Societal and intellectual decline: The West, in particular, is experiencing societal degradation, driven by urbanisation and excessive digital consumption, which leads to a decline in critical thinking and increased susceptibility to manipulation. This, combined with oligarchic control, undermines traditional values and promotes divisive ideologies.

5. Virtualisation of life: Modern man is increasingly living in a virtualised state, where fears and challenges are digitalised, detaching people from real-world issues and historical drivers of human progress, like hunger and the threat of violence.

6. Western elites’ intellectual decline: Western elites, especially in the US, have lost strategic thinking capabilities, leading to poor governance and international policy blunders. This decline contributes to a weakened global leadership role.

7. Global power redistribution: Karaganov highlights the significant shift in global power from the West to rising nations, particularly Russia and China, as one of the major sources of international tension. This shift is causing geopolitical instability and redefining international relations, as the West grapples with losing its long-standing hegemony.

8. Deteriorating global governance: The post-war international governance structures are collapsing and are unable to maintain global stability. The arms race and the breakdown of security agreements further complicate this landscape.

9. Increasing risk of conflict: The West’s reaction to its declining dominance includes heightened propaganda, economic sanctions and proxy wars, fostering an environment ripe for conflict, especially with Russia and China. This tension is aggravated by dehumanisation tactics and the re-arming of strategic capabilities.

10. Technological and arms race: Karaganov warns of the growing technological and arms race, including developments in bioweapons and AI, which threaten to destabilise global security. The proliferation of advanced weapons, like drones and hypersonic missiles, adds to the precariousness of international relations.

11. Potential for catastrophe: There is a profound concern in Russia about the increasing likelihood of large-scale disasters or even a global catastrophe, driven by the above challenges.

I will now look at Karaganov’s policy recommendations for Russia in light of the aforementioned geopolitical context — which make for an even more interesting, though arguably more disquieting, read.

What Russia should do: the “Fortress Russia” concept

He starts by introducing the concept of “Fortress Russia”.

The extremely dangerous world of the next two decades requires Russia to adjust its foreign and defense policy. In a 2022 essay for Russia in Global Affairs, I already argued that this policy should be based on the “Fortress Russia” concept: maximum possible sovereignty, independence, autonomy, and security, with a focus on intensive internal development. Russia must be intelligently open to beneficial economic, scientific, cultural, and informational cooperation with friendly countries of the World Majority.

However, openness is not an end in itself, but rather a means to ensure internal material and spiritual development. As we have already seen, liberal-globalist openness is also deadly. It would be stupid to try to integrate into “international value chains” now that the creators of the former system of globalization are destroying it and militarizing economic ties. Interdependence, previously overestimated as a source of peace, is now largely dangerous. We must try to create “value chains” on our own territory in order to increase its connectedness. This especially applies to the connections of Russia’s core to Siberia and — more carefully — to friendly states, most prominently Belarus, most of Central Asia, China, Mongolia, and the rest of the SCO and BRICS. 

What this passage shows is that, by attempting to cut Russia off from the Western-led international system, the West has actually shot itself in the foot, as it has spurred Russia, along with the rest of the non-Western world, to accelerate the creation of an alternative system of global governance — spearheaded by the China-led BRICS — that already encompasses the majority of the world’s population. What we are witnessing is the effective creation of two parallel international systems — the Western one and the non-Western one — and in this new reality it is the West that is being increasingly marginalised by the Global Majority, not Russia. The reality of this new global order was exemplified by Putin’s recent visit to North Korea, which effectively heralded the latter’s entry into the “international system” — albeit not the Western one — for the first time since the country’s creation.

Russia’s dual goal: developing relations with the Global Majority — and hastening the decline of Western hegemony

Today’s foreign policy should be geared towards the comprehensive development of relations with the countries of the World Majority. Another obvious, although yet unarticulated, goal is to work together with the World Majority to ensure the West peacefully steps down from its five-centuries-held position of dominance.

Similarly, we should ensure a maximally peaceful departure of the US from hegemony that it has enjoyed since the late 1980s. The West should be relocated to a more modest, but worthy, place in the world system. There is no need to expel it. Given the trajectory of Western development, it will leave by itself. But it is necessary to firmly deter any rearguard actions of the still powerful West. While normal relations may be partly restored in a couple of decades, they are not an end by themselves.

“The West should be relocated to a more modest, but worthy, place in the world system”: it’s hard to disagree with this assessment. By the way, this would be in the interest of Western citizens as well. It’s today more apparent than ever that the system of imperial dominance, especially in its current decaying phase, only benefits the Western oligarchies that sit at the tip of the social pyramid. Dollar dominance is a good example. It has undoubtedly benefited America’s imperial elites: Wall Street, large global corporations and, most importantly, the national security establishment. It’s what has allowed the US to sustain a regime of perpetual war, on top of exercising financial dominance over much of the world. But this has come at a significant cost not only for the rest of the world but also for American workers, farmers, producers and small businesses. For America, supporting the world’s primary reserve currency has meant running permanent trade deficits, which has seriously eroded its industrial and manufacturing capacity and its ability to provide well-paying jobs to its workforce — what Michael Pettis calls the “exorbitant burden” of the dollar.

The end of this supremacy, then, would turn America into a somewhat “normal” country — a regional power among other regional powers. Both globally and within the US, this would benefit virtually everyone. Indeed, the only losers would be those who have had ample time to enrich themselves. On top of this, we have to consider the existential risk to which Western elites are exposing all Western citizens — indeed, all human beings on the planet — by engaging in a no-long-so-proxy war with Russia, while fuelling geopolitical, economic and military conflicts/tensions elsewhere as well, most notably in the Middle East and the Pacific.

The “Fortress Russia” policy demands minimizing Russia’s entanglement in the conflicts that will flare up during the ongoing “geostrategic earthquake”. Under these new conditions, direct involvement would not be an asset, but a liability, as the former colonial powers are beginning to experience. The United States faces an upsurge of anti-Americanism and attacks on its bases. These and other overseas holdings will become increasingly vulnerable. Russia should facilitate this, raising the cost for the American empire and helping the American foreign policy class recover from its globalist hegemonic disease of the postwar period. 

In other words, Karaganov is saying that Russia should avoid direct involvement in conflicts, but, on the other hand, should be ready to increase its asymmetric warfare against the US/Wests in order to “rais[e] the cost for the American empire” — including, presumably, by supporting proxy forces challenging the US military presence across the world, most notably in then Middle East. That said, as noted earlier, Karaganov doesn’t view the intensification of military tensions with the US as a zero-sum existential struggle between two civilisation enemies that can only be resolved through a crushing military defeat of one side over the other (as Western leaders often frame the NATO-Russia conflict); he rather views it as a temporary necessity imposed on Russia by the US/West itself, which should be aimed at hastening the US’s transition to a “normal” country, not at the US’s destruction. (This also implies a radical redefinition, if not dissolution, of NATO, and the subsequent “liberation” of the US’s sub-imperial vassals, especially in Europe, from their subaltern relationship to Washington). The following passage is quite enlightening in this regard: