Daily Times

Vladimir Putin says he is a religious man, a great supporter of the Russian Orthodox church. If so, he may well, go to bed each night, say his prayers, and ask God: “Why didn’t you put some mountains in Ukraine”. These are the famous words of Tim Marshall in his famous book “Prisoners of geography”. Throughout history, Russia has feared its flat land geography, but was comforted by its harsh weather. Whether it was Napoleon or Hitler, both met their fate because of the unforgiving Russian climate. Marshall claims “The land on which we live has always shaped us, it has shaped the wars, politics, and social development of the people that now nearly inhabits every part of the earth.”

Throughout the tides of history, Russia was threatened by invasions. It is the country’s western borders which lack mountains that always remained vulnerable as they have no natural barriers. In a broader context, Russia lacks access to warm waters, unlike its European neighbours. This means it lacks maritime trade routes, which makes its geography a huge burden upon her. Under the reign of Catherine the Great, Russia dominated European politics because of its expansion into eastern and northern Europe by defeating the Ottoman Empire. Since then, Russian geography has sprawled over a huge land mass from the Baltic and Northern sea in the north, the Atlantic in the west and the Black and Mediterranean Sea in the south.

After World War I, the Bolsheviks also attempted to secure the legacy of Catharine the Great by maintaining Russian control of the region by dominating key strategic echelons in the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. In the nineteenth century, both France and Great Britain attempted to contain Russian expansion in the Balkans, Middle East and Asia. Even the famous Great Game was fought against Russia to block Russian access to the Indian ocean. With this geographic impasse, Russia has always maintained an offensive approach by dominating key strategic locations in its heartland. Famous British geographer and geopolitical scientist Harford Mackinder explained the Russian strategy in the following dictum: ‘who controls Eastern Europe, commands the heartland, who controls the heartland commands the world island, who controls the world island commands the world’.

This was a firsthand warning to Great Britain to contain Russia before it becomes a threat to British rule in the Subcontinent by controlling the geographical pivot of the world. With this existential deadlock, the view in the Kremlin is that each era brings a new existential threat to Russia and whether being overt or covert, political or strategic, conventional or unconventional; Russia must secure its realm. In this regard, it seems that Russia’s tilt towards autocratic rule and a centralised political system is because of its Russia’s obsession with internal and external security.

This obsession was magnified during the Cold War when the Russian leaders raised suspicion about the US encirclement of Russia through NATO expansion in Europe. This was especially true under Stalin, who supported France, Great Britain and the US during World War II. Stalin became obsessed with the West’s plans to isolate Russia geographically. However, according to Roosevelt’s plan, there would be a new world order encompassing four policemen, which was supposed to give an upper hand to Russia in Eastern Europe. Following the end of World War II however that plan failed, and Russia again encountered a geographic trap. This new fear has dominated both Russia’s internal and external policy throughout the Cold War.

Geopolitically, Putin’s grand strategy aims at protecting the Russian Empire against future Napoleons and Hitlers

With the fall of the Berlin wall, Russia entered a new phase of geographic divison as it lost major parts of its geography in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The newborn Russian Federation was suffering from leadership crises, internal political chaos and separatism within its remaining administrative parts. Chechnya in particular, became a severe headache for Russia. When Vladimir Putin came to power in Russia in 2000, he planned to revive the legacy of the Soviet Union and suppressed internal uprisings by centralising the political structure of the Russian Federation. His military adventures in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine have clearly projected his offensive foreign policy. Putin’s Russia will not compromise on its geography. To be more precise, his military interventions in Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine reflect his geopolitical vision to revive the old Soviet legacy, an effort to reestablish Russian influence over the key elements of the Soviet Empire in order to break the geographic trap. Geopolitically, Putin’s grand strategy aims at protecting the Russian Empire against future Napoleons and Hitlers.

In a nutshell, it’s the eternal fear of invasion that drives Russian foreign policy. Russia’s obsession with its geography is a kind of neurotic disorder that causes a sense of insecurity. Thus, it is not Russia’s geographic obsession but the geographic trap that causes Russian belligerence towards Europe.

The writer is a postgraduate student of Politics and International studies, and a freelance writer with a keen interest in History, Current Affairs, Geopolitics and International Political Economy