President Biden has strengthened Russia’s position in Central Asia, according to senior political analysts in Washington, and raised national security concerns for Moscow in Eastern Europe. The regional, political-military environment is slowly coming into focus two months after the mangled US withdrawal in Afghanistan and the picture is stunning, but for all the wrong reasons. President Vladimir Putin is effectively using the botched American intervention to lecture Russian students returning to school this fall on lessons they can learn from the dramatic failure of the American experience. “The Afghanistan debacle has further added credence to Moscow’s claims of Western hypocrisy and failed US democratic state-building,” according to Dominick Sansone, writing in Defense One. He says the repercussions from Afghanistan are destabilizing and reverberating throughout Russia and Eastern Europe. Putin is particularly concerned that the regime collapse in Kabul could inspire anti-Putin domestic groups and East European dissidents, while simultaneously destabilizing Central Asian governments currently leaning toward Moscow.
Putin served as a career intelligence officer with an expertise in misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda before moving fully into Russian domestic politics. He increasingly has used those skills to his advantage this fall by utilizing the state-controlled media to exhort the Russian people, including students, to study American behavior and what he labels as regime toppling failure and anarchy creation– American style. His talks are broadcast over a number of state-run stations to ensure they reach the widest audience possible across the country. Speaking on state media, Putin said that the US imposed its “own norms and standards of life,” and that it has “spelled nothing but tragedies, casualties and losses for the United States.” Playing the role of wise leader, he suggests “it is imperative to put an end to the [United States’] irresponsible policy of imposing outside values on others, to the desire to building democracies in other countries according to other nations’ “patterns” without regard to historical, national, or religious specifics and totally ignoring the traditions of other nations.” Putin speeches this fall are noticeably devoid of any discussion of Russia’s past behavior in the Crimea or Eastern Europe.
From the Russian perspective, it is only the Biden Administration’s actions in Afghanistan that have raised the national security threat level along its borderlands in Eastern Europe. Moscow’s leaders have experienced, and long-feared, border wars in Eastern Europe. According to the “Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation” approved by Putin five years ago this month, “Contemporary Russia entered the global arena (following the breakup of the Soviet Union) possessing a tremendous amount of historical experience in international relations and a broad network of multilateral and bilateral relationships.” The foreign policy environment today, according to Putin, serves as both an indicator of, and determining factor for, stability inside Russia and over its borders. It is his position that he must defend Russia from US interventionist policy, according to Sansone. Putin already blames the US for the Ukrainian “color revolution” in Kiev. Now he is warning Russians who may be considering supporting domestic opposition leaders, like Alexei Navalny, to take notice. It appears that Putin’s speeches are unifying much of the population behind him.
Putin points to the inability of the Biden Administration to safely evacuate its own citizens, and Afghans who helped the US during the war. He claims this is indicative of a declining power and comes with a destabilizing effect on other countries. Sansone suggests “The inept US administration and poor military leadership also reflect a decreased capability to defend Washington’s allies. This weakens the strategic position of the United States in Eastern Europe and increases the likelihood of heightened tensions in the region.” East Europeans who believe they cannot count on the support of Washington, may strike out on their own.
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DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. Each Thursdat she presents key updates on Russia.
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