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CHAPTER 2

The Russian Century

Putin’s Plan for the Future

First and foremost it is worth acknowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.

—VLADIMIR PUTIN ¹

If I wanted, in two days I could have Russian troops not only in Kiev, but also in Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Warsaw and Bucharest.

—VLADIMIR PUTIN ²

Vladimir Putin is many things—KGB officer, master politician, multibillionaire, ruthless autocrat—but, above all, Vladimir Putin is a man with a plan. His plan is to unmake the world order that has stood since the end of the Cold War, especially in Europe, and replace it with one where Russia has the power, influence, and military strength to get its way on any issue. This means subjugating Russia’s immediate neighbors and integrating them into a Russia-centric political and economic system, neutralizing Europe and ending the transatlantic relationship with America, and seeding an endless series of global crises that drain the West’s ability and desire to influence global affairs while promoting the interests of Russia and its allies. In short, Putin plans to make the twenty-first century the Russian century.

To hear Putin tell it, Russia of course has no ambitions beyond its borders.³ But Putin’s vision for the future of the world is made plain by a consistent pattern of disruptive behavior, targeted use of force, and diplomatic intrigue that demonstrates his single-minded strategy to resurrect Russia as a regional hegemon. Putin envisions an Eastern Europe firmly under the control of Moscow and fully integrated into Russia’s economic, political, and cultural sphere of influence, alongside a Western Europe that is dependent on Russian energy, complacently isolationist, and most importantly anti-American. Putin’s determination to achieve this vision should not be underestimated.

Western leaders appear blind to Putin’s far-reaching plan. Barack Obama responded to Russia’s seizure of Crimea by warning Putin that he is “on the wrong side of history.”⁴ On the contrary, Putin is writing history. As author, commentator, and retired US Army lieutenant colonel Ralph Peters pithily puts it, “Obama talks, Putin kills.”⁵ Indeed, international wars and conflicts started by Putin have claimed the lives of about ten thousand people, both military and civilian.⁶ Putin shows no signs of letting up, as the war in Ukraine enters a bloody period of attrition and the Kremlin trains its sights on the Baltic States.⁷

It is vital to understand in depth exactly what Putin has planned for his neighbors, Europe, and the world. In this chapter, we will lay out what Putin’s master plan is, country by country, region by region. In each instance, we will explain what Putin has accomplished so far, what he is doing now, and what he appears to be planning next. Should Putin achieve his goals in just a few of these targeted countries and regions, the world will become a drastically different place, remade in Putin’s vision, and the consequences for global peace, security, and prosperity will be dire.

UKRAINE

Ukraine is the lynchpin in Putin’s strategy for Europe. The second-largest European country, with a population of over forty-five million, Ukraine is a valuable strategic prize positioned astride the major transit corridor for Russian oil and gas into Europe.⁸ But Putin’s interest in Ukraine is more than strategic—it is also cultural, historical, and ultimately imperial. Over seven million ethnic Russians live in Ukraine,⁹ primarily in the east and south, and Ukraine has been part of the Soviet Union or Russian Empire, unofficially, since the 1700s.¹⁰ Indeed, New Yorker editor David Remnick contends that “in Putin’s mind, Ukraine is not a nation” but rather a part of Russia that is only independent due to an accident of history.¹¹ In this belief, Putin’s attitude echoes that of the tsars. Putin occasionally refers to parts of Ukraine as “Novorossiya,” or “New Russia.”¹² For Putin, control over Ukraine represents the resurgence and renaissance of Russian civilization, the righting of an historic wrong, and the vitality of Russian regional and global power. The only problem? Most Ukrainians have no interest in being part of Putin’s project.

Because most Ukrainians have no immediate desire to be governed as a puppet of Moscow, Putin has undertaken a concerted effort to ensure that Ukraine remains too politically and economically unstable for integration into the EU or NATO. In Putin’s thinking, if Ukraine is too volatile for the West to embrace, then Ukrainians will be left with only one option for their future: Russian domination.

It is difficult to overstate just how ruinous Putin’s master plan has been for the people of Ukraine. They have endured gas shutoffs in the dead of winter;¹³ repeated political and economic interference; and finally, a bloody, violent invasion of their country in an ongoing war that has claimed thousands of Ukrainian lives and destroyed the country’s economy, which is rapidly “turning Greek.”¹⁴ So long as the West does nothing to help Ukraine fend off Russian attacks, repair its economy, and clean up its corrupt institutions, all Putin has to do is wait for the nation’s political will to crumble under the pressures of war and growing poverty. If that happens, then Putin will likely succeed in making Ukraine into “Novorossiya.”

BELARUS

Although it gained independence at the same time as Ukraine, Belarus is Europe’s last tin-pot dictatorship, continuing a Soviet-style communist government today.¹⁵ Since 1994, Belarus has been ruled by Alexander Lukashenko, who once defended his autocratic, totalitarian regime by declaring that it is “better to be a dictator than gay.”¹⁶ Lukashenko has been a reliable Russian ally since the 1990s and serves as president of the largely aspirational Union State of Russia and Belarus, a supranational organization that, at least in theory, will eventually bring Belarus and Russia together in a commercial, military, and currency union.¹⁷ While the Union State project is far from complete, in 2014 Lukashenko became a founding father of the Eurasian Economic Union, a customs union and political integration project that now includes Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia, in addition to Belarus. It has been seen as a key component of Putin’s vision of creating an alternative alliance to rival the EU.

It’s easy to write off Belarus as a mismanaged backwater, economically unimportant and politically doomed. But that’s not what Putin sees. To Putin, keeping Belarus in the Russian sphere of influence and control is a preliminary but necessary step on the journey toward Russian regional hegemony. Like Ukraine, Belarus was part of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, and its history is inextricably linked to that of Russia through centuries of shared linguistic, political, and religious heritage. For Putin, there is little reason for Belarus to chart its own course in Europe, and he certainly does not intend to give Belarussians that option. Putin’s plan for Belarus is to enforce ever-closer integration with and dependence on Russia. He may pretend that the political projects joining Russia and Belarus are equal partnerships, but it is clearly Russia that is in the driver’s seat, with Belarus along for the ride. Moscow will steadily exert more control over Belarussian affairs, likely through the Eurasian Economic Union, until Belarus becomes indistinguishable from a province of the Russian Empire—as it once was.

MOLDOVA

A tiny, impoverished country tucked between Romania and Ukraine, Moldova is nonetheless overflowing with complexities and beset by unsolved political riddles. Moldovans are linguistically and culturally close to Romanians, and much of Moldova was part of the Kingdom of Romania before World War II. But Moldova spent fifty years as part of the Soviet Union, and today about 30 percent of the country is ethnically Ukrainian, Russian, or another non-Moldovan minority.¹⁸ As a result, contemporary Moldovan politics is fraught with existential questions about whether the country’s future lies with the West, with Russia, or in reunification with Romania.

Putin has no intention of letting Moldovans make that choice themselves, and he holds a trump card: the unrecognized breakaway state of Transnistria, which violently seceded from the rest of Moldova in 1990 and continues to be propped up by more than a thousand Russian troops who have been stationed there for over twenty years.¹⁹ Moldova’s large Russian minority and the presence of Russian troops are eerily reminiscent of Ukraine and Crimea. Indeed, some have already warned that Moldova is “the next Ukraine” and that it is only a matter of time before Putin attempts to leverage his Transnistrian foothold and perhaps swallows a chunk of Moldova along with it.²⁰ That day may indeed come, and sooner than many might imagine. In the meantime, Putin is spreading anti-European propaganda to ensure that Moldovans don’t grow too enamored of the West. Russian-language television, which is hugely popular in Moldova, encourages rumors that “if you join the E.U., everyone becomes gay,” or that European regulators “won’t let you keep animals around your houses.”²¹ Putin and his surrogates lavish attention on Moldova, while few Western leaders can be bothered to visit. The Kremlin’s intentions are clear: leverage existing divisions and anxieties within Moldova to derail any chance at European integration and eventually return the country to direct Russian control.

THE BALTIC STATES

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are quite possibly the greatest success stories to come out of the old Soviet Union. All three are NATO and EU members with vibrant democracies and market economies that have produced globally competitive companies such as Skype. Of course, Putin can’t stand it. He has made life difficult for the Baltic States in innumerable ways, including a massive 2007 cyberattack on Estonia,²² aggressive misinformation and propaganda campaigns in all three countries,²³ and even the threat of nuclear war.²⁴ In 2014, Russian agents slipped across the border and abducted Estonian security officer Eston Kohver,²⁵ who was held in Moscow for more than a year before being released in an exchange for a Russian spy.²⁶ Alarmingly, Russia has launched a “review” of the “legality” of the independence of the Baltic States after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.²⁷

The Baltic States have much to lose if Putin’s master plan comes to pass. After a century marked by war and totalitarian Soviet rule, Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians have finally carved out a decent life in their corner of the world. Only a few hours from St. Petersburg, democracy and free markets thrive in the region, citizens vote in European parliamentary elections, and tourists from around the EU travel freely and spend euros. The Baltic States are a thumb in the eye of Putin’s autocracy and a constant reminder to Russians across the border that Putin and his cronies are denying them the fruits of European integration. Indeed, the ethnic Russians living in the Baltics are better off than their compatriots in Russia proper, though many are bitter about being ruled by non-Russians. That is why Putin has turned his relentless “hybrid” warfare on the Baltics, and why these countries may yet prove to be the flashpoint that ignites a wider conflict between Russia and the West. It is one thing for Russia to bully Ukraine or exploit and manipulate the Belarussians and Moldovans. But the Baltic States are NATO members, and a Russian attack against them would trigger Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, obligating America and its Western European allies to assist.

THE CAUCASUS

The Caucasus region, where a towering mountain range divides Europe and Asia, has been a key success for Putin’s designs. Putin has utilized his full playbook to get what he wants in the Caucasus, from energy politics and interethnic rivalries to hybrid war and “frozen” conflicts—that is, struggles in which armed hostilities have ended but no peace agreements or political resolutions have been reached, meaning that the situation can enflame again at any time. The Caucasus is strategically vital to Russia, as it serves not only as a gateway to the Middle East but also as a transit route for abundant Central Asian oil and gas on its way to thirsty European markets.²⁸ And Putin has more control there now than ever before. Wedged strategically between Turkey and Iran, Armenia is a member of Putin’s Eurasian Economic Union and hosts Russian troops. It is essentially a Russian client state, dependent on Moscow for its economy, national security, and political stability. Oil- and gas-rich Azerbaijan is more wary of Putin, due in part to its simmering conflict with Armenia and close ties with Iran, but Moscow is pushing hard for Azerbaijan to join the Eurasian Economic Union as well.²⁹ Arastun Orujlu, head of the Center for East-West Studies, warns that “Azerbaijan is going to be next after Ukraine,”³⁰ while ordinary Azeris believe that “if the West doesn’t do anything to stop Russia, they will be emboldened to take back Azerbaijan by force as they did a hundred years ago.”³¹ Putin already has a toehold here, as Russian-backed Armenian forces already control the Nagorno-Karabakh region in southeastern Azerbaijan. This flashpoint, dormant since the early nineties, could be reignited by Putin, just as Crimea was.

Georgia has put up more of a fight than its Armenian or Azeri neighbors. In 2007, newly elected Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili was openly defiant of Putin and vowed to plot a new course forward out of Georgia’s Soviet past, flirting with NATO and even EU membership. In 2008, Putin invaded, seized, and eventually annexed Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two ethnically (and religiously) distinct regions in Georgia. (Abkhazians are Sunni Muslim, and Ossetians are religiously mixed but mostly Christian, like other Georgians.) Even after the war ended, Putin continued a propaganda and economic campaign against Georgia, and against Saakashvili personally. Today, less than a decade after Moscow invaded Georgia, the country is moving closer to Russia and away from the West.³² Saakashvili has been replaced by politicians friendlier to Russia.

Putin has been unambiguous about what the future in the Caucasus holds: “As for the Trans-Caucasus region, Russia will never leave this region. On the contrary, we will make our place here even stronger.”³³ Indeed, in the region, Putin has things going his way: Armenia has acquiesced, Azerbaijan sees few alternatives, and Georgia is drifting back into Russia’s orbit.

SCANDINAVIA, FINLAND, AND THE ARCTIC

Putin has two key objectives in Scandinavia: cowing the countries into accepting Russian regional dominance and securing valuable Arctic energy resources and shipping lanes. Putin knows he will never absorb Sweden or Denmark into the Eurasian Economic Union or any of his other thinly veiled imperial projects. Rather, his goal is to convince them to sit on the sidelines while he makes his move on the nearby Baltic States, and as he stakes aggressive Russian claims to the oil-rich Arctic seabed, where as much as 20 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil lies.³⁴ The Swedes and Finns, though not NATO members, are armed to the teeth, and Putin would rather not challenge them head on. Instead, he has developed a set of intimidation tactics designed to demonstrate just how vulnerable Scandinavia is to Russian attack. These have included numerous violations of national airspace by Russian fighters and bombers on a scale not seen since the end of the Cold War. In one incident, a Russian jet fired a flare at a Swedish fighter, an unsubtle reminder that it could just as easily be a missile next time.³⁵ There have even been sightings of what many suspect are Russian minisubmarines off the Swedish coast, just miles from Stockholm, though the Swedish navy denies that the Russians can sneak up on them so easily.³⁶

So long as the Scandinavians live in fear of a sudden Russian attack, they will be unwilling to intervene if Putin attacks the Baltics, and halfhearted in their competition with Russia for lucrative Arctic drilling rights. Putin has even gone as far as to plant a titanium Russian flag on the North Pole seabed, staking a claim to billions of dollars of oil and gas.³⁷ And while Green-minded Scandinavians worry about climate change, Putin eagerly awaits melting Arctic ice caps that will open up new shipping lanes on Russia’s northern coast, providing a speedier route to Asia for European exports as well as access to Russia’s vast (and dubious) Arctic territory claims.³⁸ If he can neutralize Scandinavia and Finland with his over-the-top scare tactics, Putin will open the door to Russian domination of the Arctic and increase his odds in the Baltics. If Russia encounters resistance—especially from the non-NATO Finns and Swedes, who would have to fight on their own—Putin may very well go beyond the use of mere flybys and minisubs.

THE BALKANS

Russia has had interests in the Balkans for centuries, and deep religious, linguistic, and cultural connections will always exist between Russia and the countries of the Balkan Peninsula. But Putin’s interest in the Balkans is not academic or benign; the Balkan countries are Europe’s weakest flank, beset by shoddy economies, corrupt politics, and a legacy of ethnic conflict. The EU and NATO have worked hard to achieve progress in the Balkans, expanding their membership and the promise of a European future to much of the region.³⁹ Now, Putin is working to undo all that progress. Leveraging long-standing Russian ties to the Balkans, Putin is attempting to turn countries such as Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Serbia into Russian allies within Europe. If he succeeds, as he appears to be doing, he will have snuck a Trojan horse into NATO itself and compromised the EU’s consensus-based decision-making process.

Plainly dissatisfied with European institutions and teetering on the brink of economic ruin, Greece is the most vulnerable of the Balkan states. Putin has been quick to position Russia as Greece’s last true friend, hosting Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras in Moscow and allowing rumors to circulate that Russia would bail out Greece’s economy if the EU refused to.⁴⁰ The Greeks, understandably starved for positive reinforcement from abroad, like what they are hearing from Moscow.

Bulgarians, meanwhile, are less enthused about the interest Putin has taken in their country, but a political system dogged by corruption and an oligarch-run economy provide precisely the sort of environment Putin can exploit.⁴¹ Macedonia and Serbia are less integrated into the European system and have strong nationalist movements that view Russia as a traditional ally and natural protector.⁴² Putin has high hopes that he can convert these relationships into lasting political influence that secures Russian interests in the heart of the Balkans and guarantees him a say in all European discussions.

CENTRAL EUROPE

Putin’s strategy for Central Europe is focused on exploiting institutional weaknesses in former communist states, such as Hungary and Slovakia, while neutralizing wealthier and more powerful countries, such as Germany and Austria. Hungary’s president, Viktor Orbán, who has vowed to create an “illiberal state”⁴³ and openly repudiates the European and Western values at the center of the European Union, has become Putin’s closest ally in Europe and a dangerous threat to the future of the EU.⁴⁴ Slovakia’s economy is dominated by oligarchs who do considerable business with Russia, making the country a prime target for Putin’s intrigues.⁴⁵ Slovak politicians have little desire to become Russian puppets, but they’re wary of alienating a vital trading partner.⁴⁶ Putin has taken advantage of Slovakia’s hesitancy to rail against EU sanctions on trade with Russia, where Slovakia or Hungary are both capable of ending the EU’s consensus-based sanctions. It would be a political coup for Putin if they did so.

The Germans may be more wary of Russia than any other country in the world, having fought two devastating wars against Russia in the past century. As such, Putin’s goal is not necessarily to encourage a close relationship between Germany and Russia, though he will take anything he can get, but rather to rupture the close relationship that Germany has with the United States. By encouraging far-left and far-right strains of anti-American politics and rhetoric in Germany, Putin hopes to drive the two countries far enough apart that NATO becomes functionally inoperable and America’s military presence in Europe is compromised. The Germans continue to depend heavily on Russian energy to power their economy,⁴⁷ which in turn drives the European economy. Putin hopes to set up a choice whereby Germany pursues its economic relationship with Russia over its political relationship with America. If Putin succeeds, he will be that much closer to “Finlandizing” the European continent and ending the transatlantic relationship.

WESTERN EUROPE

Putin sponsors a range of insurgent political organizations in Western Europe—extremists, nationalists, separatists, and anti-Western and anti-American groups—in order to promote anti-EU policies and disrupt the ability of Western European leaders to formulate a cohesive response to Russian aggression further east. In Britain, the UK Independence Party, or UKIP, received 13 percent of the vote in the 2015 elections⁴⁸ despite openly endorsing Putin’s illegal invasion and annexation of Crimea,⁴⁹ and subsequently championed the Brexit vote to leave the EU. France, Britain, Spain, Italy, and Belgium all have populist political parties that are “committed” to Putin.⁵⁰ The right-wing National Front party in France has been loaned tens of millions of euros by a Kremlin-connected bank, and Putin has hosted the National Front’s leader, Marine Le Pen, in Moscow.⁵¹ A January 2015 poll finds that between 29 and 31 percent of French voters would support Le Pen if she runs for president in 2017, putting her ahead of all other contenders.⁵² Radical pro-Putin parties are poised to grow in popularity in Europe as economic woes, dissatisfaction with immigration policy, and frustration with the status quo discredits mainstream political parties on both the left and right.

For a glimpse of the future of Western European politics, just look at Greece. The country’s far-left SYRIZA party and neofascist Golden Dawn party disagree on just about everything—but they both love Putin⁵³ What Putin hopes to offer the voters of Western Europe is just that: a choice on everything except whether to stand up to Russia and defend their own own values. He figures that if core European states such as France and Britain elect governments that include Putin loyalists, NATO will be as good as dead. The thinking is that a Le Pen government that is pro-Putin would never send its troops to protect Estonia from a Russian invasion or endorse another round of sanctions on Russian-backed separatists. Pro-Putin Western European governments would also roll back efforts to reduce reliance on Russian energy and happily send their euros and pounds east to fill the Kremlin’s coffers. Putin, of course, will be generous enough not to turn off the gas during cold European winters, so long as his customers keep playing by his rules.

It follows that Western Europe’s pro-Putin politicians would also undermine their nations’ foundational relationship with America, closing military bases and ending long-standing cooperative defense arrangements. We may even see a repeat of France’s Cold War–era decision to decline participation in mutual defense arrangements with America. If that were the case, how could the United States trust pro-Putin politicians on basic matters of political decency and respect for human rights? It is one thing when politicians hold their noses for the sake of national commercial benefit, as many countries do with China. But when politicians throw in their lot with Putin, whose chief export has been war and bloodshed, they put at stake their very existence as liberal democracies, to say nothing of forfeiting any claim to a moral high ground. Simply put, Putin’s meddling in Western Europe poses a threat to the future of the Western alliance—and with it, the future of Western civilization.

THE MIDDLE EAST

Putin has many reasons to be interested in the Middle East, including global oil supplies and Russia’s lucrative arms sales in the region. But Putin’s overriding strategic priority in the Middle East concerns Iran, the world’s largest Shi’a Muslim nation. Not that Putin has any special love for Iran or its particular brand of Shi’a theocracy. What Iran represents is the gravest threat to American interests in the Middle East and the ability to shatter America’s regional alliance system. Moreover, Iran stands as a counterweight to Turkey, and has the power to destabilize the Caucasus region, where Shi’a Muslims in Azerbaijan and southern Russia look to Tehran for religious, cultural, and even political leadership. For these reasons, Putin supplies Iran with arms, nuclear technology, and diplomatic support that continue to be a decisive factor in the country’s emergence as a regional power.

Russia’s direct support for Bashar al-Assad in Syria has been conducted in clear collaboration with Iran, and Iranian military advisors on the ground direct Syrian troops armed by Putin. Today, Iran is in effective control of coastal Syria, Lebanon, the Shi’a regions of Iraq, and areas of Yemen ruled by Tehran-backed ethnic Houthi rebels. A member of Iran’s parliament has declared that the country now controls four Arab capitals: Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut, and Sana’a.⁵⁴

Understandably, America’s Arab allies are alarmed by Iran’s rise, which has deeply upset the balance of power in the Middle East. Egypt and Saudi Arabia, two powerful Arab nations and natural rivals with Iran, are determined to reassert their influence and roll back Iranian gains. But they aren’t turning to America for help. Instead, they’re running straight into Putin’s arms. The Saudi royal family, who have become “disillusioned with President Obama and his policies in the region,” recently dispatched Deputy Crown Prince and Minister of Defense Mohammed bin Salman to Moscow to negotiate deals with Putin on “oil cooperation, space cooperation, peaceful nuclear energy cooperation, and nuclear technology sharing.⁵⁵ In addition, Egypt recently signed a sweeping military cooperation agreement with Russia, and Cairo plans to buy billions of dollars of arms from the Kremlin.⁵⁶ Egyptian and Russian officers will train together, and their navies will hold joint exercises in the Mediterranean.⁵⁷ Putin is working all sides of the conflict in the Middle East, to the detriment of American security interests—and no one is batting an eye in Washington.

America’s Middle Eastern allies can no longer rely on Washington for material or diplomatic support. Instead, they’re flocking to Putin for arms and technology. Putin’s alliance with Iran demonstrated the value of the Kremlin’s friendship, and is upending a regional order that has persisted largely unchanged for decades. Iran is now on the verge of achieving effective regional hegemony with Russian help, and the rest of the Middle East is scrambling to be on the right side of history: Putin’s side.

In Iraq, meanwhile, any positive benefits that may have resulted from America’s decade-plus war there now belong to Tehran. There is plenty of blame to go around for allowing the Middle East to slip into such chaos, and surely America’s politicians of the last fifteen years must shoulder a considerable portion of it. But we cannot forget that Putin has worked tirelessly toward exactly what we are witnessing today: a rising Russia-backed Iran; a disintegrating American alliance system; and growing Russian influence in Arab countries. On all counts, Putin is getting what he wants.

CENTRAL ASIA

To many in the West, and especially in America, Central Asia is most familiar as the land of Borat and America’s grinding Afghan quagmire. For most Russians, however, Central Asia is the land of the Osterns, massively popular Soviet-era movies inspired by America’s Westerns but set on Central Asia’s endless steppes and bone-dry deserts, with Turkic nomads filling in for Native American braves and clever Russian frontiersmen replacing stiff-spined sheriffs.⁵⁸ To Vladimir Putin, Central Asia is a land of opportunity, bursting with oil and natural gas begging for export and crisscrossed by well-worn Silk Road trade routes that cry out for high-speed freight trains and intercontinental superhighways. Russian control of Central Asia would hand over to Putin some of the world’s largest natural gas fields, and thereby consolidate Russian control of an energy market vital to both European and booming East Asian economies.

So far, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have signed on to Putin’s Eurasian Economic Union, with Tajikistan poised to follow suit. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are likely to acquiesce eventually as well. These countries may be among the poorest in the world, but their vast reserves of natural resources make them strategically priceless. Beyond oil and gas, they have coal, uranium, gold, iron ore, and manganese. Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, nestled up against the Tian Shan mountains just west of the Himalayas, have enormous stores of fresh water frozen in their glaciers. Soviet-era mismanagement means that the region remains underexplored, with major discoveries of resources worth billions of dollars having occurred within the last ten years. Putin is already working with the Chinese to build high-speed railways that will ship Central Asia’s riches to the hungry economies of Asia.⁵⁹ Putin has built Russia into the power that it is today on the back of commodities extraction and energy exports. If Putin can consolidate control over Central Asia through political alliances and economic links, it will deepen his purse for military expenditures and secure the Kremlin’s position astride strategic trade routes from Europe to Asia.

EAST AND SOUTH ASIA

By now, it’s no secret that Putin has built a powerful alliance with China, as one of this book’s coauthors describes in detail in The Russia-China Axis: The New Cold War and America’s Crisis of Leadership (2014). China is a key market for Russian energy, and Chinese funds are also a major source of foreign direct investment in Russian infrastructure, especially in oil-rich Siberia. Chinese president Xi Jinping was Putin’s guest of honor in Moscow during the 2015 Victory Day celebrations, where the two signed approximately $6 billion in infrastructure deals to knit the economies of the two countries closer together.⁶⁰ The relationship between Russia and China is mutually beneficial and pragmatic: Putin denounces American power and promotes a multipolar world, while China cheerily trades with all that approach it. In return for pulling the weight of China’s strategic interests and playing the bad cop, Putin gets to ride shotgun on the Chinese economic bandwagon. Putin delivers China-funded infrastructure projects to his constituents, and the Chinese get improved access to the abundant natural resources of the Russian hinterland.

The formal vehicle for coordinating relations between China and Russia has been the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which also has as members most of the Central Asian states. In July 2015, India and Pakistan announced plans to join the SCO as full members.⁶¹ India, perennially on edge about the behavior of its traditional rival, Pakistan, and concerned over growing Chinese power, is also a major customer of Russian arms. As in the Middle East, Putin is happy to sell weapons to both sides of a conflict, so long as the checks don’t bounce. A similar motivation applies to Putin’s unseemly relationship with North Korea and its murderous Kim dynasty. In March 2015, Putin welcomed North Korea’s Kim Jong-un to Moscow and pronounced a “year of friendship” between Russia and North Korea.⁶² Putin’s plan for Asia obviously doesn’t discriminate against Stalinist dictatorships.

CONCLUSION

Vladimir Putin’s master plan is designed to make the twenty-first century a Russian century. His vision reaches from the United Kingdom to the United Arab Emirates, from Korea to Kyrgyzstan. He is unleashing hybrid warfare against Russia’s immediate neighbors in Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltics, and has fired warning shots at the Scandinavians and the Finns. Putin backs pro-Russian populist political parties in Central and Western Europe, thereby disrupting continental politics and threatening to undermine NATO and the EU. In the Middle East, Putin is backing Iran’s bid for regional power, but he also has no problem selling arms to disillusioned American allies. Putin is integrating Central Asia into a Russia-centric political and economic system, pursuing an ever-deeper strategic partnership with China, and backing the North Korean regime. Taken together, this amounts to a comprehensive strategy to break apart the world order that has governed the last twenty-plus years of global affairs, which will be much to the benefit of Russia’s regional and global positioning. And so far, it’s working.