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“The Russia That Might Have Been”
“How Moscow Squandered Its Power and Influence”

“IIn the 12 months since Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine, the war has turned into an accelerating disaster for Russia. Although Ukrainians are the primary victims of the Kremlin’s unprovoked aggression, the war has already left hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers dead or wounded. Unprecedented Western sanctions have squeezed the Russian economy, and Moscow’s large-scale mobilization and wartime crackdown on civil society have caused hundreds of thousands of the country’s high-skilled workers to flee abroad. Yet the greatest long-term cost of the war to Russia may be in permanently foreclosing the promise of Russia occupying a peaceful and prosperous place in the twenty-first-century world order.

The current trajectory of Russia’s foreign policy was not predestined, and there were many chances for the Kremlin to do things differently. For much of the last 20 years—even following the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014—Russia had a historic opening to build a dynamic new place for itself in the international system. When Putin was sworn in as president, in May 2000, Russia was entering a period of greater possibility—both within and beyond its borders—than at any other point in its history. Internally, Russia had survived the collapse of the USSR and the tumultuous 1990s to go from an empire to an influential nation-state in the making. Despite the horrendous wars in Chechnya, Russia was, by the turn of the century, largely stable and at peace. Its planned economy had given way to an adaptable market economy. It was an imperfect but vibrant democracy.

Then, around 2003, Russia got lucky. The U.S. invasion of Iraq coupled with China’s spectacular economic boom led to a sharp increase in global commodity prices. The Kremlin’s coffers were suddenly flooded with revenues from the sale of oil, gas, metals, fertilizers, and other products on the global market. This windfall allowed Russia to quickly repay its foreign debts and nearly double its GDP during Putin’s first two presidential terms. Despite mounting corruption, most ordinary Russians found that their incomes were rising. Compared with their troubled imperial and Soviet past, Russians had never been so prosperous and, simultaneously, so free as in the first decade of the twenty-first century. With these strong economic and political foundations, Russia was well positioned to become a global power between East and West—benefiting from its links to both Europe and Asia, and focused on internal development.”

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