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I do not see how contemporary Russia is "desperate in acquiring more territory". My
interpretation is as following -- please correct me if I'm wrong. Note: I am not endorsing (nor criticising) Russian policies here, just trying to understand and learn. In order to learn, I try and give as clearcut an explanation as possible of my current understanding, so as to make it as easy as possible for others with more expertise to point to where I am wrong (if indeed I am wrong).
My take is this: contemporary Russian policy is a variation on "spheres of influence"
[1], and Russia treats its neighbours as being in its "sphere of
influence", and does not accept them becoming part of NATO. I think
the implicit deal with "sphere of influence" neighbours is: as long as you don't
join NATO, you can do whatever you like but as soon as you try to
join NATO we will stop this, including with force. Currently, Russia has borders with the following NATO countries:
Norway,
Estonia and
Latvia. The latter two joined NATO in 2004, when Russia felt too weak to do anything about it, especially since they are not land-locked, so could be easily be defended by western Navies. A clear example of this was the Russian-Georgian War in 2008. Russia
withdrew after a couple of days (but left some "Frozen Conflicts" [2]
in place that it can 'turn on' at will, as a power-lever: South
Ossetia and Abkhazia). Who would have defended Georgia if Russia had decided to stay, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey? Probably not.
Likewise, Russia could easily invade an keep the 'stans. Take land-locked
Kazakhstan: huge, rich in resources, nearly empty, and, thanks to Stalin's policy of
mixing ethnic groups, about 1/4 of the population is ethic Russian anyway (in 1989 it was
nearly 40%). Who would defend Kazakhstan? Mongolia, Uzbekistan , Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan?
Probably not.
Ukraine is an interesting special case, and the annexation of Crimea
can be interpreted in this way: Ukraine came too close to NATO,
and Crimea is important for the ability of the Russian navy to
project power in the Mediterranean Sea. Crimea is > 2/3 Russian from
the POV of ethnic groups and Russia has a higher standard of living than Ukraine, so the majority of the Crimean population would probably have been ok with the policy anyway. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_of_influence [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_conflict |