Russia is not, and will not be, diplomatically isolated

One of the favorite neocon tropes is that, under Putin’s rancid authoritarianism, Russia has comprehensively squandered all of the goodwill it built up under the influence of the amiable and drunken Yeltsin. In this telling of the story, Russia is friendless and alone in the international arena due to the Kremlin’s profound incompetence, rapaciousness, and cruelty.

With regards to a few countries (Poland, Georgia, and the Baltics, whose anti-Russian stance is and has always been absurdly overdetermined) this is somewhat accurate. But on a world scale? I think you could very easily, and accurately, make an argument that Russia is more broadly popular and diplomatically engaged than at any previous time in its troubled history (to be honest, this is not an especially high hurdle to clear, but what else should we compare it to? An alternate reality in which Russia, instead of the “evil empire,” used to be a blown-up version of the Netherlands?).

Today numerous countries that used to be Russia’s outright enemies (Israel, China, Turkey) or very negatively disposed towards it (Brazil, Argentina, and the other previously right-wing military regimes in South America, as well as the apartheid regime in South Africa) are now in close diplomatic and economic engagement with Russia. Even during the height of the Cold War India had decent relations with Russia, and these have only gotten closer as of late. Russia has even gotten substantially more economically engaged with Japan, despite some nasty, and probably intractable, disputes over the Kuril islands.

This isn’t to grandstand on behalf of the Kremlin, but to acknowledge reality and therefore give a note of caution to those who, based on the clear deterioration of Russia’s relationship with the United States from 2000-08, think that Putin is some sort of international boogey-man and that it is self-evident that his policies are a diplomatic disaster.* Russia has good relations with all of the other BRICS and the other fast-growing economies of Asia. It has good relations with most of the Middle East, including Iran and Israel, and its antagonists are primarily former Warsaw Pact countries in a narrow geographical band in Eastern Europe.

Is this a perfect diplomatic position to be in? Surely not. But is it catastrophic or, more importantly, is it worse than the position it had in the 1990’s? I don’t see how one can argue that. The structure of the world economy is changing before our very eyes, with economic dynamism increaingly coming from, and wealth increasingly drawn towards, Asia in general and China in particular. Russia is not nearly as poorly positioned to take advantage of this as some would think, and if you view Russia solely from the perspective of the United States (where it is loathed and mocked in almost equal measure) you get an extremely distorted view of the situation.

* Russia’s efforts to get its allies to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia were clearly ineffectual, but this issue  is one very small bit of Russia’s overall diplomatic engagement with the world. People who in the same breath will call Russia “friendless” for its inability to gain diplomatic recognition of its tiny client enclaves will offer endless excuses for the United States’ profound inability to get its allies to do anything of note in Iraq or Afghanistan.