Why Russia Needs Liberal Democracy

It is no secret that Russia longs to resurrect its empire. While an actual reconstitution of neighboring states into one is highly implausible, Russia’s geopolitical end-game is to control – politically, economically, culturally, or otherwise – as much of the Eurasian landmass as possible. But Eurasia is a flat expanse of steppes, desert, and tundra, which have long exposed Moscow to land-based attack. From 13th century Mongol invasions, to Napoleon’s and Hitler’s advances in more recent times, the existential threats enabled by the lack of hard geographic borders have always underpinned Russia’s basic grand strategy: to insulate the heartland by as many buffers of satellite countries as possible. This outlook has led Moscow to govern its foreign affairs by hard-nosed realpolitik. However, President Putin should know that his paranoid and neo-Czarist approach to governance and foreign relations is ill-suited to the 21st century (it has clearly already backfired in Ukraine). A new ideology, rooted in liberal democracy, is the best hope for Russia to fulfill its grand strategic ambitions.