This article was originally published by Stratfor Worldview and is reprinted here with permission.
Geography and demography will always compel Russia to prioritize its European frontier, but shifts in global economic and security dynamics have drawn Russia back into the Indo-Pacific, where Moscow is finding it has limited tools to maintain its strategic interests.
Russia recently issued a set of demands to reset its frontier with NATO, effectively calling for NATO to withdraw to its 1997 position, stop any further eastward expansion, and contact Moscow before conducting any military exercises with countries along the Russian periphery. While the demands appeared bold (and have already been largely rejected by both NATO and the United States), they reflect the geopolitical realities that have long shaped Russia’s European and southward views and priorities. Left largely unaddressed in the current discussion are Russia’s views on the Arctic and its Far East, particularly Russia’s expanding relations in the Indo-Pacific. There, Moscow contends with a China that is both a necessary strategic partner and a challenger for Eurasian hegemony.
The View From Moscow
Before looking at current events, it is useful to take a step back and look at Russia from a geopolitical perspective. The view from Moscow is shaped by geography and history, and while leaders serve important roles, those roles are often tempered by strategic realities outside their individual control or influence. When Russian leaders look outward from Moscow, their vision has long been directed primarily toward the west and south. To provide strategic depth and security for Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia has long pursued an arc of influence — or at times, occupation — stretching from the Baltics through eastern Europe down to the Carpathian and around to the Caucasus. Both Belarus and Ukraine are critical components of this defensive shield.
To the east, the Urals provided minimal defense, with great plains sweeping south around the mountains, leaving Russia historically vulnerable to invasion from the Eurasian heartland. Russia’s security sphere, then, pushes to the Tienshan mountains along the Chinese frontier, east through Central Asia, and on to the Pacific coast. This is a vast territory that subsequent Russian empires have sought to secure through direct or indirect control, but the sheer size of the region forces Moscow to prioritize or face overextension.
Russia is a traditional continental power, its international maritime access granted largely via the constrained waters of the Baltic and Black seas, the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan. The icy Arctic frontier long served as a barrier, shielding Russia from maritime approaches in the north. But this Arctic shield is rapidly changing, providing Moscow with both the benefits and risks of a long, sparsely populated maritime frontier. Russia has tried unsuccessfully to push through Central Asia to expand southern coastal access — most notably in the Great Game with the British empire to control South and Central Asia.
Despite its long borders and vast territory, Russia has more often than not been politically and militarily oriented toward Europe. The bulk of the Russian population lives within the country's western regions that also abut nearby regional powers. The eastern regions of Russia, by contrast, are sparsely populated due to climate limitations. In the Far East, this changes somewhat, as Russia comes up against Japan, the Koreas and China. The realities of eastern Russia's climate and infrastructure limitations have historically mitigated Russia's longstanding fear of mass Chinese immigration into the Far East. But thawing ice due to warming global temperatures is now opening new areas of the Russian Arctic, Siberia and the Far East — particularly with increased maritime access along the Northern Sea Route. Resource extraction remains a key focus in the Russian east, and opportunities are attracting a growing Chinese diaspora.
Asia's rise in the global economy and as a center of global competition draws Russia's attention but also raises new concerns. Moscow has emphasized investment and development in the Arctic and Far East for years, and prior to COVID-19, Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District (which comprises all of Russia east of Siberia) accounted for some 32% of inbound foreign direct investment — a remarkable feat for a region that makes up less than 5% of Russia’s total population. The opportunities presented by the Russian Arctic, Siberia and the Far East, however, also come with strategic risks. Since resuming the Russian presidency in 2012, Vladimir Putin has refocused Russian attention on the Far East and on Russia’s relations in the Indo-Pacific, both to exploit economic opportunities and to counter rising strategic challenges.
Russia’s Asia Pivot
The timing of Russia’s "pivot" to Asia was shaped by two main forces: tension around Ukraine to the west and heightened U.S.-Chinese strategic competition to the east. Following the global financial crisis of 2007-2009, Moscow sought to reshape the Russian economy by reducing dependence on commodity exports and attracting investment in new technologies and manufacturing. As tensions in Ukraine rose and broke into open conflict in 2014, the prospect of European or U.S. investment in Russia faded. The downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine and the Russian annexation of Crimea effectively ended any chance Russia had of strengthening economic ties to the West, barring a major shift in European politics. With global economic activity already shifting to the Pacific, Moscow was incentivized to look East for what it could no longer get from the West. Unfortunately for Moscow, Asian investment and trade have remained heavily focused on raw commodities or on arms sales, with little focus on industrialization or technology transfers to Russia.
As Moscow looked East for economic ties, it also saw new risks from rising U.S.-China competition. Japan took a central role in countering China’s military rise in the Pacific, but by default, that same capability could be used to keep Russia trapped in the East, similar to the U.S.-Japan alliance during the Cold War. Russia’s strategic security in the Far East was also challenged by the U.S. deployment of the anti-missile Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system (or THAAD) in South Korea, with the potential to link it into a revived missile defense architecture for the region, and intent to deploy intermediate-range ballistic missiles to the Asia-Pacific. For Moscow, expanded defense ties with China served both as a counter to increasing U.S. and allied activities and as a way to limit any sense of strategic competition with China. But increased military cooperation with China also risked damaging Russia’s relations with other Asian countries, and potentially locking Moscow into an escalating confrontation with the United States on both sides of its vast territory.
Russia China Interaction
China has been central to Russia’s eastward focus, due not only to common interests but China’s regional economic and military heft. China had long been a key purchaser of Russian arms. And Chinese-Russian cooperation in Central Asia — first in the Shanghai Five format and later in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) — laid the framework for joint and multilateral counterterrorism and military exercises. In 2012, Russia and China started annual joint naval exercises, beginning first in Northeast Asia before expanding to the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas. In 2019, Russia and China carried out their first joint maritime aviation patrol in Northeast Asia, flying near the disputed Dokdo/Takeshima islets and raising protests (and warning shots) from Seoul and Tokyo. In 2021, Russia joined a Chinese strategic military training exercise for the first time, and the two countries carried out their first joint maritime cruise, Joint Sea 2021. By increasing the potential for collective action between its two top rivals, the expanding nature and geographic scope of Russia-China military cooperation are raising concerns in the United States, which also fears China gaining technology and real-world experience from Russia.
Beyond the military cooperation, Russia has relied on China for key investment in its Arctic oil and gas production and ports, and Moscow has acquiesced to growing Chinese involvement in Central Asia through Beijing’s massive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China's BRI provides economic and infrastructure aid and development to Central Asian nations, something Russia cannot afford to offer. For Moscow, this initiative is both a benefit and a potential risk. A stable and economically active Central Asia reduces the risk of instability along Russia’s long southern frontier and provides new routes for economic exchange between Russia and South Asia. But it also shifts influence in the region away from Moscow and orients it toward Beijing. It is understandable, then, that Russia has worked to keep Central Asia on Russian rail gauge, quietly blocking Chinese attempts to shift the region to standard gauge. And it is perhaps no coincidence that Moscow launched its Eurasian Economic Union a year after China launched the BRI. Russia continues to wield cultural influence in Central Asia due to decades of Soviet integration and traditional labor flows. The withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan last year also led to a resurgence of Russian defense cooperation with Central Asian states. But even there, China is beginning to make inroads through engagement in regional counterterrorism training and cooperation, as well as a reportedly expanded security presence in Tajikistan.
Russia Beyond China
Russia still relies on arms sales and energy exports to shape its broader regional policy. Russia’s two primary regional partners, India and Vietnam, have uneasy relations with Beijing, and Moscow’s arms sales serve as a subtle reminder of Russia’s lingering concerns with rising Chinese power. Moscow stepped up arms sales to Myanmar following the military take-over in February, seizing an opportunity as Beijing briefly reassessed its policy toward Naypyidaw. In December, Russia also held its first joint maritime exercise with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations following similar ASEAN exercises with China in 2018 and the United States in 2019. Russia also uses its history with North Korea to maintain ties with South Korea, even though other projects like joint space development proved unsuccessful. And while Moscow cannot come to a compromise with Japan over disputed territories, it does seek Japanese investments and purchases of Russian energy commodities.
Russia has tried to tailor its Indo-Pacific policy to balance its dependence on China, but Moscow has limited tools compared with China and the United States. Without Beijing’s cash reserves and Washington’s historic regional military heft, Moscow has instead positioned itself as an alternative third party to help regional countries balance growing U.S.-China tensions. For instance, Russia has not directly supported Chinese maritime territorial claims in the South China Sea and has supported broader maritime access in its discussions with other ASEAN claimants. While Russia cannot outcompete the United States or China, it can use its limited resources to offer alternatives in the region. For Moscow, a truly multipolar region leads to greater security by softening Chinese and U.S. attempts at regional hegemony and helps Moscow avoid becoming a junior partner.
Future Challenges
While Moscow has bolstered its attention to and interactions with the Indo-Pacific region, it remains a largely reactionary player due to its limited resources. Russia can play a spoiling role to disrupt Chinese and U.S. intentions, but it cannot shape the region to its own interests. The best Moscow can hope for is to remain a valued third partner that can promise countries like India and Vietnam strategic autonomy in the midst of growing U.S.-China strategic competition. But even this role tests Russia’s reliance on China as Moscow's third-party efforts can run contrary to Chinese interests. India, for example, plans to deploy the S-400 air defense system it bought from Russia along its tense border with China. Russia is also working with India to sell the Brahmos anti-ship missile to the Philippines — one of Beijing’s rivals in the South China Sea. These actions seem to run against Russia’s closer military ties with China, which could prompt Beijing to retaliate if it sees its interests being constrained by Moscow
A confrontation with the United States in the east could also deepen Russia’s dependence on China. Moscow has yet to secure its western and southern frontiers, and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has opened up the potential for future militant activity in Central Asia that could spill into Russia. Moscow has limited resources to pay to each of these areas simultaneously, and the European frontier will take precedence, leaving Moscow to rely on expanding Chinese military power in Central Asia and the Indo-Pacific. Rising Chinese power is eliciting U.S. and regional responses, which can directly challenge Russia’s regional security posture, such as through additional missile defense systems. U.S. and regional responses to Chinese power can also indirectly challenge Moscow, as Russia is seen as a Chinese partner and thus as a challenger to regional interests. For Russia, this is a difficult path to walk, but one where it must, as the center of global power and competition continues to play out over the Asia-Pacific region. The more pressure Moscow feels on its European frontier, the more its western regions will take priority — leaving Russia with even fewer options in the Indo-Pacific and potentially forcing it to accept temporary Chinese hegemony in Eurasia.
