The Security Dilemma and Russian Autocracy

• In Event: Historical Processes and Turning Points in International Relations

Abstract

Western observers have often regarded Russia as perennially expansionist, and Russian autocracy as a threat to the peace of the world. The first belief is false, and the second, in one sense, true. At times in history Russia has pursued greedy objectives. Sometimes it has had defensive motives, but defined its security requirements so expansively that even if other states had understood its aims, they could not have accepted them. But Russia’s autocratic form of government, combined with its actual and potential power, also renders its international relations particularly vulnerable to the security dilemma. Even when Russian leaders have peaceable objectives, they face great difficulty in signaling them, particularly to liberal democracies. The result can be unnecessary conflict.

Some theorists claim that the security dilemma seldom if ever causes trouble in this way. “[S]ecurity-seeking states are generally able to recognize each other as security seekers and avoid conflict,” Andrew Kydd maintains. “…[F]or modern democracies, the policy-making process is transparent enough so that a wealth of information is generated about a state's motivations. Second, all states, democratic and non-democratic, can send costly signals about their motivations.” This paper argues that peaceful autocracies can fall victim to the security dilemma. Liberal transparency, which automatically mitigates conflict among democracies, is absent. While autocrats can send costly signals to reassure others about their actions, they may fail to do so. Under such circumstances liberal states are apt to rely on worst-case assumptions about their motives and intentions.

My paper examines four episodes in Anglo-Russian relations before the Crimean War: the Greek revolution of the 1820s, the Polish revolution of 1830-31, and the Syrian crises of 1832-33 and 1838-41. In each case, I examine Russian policies and the motives underlying them, drawing on published and archival sources. Next I consider how the British interpreted these motives and reacted to the Russian actions. Finally I consider whether the Russians recognized a security dilemma and engaged in costly signaling to mitigate it. I find that Russia’s aim in the Near East was to preserve Turkish rule under Russian domination. Much of Britain, however, inferred from Russia’s 1833 intervention against Egypt and the resulting Russo-Turkish alliance that Petersburg sought to destroy the Ottoman empire in the long run.

One reason was that it was Russia’s second intervention in only four years; another, that negotiations were held secret, as were those for the Austro-Russian Convention of Münchengrätz, encouraging speculation that Russia was plotting Turkey’s downfall. Perhaps most important, however, the Russian intervention came two years after Russia crushed the rebelling Poles. This was cited again and again as evidence of Russia’s expansionist aims. Given that Nicholas I had put down a revolt in his own dominion and, as a handwritten note by the tsar shows, would rather not have been in Poland at all, this was a quite illicit inference. But Russia’s 17th- and 18th-century history of aggression made it easy to draw. As attribution theory would expect, faced with ambiguous Russian behavior in the Near East, the British interpreted it as aggressive.

These cases point to a chronic problem for Russia. Its policies have often been genuinely expansionist, but even when they are restrained, Russia’s autocratic regime makes it an object of suspicion. Today, as in 1833, Russia has sent troops to the Middle East over Western objections, justifying its intervention on the ground that it was invited in by the country’s legitimate sovereign. Once again, it has intervened against liberalizing movements in states near its borders, becoming a bogeyman for Western liberals. Is history repeating itself? Without seeing Vladimir Putin’s secret correspondence, it is impossible to be sure. Supposing its intentions *are* nonexpansionist, how could Moscow show it?

The Straits conventions of 1840-41, which closed the Bosphorus and Dardanelles to foreign warships in peacetime, offer a possible model. By limiting Russia’s ability to expand into the Near East, they mitigated the objective security dilemma; by signaling its lack of interest in expansion, they softened the subjective dilemma arising through British misperception. Today, some have proposed a similar solution for East-West tensions through Ukraine’s neutralization. However, even if a negotiated solution should be found, similar problems are likely to emerge elsewhere. The opaque nature of Russia’s foreign policy making would render any state uncertain about its motives. Liberal ideological prejudice compounds the problem, causing Western states to interpret ambiguous policies as hostile, and ensuring Russophobic propaganda a receptive audience. In the long run, it seems that only Russia’s liberalization can put an end to the East-West security dilemma.

Author

• Matthew Rendall, University of Nottingham