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Russia is part of European culture. I simply cannot see my country
isolated from Europe, from what we often describe as the civilized world.
That is why it is hard for me to regard NATO as an enemy
- Vladimir Putin, March 6, 2000
International relations theory tends to privilege physical security above all other motives or state
goals. This is a key premise of structural realist theory. Assuming a hierarchy of state needs,
physical security is first, necessary for all other goals.
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Because of this, a material power structure
produces insecurity and security competition. Structural constructivist theory, on the other hand,
challenges this materialist notion of security by endogenizing identities and showing how different
“cultures of anarchy” construct how states identify and respond to threats to their physical security.
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Even in this social theory of international politics, though, physical security is the primary motive;
what differs are the conditions of possibility for states to realize that security. Both of these
perspectives produce a particular logic of security – one that holds its object as the physical survival
of the state. However, IR theory has remained largely silent on the possibility that survival of an
identity may also be an important goal of states in international politics and under certain conditions
trump the drive for physical security.
For example, the question of Russian participation in European politics has long animated the East-
West relationship and been a source of Russian anxiety and insecurity over time.
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The source of
this insecurity lies not in Russia’s relative power but in its identity vis-à-vis its more ‘civilized
neighbor’. Russia is seen as a ‘learner’ of European political and economic systems, a ‘junior
partner’, on its way to becoming European.
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Furthermore, for most of the twentieth century, Russia
could be seen as pursuing recognition of its identity from its European Other. As Erik Ringmar
notes: “in the 1920’s the Bolsheviks sought recognition as a legitimate state; under Stalin
recognition as a ‘great power’; during the Cold War the position of a ‘superpower’ and during the
Gorbechev Era to be acknowledged as a regular inhabitant of the ‘common House of Europe’”.
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Most recently, the question of NATO enlargement has provoked questions inside and out as to
‘what Russia is’ in terms of its identity and Europe.
On March 12, 1999 the alliance completed its first round of enlargement with the admission of
Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Less than four years later, the alliance announced plans
to enlarge even further – inviting seven Eastern European states to join. What is interesting about
this second case is Russia’s limited and almost non-existent reaction, particularly to the impending
addition of the Baltic States, of particular strategic importance to the Russians. Upon closer
examination of the discourse surrounding enlargement, we see that Russian opposition does not
seem to fall along material or geopolitical lines. Rather, a move to preserve Russian identity vis-à-vis
the West is motivating and animating the debate on enlargement. The main point of this story is
that the instability associated with NATO enlargement is dependent on Russian identity needs, not
material desires.
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If we are to understand Russian foreign policy vis-à-vis the West, we need to look
at the “mutually incompatible descriptions of self and other” that constitute the features of their
interactions.
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This raises an interesting question: why would a state care – enough to compromise its physical
security – about protecting its identity? International relations theory, as currently conceived does
not have a good answer to this question. My answer is that there is an additional motive driving
state behavior in international politics: recognition. As Rigmar notes, “not only physical, but social
survival is at stake” in international affairs and security may have an additional logic which
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