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It may seem perverse to claim that a country that has recently annexed part of a neighboring state, and is currently engaged in backing a separatist insurgency, is a status quo power. Nonetheless, this is the case.
On a global level, Moscow strives to uphold the current international order since it flatters Russian power and constrains that of those mightier than itself. Above all, the current system gives Russia permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council, providing it with cherished equal status to the United States and China. The UN’s core principle of national sovereignty is also generally favored by Moscow because it can be used to place diplomatic obstacles in the path of U.S. foreign policy. An example of this is Russia’s appeal to national sovereignty and its use of veto power to protect Syria’s Assad regime from the threat of Western airstrikes. Evidently Moscow has shown no such respect for the concept of non-interference when it comes to Ukraine. However this does not mean that Russia has abandoned its former stance and become an expansionist power set on challenging the broader status quo.
First, although undoubtedly carried out using aggressive means, Russia’s intervention in Ukraine was actually defensively motivated. The February 2014 revolution in Kiev brought to power a radically pro-Western government that explicitly sought to reorient Ukraine away from Russia’s sphere of influence. This was perceived by Moscow to be an unacceptable threat to national security, especially because it was believed it would eventually lead to Ukrainian NATO membership. Were this to have occurred, the Alliance would have gained the strategically important Crimean peninsula, as well as a 1,200-mile frontier with Russia’s European heartland. To eliminate this danger, Russia permanently seized Crimea and is using the separatist movements in Donetsk and Lugansk to prevent Ukraine’s successful integration with the West.
Given that Russia’s actions are driven by a desperation to avoid strategic losses, and not a desire to make territorial gains, they are unlikely to be widely repeated, even if it is ultimately successful in Ukraine. The Baltic States and the former Warsaw Pact countries of Central Europe have already become part of the Western Alliance and this has been accepted by Moscow as an undesirable but unchangeable fact. The only case in which further aggression could therefore be expected is if another state deemed to be strategically important to Russia and located within its “near abroad” were also to seek to reorient itself towards the West. Were this, for example, to occur in Belarus, it is certain that Moscow would take steps to intervene. Overall then, it must be anticipated that Russia will remain ready to use military force to reverse strategic losses that are perceived to undermine core national security. Absent such threats, however, Russia can be expected to remain a supporter rather than a challenger to the international status quo.
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