Russia has only two allies—its Army and its Navy,” Czar Alexander III (1881-1894) infamously argued. “The others will go against us at the first opportunity.” More than a century later, it’s precisely the same unapologetically cynical, hopelessly self-help mindset that is driving Russia’s foreign policy. Spanning across 11 time zones and multiple continents, Russia is both a product of and in fear of imperial predation. Russia’s grand strategy, therefore, has been a bizarre form of aggressiveness driven by profound insecurity.
No matter how Putin and his impresarios seek to rationalize the ongoing war in Ukraine, the reality is that Russia is more isolated and enervated than ever. It has lost access to markets and technology in the West, and, worse, become dangerously dependent on China and India, its two biggest new markets. This is pure strategic folly since Russia could have become the ultimate ”swing state” of the 21st century. In the words of astute Russian analyst Alexander Gabuev: “Russia was well positioned to become a global power between East and West…”
In today’s impossibly complex, dangerously unpredictable, and increasingly multipolar world, however, ”grand strategy” is not the exclusive domain of major powers. If anything, less-than-great powers can and have every reason to develop their own versions. In the simplest terms, according to the political scientist Sulmaan Wasif Khan, grand strategy pertains to “the way in which [a state] marshals different forms of power to pursue national objectives.”
