Russia and the Balkans: Navigating a minefield of opportunities

Addressing the topic from a realist perspective, Bechev asks and answers some big questions, including: What has been driving Moscow’s policy in the region? And what explains the attitude and responses of the local states to Russia? His argument is simpler than most proponents of a new Cold War between Russia and the West would suggest. Untangling the puzzle of Russia and Southeast Europe, Bechev argues that “[w]hat transpires behind the lofty rhetoric of fraternity, pan-Slavism, Orthodox solidarity and historical bonds is often crude opportunism.” Rival Power suggests that whilst Russia does rival the West in the Balkans, with no grand plans in the Balkans, it is an ultimately pragmatic and opportunist power met by locals who think in the very same way.

Special relationships

Southeast Europe is understood in this book as the former Yugoslav states, alongside neighbouring Albania, Romania and Bulgaria, as well as Greece, Cyprus and Turkey. That Bechev clusters all of these states together into one unit to produce his book is already telling of his overarching views and the realism that runs through his analysis. It is one of the few sources of weaknesses in an overall excellent book on a topic too often ignored in both Russian and Eastern European studies.

To stress his point Bechev splits the book into two parts: Part I addresses each of the sub-regions of SEE separately (first former Yugoslavia, then Bulgaria and Romania, Greece and Cyprus and finally Turkey); whilst Part II takes a thematic approach to Russian influence in the region by addressing such concepts like hybrid warfare, energy politics and Russian soft power. Finally, the book concludes with a re-evaluation of Russia’s relations with the West vis-à-vis its relations with Southeast Europe.

The former head of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) in Sofia, Bechev has a long record of foreign policy commentaries spanning not only academia but leading media outlets like Politico, Foreign Policy, the Economist and many others. Hence, it is no surprise that he has produced a book that collates the most exciting turns in Russia’s relationship with the region. Drawing on endless documents and speeches, with an impeccably detailed empirical analysis, Bechev successfully argues that there is not so much of a Great Game with blocs of allegiances in Southeast Europe as much as Russia has succeeded in cultivating special relationships with each of the states regardless of regional disputes.

There has been a gaping hole in Russian and Eastern European studies when it comes to the Balkans; as Bechev himself notes, most scholars focus chiefly on Russia and its relationship with the former Soviet republics. Rival Power begins to plug that hole, with several commendable features. One is the attention to detail in tracing complex developments across a large region throughout a turbulent era that began with the 1990s. Bechev successfully highlights all of the key events which are essential to analysing any policy in the region.

Paying close attention to the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the starting points of post-Cold War contention between Russia and the West, Bechev introduces Balkan-related tensions to the readers in an interesting and readable way. In just over 150 pages Bechev runs through Kosovo’s status quest, murky political murders in Serbia, coup attempts in Montenegro, the separatist Republika Srpska, Ataka (the populist party in Bulgaria), South Stream disputes, the Agrokor crisis in Croatia, the Greek Eurozone crisis, the Cyprian missile crisis, Turkey’s Kurdish troubles, the BTC pipeline from Azerbaijan, and even the Syrian conflict. It is overwhelmingly informative on the sensational couple of decades that the region has witnessed.

Blurred lines

Essential to good foreign policy analysis is continuity, and chapter by chapter Bechev successfully employs his realist theory against relations between Russia and each of the sub-regions. In fact, he discusses not only Russia’s relations to the states in questions, but how they relate to the interstate affairs in the sub-region and Russia’s relations with other regions outlined in each chapter. For example, he discusses Russia’s friendship of convenience with Greece and Cyprus vis-à-vis Athens and Nicosia’s disputes with Turkey. This is also notable in the thematic chapters where Bechev maintains continuity in his analysis whilst taking into account turning points for Russia in both the post-Soviet space and the United States itself.

However, a key fault of the book is that it does not encompass an analysis of the private sector as much as the public sector. This stems, as mentioned, from the wide scope Bechev takes. In order to cover the large region of the Balkan Peninsula (plus Cyprus), the author has to narrow his analytical lens to inter-state relations. This is not untypical of foreign policy analysis. International relations scholars most often take an empirical approach delineating foreign policy making as that executed officially by the government. However, post-Cold War Russia and Southeast Europe are not in the slightest usual cases, the intertwined state and private interests, in many ways, define this space. A good indicator of how the private and public sectors are entangled in Russia and Eastern Europe are seen in the West’s sanctions against Russia, which focus largely on private business interests and funds.

To be fair, there is a brief mention of Mark Galeotti’s work on global corruption and Bechev quickly touches on Russian links to Agrokor, the Croatian retail giant, or failed attempts by Russian oligarchs to purchase Serbian media companies. But a full understanding of the way private businesses influences relations in Eastern Europe most certainly requires further analysis. Hence, while a comprehensive account of Russia’s relations with Southeast Europe, this book’s scope leaves little room for delving into deeper connections at domestic and transnational levels as opposed to the traditional international relations narratives which look at chiefly state-to-state relations.

Sober analysis

Another critique of this book is that while initially Bechev shuns the commonly noted arguments of shared cultures and histories between countries in this region and Russia, he spends a lot of space briefing the reader on these. This is partly done well because he is able to explain how these are not the most important factors in Russia’s relations with Southeast Europe. However, by going back further than the 19th century and the uprisings against the Ottomans to explain the baggage, for example, Bulgaria and Romania carry vis-à-vis Greece, Bechev provides substance to the culture and history argument which he shuns in the beginning of the book. He weakens his initial realist argument and produces a more convincing one in that each of today’s pragmatic relationships there is a different starting point. In other words, culture and history cannot be totally ignored.

Interestingly, Bechev concludes the book by taking a broader look at Russia’s complex relationship with Western Europe and discusses the repercussions of this on Southeast Europe. Dismissing heated rhetoric of a new Cold War emerging, he argues that “in the Balkans, Russia is not after the establishment of a new political order or an empire, whether formal or informal. Its goal is to undercut and upset the existing institutions and rules set by the West”. This welcome and sober analysis is a reflection of facts “as they are” as opposed to the ideologically-fuelled rhetoric that swept across literature after the annexation of Crimea. However, such an analysis can only be most sober when taking into account all of the realities of Russia and Eastern Europe. Indeed, as Bechev writes, “from Belgrade to Ankara, from Sofia to Budapest, dysfunctional democracies, state capture and the backslide to authoritarian politics, are on the whole, home-grown ills, not an outcome of a sinister Muscovite plot.”

Yet, it would be foolish to ignore that Russia also suffers from these ills and that the interaction between the corrupt political elites and murky business owners play a larger role across Eastern Europe than many other parts of the world. Thus, Rival Power is a great read; a superbly written analysis of interstate affairs but desperately requires a follow-up on one of the defining feature of post-Cold War affairs in Eastern Europe: the blurred lines between the public and the private realms.

Millie Radović is a postgraduate student at St Antony’s College, Oxford where she is currently completing her MSc in Russian and Eastern European Studies. She is also a Dahrendorf Scholar investigating free speech in the Balkans and assisting Professor Timothy Garton Ash on the Free Speech Debate Platform, as well as the book reviews editor for the student-led journal St Antony’s International Review.

Balkans, Book review, Dimitar Bechev, Russia