Swords and Sustenance: The Economics of Security in Belarus and Ukraine (American Academy Studies in Global Security)

283 Pages·2004·0.63 MB·English

by  Robert Legvold

Swords and Sustenance
The Economics of Security in Belarus and Ukraine
edited by Robert Legvold and Celeste A. Wallander
The stability of the former Soviet states is threatened by their precarious geopolitical position
within a turbulent economic and political environment. Swords and Sustenanceexplores the
complex economic dimension of national security for two key post-Soviet countries, Belarus
and Ukraine—that is, how they have dealt with the challenges posed by internal economic and
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political reform and their relationships with Russia and the West. w
The book first examines how differing commitments to economic and political reform o
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(reform is largely absent in Belarus) affect Belarusian and Ukrainian approaches to security. It d
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then considers the central role of Russia, and how Russian interests and policies toward Belarus
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and Ukraine limit the two countries’ foreign and domestic policy choices. Two chapters discuss n
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the national security implications for Belarus and Ukraine of two key economic factors in their
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foreign policy: energy trade (in the form of oil, gas, and pipelines) and military-industrial u
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cooperation (including the sale of arms). Finally, the book considers the relationships of Belarus t
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and Ukraine with regional and global institutions and explores the policies of the EU, NATO, n
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and the United States toward Belarus and Ukraine. n The Economics of Security in Belarus and Ukraine
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“A thoughtful and penetrating analysis of the complex interdependence of security and economics

in the post-Soviet space. It provides a valuable framework of analysis for both scholars of the

region and policymakers.”

—Zbigniew Brzezinski, Counselor, Center for Strategic and International Studies, former U.S.

National Security Advisor

“Fixing a historical and contemporary eye on the cases of Ukraine and Belarus, this outstanding

collection of essays represents the best of scholarship on the highly complex links between

politics and economics—between national identity and interstate relations—in the post-Soviet

space and its relations with the world at large.”

—Roman Szporluk, Mykhail Hrushevs’ky Professor of Ukranian History, Harvard University
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“Swords and Sustenanceserves as an important reminder that it is simply impossible to under- g
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stand international relations without integrating political economy and security studies. This o
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volume’s contributions offer lessons for all IR students, regardless of specialization.”
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—Jonathan Kirshner, Associate Professor of Government, Cornell University n
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Robert Legvold is Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. Celeste A. Wallander is
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a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. lla
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American Academy Studies in Global Security r
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American Academy of Arts & Sciences t
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136 Irving Street rs
Cambridge, MA 02138
http://www.amacad.org
0-262-62182-7 Robert Legvold and Celeste A. Wallander, editors
The MIT Press
Massachusetts Institute of Technology ,!7IA2G2-gcbicd!:t;K;k;K;k
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
http://mitpress.mit.edu
Swords and Sustenance
The Economics of Security in Belarus and Ukraine
American Academy Studies in Global Security
Carl Kaysen, John Steinbruner, and Martin B. Malin, editors
Robert Legvold, ed., Thinking Strategically: The Major
Powers, Kazakhstan, and the Central Asian Nexus
Robert Legvold, Celeste A. Wallander, ed.,Swords and
Sustenance: The Economics of Security in Belarus and Ukraine
The American Academy Studies in Global Security book series is
edited at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and published
by The MIT Press. Please direct any inquiries about the series to:
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
136 Irving Street
Cambridge, MA 02138-1996
Telephone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
e-mail: [email protected]
Visit our Website at www.amacad.org
Swords and Sustenance
The Economics of Security in Belarus and
Ukraine
Edited by Robert Legvold and Celeste A. Wallander
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Cambridge, Massachusetts
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2004 by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
136 Irving Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-1996
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying,
recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in
writing from the publisher.
This book was set in ITC Galliard by Anne Read.
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2003116237
ISBN: 0-262-12264-2 (hc)
0-262-62182-7 (pbk)
The views expressed in this volume are those held by each contributor. They do
not necessarily represent the position of the Officers and Fellows of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Contents
vii FOREWORD
xi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
xiii GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS
1 INTRODUCTION:
Economics and Security in the Post-Soviet Space
Celeste A. Wallander and Robert Legvold
23 CHAPTER 1
Security or Prosperity? Belarusian and Ukrainian Choices
Andrew Wilson and Clelia Rontoyanni
63 CHAPTER 2
Economics and Security in Russia’s Foreign Policy and the
Implications for Ukraine and Belarus
Celeste A. Wallander
101 CHAPTER 3
Interpreting Interdependence: National Security and the Energy
Trade of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus
Rawi Abdelal
129 CHAPTER 4
Military-Industrial Cooperation between Ukraine, Belarus, and
Russia: Possibilities, Priorities, Prospects
Hrihoriy Perepelitsa
159 CHAPTER 5
Economic Integration and Security in the Post-Soviet Space
Igor Burakovsky
189 CHAPTER 6
The United States, the European Union, NATO, and the
Economics of Ukrainian and Belarusian Security
Robert Legvold
227 CONCLUSION:
Robert Legvold and Celeste A. Wallander
261 CONTRIBUTORS
263 INDEX

Foreword
This book is one in a series of five volumes on security challenges
to the international community posed by developments within
the vast territory of what was once the Soviet Union. It would
take a very long series indeed to explore in detail all of the security rela-
tionships among the successor states of the former Soviet Union. The
issues selected for further study in this series, we believe, are among the
most important. The approach to these issues is a practical one: rather
than settle for generalizations driven by broad analytical categories, each
book deals with a specific manifestation of a selected problem and studies
it from the “ground up.”
This book tackles the problem of how economic factors impinge on
the national security policies of the states of this region. The specific case
is a comparison of Ukraine with Belarus. Unique as some features of
these two countries are, the way that economic considerations shape and
complicate their national security agendas applies in crucial respects to
virtually all of the post-Soviet states because of their geopolitical environ-
ment and legacy as Soviet republics. Their environment means Russia
looms large as potential partner or potential threat, while Europe and the
United States are potential partners or problems as well. Their legacy of
political and economic integration within the Soviet Union created a
high level of dependence on Russia and distance from the Western global
economy, affecting the costs and benefits of alternative security policies.
The intermingling of economic and security factors is further deepened
by the fact that these countries remain in the earlier stages of their post-
Soviet political and economic transitions, rendering their choice often a
matter of national sovereignty and survival.
The previous volume in the series assesses how systematically, ambi-
tiously, and skillfully the major powers have thought about and pursued
their vital stakes in Central Asia. It does so by comparing the policies of
China, Japan, Russia, Europe, and the United States toward a key coun-
try in this crucial region, Kazakhstan. Without pretending that the
knowledge generated in a specific case study can be applied perfectly to
the policies of the major powers in other parts of the former Soviet
SWORDS AND SUSTENANCE vii
viii FOREWORD
Union, the hope is that the basic insights, made richer by the concrete
instance from which they are derived, will serve to deepen our under-
standing of what roles the major powers are playing in the massive hinter-
land of Europe and Asia.
The third volume deals directly with the military profile of the key
country in the region, Russia. Not much can be said about the broader
international significance of security trends within the former Soviet
Union without having some sense of what kind of military power Russia
is today. Thus, the authors of this volume attempt to draw the many
dimensions of Russia’s military physiognomy (the evolution of defense
policy, the socio-economic condition of the military, Russia’s use of force
in regional conflicts, and its approach to nuclear weapons) into a single
composite picture. The book is intended to provide a broad and basic
assessment of how Russia fits into both regional and international con-
texts as a military actor.
A fourth book considers the complex impact of external and internal
forces on the way lesser post-Soviet states are approaching the military
component of national security. To get at this tangle of issues, we have
selected a particularly vexed and intricate portion of the former Soviet
Union—the three states of the Caucasus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and
Georgia. Not only is each undergoing the same painful political and eco-
nomic transformations faced by the other post-Soviet states, but two of
them suffer from violent internal conflicts, and all three are part of the
inter-regional tensions to which these give rise. Add to this the involve-
ment of many external players—Russia, the United States, Turkey, and
Iran—as well as the influence of oil politics, and the picture grows very
complex. This book will then try to explain how this tortured and multi-
layered context is affecting the way these three states approach their
defense establishment, think about the role of the military in foreign poli-
cy, and care (or not) about the management of military relations with
their neighbors.
A fifth book, preceding this specific series of four books but sharing
the same conception, dealt with what kinds of security issues are over-
looked when the complex challenges raised by the larger post-Soviet
space are reduced to single dimensions, such as Russia’s relationship with
the West. The book, Belarus at the Crossroads, explored the many ways
that a state like Belarus in its external relations considerably complicates
European security issues. This was and remains a seriously neglected per-
SWORDS AND SUSTENANCE ix
spective as NATO expands and analytical energies are focused on resolv-
ing Russia’s relationship with it.
Wethank the Carnegie Corporation of New York for its support of
the project, which has been carried out under the auspices of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences and its Committee on
International Security Studies. Robert Legvold is the intellectual and
organizational force behind the entire project. We are grateful for the
important work he has done to advance our understanding of the inter-
national implications of developments within the post-Soviet space.
Carl Kaysen and John Steinbruner
Co-Chairs, Committee on International Security Studies
October 2003