After Primakov. The evolving context of Russian national security policy

This essay addresses the security threats to Russia as of mid-1999. Russia at that time underwent severe internal crises linked to the firing of Evgenii Primakov as prime minister and the Duma's attempts to impeach President Boris Yeltsin. The essay argues that the main threats to Russia's security, contrary to the angry reactions to Kosovo, are internal in nature stemming from the failure to build an effective state, control the armed force, resolve the federal bargain in adequate fashion, or revive the economy. All these factors encourage the privatization of the state where individual actors regard the state as a vehicle for the aggrandizement of their personal interests as the expense of any national interest. Indeed, Russia finds it difficult to define any sort of coherent national interest and cannot address classical security threats or new transnational ones. While Russia feels itself threatened or rather the armed forces and political elite feel threatened by NATO's Kosovo campaign, the real threats are at home and the fixation with derzhavnost' and Russia's inherent great power status will only inhibit efforts to deal with real threats and further aggravate its protracted crises.