Here is a fairly short excerpt pulled from the introductory text preceding the articles:
Russia’s reemergence as a major power in the international system has prompted renewed attention to developments in the country as well as to Moscow’s foreign policy actions and goals. Because oil and natural gas resources drive much of Russia’s growing power, the Kremlin’s domestic and foreign energy policies have been of particular interest to U.S. policymakers and observers of the country.
Growing global energy demand and rising energy prices provide essential context for Russia’s reemergence, simultaneously raising anxiety levels among the major consumer countries and raising confidence levels among the major producer countries. These tendencies have been especially apparent in Asia, a region that has seen sharp increases in energy consumption and is highly dependent on imported fuels. Yet, as has been the case in many other periods of rapid change, neither the anxieties nor the confidence will likely prove fully justified.
And this longer, and I would argue far more important excerpt is from Legvold's review of Russia’s strategic vision and the role of energy policies:
Herein lies the problem: Russia does not have a strategic vision—not if, by strategic vision, one means a sense of where Russian leaders want the world to go and with what role for Russia, coupled with a reasonably clear notion of how to bring it about . Russia is not special in this respect. Countries—maybe most countries—rarely have something as grand as a strategic vision . They do have foreign policy objectives, which are integrated to a greater or lesser degree and in some order of priority . Most countries also have a strategy or strategies by which to apply means to these ends. In Russia’s case, the integration is weak, and the order of priority is blurred.
Hence, to look for a conscious and coherent design in Russia’s use of energy in its Asia policy is to chase a chimera. At a deep, elemental level, the reason for the void in russia’s case stems from three paradoxes . First, and most fundamentally, russia’s restored self-confidence and accompanying assertiveness mask very real insecurities . second, Russia’s basic posture suffers from a curious antonymous pairing: no one is Russia’s enemy, and no one is an ally, while everyone is a potential partner, and everyone is a potential competitor.
Third, for all the wind and dust stirred by the seemingly bold and far-reaching foreign policy pronouncements of Putin, Lavrov, and others, for much of the last year little serious thought has been given to foreign policy, as leaders and pundits have buried themselves in the politics of Putin’s succession .
Without question, over Putin’s last four years as president, russia recovered what earlier had been most lacking: a genuine sense of self-confidence. This stemmed partially from the liberation from vulnerability to debt provided by soaring commodity
prices, partially from the swagger engendered by russia’s position as a major energy provider, and partially from the sense that the regime’s firm political hand had checked and then reversed the chaos of the yeltsin years . Putin and his supporters—a large number, indeed, including the bulk of the political elite—take considerable satisfaction from knowing that russia is again seen as a player that counts, is in a position to assert its influence throughout the post-soviet region and no longer needs give deference to US policy preferences.
Granted some of the puffery and threat-mongering is instrumental, designed to secure domestic political support by emphasizing that the world is a dangerous place, populated by others, particularly the United States, who would diminish, maybe even, destroy Russia were it not for the strong, knowing leadership of Putin, his team, and the man he has blessed as his successor.
But the renewed self-confidence rests on a deeper insecurity that apparently derives from two sources . On the one hand, Russian leaders are on edge over just how much control they have over events within the country . They know that formal political institutions, much of the media, and the electoral process are safely subordinate to their desires . However, they, beginning with Putin, seem to fear pressures just below the surface that could explode as a consequence of escalating violence in the north Caucasus, ethnic tensions elsewhere in the country, economic regionalism, and social upheaval, such as the street demonstrations that followed the decision to monetize social benefits in 2004.
On the other hand Russian leaders also worry, not without justification, about how unstable territories on their borders could become, beginning with the Islamic south but including unreconstructed, nomenklatura-dominated regimes nearby and neighbors whose so-called “frozen conflicts” remain in danger of reigniting . as a result Russian foreign policy has an edginess that belies the new purposefulness that the russians want to convey. Even both the attitude the leaders strike of no longer caring about Western criticism and their putative “American fatigue” has a distinct hollowness.
The second paradox underscores a core ambiguity in contemporary Russian foreign policy and constitutes a source of its longer-term fragility . russian leaders continue to insist that no nation or alliance of nations is an enemy—but neither is any a trusted ally, not at least among the major powers . On the other hand, russia seems to regard almost any state—from italy to iran, Germany to north Korea, and the United states to China—as a potential partner on particular issues, while at the same time clearly viewing each country, depending on the context, as a potential competitor.
As a result on many of the most difficult questions Moscow ends up much of the time wanting to eat its cake and have it too . russia does not want iran to have nuclear weapons but strives mightily to preserve a working relationship with Tehran; it sought to head off Kosovo independence over serbian objection by warning of the precedent this would set for the separatist de facto states in the post-soviet region, a precedent it almost certainly does not wish to exercise if it then be saddled with the consequences. It is happy to exploit the leverage the country’s energy resources are assumed to provide, sometimes in distinctly heavy-handed fashion, but it also wants to be seen by its major customers as a reliable supplier.
Thus, the checkered condition of Russian foreign policy prevents its leaders from developing a long-term strategic vision or making basic strategic choices. Russia’s relations with China are better than at any time in the last century and half, and recently Medvedev, Putin, lavrov, and others have not merely touted but actively pursued a still broader three-way cooperation among russia, China, and india . Yet, even as they lash out at the excesses in U .S. foreign policy and rebuff EU efforts either to put the energy relationship on a different footing or to raise questions about Russia’s internal choices, Russian leaders at the same time speak of a constructive trilateralism with Europe and the United States .
Hence, in many ways Russia hangs suspended, like a spider tangled its own web—a web of basic choices that russia refuses or is unable to make and this bears directly on how coherent, refined, and purposeful any strategy that uses energy as a crucial policy tool in Asia can be.
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