A veteran of the Soviet army pays his respects at his grave at a ceremony commemorating the 71st anniversary of the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin on Red Square in Moscow on March 5.American scholar Robert Gilpin believes that the law of diminishing marginal returns in the economic field is also applicable to international politics, when a country's territorial expansion exceeds a certain limit, the cost of management and defense will quickly exceed the benefits of expansion, leading to the decline of the empire. This is how the Roman Empire and the British Empire in history went into decline.
Two years ago, on February 24, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine under the pretext of "demilitarization and denazification", which quickly developed into the largest war in Europe since World War II. To understand Russia's current obsession with Ukraine, it is important to recognize that Russia has never been a country in the universal usage of the Russian language. Unlike the modern Turkish state, which rose from the Ottoman Empire, or Great Britain, which became an empire and then lost its empire, Russia has never had an identity independent of the empire. As the British historian Geoffrey Hosking put it: "Great Britain had an empire, but Russia was an empire." ”
The country's expansion has a long historical background, dating back to the reign of Ivan III. Under his rule, Muscovy, the predecessor of Russia, became the most powerful city-state under the Golden Horde, founded by the Mongols, and inherited its rule and style after the decline of Mongol rule. From this, the expansion of Muscovy began, the so-called "gathering of Russian lands" began. Ivan III's expansionist vision was almost embraced by later rulers of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Russian Federation. As historian Stephen Kotkin points out, "Beginning in the 16th century, during the reign of Ivan the Terrible (Ivan IV, the grandson of Ivan III), Russia expanded at an average rate of 50 square miles (129 square kilometers) per day for hundreds of years, eventually covering one-sixth of the Earth's land area." ”
Military strategy is undoubtedly one of the important reasons for Russia's expansion. Russia's historically strong military power has enabled it to conquer neighboring countries and expand its territory by force. Through the war with the Mongol Golden Horde, the ancient Muscovy gradually liberated and annexed the surrounding Tatar tribes, establishing the unity of Russia. During the Tsarist era, Russia achieved expansion to the West through wars with Poland, the Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sweden and other countries, gaining important ports and territories along the Baltic Sea coast. During the Soviet era, Russia gained the expansion of some Eastern European countries by participating in wars such as World War II and the Cold War.
Economic demand is another important reason for Russia's expansion. Russia's historical expansion has often been associated with the need for resources and markets. In the vast land, there are abundant natural resources, such as energy, minerals, etc. In order to exploit and control these resources, Russia is constantly expanding and creating a relevant economic system. In addition, Russia needs to expand its market and provide a wider range of sales channels for its goods and services. Therefore, Russia is expanding to meet its own economic needs.
Guaranteeing *** is the most important purpose of Russian expansion. Russia's historical expansion has often been associated with threats and conflicts in neighboring countries. Russia is located in the heart of Eurasia, and its borders are often the hardest hit by conflicts and rivalries with external powers. In order to ensure its own security, Russia needs to control its neighboring countries and regions to avoid threats from external forces. With these new territories are longer borders and more serious geosecurity anxieties, which in turn allow Russia to continue to expand to secure security, so security is synonymous with uninterrupted foreign conquest, and defense and expansion become the same concept. This Russia-Ukraine war is undoubtedly the epitome of this purpose.
But it is worth noting that there is a paradox in this expansion of Russia. The first manifestation is that large military and financial resources must be invested, because newly acquired territories must be managed and defended, and the more expansion, the greater the corresponding resources; The second is that territorial expansion sometimes has a "self-energizing" effect, that is, the expansion of territory creates military defense difficulties, which are often eliminated by further expansion. Empress Catherine openly said: "I have no way to defend my borders, I can only keep expanding it." ”
According to the British historian Correlli Douglas Barnett, this is true not only in Russia, but also in the ancient Roman and Mongol empires, and the British Empire in India also follows this logic of expansion. In his book Britain and its armies 1509-1970, he mentions that "the corrupt and belligerent local chieftains on the borders of the British (Indian) territory threatened the ** or order, and the British took military action against them, which led to the further expansion of British rule, and consequently the opposition of England to other natives, and the process of advancing all over again".
Robert Gilpin, the most famous scholar of international relations and international political economy in the contemporary West, believes that the law of diminishing marginal returns in the economic field is also applicable to international politics, so he believes that "there is also a limit to imperial expansion". Gilpin believes that the Roman Empire and the British Empire in history all went into decline in this way.
The history of Russia has also repeatedly proven this. Each time the country expands to a certain extent, it not only fails to increase its strength, but rather contributes to its weakening. This was true of the Tsar**, and even more so of the USSR. The expansionist Putin has apparently forgotten the teachings of Aleksandr Gorchakov, the prime minister of Tsarist Russia who led the annexation of Crimea: "Territorial extension means weakness is extended." "Because, many times, conflicts do more harm than good, there is no real need, and they cannot be digested.
As an aside, the Chinese have always liked to review and reflect on the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union, and there are many complex arguments, but few people analyze them from the perspective of the paradox of imperial expansion. The fact is that for the Soviet Union, it was precisely because it invaded Afghanistan and could not digest it that it became another straw that broke the camel of the Soviet Union. The Soviet-Afghan war lasted more than nine years and brought untold suffering to the peoples of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. More than 1.3 million people have lost their lives in Afghanistan, and more than 5 million people have become refugees. The Soviet Union has more than 1.5 million officers and soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, with a total of more than 50,000 troops and a cost of 45 billion rubles. This paradox of expansion in the style of "the present world" seriously weakened the national strength of the Soviet Union, and had a far-reaching impact on the subsequent international strategic pattern.
The author is a Chinese economist and financial columnist.