Russia Reminds the World It Still Has a Military

Russia is using Ukraine to show its neighbors, and indeed the world, that it is still a military power to be reckoned with. On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered snap military drills to test the combat readiness of the armed forces across the Western and Central military districts of Russia. Some 150,000 troops, 90 aircraft, 880 tanks, 1,200 piece of military hardware and more than 120 helicopters participated in the exercises, which involve operations along Russia's western borders, including those with Ukraine. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that the drills are not related to the events in Ukraine.

"Routine" military drills might not be so concerning had they not preceded military invasion before. Russia performed several exercises in the North Caucasus before invading Georgia in 2008, and the type of exercises -- not to mention the rhetoric coming out of Moscow -- is too similar for Kiev to ignore. Russia already has military personnel stationed in Crimea, the autonomous peninsular republic in southern Ukraine, where Russia's Black Sea Fleet is docked. These soldiers have been on high alert in recent weeks as the political upheaval to the north heated up.

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But the similarities between 2008 and 2014 do not end with military maneuvering. Currently, Russia is planning to hand out Russian citizenship papers and passports to Ukrainian citizens in Crimea -- an offer similar to the one Moscow made in the Georgian republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia before the war. Granting Crimean residents citizenship gives Russia an excuse to intervene to protect its citizens in accordance with its military doctrine.

Of course, none of these signals indicates the imminent invasion of Ukraine or military occupation of Crimea. What they do indicate is that Russia is ready to act militarily if Moscow believes the situation warrants it. It sends a clear message to Ukraine, other former Soviet republics and the West.

As Ukraine appeared to reach a more Western-friendly resolution, Washington invited Georgia and Moldova -- two buffer states essential to Russian security -- to discuss the prospects of increasing ties with the United States, the European Union and NATO. Washington has also pledged financial support to Ukraine. In response to these overtures, Russia is emphatically reminding the world that the United States will not confront Russia militarily, even if it confronts Russia politically and possibly financially.

Russian military posturing continued Wednesday when Shoigu announced that Russia would consider expanding its military presence beyond its region, with negotiations taking place with Seychelles, Singapore, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The defense minister explained that Russian military bases in the former Soviet states of Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan were being upgraded or expanded and that now Russia needed to have airfields elsewhere that can facilitate long-range aviation capability. In short, Russia wants to project power beyond its region to the rest of the world. The countries Shoigu listed imply that Russia's plan is fairly comprehensive, with interests in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans as well as the Caribbean Sea

But as with Ukraine, Russia's rhetoric does not equate to execution. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Soviet Union projected its military forces all over the world, with more than a dozen bases in Europe, South American, Africa and Southeast Asia. But the costs of maintaining and using the bases (especially after the Soviet economy declined and was hit by fuel shortages) were prohibitively high. Given the economic and financial constraints on the Russian government, as well as the demographic constraints on the military, fulfilling such an ambitious plan seems unlikely.

However, announcing such a grand military plan serves two purposes. First, it shows the world that Russia intends to be a global military player. Moscow has already attempted to act more assertively in global affairs through its diplomatic arbitrations in the Syrian conflict, and now it is considering what more it can do. But perhaps more important, the suggestion that Russia could start involving itself in regions other than its own -- particularly those the United States dominates -- serves as a warning: If the West continues to encroach on Russia's turf, Russia can return the favor.

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