Paweł Krawczyk

There's many speculations trying to explain why Russia behaves the way it does, which refer to geography, history, morality or international law, but the simplest possible explanation is: it does so because it can.

According to this interpretation, Russia naturally occupies the same role in global society as predators occupy in any ecosystem. No, it's not about some metaphorical “predator”, but the literal meaning of the word in biological science.

Predators occupy a specific niche which was created as soon as one animal ate another one, increasing its evolutionary advantage. Why did the first predator eat its first prey? Because it could, there was no other reason. But predators are an integral part of the biological evolution:

Evolution in the predator-prey relationship changes not only physical characteristics, but social ones as well. Wolves and hyenas increase their efficiency by hunting in packs. Herd animals congregate and co-operate to avoid or repel predators, and warn each other of imminent danger.^1

This paragraph describes the biological evolution, but it's also surprisingly accurate for socio-cultural evolution. Why did Russia capture Crimea, in violation of all possible agreements? Because it could – nobody punished it for that in any way. That apparently single-handed Putin's decision gave Russia a huge gain – maybe more moral than economical, but economy is a social construct – so why not repeat? That's how any opportunistic criminal starts their career – you try once, nothing happens, why not again?[^2]

If we simply accept the fact that Russia most of the time operates in disregard to “widely accepted standards” simply because it can, it makes many things so much easier!

• You can set your expectations right – you shouldn't expect Russia to keep any obligations that were merely written on paper.
• Your society has a practical reason to preserve its social cohesion to “avoid or repel predators”.
• You shouldn't naively expect that “Russia will change” – Wandel durch Handel was just another of the many accidents where people try to domesticate wild animals and get hurt.
• You can see if your “widely expected standards” actually work – the predator tests them continuously, thus preventing these rules from becoming irrelevant, obsolete or simply ignored.[^3]

I think Russians would actually like this whole “predator” comparison, after all their preferred self-nominated representative animal is a bear. But here's a catch: why “limp predator”?

Because Russia can't really make it mind about what it wants to be – a predator or a modern, stable country. Predators usually are quite consistent in their behaviour – biological carnivores don't typically start producing honey for winter or considering veganism. But Russia does. How so?

Russian opportunistic predatory model leads to its periodic instability. After a period when the arrogance and violence, both internally and externally, gains Russia some benefits (e.g. Crimea), comes a period of trouble (e.g. 1917, 1991) caused primarily by Russia's inability to control itself within a stable equilibrium (one theory about it can be found in “Theory of opers and operators” — in search for rational explanations of Russia's actions). If you like a biological metaphor, it's like too many predators enclosed in one area fighting with each other.

These periods of smuta force Russian elites to try to preserve their resources. But you can't preserve much in a state of crooks and thieves, so they turn into the nearest stable and secure location – that is neighbouring Western democracies, where rule of law enable secure long-term financial and property investments. After smuta ends, Russians are therefore once again trying to experiment with exotic concepts such as “rule of law” or “independent judiciary”, which gives them a period of prosperity, but then again the predatory gene awakes and the whole cycle starts again.

In 2018 a Russian progressive sociologist Dmitry Travin published a book Russia's “Unique Path” in which it argued that Russia may be developing in a bit anomalous ways at moments, but overall it's moving forward in the same trajectory as all other world and is therefore “doomed” to become a modern, democratic country at some point. I think I don't need to explain how these prospects look like in 2025...

Ironically, also in 2018 Vladislav Surkov, one of Kremlin's ideologists, has published an article “The loneliness of a half-breed” in which it argues that Russia was betrayed by the West because in 1990's it has implemented all the “Western whims” such as democracy, freedom of speech and rule of law... and they didn't work, so it has to continue it's own “unique path”, even if it's alone in it.

Of course, for anyone who had ever been in Russia it's clear that it had never actually implemented rule of law, while freedom of speech and democratic elections, to some extent, only existed for around a decade after 1991. Everything else was, if anything, a parody of these concepts.

But that's why Surkov's article is a good exemplification of Russia's hesitation to choose a single, consistent path of development – instead, Russia seems to be doomed to a constant fluctuation between opportunistic predatory behaviour and intermittent periods of thaw, while trying – or pretending – to build a stable democracy. And we just have to live with it.

[^2]: Please note that Crimea was only the crown on a longer list of Russia's violations, such as the never ending oil and gas extortions in which Russia switched off contracted supplies in response to relatively minor political disputes. Or notorious assassinations and sabotage in European countries. Surprisingly, a behaviour that, when done by say Norway or UAE, would cause all country leaders to pull their hair in horror, in case of Russia was summed as “oh, they just do it”. So here we are in 2025...

[^3]: I'm only half ironic here. If not Russia, would Eastern European members of NATO have any other chance to learn how much the idealised Article 5 is really worth? Would Ukraine have a chance to learn how much “security assurances” were worth in Budapest Memorandum?

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Paweł Krawczyk https://krvtz.net/
Fediverse @kravietz@agora.echelon.pl