Are Medvedev’s “Strategic Borders” More Like A “Buffer Zone” Or A “Sphere Of Influence”?

While it’s true that both “buffer zones” and “spheres of influence” are countries where another wields influence, the first focuses exclusively on the security sphere whereas the second involves other ones like economics and politics.

Former Russian President and incumbent Deputy Chair of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev spoke at the World Youth Festival on Monday about what he considers to be the difference between geographical and strategic borders. According to RT, he regards the first as internationally recognized lines while the second are areas where “those who could afford it, wanted to control the development of the situation near their own borders, and also projected their influence as far as possible.”

Medvedev said that “It’s always been this way” and invoked the Roman Empire as an example, but before critics react in a knee-jerk way by condemning him as an “imperialist”, they should know that this is actually a reasonable approach that doesn’t automatically translate into “imperialism”. To explain, “strategic borders” are essentially “buffer zones” where a country exerts its influence to ensure that its legitimate security interests aren’t endangered, which isn’t the same as a “sphere of influence” per se.

While it’s true that both “buffer zones” and “spheres of influence” are countries where another wields influence, the first focuses exclusively on the security sphere whereas the second involves other ones like economics and politics. It’s possible for a country to have a “sphere of influence” within which it exerts political influence but not security influence such as the role that Armenia now plays for the West, but it’s not a “buffer zone” unless the influence is exclusively concentrated in the security sphere.

With that in mind, a “sphere of influence” could include those three spheres, but it’s a “buffer zone” if influence is only being exerted in the security sphere, and specifically in a defensive way by neutralizing latent threats instead of posing threats to others. The problem with “buffer zones”, however, is that “mission creep” sometimes compels countries to establish a “sphere of influence” over whatever other country it may be and thus behave in “imperialist” ways if this isn’t supported by the local majority.

Furthermore, earlier supported “buffer zones” could be reconceptualized as “spheres of influence” in the local majority’s minds, which could lead to them agitating to join a hostile bloc and thus voluntarily enter into another country’s “sphere of influence” at the other’s security expense. The locals could also reappraise their relations with the country that established a previously popular “sphere of influence” over them as “risky” and agitate to become a “buffer zone” instead so as to de-escalate tensions.

Both processes could either be entirely organic or started/accelerated by information warfare, and each concerns the changing role that locals perceive their country playing in the security dilemma between much larger ones. This term refers to two or more countries distrusting the other to the point where each regard the other’s supposedly defensive moves as being secretly driven by aggressive intentions, respond in kind on the same pretext of defending themselves, and so on and so forth till tensions spiral.

Sometimes a country or group thereof like the Baltic States are deemed by another such as Russia to be within its “strategic borders” but that second country can’t advance its legitimate security interests there due to the other(s) being part of a rival military alliance. In such cases, the security dilemma will continue worsening until it either leads to hot conflict, a “new normal” in the two competing parties’ ties, or creative diplomacy leads to a breakthrough for de-escalating their dilemma.

Russia’s security guarantee requests from December 2021 in the run-up to what ultimately became its ongoing special operation were aimed at comprehensively resolving its security dilemma with NATO per the proposal for returning to the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act. This would have led to the withdrawal of foreign military forces from those countries that joined NATO after the end of the Old Cold War but was rebuffed by the US after it miscalculated that Russia wouldn’t militarily react to defend its interests.

NATO’s clandestine expansion into Ukraine, which Medvedev correctly described as “an inalienable part of Russian strategic historic borders”, crossed a national security red line that prompted Russia to respond after diplomacy failed to resolve this unprecedented phase of their long-running dilemma. The primary purpose was to demilitarize Ukraine and restore its constitutional neutrality, which would be maintained via denazification in order to prevent the return of those who’d try to reverse this status.

In other words, Russia sought to turn its this part of its “strategic borders” into a “buffer zone” through military means once diplomatic ones proved insufficient, which would partially safeguard its legitimate security interests after it was unable to do so in the Baltics due to NATO’s formal expansion there. It didn’t initially plan to expand its geographical borders but eventually did so to preserve its hard-earned gains after all that was unexpectedly sacrificed for that land over the preceding six months.

As Medvedev said, Ukraine is a “special case” and therefore not representative of the way in which Russia plans to address other security dilemma-related issues, so the fearmongering that’s become popular about a “Russian invasion of the Baltics” is discredited. Those three countries’ membership in NATO places them under the US’ nuclear umbrella, unlike non-member Ukraine, hence why Russia doesn’t countenance military means for resolving the first dilemma but employed them for the second.

With respect to the ongoing conflict’s end game, while some have cited supposedly leaked reports to speculate that Russia envisaged establishing a “sphere of influence” in Ukraine as defined in this analysis, that’s not a realistic outcome after all that’s happened over the past two years. Rather, the most that Russia will likely achieve is its security-centric objectives – whether in whole or more probably in part – while the West retains its political and economic influence over this quasi-“buffer state” in that scenario.

Even in that case, however, it shouldn’t be spun as a defeat like the West would predictably do seeing as how some of Russia’s aforementioned goals would have still been achieved within part of its historical “strategic borders”. Additionally, Russia’s victory in the “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with NATO destroyed a large amount of that bloc’s stockpiled equipment and exposed the weakness of its military-industrial complex, both of which advance Moscow’s legitimate security interests.

Circling back to what Medvedev just talked about, this concept played a crucial role in shaping how Russia sought to resolve one aspect of its security dilemma with NATO, which was primarily aimed at creating a “buffer zone” through military means instead of a “sphere of influence”. The connection between these three concepts, both theoretical and practical, deserves detailed study by experts once the special operation ends to see how they can be applied to other security dilemmas elsewhere.