The Russian Challenge
20150605RussianChallengeGilesHansonLyneNixeySherrWoodUpdate
20150605RussianChallengeGilesHansonLyneNixeySherrWoodUpdate
- No tags were found...
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Russian</strong> <strong>Challenge</strong><br />
<strong>Russian</strong> Foreign Policy Towards the West and Western Responses<br />
becoming less and less attractive and Russia is incurring<br />
further costs to support it. 154 Had Ukraine joined, the<br />
Eurasian Union would have extended westwards right up to<br />
the EU’s borders. But this key element – and probably the<br />
whole enterprise – is stalled at best because the Ukrainians<br />
have created new facts on the ground.<br />
Europe, the slow irritant<br />
Before 2014, there was an undeniable ambiguity in<br />
European policy towards Russia, as the EU looked to reach<br />
out, trade and integrate while at the same time expressing<br />
concern and criticism about Russia’s departure from<br />
European norms and values. Many had mistakenly thought<br />
Russia was part of the post-Cold War peace order merely<br />
because it was no longer a communist state. A ‘Partnership<br />
for Modernization’ was the EU’s best hope for bringing<br />
Russia under international law.<br />
Before 2014 most leaders were willing to<br />
ignore the Kremlin’s misdemeanours – to<br />
hold their noses and continue to trade and<br />
talk of partnership. <strong>The</strong> Ukraine crisis has<br />
made this no longer politically possible.<br />
However, the Kremlin’s inability to get along with Europe<br />
can be attributed to a number of factors including (but not<br />
limited to) political differences, size mismatch, mutual<br />
suspicion and broad disdain. This disdain can be broken<br />
down into the <strong>Russian</strong> leadership’s perception of the EU<br />
as weak, ineffective and leaderless, with a failed economy,<br />
as well as an incomprehension of its procedures, checks,<br />
balances, rules and regulations, and a dislike of its liberal<br />
values. <strong>The</strong> partial loss of sovereignty that adopting EU<br />
rules entails is anathema to Moscow, but perhaps more<br />
important is that it sees a nexus between membership of<br />
the EU and future NATO accession.<br />
Yet the Kremlin well knows that it is economically and<br />
culturally bound to Europe, still the destination for 48 per<br />
cent of Russia’s trade, 155 78 per cent of its tourists 156 and<br />
80 per cent of its pipelines. 157 <strong>The</strong> process of disentangling<br />
on both sides will be slow and limited. Europe and Russia<br />
are not in a relationship of equals, however. Europe has<br />
more alternatives. It is better able to wean itself off <strong>Russian</strong><br />
energy and it is already doing so steadily through use of<br />
new energy sources. Even now the EU looks to Russia<br />
for only 10 per cent of its total trade, 158 and European<br />
holidaymakers will never flock to Russia in large numbers.<br />
<strong>The</strong> diversification process in Europe is outpacing Russia’s<br />
efforts to diversify towards Asia. That is not to say that<br />
Europe can (or should) isolate itself from Russia – just that<br />
the effects of disentanglement will be felt more keenly in<br />
Russia than in Europe.<br />
Before 2014 most leaders were willing to ignore the<br />
Kremlin’s misdemeanours – to hold their noses and<br />
continue to trade and talk of partnership. <strong>The</strong> Ukraine crisis<br />
has made this no longer politically possible. <strong>The</strong> need for<br />
unanimity, while debilitating in its slowness, also has the<br />
effect of shaming most European countries into action. And<br />
while many have demurred – generally those with close<br />
dependencies on Russia and those that are too far away for<br />
it to matter to them – the ‘<strong>Russian</strong> question’ has undergone<br />
a belated reassessment in foreign, defence and even trade<br />
ministries across the continent.<br />
Germany changes tack<br />
Moscow has few allies in Europe. This was not always the<br />
case. For over a decade, Germany’s 1990 reunification<br />
determined its attitude towards Moscow: many were still<br />
grateful that Mikhail Gorbachev did not ‘object’. This<br />
attitude was subsequently reinforced by a business-first<br />
mentality, 159 and it defined Germany’s broader Russia policy<br />
until well into 2014. 160 However, the considerable German<br />
investment in Russia since the fall of the USSR included<br />
a strong normative element in an attempt to bring it into<br />
the fold. <strong>The</strong> <strong>Russian</strong> leadership, however, saw Germany’s<br />
investment only as a business package.<br />
Germany is now leading the new wave in robust Russia<br />
policy – to an extent that has shocked the Kremlin,<br />
which had mistakenly believed that their businessdriven<br />
relationship would transcend ‘local difficulties’ in<br />
Moscow’s self-proclaimed backyard. Putin’s intransigence<br />
forced a patient Chancellor Angela Merkel to adopt a<br />
radically different stance over the course of approximately<br />
40 phone calls and three face-to-face meetings in 2014.<br />
Distaste had previously been overcome by pragmatism.<br />
154<br />
Andriy Kovalenko, ‘<strong>The</strong> Mythical Benefits of the Customs Union’, Ukrainian Week, 31 March 2013, http://ukrainianweek.com/World/75913.<br />
155<br />
World Trade Organization, <strong>Russian</strong> Federation Trade Profile, http://stat.wto.org/CountryProfile/WSDBCountryPFView.aspx?Language=S&Country=RU, accessed<br />
30 April 2015.<br />
156<br />
Source: European Travel Commission, ‘European Tourism in 2013: Trends and Prospects’, 2013. Report accessed through slideshare 30 April 2015:<br />
http://www.slideshare.net/MarinetLtd/european-tourism-2013.<br />
157<br />
US Energy Information Administration, Russia Overview, http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=rs, accessed 30 April 2015.<br />
158<br />
European Commission, ‘European Union, Trade in Goods with Russia’, 12 March 2014, http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2006/september/tradoc_113440.pdf.<br />
159<br />
Some claim 25,000 jobs in Germany are in danger as a result of the sanctions. <strong>The</strong>re are 6,000 German enterprises in Russia with <strong>Russian</strong> capital (Ost Ausschuss der<br />
Deutschen Wirtschaft, ‘Ost Ausschuss-Umfrage zur Ukraine-Krise’, 27 June 2014, http://www.ost-ausschuss.de/node/714; http://www.ost-ausschuss.de/node/714).<br />
160<br />
For example, as chancellor, Helmut Kohl did not visit the Baltic states as he did not want to offend <strong>Russian</strong> sensibilities.<br />
36 | Chatham House