The Russian Challenge
20150605RussianChallengeGilesHansonLyneNixeySherrWoodUpdate
20150605RussianChallengeGilesHansonLyneNixeySherrWoodUpdate
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<strong>The</strong> <strong>Russian</strong> <strong>Challenge</strong><br />
<strong>Russian</strong> Foreign Policy Towards the West and Western Responses<br />
Over the course of the year, that pragmatism gave way<br />
to what Merkel came to regard as a necessity if the<br />
European security order was to be defended. With an<br />
initially reluctant but increasingly supportive German<br />
business community behind her, and after consultation<br />
with the United States, Merkel ensured that the German<br />
position on Russia became a beacon for others in Europe.<br />
Although the chancellor’s 10 May 2015 visit suggests<br />
continued inconsistency at best, the primacy of politics<br />
over economics has now been broadly accepted by the<br />
commercial sector and the wider German electorate.<br />
Unlike anywhere else in Western Europe, this is their<br />
number one foreign policy issue.<br />
Germany’s evidence-based stance – initially giving Russia<br />
the benefit of the doubt, then acting firmly – may have<br />
helped pull other European countries, most notably Norway<br />
and the UK, along in its wake, even to the detriment of their<br />
own economies.<br />
Other European countries<br />
France, meanwhile, has indefinitely postponed delivery<br />
of its Mistral-class amphibious assault ships to Russia,<br />
but could still be biding its time until it is less politically<br />
uncomfortable. President François Hollande has put up<br />
with sanctions but began calling for their suspension<br />
once a first ceasefire was agreed in Minsk, only to fall<br />
silent again once that was broken by <strong>Russian</strong> troops and<br />
Ukrainian proxies in early 2015. With each freshly minted<br />
ceasefire agreement comes an inevitable call by Paris for<br />
sanctions to be lifted. Ukraine is still viewed by many in<br />
France as part of the legitimate <strong>Russian</strong> sphere.<br />
Others in Europe are even less embarrassed in their support<br />
for the <strong>Russian</strong> leadership’s course of action. In June 2014,<br />
for example, Putin received red-carpet treatment in Austria,<br />
where Moscow has extensive networks; and he got a hero’s<br />
welcome in Belgrade and Budapest in late 2014 and early<br />
2015 respectively.<br />
Moscow’s motives and fears<br />
In the states sandwiched between them, the EU and<br />
the Kremlin have largely incompatible interests and<br />
irreconcilable differences. <strong>The</strong> Kremlin fears the EU<br />
because of its attraction for former Soviet states, and<br />
because it is based on principles and economic norms that<br />
are in opposition to the system in Russia. It is now beyond<br />
doubt that the West and the <strong>Russian</strong> leadership cannot<br />
have a new security relationship involving binding treaties<br />
which would prevent external meddling in Ukraine and<br />
reinforce the country’s independence. <strong>The</strong> Kremlin simply<br />
does not want that; its definition of European security<br />
differs too greatly. 161<br />
Putin’s policy is to divide, and he has found profitable<br />
splits into which to drive wedges. For Moscow, leverage is<br />
better gained through bilateral relationships. It has sought<br />
to exploit differences of opinion between EU member<br />
states. <strong>The</strong> EU, meanwhile, often fails to function as an<br />
effective geopolitical counterpart to the unitary <strong>Russian</strong><br />
state. Moscow, in effect, is attempting to challenge the<br />
EU’s role as a viable model to be emulated. Putin is not<br />
so much asking for a delay in the implementation of the<br />
EU’s tariff-eliminating Deep and Comprehensive Free<br />
Trade Agreement (DCFTA) as insisting on a change in its<br />
substance to benefit his own Eurasian variant. To agree to<br />
this would be to jettison 10 years of EU policy. Putin has<br />
also said in a letter to President Petro Poroshenko that<br />
any decision to implement the DCFTA will trigger<br />
counter-sanctions. 162<br />
Moscow’s advantage, when dealing with the EU, is that it<br />
is playing a high-risk game against low-risk players. But<br />
its calculation that business interests in the West would<br />
trump geopolitical considerations has thus far been proved<br />
incorrect, as Germany has showed. <strong>The</strong> Kremlin’s actions<br />
in 2014, unlike in 2008, have had a profound effect on the<br />
resolve of many European countries to stand up to Putin,<br />
even at economic cost to themselves – as seen, for example,<br />
in Moscow’s retaliatory agricultural and food-related<br />
sanctions targeted at the West.<br />
<strong>The</strong> EU’s motives and actions<br />
According to one recent poll, 58 per cent of EU citizens are<br />
even willing to risk conflict (broadly defined) with Russia in<br />
order to support Ukraine. 163 But the EU bureaucracy is torn<br />
between its desire to back the rule of law and its fear of the<br />
consequences of enforcing the law.<br />
A technocratic partnership with Russia is natural to the EU’s<br />
way of acting – as a means of exporting good governance.<br />
But its major foreign policy experience is enlargement, with<br />
no political target. <strong>The</strong> side-effect, therefore, has been that<br />
regional issues such as ‘frozen conflicts’ have not been at the<br />
top of the agenda. Another mistake was that the EU was not<br />
steadfast on conditionality. It put a lot of effort into building<br />
bridges, the existence of which Putin now denies. Evidence<br />
161<br />
However, the respected Russia and Eurasia security analyst Neil Melvin makes precisely the opposite point – that new agreements are needed – in ‘EU needs new<br />
Ukraine strategy’, EU Observer, 28 March 2014, https://euobserver.com/opinion/124413.<br />
162<br />
Robin Emmott, ‘Putin Warns Ukraine Against Implementing EU Deal – Letter’, Reuters, 23 September 2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/23/usukraine-crisis-trade-idUSKCN0HI1T820140923.<br />
163<br />
Transatlantic Trends, Key Findings 2014, German Marshall Fund of the United States, pp. 9, 46 and 48.<br />
Chatham House | 37