The EU Must Prepare for a Cold Peace With Russia

 

For more than two decades, the main goal of the EU’s Russia policy was to help the country transform: from autocracy to democracy, from planned economy to market economy. The guiding vision was the “common European house”―the idea that Russia would gradually integrate into the structures that the EU had built over decades.

The EU and its member states designed many bilateral and multilateral initiatives with Russia to create a whole web of relations. The bloc helped Russia become a member of the G8 group of leading economies, supported Moscow’s entry into the World Trade Organization, and set up a host of programs to foster Russia’s transformation. Russia was at the center of the EU’s activities in the region; other post-Soviet countries (besides the Baltic states) received considerably less attention.

 

This approach to the post-Soviet space has failed. Russia today is more autocratic internally and more aggressive toward its neighbors than at any time since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Official propaganda paints the West as an enemy and actively tries to undermine unity in the EU and coherence in the transatlantic alliance. Russia has attacked Ukraine and even annexed a part of its territory, in violation of the agreements that underpin today’s international order and to which Moscow has signed up. At the same time, many other post-Soviet states are still very weak, which provides Russia with opportunities to endanger stability. In light of this changed context, the EU should shift its focus from Russia to other Eastern European countries.

 

UNDERSTANDING RUSSIAN BEHAVIOR

There are two schools of thought that seek to explain Russia’s behavior.

 

For one school, Russian aggression is a reaction to the refusal by the United States to treat Russia as an equal power and to grant it an exclusive sphere of influence. According to this school, Russia never really gave up its imperialist mind-set―the view that Russia has the right to control its neighborhood in a world that Moscow perceives as multipolar and dominated by a small number of great powers. Having consolidated internally, Russia is now trying to rebuild a kind of Soviet Union lite. For two decades, Russia has been pushed around by an aggressive West; now, the country is on its feet again and is pushing back.

 

According to the second school of thought, Russia’s attack on Ukraine is defensive: the desperate move of a kleptocratic regime facing an existential threat, trying to keep democracy away from Russia and to regain legitimacy by rallying the population around a nationalist cause. In this view, the nightmare scenario for Russian President Vladimir Putin would be a color revolution in Russia like the popular uprisings of the early 2000s. By actively undermining democratic forces in neighboring post-Soviet countries, the Kremlin is building a buffer zone against Western influence.

 

There is evidence of both interpretations, and they do not contradict each other. Russia’s attack on Ukraine can be seen as an act of forward defense. If Ukraine became a successful liberal democracy with a market economy, living in harmony with the West, this would demonstrate that there is an alternative form of governance in a neighboring country that many Russians consider very similar to Russia. A liberal-democratic Ukraine would undermine Moscow’s claim to have the right to control its neighborhood as a sphere of influence.

 

The EU and its member states need to design a new Eastern policy that puts Eastern Europe first instead of Russia first. That policy should comprise several elements. To start with, the EU must push back against Russian aggression and stabilize neighbors that are under attack or under threat. But Brussels should also continue to work with Moscow on issues of common interest and keep the door open for Russia to return to a constructive relationship. The EU needs to cooperate with the United States on Russia and Eastern Europe, protect the EU’s integrity, and strengthen EU foreign policy.

 

PUSHING BACK AGAINST RUSSIAN AGGRESSION

The immediate priority in the EU’s overhauled policy toward the region should be to counter Russian aggression. The EU is not going to do that through direct military engagement. The tools of choice are economic and personal sanctions, which the EU and the United States have imposed on Russia since March 2014. They serve two purposes.

 

First, the sanctions signal the West’s readiness to confront Russia. They demonstrate that all 28 EU member states agree on joint measures and that the EU and the United States have a common approach. The sanctions also show that the West is ready to pay a price in terms of the partial interruption of its economic interaction with Russia. Unity is key here, to communicate to Moscow that a Russian game of divide and rule in response to Western pressure won’t work.

 

Second, the sanctions are meant to change Russia’s behavior. As a minimum goal, they are designed to prevent Russia from escalating the situation in Ukraine further. In the best―but very unlikely―scenario, the measures are meant to force Russia to go back to the status quo ante and restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

 

Another way for the EU to push back would be to respond to Russia’s attack on Ukraine by helping the country defend itself. But the EU as an entity has ruled out sending weapons to Ukraine. The main argument against providing arms is that Ukraine has no chance of winning against Russia if Moscow decides to escalate the conflict. But if Kiev had a stronger army, it would be harder and more costly for Russia to advance farther into Ukraine.

 

In any case, Europe and the United States should be ready to confront Russia as soon as it puts unacceptable pressure on countries in the neighborhood. They should communicate clear messages to the Kremlin about the exact price Russia would have to pay for every future escalatory step it takes. A lack of clarity on the side of the West could lead the Kremlin to miscalculate, which could in turn force the West to react much more harshly than anticipated.

 

STABILIZING THE EU’S NEIGHBORS

The most important longer-term answer to Russian aggression is the stabilization of threatened countries through reform. The EU should move from a Russia-first policy to an Eastern Europe–first policy. That is because weakness invites Russian meddling and, potentially, aggression, while strength deters these actions.

 

A major factor in the current crisis is the weakness of the Ukrainian state. The country’s eastern border is wide open; its military is weak; and parts of the population are distrustful of the central government, which has been hugely corrupt and inefficient for many years. Ukraine is not a failed state, but a weak, badly administered one.

 

There are many internal reasons for that. But Ukraine, like many other post-Soviet countries, has also not received enough support from the West. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the West’s focus was on Russia. Western nations implicitly treated the post-Soviet countries (besides the Baltic states) as Russia’s sphere of influence.

 

It was only with the color revolutions in Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine in 2004, and with the Russian-Georgian War of 2008, that the West started, very slowly and reluctantly, to pay more attention to Europe’s East. Pushed by Poland, the EU set up the Eastern Partnership, a framework for relations with six Eastern European countries. But the Eastern Partnership was a weak policy by design: most EU member states did not want to take up the burden of investing in stabilizing these countries, and they were afraid to enter what they saw, at least implicitly, as Russia’s sphere of influence.

 

Events on the ground forced the EU to engage more in the region. In November 2013, the Euromaidan movement began, a popular uprising in Ukraine that pushed for reform via closer association with the EU. And in early 2014, Russia started to undermine the European peace order by annexing Crimea and attacking eastern Ukraine. The EU had no choice but to react.

 

In hindsight, the EU’s biggest failure was to accept Moscow’s definition of the region as a Russian sphere of influence. Strengthening statehood and helping build well-governed democracies in the region should be the priority now. The EU must invest in reform in Eastern Europe; this is the way to long-term stability. Only if countries such as Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia have democratic governments that can deliver to their citizens, including skeptical minorities, can these states build the sense of citizenship necessary to make themselves resilient against Russian attempts to undermine their sovereignty.