Russia's Duma elections next month are almost certain to cement the power of forces loyal to Russian President Vladimir Putin. That outcome is likely to confirm Russia's emergence as the most divisive issue in the EU since former US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld split the continent into "old" and "new" Europe.
In the 1990s, EU members found it easy to agree on a common approach to Russia. They coalesced around a strategy of democratizing and westernizing a weak and indebted Russia.
That policy is now in tatters. Soaring oil and gas prices have made Russia more powerful, less co-operative, and less interested in joining the West. Today, Europeans cannot even agree on the nature of the Russian regime, let alone what policy to adopt toward it.
Part of the confusion lies in Putin's skillful political positioning. On the one hand, he needs to maximize his control of the economy and society in order to raise wages and pensions and to keep opponents down while nourishing the long tail of patronage that keeps him in power.
On the other hand, Moscow's elite -- fearing that their assets may be expropriated by a future government -- wants to avoid international pariah status so that they can see out their sunset years in the safety of the West if the need arises.
A tightly knit group of political consultants has helped Putin resolve his conundrum. Rather than establish a dictatorship, they helped Putin use the trappings of liberal democracy to consolidate power. By establishing fake opposition political parties under the Kremlin's thumb, creating pseudo-pressure groups and organizations such as Nashi ("Ours"), and recasting the rule of law as an instrument of political power, Putin has tightened his control in a more effective and subtle way than many autocratic regimes. The possibility that he may run for prime minister to prolong his rule when his presidential mandate expires is a logical extension of this approach.
BIG IMPACT
Though the EU has failed to change Russia during the Putin era, Russia has had a big impact on the EU. On energy, it is picking off individual EU member states and signing long-term deals that undermine the core principles of the EU's common strategy. On Kosovo, Russia is blocking progress at the UN. In the Caucasus and Central Asia, the Kremlin has effectively shut the EU out of regions where it has an interest in promoting political reform, resolving conflicts and forging energy partnerships.
In Ukraine and Moldova, the Kremlin has worked hard, with some success, to blunt the appeal of Europe. In the eyes of some neighboring countries, Russia is emerging as an ideological alternative to the EU that offers a different approach to sovereignty, power and world order. Whereas the European project is founded on the rule of law, Russia believes that when the balance of power changes, the laws should be changed to reflect it.
Moreover, Russia is trying to build a relationship of "asymmetric interdependence" with the EU. While EU leaders believe that peace and stability is built through interdependence, Russia's leaders are intent on creating a situation in which the EU needs Russia more than Russia needs the EU, particularly in the energy sector.
Although Russia's GDP is no bigger than that of Belgium and the Netherlands combined and its military spending a fraction of the EU's, the Kremlin has consistently managed to get the better of the Union. The central problem is that Europeans have squandered their most powerful source of leverage: unity.
Member states are divided between those that view Russia as a potential partner which can be drawn into the EU's orbit through a process of "creeping integration" and those that view Russia as a threat whose expansionism and contempt for democracy must be rolled back through a policy of "soft containment." The last few years demonstrate that neither approach will work.
EASY ACCESS
The first approach risks giving Russia easy access to all the benefits of cooperation with the EU without insisting that Russia abide by stable rules. Open hostility toward Russia, however, will make it hard for the EU to draw on Russia's help to tackle a host of common problems -- from environmental pollution and illegal migration to nuclear proliferation and Kosovo's final status.
The EU urgently needs a new approach. Rather than attempt to democratize or contain Russia, the Union should settle on the more limited goal of turning Russia into a reliable partner bound by the rule of law. A common approach will give the EU many powerful levers to ensure that Russia honors treaties and mutual agreements.
At the diplomatic level, Europeans could threaten to deprive Russia of the prestige it draws from participating in G8 and EU-Russia Summits. They should also aim to strengthen democracy and the rule of law in the European neighborhood by tightening relations with countries such as Georgia and Ukraine.
Economic leverage should be applied as well. Europeans should subject Russian investments in EU markets to greater scrutiny and use competition law to launch investigations into monopolistic practices and money laundering for existing investments. At the same time, EU members could target the interests of the individuals in the Kremlin elite by scrutinizing their purchases of Western assets, and even ban travel to the EU for human rights abusers.
So long as the EU continues to sway between integration and containment, it will continue to appear to the Kremlin as weak and directionless. That, in turn, will merely encourage Russia to become even more assertive.
Mark Leonard is executive director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. Nicu Popescu is a policy fellow at the council.
Copyright: Project Syndicate/ECFR
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS