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When he took office in early 2009, President Barack Obama made improvement of the United States’ ... more When he took office in early 2009, President Barack Obama made improvement
of the United States’ relations with Russia – the so-called
“reset” policy – one of his signature foreign policy initiatives. That hope
lies now in tatters, shattered by Russia’s annexation of Crimea and destabilisation
of south-eastern Ukraine. The goal of turning US-Russia cooperation
– and, by extension, West-Russia cooperation – into a building
block of international governance looks now as distant as it was during
the Cold War. The best one can hope instead is that relations between
Moscow and Western capitals do not further deteriorate to the point of a
complete breakdown.
The rationale for the “reset” policy was the pragmatic recognition
that the recurring tensions with Russia – prompted by issues ranging
from Kosovo’s independence to the US plan to install a ballistic missile
defence system in Eastern Europe and Georgia’s and Ukraine’s prospective
membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) –
were thwarting US and Western interests in Afghanistan and the management
of Iran’s nuclear issue as well as creating new fault lines on the
European continent. Tellingly, after reaching a low point in relations in
the wake of Russia’s short and victorious war against Georgia in August
2008, both Russia and Western powers took steps to avoid a scenario of
full confrontation. Several member states of the European Union (EU),
particularly Western European countries with little memory of recent
Soviet domination, viewed the new US course as being more in keeping
with their interest in establishing a constructive relationship with Russia,
a key player on the European stage and the Union’s main energy
provider. While some EU member states, particularly in Eastern Europe,
felt the United States was too prone to seek cooperation with an unreliable
Russian government, the whole European Union eventually signed
WEST-RUSSIA RELATIONS IN LIGHT OF THE UKRAINE CRISIS
12
off on Obama’s policy. The election of Dmitry Medvedev as Russia’s
president, who depicted himself as more liberal-minded than his patron
and predecessor, Vladimir Putin, had in fact helped create an atmosphere
more forthcoming for dialogue and cooperation.
The “reset” policy did produce some important results, most notably
the US-Russian agreement on the reduction of strategic nuclear weapons
known as the New START (the only relevant nuclear disarmament
agreement struck in twenty years); Russia’s greater cooperation on
curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, particularly thanks to its agreeing to
tough sanctions against Tehran in the United Nations Security Council
(UNSC) in June 2010; and Russia’s agreement to let key military supplies
for the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan transit its airspace, an
important development given the growing difficulty NATO was experiencing
in keeping open its supply lines through Pakistan.
While significant, these achievements did not pave the way for what
many had hoped the “reset” policy would eventually produce: a renewed
West-Russia relationship based on mutual respect and cooperation
on issues of common concern. In fact, relations between the West
and Russia continued to be fraught with problems of mistrust, rhetorical
competition, and fundamentally different views of how security issues
should be managed internationally. In hindsight, the “reset” policy
seems to have been just a lull in a process started in the early 2000s
which has seen West-Russia relations steadily deteriorate. While none
of the “reset” policy achievements has thus far been reversed, a succession
of events, including the re-election of Putin as Russia’s president in
2012 and culminating in Russia’s forced takeover of Crimea and destabilisation
of Ukraine, have plunged the West-Russia relationship to its
lowest point in twenty-five years.
For many in the West, the crisis over Ukraine has laid bare the most
unsettling features of President Putin’s government: lack of any appreciation
for political pluralism; readiness to dispense with opposition
forces by de-legitimisation through state-controlled propaganda and
possibly forceful repression; and resolve to defend what Putin perceives
as Russia’s vital interests with any means, including the use of force,
land grabs, and destabilising practices such as fomenting and directing
pro-Russian nationalist protests in other countries.
INTRODUCTION
13
Ukraine is a special case because influence over Kiev is of paramount
importance to Russia’s security strategy and national pride. However, it
should not be seen in isolation. It is part of a broader design by President
Putin to re-establish as much influence as possible over the former
Soviet space. Central to this objective is Putin’s plan for a Eurasian Economic
Union (EEU) including most of the former republics of the Soviet
Union, be them in East Europe, the Caucasus or Central Asia. The problem
with the Eurasian Economic Union is that the Russian president
sees it as incompatible with any significant form of integration of its
members into Euro-Atlantic frameworks, notably NATO but also the European
Union.
The crisis in Ukraine has also made it clear that the West is now confronted
with the problem of handling the revanchist instincts of a former
superpower. The West faces an intractable regime centred on the
personal power of President Putin, who has increasingly tied his legitimacy
to a pledge to embody and defend an exceptionalist Russian identity,
mostly defined in opposition to Western values and norms. In other
words, the conflict between the West and Russia is framed by Putin
himself not only as a conflict of interests, but of identity too. This narrative
has been used by Putin to rebut any sort of criticism coming from
the West, be it directed at Russia’s takeover of Crimea or at Putin’s increasingly
strict control over Russia’s media and marginalisation and
repression of political dissent.
Signs of growing competition between the West and Russia were visible
long before unrest in Ukraine escalated into a full-blown crisis. The
Arab uprisings are a case in point. From the start, Russia and the West
have held different views of the cycle of revolutions and counterrevolutions
which has engulfed the most part of the Arab world. While
the United States and the European Union initially insisted on the antiauthoritarian
and pro-democracy nature of popular protests, Russia has
consistently seen the so-called Arab Spring as a bearer of instability and,
more worryingly, as an opportunity for Islamic fundamentalism to find
new ways to gain influence. Moscow opted for a cautious approach in
the beginning, even letting the Security Council authorise the use of
force to protect endangered civilians in the prolonged conflict between
Libya’s longstanding ruler, Muammar Qaddafi, and a West-backed rebel
WEST-RUSSIA RELATIONS IN LIGHT OF THE UKRAINE CRISIS
14
coalition. Russia came to regret its choice in a matter of months if not
weeks, as it became clear that NATO’s intervention in defence of civilians
rapidly “crept” into what the Russians perceived as an open policy
of regime change by force. Bruised by the Libya case, Russia has ever
since been adamant in refusing any form of UNSC support for rebels
fighting against established rulers in the Arab world, irrespective of how
brutal such rulers could be. This has been most evident in Syria, where
Russia has steadfastly protected its ally Bashar al-Assad from any form
of UN action.
West-Russia relations have so dramatically deteriorated that talk of a
new Cold War has become routine. NATO’s role in Europe is again in the
spotlight, with experts and policymakers alike pondering whether the
Alliance needs to go back to its historical roots, re-calibrating itself as an
instrument of defence from and containment of Russia. However, it is
important to notice that cooperation has not collapsed altogether. Russia
has continued to be a committed member of the P5+1, the group of
nations (including also the United States, France, Germany, the United
Kingdom and China plus the European Union) dealing with Iran’s nuclear
dispute. It has also continued to assist NATO’s efforts in Afghanistan.
And it has agreed with the United States upon a plan for the removal of
all chemical weapons from Syria, forcing the Assad regime to deliver.
Thus, while competition has increased in strategic areas – most notably
in the former Soviet space and the Middle East – the need for cooperation
has not vanished. Clearly, this is far from an ideal scenario. Tensions
over Ukraine are so strong that the risk of a breakdown in relations
is certainly present. Yet neither party would benefit from it.
It was with the goal of exploring ways by which Russia and the West
can contain tensions, manage competition, and keep cooperating on issues
of mutual concern, that the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) of
Rome and the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) at the
Brookings Institution of Washington co-organised an international conference
on West-Russia relations. The conference was the seventh edition
of the Transatlantic Security Symposium, the IAI-run annual forum
in which experts from America, Europe and other countries convene to
discuss the main topics in the transatlantic security agenda.
The event, sponsored by Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and InternaINTRODUCTION
15
tional Development, NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division, the Compagnia di
San Paolo, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (Rome Office) and Unicredit Bank,
saw the participation of over forty senior experts from think tanks and
other institutions from a number of EU member states (France, Germany,
the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland and Bulgaria), the United States,
Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, Turkey and Russia took part. This volume collects
a revised version of the papers that were presented at the event as
well as a summary of the main points that were discussed.
(R.A.)