A new analysis highlights what Europe gets wrong about Russia — and how it can hurt Putin
By Barbara Tasch
6 hours ago
In a new analysis, European Council on Foreign Relations senior policy fellow Kadri Liik explores European sanctions against Russia and how European leaders should use them.
She observes that Europe doesn't seem to
know what it wants the "structural sanctions" to achieve and thus don’t
have any time frame as to exactly when to end said sanctions.
“Do we expect a regime change in Moscow?
Or do we want Russia to start behaving ‘as a normal European country’
i.e. one that tries to base its influence on attraction rather than
coercion?” Liik asks.
These questions need to be answered as
the issue of renewing sanctions arises. Furthermore, according to the
analysis, it's better to look at the nature of the problem to "see what role the sanctions can play in remedying the problem."
Moscow, for its part, knows exactly what
it wants: Russia thinks in terms of "spheres of influence" and is set on
making clear what it considers as its own sphere. This kind of thinking
is partly attributable to Putin but also deeply rooted in Russian
history.
Europe has more of a "postmodern,
win-win oriented, [Organization for Security and Co-operation in
Europe]-based view of international relations," Liik writes.
Given that "the two sides see through totally different paradigms," Liik argues, a standoff between Russia and Europe was bound to happen.
If not in Ukraine, it would have happened
elsewhere. Part of the reason is that now, 25 years after the fall of
the Soviet Union, the countries that used to be part of the USSR are
demanding better governance and more power to steer their future as they
see fit.
Basically, the shaping of post-Soviet Europe has an inherent tension.
“This manifests in a bumpy, but
inevitable evolutionary process that the EU did not launch and does not
control, but cannot do anything other than support," Liik writes.
"Moscow, on the other hand, is fixated on
the elites it can control — and therefore bound to resist [the
post-Soviet process]. The clash is systemic, and likely to manifest
repeatedly as long as the fundamentals remain unchanged."
What Russia wants, she argues, is not a
large-scale conflict but a deal with the EU about those countries that
the Kremlin sees as part of Russia’s rightful "sphere of influence."
The EU, on the other hand, could never
accept this deal because it would mean conceding to Russian aggression
in former Soviet states that are now part of Europe.
What EU leaders need to understand
when discussing further sanctions, Liik argues, is that Russia and
Europe are in the midst of a long-term conflict that cannot be resolved
quickly.
If Europe is waiting for a regime-change
in Moscow, it is waiting for the wrong thing, according to Liik. The
dominance-fixated mindset of Russian leaders has been alive and well for
decades and is not likely to disappear — even if Putin is not at the
head of Russia anymore.
The ideal situation from the European perspective, according to Liik, is that Russia would rethink of "the means and ends of its international behavior.”
Ultimately, Liik concludes, the
changes will only be profound if the government is discredited and
brought down by Russians themselves.
And that is where sanctions come in.
By making Russia’s aggressive stunts costly and ineffective, Europe will “deny Russia the ends it wants.”
Liik
argues that this needs to be done by keeping sanctions implemented
until the conditions set by the EU (implementation of the Minsk
agreements and the return of Crimea) are met. At the same time, Europe
needs to keep vulnerable EU countries and NATO members secure.
What is most important for Europe is to
show Russia that it will not simply stand by and accept one annexation
or conflict after another without reacting — an impression the EU gave
during and after the 2008 war in Georgia, where Russia is still slowly eating away at its territory.
The
fact that Europe is willing to keep those sanctions, even as they bring
on certain economic hardships, is also part of that same strategy to
show Russia the EU’s credibility — even if it means more strikes in Europe and no more French cheese for Russians.
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A new analysis highlights what Europe gets wrong about Russia — and how it can hurt Putin
In a new analysis, European Council on Foreign Relations senior policy fellow Kadri Liik explores...
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