Putin’s Punt on History

Putin’s Punt on History

This article was first published in French by Le Grand Continent

“We are no longer in Yalta times”, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell protested recently, referring to US-Russian talks about Europe’s security architecture in Geneva. “If we want to talk about security in Europe, Europeans must be part of the table”. 

Predictably, EU leaders feel wronged by Russia and the United States debating their fate in their absence, and they are not hiding their dismay. The facts, however, remain what they are. At the table there sits only one European. His name is Vladimir Putin. 

For all his shortcomings, there is little amiss with Putin’s grasp of history – and even less with his ability to take advantage of changing circumstances. According to Putin, we dolive in Yalta times. And while Joe Biden frantically combats this claim with words, his actions validate Russia’s leader. 

The Kremlin’s gambit to rearrange Europe’s security architecture comes at an auspicious moment for Russia. Conversely, it arrives at a bad time for Ukraine and Europe’s east. Challenged by China in the Pacific, the US is less invested in European security than ever since 1945. Washington still cares about its NATO pledge. But it knows Beijing has no greater wish than to see its rival plunge itself into a conflict on Europe’s eastern borders. This is precisely the opportunity Putin has perceived, as well as the risk that Europeans have chosen to ignore. 

The Kremlin’s wager on history is simple. It is that, if forced to choose between its strategic interests in Europe and in the Pacific, Washington will choose the latter and grant Russia the leeway it seeks in its “near abroad”. Despite the flood of US reassurances to European capitals to the contrary, Putin’s punt may well pay off, eventually. Not too long ago, US presidents would have called Putin’s bluff. Now Biden has said he wishes for “an accommodation” with Russia and has agreed to bilateral talks.

Much is made of Russia’s laundry list of demands in those talks, some of which are likely to prove unworkable. At their core is Moscow’s desire to keep NATO, and to a lesser degree the EU, outside of what Russia views as its sphere of influence in the former Soviet space, above all Ukraine. Pessimism so far prevails and difficult talks lie ahead, as the outcome of last week’s first round of diplomacy attests. 

However, for the Kremlin, getting Washington to acknowledge its great power claims is, in itself, a triumph. For years Russia has sought these negotiations. Furiously, Putin has decried NATO’s encroaching presence on Russia’s borders. In 2008, then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev launched proposals for a new European security architecture. Their pleas were quietly ignored. Now, finally, Moscow has got what it wanted.

Having come this far, Putin is unlikely to let go easily. We are at the beginning of a long and drawn out process, in which armed incursions and flare-ups will alternate with diplomacy and talks. The US has so far flatly rejected Moscow’s core demand that would see Ukraine definitively ruled out from NATO membership, offering Moscow olive branches on secondary issues instead. It is a move the Kremlin would have seen coming. Putin is patient, and he understands how war and diplomacy interconnect. His logical response is to up the ante until Washington brings Ukrainian NATO membership into play. For now, as Russian officials put it themselves, Moscow will “have to take necessary measures to ensure strategic balance and eliminate unacceptable threats to our national security.”.

US officials argue the Kremlin does not take the talks seriously, seeking their failure as a pretext for Moscow to annex Ukraine. They are barking up the wrong tree. Russia’s end goal is political, the grand settlement with the West it has sought for 30 years. The threat of further incursions into Ukraine, for example connecting Crimea to the Donbass region over land, is the means of getting there. It is leverage. Occupying large swathes of Ukraine is unattractive for Russia, which knows it can win a war militarily, but not politically. In Crimea Putin enjoys high levels of popular support. In the rest of Ukraine he has little. The Kremlin, moreover, has long regarded the country as a nest of incurable corruption and ungovernable. It is hardly Putin’s dying wish to have a crack at governing it himself. 

However, it is likely the Kremlin is prepared to destabilise Ukraine and destroy its strategic infrastructure with targeted military raids and cyberattacks. The assumption is that if things get bad enough and drag out, Biden will cut his losses and give Russia what it wishes. This is to influence the country’s affairs from a distance and above all have a veto on its foreign policy, allowing Russia to keep the West at bay. With the exception of the Baltic states, in the rest of what was once the Soviet Union – Belarus, Kazakhstan, Georgia – the Kremlin’s goals are the same. 

As Putin tightens the screws on Ukraine, the world will discover whether his gamble will pay off. Already factored into Moscow’s calculations are new Western economic sanctions, for which Russia is better prepared than in 2014. High energy prices have filled its war chest. Europe still procures 40 percent of its gas from Russia, while Gazprom has diversified its supplies to Asia. Russian businesses, moreover, have developed alternative supply chains and are better insulated from potential new Western sanctions. However, Moscow will need to acknowledge its demands have limitations. A veto on Ukrainian foreign policy and the privilege to sabotage the country’s democratic and economic reforms are two separate things. Considering how little Western backing there currently is for Kiev’s wish to join NATO, a deal on the “Finlandisation” of Ukraine seems conceivable. Arrangements that legitimise Russian privileges in Ukraine’s domestic politics are much harder to imagine, however.

For Europe, Washington’s diplomatic foray smells of defeat and humiliation regardless. Of course, US diplomats will dutifully “debrief” Europeans on their talks with Russia, which are likely to continue in the coming weeks and months. No deal on Europe without Europe, they will say. But this hardly conceals that Europe remains, essentially, a spectator. It, too, took a punt on history. Europeans wagered that US presidents would forever tell Moscow to get lost. Following Trump’s election, Merkel discerned it would prove a losing bet, urging Europeans “to take our destiny in our own hands”. Five years later no real progress has been made. Not being at the table is the price Europe must pay. It has no-one to blame but itself.

In the EU, there have been those who resisted and ridiculed ambitions, led mostly by France, to bolster its strategic autonomy, including militarily. Countries on Europe’s eastern flank, with most reason to fear Russia, have held that European defence plans risk damaging Europe’s bond with the US. The sobering message of Putin’s latest offensive is that this bond, while still crucial, offers Europe only diminishing guarantees, which the EU must make up for on its own. It is a signal the Union, including its eastern half, should take note of. Putin’s instincts about US strategic priorities are, of course, hardly plucked out of thin air. Following the departure from Afghanistan, the writing is on the wall. 

Instead of begging the US to create an extra seat at the table, Europe’s leaders should urge Biden to help them address the underlying cause of their powerlessness, which is chiefly political. Historically, the US has enthusiastically backed European integration efforts. But this support did not extend to European defence integration. For years Washington has pressured Europeans to increase their national defence budgets. However, plans to integrate their defence capabilities in an EU framing were received coolly on the grounds that they would interfere with NATO. Europe’s bitter divisions regarding its strategic autonomy stem in no small part from America’s traditional displeasure at this agenda.

To be sure, more will be needed to deblock the Union’s progress. But the US welcoming European efforts to amalgamate national defence capacities would remove one big obstacle. It would be more than a selfless favour. In time, it could help address the strategic weakness Putin currently hopes to exploit, which is that the US will struggle to divide its attention between Europe, the Pacific and the Middle East. What if Xi, undoubtedly watching events in Ukraine unfold, decides now is the moment to move in on Taiwan? What if Iran sees a chance to advance its nuclear ambitions? It does not take the strongmen of the world to unite and coordinate a joint plan of attack. The opportunity suggests itself.

The US, of course, was not the only force in world politics on which Europeans wagered their future. The continent also banked on the prevalence of international law and principles, codified in UN declarations and treaties that were supposed to render great power politics obsolete. One of those principles was that sovereign states, large or small, were equal and free to determine their own destinies. Europeans long believed – and apparently they sometimes still do – that foreign policy is declaratory, conducted by issuing statements of disapprobation. True, Putin, Xi and other strongmen love to be able to say they are acting in accordance with international law and recognised principles of legitimacy. But clearly their version of international law sharply differs from the West’s. And there is no final arbiter to decide who is right.

Europe is wrong. Like it or not, “Yalta times” are back. States do not get their way because they are right, but because they possess the power to create havoc. The future holds no great mystery because it will be like the past. It will be decided by those who are big, strong and united, not by the small, weak and divided. Even if they are righteous, rules-based and good. The former will sit at the table, whereas the latter will learn of their destinies in the read-out. They can hope for greater fairness in the afterlife. It is horrifically unjust, but the sooner it sinks in, the better. Perhaps then, rather than decry the unfairness of our age, Europe will confront the question how to survive it.