DUALITY AND CONTEMPORARY ROUTE OF RUSSIA-EUROPE RELATIONS

FENG SHAOLEI

Professor and Dean, School of Advanced International and Area Studies, East China Normal University

In May 2018,German Chancellor Merkel and French President Macron visited Moscow one after another.European public opinion for avoiding confrontation was on upswing again.The picture shows Russian President Putin (right)and German Chancellor Merkel talking at a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier outside the Kremlin in Moscow,Russia, on May 10, 2018.

In historical perspective, Russia-Europe relations are always an important aspect in world process affecting the overall situation. Ever since Russia was involved in European affairs as a major country, a phenomenon has kept repeating itself: major readjustments of relations between Russia and European countries almost always have led to reconstruction of the international system. In the early 19th century, the changing friend and foe relations between Russia and France,Britain, Austria and Prussia led to collapse of the Napoleon Empire and the establishment of the Vienna System. In the late 19th century, the disintegration of relations between Russia and Germany and the former’s turn to Britain and France was one of the backdrops against which the World War I broke out. More important, during the World War II,the Soviet Union’s entry into the Anti-Fascist Alliance was a key factor for the victory of the war and the establishment of the Yalta system. In the early 1990s,the Soviet Union giving up confrontation with the West on its own accord was indeed a decisive premise for the international community to enter into the historical post-Cold War stage.

As times pass and circumstances change, the history of changed Russia-Europe relations leading to altered international pattern will no longer simply repeat itself. However, the effects of altering duality of cooperation and confrontation residing in Russia-Europe relations make this pair of relationship continue to affect the reshaping of international order in the post-Cold War period.

CONCRETE MANIFESTATION OF DUALITY IN RUSSIA-EUROPE RELATIONS

1. Ambiguous Friend and Foe Relations

In the Cold War period, there was a clear distinction between friend and foe in the international community.In about two decades since the end of Cold War, Russia-Europe cooperation has in general replaced past friend and foe cognition. However, the War of Georgia in 2008 made submerged ideological and geopolitical contest emerge again. That said, the major country contest between Russia and Europe then was neither empires vying to hegemony as in the past nor ideological a struggle between socialism and capitalism. Rather, it was clashes among various concepts in the process of modernization. It was rivalry between various geopolitical interests and geo-economic interests, a process of complex gaming between cultural traditions. It was precisely because of this that the friend and foe relationship that had for long driven fighting between alliances blurred and became ambiguous as hitherto unseen.

Professor Angela Stent, Director of Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies, Georgetown University in the United States has emphasized time and again that when facing great challenges, the only way out for the West to avoid decline rests with closing ranks of its alliance and underlining ideological antagonism. Correspondingly,representatives of the EU have come up with similar arguments: Russia being“strong” attributes to the weakness of the West, thus making it necessary to enhance the Western alliance in order to counterbalance Russia.

However, Western countries are not monolithic in action. In late March 2018, as the EU took joint action to expel Russian diplomats for the London espionage poisoning incident and the Syrian chemical weapon incident, only 16 among 28 member countries went along with it. Twelve of them like Belgium, Austria, Greece and Bulgaria refused to do so. Within countries like Germany there were heated debates over participation in joint action to attack Syria. According to a report on telegraph.co.uk on April 16, after London “poisoning”, despite the tough stand taken by British Prime Minister Theresa May, the number of Russian diplomats to be expelled by the UK was limited to 23 whereas France and Germany expelled 4 each. In comparison,the US expelled as many as 60, to the deep regret of President Trump afterward. In fact, in European opinions, the voice against the West taking Russia for scapegoat was quite prevalent. Especially in May, when President Trump declared to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and impose trade tariffs on Europe, President Donald Tusk of the European Council furiously attacked Trump for being “capricious and autocratic”, considering him more like a foe than a friend.

2. Half-Hearted Military Contention

The “trinity” strategic advance of the NATO signifies Western escalation of military counterpoise against Russia.The first is the eastward expansion that began in the middle of the 1990s. The second is that after the Ukrainian crisis a new military command system especially against Russia was established and deployment of military assets in an unprecedented scale was made in sensitive areas including the Baltic region. The third is the US-led direct deployment of anti-missile systems in new NATO member countries like Romania, breaking the already crumbling balance in strategic weapons between both sides.However, Russia would not budge. In 2014, it recovered Crimea. On March 1,2018, President Putin listed a number of new types of weapons in his State of Union address in way of demonstrating deterrence.

Even though Europe sits in the American war wagon in strategic confrontation, it has always been distracted in taking part in East-West military contention. At the NATO summit of 2008,the US tried very hard to make the NATO accept countries like Ukraine as member countries but failed to do so then owing to German and French obstruction. By the end of 2017, the US decided to provide Ukraine with lethal weapons for military assistance. Dr.Doug Bandow, Senior Fellow of Cato Institute admitted frankly that the provision of lethal weapons would divide the US and European countries, as many of the latter were opposed to further confrontation with Russia, particularly over the Ukrainian issue. In May 2018, Chancellor Merkel and President Macron visited Moscow respectively,as voice for avoiding confrontation in European opinions surged once more.On the one hand, European countries worry about over-expansion of Russian influence and hope the US to take countermeasures, and on the other hand, they worry about excessive intervention of the US, which will result in strong reaction of Russia, leaving Europe in constant agonies of East-West military contention.

3. Closely Interwoven US-EU Economic Association

On the one hand, Europe and the US are the most important markets in goods, destinations for investment and partners for trade in service to one another. Commercial sales between transatlantic economies total US$55 trillion, bilateral economic services creating 15 million jobs per year. By purchasing power parity, they are the richest and largest economies of the world, their combined GDP accounting for a third of that of globe total. Both are largest destinations of investment for one another. Since 2010, Europe has attracted 58.5 percent of US Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), in 2016 alone attracting 70 percent of it. In comparison, the figure for the Asia-Pacific was 21 percent only. In the same year, 72 percent of European FDI went to the US. Europe and the US are the largest trading partners for each other, trade value between the two totaling US$687 billion in 2016 and US$700 billion in 2017, doubling the figure for the beginning of the 21st century. In recent years, US trade deficit with Europe has increased drastically, reaching US$146 billion in 2016 and US$151 billion in 2017. According to statistics, the largest European trade surplus in 2017 came from the US. Therefore it is understandable that the interests coming from US-EU economic relations matters the most to Europe.

In comparison, EU imports from Russia in 2017 valued merely US$147.8 billion, Russia ranking third among EU importing countries. In the same year,EU exports to Russia totaled US$96.7 billion, Russia ranking fourth among EU exporting destinations. There is a gap compared with US-EU investment and trade relations. However, before the Ukrainian crisis broke out in 2013, Russia-Europe trade totaled more than US$400 billion. Only after Europe imposed sanctions on Russia did the figure fall dramatically. This illustrates the fact that though Russia-Europe economic relations are not as closely associated as that between transatlantic economies, their scale and potentials cannot be overlooked. In over 20 years since the disintegration of the Soviet Union,European countries and Germany in particular have meticulously cultivated there and built extensive economic cooperative relations with Russia. In general, economic ties have an important role to play in overall development of Russia-Europe relations. It was precisely because of this that President Macron declared at the World Economic Forum in St. Petersburg on May 24,2018 that France would try to surpass Germany to be Russia’s largest investor.

Furthermore, energy relations between the EU and Russia are even less dispensable. After the Ukrainian crisis happened, Europe’s traditional huge demand for Russian energy has remained in spite of its vigorous efforts to develop green energy. Since becoming operational, Nord Stream 1 Gas Pipeline has overall operated smoothly, paving the way for the project of Nord Stream 2 Gas Pipeline that is going in full swing. Russian natural gas is cheaper than US shale oil and easier still to ship. At the same time, Russia is committed to continued supply of transit energy to Ukraine and other countries in order to keep balance.Therefore, it is difficult for the EU to abandon what is close at hand in favor of something far away and to give up interests arising from cooperation with Russia. One of the purposes for Chancellor Merkel’s visit to Moscow last May was to promote the project of Nord Stream 2 Gas Pipeline despite US obstruction.

Though Russia-Europe economic relations are not as closely associated as that between transatlantic economies, their scale and potentials cannot be overlooked.

4. Crisis Management in Hesitance and Weighing Pros and Cons

Since 2008, there has been an obvious inertia in a series of conflicts and crises in the geo-space between Russia and Europe: Russia resolutely resisting ideological and geopolitical pressures from the West, the US time and again forcing Russia to give in with power politics in order to maintain its leadership and Europe sitting between the two, trying to be conciliatory and striking a balance between interests, morality and power politics. Since taking office, President Donald Trump has distained to care for transatlantic relations, giving rise to big turbulence. However, the post-Cold War coordinates between the US, Russia and the EU have basically been kept in place.

As the US attempts to pressure Europe with unilateral trade protectionism and increases sanctions on Russia on political and security issues, exchanges and cooperation between Russia and Europe on Syria, Ukraine and Iran nuclear issue and in the process of a series of crisis management have markedly improved. Although President Macron followed the US to take part in the new round of air raids on Syria, he announced clearly not to take a stand on whether the Assad regime would stay on, a meaningful sign of Russia and Europe getting close on the Syrian issue. In the past five years of ups and downs in the Ukrainian crisis,Europe has displayed the expectation more and more of resolving the issue through negotiation rather than military pressure. Though its prospects remain uncertain, the Minsk process is nevertheless a platform for Russia and Europe to aim at resolving disputes through bilateral cooperation free from US interference. The trend of evolution of Iran nuclear issue illustrates the fact even more clearly that all major European countries including the UK hold positions similar to that of Russia. As such, it seems that in general the US withdrawal from the multilateral process provides a rare opportunity of developing Russia-Europe relation.

SOME BACKGROUNDS TO EVOLVING RUSSIA-EUROPE RELATIONS

1. Overall decline of the West leads to Ups and Downs in Russia-Europe Relations

The reason for ups and downs in Russia-Europe relations is neither merely a change in any single area nor merely the development cycle of any single country in isolation, but rather it is more like a sign of an approaching major turning point in a long historical cycle, with unprecedented inherent clashes of various conceptual elements that over the past four to five hundred years have supported and spurred Western civilization, especially European civilization in leading the world and making miracles, namely, free migration leading to irresistible wave of refugees,free elections sending populist leaders to office one after another, free trade being taking for scourge to be killed off, free speech being magnified in cyberspace, not only to affect the public opinion and ballot box but also, taking the form of cyber information warfare,to be regarded as a monster with huge impact on democratic institutions. The decline of the West that was initially more to be found in discourse of non-Western world has now become a posh and catchy proposition from the mouth of top-notch political scientists and historians of the West. As Professor Yu Bin of Wittenberg University in the US observes, it is the extensive dissemination of the cognition of “decline of the West”rather than the decline of the West itself that carries more profound lethality. It is not at all exaggerating to say that current ups and downs of Russia-Europe relations have long been kidnapped by the proposition of the “decline of the West”.

2. Identity Crisis behind Russia-Europe Relations

Both Professor Sergei Karaganov, Ex-Chairman of the Valdai International Discussion Club and Professor Fyodor Lukyanov, Research Director of the Valdai International Discussion Club have respectively put forward a hypothesis that the source of problems for Russia-Europe relations can be traced to the huge differences in political cognition between Russia and Europe.For Russia, it is imperative after the disintegration of the Soviet Union to strengthen the construction of nationstate foundation for Russia including sovereignty and territory and to lead Russia to renewal with the identity of a nation-state whereas for Europe, it is a core European strategy after the end of the Cold War to transcend the boundary of nation-state and to organize an integrated transnational regional organization. By constructing European integration, European countries aim at being able to face enormous external challenges through hanging together,especially to achieve a political pattern of “keeping Germany down, keeping America in and keeping Russia out”, a pattern favoring stability and development of Europe.

As a Chinese wisdom goes, those whose courses are different cannot lay plans for one another. If either of Russia and Europe could take its own way and get to its own place, it would not be impossible for them to live together.However, against the disintegration of the Soviet Union and guided by popular concepts prevalent after the end of the Cold War, Europe and the US as “victors” could not help entertaining their extravagant hopes to realize their ideological ambitions by expanding their political space. Therefore in the process of subsequent continued eastward expansion of the NATO and the EU, it was inevitable for Europe to stand on the frontline of direct show-down with Russia. In 2009, even though the global financial crisis had already broken out,the EU still went ahead with “the Eastern Partnership Plan”, aiming to gradually include former Soviet republics such as Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova into the framework of its eastward expansion. Between fall and winter 2013,against Russia’s firm opposition, the EU was determined to absorb Ukraine according to the plan, directly triggering off the Ukrainian Crisis that has lasted for more than four years. It is against such a background that the love-hate relationship between Russia and Europe has come about.

3. Geopolitics Comes to Front Again

In his new book Russia against the Rest, Professor Richard Sakwa, British Russia expert, quoted American scholar David Calleo as saying 15 years before that Europe, Russia and the US had always been three separate geopolitical entities, independent from one another. In his view, even during East-West confrontation of the Cold War,such a tripolar structure remained unchanged. In a profound way, this quotation from Calleo by Sakwa reveals the underlying structure of geopolitical relations between Russia and Europe. As Russian President Putin observed at the Valdai Forum 2016, the current geopolitical contest is even more profound than the past ideological struggle. It is worth noting that the contemporary Russia-Europe relations are giving proof to this thought provoking assessment.

PROSPECTS OF RUSSIA-EUROPE RELATIONS

From a European perspective, on the one hand, European political elite have gradually come to a clear understanding that it is no longer possible to maintain and build on transatlantic relationship as in the past and therefore it is imperative to respect the facts and mutually reconstruct relations with Russia on the premise of enhancing Europe’s own coherence and seeking its own reasonable development goal. On the other hand, there are a considerable number of people among European political elite who still believe that Russia’s “strength” rests with Europe’s weakness and therefore only by consolidating European cooperation,strengthening US-Europe alliance and resolutely containing Russia’s impulse for expansion will it be possible to get out of predicaments. At present, though the outcome of the debate between the two viewpoints remains uncertain, after President Trump unprecedentedly suppressed his Europe alliance during his trip to Europe in July 2018, the former is gaining weight substantially.

From a Russian perspective, Putin’s reelection to presidency by a big margin indicates that his popularity has further increased. Though Russia’s domestic economic conditions have yet to improve, it is precisely a reason calling for rather than against Russia-Europe cooperation. Though the concept of “greater Eurasian partnership” proposed by Karaganov and taken up by Putin mainly focuses on Russia’s neighborhood and Asia, it also pins great hope on developing relations with Europe. In 2018, the successfully conducted FIFA World Cup by Russia had showed Europe the exisistence of “another Russia”, which is also helpful for the remission of Russia-Europe Relations.

Against such an overall background,it is reasonable to expect that Russia-Europe will very likely move out of predicaments gradually somewhere down the road, giving rise to a situation where cooperation overweighs antagonism. Beyond any doubt, such a process will not be linear but full of twists and turns and with many a viable.