The enlargement of the EU and NATO are dangerous if they threaten war between Russia and Ukraine. A fundamental value of the EU is to secure peace and there are ways of doing this without expanding the Union. It is unjustifiable hypocrisy to advocate peace and knowingly to pursue policies which threaten to lead to war.
President Putin is widely portrayed as a threat to peace and the international order. One might distinguish between two ways of analysing a threat posed by a state in its conduct of foreign affairs. First, there are positive drivers in the form of aggressive actions. These stem from the actions of state leaders who are motivated to attack other states for purposes of their own or their countries’ economic or political advantage. Such policies may be driven by national or universalistic ideologies or by the ambitions of leaders.
Hitler’s Drang nach Osten and Britain’s colonial conquest of India may be cited as examples an active policy [1]. Second, there are actions which are reactive to the policies of other states. These actions are driven by anxiety or fear derived from a belief that other states are behaving, or likely to behave, maliciously. States with such perceptions may react aggressively to defend their interests. An example here is the placing of intercontinental missiles on Cuba by the USSR. Though Cuba claimed that the missiles were purely for defensive purposes, the USA perceived them as a threat and retaliatory aggressive action to defend its interests followed.
The debate about ‘Russia as a threat’ to the international order hinges on which of these two approaches one believes determines Russia’s behaviour.
The ‘Positive Drivers’ Interpretation
The case for an active ‘threat’ has been put by academics, political leaders as well as journalists writing in the quality news journals. Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, in March 2015 called for the formation of a ‘European army to face up to the Moscow threat’ [2] . The objective is to ‘defend the values of the European Union’. Timothy Garten Ash, in The Guardian (1 February 2015) revealed the evils of Vladimir Putin whom he described as ‘the Slobodan Milosevic of the former Soviet Union: [who is] as bad, but bigger. Behind a smokescreen of lies he has renewed his drive to carve out a puppet para-state in eastern Ukraine’ [3].
In the academic sphere, Michael McFaul contends that Russian foreign policy changed under Putin as a consequence of ‘Russian internal political dynamics’ [4]. For McFaul, the motivating factor is the public’s disapproval (expressed in voting, demonstrations and the fear that Putin would be confronted with a popular ‘coloured revolution’) which led him to adopt policies that would ‘mobilise his electoral base and discredit the opposition’ (p.170). The USA was recast as an enemy, a ‘sinister force in world affairs’ (ibid).
A prominent theme explaining Russian action in foreign affairs is the drive to fulfil its geo-political goals. Russia is regarded as a country intervening militarily ‘to maintain its influence across the domains of the former Soviet Union’ [5] . In Hillary Clinton’s view: ‘We know what the goal [of the Eurasian Union] is and we are trying to figure out ways to slow down or prevent it’ [6]. The objective here is to halt the spread of (supposed) Soviet norms which contaminate the values of liberal democracy and a market society.
The popular media message is one of personality and ‘motive’. Russia’s President is a demon combining the worst characteristics of Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler and Slobodan Milosevich (occasionally reaching back to Ivan the Terrible). ‘Putin’s Russia’ is expansionist, nationalist, imperialist, dictatorial, and hypocritically anti-Western. It thrives on strategies to destabilise neighbouring countries, as well as NATO and the EU. The ideology of Eurasianism and the formation of the Eurasian Union are indications of the desire to reinvent the Soviet Union. Consequently, ‘Putin’s Russia’ is the cause of the civil war in Ukraine which is a precursor to the active destabilisation of the Baltic new member states of the EU and NATO. This is a scenario of active aggressive politics.
The antidote prescribed by President Putin’s critics is to escalate economic, political and military sanctions. Following the economic restrictions against Russian firms and persons, in March 2015 the advanced parties of the American and British military arrived in Ukraine.
Through the rhetoric one might identify four major issues underlying Russian policy. Firstly, I consider whether its leaders are motivated to promote their own interests by de-stabilising the international order; secondly, whether its ideology entails any threat to other states, nations or groups; thirdly, whether in its actions, it has promoted a military build up; and finally, whether the Russian Federation or the Eurasian Union possess the military capacity to pose a serious danger to the international order.
A ‘Reactive’ Interpretation
After the dismantling of the Soviet Union, Russia in foreign affairs was faced by two major challenges. Whereas Russia was in decline and its regional bloc (The Commonwealth of Independent States) was moribund, the former adversaries of the Soviet Union were being considerably strengthened. NATO and the European Union were enlarged. Moreover, both organisations had moved significantly to the east. Ironically perhaps, none of the reasons put forward for the expansion of NATO to the areas of the former USSR, were framed in the context of a possible (let alone likely) Russian move to seize former territories. NATO’s expansion to the east started in 1999 with the entry of the Visegrad countries, followed in 2004 by Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Albania and Croatia joined NATO in 2009. Economically, politically and military, ‘the West’ had arrived at Russia’s borders. At the urging of the USA, in April 2008 NATO considered the addition of Ukraine and Georgia. Following opposition from Germany and France, they were not admitted. But the alliance did issue a statement that ‘These countries will become members of NATO’. If so, the encirclement of Russia would be complete. NATO’s enlargement was justified in terms of the creation of a zone of peace. The Russian ‘threat’ surfaced later.
From Russia’s position, the expansion of NATO poses a serious threat to its security. The enhanced security of the New Member States is at the cost of less security to Russia. Russia has been reactive and defensive rather than actively aggressive. The policy of the Russian Federation under Putin and Medvedev entailed a major change towards the West which infringed some established Western assumptions. In its Foreign Policy Concept (2000), Russia’s objectives were to preserve the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country. It noted critically ‘a growing trend towards the establishment of a unipolar structure of the world with the economic and political domination of the United States.’
Policy did not seek to overturn the hegemony of the USA or the neo-liberal framework in which it operated. It does not entail economic autarchy or political isolation. Russia sought an alliance with the USA in its war ‘on terror’ – with his own concerns about Chechnia in mind – and allowed US planes to use Russian airspace to fly to Afghanistan. Russia voted to support the UN Security council’s sanctions against Iran. Even in 2002, Russia was pragmatic about the admission of the Baltic states into NATO. Russia also abstained from voting on the UN Security Council resolution authorising the use of force against the Qaddafi regime in Libya in 2011.
The European Union
The second major challenge facing the states of the former USSR was the enlargement of the European Union to include the post-Soviet countries of central Europe. Its initial objective (bearing in mind the history of two world wars) was to preserve peace in Europe by containing possible aggression by enveloping nation states within a common economic unit, the European Economic Community. The leadership of the EU justified enlargement as bringing not only economic wealth but also democratic European values. The development of a supra-national state, the European Union, has outgrown the original conception and has imperial pretentions. It is now effectively a federal state composed of 28 ‘member states’, including eleven post communist states [7]. Its membership makes it an economic counterpart to NATO.
As the European Commissioner, Jose Manuel Barroso on 10 July 2007 put it: ‘We are a very special construction unique in the history of mankind. Sometimes I like to compare the EU as a creation to the organisation of empire. We have the dimension of empire. What we have is the first non-imperial empire. We have 27 countries that fully decided to work together and to pool their sovereignty. I believe it is a great construction and we should be proud of it’ [8]. Here, in perhaps an unguarded moment, he raises the spectre of the European Union as an empire, and this view has led many to define it in terms of cultural and economic imperialism.
Membership requires the subordination of sovereignty of member states to a common economic, political and social policy framed in terms of neo-liberalism and competitive electoral polyarchy. In such a union, formal wars between member states cannot take place. In keeping with the institutional arrangements of the EU, new states had to conform to 31 chapters (35 since 2013) of the Acquis which range over the whole area of economic and political life. Foreign and defence policy must also be in keeping with EU norms and policy. As a customs union, the EU has common tariffs with outsiders. The driving forces for expansion are economic interests seeking markets (for products and labour) as well as geo-political concerns.
The Case of Ukraine
After the dismantling of the USSR, Ukraine found itself positioned between two blocs – the strongly entrenched EU and the weak association formed by the Commonwealth of Independent States. As shown in the two following diagrams, commerce was greater between Russia than the European Union.
Figure 1. Ukraine Exports (2008, 2010, 2012) to EU, CIS and Developing Countries
Above table. IMF Direction of World Trade data base Accessed 30 July 2014.
Figure Ukraine’s Exports by Major Area (Total Value)
IMF Direction of World Trade Data Base, Accessed 30 July 2014
Figure 2. Ukrainian imports (2008, 2010, 2012) to EU, CIS and Developing Countries
Source: See Figure 1.
Ukrainian governments have sought agreements with the EU which would not prejudice relations with its major trading partner, Russia. Things began to change after the Orange Revolution which brought to power President Yushchenko. The leaders of the proposed Eurasian Union sought to maintain and enhance links with Ukraine which would have precluded Ukraine from joining the EU. In the autumn of 2013 the EU, to counter Eurasian influence, offered Ukraine an association agreement (Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA)). To be effective the agreement would have extended the EU’s tariffs to Ukraine’s borders and consequently would have greatly restricted trade with the CIS.
The DCFTA presented Ukraine with a choice. It was contended by the EU that two sets of rules could not operate in the EU economic space [9]. Russian policy, basing the argument on common membership of the WTO, contended that both the EU and the Eurasian Union would be able forge a wider pan-European association. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister suggested that both blocs could work together. ‘We must work for a union of unions, an alliance of the EU and the Eurasian Union’ [10].
The EU’s objective was to prepare Ukraine for full membership (at some unspecified future date). Moreover, even without becoming a member of the EU, agreements between it and other states were increasingly embedded in conditions which sought to make their institutions and processes compatible with EU norms. These conditions were defined in terms of Washington Consensus ideology – free markets, private property, the rule of law (particularly concerning property), multi-party politics and electoral competition. EU strategy is to weaken gradually the sovereignty of states and to promote the power of the Union over its ‘member states’. The Eastern Partnership was a device to extend the power of the EU over third parties, this time driven by the geo-political interests of the EU and consistent with American power wielded through NATO. The objectives were to be achieved through enlargement.
Negotiations between President Yanukovich and the European Union were conducted on the basis of the DCFTA. While Yanukovich did not rule out signing the agreement at some future date, on 29 November 2013, he expressed a wish to achieve an agreement which would maintain relations with Russia. Future anticipated damage to Ukrainian producers (supporting Yanukovich), insufficient EU financial backing for economic reforms, as well as promised Russian financial support underlay his decision to withdraw from the EU proposal.
This became the fuse for the Maidan demonstrations in favour of EU membership supported on the streets in person by some prominent US and European politicians. EU made Ukraine choose, when Yanukovich did not take the right decision, the EU supported the opposition of the Maidan to make the decision. The demonstration turned to violence and the President’s and Parliament’s buildings were occupied by the armed opposition. The EU supported the then opposition (which had refused to participate in a government when offered posts in it). Their goal was to install the pro-EU opposition forces. President Yanukovich fled for his life from Kiev on 22 February 2014. The context of armed uprising, of intimidation of pro-Yanukovich deputies in the Rada and as well as the illegal seizure of power leads one to define the change of political power as a coup d’état legitimated by mass demonstrations.
Following the flight of President Yanukovich, a new pro-EU nationalist government was installed. On the one side it signed agreements with the EU, on the other it was confronted by the secession of Crimea and civil war in the eastern territories.
Western media explain the underlying causes of Ukraine’s break-up as a consequence of Putin’s policies. Such an interpretation of events, derived mainly from statements originating in the Kiev pro European Union lobbies and government, can be dismissed or qualified in many respects.
There is no evidence before the putsch replacing the Yanukovich government in Ukraine that the policy of the Russian Federation was to destabilise the country. During this time the Russian minority suffered language discrimination. In the period following the Orange Revolution of 2004, in which the administration of Yushchenko moved closer to the EU, as well as the period in which the Yanukovich administration intended to sign an association agreement with the EU, there were no actions from Russia destabilising Ukraine. The economic consequences, however, might have had a destabilising effect. Indeed, there was no designation by the media of a ‘corrupt’ President Yanukovich when he was predisposed to sign the association agreement.
The Ukrainian civil war was precipitated by the illegal removal of Yanukovich and his government following the putsch of February which installed a government hostile to Yanukovich’s supporters concentrated in the industrial Russian speaking east of the country. Their initial actions, particularly rescinding the language laws, which had given the right to regions under certain conditions to use the Russian language, strengthened the separatists who asserted their own power in Crimea and led to a revolt in Donbass and Lugansk.
These ‘anti-Kiev’ movements were supported by the Russian Federation but they were not part of a planned policy to ‘destabilise’ Ukraine. Ukraine became destabilised by the actions of the pro-EU insurgents who had illegally replaced the elected President with Acting President Alex Turchinov. Despite Western insistence on Russian military involvement, there is no firm evidence of the involvement of the Russian army (though there certainly were, and are, volunteers) in east Ukraine in armed combat roles. On Jan 29 2015, the head of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Army, General Viktor Muzhenko, stated that “only individual Russian military personnel and citizens of the Russian Federation” are participating in military activities. “We are not currently conducting any military operations against units of the regular Russian army.” [11] Such unofficial Russian involvement is considerable and has been decisive in maintaining the separatists. It is not however part of a preconceived Russian ‘plan’ to destabilise Ukraine and NATO.
The official line of newly elected President Poroshenko was to pursue war by all means. As he put it in his statement of 14 November 2014: "We [in Ukraine] will have work they - [in Donbas] won't. We will have pensions - they won't. We will care for our children and pensioners - they won't. Our children will go to school, to kindergartens - their children will sit in cellars. They don't know how to organize or do anything. This, ultimately, is how we will win this war." [12] He repeated his obdurate principles on 22 January 2015: ‘Ukraine must remain a unitary state; there will be “no discussion” of Ukraine’s European choice; and the only state language is and will be Ukrainian’. [13]
A Military Threat?
NATO’s expansion to the east was legitimated in the first instance as a means to secure an area of peace in Europe, not as a necessary defence mechanism against an aggressive Russia. However, following the Ukraine crisis, views changed. Anders Rasmussen, NATO’s previous secretary-general, said in January 2015 that there was a ‘high probability’ that Mr Putin would test NATO’s article 5, which regards an attack on any member as an attack on all. On 20 February 2015, NATO’s deputy commander opined that Russia’s expansionist ambitions could become ‘an obvious existential threat to our whole being’. (Reported in The Guardian 21 Feb. 15).
The geo-political goals of strengthening the hegemony of NATO underpin this policy. The Russian military ‘threat’ is an assertion about ‘motives’ and is not based empirically on any assessment of military capacity. Russia as a military threat is illustrated by commentators by the fact that its defence spending has risen by 190 per cent between 2007 and 2014, whereas NATO’s has fallen by some 20 per cent (The Economist, 14 Feb 2015, p. 20).
Russia’s defence expenditure has increased in recent years. But the increase was from a low base. Given the size of population and the economic level of the country, comparatively its defence expenditure per capita is not excessively large. In total outlays, Russia is outmatched in every area of defence spending by NATO. In 2014, according to statistics provided in the The Military Balance [14] , defence budgets for Russia was just over 10 per cent more than that of the UK. Its defence efforts are comparable to Western European NATO countries. Planned expenditure (2015) for USA is 581 billion US dollars; China 129.4; Russia 70; UK 61.8; France 53.1; Germany 43.9. As a proportion of state budgets (data for 2014), the USA accounted for 36.1 per cent, Russia 4.4 per cent, UK 3.8 per cent, France 3.3 per cent, Germany 2.7 per cent, other NATO countries 7.6 per cent. China 8 per cent and Japan 3 per cent.
NATO’s weaponry is also greater in all areas than Russia and Eurasia, only China has more battle tanks than NATO. A telling comparative indicator is the amount spent expressed as a proportion of world defence and security spending which is shown in Figure 3. If armaments’ spending is the criterion, then expenditure is very much weighted towards the West with NATO greatly outspending its rivals. Of course, Russia is a nuclear power and certainly more than a match for its immediate neighbours but not for NATO.
Figure 3. Defence Spending as Per cent of World Expenditure 2014
Military Balance London Routledge 2015. p. 22
Figure shows per cent of world defence expenditure – at PPP (purchasing power parity). (Figures do not add to 100 as other states not shown)
It is pure speculation (probably motivated to justify NATO’s military role) to suggest that Putin is planning to test NATO’s resolve. Despite the denial of citizenship rights to a significant part of Russian speaking people born and living in Latvia and Estonia, Russia since the Baltics gained independence, has shown no intention or willingness to support the Russian minorities by the use of force.
The enlargement of the EU and NATO are dangerous if they threaten war between Russia and Ukraine. A fundamental value of the EU is to secure peace and there are ways of doing this without expanding the Union. It is unjustifiable hypocrisy to advocate peace and knowingly to pursue policies which threaten to lead to war. Clearly alternative strategies were available to the EU. But they were ignored as the entrapment of Ukraine in the EU was a major objective of EU policy. EU enlargement and NATO expansion are greater threats to peace than the Russian Federation.
An ideological and geo-political ‘threat’ is attributed to the Eurasian Union. The Eurasian Union was formulated as a compatible alternative regional bloc to the European Union. What ideologically underpins the Eurasian Union is the idea of an autonomous Eurasian civilisation. Eurasianism does not claim universalism but respect as a form of civilisation. There is a suspicion of the universality of Western values manifested in Western demands for the institution of electoral democracy, a liberal economy and autonomous civil society. In its current form the Eurasian Union shares many economic values with the European Union, these include the free movement within its territory of labour, capital, goods and services. It respects the free trade market principles of the WTO. However, there is a tension between its ideological pretentions and current Western ruling ideas of moral universalism, freedom for privately owned media, social ‘diversity’ (involving gay rights) and competitive electoral democracy.
The Russian leadership has consistently advocated cooperation with the European Union. On 17 May 2001, Putin proposed a common European space operating with the same principles of free movement as the European Union. He has continually proposed collaboration between the EU and the Eurasian Union to form an economic unit from ‘the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean’ [15]. The Eurasian union would become ‘one of the poles of the modern world and be an effective link between Europe and the Asian-Pacific region’. As recently as January 2014, Putin suggested to Brussels the establishment of a Free Trade Area between the EU and the Eurasian Union [16] .
Eurasianism has no aspiration to external expansion. Its religious Orthodox ideology does not legitimate a Christian crusade. It is essentially cultural and geographical and is capable of coexistence with other civilisations such as Islam. It has no concept of class conflict (as in Marxism) or any racial and national ideas (as in Nazism) of its own supremacy or any missionary zeal. It can be expressed in different modes of production, such as capitalism and socialism. In its ideology there is no propensity to expand aggressively either militarily or economically. Economically, the Eurasian Union promotes the advantages of economies of scale provided by a larger market, something that the EU and NAFTA have done for several decades. Hence the idea that Eurasianism is an ideology precipitating a war with the West is unfounded.
How then are we to explain the civil war in Ukraine? There are two approaches.
Liberal international interventionalism and political realism
Liberal internationalists are driven by moral sentiments or a legal code which they consider to be applicable to all peoples at all times. Such moralising demonises enemies and puts halos over friendly powers in foreign affairs. For international interventionists, moral principles are superior to state (or personal) interests. In stating a case for NATO’s intervention in Ukraine, Obama defined Putin’s position as aggression and a response was necessary to ‘preserve international norms and defend democratic values’. [17]
In such interventions, the facts of the matter are often disputed – does intervention promote democratic values and promote international norms? John Kerry’s stated with respect to Russia in Crimea: ‘You just don’t in the twenty-first century behave in a nineteenth-century fashion by invading another country on a completely trumped-up pretext’. Liberal interventionalism did just that in Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan - to promote electoral democracy, the rule of law, and neo-liberal capitalism.
The action of annexation by Russia of Crimea was against the letter of international law and the agreements of the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 (in which the governments of the USA, UK and Russia guaranteed the ‘territorial integrity’ of Ukraine). In this case Russia might well be criticised for hypocrisy. However, other factors have to be taken into account and these may justify Russia’s actions, just as NATO justified its bombing in Kosovo.
In a political realist perspective, action has to be considered in the context of the political chaos in Ukraine following the illegal seizure of power as well as the sentiments of the Crimean population. The history of Crimea’s membership to Ukraine is also relevant as Crimea had been part of the RSFSR (the Russian Federation) until 1954 and its citizens never had any opportunity vote for or against joining Ukraine as a constituent republic. The local population had declared independence and Russian troops were already there under Treaty with Ukraine. Russia’s intervention in Crimea should be interpreted as securing its geo-political interests in the face of possible future NATO expansion. Geo-political considerations and the defence interests of Russia were undoubtedly of great importance and led Russia to accept the outcome of the referendum.
McFaul’s argument, cited above, that Putin was responding to ‘internal political dynamics’ (internal protests against his return to power) is not very convincing. If this was the case he could have taken Crimea sooner and the logic of this position was that he would have incorporated Georgia into the Russian Federation following the earlier invasion [18] . Russian-speaking people with an affinity to Russia suffered discrimination in Estonia and Latvia as well Ukraine before February 2015. Though the discriminatory policies of these states were criticised by the leadership of the Russian Federation, there were no retaliatory threats to any of these states. Quite the opposite. Had the RF sought to incorporate these territories, there would surely have been some indication of this policy in official (or unofficial) pronouncements.
Russia adopted a realist political policy to preserve state interests. For realists, state interests are always superior to moralising sentiments. Realists look to the effects of policy – will they secure political objectives (whether these be peace or state interests)? Critics of Putin attribute to him motives of enlargement of the Eurasian Union to include the former space of the USSR. His views regretting the demise of the USSR however are nothing more than stating the obvious fact that a large integrated market (like the EU) is better than a bundle of disintegrated units (like the CIS). There is considerable evidence that the property of the Party of Regions and the Communist Party was destroyed by looters. A trade union building in Odessa was set on fire and its occupants burned alive. One could make an argument that Russia was restrained in its policy in the face of such attacks – unlike the British who justified their military intervention in retaliation for Indian persecution of its citizens in the Black hole of Calcutta in 1756.
The Russian Federation pursues a realist position by defending its political space and economic interest. Putin’s foreign policy is based on multi polarity predicated on the Westphalian concept of non-interference in the affairs of other states except when national security is at stake.
Is the Russian Federation a Threat?
The Russian Federation has pursued a realist political position within the framework set by the dominant Western powers. President Putin accepts some of the principles of international universalism propagated by the USA: he supports notions of the rule of law, the political principles of the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation. These principles are derived from and enforced by the dominant powers of the West led by the USA. In this context Putin reserves the right to defend the sovereignty of the Russian Federation when it is undermined. There is a tension here in his political position. He accepts the tenets of WTO free trade and those of the EU (freedom of mobility of labour, services and capital) which concurrently undermine the role of sovereign states as collective actors. Western dominant states secure their own interests by deploying values such as declarations of human rights, electoral procedures and the rule of international law to justify liberal internationalism. They also are instrumental in forming collective institutions such as the United Nations, the World Bank and the IMF, of which they are a part, to enforce such values. Of course, the dominant Western states which make the laws are less likely to break them and hence can more often take the high moral ground as well as call on other states to accept their rules of the game.
In practice all the major players in international politics break laws if they believe that their interests are threatened. ‘Hypocrisy’ is not the exception, but a strategy in politics when states are confronted with developments which challenge their own strategic interests. The question which should be addressed is not whether states act hypocritically but whether their hypocritical actions can be justified or not. One might support international law and concurrently also claim that, in certain cases, moral values are higher than international laws. The problem with many of these cases is whether the values are higher or not and whether the real goals of action are hidden by the appeal to moral values.
The contention here is that the Russian leadership reacted to Western moves which in the first place destabilised European politics and threatened Russian interests. The causes of the civil war in Ukraine are to be found in Kiev, not in Moscow; in the bad policies of the Ukrainian political leadership and particularly in the inadequate political formulation of nationality and regional policy. The EU and NATO have pursued expansionist policies at the cost of destabilising the international order. The political divisions in Ukraine, its uncompromising political leadership as well as its uncompetitive economy would have ensured high social and economic costs for the EU. The enlargement of the European Union has little if any economic and political benefit for members of the European Union – indeed the policies of widening and deepening have been the cause of considerable public criticism and political division. One suspects that geo-political issues and American opinion influenced EU policy.
There may be other more fundamental processes at work which cannot be discussed here. These are to do with the propensity of capitalist companies to expand by seeking markets, materials and labour resources in peripheral countries. The free movement of capital, people, goods, and services which is at the root of neo-liberal policy knows no boundaries. While international relations takes account of the aggressive policies of political leaders (such as Adolph Hitler), aggression can take many forms and economic aggression is one of them. Political aggression may be a justifiable response to less obvious economic aggression.
Russia is a threat to the universalistic moralising of the leaders of the hegemonic Western states. Russia and its allies will no doubt weaken the grip of electoral democracy, as well as the hegemony of the USA which sustains it. This need not be a threat to the international order. To further stability the international order will need to become genuinely more pluralistic and accommodating to the positions of those outside the hegemonic core. Stability would be promoted by a more realist and less liberal internationalist position by dominant political actors. The dominant bloc of the USA and EU will have to learn to live with greater levels of plurality and recognise the interests of states and regional blocs. The EU has to reconsider its expansionist policy which has already had disastrous results and commands little popular support. This would involve a policy accommodating other regional blocs and also overlapping associations which would include countries not in the EU. A European Union composed of different layers moving at different speeds would be more conducive to internal cohesion and would further peace with neighbours.
The leadership of the BRICS countries respect the existing world order, even the hegemony of the USA, without causing a threat. Economically and politically, a Eurasian and a BRICS bloc can be contained within the world system led by the USA. They may form a counterpoint [19] . Currently, Eurasianism is a contradictory mixture; it advocates collective solidarity and concurrently subscribes to the virtues of the free market. Russia is not a military or economic threat as it lacks economic and military capacity. However, the policy of economic and political sanctions against states who challenge the hegemonic powers may have serious negative consequences and are likely to increase the division of the world. Russia might be pushed into an alliance with China which could threaten the political stability of the international order.
E.H. Carr pointed out just before the Second World War, that to maintain peace and to secure their own interests, the dominant powers have to compromise. It is fallacious to assume that self-sacrifice has to be shared equally; and the onus should not be put on those who challenge the existing order. On the contrary: ‘Those who profit most by the [international] order can in the longer run only hope to maintain it by making sufficient concessions to make it tolerable to those who profit by it least; and the responsibility for seeing that these changes take place as far as possible in an orderly way rests as much on the defenders as on the challengers’ [20].
[1] Adolf Hitler said on 7 February 1945: ‘It is eastwards, only and always eastwards, that the veins of our race must expand. It is the direction which Nature herself has decreed for the expansion of the German peoples’. Cited in Wikipedia, under entry ‘Drang nach osten’.
[2] Reported in The Guardian (London) 9 March 2015
[3] The Guardian (London) 1 February 2015.
[4] M. McFaul, ‘Moscow’s choice’, Foreign Affairs, Nov/Dec 2014, Vol. 93, issue 6. 167-178. quote p. 169.
[5] Jeffrey Mankoff, Russia’s Latest Land Grab: How Putin Won Crimea and Lost Ukraine, Foreign Affairs, vol. 93, no 3. May/June 2014. pp. 60-68. Quotation p.60.
[6] Hillary Clinton, ‘Clinton calls for Eurasian integration an effort to re-Sovietise’, RFE/RL Russia Report 9 Dec 2012
[7] Eight joined in 2004, two in 2007 and one in 2013.
[8] As reported in Euobserver, Brussels, 11 July 2007. Available at
https://euobserver.com/institutional/24458
[9] See E.A. Korosteleva, The European Union and Russia: in D. Lane and V. Samokhvalov, pp.201-2.
[10] S. Lavrov, State of the Union (14 August 2013), cited by E. Korosteleva, The European Union and Russia, in D. Lane and V. Samokhvalov, pp. 187-202, quote p.195
[11] Cited in Petro, unpublished document.
http://www.5.ua/ato-na-shodi/myjenko-ykrajna-ne-maye-dokaziv-masovoj-ychasti-zbroinih-sil-rf-y-boyah-na-donbasi-68687.html
. A spokesman for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence later clarified that regular Russian troops, numbering 6,500 men, have been in the country since the New Year and are operating "in the second tier." Individually they provide fire support, direct troops, provide intelligence and communications support.
http://news.bigmir.net/ukraine/874055-V-Minoborony-ob-jasnili-slova-Muzhenko-o-tom--chto-Ukraina-ne-vojuet-s-armiej-RF
.
[12] Youtube. Cited by: Nicolai N. Petro, Timeline For Donbass Since The Signing Of The Minsk Accords. Unpublished paper. Nicolai N. Petro,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHWHqj8g7Bk
[13]
http://vesti-ukr.com/strana/85885-poroshenko-ozvuchil-tri-beskompromissnyh-dlja-sebja-voprosa
[14] The Military Balance 2015, pp20-24.London: Routledge 2015. pp. 20-25
[15] President Putin, A New Integration Project for Eurasia: the Future in the Making. Izvestiia 3 October 2011.
[16] See speech of S. Lavrov to UN General Assembly, 27 September 2014.
[17] McFaul, p. 169
[18] McFaul, Who started the Ukraine Crisis?, p.170
[19] David Lane, The Capitalist Transformation of State Socialism. London: Routledge, 2014. pp. 350-356
[20] E.H. Carr, The Twenty Years Crisis 1919-1939. London: Macmillan 1961 (First edition 1939). p.169.
