On the Chatham House Russia Report

Last month, the London think-tank, Chatham House, published “The Russian Challenge”, a 58-page report looking at Russia in the light of events in Ukraine and making policy recommendations.

The document was described as a “Chatham House report” - which put the institutional weight of Chatham House behind it. It was well trailed in advance and launched with some fanfare. It was a document that Chatham House clearly wanted to get noticed.

The report consists of an introduction and six chapters, each written by a specialist at Chatham House. The authors included two former British ambassadors to Moscow, Sir Roderic Lyne and Sir Andrew Wood, and the head of Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia programme, James Nixey. The thrust of the report is hawkish. The picture it paints is of a Russia acting from a position of strength and unafraid to break international rules; it is a Russia that needs to be kept at arm’s length - with the help of sanctions and a beefed-up Nato - until it sees sense and changes its attitude. Some of the writers argue that this will not, and cannot happen, until Vladimir Putin has - one way or another - left office.

As a Russia specialist and a member - but not, I should stress, an employee or research associate - of Chatham House, I have made no secret of my dissent from what has seemed to me the increasingly hard line towards Russia taken by the think-tank, following the 2013 EU summit at Vilnius and everything that happened afterwards. “The Russian Challenge” seems designed to give that view analytical authority.

It is no exaggeration to say that developments in and around Ukraine, from the fall of Viktor Yanukovych, through the violent clashes in Kiev and Russia’s annexation of Crimea, to the fighting in eastern Ukraine, the downing of MH17 and the uncertain fate of the Minsk II agreement - have polarized opinion almost everywhere outside Russia. And that polarization is as evident in the UK and among British Russia specialists, as it is elsewhere.

The differences lie less in what actually happened, as in why it happened and how the EU and the US have, or should have, responded. One view - the one forcefully represented in the Chatham House report - owes much, I would argue, to Cold War thinking and assumes an unbridgeable gap, not just in priorities and perceptions, but in basic principles and their very nature, between Russia, as embodied in “the Kremlin” on the one hand, and “the West” on the other. To generalize (more than the sometimes contradictory report actually does), this boils down to the view that Putin wants to restore the power and territorial reach that Russia once had; that the Kremlin in its present mood understands only the language of strength, and that “the West” must unite to keep Russia in its box until it has learned to take its place as a civilized state.

The other view - the one I and others have argued consistently in print over the months - is that what we are looking at with Russia is “an end of empire” syndrome, not an attempt to re-establish the Soviet or Russian empire; that Russia is acting for the most part defensively, from a position of weakness - not aggressively from a position of strength - and that the harsher the line taken by “the West”, in words and deeds, the greater the risk that Russia will respond in an equivalent, and destabilizing, way. This is not about rolling over in the face of Russian power, it is about understanding Russia’s motives.

These are, in the most general terms, the lines of the debate as they currently run in the UK, and in many other countries. I would say that the establishment consensus in the UK is more hawkish and more inclined to see Putin as the sole villain of the piece than it is in, say, Germany or France, but it does not have a monopoly. Public opinion is divided.

I have set out the context at such length, because this is how, I think, the Chatham House report needs to be seen - as a presentation of one argument, as a contribution to the continuing debate. It should not be seen as THE British view, though there is a risk that it will be understood like this.

There was a time, perhaps, when a document published by Chatham House - which is also the Royal Institute of International Affairs - could have been equated with THE British government view. That was when there were far fewer policy discussion forums in London. Chatham House now describes itself as a “think tank”. As such, it is one - albeit a particularly influential one - among many that are competing for attention in the corridors of power. Yes, Chatham House has lobbying power, but not exclusive lobbying power. My impression is that, while the official rhetoric from London remains tough, the UK’s Russia policy is in flux.

I would also observe that not one, but two documents on Russia policy, were published by Chatham House in recent weeks. “The Russian Challenge” was one, and it had the status of a “report”. The other, by a single author, who is also a fellow of the think-tank, Andrew Monaghan, was described as a “research paper”. Its title was: “A ‘New Cold War’? Abusing History, Misunderstanding Russia.” In it, Monaghan implicitly rejects many of the arguments and assumptions of “The Russian Challenge”, calling for an end to what he calls “simplistic and repetitive polemic” which, he says, belongs back in the 20th century.

In conclusion, let me stress the Chatham House report proceeds from one view of Russia. Just because it comes from Chatham House does not mean that it is the official UK view. It is a contribution to a continuing debate. As Monaghan’s paper shows, not even Chatham House researchers agree about Russia policy. The hawks may be more numerous, but are not alone in the skies over London.

Views expressed are of individual Members and Contributors, rather than the Club's, unless explicitly stated otherwise.