The negative-sum game and how to move past it

Abstract

Disorder erupted in Ukraine in 2014, involving the overthrow of a sitting government, the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula, and a violent insurrection, supported by Moscow, in the east of the country.

This Adelphi book argues that the crisis has yielded a ruinous outcome, in which all the parties are worse off and international security has deteriorated. This negative-sum scenario resulted from years of zero-sum behaviour on the part of Russia and the West in post-Soviet Eurasia, which the authors rigorously analyse. The rivalry was manageable in the early period after the Cold War, only to become entrenched and bitter a decade later. The upshot has been systematic losses for Russia, the West and the countries caught in between.

All the governments involved must recognise that long-standing policies aimed at achieving one-sided advantage have reached a dead end, Charap and Colton argue, and commit to finding mutually acceptable alternatives through patient negotiation.

Notes

1 Only time will tell if this loss is irreparable, but it is obvious that Russia under its current rulers, and quite likely under their successors, will be loath to give this territory back. It cannot be recovered by force of arms. It is doubtful if the population would cooperate in any reversal of status, barring a drastic change in circumstances.

2 For example, Sberbank, Russia's omnipresent state-controlled savings bank, with offices in the West, has not operated branches in Crimea since the annexation for fear of running afoul of the sanctions. See ‘Sberbank nazval rabotu v Krymu nepozvolitel’noi dlya sebya', Interfax, 29 May 2015, http://www.interfax.ru/business/444505.

3 In a telltale sign that not all Crimeans are thrilled with their new situation, a retiree berated Dmitry Medvedev, now prime minister of Russia, about her inadequate pension. With the cameras rolling, the most he could offer in response was, ‘There’s no money, but you hang in there!’

4 Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and High Commissioner on National Minorities, ‘Report of the Human Rights Assessment Mission on Crimea (6–18 July 2015)’, 17 September 2015, http://www.osce.org/odihr/180596?download=true.

5 Amnesty International, ‘Ukraine: One Year On: Violations of the Rights to Freedom of Expression, Assembly and Association in Crimea’, 18 March 2015, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/EUR50/1129/2015/en/.

6 Data from International Organization for Migration (May 2016) and UN High Commissioner for Refugees (June 2016), respectively. See International Organization for Migration, ‘IOM Assistance to IDPs and Conflict-Affected Population in Ukraine’, 19 May 2016, http://www.iom.org.ua/sites/default/files/general_map_eng_05-2016.png; UN High Commissioner for Refugees, ‘Ukraine: UNHCR Operational Update, 14 May–10 June 2016′, http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/UNHCR%20Operational%20Update%20on%20the%20Ukraine%20Situation%20-%2014MAY-10JUN16.pdf.

7 Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, ‘“You Don’t Exist”: Arbitrary Detentions, Forced Disappearances, and Torture in Eastern Ukraine’, 21 July 2016, https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/07/21/you-dont-exist/arbitrary-detentions-enforced-disappearances-and-torture-eastern.

8 Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine 16 November 2015 to 15 February 2016′, 3 March 2016, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/Ukraine_13th_HRMMU_Report_3March2016.pdf.

9 Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine 16 February to 15 May 2016′, 3 June 2016, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/Ukraine_14th_HRMMU_Report.pdf.

10 Semen Dobryi and Vladimir Dergachev, ‘Shla by lesom vasha DNR – valyu v Rossiyu’, Gazeta.ru, 16 October 2015, http://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2015/10/14_a_7820639.shtml.

11 Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine 16 February to 15 May 2016′.

12 Michael Bird, Lina Vdovii and Yana Tkachenko, ‘The Donbass Paradox’, The Black Sea, http://www.theblacksea. eu/donbass/.

13 Andrei Revenko, ‘Kak my zhivem: udruchayushchie itogi 2015-go i perspektivy 2016-go’, Zerkalo nedeli, 16 July 2016, http://gazeta. zn.ua/macrolevel/kak-my-zhivem-udruchayuschie-itogi-2015-go-i-perspektivy-2016-go-_.html.

14 Zach Bikus, ‘Ukrainians’ Life Ratings Sank to New Lows in 2015′, Gallup, 4 January 2016, http://www.gallup.com/poll/187985/ukrainians-life-ratings-sank-new-lows-2015.aspx.

15 Calculations provided to the authors by Pierre Noel, Senior Fellow for Economic and Energy Security, International Institute for Strategic Studies. See also Simon Pirani, ‘Ukraine’s Imports of Russian Gas: How a Deal Might Be Reached’, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, July 2014, p. 4, https://www.oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Ukraines-imports-of-Russian-gas-how-a-deal-might-be-reached.pdf.

16 World Trade Organization, ‘Trade Policy Review Report by Ukraine’, 15 March 2016, p. 10, https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tpr_e/g334_e.pdf.

17 L.M. Grigor’ev, A.V. Golyashev and E.V. Buryak, ‘Sotsial’no-ekonomicheskii krizis na Ukraine', Analytical Center for the Government of the Russian Federation Working Paper, September 2014, p. 26, http://ac.gov.ru/files/publication/a/3586.pdf.

18 UNITER, ‘Corruption in Ukraine: Comparative Analysis of Nationwide Surveys of 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2015′, April 2016; Julie Ray, ‘Ukrainians Disillusioned With Leadership’, Gallup, 23 December 2015, http://www.gallup.com/poll/187931/ukrainians-disillusioned-leadership.aspx.

19 Survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, http://kiis.com.ua/?lang=ukr&cat=reports&id=231&page=1&y=2014&m=2.

20 Tom Parfitt, ‘Ukraine Crisis: The Neo-Nazi Brigade Fighting Pro-Russian Separatists’, Telegraph, 11 August 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/11025137/Ukraine-crisis-the-neo-Nazi-brigade-fighting-pro-Russian-separatists.html.

21 Calculations by Keith Darden, Associate Professor, School of International Service, American University, shared with the authors.

22 On the rubbish bins, see Roland Oliphant, ‘Up to a Dozen Ukraine Officials Dumped in Wheelie Bins’, Telegraph, 7 October 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/11145381/Up-to-a-dozen-Ukraine-officials-dumped-in-wheelie-bins.html.

23 Keith Gessen, ‘Why Not Kill Them All?’, London Review of Books, vol. 36, no. 17, 11 September 2014.

24 ‘Ukraine’s Poroshenko: “New Russia” Is like “Mordor”’, BBC News, 24 August 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34037743.

25 GDP growth was negative for at least six consecutive quarters from Q3 2014 to Q4 2015. (2016 quarter-on-quarter data is unavailable at the time of writing.) During the 1998 crisis, there were three negative quarters, and four in the global financial crisis of 2008–09.

26 See World Bank, ‘Global Economic Prospects: Divergences and Risks’, June 2016, p. 4, http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/842861463605615468/Global-Economic-Prospects-June-2016-Divergences-and-risks.pdf.

27 Konstantin Kholodilin and Aleksei Netšunajev, ‘Crimea and Punishment: The Impact of Sanctions on Russian and European Economies’, Discussion Papers, German Institute for Economic Research, 2016, https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.530645.de/dp1569.pdf. See also Christian Dreger et al., ‘The Ruble between the Hammer and the Anvil: Oil Prices and Economic Sanctions’, Discussion Papers, German Institute for Economic Research, 2015, https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.507887.de/dp1488.pdf.

28 See World Bank, ‘The Dawn of a New Economic Era?’, Russia Economic Report, April 2015, pp. 33–42, https://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/document/eca/russia/rer33-eng.pdf.

29 Polling conducted by the Levada Center, http://www.levada.ru/eng/indexes-0.

30 See Mikhail Dmitriev, ‘Between the Crimea and the Crisis: Attitude Change of Russians and Its Political Implications’, Presentation, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 28 April 2015, pp. 16–26, https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/attachments/150428_Dmitriev.pdf.

31 See, for example, Adrian Chen, ‘The Agency’, New York Times Magazine, 2 June 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html.

32 Once the Russian military became more directly involved in the fighting in the Donbas, these nationalist volunteers were pushed out of the limelight. Those who resisted Moscow's effort to impose control ended up in a basement prison or, in some cases, dead; most returned to Russia. Some became outspoken critics of what they saw as feckless government policy.

33 Federal Ministry of Defence, ‘White Paper on German Security Policy and the Future of the Bundeswehr’, 13 July 2016, p. 32, https://www.bmvg.de/resource/resource/MzEzNTM4MmUzMzMyMmUzMTM1MzMyZTM2MzIzMDMwMzAzMDMwMzAzMDY5NzE3MzM1MzEzOTMyNmUyMDIwMjAyMDIw/2016%20White%20Paper.pdf.

34 See Samuel Charap and Jeremy Shapiro, ‘Consequences of a New Cold War’, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 57, no. 2, April–May 2015, pp. 37–46.

35 It would take some time to compensate for the post-1991 drawdown of Russian forces in its western quadrant. Compared with Russia's other frontiers, the western remains less heavily guarded.

36 On support for eurosceptical parties, see Suzanne Daley and Maïa de la Baume, ‘French Far Right Gets Helping Hand With Russian Loan’, New York Times, 1 December 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/world/europe/french-far-right-gets-helping-hand-with-russian-loan-.html.

37 ‘Remarks Previewing the FY 2017 Defense Budget’, 2 February 2016, http://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/Speech-View/Article/648466/remarks-previewing-the-fy-2017-defense-budget.

38 Matthieu Crozet and Julian Hinz, ‘Collateral Damage: The Impact of the Russia Sanctions on Sanctioning Countries’ Exports', CEPII Working Paper, Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales, June 2016, http://www.cepii.fr/PDF_PUB/wp/2016/wp2016-16.pdf.

39 Ronald D. Asmus, A Little War That Shook the World: Georgia, Russia, and the Future of the West (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 71.

40 See Henry E. Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

41 The five Central Asian countries have more virulent strains of the same pathologies.

42 Joel Hellman, ‘Winners Take All: The Politics of Partial Reform in Postcommunist Transitions’, World Politics, vol. 50, no. 2, January 1998, pp. 203–34.

43 Ibid., p. 233.

44 The EU, the World Bank and the IMF froze financial aid to Moldova in 2015 following revelations about a bank-fraud scheme in which private financiers and public officials (including the prime minister) embezzled more than US$1 billion, or 12% of Moldova's GDP. Transfers already authorised were not affected. The EU's ambassador to Chisinau was quoted in 2015 as saying he was baffled by ‘how it is possible to steal so much money from a small country’ (quoted in Andrew Higgins, ‘Moldova, Hunting for Missing Millions, Finds Only Ash’, New York Times, 4 June 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/world/europe/moldova-bank-theft.html). Nevertheless, as of September 2016 the EU had reopened the taps. See Cristi Vlas, ‘EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn Visits Moldova, Brings a €15 Million Assistance Program for Public Administration Reform’, moldova. org, 26 September 2016, http://www.moldova.org/en/eu-commissioner-johannes-hahn-visits-moldova-brings-e15-million-assistance-program-public-administration/.

45 International Foundation for Electoral Systems, ‘Ukraine 2013 Public Opinion Poll Shows Dissatisfaction with Socio-Political Conditions’, 5 December 2013, http://www.ifes.org/news/ukraine-2013-public-opinion-poll-shows-dissastisfaction-socio-political-conditions.

46 See polling in Steven Kull and Clay Ramsay, ‘The Ukrainian People on the Current Crisis’, Public Consultation Program at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland Report, March 2015, http://www.cissm.umd.edu/publications/ukrainian-people-current-crisis.

47 For evidence from 2014, see Gerard Toal and John O'Loughlin, ‘How People in South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Transnistria Feel about Annexation by Russia’, Washington Post Monkey Cage Blog, 20 March 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/03/20/how-people-in-south-ossetia-abkhazia-and-transnistria-feel-about-annexation-by-russia/.

48 International Republican Institute, ‘Public Opinion Survey Residents of Moldova, September 29–October 21, 2015′, http://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/2015-11-09_survey_of_moldovan_public_opinion_september_29-october_21_2015.pdf.

49 According to a disputed plebiscite conducted in February 2014, more than 98% of the Gagauz supported joining the Customs Union. See ‘TsIK Gagauzii obnarodoval okonchatel’nye itogi referenduma o budushchei sud'be avtonomii', TASS, 5 February 2014, http://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/940951.

50 In a 2016 poll, 79% of Georgians favoured NATO membership and 85% membership of the EU. See International Republican Institute, ‘Public Opinion Survey Residents of Georgia, March–April 2016′, http://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/georgia_2016.pdf.

51 Toal and O'Loughlin, ‘How People in South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Transnistria Feel about Annexation by Russia’.

52 Human Rights Watch, ‘Crossing the Line: Georgia’s Violent Dispersal of Protestors and Raid on Imedi Television’, 19 December 2007, https://www.hrw.org/report/2007/12/19/crossing-line/georgias-violent-dispersal-protestors-and-raid-imedi-television.

53 Nelli Babayan, ‘The In-Betweeners: The Eastern Partnership Countries and the Russia–West Conflict’, 2015–16 Paper Series, Transatlantic Academy, April 2016, p. 1, http://www.gmfus.org/file/8150/download.

54 EU officials cited in Ibid., p. 13.

55 As one European diplomat put it, ‘[Poroshenko] knows perfectly well that we cannot allow Ukraine to fail, that we have invested a lot in this country, and we need to have Ukraine as a success story. And he is abusing that knowledge. It is infuriating.’ Quoted in Joshua Yaffa, ‘Reforming Ukraine after the Revolution’, New Yorker, 5 September 2016, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/05/reforming-ukraine-after-maidan.

56 The Russian representative, Sergei Karaganov of the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, found it necessary to insert a ‘letter of disagreement’ into the document, in which he said he took issue with 24 of the points raised by Western members. The report, ‘Back to Diplomacy’, can be found at http://www.osce.org/networks/205846?download=true.

57 This pattern, to be sure, applies more strictly to economic integration than to collective-security groupings.

58 The ever-increasing economic role of China in post-Soviet Eurasia implies that the Russia–West binary of external patrons is already a thing of the past. We are grateful to Fyodor Lukyanov, Chairman of the Moscow-based Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, for this point.

59 Hiski Haukkala, ‘A Perfect Storm; Or What Went Wrong and What Went Right for the EU in Ukraine’, Europe– Asia Studies, vol. 68, no. 4, June 2016, pp. 653–64.

60 Charles A. Kupchan, The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-First Century (New York: Random House, 2007), p. 14.

61 This section draws on Samuel Charap and Jeremy Shapiro, ‘US–Russian Relations: The Middle Cannot Hold’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 72, no. 3, April 2016, pp. 150–5.

62 We should recall that the US policy of non-recognition of the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states did not prevent the agreement from going forward.