Contestation entrenched

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 Besides the two small island nations of Malta and Cyprus, all the new EU members were either former Soviet republics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), former communist states in East Central Europe (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) or the Balkans (Slovenia, once a constituent republic of Yugoslavia). NATO took in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia in 2004. Bulgaria and Romania were to accede to the EU in 2007 and Croatia in the Balkans to NATO in 2009 and the EU in 2013.

2 See presentations by Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Chief of the General Staff Valerii Gerasimov at the 3rd annual Moscow Conference on International Security, available at http://mil.ru/mcis/2014.htm. For an Englishlanguage summary, see http://eng.mil.ru/files/MCIS_report_catalogue_final_ENG_21_10_preview.pdf.

3 Valerii Gerasimov, ‘Tsennost’ nauki v prognozirovanii', Voennopromyshlennyi kur'er, 5 March 2013.

4 As Michael McFaul notes, the foreign democracy-promotion wings of both of the United States’ national political parties were deeply involved in Ukrainian events in 2004: ‘That there were purposive efforts by both IRI [the International Republican Institute] and NDI [the National Democratic Institute] to strengthen Our Ukraine’s [Yushchenko’s party] campaign abilities is without question.’ Michael McFaul, ‘Ukraine Imports Democracy: External Influences on the Orange Revolution’, International Security, vol. 32, no. 2, Fall 2007, p. 74.

5 Lincoln A. Mitchell, The Color Revolutions (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), p. 86.

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

7 It is conceivable that in Georgia the cosy relationship with the Bush administration actually encouraged nondemocratic behaviour, by leading Saakashvili to think he could mistreat local opponents without objection from external patrons.

8 See, for example, Nicolas Bouchet, ‘Russia and the Democracy Rollback in Europe’, The German Marshall Fund of the United States, 26 May 2016, http://www.gmfus.org/publications/russiaand-democracy-rollback-europe.

9 Timothy Colton, ‘Sources and Limits of Russia’s Influence in Post-Soviet Eurasia’, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Seattle, WA, 3 September 2011, p. 11.

10 Nelli Babayan, ‘The Return of the Empire? Russia’s Counteraction to Transatlantic Democracy Promotion in Its Near Abroad’, Democratization, vol. 22, no. 3, March 2015, pp. 438–58.

11 Andrei Kolesnikov, ‘Obnimai, no proveryai’, Kommersant, 21 March 2005.

12 ‘Nachalo vstrechi s prem’er-ministrom Ukrainy Yuliei Timoshenko', 19 March 2005, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/22867.

13 ‘Commission Staff Working Paper – European Neighbourhood Policy – Country Report Ukraine {COM(2004)373 Final}’, 12 May 2004, http://www.enpi-info.eu/library/content/ukraine-enp-country-report.

14 ‘Russia – Final Version of the Road Map on the Common Economic Space Agreed at the EU–Russia Summit on 10 May’, 24 May 2005, http://www.enpi-info.eu/library/content/eu-russia-roadmap-common-economic-space.

15 Jonathan Stern, ‘The Russian– Ukrainian Gas Crisis of January 2006′, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, 16 January 2006, p. 6.

16 Rilka Dragneva and Kataryna Wolczuk, Ukraine Between the EU and Russia (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), p. 74.

17 James Sherr, Hard Diplomacy and Soft Coercion: Russia's Influence Abroad (London: Chatham House, 2013).

18 Marlene Laruelle, ‘The “Russian World”: Russia’s Soft Power and Geopolitical Imagination’, Center on Global Interests, May 2015; Sinikukka Saari, ‘Russia’s Post-Orange Revolution Strategies to Increase Its Influence in Former Soviet Republics: Public Diplomacy Po Russkii’, Europe– Asia Studies, vol. 66, no. 1, January 2014, pp. 50–66.

19 Dick Cheney, In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir (New York: Threshold Editions, 2012), p. 428.

20 Ronald Asmus, ‘Redrawing (Again) the Map of Europe: A Strategy for Integrating Ukraine into the West’, in Joerg Forbrig and Robin Shepherd (eds), Ukraine after the Orange Revolution: Strengthening European and Transatlantic Commitments (Washington DC: The German Marshall Fund of the United States, 2005), p. 90.

21 George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York: Broadway Books, 2011), p. 430.

22 ‘Cheney’s Speech in Lithuania’, 4 May 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/04/world/europe/04cnd-cheney-text.html.

23 In 2006, NATO membership was broadly unpopular among Ukrainians, including in the traditionally pro-Western central and western regions, where 23% supported and 29% opposed, to say nothing of the south and east, traditionally more pro-Russian (7% support for NATO, 77% opposed). Kyiv International Institute of Sociology data cited in Valeriy Khmel’ko, ‘Cherez shcho politykam vdayet’sya rozkolyuvaty Ukrayinu’, Dzerkalo tyzhnya, 23 June 2006, http://gazeta.dt.ua/ARCHIVE/cherez_scho_politikam_vdaetsya_rozkolyuvati_ukrayinu.html.

24 ‘Ukraine on the Road to NATO: A Status Report’, 14 February 2006, released by WikiLeaks as Cable 06KIEV604_a, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06KIEV604_a.html.

25 According to the US Department of State, at least US$2.5 million was spent on GUAM-related projects between the fiscal years 2004 and 2008. See US Government Assistance to and Cooperative Activities with Eurasia, http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rpt/c10250.htm.

26 The Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, stationed there under the terms of the ceasefire agreements that ended the conflicts of the early 1990s, were thus not covered by the Istanbul Commitments and remained.

27 Some details may be found in ‘A/S Fried-Poldir Araud on Iran, Kosovo, Georgia, Moldova/CFE, NATO Ministerial’, 31 January 2007, released by WikiLeaks as Cable 07PARIS363_a, https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/07PARIS363_a.html; ‘CFE: Germany Pushes for Being Forward-Leaning on A/CFE Ratification at Upcoming Extraordinary Conference’, 4 June 2007, released by WikiLeaks as Cable 07BERLIN1107_a, https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/07BERLIN1107_a.html; ‘November 7 HLTF and NRC-ACE Meetings at NATO’, 28 November 2006, released by WikiLeaks as Cable 06USNATO687_a, https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06USNATO687_a.html.

28 ‘Poslanie Federal’nomu Sobraniyu Rossiiskoi Federatsii', 26 April 2007, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24203.

29 It should be noted that the CFE treaty contains no suspension clause so the Russian move was of dubious legality.

30 ‘DFM Karasin on Ukraine, Georgia, Transnistria, Armenia and Belarus’, 8 February 2008, released by WikiLeaks as Cable 08MOSCOW353_a, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW353_a.html.

31 Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (New York: Broadway Paperbacks, 2012), p. 671.

32 Ronald D. Asmus, A Little War That Shook the World: Georgia, Russia, and the Future of the West (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 117.

33 ‘Bush and Yushchenko Remark on Ukraine and Nato’, Washington Post, 1 April 2008, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/01/AR2008040101600.html.

34 Radek Sikorski, quoted in Rice, No Higher Honor, p. 674.

35 ‘Bucharest Summit Declaration’, 3 April 2008, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm.

36 ‘Zayavlenie dlya pressy i otvety na voprosy zhurnalistov po itogam zasedaniya Soveta Rossiya–NATO’, 4 April 2008, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24903.

37 Asmus, A Little War That Shook the World, p. 136.

38 ‘THE PRESIDENT IN EUROPE; Bush’s Vision: “We Will Not Trade Away the Fate of Free European Peoples”’, New York Times, 16 June 2001.

39 Moreover, the Yalta accords actually guaranteed Poland ‘free elections of governments responsive to the will of the people’, a provision, of course, which Stalin subsequently violated. See Conrad Black, ‘The Yalta Myth’, National Interest, May 2014, http://nationalinterest.org/article/the-yalta-myth-1052.

40 Ibid.

41 Asmus, A Little War That Shook the World, p. 146.

42 Ibid., p. 149.

43 ‘Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia Report’, September 2009, http://echr.coe.int/Documents/HUDOC_38263_08_Annexes_ENG.pdf.

44 ‘Ex-Ambassador of Georgia: Georgian Invasion to Abkhazia Was Prepared in April–May’, Caucasian Knot, 25 November 2008, http://www.eng.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/8765/; International Crisis Group, ‘Georgia and Russia: Clashing over Abkhazia’, Europe Report no. 193, 5 June 2008.

45 According to Asmus, Saakashvili received reports on 7August that Russia was massing troops on the border and even inside South Ossetia. Asmus, A Little War That Shook the World, p. 23. See also C.J. Chivers, ‘Georgia Offers Fresh Evidence on War’s Start’, New York Times, 15 September 2008.

46 As Asmus writes, ‘Throughout this period, Russian officials used both front and back diplomatic channels to tell their Western counterparts that their military steps were simply a deterrent to prevent the Georgians from acting rashly and attacking Abkhazia.’ Asmus, A Little War That Shook the World, p. 145.

47 For example, Cheney called for granting a MAP in a speech in Italy in September 2008: ‘At Bucharest only five months ago, we considered extending a Membership Action Plan to Georgia and Ukraine, but did not do so. But Allies agreed that those nations will be NATO members, and the time to begin their Membership Action Plans, I believe, has come.’ ‘Vice President’s Remarks at the Ambrosetti Forum’, 6 September 2008, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/09/20080906-1.html.

48 ‘Ukraine, MAP, and the Georgia–Russia Conflict’, 14 August 2008, released by WikiLeaks as Cable 08USNATO290_a, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08USNATO290_a.html.

49 Dmitri Trenin, Post-Imperium: A Eurasian Story (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2011), p. 98.

50 Asmus, A Little War That Shook the World, p. 186.

51 Joe Wood interview in Ben Smith, ‘U.S. Pondered Military Use in Georgia’, Politico, 3 February 2010, http://www.politico.com/story/2010/02/us-pondered-military-use-in-georgia-032487.

52 Dragneva and Wolczuk, Ukraine Between the EU and Russia, p. 4. The term ‘normative power’ was first used in Ian Manners, ‘Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?’, Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 40, no. 2, June 2002, pp. 235–58.

53 ‘Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament: Wider Europe – Neighbourhood: A New Framework for Relations with Our Eastern and Southern Neighbors {COM(2003) – 104 Final}’, 11 March 2003, http://eeas.europa.eu/enp/pdf/pdf/com03_104_en.pdf.

54 Authors’ interview with Javier Solana, June 2016.

55 Tom Casier, ‘The Clash of Integration Processes? The Shadow Effect of the Enlarged EU on Its Eastern Neighbours’, in Katlijn Malfliet, Lien Verpoest and Evgeny Vinokurov (eds), The CIS, the EU and Russia: The Challenges of Integration (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 74.

56 Romano Prodi, ‘Europe and the Mediterranean: Time for Action’, Speech, Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, 26 November 2002, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-02-589_en.htm.

57 These are administered by the CIS Interstate Council for Standardization, Metrology and Certification, which has a coordinating body in Minsk. Interestingly, all 12 non-Baltic former Soviet republics, including non-members of the CIS, are represented on the Council. See the Council's website for more information: http://www.easc.org.by/.

58 ‘Joint Statement on EU Enlargement and EU–Russia Relations’ (European Union, 27 April 2004), http://www.enpi-info.eu/library/content/joint-statement-eu-enlargement-and-eu-russia-relations. See also Holger Moroff, ‘EU Policies toward Russia’, in Katlijn Malfliet, Lien Verpoest and Evgeny Vinokurov (eds), The CIS, the EU, and Russia: The Challenges of Integration (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

59 ‘European Security Strategy: A Secure Europe in a Better World’, 2009, p. 23, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/documents-publications/publications/2009/pdf/european-security-strategy-secure-europe-better-world/.

60 Authors’ interview with Javier Solana.

61 Valentina Pop, ‘EU Expanding Its “Sphere of Influence,” Russia Says’, EUobserver, 21 March 2009, https://euobserver.com/foreign/27827.

62 Constanze Stelzenmüller, ‘Walk – But Learn to Chew the Gum Too. After the Russo–Georgian War of 2008: Transatlantic Approaches to a New Eastern Policy’, paper presented at the 11th Annual Foreign Policy Conference of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Berlin, 27 September 2010, p. 10.

63 Andrei Zagorski, ‘Eastern Partnership from the Russian Perspective’, Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft, vol. 3, 2011, p. 46, http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/ipg/2011-3/05_zagorski.pdf.

64 ‘Government Statement Delivered by Chancellor Angela Merkel on the EU’s Eastern Partnership Summit to Be Held on 28/29 November 2013 in Vilnius’, 18 November 2013, https://www.bundeskanzlerin.de/ContentArchiv/EN/Archiv17/Regierungsrerkl%C3%A4rung/2013-11-18-merkel-oestl-partnerschaften.html.

65 The timing of the move was apparently due to a push from Kazakhstan's President Nazarbaev. It came as a surprise to many, including those officials negotiating Russia's WTO accession, who had to adjust that process to accommodate the new Customs Union.

66 See European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, ‘Regional Trade Integration and Eurasian Economic Union’, in Transition Report 2012: Integration Across Borders, 2012, pp. 62–79, http://tr.ebrd.com/tr12/images/downloads/TR12_EN_web_bookmarks3.pdf.

67 Vladimir Putin, ‘Novyi integratsionnyi proekt dlya Evrazii — budushchee, kotoroe rozhdaetsya segodnya’, Izvestiya, 3 October 2011.

68 Putin's conception of the Eurasian bloc forming an independent pole in global politics was remarkably similar to the way in which Russian officials talked about their aspirations for Russia.

69 Nursultan Nazarbaev, ‘Evraziiskii Soyuz: ot idei k istorii budushchego’, Izvestiya, 25 October 2011, http://izvestia.ru/news/504908.

70 Putin, ‘Novyi integratsionnyi proekt dlya Evrazii’.

71 Denis Cenusa et al., ‘Russia’s Punitive Trade Policy Measures towards Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia’, CEPS Working Document, Centre for European Policy Studies, September 2014, pp. 7–8.

72 See the draft foreign-policy strategy produced for Medvedev, as leaked to the press: ‘O programme effektivnogo ispol’zovaniya na sistemnoi osnove vneshnepoliticheskikh faktorov v tselyakh dolgosrochnogo razvitiya Rossiiskoi Federatsii', https://www.hse.ru/data/2010/09/27/1223786940/Foreign_policy_for_modernisation_program.doc.

73 Michael McFaul, ‘Assessing the “Reset”: Past Progress, Future Steps’, Presentation, Peterson Institute for International Economics, 15 April 2011, https://piie.com/sites/default/files/publications/papers/mcfaul20110415.pdf.

74 Michael McFaul, ‘The Russian Economy and US–Russia Relations’, Event Transcript, Peterson Institute for International Economics, 15 April 2011, https://piie.com/publications/papers/transcript-20110415mcfaul.pdf.

75 ‘Joint Statement of the Presidents of the United States and the Russian Federation in Connection with the Situation in the Kyrgyz Republic’, 24 June 2010, https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/us-russia_joint_statement_on_kyrgyzstan.pdf.

76 ‘NATO–Russia Council Joint Statement at the Meeting of the NATO–Russia Council Held in Lisbon on 20 November 2010′, 20 November 2010, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_68871.htm.

77 Nikonov quoted in Gregory L. White, ‘In Secret Report, Russia Shifts Westward’, Wall Street Journal, 12 May 2010, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703565804575238291897667152.

78 Samuel Charap and Mikhail Troitskiy, ‘U.S.–Russia Relations in Post-Soviet Eurasia: Transcending the Zero-Sum Game’, Working Group on the Future of US–Russia Relations, September 2011, p. 19, https://futureofusrussiarelations.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/us-russiafuture_working_group_paper_1.pdf.

79 ‘Vystuplenie na Konferentsii po voprosam mirovoi politiki’, 8 October 2008, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/1659.

80 ‘Stenograficheskii otchet o vstreche s uchastnikami mezhdunarodnogo kluba “Valdai”’, 12 September 2008, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/1383.

81 ‘Interv’yu Dmitriya Medvedeva rossiiskim telekanalam', 31 August 2008, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/1276.

82 ‘Remarks by Vice President Biden at 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy’, 7 February 2009, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-vice-president-biden-45th-munich-conference-security-policy.

83 ‘The Draft of the European Security Treaty’, 29 November 2009, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/6152.

84 Hillary Rodham Clinton, ‘Remarks on the Future of European Security’, 29 January 2010, http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2010/01/136273.htm.

85 ‘ASD/ISA Vershbow’s September 30 Visit to Moscow: Bilateral Cooperation, Iran, Afghanistan, Missile Defense, Military/Defense Cooperation’, released by WikiLeaks as Cable 09MOSCOW2529_a, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09MOSCOW2529_a.html.

86 State Department cable cited in Joshua Kucera, ‘U.S. Blocking NATO–CSTO Cooperation’, EurasiaNet, 12 February 2011, http://www.eurasianet.org/node/62882.

87 ‘Memorandum, Meeting of Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Dmitri Medvedev on 4–5 June 2010 in Meseberg’, 5 June 2010, http://www.russianmission.eu/sites/default/files/user/files/2010-06-05-meseberg-memorandum.pdf. See also Philip Remler, ‘Negotiation Gone Bad: Russia, Germany, and Crossed Communications’, Carnegie Europe, 21 August 2013, http://carnegieeurope.eu/publications/?fa=52712.