‘This is our 9/11’ remarked a senior European diplomat recently, as he scrambled to deal with the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. At first glance, this is clearly an exaggeration: Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine may have stunned the world, but at least for now it has resulted in very few deaths, so its immediate consequences are not comparable to those of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the US, in which thousands perished. Still, the diplomat’s comparison is apt in at least one respect. For, just like the 9/11 tragedy, the Ukraine crisis represents a historic turning point – a seminal event capable of changing worldwide strategic calculations. The showdown over Ukraine may not unleash a new Cold War, but it certainly marks the end of the post-Cold War period and a leap into the unknown.
The Europeans, who are most directly affected by this episode, faced a similar crisis in 2008, when Russian troops launched a military attack on Georgia. That war also prompted howls of protest, lots of ‘emergency summits’ and plenty of threats that Moscow would ‘pay dearly’ for its deeds, although there was ultimately no action. There are politicians in Europe today who believe that the same thing will happen with Ukraine. Everyone privately accepts that Ukraine’s territory has now been carved up by Russian soldiers, probably forever. But then, that is precisely what happened in Georgia and, as the legions of armchair strategists led by Henry Kissinger –who are always eager to compromise at the expense of others – like to point out, accepting such territorial losses is a small price to pay for averting an East–West confrontation.
Yet the comparisons between Georgia and Ukraine are fallacious. Georgia is a faraway country; Ukraine is in the heart of Europe. Georgia has no common borders with the European Union, while Ukraine shares borders with no less than four EU member states, which are also members of NATO. What happens regarding Ukraine is, therefore, of an entirely different order of magnitude.
More significantly, the Ukraine crisis has blown to pieces all of the assumptions which have underpinned European security arrangements over the past two decades. The former communist countries of Eastern Europe have argued all along that Russia remains a military threat. But Western Europeans, led by Germany, dismissed these fears as just Eastern Europe’s neurotic obsession with its old Russian colonial master.
So, although the Eastern Europeans were admitted into the EU and NATO, no military bases were erected on their soil, and their concerns were often dismissed as irrelevant: as former French President Jacques Chirac once brutally remarked, the wisest policy for the Eastern Europeans was to ‘shut up’.
The Ukraine crisis has put paid to that. The Eastern Europeans feel vindicated in their suspicions of Russia, and the rest of the continent can no longer dismiss such fears as irrational.
Germany and the UK still hope that they may be able to block pressure to move NATO bases further east, partly because nobody can spare the cash, and nobody wants to endanger lucrative commercial contracts with Moscow. However, such delaying tactics no longer work: faced with what they perceive to be a direct Russian threat to their safety, Eastern Europeans will either get real security guarantees in the form of forward-based NATO forces on their soil, or they will effectively paralyse decision-making procedures in both NATO and the EU, where they control about 40 per cent of the votes.
And, within a matter of months, Germany will be faced with a straight choice between protecting its friendly relations with Russia while risking a fundamental breach within Europe, and going along with the Eastern Europeans while risking a confrontation with Russia. It is a choice all German politicians dread, but one that they will probably make in favour of their European partners.
The British, who are hosting the NATO summit this September, initially planned for an agenda of discussions on Afghanistan, Africa and piracy on the high seas. Instead, NATO will be forced back to a very traditional agenda: that of providing security to the Alliance’s territory in Europe. For Europe, the biggest problem today is not Ukraine as such, but the realisation that Russia is challenging the territorial status quo on the continent.
Similar pressures against old strategic certainties are also being felt in Washington, where President Obama faces widespread accusations that his foreign policy is in tatters.
It is not evident that Mr Obama’s alleged weakness encouraged the Russians to invade Ukraine; the Russians invaded Georgia in 2008, when the supposedly ‘trigger-happy’ George W Bush was still in power. But it is true that Obama’s ‘reset’ policy of friendship towards Russia was based on puerile, simplistic assumptions which never had the slightest chance of working. It is equally likely that the president’s notorious lack of interest in foreign-policy matters, coupled with his erratic behaviour over Syria, may have led Russian President Vladimir Putin to the conclusion that he can do as he pleases.
Either way, the consensus in Washington is that Obama now has to act to save the credibility of his presidency. The dispatch of US fighter jets to Eastern Europe and a naval vessel to the Black Sea are the first, symbolic moves. These may be followed by a freeze on current plans for a US military drawdown of soldiers from Europe and an acceleration in the positioning of missile-defence installations in Europe.
Further ahead, Obama may suspend the ban currently in place on the export of American shale gas and oil to Europe in order to help reduce the latter’s dependence on Russian energy supplies. Meanwhile, arms-control negotiations will remain dead, as will any prospects of a meaningful dialogue between Russia and the US.
These developments are good news for China, for at least four different reasons. The more Russia feels cornered by the US, the more the Russians will need China’s friendship. In addition, the more the US concentrates on Europe, the less the Americans have to devote to their Asian ‘pivot’, to China’s relief.
The fact that the validity of the US security guarantees to Europe is now in question will also raise doubts in the minds of America’s Asian allies about the value of their own security guarantees from Washington, yet another development the Chinese may enjoy. And, to make matters better still from Beijing’s perspective, the more the Russians are pushed out of Europe’s energy markets by the current tensions, the more Moscow will need to sell its oil and gas to China, at prices which Beijing dictates.
Conversely, China’s current strategic gain is Japan’s loss. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has expended considerable efforts on forging a personal relationship with President Putin, partly in order to secure access to Siberian energy deposits, but also to counterbalance China. Now, however, Abe will be forced to choose between his friendship with Putin and his loyalty to the US. The outcome is certain, but the decision will not be relished by the Japanese prime minister, who views his ties with Russia as one of his key foreign-policy achievements.
None of this spells the start of a Second Cold War: Russia is far too integrated into the world economy to be completely isolated and nobody cares for ideology any more, so the old, rigid dividing lines between East and West cannot be recreated. Nevertheless, a prolonged period of ‘armed peace’ between Russia and the West is now in the offing, one in which at least some of the old Cold War scenarios will stage a comeback.
Russia will become a nuisance power, blocking Western initiatives around the world not because it knows what it wants but, more simply, to make America’s life difficult. An arms race, particularly in short- and medium-range missiles and naval systems may also develop. And both Russia and the US will lavish cash and attention on a variety of allies around the world.
With a decrepit economy, Russia can ill-afford this competition and has no chance of prevailing against the US. But Moscow will try nevertheless, and Washington no longer feels able to ignore the challenge.
So much for those who, as the Cold War concluded, rushed to proclaim the ‘end of history’.
Dr Jonathan Eyal
Director of International Security Studies, RUSI, and Editor of RUSI Newsbrief
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