Dealing with the Russians

Andrew Monaghan

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781509527625, 9781509527618
• eBook ISBN: 9781509527656
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Globalisation
• Index: Politics & International Relations

How to handle Russia? This question has become ever more prominent as the Euro-Atlantic community's relations with Russia languish in systemic crisis, with dialogue suspended, reciprocal sanctions in place and proxy wars raging. The wars in Ukraine and Syria, accusations of Russian interference in domestic politics and the attempted murder of the Skripals on UK soil have all contributed to soaring tension in the relationship.

Yet faced with this array of serious challenges, Euro-Atlantic thinking about Russia remains stuck in twentieth-century rhetoric, trapped by misleading abstract labels and unsure whether to engage Moscow in dialogue or enhance deterrence and collective defence. Instead of thinking in these terms, leading Russia expert Andrew Monaghan argues that we must devise a new grand strategy for dealing with the Russians. Examining the ongoing Euro-Atlantic debate over Russia and framing Moscow's own position towards the West, he sets out the foundations of a forward-looking strategy; one that can accommodate the many complex challenges presented by this new era of competition between Russia, Europe and the United States.

1
The Predicament

How to deal with Russia? This question has become ever more urgent since Russia's annexation of Crimea in early 2014. Senior Western politicians and officials frequently condemn Russian actions in robust terms, and states and international organizations have published official documents naming Russia as a rival, as aggressive and defining itself in opposition to the West.¹ The USA and European Union (EU) sought to punish Russian actions and change Russian policy by suspending Moscow's participation in mechanisms for dialogue, such as the G8, and imposing financial and economic sanctions on Russia, whilst emphasizing their own collective defence and deterrence measures. Despite the rhetoric and the policies, though, Moscow has not altered course. Indeed, the Russian leadership has vehemently rejected Western accusations, introduced counter-sanctions and increased the number and size of its own military exercises, including near North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) borders.

A sense of the rapid emergence of competing, even opposing camps has become ever more explicit, with both sides emphasizing the loss of trust in the relationship and accusing the other of the responsibility for initiating and then escalating the tensions and increasing military activity both in specific areas such as the Baltic Sea and Syria, and beyond. Numerous close encounters illustrate the tension and concern about the possibility for accidental escalation.

The dangerous nature of the situation was made clear in November 2015, when Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24, an act which Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev claimed gave Moscow legitimate grounds to go to war. Noting that such direct attacks on states in the twentieth century led to war, he suggested that Turkey, through its act of aggression against Russia, had violated international norms, giving a ‘casus belli’. But in the present situation, he suggested, a ‘war is the worst that could happen’, and that's why a decision was taken not to give a ‘symmetrical answer to what the Turks had done’.² Since then, there have been numerous similarly tense moments in Syria.

Russia's Emergence as a Peer Challenger

Russia is now seen by many in the Euro-Atlantic community to pose a significant threat to international security, and to be undermining the rules-based system. Many have argued, for instance, that Moscow uses so-called ‘hybrid warfare’ to challenge the cohesion and unity of NATO and the EU and the sovereignty of their member states, particularly Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. ‘Russian hybrid warfare’, which is examined in more depth in chapter 2, is understood as conflict-related insecurity, a strategy, according to one prominent Western thinker, to ‘confuse us and perplex us by not telling the truth’ and disorient us about Vladimir Putin's intentions.³ This has generated much talk of Moscow using ‘asymmetric means’ and ‘measures short of war’.

In this vein, many accuse Moscow of interfering in the domestic politics of Euro-Atlantic states, of funding anti-EU political parties such as the French National Front, of interfering in the UK's referendum on its membership of the EU, and of spending millions ‘to spread its version of reality in Europe, including sometimes fabrications’.⁴ Indeed, such accusations spread across Europe, including Germany, the Czech Republic and Spain, with some suggesting that Russian hackers and trolls tried to increase support for separatism in Catalonia in 2017. And most prominent of all, of course, are the accusations of Russian interference in the US presidential elections in November 2016.⁵ According to Joe Biden, US Vice President until 2017, therefore, the Russian government is ‘brazenly assaulting the foundations of Western Democracy around the world … it has sought to weaken and subvert Western democracies from the inside by weaponizing information, cyberspace, energy and corruption’.⁶

Numerous senior British politicians and officials have also pointed to what they see as a Russian threat. In a prominent speech in November 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May accused Russia of threatening international order, ‘fomenting conflict’, repeatedly violating the national airspace of several European countries and mounting a sustained ‘campaign of cyber espionage and disruption’.⁷ The UK's Secretary of Defence asserted in December 2017 that Russia was at war with the UK, and then in January 2018 that Russia was seeking ways to damage the UK's economy by attacking its infrastructure, which could create ‘total chaos and cause thousands and thousands of deaths’. He reiterated similar claims in February, noting that the UK had ‘entered a new era of warfare’ with Russian cyber attacks.⁸

Many also accuse Russia of indirectly and directly exacerbating the security challenges Europe faces. Philip Breedlove, then NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), accused Russia of deliberately bombarding civilian centres in Syria to exacerbate the refugee crisis to ‘overwhelm European structures and break European resolve’.⁹ Equally, others see Russia as posing a direct military challenge to NATO, and putting itself on a ‘collision course’ with the alliance, particularly in terms of a possible Russian invasion of the Baltic states.¹⁰

Indeed, the use by the Russian leadership of military power to achieve policy ends has come as a shock to Euro-Atlantic officials and politicians. Many – including senior military figures – have been unpleasantly surprised by Russian military capabilities. In June 2016, the then commander of the US Army Europe, Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, pointed to the speed and scale of Russian capabilities: ‘the Russians are able to move huge formations and lots of equipment a long distance, very fast’, he noted. ‘It's concerning’, he suggested, because NATO does not have such speed. Hodges also pointed to comparative shortfalls in intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, short-range air defence and combat aviation.¹¹ The Russian ‘Zapad-2017’ exercises in autumn 2017 generated something approaching panic in Western media, as observers – supported in some instances by official assessments – estimated that the exercises would be over 100,000 strong and could be a cover for an invasion of the Baltic states or of Ukraine.¹² Even after the exercise was completed, prominent media sources quoted Western officials to suggest that Zapad had been a rehearsal for a ‘full-scale conventional war’ against NATO and the capture of the Baltic states, and a shock campaign against Germany and the Netherlands, Poland and Norway, as well as neutral Sweden and Finland.¹³

There is even concern in the US. General Joseph Dunford, then nominee chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in July 2015 that Russia could pose an ‘existential threat’ to the US and that its behaviour was ‘alarming’. Subsequently, in spring 2016, he stated that the ‘Russian military presents the greatest array of threats to US interests’.¹⁴ Others, including General Mark Milley, then Chief of Staff of the US Army, have agreed, stating that Russia should be considered the number one threat to the US because of its capa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Abbreviations
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• 1: The Predicament
• 2: (Mis)interpreting the Russian Threat
• 3: From Dialogue to Deterrence
• 4: Dealing with the Russians: Pillars of a Twenty-First-Century Strategy
• Index
• End User License Agreement