One day in November 2016, a Russian MP stormed an uneventful session of the State Duma in Moscow to shout that Donald Trump had won the US presidential election. President Putinās ālawmakers spontaneously leaped to their feet and delivered a raucous standing ovationā (Weir 2016). Europeans had good reasons to be in a very different mood as they began to āwait in fear of the next Trump tweetā (Ischinger 2017). Soon, there was āan insurgent in the White Houseā and Washington found itself āin the grip of a revolutionā (The Economist, February 4, 2017). In addition to Russia, China, and Iran, another āhostile revisionist power has indeed arrived on the scene, but it sits in the Oval Office, the beating heart of the free worldā (Ikenberry 2017: 2). Under its influence, the USA would dismantle the international liberal order it has constructed since Bretton Woods, support dictators all over the world, and betray its allies. In Eastern Europe, it would seek a grand alignment with much admired President Putin. If invaded, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) eastern members would first be checked if they āfulfilled their obligations to usā (Sanger and Haberman 2016). Accordingly, a period of āgeopolitical recessionā was announced (Bremmer and Kupchan 2017: 2). Alarmed East European leaders sent a letter to the President-elect explaining the dramatic regional consequences of his intensions to end sanctions on Russia and to accept āthe division and subjugation of Ukraine.ā Aptly, their supreme argument was flattery: āPutin does not seek American greatness. As your allies, we doā (BÄsescu et al. 2017). To the general surprise, during the following months everybody noted that āDonald Trumpās foreign policy looks more normal than promisedā (The Economist, April 15, 2017). āMore normalā does not mean ānormal;ā the behavior of the new President remains as atypical and unpredictable as ever. Still, at least in Eastern Europe, the US foreign policy does not look very different from what it used to be during the last period of the previous administration. Some prefer to take this as a strong indication of the fact that, ultimately, nothing is going to significantly change in that region. This book is based on a very different view. On the one hand, the Washington-Moscow relationship can develop in a number of very different ways, which include the unlikely but not impossible grand alignment desired by President Trump. On the other hand, East European geopolitics will be considerably influenced by the major changes in the EU integration process triggered by Brexit and by the Unionās identity crisis the latter illustrates. Consequences might not be obvious today, but their medium- and long-term impact on Eastern Europe and on the entire European continent is likely to be dramatic.
The theoretical approach used in this book is presented in Chapter 2. It is based on Stefano Guzziniās view of neoclassical geopolitics enriched with elements from the Regional Security Complex Theory. The resulting thin cognitivist approach accordingly combines materialist and ideational elements. Its object of study is the East European regional security complex, which is defined as incorporating post-communist EU member states, the rest of the European Union, western Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) republics, and Russia. Two external powers, the USA and the post-Brexit UK, penetrate this complex.
Chapter 3 analyzes in what way the need for domestic legitimacy of President Putinās authoritarian regime and the deep impact of neoclassical geopolitics on the development of Russiaās identity as an international actor have turned Moscow into an aggressive revisionist power that seriously endangers the stability of the East European regional security complex through the use of effective instruments that range from cyberwarfare and energy blackmail to hybrid wars and frozen conflicts. The Kremlinās actions have already led to the āmilitarization of thinkingā in Eastern Europe and increasingly threaten European Unionās Kantian geopolitical vision. Russian cooperative projects such as the Eurasian Union or the Greater Europe proposal also exist, but they are indicative of the Kremlinās willingness to adopt a non-antagonistic attitude in Eastern Europe only on its own terms, which are inspired by neoclassical geopolitics and require a never-ending series of Munich-type concessions from its partners. Due to Washingtonās and Brusselsā rejection of such concessions, Russian aggressiveness has come to represent a sort of structural constraint that will impact considerably the future trajectory of the entire regional security complex.
A very different actor is scrutinized in Chapter 4. The ācivilian powerā European Union is a mature tightly coupled security community that lacks a fully ācommunitizedā foreign policy. Brusselsā efforts to export its Kantian, win-win geopolitical vision to the Eastern neighborhoodāwhich include the Eastern enlargement, the European Neighborhood Policy, and the Eastern Partnershipāhave resulted in conflict with Moscow. Institutionally and intellectually unprepared, lacking effective instruments and experience, the EU was unable to face the Russian neoclassical geopolitical offensive, as illustrated by the Ukrainian crisis. Even more importantly, inside the Union the populist wave and a number of overlapping serious economic and political crises have led to a ādynamic of disintegrationā and to an āexistential crisis.ā Brexit represents the starting point of a process of change that might lead either to deeper integration or to the dominance of the Franco-German axis, which in turn could eventually evolve toward the geopolitical irrelevance of the EU accompanied by the transformation of Germany into the most important West European actor.
The role of the USA and its probable future evolution are analyzed in Chapter 5. Simplifying this complex topic to an extreme, at the systemic level of analysis there is the key linkage between the āpivot to Asiaā required by Chinaās geopolitical rise and the āresetā of the relations with Russia needed in order to transfer resources to the Pacific. At the individual level, there are President Trumpās personality traits (that I examine using Aubrey Immelmanās psychology approach) and ensuing worldview, which includes hostility to China and admiration for President Putin. In between, at the state level of analysis, there are the opposition of Republicans and US foreign policy establishment to a Kremlin-friendly foreign policy and the critical issue of the Russiagate scandal, which greatly constraints the Presidentās pro-Moscow actions. Four possible scenarios ensue that include moderate US-Russia tensions, limited cooperation, a short-lived grand alignment, and a genuine one allowing for a complete American pivot to Asia leading to major tensions and possibly to a Cold War with China.
Chapter 6 examines the European states and identifies a hierarchy among their ability to influence geopolitical interactions within the East European security complex. The Franco-German axis will likely acquire unprecedented influence by taking control of the European Union. Ifāor rather whenāboth the axis and the Union decline for reasons related to the lack of balance between France and increasingly hegemonic Germany and to their opposing views on a number of issues that include the critical EU common commercial policy, Berlin will become the prime West European actor. Post-communist EU member states as well as the CIS republics will try to use US and British support in order to avoid joining Berlinās or Moscowās spheres of influence. Moreover, they will have to deal with major domestic challenges related to the rise of populist nationalism and to the ensuing development of authoritarian regimes.
However, this does not mean that East European states will passively be subjected to great power actions and structural factors. Chapter 7 show...