Thu
Jul
30

“Europe has no interest in decoupling from Asia” – interview with Parag Khanna

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Dr. Parag Khanna is a leading global strategy advisor, world traveller, and best-selling author.

Sometimes crises put history on fast forward. What would you expect to be the geopolitical fallout/aftershocks that will shape the post-coronavirus world? To what extent is Covid-19 accelerating some of the trends that were discernible even before the pandemic? 

For me the biggest geopolitical and geoeconomic trend under way for quite a few years is regionalisation. It is an organic process given the growth of the Asian regional environment, given the renegotiation of the North American trade relationships, but also because of the US-China trade war. In the post-COVID world regionalism will accelerate because it is very difficult to travel outside of one’s region for an indefinite period of time, as the supply chains are going to be more entrenched within the regions; it will accelerate because of the growing suspicion of outsourcing to China across long distances. In short, there are many reasons why we will see this emphasis on the region, instead of the global. This is a very significant geopolitical trend that began before the pandemic.

There is no West…

You are a researcher of globalisation and connectivity. What will change in the pattern of globalisation? How will globalisation be restructured and recalibrated? Especially in a context shaped by pressures for decoupling and fears of deglobalisation.

It is very important to emphasise that decoupling and deglobalisation are different things. Deglobalisation is if all globalisation stops. But Europe and China are both trading more with Asia, therefore you do not have deglobalisation. Decoupling simply means that the US might invest less in China, it might buy less from China and the reverse. Some connections are weaker and some connections are getting stronger. But when it comes to trade, the United States is not nearly as important as Asia. We should be looking at the globalisation of trade from the Asian standpoint, not the American standpoint. Trade between Europe and Asia is much larger than trade with America. There is not necessarily deglobalisation, but we can identify sectorial decoupling. 

In the post-COVID world regionalism will accelerate because it is very difficult to travel outside of one’s region for an indefinite period of time, as the supply chains are going to be more entrenched within the regions; it will accelerate because of the growing suspicion of outsourcing to China across long distances.

We can talk about increasing globalisation or decreasing globalisation by sector. In the energy sector, you have deglobalisation because oil is abundant, but consumption is down, so you have less trade in oil. You have some slight deglobalisation of finance, as some portfolio capital has been removed from some emerging markets. In digital services there is an increase of globalisation – everyone is using Skype, Zoom and Netflix. We have an increase in trade in digital services, which is a very high value-added component of globalisation. It is more important and more valuable than oil. We usually see the oil tankers as the embodiment of globalisation, but they are not. Internet is a better embodiment of globalisation.

To what extent is this phenomenon of decoupling reinforcing the trend of regionalisation? In both United States and Europe we can hear calls for reshoring some strategic industries and creating some sort of Western resilience from this perspective. Should we expect massive shifts in this direction? 

When we talk about infrastructure, supply chains and resilience we should not be talking about the West. The West is a cultural concept and it has nothing to do with supply chains and resilience, which are essentially geographical concepts. We must focus on North America and Europe completely separately. For example, Europe is moving towards some degree of decreasing the dependence on fossil fuels, therefore it is not competing for global oil supply. When you look to North America – United States, Canada and Mexico, all are major energy powers. North America has energy self-sufficiency, a large labour force, it has industrial potential, it has technology, labour, land. All of these potential inputs for self-sufficiency and resiliency are present in North America. Europe does not have its big software companies, but it has more people than North America, it has enough land, it has renewable energy, it has financial capital. It still needs to import some energy, it is still importing food from different parts of the world, but it is trying to be more self-sufficient. If Google were to stop Internet access for Google in Europe, that would be a problem for Europe. But there is no particular technology where you would say that if Europe switches off that access to America, then America is in trouble.

Time for Europe to take itself seriously

I also want to discuss a bit the dynamic that you see inside the Atlantic system. The COVID crisis that started in China hit the West dramatically, right at its core. Is COVID an opportunity for the Atlantic system, for reinventing the strategic unity & solidarity of the Atlantic system? We see a lot of calls from the other side of the Atlantic trying to persuade Europe to align with the U.S. in the broader great-power competition.

Europe has no interest in decoupling from Asia. Europe is much more export-dependent than America is. Europe still needs to trade and export to Asia. That is why you can see that while the US is trying to block the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Europeans were joining the AIIB. There are different perspectives on this issue. In terms of a strategic community, you can still argue that there is a cultural West, but in terms of geo-economics, you cannot argue that there is a common West. America’s geopolitical allies are also its geo-economic rivals. They are competing with each other to gain market share in Asia.

How would you see the EU faring in a post-COVID international system where we see so much internal fragmentation, between North and South, Old Europe and New Europe, but at the same time a world in which the “return of history” and Machtpolitik, not multilateralism define the new normal? 

I don’t believe in the language of Robert Kagan. It is reflective of a trend focused on measuring capabilities in a way that is very different from the way sophisticated people measure capabilities today. In the XXI century, there is no particular reason to privilege the size of a nuclear arsenal over market access. Europe’s strength derives from areas where a) it acts coherently, and b) where it demands reciprocity and where it insists on high standards. This is a very important source of European influence. Europe has to actually act on these capabilities in trade, in regulations, in human rights. What we are seeing over the last couple of years is Europe trying to be tougher on China in terms of reciprocity, demanding to have a greater share in the BRI projects, demanding reciprocal market access, it has declared China as a strategic competitor, it is working to develop a big fund to support strategic industries. All of these are indications that Europe does want to be a more coherent strategic player, but this will require of course that Europe evolves towards a common fiscal policy as well.

When we talk about infrastructure, supply chains and resilience we should not be talking about the West. The West is a cultural concept and it has nothing to do with supply chains and resilience, which are essentially geographical concepts. We must focus on North America and Europe completely separately.

Balancing China

In the recent past, the way China has been rising has created a lot of resentment in Japan, in Australia (as we’ve seen in the last few weeks) in the whole East Asia, because of Beijing’s aggressive push in the South China Sea. Does the US have the ability to create a balancing coalition to check China’s strategic ambitions there? Or is that a role to be played first and foremost by local countries (like the TPP-11)?

The answer is definitely both. The most important thing to remember is that Japanese, Indian, Korean and Australian interests have been aligned for a very long time. As neighbours of China, they’ve been concerned about China’s rise for much longer than anyone else. It is important not to argue that the United States are leading the effort to balance China. That is not true. Japan and India really are leading the effort. America has the most powerful capabilities and it is wisely supporting efforts like the Quad arrangement (Australia, India, Japan and United States). The four navies are working together to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific region. The aim is to prevent China from dominating the South China Sea, from dominating the Indian Ocean. This is going to shape Chinese behaviour. It is not a formal alliance, as in Asia alliances are very rare. It is a coalition of countries based on a very strong structural agreement on the desire to contain China.

In the book (“The Future is Asian: Commerce, Conflict & Culture in the 21st Century”) published last year you point out that “Russia and China are today closer than at any point since the heyday of their 1950s Communist alliance”. Do they learn from each other in challenging the status quo? Are they coordinating their movements?

It is more an axis of convenience than a real alliance. Russia remains very suspicious of China, but Russia is also accepting a lot of investment from China. What will happen over time is a China that is being very careful not to alienate Russia, as it could potentially cut down on the amount of the Chinese investments in the country, even though it needs it desperately. In the long term, China has significant interests in using Russia for access to Europe and the Arctic, but it has to be careful not to appear too dominant. I can see that right now Russia is the country that is most compliant with the Chinese interests, but in the medium term it could be the country where there is a substantial backlash against China.

In a shifting global landscape where we will see a change in supply chain patterns, will the Belt and Road Initiative remain a comparative advantage for China or could it become a liability?

The Belt and Road Initiative is an integral part of China’s grand strategy. A lot of people are discussing whether China is going to speak less about BRI or de-emphasise it. We should focus less on what they say in speeches and more on following the money. This is the bigger issue. What we will see is that China will talk less about BRI as it has become controversial, but I think it is still a strategic priority to achieve the supply chain diversification, to build these infrastructure corridors, to access West Asia and access Europe through infrastructure. There will still be BRI, but China will talk less, it will try to multilateralise more and it will have to make concessions on issues of debt relief in the wake of the pandemic.

In terms of a strategic community, you can still argue that there is a cultural West, but in terms of geo-economics, you cannot argue that there is a common West. America’s geopolitical allies are also its geo-economic rivals. They are competing with each other to gain market share in Asia.

Lessons from Asia in managing COVID-19 

South Korea and Taiwan were at the forefront in managing the pandemic. What lessons in terms of resilience and effective governance should be learned from their example, including by the West?What is crucial to remember is that these are democratic states (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan) that performed very well during the pandemic. The key aspect is that they are democracies, but they are also technocracies. They have democratic elections, independent branches of government and separation of powers, but they have a very strong civil service, really competent and professional bureaucracies that know how to get things done to meet the basic needs of the people to deliver high quality medical care. It is very important to appreciate that countries can be democratic and technocratic at the same time. Very often that is something that we ignore.

The experience of Singapore

Singapore is a country that embodies a lot of hesitation and concern about China, even if it is a majority Chinese country. You have Chinese people in a country that is not China, but they are very worried about China. In a way, the more Chinese Singapore has become demographically, the less comfortable it has become with China geopolitically. I believe there have been times when, even though Singapore was suspicious about China, it was also naïve, as they hoped that China would have a peaceful rise. That has not been the case. Now, Singapore has been very clever to make sure to emphasise to China that it will maintain its strategic relationship with the United States, that it will not back down from allowing American naval forces to have a presence on its territory. It is a strong sign of Singapore’s independence and neutrality. When it comes to the US and China it is much more of a binary. But countries like South Korea, Thailand and Singapore have been very good at maintaining good relations with both. This is tricky because there is very strong US pressure on one side and very strong pressure on the other side.

Short-term vs. long-term trends

“The Second World: How Emerging Powers Are Redefining Global Competition in the Twenty-first Century” is about the competing efforts of the United States, of Europe and of China to develop spheres of influence in emerging regions and ‘swing-state’ sort of areas like Eastern Europe, Arab world, Latin America, Central Asia or Southeast Asia. In each of those regions you see a very different landscape of influence. In the short term you hear people saying that Russia calls the shots in Syria, that it is very influential in the Middle East. In the long term that is nonsense, because Russia cannot be influential in those regions. Through the 2000s we thought about Central Asia as part of the American dominion because U.S. invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and had a very large military presence there. In 2020, American presence has declined to almost a symbolic one and American influence is almost zero. Geopolitically we have to make a distinction between a very artificial and short-term situation like the occupation of Afghanistan, versus the long-term reality that countries like China and Iran will be much more influential in countries like Afghanistan.

Parag Khanna is Founder & Managing Partner of FutureMap, a data and scenario-based strategic advisory firm. Parag’s newest book is The Future is Asian: Commerce, Conflict & Culture in the 21st Century(2019). He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics.

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Thu
Jul
02

EU Can’t Afford to Lose the Battle for the Balkans

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China, Russia and the USA are using the corona pandemic to strengthen their positions in the Balkans, although their divergent interests threaten both the region’s EU perspectives and its long-term stability.

Over the last two months, the corona pandemic has thoroughly changed the world in many different ways, on the global, regional, local and individual levels. 

One of those changes has been the accelerated return of geopolitics, as manifested in the Balkans by China, the Gulf states, Russia, Turkey, and the US, who have been using medical assistance, political and PR moves to pursue their interests and strengthen their positions, with the mediation of some of their new (or old) allies in this volatile region.

These geopolitical moves are undermining the Balkans’ EU perspectives, and with it the region’s long-term stability, since for the past two decades hopes of EU membership have been the main, if not the only protection against the potential chaos underlying the region’s unresolved ethno-political issues. 

The EU response to this challenge was initially marred by a major blunder, as EU countries blocked exports of their medical equipment to other member and non-member countries, triggering furious criticism, from Italy and Spain, to Albania and Serbia.

Feeling shunned by the EU, in one of the most precarious moments of recent history, may prove to have been the last drop in the Balkans’ overflowing bucket of frustrations and dismay, and the final proof to local leaders that their interests will be better served in alliance with some other foreign actors.

At the end of April, the EU eventually corrected its course and provided a whopping €3.3 billion package for health, economic and social challenges in the Balkans. Yet this intervention may be coming too late for at least a part, if not all of the Balkans, where the EU has lost much – if not all – of its influence. 

In recent years, months and weeks, the region has been slipping away from the path towards the EU and its democratic practices, and turned towards autocracy, nationalism, corruption and other foreign influences. 

While EU leaders and officials are still pondering what further steps they should take in the region, most of them still do not seem to grasp the urgency or the seriousness of the situation. Even those who are aware of the risks seem to be at a loss as to what to do in the difficult and troubled region where – as some of them believe – they have already tried everything. 

Whether because of the EU’s ignorance, its own mounting internal problems, or because of the Balkans’ traditional complexity, the region is still far from the top of the EU agenda. The EU seems to have forgotten how dangerous the Balkans can be – for itself, the continent and the entire world – when divergent foreign influences rekindle the region’s unresolved national, religious and ideological differences.

The most flagrant such example happened more than a century ago, when the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, which triggered the start of World War I. 

The Balkan powder kegs smoulder again

As this anniversary draws near, the geopolitical situation in the Balkans seems to be ever more complicated and dangerous. 

In addition to the new health, security, economic and social challenges caused by the pandemic, the region is witnessing a rekindling of many of its old problems, such as rampant corruption and internal ethnic & political divisions. Furthermore, most of the Balkan countries are already gearing up for elections this year, adding yet another flammable ingredient to the volatile concoction. 

Many experts and reports have been pointing to the serious democratic downturn in the region.

“The breakdown of the democratic consensus has been most visible in Central Europe and the Balkans, which experienced the greatest gains after the end of the Cold War,” warned the Freedom House’s global ‘Nations in Transit’ report, published on May 6.

The report noted a considerable decline in democratic practices in Montenegro and Serbia, as well as in the EU member Hungary. These three countries were “no longer democracies,” the watchdog organisation concluded, and added them to the group of ‘hybrid regimes’ with the rest of the Balkan countries.

The latest developments across the region have added more reasons for concern.

In recent days alone, Albania has seen clashes between the police and opposition supporters and activists over the disputed demolition of the National Theatre in Tirana. The demolition was carried out overnight, against the advice of EU officials and their efforts to find a compromise solution. The subsequent violent protests reflected growing tensions between the ruling and opposition parties.

Similar tensions are simmering in Montenegro, where the ruling regime of Milo Djukanović has been facing off against the opposition parties and the Serbian Orthodox Church, ahead of the parliamentary elections scheduled for the end of the year. The situation is no better in Serbia, where supporters of the ruling and opposition parties have been holding reality show-style protests against each other, while gearing up for parliamentary elections in June.

In Bosnia & Herzegovina, a complete political deadlock has been blocking the formation of a new government in the BiH Federation entity for some 18 months now, since the 2018 general elections, and is also preventing the adoption of the 2020 state budget. The latter will delay Bosnia’s upcoming local elections, which have currently been postponed until November, but will be delayed even further until the state budget is adopted.

In both Kosovo and North Macedonia, the governments’ efforts to control the coronavirus pandemic have from the very beginning been overshadowed by political and personal battles. North Macedonia is also distracted by the preparations for its general elections, while in Kosovo the Constitutional Court is set to rule on the recent controversial toppling of the government and indicate how a new government should be elected.

The EU is squandering its influence in the region

The local and regional power struggles in the Balkans have been augmented in recent years by various global actors, which have exploited the steady decline of EU interest and influence in the region to strengthen their positions and pursue their individual interests.

Since the early 2000s the Balkans have been yearning to join the EU, which was supposed to provide the region with more job opportunities and better living standards. Yet equally important was the fact that only EU membership could fulfil another Balkan dream; to enable all the region’s ethnic groups to live with their ethnic kin within the same borders.

It has been this second motive that made the EU the only option able to guarantee the region’s long-term stability and enable the gradual transformation of its nationalist ideals. All other options, meaning the absence of the EU and the presence of divergent foreign influences, would inevitably add fuel to the local ethno-political quarrels, thus destabilising the region in the long run.

Nevertheless, in recent years the enlargement process has gradually screeched to a halt. 

The region never fully recuperated from the impact of the 2008-9 global recession, and its readiness and capacity for economic and social reforms weakened as politicians and politics became more and more conservative.

 The global recession has strengthened conservatism and undermined internal cohesion within the EU too, which has weakened the Union’s readiness to accept new members. 

As a result, the accession process – which was both the EU’s technical toolbox and its only strategy in the Balkans – has become an exercise in bureaucratic procrastination, a game in which the Balkan countries pretended to still be willing to reform while the EU pretended to be ready to accept the new member states.

The Balkan summits in Sofia and London in May and July 2018 were the turning point, as they revealed that enlargement into the Balkans had effectively, albeit not officially, been taken off the table. At those meetings, the EU leaders – increasingly troubled by their problems back home – would not even allow use of the word ‘enlargement’, using terms like ‘connectivity agenda’ instead.

The Balkan leaders got the message loud and clear, and started turning more and more towards their historic allies: the Serbs towards Russia, and the Bosniaks towards Turkey and the Gulf countries – as well as towards the new, wealthy kid on the block – China. The Albanians, on the other hand, had always been linked much more closely to the US over the past two decades, but America’s new, chaotic foreign policy under Donald Trump threatens to change that too.

Global actors use the pandemic to strengthen their Balkan grip 

The new European Commission appointed at the end of 2019 seemed to be aware of the growing trouble in the Balkans, and appeared determined to restore at least some of the influence the EU has lost during the time of the previous Commission. Yet its efforts have been interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, and the EU’s initial abysmal reaction to this difficult challenge made things only worse.

On the other hand, China and Russia proved once again to be better at the game of winning over Balkan hearts, and used the situation to gain additional leverage in the region by sending masks and other medical equipment early on.

Their assistance – in line with their strategic orientation in the Balkans – focused on Serbia, the biggest country and biggest market in the region. Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić did not spare the theatrics in thanking China and Russia for their aid, as it helped the country to fight the coronavirus while at the same time boosting his own popularity ahead of the elections.

China and Russia proved once again to be better at the game of winning over Balkan hearts.

With every new planeload, Vučić and other Serbian government officials made major public displays of gratitude, while Russian and Chinese flags, as well as billboards boasting ‘a friendship of steel’ with China and ‘historic relations’ with Russia lined the streets of Belgrade.

On the other hand, this assistance raised many eyebrows. Some experts warned that a significant portion of the Chinese aid deliveries seemed to be of poor quality, or that it was superfluous. Others questioned why the Russian health assistance was being coordinated by the Russian Ministry of Defence, why it includes military personnel, and why these military teams were allowed to move across the country, and even into Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska, without any oversight or control.

In neighbouring Kosovo, meanwhile, America was also using the pandemic to pursue different but equally self-serving and potentially even more detrimental tactics. Thanks to the direct intervention of Richard Grenell, the acting Director of the US National Intelligence, the US Ambassador to Germany, and the Special Presidential Envoy for Serbia and Kosovo Peace Negotiations, the government of Albin Kurti was toppled in Kosovo on March 25.

Grenell pushed for Kurti’s removal as he was standing in the way of a US-sponsored agreement intended to at least nominally resolve the dispute between Serbia and Kosovo. The no-confidence vote in Kurti’s government opened up a new and complicated legal and political crisis in Kosovo, which is threatening to undermine Kosovo’s ability to deal with the health, economic, social and all the other consequences of the pandemic.

Over the last two months Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and all the other Balkan countries eagerly awaited and carefully counted the planeloads coming from China, Russia, Turkey and the Gulf states, as they meant not only a difference in fighting the pandemic, but also indicated the status of each country in relation to a different global actor.

The EU comes back strong, but is it too late?

The EU eventually realised that China’s ‘mask diplomacy’ and Russia’s military-driven health assistance was threatening to undo years of the EU’s strong presence in the Balkans. 

On March 26 EU leaders finally agreed to set dates for the start of negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia, yet this move was too little and too late to make a major difference. 

This step, which for the EU was just a small technical move, but which it nevertheless delayed, had been eagerly awaited by these two countries and the rest of the region for years – but it was almost completely buried under the avalanche of reports related to the fast-spreading pandemic. 

At the same time, EU leaders are still withholding the visa-free regime for Kosovo, despite the fact that the European Commission has proposed this already back in 2016, having concluded that Kosovo’s authorities had met all the agreed criteria. People in the Balkans see these and many similar cases as examples of the EU’s own inconsistency, duplicity and constantly changing criteria.

On April 29, the EU came back strong, announcing a massive package of financial assistance for the region. This included €38 million of immediate support to the health sector, as well as exclusive access to EU instruments and medical equipment; almost €1.2 billion euro in aid funding for the region’s social and economic recovery; and almost €2.2 billion to support businesses and public sector investments.

EU officials in Brussels, as well as around the EU and in the Balkan capitals, also stepped up their communication efforts to make sure that the Balkan peoples and their leaders understood that the Union still cared for the region.

The news was welcomed across the Balkans, although in Serbia it was still overshadowed by the Serbian government’s ever more emotional reactions to the much smaller gifts coming from China and Russia. 

The fact was not lost on Western officials and local experts. Many of them have expressed concerns that Vučić may have ‘passed the point of no return’ – that he may have concluded that, at least during his reign, Serbia’s future looks brighter in alliance with China and Russia, rather than with the EU.

The EU tried to further restore its position in the Balkans by holding a virtual Balkan summit on May 9, an event that was originally supposed to take place in Zagreb as a part of Croatia’s presidency of the EU.

The joint declaration which the EU and Balkan leaders adopted during the conference reiterated “unequivocal support for the European perspective of the Western Balkans”, and stressed that the EU’s support to the region went “far beyond what any other partner has provided.”

Yet by the end the Balkan leaders and their citizens remained clearly unimpressed by the event, whose biggest achievement seemed to be the fact that it was held in such a difficult situation, and which, once again, deliberately avoided even mentioning the word ‘enlargement’. 

As EU leaders and officials now ponder how to move on with the pledged assistance, including the conditionality that will be applied, experts say that the Union is still far from securing its position in the Balkans, warning that they cannot afford to lose it.“The European Commission promises €3.3 billion to help the Western Balkan countries mitigate the impact of the pandemic and bring them closer to the EU. Without a fundamental change of direction, however, this initiative comes too late,” a leading Balkan expert Dušan Reljić said in his analysis published on May 5.

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Sun
Nov
03

The INF is dead. Now what?

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By Michal Onderco | Rotterdam

On 2 August 2019, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, signed by the United States and the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, ended. The United States formally withdrew from the treaty, although it had already been clinically dead at least since the US suspended its compliance with the treaty in February 2019. The United States had already publicly accused Russia of noncompliance five years ago, during the Obama Administration.

At that time, the State Department noted (in a bureaucratic document outlining compliance with arms control agreements) that “[t]he United States has determined that the Russian Federation is in violation of its obligations under the INF Treaty”.

A year later, the United States added a detail, noting that the violation was related to a groundlaunched cruise missile which Russia had developed. The US strategy at that time seems to have been to bring Russia into compliance, but also to develop its own potential responses to the violation.

 Russia for her part denied engaging in such activity, and instead also charged the United States with having violated the treaty. European countries’ response to the end of the INF should be based around stepping up their defence spending and commitments. Such steps would help Europeans to address the security vacuum emerging after the collapse of the INF, and would also reinvigorate Europe’s defence posture and strengthen its position within NATO.

The birth and the death of the INF found Europe in different states

During the Cold War, the treaty was of crucial importance for Europeans, who would have been the primary targets of Soviet intermediate-range missiles if conflict broke out between the USA and the Soviet Union. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, European leaders voiced concerns about Russian missiles, particularly the SS-20. For European policymakers, and especially West Germany, the development and deployment of the SS-20 tipped the balance of forces vis-à-vis any future conflict between West and East decidedly towards the Soviet Union.

Germany, as well as other Western NATO nations, demanded that the US react with the development and deployment of equivalent missiles. Yet Europe’s publics mainly perceived the crisis in the light of possible nuclear holocaust. Hundreds of thousands of citizens went onto the streets to demonstrate against nuclear weapons and in favour of nuclear disarmament.

The domestic pressure on Western European (democratic) governments was enormous. The mass protests were memorable: in 1983, over half million people came to the Malieveld park in the Hague to protest against nuclear war and oppose the deployment of American nuclear weapons in Europe.

The conclusion of the INF treaty therefore helped European leaders to solve two problems: both the external security problem, and the domestic public pressure. As opposed to the massive protests against intermediate-range missiles in 1980s, the Russian violation in the mid-2010s was not met even with a shudder. By that time, nuclear weapons had fallen out of the public’s attention, and Europe – convulsed by the Greek debt crisis and the migrants streaming across the Mediterranean – simply did not pay attention.

European response to the end of the INF should be based around stepping up the defence spending and commitments. Such steps would strengthen Europe’s position within NATO.

However, to be fair, the United States was also not exactly forthcoming with information, and shared only very few details with its allies. Therefore, while US analysts such as former State Department official Steven Pifer accused European governments of not confronting Russia about the violations in its bilateral interactions, the Americans did not make it any easier for Europeans by withdrawing and classifying much of the evidence of Russian noncompliance.

Conversely, European countries realised the gravity of the situation only when it became obvious that the United States would withdraw from the treaty. Numerous Western European governments, alarmed at the erosion of the treaty they saw as fundamental to their own security, perceived the situation as the epitome of their strategic predicament in 2019.

 European countries rely on the United States in strategic questions, even though the interests of the United States seem to diverge from theirs, and are confronted by challenges which Europe cannot address on its own. The end of the INF was a sign of tensions easing at the end of the Cold War and the beginning of a new era, in which international institutions (whether treaties or organisations) held a promise of a more orderly future for European countries.

The end of the treaty punctures that image for Europeans. The collapse of the INF has special relevance for the Central European region. Intermediaterange missiles are often thought to influence the balance of power on the battlefield, rather than having an innate strategic importance (although it is arguably difficult to consider any use of nuclear weapons as non-strategic).

For numerous observers, any potential conflict between NATO and Russia will start in Eastern Europe, and will therefore involve (or at least take place on the territory of) Eastern Europe. The Eastern European countries should thus be most concerned about the collapse of the INF and its aftermath.

However, the governments of these countries, with the exception of governments in Poland and the Baltics, have remained conspicuously silent. The Polish and Baltic governments have, compared to their Western European counterparts, been more critical of Russia, and have raised louder appeals for the United States to provide a deterrent solution.

The European predicament

Because European countries did not possess the relevant technological capabilities, they usually left strategic discussions to the Americans and Russians, in order not to engage in what German political scientist Ulrich Kühn called “arms control without arms to control”.

This led European policy-makers to resort to “seeking allied unity” and calling on Russia to return to compliance with the treaty. European analysts, the above-mentioned Kühn prominent among them, suggested solutions as varied as strengthening missile defence, rotational deployment of bombers, and the deployment of conventional-tipped sea-launched ballistic missiles on US submarines in European waters.

While such solutions are within the realm of the technologically possible and politically feasible, they might potentially be strategically destabilising and could increase the chances that nuclear weapons might be used. For instance, a recent review by Beatrix Immenkamp of the European Parliament’s Research Service ruled out every solution offered as being impossible, either because it was technically unfeasible or because the necessary political will was lacking.

However pressured and worried about the United States’ future commitment to European security the European countries are, they nonetheless realise that they have no replacement for the key role that the United States has played in European security since the end of World War II. However, the potential for the use of intermediate-range missiles creates a different type of challenge to Europe than to the United States, particularly due to the former’s geographical proximity.

European countries should support the development of a conventional deterrent, including developing A2/AD capabilities. These could give Europeans a bargaining chip.

 While the end of the INF unties the United States’ hands in a certain way (especially in relation to responding to China’s development of intermediate-range missiles and the future of American alliances in Asia), for Europe the end of the treaty opens up the option of nuclear war on the continent. Although this problem is particularly acute in Eastern Europe, the whole region is caught in this predicament.

For the same reason, the European countries need to consider their own unity in the aftermath of the INF’s end. Such unity is important both for the symbolic image of Europe as a global actor, as well as for the adoption of any future Europewide solution to the INF crisis.

Therefore, while Europeans should not stop seeking cooperative solutions together with the United States, they should also think about the potential steps that they themselves could take to mitigate the threat from Russian intermediate-range missiles in the future. The first step in mitigating this threat is to think about what scenarios might lead to the use of intermediate-range nuclear weapons, and then think about how to prevent any such scenarios from emerging through deterrence.

One of the most likely scenarios for a future nuclear conflict between NATO and Russia usually revolves around a miscalculated Russian attack on NATO’s Eastern flank, one in which Russia would start to lose ground. To prevent such a scenario, European countries should support the development of a conventional deterrent, including developing capabilities in the anti-access and area-denial fields.

There is no doubt that such a development would be a sea change from the practices of the past, but the upside of such capabilities is that Europeans might actually build capabilities which Russians might want to limit, which could give Europeans a bargaining chip for future negotiations on intermediate-range missiles.

Cross-domain deterrence offers another avenue for deterring future conflicts. The principle of cross-domain deterrence is to deter attack in one domain (in this instance, nuclear) by developing tools in another domain.

For European countries, there are multiple possible options. European countries could, either within the framework of NATO or outside it, develop deterrent tools in cyberspace which could significantly deter Russia from ever contemplating the use of intermediate-range missiles.

To ensure long-term security in the region, the countries on the continent need to start thinking and acting for themselves .

Of course, it remains questionable whether such tools could persuasively signal Europe’s willingness to use them, and whether they would lead to more stability or not, but offensive cyber weapons provide an option for Europe. The framework of Permanent Structured Cooperation within the EU creates an opportunity for both economies of scale and opening new avenues for European cooperation. The potential is enormous, especially for Central European countries, to both expand their industrial bases and to develop their own defence capabilities.

What not to do and the way out

One pipedream that European countries should not continue chasing is bringing Russia into compliance with the INF, or attempting to revive the INF in its original form. For starters, it seems that neither of the original parties to the INF is unhappy with its collapse. However, Europeans should recognise the fundamental security considerations at play.

If Russia considers intermediate-range missiles as fundamental to its security, it is very unlikely to give them up. The same applies to the dream of universalising the INF through a global regime. Not only are the United States and Russia uninterested in such treaty, but China – about whose intermediate range missiles both the US and Russia are concerned – as well as other countries currently developing such missiles also have no interest in limiting such development.

While the costs of developing technological, military, and political solutions are sizeable, the domestic political costs should not be forgotten. While European societies are no longer aroused by the potential of nuclear war, they are in no way pro-nuclear. However, citizens also tend to be sensitive to military expenditure, and would probably be opposed to steps which could be seen as escalatory towards Russia.

However, the aversion to nuclear weapons among European publics might provide a conduit to supporting the deployment of responses to Russian norm-breaking. The post-INF crisis should make it clear to European countries that, as much as they need to work with the United States to maintain their security, the interests of the United States are different from those of European allies.

Primarily, the United States – like Russia – is concerned about developments in China, and might therefore view the collapse of INF through a different lens. Proposals to develop European capabilities should not mean the end of cooperation in NATO. However, they would mean a development of European military muscle – something that even the United States has called for within the framework of NATO.

Relying on American-supplied solutions will not address the security concerns felt in Europe. To ensure long-term stability and security in the region, the countries on the continent need to start thinking and acting for themselves. In the same way as the European countries learn to represent each other’s interests in trade negotiations, they should get serious about security considerations, especially the Central and Eastern European member states.

Even if Europeans have a natural predilection for negotiations – and some analysts suggested that Europe should negotiate with Russia on a future grand bargain for European security – Europeans know too well that it is much easier to negotiate when one has something to offer. The fate of Europe’s counterparts when it comes to trade negotiations should have taught them that.

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Tue
Aug
20

The ambivalence of the Zelensky presidency

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By Andreas Umland | Kiev

Many political experts both in and outside Ukraine have reacted negatively or very negatively to the meteoric political rise of Ukrainian comedian Volodymyr Zelensky. Indeed, Zelensky’s presidency could prove problematic in various ways. His 2019-2024 term as Ukraine’s head of state may prove to be an even more ambivalent enterprise than those of the other two top contenders in this year’s presidential elections, the opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko and the former president Petro Poroshenko, would have been. Still, for all the apt scepticism, there is also – as in the case of certain positive aspects of Tymoshenko’s and Poroshenko’s unsuccessful bids for president – a bright side to Zelensky’s victory. One can identify at least three major risky or negative, but also three relatively encouraging dimensions of his rule.

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Tue
Aug
20

Ze! Ukraine’s foreign and security policy

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By Mykola Kapitonenko | Kiev

In the pre-election rhetoric used by all the front-runners in Ukraine’s presidential campaign, issues of national security and foreign policy ranked high. The conflict – referred to by many as ‘war’ – with Russia, the question of annexed Crimea, aspirations for NATO and EU membership, became topics of specific concern and points for emotional political discussions. The overwhelming majority of presidential candidates – there were 39 on the list in total – highlighted the restoration of the country’s territorial integrity and moving closer to EU and NATO membership as their foreign and national security policy priorities. 

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