“Russia is a friendly, European country,” said President Vladimir Putin in a 2001 address to the Bundestag in Berlin. Putin told German lawmakers he applauded European integration, believed in the unity of European culture, and was convinced that no one had benefited from Europe’s divisions in the past. Then last November, speaking again to Germans in an interview for ARD, German national television—in sports coat and open collar—the Russian president lauded dialogue and diplomacy when it came to the crisis in Ukraine. His only concern, Putin said, was that Kiev was allowing the country to become “immersed” in “neo-Nazism.”
No matter where he was a decade and a half ago, we know what the ex-KGB officer is about today. Putin dissembles. He lies. Indeed, he may even sanction, if only in mode of “who will rid me of this troublesome priest,” the assassination of opponents at home and abroad.
He also advances a vision, Ukraine being but one piece of a larger puzzle. The Kremlin leader wants to divide Europe into spheres of influence and, in the process, show NATO and the EU to be toothless and obsolete. He seems to be pushing on an open door. Parts of “New Europe”—as we once called those young, promising democracies of Central and Eastern Europe—are drifting. Hungary’s prime minister appeases Putin by saying Hungary “needs Russia”; the Czech president refers to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a “civil war”; and the Slovak prime minister argues against sanctions and says there is “no tension” between Moscow and Bratislava. Meanwhile, in “Old Europe,” turmoil over Greece, questions about the future of the euro, and tensions between north and south portend a European Union looking inward. In Washington, the Obama administration in its final 15 months is seeking deals, not discord, with longstanding European allies discombobulated by an American partner dysfunctional in the counsels of NATO.
All this, while it becomes increasingly obvious that only a robust, forward-leaning U.S. policy designed to revitalize the transatlantic relationship—and create a community resolute about standing up for our common interests and principles—will stave off the machinations of the Kremlin.
What is needed is a strategy.
First, we should be clear about what we want. After the end of the Cold War, we called for a “Europe Whole and Free.” We saw NATO and EU enlargement, working in tandem, as a means to extend Western zones of security and prosperity to the de-communizing zones of the east. We were committed in those days to the notion that states should be free to choose their political and economic systems. And, in turn, those states understood that such freedom, along with their long-term prosperity and stability, was only possible if there were no strategic “gray zone” in which nearby great powers could undermine or challenge their sovereignty.
What happened? We underestimated the time it would take for democratic institutions to sink roots and for civil society to take shape in countries that had suffered from decades of Communist rule. NATO and EU enlargement were important steps, but hardly sufficient in most cases to transform Communist countries into strong rule-of-law states with open, well-functioning market economies. It didn’t help that Washington, along with Brussels, stopped paying sufficient attention to Central and Eastern Europe. Until recently, it was easy for Washington and key capitals, such as Berlin, Paris, and London, to assume that Europe was a “settled” strategic matter. Nor did it help, justified as it might have been, that the U.S. government has “pivoted” away from Europe twice in the last 15 years, once under George W. Bush to prosecute the war on terror, and then again under the Obama administration to deal with the rise of a more truculent China.
The temptation created by the vacuum proved too great for Putin to resist. Russia fell off the wagon and returned to its old ways, invading Georgia and Ukraine, seeking to destabilize smaller allies by cyber-attacks, stirring up ethnic tensions among Russian-speakers, engaging in military threats, funding illiberal parties and NGOs, and corrupting decision-makers with backroom deals. We need to return to our vision of a Europe whole and free, and stop reacting tactically and late on all this.
Second, let’s push forward with all the soft power we can muster. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), an agreement being negotiated between the United States and the EU, would be a boon to growth on both sides of the Atlantic but also a help strategically. One can certainly oversell TTIP’s importance on both fronts. But, that said, at a time when Russia is promoting its Eurasian Economic Union of authoritarian countries and is not shy about engaging in dubious deal-making within Europe, Washington and Brussels need to make it easier for the countries of the Atlantic community to deal commercially with each other and tighten business practices.
Soft power also includes information and media policy. We’ve now entered a seemingly endless debate over how to counter Kremlin-directed disinformation. Russian propaganda is proving successful in large part because we’ve left an open field. It’s time we turn the tables and see to it that Kremlin officials are spending more time fretting how Moscow ought to block our own public diplomacy and media campaign. There’s no need to answer Russian propaganda tit for tat. But we need to work closely with our European allies to tell the truth and, in turn, remind our own media that “balanced” reporting is not to be confused with “objective” reporting, especially when Moscow and its media surrogates are filling the Internet and airwaves with misleading stories and blatant lies.
Even more important, we need to use all the tools at our disposal to inform Russians about the roots and realities of Putin’s corrupt and kleptocratic rule. Putin has pumped up Russian nationalism to distract from a declining economy and the fact that he and his cronies are looting Russia, culturally, spiritually, and financially. If Putin is allowed to continue on his current path, Russians should know that their country will be left an empty shell, sullen, dysfunctional, and hungover for years to come. In short, we need to play the Russian nationalist card against Putin himself.
Third, we must have a strategy that includes hard power as a central element. It’s hard power that makes soft power useful and effective. Putin understands this. It’s why he’s winning in Ukraine and one reason his propaganda campaign appears to be effective so far. Putin needs to be seen at home and abroad as losing. It’s as simple as that, and it starts with Ukraine. Sanctions are an instrument of hard power that have shown they can bite. Sanctions alone, however, will not drive Russia out of eastern Ukraine. Only arms and training for Ukrainians can do that.
Others in the region want to defend themselves, too. Eastern European members of NATO—the Poles and the Balts foremost—welcome the administration’s recent decision to bolster their defenses with the rotation of troops and aircraft in the region and the stationing of modest amounts of equipment on their territory. But they fret privately that these measures are not nearly enough. We need urgent and careful preparation against sub-Article V threats coming from the cyber realm and the use of “little green men.” And the Article V commitment under NATO for collective defense needs more than rhetorical reassurance from alliance leaders; it also requires plans for putting in place substantial, well-armed, and well-trained forces for deterrence. All of which will require a decision by the allies to reverse the downward trend in defense spending and to do so faster than they have collectively pledged at recent NATO summits. Given the history of this issue, no one should expect a significant surge in allied military expenditures, but small steps ought to be possible.
Finally, we need a serious diplomatic effort to forge a common strategic vision with our partners in the EU. And the news on that front is not all bad: France has been relatively solid on Iran, trying to sober the Obama administration about Tehran’s capabilities and intentions. German chancellor Angela Merkel has led on sanctions against Russia over Ukraine in the face of German business interests. And the EU Commission has continued to push forward with policies designed to increase energy diversification to lessen the continent’s energy dependence on Russian supplies.
Still, American leadership matters. While the Iraq war did damage to our credibility, and our recent clumsiness over spying on allies hasn’t helped, the lack of leadership from President Obama has shocked even those European capitals that found his multilateral, postnational, dovish, and social democratic approach initially so appealing. Once again, Europe has been reminded of just how “indispensable,” to use the word of former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, the United States is in helping keep the world from changing in ways inimical to their interests.
None of this means the EU is waiting for the American sheriff to arrive and round up a posse. This is no longer the Europe of junior partnership we worked with during the Cold War. It will require a new way of talking, a new touch, and more listening on our part. Yet the crisis in Ukraine and the threat posed by ISIS to Europeans at home provide the occasion to begin to put transatlantic ties on a better footing. It’s doubtful our president will rise to the occasion. But those running to succeed him can make “getting Europe right” a policy priority for 2017.
Jeffrey Gedmin is a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, senior adviser at Blue Star Strategies, and codirector of the Transatlantic Renewal Project. Gary Schmitt is resident scholar and co-director of the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies and director of the Program on American Citizenship at the American Enterprise Institute.
