The west’s relationship with Russia is at its lowest ebb for over 25 years. The European Union made policy mistakes in its attempts to sign Ukraine up to an association agreement in late 2013 but Vladimir Putin’s domestic authoritarianism, annexation of Crimea and sponsorship of war in eastern Ukraine are the main drivers of the deterioration in relations. Over 6,000 people are dead and a million have been displaced from the conflict zone in Ukraine. Russia is also playing a game of dangerous brinkmanship with its military across the Euro-Atlantic area, with its fighters and bombers frequently simulating attack runs on Nato targets. On more than one occasion its warplanes have almost collided with civilian airliners. Putin has even been boasting of putting Russia’s nuclear forces on alert at the time of the Crimea annexation.
This is a grim scene and the danger of a direct Russia-Nato military confrontation coming about either intentionally or unintentionally cannot be entirely ruled out. There is much work for Nato countries to do to make the alliance ready for any possible future Russian incursions into Nato territory, particularly in the Baltic states.
Amid the gloom, however, western negotiators have continued to cooperate with Russia in the Iran nuclear negotiations and also cooperated with Russia in the removal and destruction of chemical weapons from Syria. A new European Leadership Network paper argues that, while a robust response to Russian activities in eastern Europe is essential, this second, more cooperative track in the relationship must be pursued and expanded.
Russia is not a global superpower in the way the Soviet Union was, but it is still one of the most powerful countries in the world, a permanent member of the UN security council, a leading nuclear power and energy provider and a key player in both the wider security of the Euro-Atlantic area and in the fraught politics of the Middle East. The west needs to look for ways to cooperate with Russia not as a concession to Russian behaviour or at the expense of Ukraine, but on the basis that Russia is not going to go away and has some interests in common with the west.
Both need to avoid the total collapse of the Ukrainian economy and the creation of a failed state of over 40 million people on their borders. The price in lost business, refugee flows and interrupted energy supplies will be high if they fail.
Both have a strong interest in avoiding a costly and destabilising new arms race in Europe and in pursuing a dialogue on the long-term future of the European security order, if only to avoid any further escalation in tension between a nuclear-armed state on one hand and a nuclear-armed alliance on the other.
And both have strong incentives to cooperate in preventing the further proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and in countering the growing threat of Islamic State.
This is an agenda worth pursuing, even amid the talk of a new cold war.
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Ian Kearns is co-founder and director of the European Leadership Network www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org