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1. How Russia Does Foresight: Where is the world going?

Author:
Andrew Monaghan
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
Thinking about the long-term future is a prominent feature of the Russian official strategic planning and public policy debate. Speaking in 2008, for instance, President Putin indicated the horizons of strategic planning when he stated that a concrete development plan for the period through to 2010 had been elaborated, and “now we need to look beyond this horizon – look at least 10 years ahead”. “Today we are deciding one of the most important issues for Russia’s future – defining its development strategy through to 2020”, he stated, and in setting out Russia's long-term vision for the future, "our long-term references must be clear to everyone”, and “must have the support of our citizens.” By the mid-2010s, policy-oriented public organisations were looking even further ahead. The Valdai Club, for instance, was conducting a project entitled Club 2035, to “look beyond the horizon” at a number of themes, including technological and socio-cultural trends, and the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) was running a “World in 100 Years” project, including the series “On the eve of 2037”. Other major institutes, such as the Institute of World Economics and International Affairs (IMEMO) and the Moscow State Institute of International Affairs (MGIMO), also hold regular major events and publish substantial volumes reflecting on twenty-first century megatrends and strategic forecasting up to 2030 and beyond.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Energy Policy, European Union, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Eurasia

2. The Butterfly Effect: Why does Eastern Europe matter to Japan?

Author:
Daisiuke Kitade
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
Long gone are the days when Eastern Europe was Russia’s exclusive backyard. The last decade has witnessed the rapid expansion of political and economic ties between powers from the Middle East and Asia and East European states. While much of the analysis on the rise of these powers is usually focused on China and its One Belt One Road march across the post-Soviet world, the role of other Asian powers remains underexplored. Whereas China’s penetration of the region has been in the spotlight, Japan’s charm offensive to rekindle diplomatic, political and economic ties with Eastern Europe has tended to be overlooked. In the last five years, Japan has opened three new embassies in the region (in Armenia, Belarus and Moldova), Japan’s prime minster has paid the first official visit to Ukraine in the history of bilateral relations between the two countries and the Japanese foreign minister travelled to all three South Caucasus republics. More recently, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic Japan pledged to provide the flu drug Avigan to Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine free of charge. All this raises the question why, despite such a great geographical distance, Eastern Europe matters to Japan? The aim of this Brief is threefold. Firstly, to outline the place of Eastern Europe in Japan’s foreign policy and shed light on the drivers shaping Tokyo’s approach. Secondly, to assess Japan’s economic presence as well as the amount of development aid it has provided to East European states. Thirdly, to reveal similarities between Japan’s and the EU’s strategies in this region and ultimately, to identify areas of cooperative synergy.
Topic:
Security, Development, Geopolitics, Investment, Trade, and Development Aid
Political Geography:
Russia, Japan, and Asia

3. Under Pressure: Can Belarus resist Russian coercion?

Author:
Anaïs Marin
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
Belarus is traditionally considered to be Russia’s closest ally, and their alliance is a cornerstone of post-Soviet integration projects, both military (the Collective Security Treaty Organisation - CSTO) and economic (the Eurasian Economic Union - EAEU). But bilateral relations have entered a different and more conflictual phase. The paradigm shift started in 2014, when Belarus invoked its constitutional neutrality pledge to refuse to side with Russia in its ongoing conflict with Ukraine and the West. Playing this card allowed President Lukashenka to appear as a security guarantor both in the eyes of Belarusians and the West. Irritated by such autonomy, Moscow indicated that it now wants more for its money. Russia is no longer ready to subsidise the Belarusian economy in exchange for its neighbour’s fleeting geopolitical loyalty. In linking, in 2018, the resumption of economic privileges to ‘deeper’ political integration within the Union State that the two countries nominally established 20 years ago, Russia stepped up the pressure. Yet Vladimir Putin made Belarus an offer he knew Aliaksandr Lukashenka would refuse: the Belarusian president had repeatedly stated that Belarus’s sovereignty was ‘not for sale’. Given its dependence on Russia and current economic hardships, Belarus might not be able to resist Moscow’s ‘coercion to integrate’, however. Its capacity to uphold its sovereignty is being challenged from outside, while Lukashenka’s regime survival is under stress from within: in the wake of the 9 August presidential election, unprecedented opposition forces emerged which the Belarusian regime started cracking down on.1 Should repression intensify, leading the West to reintroduce sanctions, Minsk’s efforts of the past years towards normalising relations with Brussels and Washington would come to nothing. Yet renewed (self-)isolation of Belarus is exactly what Russia needs to reach its strategic goal of keeping Belarus in its orbit, and extract more concessions from its fragile leadership. This presents the EU with a dilemma it knows all too well: how can it support Belarus’s efforts to preserve its independence, without increasing the resilience of Lukashenka’s authoritarian regime or making Russia more assertive?
Topic:
European Union, Partnerships, Geopolitics, and Alliance
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Eurasia, and Belarus

4. Stand by Me! The Sino-Russian Normative Partnership in Action

Author:
Alice Ekman, Sinikukka Saari, and Stanislav Secrieru
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
It has become commonplace to describe the relationship between China and Russia as ‘a marriage of convenience’,1 in particular in the aftermath of the annexation of Crimea in 2014. However, this popular metaphor hides very different – even contradictory – interpretations of the nature and future of the relationship. Perhaps depending on one’s take on arranged marriages, the deepening relationship between these two states is seen as ‘stable and successful’2 and ‘durable’,3 or on the contrary, as a ‘mere’ convenient arrangement doomed to be a temporary solution.4 It seems that fuzzy and often misunderstood marriage allegories bring more confusion than clarity to understanding and explaining complex relations between states. Shared norms and worldview would certainly indicate a steady and long-term arrangement whatever the marriage metaphor used. The Sino-Russian partnership is dense and multidimensional, and it is rooted in shared norms. International norms – the standard of expected state behaviour – reflect the underlying values of the global system, and underpin international cooperation in the political, economic and security-related fields.Sino-Russian normative cooperation aims at redefining and re-interpreting existing international norms in a way that reflects their shared principles, worldviews and threat perceptions – ‘like-mindedness’ as Chinese official communication refers to it.5 Both China and Russia share a conviction that today's international order is unfairly dominated by the US and the West, and that the current international norms and their interpretation reflect Western values that should not be considered universal. They are both convinced that these need to be changed, and that the time is ripe for this. For Beijing and Moscow, a post-Western era of global governance looms on the horizon. This shared reading of the present and predilection for such a future global order has been translated into dynamically evolving normative cooperation between the partners at multilateral level. Two other important and shared convictions are, first, that neither party represents a threat to the other regime’s survival (and even has an interest in supporting the other regime) and, second, that the West would like to see the regime in both China and Russia challenged (and under the right circumstances is ready to contribute to this). The shared worldview and threat perception help to smooth out the differences between the two countries: when their interpretations differ, they show mutual self-restraint and acquiesce rather than go against each other in the name of national interest. This Brief examines the normative dimension of Sino-Russian cooperation – i.e. how the two countries advance their understanding of international rules and norms together in the international arena. It studies how the two countries advance their understanding of appropriate state behaviour internationally in three areas: human rights, non-intervention and cyber-governance. All three issues are united by a common thread – states’ sovereignty – a robust version of which both vigorously defend. As a result, in these three areas, their cooperation is particularly strong and proactive.
Topic:
Bilateral Relations, European Union, Partnerships, Geopolitics, and Norms
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Eurasia, and Asia

5. Russia's Forays into Sub-Saharan Africa: Do you want to be my friend, again?

Author:
Giovanni Faleg and Stanislav Secrieru
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
In 1977, the Soviet Union’s leadership was in a jubilant mood as Ethiopia had just switched sides to the socialist camp. By the time of this event, the Kremlin had been conducting a renewed offensive on the continent for several years, propping up socialist regimes and ‘liberation movements’ in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) and South Africa. Yet contrary to warnings that the Soviets might eventually ‘swallow’ all of sub-Saharan Africa, by 1990 the offensive had fizzled out: ideologically and financially broken, Moscow cut military aid, suspended credit lines, wound down diplomatic representations, closed cultural centres and ultimately withdrew political support. When rebel forces advanced towards Addis Ababa in 1991, Moscow stood idly by as the Derg regime – its former poster child – disintegrated. Over the course of the next two decades, post-Soviet Russia showed little interest in the sub-continent and only in the late 2010s did the Kremlin once again display the ambition to play a greater geopolitical role: sub-Saharan Africa remerged in Russian political discourse and trade and diplomatic traffic picked up. Simultaneously, Moscow revived alumni associations of Africans who studied in the Soviet Union and launched initiatives to lure more students to Russia. The Wagner Group – a military enterprise connected to the Russian state – also expanded its radius of action south of the Sahara. But what is driving Moscow’s renewed activism? How different it is from its previous diplomatic thrusts? Can a coherent strategy be discerned behind this push? Finally, how is sub-Saharan Africa reacting to Russia’s overtures and what does it mean for the EU?
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
Africa, Russia, Eurasia, and Sub-Saharan Africa

6. Arctic Stress Test: Great power competition and Euro-Atlantic defence in the High North

Author:
Simona R. Soare
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
The Arctic is again becoming a region of strategic focus. For three decades after the Cold War, when the region was at the centre of great power competition, successful cooperation transformed the Arctic into a ‘low tension’ zone and consolidated the perception of ‘Arctic exceptionalism’, the sense that the region is uniquely cooperative and immune from broader geopolitical tensions. For the eight Arctic states that comprise the Arctic Council – Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Russia and the US – there has been hope that regional dynamics can be insulated from global geopolitical shifts. However, two phenomena are challenging the notion of Arctic exceptionalism and testing the limits of regional governance. First, climate change is accelerating the melting of polar ice at a historically unprecedented pace. Ever larger swathes of the Arctic are becoming accessible, and with them the region’s untapped natural resources, raising the prospect of increased human activity. Second, great power competition between the US, Russia and China in and for the Arctic is intensifying, changing regional power dynamics and exposing the region to ‘spillover’ effects from competition in Europe and the Indo-Pacific. These changes are accentuated by the erosion of the rules-based international order which underpins Arctic governance, the dismantling of the arms control regime, and the rapid proliferation of advanced military capabilities. Physical presence and ownership of infrastructure are becoming vectors of influence, as evidenced by President Trump’s offer to ‘buy Greenland.’ Meanwhile, Russian bombers regularly approach European and North American airspace and Russian submarines are increasingly present in the Norwegian and North Seas, constantly probing the agility of Euro-Atlantic defences. The growing Chinese presence in the region creates economic and financial dependencies. Consequently, what happens in the Arctic affects more than just regional actors. What does great power competition for access to and control of the Arctic mean for Euro-Atlantic security? In answering this question, this Brief argues that the Arctic will be a strategic stress test for European defence and for the transatlantic bond. The paper is structured in three parts. The first part outlines the security challenges and the drivers of geopolitical change in the Arctic. The second part examines the features of great power competition in this region and the implications for European and transatlantic defence. The final section of the Brief offers policy considerations for European and transatlantic decision-makers on how to mitigate the negative consequences of these regional dynamics.
Topic:
European Union, Geopolitics, Strategic Competition, and Power
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Arctic, and United States of America

7. Russia in the Western Balkans: Tactical wins, strategic setbacks

Author:
Stanislav Secrieru
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
Over the last few years, news about Russia’s conduct in the Western Balkans has resembled dispatches coming from the trenches of political and economic warfare: Moscow has slashed gas supplies, banned imports of agro-food products, conducted coordinated disinformation campaigns, nurtured nationalist organisations, deployed Cossack paramilitary groups, tested cyber defences and allegedly even tried to overthrow legitimate governments. This flurry of disruptive operations caught Europe by surprise and generated debate: does this resurgence herald Russia’s return to the region and if so, what is driving the comeback? What does Moscow want to achieve? What is the Russian modus operandi in the region? Is it confined only to coercion, as the headlines suggest, or is there a softer side to Russia’s power? Finally, looking retrospectively, did Russia’s approach bear fruit? This Brief addresses this set of questions in greater detail, with two key findings. First, Russia’s policy in the region is executed by a network of Russian state and non-state actors who are blurring the traditional lines between the public and private domains. This allows the Kremlin to tap into the resources of informal institutions and hide behind a fog of deniability. Second, Russia has raised the cost of Western Balkan integration in the EU and NATO by exploiting the region’s political and economic vulnerabilities. That said, although Moscow was able to slow down the process, it has hitherto failed to alter the region’s steady drift towards Western institutions, at least for now.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, NATO, European Union, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Eurasia, and Balkans