Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Western weakness is the ace in Putin’s hand


Sanctions are not enough to deter a belligerent, opportunistic Russia that can sense our faltering resolve to stand up to it

So many critics of the Putin regime have died in mysterious circumstances that the apparent suicide of Alexander Shchetinin, a Russian journalist based in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, makes barely a ripple. Ukrainian police (not renowned for their investigative nous) have found no signs of foul play; Mr Shchetinin, who had declared the Russian leader his “personal foe”, was said to be depressed — and had complained that émigré critics of the Kremlin were being driven to despair.

But clearer clues of trouble abound. Right now, Russia is conducting its largest military exercise for decades, alarming our spies and analysts. 


It pursues a gruesome proxy war in Syria, exposing the helplessness of western diplomacy. Fighting bubbles on in Ukraine with scores of casualties this month. Russia bombards western countries, including non-Nato Sweden and Finland, with propaganda. It tries to skew our elections with leaks and smears.

Mitt Romney was right. In 2012 the Republican presidential contender attracted derision when he maintained that Russia was America’s “number one geopolitical foe”. Even his own foreign policy advisers were aghast. Being hawkish is fine but that sounded like scaremongering.

Except it wasn’t. The Kremlin can do what we can’t. It accepts economic pain, takes risks and brazenly lies about what it is doing. The aim is not world domination but to break the rules-based order which has kept us safe and free since the end of the Cold War.

We like these arrangements. Disputes are settled by negotiation. Small countries have a say in what happens. Big countries don’t get their way automatically. In short, might does not equal right.

Russia loathes these rules. It believes that they are unfairly drafted and hypocritically implemented. The post-1991 world is rigged in favour of the victors, who destroyed the Soviet Union and then constrained Russia.

From the Kremlin’s point of view this is a bleak and existential struggle — and one that Russia can win as the West weakens. The game is well worth the candle.

From our point of view, friction with Russia is a little local difficulty. Other problems — the economy, migration, climate change — matter so much more.
Strikingly, the consensus among Russia-watchers is now clearer than at any time since the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia is a global pipsqueak when it comes to GDP, innovation or culture: a failing authoritarian kleptocracy, fuelled by propaganda and military bombast. Putin has spectacularly failed to modernise or diversify the economy. The political system is a farce piled on a tragedy.

Power is ever more centralised, with even his oldest allies, KGB veterans, sidelined by over-promoted bodyguards and other hoodlums.

No other adversary poses such a threat to the West. Russia succeeds because it is strong-willed and opportunistic. It exploits weakness but shrinks from strength.

The best approach would be a united front in which western countries practised what they preached, enforcing their rules and procedures. That would mean, for example, cracking down on Russian money laundering and ensuring that Nato’s plans to defend the frontline states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland) are credible and properly resourced.

Instead we have, at best, half-measures. Our attention span is not long enough to remember that the Kremlin invaded and dismembered Ukraine two years ago, changing a European border by force and violating the central principles of the continent’s post-1991 security order.

American and European sanctions may have dented Mr Putin’s ambitions in Ukraine (though that country’s own gritty military resistance to the invaders played a big role too) but bans on financial transactions with Putin cronies and on high-tech investment in the energy industry have not sent the economy into a tailspin. Nor have they made the Russian ruler’s inner circle panic and implode.

One reason is that western banks and other companies have been so eager to help evade the sanctions. Deutsche Bank in particular is under scrutiny for its role, highlighted by an investigation in the latest edition of The New Yorker, in facilitating billions of dollars of “mirror trades” for the richest and most powerful men in Russia. These are a financial sleight of hand in which a customer uses shell companies to buy and sell the same shares in different jurisdictions. The bank makes a fat fee, and the money flows untraceably across borders.

Russia also senses that western political resolve behind the sanctions is weakening. For now, Angela Merkel is holding the line in the European Union but countries such as Italy, France and Slovakia feel that pressure on Russia is a costly distraction. Britain, which used to take a hard line, is now sidelined in European diplomacy. The Obama administration is edging towards a deal with Russia over Syria.

The coming months are therefore going to be particularly dangerous. If Hilary Clinton wins the US presidential election, Russia will face an administration determined to bring what it sees as the world’s biggest rogue state to heel. Mrs Clinton detests the Russian leader (and in private does a highly amusing imitation of his macho body language). She and her hawkish advisers have chafed at the softly-softly approach of the White House under Barack Obama, and the self-centred and unpredictable approach of the incumbent secretary of state, John Kerry.

However, Mrs Clinton would not move into the White House until January. If Mr Putin can change the facts on the ground before that — driving a hard bargain over Syria, forcing Ukraine into a humiliating political settlement with the Russian-backed puppet states in the east, or biting chunks out of Nato’s credibility in the Baltics — he has a good chance of getting away with it. Many in Europe would say that a new status quo, even accompanied by mouthfuls of humble pie, is better than a costly conflict with the Kremlin over issues that most voters regard as peripheral.

Presenting a Trump presidency with a fait accompli in Europe would be even more advantageous for Mr Putin. The Republican contender’s foreign policy knowledge is flimsy. He admires the Russian president, regards Nato as obsolete and America’s European allies as free-riders. He is unlikely to start his presidency by confronting the Kremlin.

Edward Lucas writes for The Economist

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