Reluctant adversaries

Russia and the West are behaving like two star-crossed lovers wanting to make up but not quite knowing how to begin. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has told German Chancellor Angela Merkel over the telephone that he is withdrawing troops from his country’s border with Ukraine. And a Sunday meeting bet-ween John Kerry, US secretary of state, and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov took place in Paris without yielding immediate results.

These efforts and the extension of European Union sanctions against Moscow for another six months by a divided Europe are signs of each side probing the other’s intentions. The truth is that these sanctions cannot last indefinitely and several countries on the southern flank are increasingly keen to end them.

Perhaps the barometer of the new mood in the West is Western representation at the annual economic summit in St. Petersburg. Last year, at the height of the Crimean crisis, big US corporations were asked by the US state department not to attend the Russian version of the Davos gathering. This year there were heads of top American corporations and heads of European energy giants keen to do business, particularly in the energy field.

Besides, the beleaguered Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, was feted in St. Petersburg while Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi met Mr Putin in Moscow and later gave him a red carpet welcome at home. Obviously, Greece’s financial needs are beyond any realistic Russian help. But the visit resulted in the signing of a gas pipeline deal with Russia, which has wider implications. The attitude of the two European leaders is a pointer to their impatience with sanctions harming their industries and export-led growth and Moscow’s ability to try to exploit differences in the European Union.

These interactions between Russia and the West gain traction because there is increasing realisation in Western capitals that economic sanctions have perhaps outlived their usefulness. Their hopes are pinned on the Minsk II agreement on Ukraine signed by Russia, Ukraine and Germany, among others, which has been under stress by an increase in fighting between Kiev forces and Russian-supported separatists. Ms Merkel, a key mediator, still swears by the agreement for its usefulness to seek a compromise.

It is well recognised that the second part of the agreement, political decentralisation of power, cannot proceed amidst shooting. Beyond European concerns, there is growing recognition in Washington that the time has come to make a serious attempt at arriving at an understanding with Russia. Both sides have demonstrated their muscle power, Russia by beating the drum of its formidable nuclear arsenal and continuing military modernisation, and the US is revving up its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation machinery by prepositioning heavy military equipment near Russian borders and readying a rapid reaction force, more to reassure nervous allies than to activate them.

Thus the decks have now been cleared for talking. There is little speculation any longer about stiffening anti-Russian sanctions. Indeed, there would have been opposition from EU’s southern flank to any such move. For the Obama administration, broader geopolitical issues are of greater importance. The Islamic State or its ISIS variant shows no sign of stalling in their murderous advance in Syria and Iraq. Countless US and allied bombing runs have failed to break the back of the IS advance.

Greece — with a country besieged by creditors under a new Left government that came to power in response to public frustration caused by a prolonged austerity regime — represents another kind of problem. While the patch-up with creditors has been taken to the wire, Europe itself is besieged by the massive arrival of boat people and the anti-migrant mood it has helped create, the latest outcome being the impressive performance of the anti-immigration party in Danish elections.

Britain itself is suffering from European blues in a setting of growing euro-scepticism. Prime Minister David Cameron is obliged to hold an in-out referendum on staying in the European Union even as the hardliners in his Conservative Party are trying to push the exit button. In an untypical move indicative of popular feelings, his government has refused to share the burden of the boat people, with Italy and Greece left to cope with the problem. It had been proposed to share the burden among EU member states equitably.

With these tremendous problems, Europeans in particular are finding it increasing difficult to carry on a new form of Cold War with Russia. Moscow has major interests in areas of conflict and could help in their resolution. Russia is already part of the Western negotiating team on Iran’s nuclear programme.
Although the US has tried to probe Moscow for a compromise on Syria on its support to the Bashar al-Assad regime, the element of mistrust between the two sides stemming from the economic sanctions has proved too strong to allow an agreement.

Europe seems to be mired in problems that have accumulated for some time. The rise of the Right is a dangerous portent. Asserting national power, as opposed to the pooling of sovereignty that is the basis of the EU, is coming into fashion. Conventional wisdom has it that Marine Le Pen of the National Front in France is a serious candidate for the 2017 presidential elections. And the Right parties have now come together as a voting bloc in the European Parliament.

Given the nature of ferment in the European Union, it is hardly surprising that bread and butter issues take precedence, with the geopolitical challenge presented by Russia taking second place.

There are the hardliners, such as Poland and the Baltic States, guided by historical and geographic reasons, rather than logic. But they are outweighed by a majority of EU members seeking to live in amity with Russia to the extent possible. The challenge for Ukraine falls in another category, influenced as it is by its peoples’ divided loyalties to the West and Russia.