Containing Russia: can Europe manage on its own?

By R.W. Johnson

The late Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban said of Yasser Arafat that “he never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity”. Indeed, anyone who looks at the history of negotiations in Israel/Palestine cannot but be struck by how many times the Palestinians turned down offers of a separate state on far more generous terms than exist today.

It has been the same story with European defence. Even before NATO was founded in April 1949 there had been considerable discussion of a West European political union, as part of which there would have to be a joint European army. This was very much in the minds of the American leadership which was eager that Europe should shoulder a full 50% share in defending itself. So, contrary to Donald Trump’s assertion that the EU was formed “to screw America”, European political union was an objective which was pushed very hard by America upon sometimes reluctant Europeans.

The problem was that for a united European army to work or make sense, West Germany had to be allowed to re-arm and to constitute a key component of that army. The still fresh memories of the War made that a very controversial proposal. The USSR was, of course, dead against, but several of the West European countries also had reservations. Jean Monnet, who was already dreaming of a united Europe, realised that this was a crucial element therein and drew up a plan for a European Defence Community. This he submitted to the French premier, Rene Pleven, who in turn proposed it to the French National Assembly in October 1950. The plan provided for a common European army to be set up with the eventual involvement of German units.

The plan was bitterly opposed by the Communists and Gaullists – who worked together against it – and for several years French premiers hesitated to bring the matter to a vote. Finally, on 30 August 1954, the premier, Pierre Mendes-France, allowed it to come to a vote and it lost, 319-264. This was a fundamental date in European history, for it doomed not only the EDC but the whole idea of a European political community. Plans for that had been drawn up too but were now abandoned. Washington was dismayed.

However, by then European elites had already become comfortable with the idea that they could rely on the American nuclear umbrella and on America’s formidable military strength in general, so they didn’t really need to exert themselves. And, indeed, this became the guiding idea for the next seventy years. American presidents cajoled and warned to no avail. Even after the first Trump term, European governments continued with minimal defence spending.

It is only now, with Trump’s second term, that European governments have at last woken up, are re-arming and talking about how they can co-operate with one another. Yet this will mean overcoming both the old problem of national rivalries and Europe’s long slumber of complacency, with large cuts in social spending so as to afford a steep increase in defence spending.

The international challenge faced by Western countries is oddly symmetrical. Europe now faces the threat of an expansionist Russian empire. Kremlin propagandists make no secret of the fact that they wish to conquer and absorb the whole of the Ukraine and the Baltic states. But their admiration for Stalin is based largely on the fact that it was under him that the Russian empire had its largest expansion, ruling all the way to Berlin. Putin continually insists that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the greatest tragedy of the century, and he has done all he can to reconstitute it, effectively reducing both Belorussia and Georgia to client states and reabsorbing the Crimea and the Donbas.

Moreover, Putin already proclaims that Russia is at war with the West. The West is, by its very existence is a threat to Russia, not just militarily but in its values. Accordingly the West must be undermined by every possible means – by winning European right-wing parties over to Putin’s conservative nationalism, by sabotage and by targeted assassinations. Ultimately, the West must be destroyed in order to reverse Russia’s Cold War defeat and to make a world safe for Putin’s authoritarian nationalism. Most Western leaders have still to wake up to how fundamental a struggle this will be.

Putin’s great fear is that the expansion of both the EU and NATO to Russia’s borders means that the neighbouring parts of his empire can see how much freer and more prosperous the old Comecon countries have become as part of the Western bloc. This in turn sets up strong currents of attraction within the empire, for – as was apparent both with Georgia and Belorussia – their populations would love to follow the example of Poland, the Czech Republic or Slovakia. The result would be that one by one the frontier regions of the empire would get peeled away – a nightmare. So he uses main force and repression to guarantee the opposite.

In effect the Europeans (including Britain) are being left to deal with this problem, for America is preoccupied with having to face another expanding empire, that of China. This is a far more formidable task, for while Russia’s population is falling and its economy is far from buoyant, China still has an enormous population and its economy is growing much faster than America’s.

China’s rulers clearly want to restore China to its central position in the world, something it long enjoyed under the Middle Kingdom. All the surrounding states were its tributaries and China was the world’s richest and most advanced state. Thus China has reconquered Tibet, absorbed Xingiang, Macao and Hong Kong and has its aim clearly set on Taiwan. Beyond that it has territorial claims on almost all its surrounding states and it has set out to control and possess virtually the whole of the South China Sea.

It is, indeed, difficult to know where its ambitions end. It is clearly determined to become the world’s greatest political and economic power. China is not necessarily concerned to destroy the West – and it isn’t bothered by Western values in the way that Putin is. Its aim is far more ambitious: to restore the old position whereby China is the centre of world power with all other states (‘the barbarians’) deferring to it.

America is determined to resist this. Its explosive reaction to the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941 made it the dominant power in the Pacific, and this is a position it is determined to hold. It will not willingly cede its leading position in the world to anyone (though in fact Trump’s isolationism is greatly weakening America). For more than a decade American presidents have pleaded the primacy of the Indo-Pacific region and have warned that they must move their focus away from Europe and the Middle East. Now, under Trump, the US is firmly acting on this premise. While America has frittered away its blood and treasure in Iraq and Afghanistan, East Asia has become the economic and industrial centre of the world.

So, if Europe is to be left to head off the Russian threat, and America to do the same with China, what are their prospects? In principle, Europe’s task should be easier. The EU has 448 million people and Britain another 68 million, Switzerland 9 million and Norway 5.5 million, giving a total of 530 million. Russia’s population is 146 million and falling. The combined GDP of the EU, Norway, the UK and Switzerland is $24.7 trillion. Russia’s GDP is $2.02 trillion.

To be sure, it will take Europe some time to re-arm, but in principle it has enormous advantages over Russia. Moreover, Russia’s war against Ukraine has cost it the lives of many thousands of its young men and has also resulted in the outward flight of many of the best and brightest of the younger generation. Both these phenomena will hurt Russia’s birth rate, and its population is already dropping by half a million a year.

Against that, the population of the US is 340 million, compared to China’s 1,411 million and America’s GDP is $30.5 trillion compared to China’s $17.8 trillion but China is extremely dynamic, is the world’s largest manufacturer, and has the world’s largest army and navy.

However, both China and Russia are nuclear powers, so neither the Europeans nor the Americans will want to risk a war. What this means is that we are back in the world of George F. Kennan, the father of containment policy. Kennan, then a counsellor at the US Embassy in Moscow, wrote first in 1946 in “The Long Telegram” (from the US Embassy in Moscow to the State Department in Washington) and then in an article for Foreign Affairs in 1947, that the Soviet Union was intrinsically expansionist, that America (and the West) must accept that it was an opponent, that it would not co-operate and had to be opposed. But equally, war had to be avoided, so:

“… the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies … Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the Western world is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and manoeuvres of Soviet policy, but which cannot be charmed or talked out of existence”.

Kennan was friendly with Frank Roberts, an official at the British Embassy in Moscow, and they worked on these ideas together, so the policy of containment was adopted by the British as well as the Americans.

The logic of containment was that if Soviet power could be contained – possibly for many years – in the end the Soviet Union would succumb to its own internal contradictions. In the meantime, the Soviet sphere of influence should be respected but it must not be allowed to expand, and the West must meanwhile strengthen its own institutions to protect them from Soviet subversion and be willing to use the full panoply of soft power in its struggle against the Soviet threat. This policy was followed with great patience and stunning success until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991.

In one sense this suggests a dreary future of not one but two cold wars – for, of course, the Cold War was the result of containment. Every aggressive Soviet move was blocked by Western counter-initiatives, starting with the Berlin airlift of 1948-49, so the USSR was hostile and seen by the West as a threat. China, thinking ahead as usual, has seen this possibility and says it will resist any attempt at its containment. And, indeed, it would be difficult to contain China now – it has already become massively involved in international trade and investment around the world and constitutes an economic partner or rival in a way that the USSR never did.

Nonetheless, some form or adaptation of containment does seem the likely Western response. Thus the US is trying to prevent China from accessing the most advanced computer chips and has now made trade between the two countries almost impossible. Europe, similarly, is still deploying sanctions against Russia and talking about increasing them. It has also abruptly severed its dependence on Russian oil and gas.

Of course there will be those who try to find a middle way and who will want detente with Russia and China. But for the West this is an existential crisis, for neither Russia nor China seem willing to accept that national sovereignty has to be sacrosanct. Russia has invaded an entirely peaceful neighbour and wants to extinguish it as an independent state, while China is not only threatening to invade Taiwan but has contemptuously rejected the ruling of an international court that it cannot claim ownership of the South China Sea. Indeed, it is attempting by main force to take over outlying reefs and islands belonging to the Philippines, and its claims are disputed by virtually all the neighbouring countries.

These forcible invasions of national sovereignty have to be resisted, and if it takes a Cold War to do that, so be it. The respect for the sovereign independence and territorial integrity of nation states is the most basic rule in the UN Charter, and it is hard to see how any orderly system of international relations can exist without it. Of course, Donald Trump’s demands to take over Canada and Greenland are equally lawless. But Russia and China are actually threatening or already using armed force in pursuit of their demands (Trump has at least not gone that far yet) and that has to be resisted.

So one can descry a future in which Europe has to contain Russia while America contains China. Of course, Russia and China are close allies and it may be difficult to treat them separately. But there are also obvious strains in that relationship. Russia is becoming ever more dependent on China. Pipelines are being built to deliver massive amounts of Russian oil and gas to China, and meanwhile Western sanctions against Russia have seen China fill most of the resulting gaps. Ultimately Russia could well become a neocolonial dependency of China, and it is unlikely that either Putin or his successors will happily accept such a fate. It should not be forgotten that there is already a good deal of illegal Chinese immigration into Siberia, and that China still has some territorial claims on parts of Russia.

These are problems at one remove but they make the future imponderable. The chess board of world geopolitics never ceases to be in motion. Currently European elites are in shock that America has abandoned them to contain Russia alone. This will test whether Europe can rise to the task.

Initially France attempted to block non-EU companies from being able to bid for arms contracts from the $150 billion EU defence fund. In effect this meant keeping out British Aerospace and other British firms and ensuring the supremacy of the French armaments industry. This was a most unpromising start, for the British have to be full partners in European defence for it to be credible. Now Britain is told that its companies may compete for European defence contracts – but they must pay for the privilege. This is small-minded and ridiculous.

These may be only teething problems but the danger is that, as so often in the past, Europe will not be able to achieve unity even in the face of the Russian threat. If Europe fails to stand up properly to that challenge, it will only have itself to blame.

FEATURED IMAGE: European leaders sign the European Defence Treaty, 27 May 1952. (AFP)