By Gabija Žukauskaitė, European Politics Graduate from King’s College London
Introduction
As the war in Ukraine was largely stimulated by developments beyond Ukraine’s borders, this essay discusses the extent to which geopolitical motivations can explain the roots of Russia’s initial war against Ukraine from 2014 until the full-scale invasion. The concept of geopolitical used in this paper departs from the classical geopolitical view grounded in the contest over the territorial expansion of control as a driving force of international politics (Youngs, 2017). Importantly, although the 1990s marked the critical shift from “realist” to “critical” geopolitics, Russia’s foreign policy has been increasingly described as an articulation of the revival of “geopolitical realism” distinguished by zero-sum contests over spheres of influence and antagonism between major powers (Raik, 2019: 54). Following this, the essay will dig into the analysis of three different yet overlapping dimensions – the security, political, and economic – allowing to estimate the role of the geopolitical approach behind the conflict. Yet, due to the limits to the scope of this paper, the essay largely focuses on Russia’s conflict with the EU over Ukraine. However, the US role in many respects remains undeniable. I will conclude that, although geopolitical motivations have played the dominant role in the conflict, the war cannot be judged entirely upon the geopolitical approach since the very idea of interstate relations as by nature a conflictual zero-sum game has been rejected by Europe and, although not equally consistently, the US. Instead, I will hold that only a clash between the realist geopolitical approach represented by Russia and the liberal norms-based approach advocated by the West can adequately explain the roots of the war.
The security dimension: the West’s security order and Russia’s revisionism
The conflictual visions of the European Western security order are often viewed as the most precarious and important motivation for conflicts between Russia and the EU. While Russia kept emphasizing the European security framework as a competition between the spheres of influence, the EU continued rejecting both the existence of spheres of influence and therefore the principle of geopolitics in a realist sense as such (Raik, 2019: 62). The conflict may also be understood as a clash between the EU’s philosophy based on the shared-sovereignty model and Russia’s traditional Great Power standpoint, grounded in the notion of derzhavnost and its aspiration for suzerainty of the post-Soviet region (Merry, 2016: 27). Accordingly, this approach rejects the idea of equal sovereignty of the UN member states and challenges both the UN-based norms of international security and the European security order (Raik, 2019: 63). Hence, believing that there are only a few truly sovereign states controlling their spheres of influence, it concludes that most post-Soviet neighbours cannot be truly sovereign, which is why Russia ought to act as their suzerain (Merry, 2016: 29).
Arguably, the central geopolitical reason why the Kremlin views the integration of Ukraine into the EU’s common security and defence policy as a great danger to Russia’s security is that it considers the EU as a potential centre of great power, expanding its diplomatic and economic influence into Eastern Europe, rather than an innocent international organization (Götz, 2015: 4). Illustratively, this viewpoint was clearly reflected by Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov’s statement that Russians “are accused of having spheres of influence. But what is the Eastern Partnership, if not an attempt to extend the EU’s sphere of influence” (cited in Pop, 2009). Similarly, the Kremlin has viewed “the EU as a Trojan horse for NATO expansion” (Götz, 2015: 4). As the experience of the early 2000s shows, the membership of post-Communist states in the Alliance was extending in parallel with their membership in the Union. Thus, as Götz argues, it would not be a stretch to suppose that the new pro-Western Ukrainian government would eventually build stronger ties with NATO, or possibly even welcome NATO’s military troops in Ukraine, which the Kremlin views as a major threat for both strategic and historical reasons (ibid).
As the realist geopolitical logic projects, a state’s capability of extending military power grows with proximity (ibid: 5), which means that “no state would welcome the extension of a historically hostile military alliance [including its client states] up to its borders.” (Schelifer and Treisman, 2011: 128). This principle was also well concluded by Mearsheimer in his article on the Ukrainian crisis: “This is geopolitics 101: great powers are always sensitive to potential threats near their home territory” (Mearsheimer, 2014: 82). From this perspective, it is of little surprise that precluding foreign powers from being proximate to Russia has been the Kremlin’s intrinsic national interest. This was demonstrated after the considerations over admitting Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, which Putin perceived as “a direct threat to Russia” (Mearsheimer, 2014: 79). Hence, driven by “geopolitical considerations” to keep “Ukraine out of NATO” (Trenin, 2014), Russia’s soft power was soon replaced with hard power since the invasion of Georgia in 2008. In sum, from the Kremlin’s view, the pursuit of counterbalancing and suppressing the increasing power of the West by exercising effective control over neighbour states can be interpreted as largely a reaction to external pressures explained entirely by geopolitical motivations (Karagiannis, 2013: 84-88).
The EU, however, while emphasizing economic integration and democratization via the Eastern Partnership initiative (EaP), seemed to neglect security dynamics and thus any geopolitical motivations whatsoever. Similarly, the the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) held that security should be enhanced indirectly via stronger economic and political ties, and advocation of domestic reforms inside the partner states (Raik, 2019: 63). Even more, as Schimmelfennig puts it, the “founding myth” of the EU, which the central objective of the ENP is based on, is that security should be enhanced through economic integration (Schimmelfennig, 2003). Importantly, the initiation of the EaP was the EU’s response to the rising Russia’s foreign policy aggression, particularly the invasion of Georgia in 2008 (Raik, 2019: 63). Hence, as the post-Soviet states became more willing to build a closer relationship with the EU, the EU started initiating the formalization of the value-based economic ties with these states and advocacy of domestic reforms. In effect, however, the ENP has arguably demonstrated an “overly idealistic” perception of the EU as a “force for good”, which has meant the rejection of the classical notion of power as a capability of influencing others’ behaviour without resistance (Berenskotter, 2007: 3) and thus understated the strategic context and hard power even as a possible subsequent outcome of its own activity. What concerns the later conflict resolution after Russia’s military invasions of Georgia and Ukraine, although the EU enhanced its economic and political involvement, the efforts remained limited to low-key soft power actions (Popescu in Raik, 2019: 64). Illustratively, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the military invasion of Donbas, the EU’s response was limited to three major elements: (1) the relatively ineffective economic sanctions (although this was the first case when sanctions were imposed over an important economic partner), (2) the diplomatic activities (such as Minsk agreements) with a rather temporary effect, and (3) the intensification of the post-Soviet EaP states’ ‘resilience’ via institutional frameworks in areas like border protection or security sector reform (EC in Raik, 2019: 65). Clearly, the EU’s actions show the predominant liberal approach, focusing on the impact of economic interdependence and liberal ideas of democratic peace in European foreign policy.
The political dimension: an increased West’s promotion of democracy and activism in regime change by the EU and the US
The spread of the democratic values from the EU side over the Eastern European states (that were never offered the possibility to become full EU members) first become apparent with the launch of the previously mentioned ENP in 2004 and the later EaP in 2008. These initiatives aimed at “political association and economic integration” of the post-Soviet states outside the EU (including Ukraine) and integrating these states into the EU economy (Raik, 2019: 57-58). In fact, scholars argue that before this, the wave of massive protests (and colour revolutions) in Serbia (2000), Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2005), and Moldova (2009), these states did not receive much support from the EU (ibid). Nevertheless, the democratic protests (especially after Euromaidan in 2014) have become the main reason for tensions between Russia and the EU. Also, this clearly coincided with Russia’s increasingly authoritarian regime from the 2000s (Freedom House, 2017), which appeared most evidently from Putin’s third term (starting in 2012) (Raik, 2019: 58). As the model of democracy represented by the EU gained more “power of attraction”, this gap between political order in the EU gradually increased and became an existential threat to the Kremlin regime (ibid).
From the realist geopolitical standpoint, it was the West’s promotion of liberal values and interference in regime changes in Ukraine (as well as other post-Soviet states along Russia’s borders) peeling Kyiv away from Moscow that generated a ground for invasion. Yet, it is worth noting that the EU’s new agreements directly linked to democratic conditionality also raised suspicion about the increasingly geopolitical aims of the EU, rather than plans based on democratic values (Raik, 2019: 59). Chronologically speaking, as the agreement between Ukraine and the EU progressed until 2013, Russia replied with increasing pressure to reject the deal, which means that geopolitical tensions prevailed. The developments of 2013 in the Ukraine-EU relationship, culminating during the Vilnius Summit, demonstrated that the EaP agenda had cast doubt on the role of European democratic values: if an agreement had been signed with a progressively undemocratic Ukraine, it would have meant that geopolitics was prioritized over democratic norms (ibid).
However, President Yanukovych’s decision to reject an economic deal with the EU and accept the Russian counteroffer instead marked a different turning point in the conflict. The events fostered massive anti-government and pro-Western demonstrations, which led to the further Russian occupation of Crimea orchestrated by the Kremlin, pressure on the new Ukrainian government by dramatically raising the natural gas prices, the support for separatists in eastern Ukraine (to provoke a civil war) and, most importantly, massing a large army on the border with Ukraine. When confronted with the Russian zero-sum agenda, the role of the liberal normative approach seemed to be limited. Instead, it seems more plausible to view the roots of Russia’s war as a clash between the way the Kremlin thinks and acts, that is in accordance with “geopolitical considerations” (Trenin, 2014) (or realist dictates) seeking to keep “Ukraine out of NATO”, and the way the Western counterparts abide a value-based liberal approach to international politics (Raik, 2019: 57). Hence, it seems to confirm Mearsheimer’s assertion that the Western allies have “unknowingly provoked” the crisis and subsequently the full-scale war in Ukraine (Mearsheimer, 2014: 84).
The economic dimension: competing economic integration projects
Some scholars agree that trade, or more precisely, Ukraine’s pursuit of its own trade agreement with the EU, was actually at the bottom of the initial conflict between Russia and Ukraine (Pomeranz, 2016: 52). That is because it resulted in the collision of EU-centric and Russia’s Kremlin-centric economic integration visions, which led to considerable tensions within the economic order at the international level (Raik, 2019: 60). In particular, the EU’s viewpoint is understood as a “win-win” scenario in which new markets are gained when both sides make concessions (Pomeranz, 2016: 52). While Ukraine tried to play “a profitable intermediary” between the EU and Russian trade blocks, Russia maintained a zero-sum approach to international trade, corresponding the mentality of geopolitical realism (ibid). Ultimately, scholars agree, that this attitude appeared decisive in the subsequent initiation of the war in Ukraine (ibid). In practice, as we have seen, when the comprehensive agreements of free trade with Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova were incorporated in the EaP and DCFTAs (Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas), Putin responded by starting to prioritize the reintegration of the CIS region (Raik, 2019: 61).
However, Russia’s actions with regard to economic integration cannot be considered symmetric to those of the EU. That is primarily because while DCFTAs (offered to the EaP states) were reconcilable with other free trade agreements (such as CIS FTA), Russia, in turn, pressured these states to join the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) irreconcilable with bilateral agreements with the EU (ibid: 61). This means that like the EU members, the EEU states could be a part of the union’s common trade policies but cannot conclude free trade agreements independently. Also, that the EU had no intention of exclusively controlling the external trade policies is clear because a free trade area refuses tariffs among its partners and grants them significant autonomy by retaining their right of setting their external tariffs to non-members (Pomeranz, 2016: 54-55). The Kremlin, however, did the opposite: as the Russian-initiated customs union required establishing the same tariffs for all third countries, it means all members surrendered the regulation of their external trade policy (ibid). Thus, rather than aiming at only a free trade area amongst its members, Russia strived to emulate the EU and build the eastern trade block through the EEU (ibid). This aimed at supporting Russia’s regional geostrategic objectives and placing Russia among global trading powers controlling the middle ground between Asia and Europe.
This predominance of geopolitical motivation from the Russian side became even clearer when in January 2016, following the failed trilateral talks and implementation of DCFTA between the EU and Ukraine, the Kremlin reacted by imposing trade sanctions and terminating Ukraine’s partnership in the CIS FTA. If we compare the two economic integration projects in theory, the EEU has been principally built on the EU model of integration (Raik, 2019: 62). But practically, however, the EEU partakes the deficiency of the rule of law and the all-encompassing hegemony of Russia among the EEU states (ibid). Moreover, Russia has been holding the EEU states in a highly dependent “asymmetric relationship” by wielding (energy) trade and manipulating the powerlessness and unpredictability of existing agreements and norms (Dragneva and Wolczuk, 2014: 62)., an important implication of Russia’s strident protectionism, combined with open disunity even between the members EEU, depicts an “economic dead end” (rather than a victory) and subverts any credibility of Russia’s competition with major global economic powers (Pomeranz, 2016: 67-68).
Conclusion
In conclusion, as far as Russia’s stance towards the initiation and escalation of the war is concerned, the role of the geopolitical approach to the conflict remains predominant. The analysis of the security dimension shows that the war can be viewed as primarily the intersection between the contest for spheres of influence (Russia) and the UN norms-based international security (the EU and the US). Similarly, the political dimension reflects the clash between the West’s promotion of democratic regime change and Russian authoritarian realist dictates grounded in geopolitical considerations. Finally, the economic dimension has shown the collision between win-win (the EU) and zero-sum (Russia) approaches to the conflict, which, although ultimately resulted in a lose-lose situation, sometimes raised doubts about the actual EU’s value-based motivations (as opposed to prioritising geopolitical). Hence, the relevance of value-based liberal agenda explaining the EU’s actions has also proved to be important. Therefore, it seems plausible to conclude that although the relevance of geopolitics in the EU foreign policy has grown, only the combination of both can comprehensively explain the roots of the war. Nevertheless, considering the realist idea that eventually it is Russia who decides “what counts as a threat to them” (Mearsheimer, 2014: 83) and the fact that (without any reasonable provocation) it was Russia who started the war in Ukraine, the role of geopolitical motivations can arguably be considered decisive.
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Gabija Žukauskaitė
Gabija Žukauskaitė holds a BA in European Politics from King's College London. Her research focuses on political theory, the history of political thought, and international relations. One of her more recent publications was "Trust in Transatlantic Relations: An Analysis of the Trump Era” in Brexit and Beyond: The European Issue (published by the award-winning Res Publica Politics journal in 2022). Gabija is also passionate about arts and culture, and she is curious about how culture shapes political opinion as well as our understanding of politics.