By Iliana Fragkiadaki, A Level Student at Lancaster Girls Grammar School
War has multiple faces. The humanitarian face, the face of the innocent, the face of death. But it also has a political dimension, which is often considered of secondary importance to the graphic, bloody images we see in the media.
Indeed, political discourse is at the heart of the war in Ukraine. After the potency of two global wars left the world in ashes, many international bodies were created to uphold peace and protect their member states. Arguably the most prominent one was NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), formed in 1949 by an alliance of European and North American states in defence of the peace and freedom of democratic countries against the aggression of the Soviet Union. Now, the positions have reversed. Russia has anxiously watched while NATO has slowly incorporated previously Marxist-Leninist states and expanded towards the East. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many countries that had been under the Soviet Communist regime sought the aegis of the European Union. One by one, they integrated themselves into NATO: the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in 1999, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia in 2004 and Albania in 2009. Perhaps Russia saw this as a betrayal of ‘iron’ oaths that emphasised loyalty to the Communist regime under the 1955 Warsaw Pact. But this is only one view of historical truth. In fact, the Eastern European states were in a buffer zone after the end of the Cold War. In the attempts to eradicate the control and influence of the former Soviet Union that had been imposed upon them, they entered the EU and NATO to stimulate economic growth and ensure security from Russian threats.
Today, one of the last remaining countries from that bloc is Ukraine. And it has been ‘betraying’ Russia as well. Ukraine has been flirting with the idea of joining NATO since the early 2000s. However, Ukraine herself is divided into two. As the former US ambassador to Ukraine, Steven Pifer, stated, ‘‘the sense of Ukrainian nationalism is not as deep in the East as it is in the West.’’ The shared history between Russia and Ukraine inevitably means that many Ukrainian citizens identify as both Ukrainian and Russian –often a conflation of ethnic pride in Ukraine with a strong preference to speak Russian as their first language. However, despite the complexity of defining national identity, pro-Russian sentiment evidently has been decreasing in the last few years. Before the annexation of Crimea in 2014, only 20% of the population was in the pro-NATO camp, but this figure has increased to more than 60% since then. Vladimir Putin, in the cold realisation that Ukraine is slowly slipping away from the legacies of history that united the two ethnicities, asserted that Ukrainians and Russians are ‘one people’ as a justification for the current invasion. After being ostracised from the global economy through the banning of Russian oil and gas imports and the brutal crackdown on oligarchs by the US, EU and UK, it has become increasingly evident that Russia is left alone against a multi-national treaty. Indeed, Putin’s fear of the expansion of NATO toward Ukraine has culminated in a full-blown war.
However, the main reason underpinning the entire conflict is arguably the East and West divide. Originally, this was a largely developmental divide fomented by the Western belief that the rest of the world is less civilised. This divide has been going on for centuries. However, today the consensus is that this dichotomy is rather cultural. However, one must ask the question: is this really true?
History is the driving force behind political affairs, and it has shaped national conscience and identity. Thus to cultivate an understanding of current affairs, it is necessary to examine the historical events that have formed the East vs West schism.
Europe is a relatively modern idea that replaced the earlier concept of Christendom, which was the most conspicuous characteristic across countries from the 14th to the 19th centuries. In fact, ‘European identity’ was at the centre of academic debates conducted by politicians, scholars, writers and thinkers alike for hundreds of years. In 1751, Voltaire described Europe as ‘a kind of great republic divided into several states, such as monarchical, the others mixed…but all corresponding with one another. They all have the same religious foundations, even if divided into several confessions. They all have the same principle of public law and politics, unknown in other parts of the world.’
Voltaire may have been describing what is now the modern phenomenon of ‘Western civilisation’ — what many people assume is a group of countries that share common ideas of liberal democracy, free-market economics, human rights, equality and rule of law. However, Europe differs from ‘Western civilisation’ and has often been unjustly judged through very narrow parameters in this respect. Any number of literature on Europe confines itself to topics that relate to only chosen countries of the peninsula, for example, there is frequently no mention of Portugal, no Ireland, no Scandinavia, no Balkan states, no Ukraine and no Crimea. It strays away from the true geographical extension of Europe, and, thus, the common ‘European’ identity that it explores is, in fact, restricted to a few countries. The very concept of a shared European identity is in itself a myth. Within Europe, there is a pluralism of cultures and traditions (Catholicism, Protestantism, Renaissance, Imperialism, Marxist influence, German military ideas). Europe is, therefore, a product of the amalgamation of different and distinct intellectual contracts, religions and ideologies.
The existence of Russia, however, has often challenged the self-perception of Europe. Russia played a crucial role in the Eastern question that preoccupied European governments in the 18th and 19th centuries, ranging from the days of Peter the Great to Alexander the First. In modern times, Russia’s features (communist ideology, totalitarian practices and constant expansion of nuclear weapons) have been in opposition to EU values. This resistance has reproduced the dichotomy between the West and the East.
The existence of the Ural Mountains has widely been accepted as the singular geographical point between Europe and Asia. It has been reinforced by the consensus reached by many geographers, such as J Reynold, that ‘Russia is the geographical antithesis to Europe’. Since Russia represents this determining point in the East vs West divide, this inevitably creates a heated debate about where Russia belongs. Arguably, Russia sees itself as the ‘Westerner’ in relation to China but obviously represents the ‘Easterners’ in relation to the main body of Europe.
As a result of this, it is natural that throughout the centuries, Russia’s western neighbours have often sought reasons for excluding it. Russians themselves have never been sure whether they wanted to be in or out. For example, on one hand, Catherine the Great announced in 1767 that ‘Russia is a European state’ while her territory stretched on an unbroken line through Asia to North America. This European sentiment was strengthened by their shared Christian faith, by Russia’s role in the defeat of Napoleon in the 19th century, and by the flowering of Russian culture in the age of Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky and Chekov. But on the other hand, the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, reluctantly acknowledged that their Marxist ideology was not popular with the proletariats of developed European countries, so they turned their hope toward the East. In fact, Bolsheviks were widely regarded as barbarians and frowned upon by the European community. In Churchill’s words, they were infamously described as ‘baboonery’ — partly a reaction to an increasingly explicit political and cultural abyss between the East and the West as well as the fear of communism that resonated across Europe.
The collapse of the Soviet Union made Russia want to build a closer relationship with NATO and Europe. This was exemplified in 1997, when NATO and Russia signed the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security, creating the NATO Russia Permanent Joint Council. In 2002, this was upgraded, creating the NATO-Russia Council (NRC). However, seventy years of totalitarian soviet rule has built huge mental as well as a physical curtain across Europe.
In NATO’s eyes, now more than ever, Putin reinforces the East vs West divide by representing the ‘other’, the foreign power that threatens EU values of peace and stability. He represents the new Iron Curtain. He is standing at the wall that separates him from Europe and is now facing what TS Eliot described as the ‘closing of Europe’s mental frontiers’. Putin is seen as a threat to the international system and the peace that we managed to maintain after the turbulent 20th century. This fear of Russian aggression was what motivated European powers to implement austere economic sanctions against the country.
The joint sanctions from the UK, US and EU along with a series of bilateral and multilateral meetings have inevitably created a new spirit of cooperation between world leaders. Even the rifts in the relationship between the UK and the EU in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum have narrowed through their joint efforts to display a strong and united front against Russia. Perhaps this collaboration will bring the EU and NATO countries closer together — transcending national borders to unite states politically rather than relying on economic integration. Regardless, the context of the shared history between the East and the West forms the crux of diplomatic negotiations and policies that the EU and NATO will have to conduct in the next few weeks. European leaders must redefine the concept behind European identity and consider the political, economic and social consequences that their actions will have on this much-strained relationship between Russia and Europe.
Iliana Fragkiadaki
Hi, my name is Iliana Fragkiadaki and I'm an aspiring corporate lawyer, hence I'm interested in Law, Politics, Economic Affairs, Philosophy, and International Relations. In my free time, I enjoy reading books (particularly classics), going to the gym and painting. I am additionally a linguist and enjoy learning different languages (I speak Greek and Spanish but I aim to learn Italian, French, and Japanese as well).