There is a widely held view in the West that after its invasion of Ukraine, Russia will be motivated to invade other former states of the Soviet Union, including some that are now EU members. European leaders are discussing the European Commission’s proposed €800bn joint rearmament programme, ‘ReArm Europe’, to hedge against a possible reduction in US commitment to NATO which until now has provided their defensive shield against Russia.
This paper argues that it would be a mistake for Europe to invest so much of its resources in replacing armaments hitherto provided by the US. It would also be counter-productive and facilitate Russian expansion. History shows that armed invasion is not Russia’s preferred method of expanding its geopolitical ‘sphere of influence’.
If outsiders are to understand Russia’s goals and methods, they need to temporarily put aside some of the values by which they habitually judge the polity of states and governments. By the West’s standards, developments since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992 show that Russia has legitimate national security concerns. But it is important to realise that the Russian government, in articulating these genuine concerns, is not revealing its core strategy. Russia’s understandable complaints about the West create a misleading façade, like the architecture of St. Petersburg that makes Russia appear European, hiding the real Russia.
Most Western observers now understand Russia’s outrage at NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe and bombing of Belgrade, at the ingratitude shown by the US for Russia’s assistance with combating Islamic State after 9/11, at the West’s bombing of Libya, and with the unexpected US decision to supply lethal armaments to Ukraine from 2018. But they should also try to understand the root cause of Russia’s own expansionism as revealed by its long history.
A deeper dive into Russia’s formative history will come later. First, I will explain why the UK and US governments made a mistake in signing the Budapest Memorandum relating to Ukraine in 1994. In August 2016, more than five years before the Russian invasion, I predicted in History & Policy that this mistake would lead to large-scale conflict in the region. That prediction having come true, it is worth examining how the signatories should have acted, and still can act today, to limit the impact of their mistake.
UK alone now honours 1994 Treaty
The Russian Federation, the UK, and the US signed the 1994 Budapest Memorandum under which they “reaffirm[ed] their Commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.” This commitment was a mistake because it would prevent the Western signatories from recognising any new state which had been part of the Ukraine, a country that was a recent composite of different ethnic groups and ripe for separatism. Russia and the US have both effectively abrogated the agreement, but the UK still maintains that Crimea is part of Ukraine.
In 2016 my reason for condemning the 1994 Memorandum was that it repeated the mistake of the Triple Treaty of 1856. That Treaty, also intended to preserve existing state boundaries against Russian annexation, failed because it did not allow for pro-Russian separatist movements. Russia’s determination to support such movements eventually led to the assassination at Sarajevo which triggered the outbreak of world war in 1914.
Well before Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 it was obvious that Russia would not respect the 1994 agreement. In 2011 President Putin told former President Clinton (during whose first term the agreement had been signed) that Russia would not honour it. The Duma, the Russian Parliament, had not ratified the agreement and neither had the US Senate. As long ago as 1992, a Russian court had ruled that Russia’s incorporation of Crimea into Ukraine had been illegal.
When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, it did so in a way that left many options open to Ukraine and its Western supporters. To avoid being caught red-handed, Putin deployed his troops without insignia or heavy armament. His use of anonymous ‘green men’ left him free to deny Russian involvement at the time, but conversely it left the West free to aid Ukrainian resistance without confronting the Russian army. President Obama could have chosen that moment to begin supplying lethal weapons to Kyiv. He did not do so, and downplayed the new development. Either Putin had taken a massive gamble or his intelligence service had correctly predicted the US reaction.
Calling Putin’s bluff in Crimea
Putin also delayed the annexation for a few days until Crimea had unilaterally declared its independence from Ukraine. He did this to simplify the legal complexities of annexation under Russian law. The two-stage process is significant because under ‘customary international law’ the Supreme Council of Crimea had the right to unilaterally declare independence. It can be argued that the declaration was tainted by Russian coercion. Russia, however, defends its validity because it was a necessary prelude to the annexation referendum. But the referendum result itself cannot be valid because the only choice offered was between becoming part of Russia or reversing the declaration of independence and returning to Ukraine. The status quo – sovereign statehood recognised by Russia – was not an option.
The ambiguous status of Crimea offers a possibility of compromise to end the Ukraine war. Russia annexed Crimea immediately after Ukraine’s anti-Russian coup had converted the Crimean population into subjects of an anti-Russian government. Would a sovereign, neutral, Crimea be acceptable to Russia now that its full-scale attack on Ukraine, aimed at reversing the coup, has not succeeded? Would the US and the UK be prepared to revoke the Budapest Memorandum that obliges them to withhold recognition from any state that was part of Ukraine in 1994? Both sides backing down from positions that are an embarrassment to them seems a viable compromise.
Would independence be welcomed by the Crimean population? Although it is almost certain that a majority wanted independence from Ukraine, the Crimea has a sizeable minority of ethnic Ukrainians and Tatars who can be expected to resent Russian rule. The country is blessed with remarkable assets in climate and topography including the world’s finest natural harbour. Crimea has nothing in common with the eastern Ukrainian rust belt which is being further ravaged by war. The prospect of removal of sanctions and integration in the world economy would encourage a different separatist movement in Crimea: a separation from Russia.
Negotiation over Crimean independence would reveal advantages to Russia. Crimea could offer Russia a new lease of their naval base on generous terms. It could grant visa-free travel to Russian citizens, who would flock to their former favourite resort now free from the threat of attack from Ukraine. It could help to bring peace to southern Ukraine, where Russia’s aggression is largely motivated by a need to secure access and water supplies to its captive Crimea. Putin has signalled that he would drop Russia’s demand for cession of two southern provinces if Ukraine would grant Russia a ‘stable land bridge’ through them to Crimea. Of course, Russia would demand that the West grant its more reasonable terms, removing what Putin calls the ‘root causes’ of the war including expansion of NATO and the EU.
President Putin defended the legitimacy of any unilateral declaration of independence when justifying Crimea’s secession from Ukraine in his speech to the Duma. The argument he used then would apply equally to Crimean secession from Russia today. He said, “The Crimean authorities relied on the well-known Kosovo precedent, a precedent that our Western partners created themselves, so to speak, with their own hands, in a situation absolutely analogous to Crimea, recognizing the separation of Kosovo from Serbia as legitimate, proving to everyone that no permission from the country’s central authorities was required for a unilateral declaration of independence.”
But even if the Ukraine war ends, Russia under Putin or his successors will still pose a threat to Western Europe’s way of life. This can best be understood by examining the geography of Europe.
The root cause of Russia’s expansionism
The shape of Earth’s land masses explains Russia’s uniquely successful history of geopolitical expansion. The Eurasian continent stretches west to east for one third of the circumference of the globe. No other land mass has a longitudinal extent of comparable size. The American continents, although similar in overall length, stretch between extreme north and south latitudes. The history of human colonisation of the globe shows that migration overland between north and south latitudes is a slow process involving genetic and social adaptation over many generations. North/south migrant populations needed to gradually evolve to meet the challenges of new climates, novel endemic diseases, and unfamiliar fauna and flora as sources of food.
In east-west land masses, in contrast, faster intra-generational migration has been the norm. Growing populations could find new lands to inhabit and cultivate in traditional ways. Where those new lands were already occupied, warfare became endemic. Europe’s interminable wars arose from this appetite for more land. The Western European Maritime Powers, enriched by seaborne trade, perfected the necessary armaments. Eurasian populations expanded according to their ability to organise into martial configurations under the command of governments adept at subduing conquered populations.
In his War and Peace, Tolstoy described how hostile migrations of this kind in Europe overreached themselves, meeting heavier resistance as their victims were pushed to the wall. This caused a retreat of the invader and a revanchist surge in the opposite direction, as with Napoleon’s failed invasion of Russia.
The invaders flee, turn back, flee again, and all the chances are now not for Napoleon but always against him. A countermovement is then accomplished from east to west with a remarkable resemblance to the preceding movement from west to east … Paris, the ultimate goal, is reached.
Hitler’s invasion of Russia, repulsed at Stalingrad and avenged by the Red Army’s advance into Nazi-dominated Eastern Europe, followed the same pattern of reciprocal east-west invasion.
Was Russia “contained”?
A map of the Russian Empire shows how successful it has been in taking land from the wealthier West European states by exploiting the east-west topography of the continent. The lands taken in the period 1750-1850 are shown in dark grey (Russia lost Finland in 1917). Eastern Ukraine (roughly equivalent to the Donbass region) belonged to Russia even before Russia’s 1750 expansion, and the white portion of modern Western Ukraine was under Austro-Hungarian rule in 1850. By 1950 the Empire had reached its high water mark by enclosing countries within its Iron Curtain. For this, I have drawn a red dashed line surrounding only the East European counties whose governments were installed by the Red Army, i.e. excluding Yugoslavia and Albania.
Source: McNeill, J., The Progress and Present Position of Russia in the East (John Murray, London, 1854)
The map makes it clear that Russia was simply continuing its history of conquest when it seized Crimea in 2014, supposedly in response to NATO expansion. It had been absorbing neighbouring states long before NATO, and long before communism became its ideological weapon and selling point. The process was already well advanced before Tsar Nicholas I invaded the Balkan provinces in 1853, beginning the Crimean War. It was proceeding at pace even before the House of Romanov took control of Russia in 1813. It had begun in the fifteenth century when Ivan III, Grand Prince of Moscow, threw off the yoke of Mongol rule and established Muscovy as the new warlord of Eurasia. No stimulus was needed to restart the process as soon as Russia recovered from the collapse of the Soviet Union.
President Putin’s interpretation of Russian history speaks volumes about the distorted perspective of the conquerors. In his speech to the Duma after seizure of Crimea, he claimed that “the notorious policy of containing Russia, which was carried out in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, continues today. They are constantly trying to drive us into some kind of corner …”
Russia contained since 1700? That’s not what the map says, to us. But that must be how endless military expansion can appear to the victors. The conquerors feel that neighbouring states had been “containing” Russia simply by being there.
Stability vs human rights
Putin’s conception of history, probably shared by a significant proportion of his subjects, should make us aware that Russia’s values have developed very differently from those that we think of as universal. One way to stand in their shoes is to imagine their attitude to civil rights when for centuries they have lived in what Lenin in 1914 called a ‘prison of nations’. Recently-conquered populations of different ethnicities and religions, many of them brutalised by a long history of tribal feuding, required continuous fierce discipline if the Empire and its prosperity were to remain intact. Western Europe’s history may encourage a belief that when a tyranny is smashed, the fragments will naturally settle down in a more equitable arrangement. Everything in Russia’s history, including the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, points in a different direction.
We may recoil from modern Russia’s savage suppression of the Chechen separatists, its assassination of émigré dissidents, and its cold-blooded treatment of Putin critic Alexei Navalny. There are many people in Russia who must share our repugnance. But for many more, individual liberty or right to life must be balanced against stability. They may see a threat in the apparent willingness of the Western Powers to overthrow dictators, as in Iraq or Libya, and then withdraw leaving a vacuum to be filled by foreign terrorists. Many of these terrorists come from Russia’s satellite states, and will return home better armed and more radicalised. It is not clear that the West’s foreign policy is reducing the body count among the innocent.
Some Western analysts argue that the invasion of Ukraine is ‘Putin’s war, not Russia’s war’. This is an argument in favour of the West’s formula for regime change in authoritarian countries as a remedy for Russia’s aggressive nature. The values that history has inculcated in the Russian population makes this unlikely. Russia can no more easily shake off its history and superstitions than the world’s theocracies can suddenly embrace secularism.
Putin likes to claim that he is the successor to Peter the Great and that his coveted Ukraine is the nation’s lost cultural centre, the mystical site of Russia’s conversion from Slavic Paganism to Orthodox Christianity. These are probably not personal obsessions – he has shown himself to be a rational realist in other settings. But he fulfils Tolstoy’s requirement that a population embarking on war needs a leader who will justify and reinforce the will of the masses:
during their military movement they should have at their head a man who could justify to himself and to them the deceptions, robberies, and murders which would have to be committed during that movement.
The unpredictable West
The Russian perception that authoritarian government is necessary for social stability will be reinforced by the unpredictable behaviour of the most powerful democracies. In the US, the ruling party’s desire to maximise its chances of winning the next election often seems to dictate foreign policy. The growth of social media may be responsible for increasing political polarisation, which leads each party to adopt policies contrary to its rival’s.
An incident at the US Senate’s impeachment hearings in November 2019 illustrates this. The hearings were broadcast live and watched by millions, for whose benefit senior Republicans sat in front of a placard which read “President Obama gave Ukraine blankets. President Trump gave Ukraine missiles.” The sign alluded to the first US sale of lethal weapons to then-President Poroshenko of Ukraine for use against Russian-backed separatists in March 2018, during the first Trump administration. During the preceding Democratic administration, President Obama had refused to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine for fear that the Russians would escalate in response.
Trump’s unexplained reversal of Obama’s cautious policy may well have started the chain of events that led to the outbreak of the large-scale conflict that I had warned against two years before.
Europe’s best defence: prosperity
Western Europe’s defence against Russian predation must take into account its adversary’s ingrained aggressivity and disregard for individual human life. Europe must prepare for what Russia will do next.
What strategy will Russia pursue to restore its traditional ‘sphere of influence’? In the modern era it has pursued combinations of three different strategies for controlling neighbouring states:
- Occupation;
- Regime change;
- Creation of instability and ‘frozen war’ by supporting separatists.
Its most recent venture, in Ukraine, has arguably pursued all three strategies. Its ‘special military operation’, which began on 24 February 2022 with a ground assault on the Kyiv region, might well have been an attempt to implement the occupation strategy. Putin claimed later, unconvincingly, that it had been merely designed to coerce Ukraine into negotiating on his previous demands. More probably, he learned that the cost of continuing would be unreasonably high because of the extent of resistance. Eight years of bloody ‘frozen war’ in Donbas had created strong patriotic anti-Russian sentiment and military capability. If this was why Putin retreated, it is likely that Russia has now abandoned the occupation strategy for Ukraine. Other European countries do not offer a low-cost target for occupation, even if some of them sympathise with Russia and are cool towards Ukraine’s wish to be a part of Europe.
The second strategy – regime change – can achieve results at relatively low cost. Interference in elections using modern communications technology, at which Russia excels, is a powerful tool for changing democracy into authoritarianism.
The third strategy – creating instability by fomenting separatism, has been Russia’s favourite low-cost approach for centuries. It is bearing fruit in Donbas, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria. It may soon be seen in the Balkan states which are candidates for joining the EU. Unstable neighbours form a buffer zone for Russia, keeping the West at bay. Western institutions like NATO and the EU are reluctant to accept unstable or authoritarian new members.
After destabilising Ukraine by its activity in Donbas, Russia seems to have switched to an occupation strategy which failed. The reason for the switch was probably that the attempt to keep Ukraine out of NATO/EU was in danger of failing if the separatists were defeated. Ukraine was an order of magnitude more important for Russia than any other European because of its size and trading relations. If Ukraine had an association with the EU, Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union would not be viable and it would lose a dominant position in the world grain market. The high cost of occupation could therefore be viewed as acceptable, if it succeeded.
The European response
Analysis of Russia’s options for expansion of its sphere of influence shows that it is unlikely that it will pursue the occupation strategy in preference to more modern alternatives. Unfortunately, Western Europe’s deliberation over how to defend itself may be tending towards a NATO-style alliance aimed at repelling Russian invasions. It should be recognised that NATO has clearly failed to contain Russia, and is a poor model. If Russia instead pursues regime change and destabilisation strategies, Europe’s best defence would be to maximise the prosperity of its citizens through economic growth, making them less susceptible to subversion.
Economic growth is in short supply in Europe. It is important not to see traditional arms production and stockpiling as an easy way of achieving this elusive goal, even though it may increase aggregate demand. The Keynes formula for combating recession – using public funds to pay workers to dig holes and fill them in again – may seem at first sight to be relevant to arms production. It is not as effective, however, when there are better opportunities to create value with existing human resources.
It is concerning that the UK’s National Wealth Fund (NWF), intended to catalyse private investment in green and growth industries, is considering potential shifts in its priorities to include defence and security. It is to be hoped that these priorities will be weighted towards items that have short-term spillover effects in civilian industry – e.g. software developments to prevent hacking and cyberwarfare.
The European Commission’s ReArm Europe White Paper speaks of “Enhancing European readiness for worst-case scenarios, by improving military mobility, stockpiling and strengthening external borders, notably the land border with Russia and Belarus.” Costs of €800 billion over the next five years are foreseen. If the proposed ‘stockpiling’ is heavy on traditional hardware such as aircraft, munitions, and artillery then European citizens will need to make economic sacrifices which may make them easier targets for Russian subversion. Under the Reagan administration, US citizens made those sacrifices to pay for an arms race against the USSR. They won, but would we succeed today?
One positive sign is that France wishes to share its nuclear deterrent with other European states. This could lead to cancellation of the UK plan to develop replacements for its nuclear-armed submarine fleet at a cost of at least €40 billion. One means of mutually assured destruction should suffice.
Weaponizing energy
Unlike Russia and the US, the EU cannot be self-sufficient in fossil fuels. These stored energy resources have become an important source of geopolitical power for states that possess them. Russia is still a leading supplier to the EU which paid Russia €22 billion for fossil fuels in 2024, amounting to nearly 10 per cent of all Russian exports of these commodities.
Reducing Europe’s dependency on fossil fuels should be treated as a means of increasing security, quite apart from the effect on the world’s climate. Improving the management of the UK’s offshore wind power can also accelerate economic growth. New industries can be developed that use intermittent energy, such as vertical agriculture, located onshore close to wind farms to avoid expanding the grid. The nuclear power debate is now being reopened in Germany, which decided after the Fukushima disaster to phase out its nuclear power plants. Germany now imports nuclear-generated electricity from France, a world leader in this technology.
It is no coincidence that the world’s oil and gas reserves are the property of some of most authoritarian governments. The energy industry will be as important as the arms industry to the survival of liberal democracy. It has become clear that the democratic system in many states would benefit from improvement. Whether this will be enough to hold back the advance of authoritarian government remains to be seen.
Conclusion
Russia and Western Europe have different approaches to regional security derived from centuries of experience of internal conflict. Russia can reasonably demand that the West addresses some failings that have contributed to the root causes of the conflict in Ukraine. However, Russia’s resurgence since the dissolution of the Soviet Union relies on ideals of imperial control through spheres of influence that clash with Europe’s principles of national sovereignty. A new European version of NATO would be an inappropriate defence against the threat from Russia. The Ukraine conflict has highlighted new technologies that change how war is waged, but a new arms race would weaken Europe’s ability to withstand Russia’s encroachment. Negotiation over the future of Crimea could be a test case for cooperation and mutual alignment of security arrangements between Western Europe and Russia.
