The Economist January 8th 2022 BriefingPutin talks to NATO 19ly, though, that Mr Putin has threatened
war simply to obtain more detailed spread
sheets about forthcoming natoexercises.
His animus is against the postcoldwar or
der as a whole, and Russia’s exclusion from
it. In his narrative America and its Euro
pean allies took advantage of Russia’s
weakness in the 1990s and early 2000s by
discarding their promises not to expand
nato; by waging war on Serbia, a Russian
ally, in 1999; and by supporting socalled
“colour revolutions” against authoritarian,
proRussian regimes in former Soviet
states. Indeed, this week proKremlin
news outlets claimed, fancifully, that anti
government protests in Kazakhstan (see
Asia section) reflected a Western effort to
eject friends of Russia from power.
It is true that Russia received various
assurances that natowould not expand—
but it also willingly acquiesced when nato
changed its stance. In 1997—even as the
Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland were
being invited to join the alliance—Russia
and natosigned a “founding act” in which
Russia accepted natoenlargement. In ex
change, natoruled out the “permanent”
deployment of “substantial combat forces”
in eastern Europe or the placement of nuc
lear weapons there, a constraint it observes
to this day. What is more, America with
drew huge numbers of troops from Europe
after the cold war and European countries
shrank their armed forces dramatically.
These steps had a salutary effect on
Russia’s perception of the alliance. In 2001,
shortly after the 9/11 attacks, Mr Putin met
nato’s secretarygeneral and hailed “the
change in the attitude and...outlook of all
the Western partners”. As late as 2010, by
which time a dozen new countries had
joined nato, Dmitry Medvedev, then Rus
sia’s president, agreed, “We have succeed
ed in putting the difficult period in our re
lations behind us now.”
It’s not me, it’s you
Relations have deteriorated more recently
not owing to aggression from nato, but be
cause Russia, unwilling to countenance
more former Soviet territories going their
own way, invaded Georgia in 2008 and Uk
raine in 2014. It has also waged political
warfare across America and Europe over
the past decade, in the form of election
meddling, sabotage and assassination. At
home, Mr Putin has suffocated democracy
by rigging elections, poisoning opponents
and crushing civil society. “Putin does not
fear nato expansion today,” argues Mi
chael McFaul, a former American ambas
sador to Russia. “He fears Ukrainian de
mocracy.”
natohas no stomach to admit Ukraine
at the moment, with all the risks of war
with Russia that would bring. But ruling
out Ukrainian membership would not nec
essarily placate Mr Putin. “The Kremlin
knowsthatthere’s no intention by nato to
include Ukraine and Georgia any time in
the near future,” says Wolfgang Ischinger, a
former German diplomat and chairman of
the Munich Security Conference, an annu
al powwow. “The underlying problem is
the fear of Ukraine modernising and be
coming an attractive model for Russians
who live on the other side of the border.”
Meanwhile, for natoto formalise the
obvious—that Ukraine will not join any
time soon—would be a hammer blow to
the country’s reformers, who have even
written their aspiration to enter the club
into the constitution. To make such a dec
laration in response to Russian sabrerat
tling would be doubly unpalatable. One
way to square the circle, suggests Mr Isch
inger, would be to adopt the position taken
by the European Union in recent years:
that, while enlargement is the goal in prin
ciple, the union must first reform itself.
That might let down Ukraine gently, with
out giving the impression that Russia has a
veto over the alliance’s expansion.
Ukraine is not the only place where this
dilemma arises. Georgia was also invited to
join in 2008 but its accession would also
entail natoinheriting another open con
flict; Russia occupies a fifth of the country,
in the breakaway territories of Abkhazia
and South Ossetia. Meanwhile in the Bal
kans, BosniaHerzegovina, another candi
date, is also some way off, with the coun
try’s Bosnian Serb leadership increasingly
opposed to membership.
Russia also objects to the expansion of
nato to include Sweden and Finland,
which were both neutral during the cold
war, but have moved closer to natoin re
cent years. In Sweden a parliamentary ma
jority in favour of nato membership
emerged in December 2020, though the
ruling Social Democrats are opposed. Fin
land, meanwhile, is keen to keep its op
tions open. On January 1st, days after Rus
sia’s foreign ministry threatened “seriousmilitary and political consequences” if
Sweden or Finland were to join the alli
ance, Sauli Niinisto, Finland’s president,
rejected Russia’s attempts at intimidation.
“Finland’s room to manoeuvre and free
dom of choice,” warned Mr Niinisto, “in
clude the possibility of military alignment
and of applying for nato membership,
should we ourselves so decide.”
The irony is that Russia’s efforts to halt
nato’s eastward expansion may end up
achieving precisely the opposite. Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine in 2014 rejuvenated
the alliance, catalysed a sharp rise in Euro
pean defence spending and led to the cre
ation of the very nato deployments in
eastern Europe that Mr Putin now wants
withdrawn. Another, larger Russian attack
would probably lead to even larger deploy
ments; Mr Biden has already said that he
would move troops east.
By the same token, although a second
Russian invasion of Ukraine might put an
end to any prospect of Ukraine joining na-
to, it could well push other countries into
the alliance. “It’s hard to say whether a Rus
sian invasion of the entirety of Ukraine
would be enough to tip the scales,” muses
one senior Finnish official, “but that would
be possible. There’s an increasing under
standing that even though Ukraine may be
geographically hundreds of miles away
from Finland, Europe is one theatre.”
For Mr Putin, the gamble may be worth
it. Better to start a war now, despite the at
tendant costs, than risk a Ukraine bristling
with foreign troops in a decade. Thirty
years ago Robert Jervis, a political scientist,
applied prospect theory, a branch of behav
ioural economics, to war and peace. The
theory notes that people tend to run great
er risks when they feel they are losing.
“Wars will then frequently be triggered by
the fear of loss,” he wrote. “When states
take very high risks it is usually the case
that they believe they will have to accept
certain losses if they do not.”
What Mr Putin claims is a quest for se
curity—“we have nowhere further to re
treat”—looks to the rest of Europe like a
brazen effort to recapture formerly captive
states, and to keep them under some form
of Russian sway. An insecure Kremlin that
lashes out to make itself more secure
thereby compounds a spiral of insecurity.
Mr Ischinger, the former German dip
lomat, recalls asking a very senior Russian
official in Moscow in 1993 about how the
country intended to assuage the fears of
newly liberated countries like Poland and
Ukraine. “What’s wrong with our neigh
bours living in fear of us?” replied theoffi
cial. “Unfortunately,” says Mr Ischinger,
“verylittle,if anything,haschanged.”nStuck in a rutListen to our interview with author
Robert Kaplan about Russia and Ukraine
at http://www.economist.com /Kaplan