Europe’s Stake in the Ukraine Crisis
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken continues his European tour today in Berlin, where his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock will host a meeting of the so-called Transatlantic Quad, with French Foreign Minister Yves Le Drian and Britain’s James Cleverly filling out the four corners.
The talks come as U.S. President Joe Biden alluded to “differences” between NATO allies on the best way forward with Russia, which demands an end to NATO expansion among other security guarantees amid a build up of troops near the Ukrainian border. (Biden, speaking on Wednesday evening, appeared to meet Russia halfway, conceding that the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO was “in the near term not very likely”).
Those divisions were laid bare on Wednesday, when French President Emmanuel Macron suggested that Europe build its own security framework. And while Macron’s speech can be taken with a pinch of election-year salt, he has not hidden his opinions on Europe’s alliances before, remarking in 2019 that NATO was experiencing “brain death.”
Macron’s most recent comments come at a time when Europe and specifically the European Union is very much in the background of the debate on Ukraine’s future, with Russia preferring face to face talks with U.S. representatives first and foremost. (That trend continues on Friday, when Blinken will meet with his Russian opposite number Sergey Lavrov).
In a crisis brewing on the EU’s borders, why is it not a bigger voice in the room? Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO under President Barack Obama and now president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, points to fundamental issues that make the EU’s position difficult: Its 27 countries vary widely in their relationships with Russia and reliance on the United States for security, and the bloc has its own difficulties in articulating its wider foreign policy vision.
In his speech Wednesday, Macron said a European proposal for “building a new security and stability order” would be put to Russia in the coming weeks. For Daalder, that’s too late: “We don’t have a few weeks. The crisis has been with us since October and the EU hasn’t developed a strategy.”
Some of the EU’s absence isn’t entirely its own fault, with Russia preferring direct talks with the United States based on Moscow’s own assessment of the regional dynamics. “It reflects Russia’s view that Europe is basically a continuation of U.S. politics to some extent, as is NATO,” Liana Fix, an expert on Russian foreign policy and a resident fellow at the German Marshall Fund.
There’s also a difference of opinion between Europe’s major powers and Washington, with Berlin looking east without feeling too threatened, while U.S. officials, including President Joe Biden as recently as yesterday evening, speak of imminent invasion. “In Berlin it’s viewed as a Russian negotiation strategy, whereas in the United States it’s seen as a very real and probable option that Russia will use military force,” Fix said.
Just because Europe isn’t who Moscow picks first to call doesn’t mean it’s not a big part of the talks, said Dan Baer, the acting director of the Europe program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Baer, who served as the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), pointed to the other forums available to European countries, like NATO and the OSCE, as well as continuing U.S. efforts to keep European nations close before and after its one-on-one negotiations with Russia.
“There’s quite a lot of evidence from the Biden administration that there’s no desire from their part not to have European countries involved in the conversation,” Baer said. “It’s just that the Russians demand a solo interlocutor, and for that reason the United States is the default.”