How Should the West Deal with Russia?

The idea of a transatlantic strategy debate on a new policy toward Russia- and Eastern Europe emerged in winter 2014 in light of the crisis in Ukraine. In autumn 2015 a Strategy Group led jointly by Daniel Hamilton (Johns Hopkins University) and Stefan Meister (DGAP) began its work. The group’s meetings with experts from the US and Europe were held in Moscow, Kiev, Berlin, and Washington DC. In February 2016 the group introduced its provisional theses at the Munich Security Conference

On May 27 at the DGAP both editors introduced the resulting publication and outlined its fundamental questions: How should the West act toward Russia? Which policies should it pursue in Europe’s Eastern neighborhood?  And what should the West do with regard to itself?

Daniel Hamilton presented some of the solution suggestions developed in the book. It necessary to act in a strong way, to approach Russia on the basis of international law while nevertheless keeping communication channels open. Furthermore, social connections and contacts should be reinforced.

In the subsequent discussion moderated by Malte Lehming of the German daily Tagesspiegel it was agreed that the EU and the US must demonstrate a consistent approach toward Russia. Knut Abraham from the German Federal Chancellery emphasized that Germany would continue not to recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea and that the EU sanctions would stay in place until Minsk Agreement is fulfilled.

In the ensuing discussion the question of the uncertain internal nature of the West was disputed. Marieluise Beck, Bundestag member for the Green party, argued that the turmoil within the European population is not being taken seriously in the US. The loss of trust in the West and anti-Western resentment inside the EU have resulted in a lack of unity in many spheres, particularly with regard to Russia. Karl-Heinz-Kamp, president of the Bundesakademie für Sicherheitspolitik (Federal Academy for Security Policy) said that not only in the EU but also in the US there are anti-establishment movements, for example, those supporting  the candidacy of Donald Trump. Thus both the EU and the US are going through a deep crisis in this respect.

The coooperation between the DGAP’s Robert Bosch Center for Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia and SAIS’s Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University will continue in the second half of 2016. In additional workshops, the group’s analyses and suggestions will be reviewed and advanced. The Strategy Group is financed by the Robert Bosch Stiftung.

Click here for more about the book, which will be released by the Brookings Institution this fall, including Table of Contents, and links to several chapters of the book.

About the Authors

Daniel S. Hamilton is the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation Professor and Founding Director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. From 2002-2010 he served as the Richard von Weizsäcker Professor at SAIS. From 2001-2015 he also served as Executive Director of the American Consortium for EU Studies. He has held a variety of senior positions in the U.S. Department of State, including Deputy Assistant Secretary for European Affairs; U.S. Special Coordinator for Southeast European Stabilization; Associate Director of the Policy Planning Staff for two U.S. Secretaries of State; and Director for Policy in the Bureau of European Affairs. In 2008 he served as the first Robert Bosch Foundation Senior Diplomatic Fellow in the German Foreign Office. He has authored over 100 articles, books and other commentary on international affairs, been a consultant to various business associations, research institutes and foundations, and has also taught at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, the University of Innsbruck and the Free University of Berlin. From 1990-1993 he was Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and from 1982-1990 Deputy Director of the Aspen Institute Berlin. He has a PhD. and MA with distinction from Johns Hopkins University SAIS.

Stefan Meister heads the program for Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia at the Robert Bosch Center at the German Council on Foreign Relations/Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik DGAP. Previously he worked as a senior policy fellow on the European Council on Foreign Relations’ Wider Europe Team and as a senior research fellow at the DGAP. He writes extensively on Germany’s Russia policy, conflicts in the post-Soviet region (especially the South Caucasus), the interrelationship between Russian domestic and foreign policy, as well as on the EU’s Eastern Partnership. He has served several times as an election observer for the OSCE in post-Soviet countries and was responsible for educational projects in Russia. In 2003–04 he was researcher-in-residence at the Center for International Relations in Warsaw, analyzing Polish Eastern policy. He earned his doctorate at the University of Jena.

Ian Bond joined the Centre for European Reform as Director of Foreign Policy in April 2013. Prior to that, he was a member of the British diplomatic service for 28 years. His most recent appointment was as political counsellor and joint head of the foreign and security policy group in the British Embassy, Washington (2007-12), where he focused on U.S. foreign policy toward Europe, the former Soviet Union, Asia and Africa. He was British Ambassador to Latvia from 2005-07. He was posted in Vienna as deputy head of the UK Delegation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) from 2000-04, working on human rights and democracy in the OSCE area, and on conflict prevention and resolution in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union. His earlier career included postings in Moscow (1993-96) and at NATO HQ (1987-90), and working in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the former Soviet Union, on the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy and on NATO and UK defense policy. William Courtney is an adjunct senior fellow at the RAND Corporation and executive director of the RAND Business Leaders Forum, as well as president of the U.S.-Kazakhstan Business Association. In 2014 he retired from Computer Sciences Corporation as senior principal for federal policy strategy; from 2000 to 2003 he was senior vice president for national security programs at DynCorp (bought by CSC in 2003). From 1972 through 1999 he was a career foreign service officer in the U.S. Department of State. Among his many assignments he served as U.S. Ambassador to Georgia and to Kazakhstan, as special assistant to the President for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, and as deputy U.S. negotiator in U.S.-Soviet defense and space (missile defense) talks. He graduated from West Virginia University with a BA and Brown University with a PhD in economics.

Sergei Guriev is a professor of economics at the Instituts d’études politiques (Sciences Po) in Paris. He is a Research Affiliate at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), London. He is also member of the board of the Dynasty Foundation, a member of the Scientific Council of Bruegel, of the Advisory Council of the Peterson Institute on International Economics, and of the Academic Advisory Board of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. He has published in international refereed journals including the American Economic Review, Journal of European Economic Association, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Economic Journal, and American Political Science Review. Between 1999 and 2013 he was on the faculty of the New Economic School in Moscow and between 2004 and 2013 he was a tenured faculty member and Rector of the New Economic School. In 1997-98 he was a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Economics at M.I.T. and in 2003-2004 he was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Princeton University. In 2006, he was selected a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He has been a regular columnist for Forbes Russia, Vedomosti, the New York Times, Financial Times, Washington Post, Moscow Times and Project Syndicate. He received his Dr. Sc. (habilitation degree) in Economics (2002) and PhD in Applied Math from the Russian Academy of Science (1994), and MSc Summa Cum Laude from the Moscow Institute of Physics in Technology (1993).

Hiski Haukkala is an Associate Professor of International Relations at the School of Management at the University of Tampere and a Special Adviser in the Policy Planning Unit of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. He also serves as a Visiting Professor at the Natolin Campus of the College of Europe, and has held visiting positions at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, the Universiy of Turku, the International Institute of Strategic Studies, University of Stirling, and the European Union Institute for Security Studies. He has a doctorate from the University of Turku.

John E. Herbst is Director of the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. He served for 31 years as a Foreign Service Officer in the U.S. Department of State. Among his many assignments, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine and to Uzbekistan, led the U.S. government’s civilian capacity in societies in transition from conflict or civil strife and oversaw the establishment of the Civilian Response Corps of the United States as the State Department’s Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization. He also served as U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem; Principal Deputy to the Ambassador-at-Large for the Newly Independent States; the Director of the Office of Independent States and Commonwealth Affairs; Director of Regional Affairs in the Near East Bureau; and at the embassies in Tel Aviv, Moscow, and Saudi Arabia. After retiring from the State Department he served as Director of the Center for Complex Operations at National Defense University. His writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, the National Interest, and Foreign Policy. He earned a bachelor of science in foreign service from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a master of law and diplomacy, with distinction, from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. He also attended the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies Bologna Center.

Vladislav L. Inozemtsev is professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and Founder and Director of the Center for Post- Industrial Studies. He has served as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the German Council on Foreign Relations DGAP. Between 2012 and 2014 he was a leading researcher for Russia’s Council on Productive Capacities, and between 2008 and 2010 he served as staff member of Russia’s State Commission for Modernization under President Dmitry Medvedev. Since 2000 he has been a Member, and between 2004-2011 Presidium Member, of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. He was co-founder and former CEO and Chairman of the Moscow-Paris Bank. From 2003-2011 he was Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Svobodnaya Mysl (Free Thought), a monthly political and economic journal. He graduated from the Faculty of Economics of Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU) with a Doctor of Sciences degree in Economics.

Donald N. Jensen is a resident fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University’s School of International Studies, where he writes extensively on the politics and foreign policies of Russia and the former Soviet states. He is a regular commentator on post- Soviet affairs for CNBC, Fox Business, and the VOA Russian Service. From 1996 to 2008 he was associate director of broadcasting and director of research at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, where he was instrumental in expanding the station’s broadcasting to Central Asia, Iran, Afghanistan, and the North Caucasus, and broadening its web presence. He served in Moscow and Sofia as a Foreign Service officer from 1985–1996, and was a member of the first ten-man U.S. team to inspect Soviet missile bases under the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1988. He received his BA from Columbia University and his MA and PhD in government from Harvard University. Andrew C. Kuchins is a senior fellow at the Center for Eurasian, Russian, and Eastern European Studies at Georgetown University, where he conducts research and writes on Russian foreign and security as well as domestic policy. He is a senior associate and former Director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. From 2000 to 2006 he was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he served as director of its Russian and Eurasian Program in Washington, D.C and as director of the Carnegie Moscow Center in Russia. He has also held senior positions at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley. He holds a BA from Amherst College and an MA and PhD from Johns Hopkins SAIS.

F. Stephen Larrabee is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, its Distinguished Chair Emeritus in European Security, and a member of the Pardee RAND Graduate School faculty. Before joining RAND, Larrabee served as vice president and director of studies of the Institute of East–West Security Studies in New York from 1983 to 1989, and was also a Distinguished Scholar in Residence from 1989 to 1990. From 1978 to 1981, he served on the U.S. National Security Council staff in the White House as a specialist on Soviet–East European affairs and East-West political-military relations. He is a prolific author and commentator with articles in a wide range of publications, from Foreign Affairs and the National Interest to The International Spectator. He has taught at Columbia, Cornell, New York, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, and The George Washington universities, and at the University of Southern California. He received his PhD in political science from Columbia University.

Marie Mendras is professor at the Paris School of International Affairs of the Instituts d’études politiques (Sciences Po), and researcher with the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris. In 2015- 2016 she served as Senior fellow at the Transatlantic Academy and visiting scholar at Georgetown University. She is an Associate Fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Program at Chatham House in London. Between 2008-2010 she was Professor of Government at the London School of Economics, and has taught at a number of European universities, as well as at MGIMO in Moscow. She has been a consultant for both the French Foreign and Defense Ministries, and is former Director of the Policy Planning Staff for the French Foreign Ministry. Her latest book is Russian Politics. The Paradox of a Weak State. She received her doctorate from Sciences Po and her MA from Harvard University.

Marek Menkiszak is the Head of the Russian Department at the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW) in Warsaw. From 1995 to 2003 he was a faculty member at the University of Warsaw’s Institute of International Relations. He has been a visiting fellow at the Transatlantic Academy and visiting researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs in Helsinki, and a member of the EU–Russia Task Force at the EU Institute for Security Studies in Paris. Since 1995 he has been an author for Rocznik Strategiczny (Strategic Yearbook) and has written numerous articles for publication. He received his PhD and MA from the Institute of International Relations at the University of Warsaw.