New Policy for Western Russia and Eastern Europe

The outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in the beginning of 2014 initiated a period of distinctly worsening relations between Russia and the West. What had been taken for granted before – respect for international law and the sovereignty of states, for example – was fundamentally put into question by the Russian annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine. Meanwhile, Western powers have seemed unable to react adequately. The question of how to build a new modus vivendi with Russia and Eastern Europe is more relevant than ever. Western experts and policy makers met with their Eastern European and Russian counterparts at the beginning of December in Berlin and Moscow to discuss a way forward at a time of strained relations.

The joint project of the Robert Bosch Center at the DGAP and the Center for Transatlantic Relations (CTR) at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies was initiated in 2015 and is funded by the Robert Bosch Stiftung. Its aim is to draft concrete proposals for a new Western policy approach toward Eastern Europe and Russia. Daniel Hamilton (CTR) and Stefan Meister (RBC) put together a strategy group of high-level experts from different regions and policy areas. Study trips to Kiev and Moscow and workshops in Berlin and Washington DC enabled members of the group to work out detailed analyses and proposals, all of which are gathered in the book “The Eastern Question: Russia, the West, and Europe’s Grey Zone,” published last fall.

With its first stages completed, the project continued in the second half of 2016, exploring the “reality check” provided by the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries and Russia. After a late September meeting in Kiev, policy makers, scholars, and economic stakeholders met in Berlin and Moscow at the beginning of December. While the conference in Berlin on December 5 focused the next steps that EU and US policy should take on Eastern Europe (taking the election of Donald Trump into consideration), the Moscow workshop on December 7 offered the opportunity for participants to engage with Russian counterparts. That conference, co-organized with the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), offered space to discuss with local experts assumed hypotheses and recommendations on Western policy toward Russia.

As became clear in the course of the workshops, many hypotheses that were valid a year ago have now been fundamentally challenged by several new factors – namely, Brexit, Trump’s election in the US, and the rise of populism in Europe. While Putin’s popularity in Russia seems as solid as before, many European governments are now facing a rising tide of anti-establishment sentiment. Trump’s election, moreover, challenges Transatlantic unity. All of this call attention to the fact that what many refer to as “the West” is not as steady as it used to be. Facing a wide range of urgent international issues, however, it is indispensable to establish a basis with Russia – as well as cooperation. In the long term, the West and Russia not only need to reach a new modus vivendi but also, more importantly, a modus operandi.

What this modus operandi could look like will be explored in two forthcoming books on the relations of the West toward EaP countries as well as toward Russia in the spring and summer of 2017. Both edited volumes will respond to the recommendations of the first book and include essays by leading experts from Russia and Eastern Europe.