Russia's European Agenda and The Baltic States - Defence ...

RUSSIA’S EUROPEAN AGENDA AND THE BALTIC STATES
It should also be noted that Russia has never been opposed to cooperation with
Europe per se. What she seeks are forms that advance her concrete benefits. Russia
is too large and too different to be easily absorbed into all of Europe’s institutions but
is also too important to be ignored. A democratic Russia is Europe’s best hope for a
cooperative relationship. It is obvious that the success of Russia’s integration into a
‘Wider Europe’ 4 and into a new European security architecture depends not only on
the political and economic structures she adopts internally but equally on her ability
to adjust ultimately to her new status as a regional power.
Russia’s primary interest with respect to Europe consists of making it
instrumental for the country’s transformation: it is mainly in Europe that markets
and potential investment lie. The interaction of Russia and Europe is considerably
influenced by the current changes on the continent: the enlargement of NATO and the
EU, the impact of the 9/11 events and beyond, the Iraq war, Iran’s nuclear ambitions
and other developments. Beside this, the residual ‘imperial syndrome’, manifesting
particularly in Moscow’s policy towards post-Soviet space has an impact on Russia’s
relations with Europe. After EU enlargement, the new ‘common neighbourhood’ has
acquired a particular salience because it may stimulate both cooperation and conflict
between Russia and Europe. The developments during the last several years have
demonstrated that Russia faced a lot of difficulties in exercising her role of the judge
or broker in this neighbourhood.
Although Russian leadership recognised that both East and West can be
helpful in the project of rebuilding the state, the Western-centric orientation prevailed
in Russia’s external relations during Putin’s first term in office. In 2004, after more than
a decade of talk about Russia’s integration into the West and ‘strategic’ partnerships
between Moscow and Washington Western governments finally concluded that Russia
was not going to turn democratic in the foreseeable future; instead she has become
an energy superpower. The summit of the group of eight highly industrialised
nations (G8) held in St Petersburg in July 2006 could be considered as a turning
point in this regard. The quick revival due to soaring energy prices made Putin’s
Russia more assertive about her role in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, which is
considered as a threat to both the U.S. and Western Europe. In 2006, it was clear that
Russia left Western orbit entirely and started to create their own ‘Moscow-centred
system’, focussing primarily on the promoting Russia’s economic expansion in the
CIS, expanding relations with China and India, as well as with unpredictable states,
such as Iran, Syria and Venezuela. 5 Russia’s fraying relations with the West hit their
lowest point in 2007, as reflected in Putin’s landmark speech in Munich. Russia’s
honeymoon with the West was over.
As a big power, Russia has always been an important neighbour of the
Baltic States. When examining Russo-Baltic relations, it is important to make a
conceptual analysis of a relationship between great powers and small states. While
the relationship is important to both sides, the importance is asymmetric: it is a matter
of survival to a smaller state, but rarely, if ever, is that crucial to a great power. Thus,
the search for a condition of ‘enduring normality’ is predominant in the policymaking
of small states (i.e. the Baltic States). 6
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