BERLIN – French President Emmanuel Macron is one of those leaders who wants to bend the arc of history. Having upended French politics, he has secured positions for his preferred candidates at the head of the European Commission and the European Central Bank, and is now trying to improve Europe’s relationship with Russia.

French officials are comparing Macron’s Russia strategy to US President Richard Nixon’s opening of China in 1972. But Macron’s diplomatic overture is more like Nixon in reverse. Rather than wooing China in order to contain the Soviets, Macron wants to “ease and clarify [Europe’s] relations with Russia” in order to prevent Russia from cozying up to China. In so doing, he hopes to secure Europe’s control over its own future.

Macron launched his bid for a new security architecture in a typically grandiose fashion, mirroring the urban planner Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s project to redesign Paris in the nineteenth century. His first move was to hold talks with Putin in France’s Fort de Brégançon before the August G7 summit in Biarritz. But the French ministers charged with implementing the plan have since turned it on its head.

Now, rather than starting with a top-down agenda, they are trying to build European security from the bottom up, while pursuing improved relations with Russia one brick at a time. The French roadmap focuses on five key areas: disarmament, security dialogue, crisis management, values, and common projects.

In late August, Macron delivered a speech outlining his vision of a system of “concentric circles” comprising varying degrees of European and Eurasian integration. Such an arrangement would have to secure NATO and EU member states’ borders, allow for a more productive relationship with the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union, and offer ways to manage regional conflicts, not least the one in Ukraine.

The timing of the initiative makes sense. Like Macron himself, Ukraine’s recently elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky, created a political party out of nothing, and came to power on the promise of sweeping away a discredited ancien régime. More to the point, Zelensky has made resolving Ukraine’s security situation a top priority.

Macron believes that Russia’s gravitation toward China is at least partly the result of Western mismanagement. He is not naive about the Kremlin’s territorial aggression and election interference. But any country in a position to pose such threats to Europe, he believes, must be engaged face to face. As one French official explained to me, “What is true of Iran and North Korea is also true for Russia. We won’t be able to influence it and lead it to more responsible behavior if we just hide behind a wall of sanctions.”

Adding further urgency to Macron’s efforts is US President Donald Trump, who has confirmed France’s Gaullist suspicions about America’s unreliability as a guarantor of European security. As the United States escalates its conflict with China, it inevitably will pay less attention to Europe and the surrounding neighborhood (the ex-Soviet Union, the Middle East, and North Africa). Worse, the French fear that Trump might pursue a grand bargain with Russia, leaving the European Union hemmed in between the US and China.

Macron’s biggest concern is Europe itself. The EU will never become a global player in the twenty-first century if it continues to be divided and boxed in by other powers. In Macron’s view, recasting Europe’s relationship with Russia is the first step toward securing European sovereignty. “If you don’t have a seat at the great power table,” one French official tells me, “it’s because you’re on the menu.” To be sure, the French understand other Europeans’ support for the sanctions imposed on Russia following its annexation of Crimea and incursion into Eastern Ukraine; but they fear the flimsiness of Europe’s broader security policy.

Ideally, the EU should pursue a two-pronged approach to Russia, combining sanctions and NATO’s deterrence with engagement. The French complaint is that there are no meaningful channels for such engagement, and that sanctions do not address the overall threat that Russia poses. “What would happen to European unity,” French officials wonder, “if Moscow made a move on Ukraine or Syria and some member states decided to block sanctions renewal?” Most likely, it would spell the end of the EU’s Russia policy.

Still, Macron’s initiative raises many questions. Whether Putin has any interest in resolving the Ukraine conflict remains to be seen. And even if Europe is capable of detaching Russia from China, it is unclear whether the Trump administration would stand by and let the European initiative play out.

But the biggest questions are on the European front. Many Central and Eastern European countries worry that they will be second-class citizens within Macron’s framework of “concentric circles.” Others fear that Macron will sell out Ukraine by forcing it to settle the conflict on Russia’s terms. And it doesn’t help that Macron launched his initiative without first consulting other Europeans, many of whom are already anxious about America’s waning commitment to EU security.

French officials pointed out that Nixon didn’t consult US allies before embarking on his mission to China. But Nixon’s credibility as a security hawk was unquestioned, whereas France is regarded suspiciously by some in Central and Eastern Europe, who fear that their interests, too, might be sacrificed in a neo-Gaullist attempt to claim a spot on the world stage.

If Macron is to succeed, he will have to prove that he is committed to the sovereignty and security not just of Central and Eastern Europe, but also of ex-Soviet countries such as Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova. He will also have to pursue deeper collaboration with the Nordic and Baltic states, as well as with the relevant EU institutions and the new High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell. Above all, Macron’s initiative must create a credible platform for a common approach to security. If it is seen as favoring some countries over others, it and its author will end up on the menu, rather than in the history books.

PARIS – French President Emmanuel Macron is convinced that now is the right time to reset relations with Russia. He has therefore made it a diplomatic priority to restore a climate of trust between Paris and Moscow. Three compelling reasons underlie this move.

First and foremost, the international strategic context has changed dramatically. China is rising, while the United States, although still the world’s dominant power, is distancing itself from its global responsibilities. And Russia, with an aging, shrinking population and a huge, largely uninhabited landmass, is a natural prey for China’s long-term ambitions.

European leaders should not resign themselves passively to seeing Russia, lacking any other alternative, align with China. Instead, they should try to convince Russians that their future is with Europe, and not as China’s junior partner in a deeply unbalanced relationship. Russia’s destiny lies in the West, not the East.

Moreover, although Russia is no match for China, it has returned as a serious global actor. Many current conflicts, from Eastern Europe to the Middle East, simply cannot be addressed without involving Russia.

This represents a triumph of sorts for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who first came to power nearly 20 years ago pledging to restore his country’s geopolitical clout. In particular, Putin wanted the US to treat Russia not as a mere object of history, as it had done under his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, but as a real interlocutor. And while it might be impossible to restore the bipolar world of the Cold War years, at least the US would be forced to recognize the importance of a modernized and operational Russian army that could intervene in the former Soviet sphere and beyond.

In other words, Russia is back. For Europe to deny this, or simply to try to contain Russia, cannot be a satisfactory basis for a long-term strategic doctrine and realistic diplomacy.

The second reason for France’s new diplomatic initiative toward Russia is to fill a leadership vacuum in Europe. The United Kingdom, which had lately been the most resolute in denouncing Russia’s behavior, has simply put itself out of the game. Obsessed with the Brexit tragicomedy that has led to the country’s worst political crisis since World War II, the UK has faded from the scene as a serious diplomatic actor.

Meanwhile, Germany, the European power with the closest historical and cultural relationship with Russia, is at the end of a political cycle. It is both dangerous and unfair to underestimate German Chancellor Angela Merkel, but she no longer has the clout or the energy to lead Europe in its dealings with the outside world, nor to rally Europeans themselves.

With the UK and Germany currently incapable of playing a major diplomatic role, and Italy, Spain, and Poland in no position to be principal actors, the conclusion is quite simple: partly by default, and partly because of the sheer energy and imagination of its young president, this is France’s moment.

Finally, Macron’s attempt to reset relations with Russia is perfectly in tune with France’s Gaullist tradition. Mediating between different systems, and looking beyond the current incarnation of other countries, was Charles de Gaulle’s natural instinct. Behind the Soviet Union or Mao Zedong’s China, the first president of France’s Fifth Republic saw eternal Russia or eternal China. In dealing with another country, therefore, one should not be paralyzed by the nature of its regime.

Reconnecting with that tradition also may fit with Macron’s domestic calculus. By reaching out to the Kremlin, he can appease the economic sectors that are most affected by Western sanctions against Russia, while challenging the traditionally pro-Russia parties of France’s extreme right and left.

But it is one thing to explain the roots of a policy, or the rationale behind it, and another to justify the decision fully. Central and North European governments in particular are suspicious of France’s new diplomatic initiative. Why a rapprochement with Russia, they ask, and why now?

Coming from secular France, such Christian charity – giving before having received anything in return – seems either naive or Machiavellian. Furthermore, it seems to contradict France’s emphasis on values in a European Union context. Surely, critics of Macron’s Russia initiative say, the dichotomy between the defense of political principles within the EU and the practice of diplomacy outside it should not be so great as to endanger the cohesiveness of both.

Furthermore, they argue, Macron is acting alone without having really consulted his European partners and allies. He can hardly claim to speak in the name of Europe if he keeps operating that way, always presenting the other EU members with some kind of fait accompli.

Although I understand these criticisms (and share some of them), I nonetheless support Macron’s effort. The West’s strict policy of containment has failed. A policy of engagement may therefore be justified, provided it is not pursued naively or with complete disdain for principle.

Moreover, Macron would be the last person to entertain false illusions about Putin’s Russia. During the 2017 French presidential election, Russia actively campaigned for his far-right rival, Marine Le Pen, by systematically spreading disinformation and fake news. Nor will Macron want Putin to appear to be having his cake and eating it – not least because Russia is persisting in the behaviors that caused its relations with Europe to deteriorate in the first place.

France has made a bold first move to reset relations with Russia. The ball is now in Putin’s court.

BERLIN – Although the European Union and Russia are part of the same landmass, they don’t have all that much in common. In fact, Russians have yet even to decide where their country resides in the world. The bulk of its territory is in Asia, but over 70% of its people live west of the Ural Mountains. Russians have no interest in associating themselves with East Asia or the Islamic South, so their only choice is to go it alone or orient themselves toward Europe.

But going it alone is risky. Russia is a nuclear-armed colossus, yet it is declining demographically, economically, and technologically. The country still earns its living by exporting fossil fuels and other commodities, which is hardly sufficient for maintaining superpower status in the twenty-first century. It is increasingly at risk of becoming a junior partner to China.

The only alternative, then, is Europe. But both sides are prisoners of their respective histories. Memories of oppressive rule under the czars and the Soviets remain raw in Central and Eastern Europe, particularly in Poland and the Baltics, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea and military campaign in Eastern Ukraine have reinforced distrust of Russia across the region.

Russia’s relationship with the rest of Europe is also determined by its history. Reeling from the Soviet collapse throughout the 1990s, Russia has adopted a nineteenth-century mentality since Putin came to power in 2000. The Russian elite, harking back to the Czarist period before the Bolshevik Revolution, regards their country as a European great power – even a hegemonic one, in the case of Eastern Europe – which pits it directly against the EU.

The EU’s raison d’être is to transcend zones of influence in Europe, because that is the only way to prevent a return of the power struggles and catastrophic wars that culminated in the first half of the twentieth century. And yet Russia is simply too large to be integrated into the EU (indeed, it is unclear who would be integrating with whom).

Even if that were not the case, Russia – or at least its leadership – does not share the EU’s values. In addition to championing democracy, judicial independence, and the rule of law, the EU has renounced any revision of borders by force. While geographic proximity demands that Russia and the EU manage their relationship in as mutually advantageous a manner as possible, the Kremlin’s ongoing war in Ukraine’s Donbas region makes this all but impossible.

Nonetheless, French President Emmanuel Macron has made renewed efforts to improve EU-Russian relations, not least by meeting with Putin in the run-up to the G7 summit in Biarritz last month. In Macron’s view, it is not in Europe’s interest to drive Russia further into China’s arms, or to stand by and watch the ongoing disintegration of US-Russian arms-control treaties. With respect to arms control, American and European interests are not the same, and today’s US administration cares little about Europe or its views on any given issue.

But Macron’s efforts raise many questions. For starters, it isn’t obvious what role Europe could play in renewing the global arms-control regime. Without the US, Europe has little to offer Russia on the issue of intermediate missiles. It would be stuck in the position of trying to convince two unwilling parties to reach a new agreement. And that doesn’t even account for China, which has also developed an intermediate-range-missile capacity.

Europe does have something to offer Russia economically. But improving economic relations is simply impossible without verifiable progress in the implementation of the Minsk Protocol to end the conflict in Donbas. It is unclear if Putin would be ready for that.

But the real problem between Russia and the EU is the issue of democracy. Putin and the Russian oligarchy’s greatest fear is that Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan revolution could be replicated on Moscow’s Red Square. The Kremlin does not blame NATO for that possibility; it blames the EU. Anti-NATO rhetoric is a tried and true propaganda trope that exploits many Russians’ ingrained fear of a Cold War bogeyman. But the real threat in the eyes of the Russian oligarchy is the EU and its promotion of democracy and the rule of law.

The Russian and European systems are fundamentally incompatible, representing contradictory values and vastly different approaches to foreign and domestic policy. In the nineteenth century, czarist Russia was the leader of the “Holy Alliance,” a reactionary bulwark against the bourgeois revolutions sweeping in Europe. This dynamic was reversed under the Bolsheviks after 1917, when Russia became the cradle of revolution. But under Stalin, it returned to pursuing essentially the same aims as the czars, particularly when it came to crushing independence movements in Central and Eastern Europe.

Putin’s regime has followed a similar trajectory, retreating to the nineteenth century, allying with the Orthodox Church, and launching attacks on the “decadent West,” with tirades against homosexuality and liberalism. The Kremlin’s active support for illiberal, nationalist forces in Europe and the United States is just one part of this larger picture.

As desirable as an improvement in relations between the EU and Russia would be, it will come neither quickly nor easily. On the main questions of Ukraine and democracy, Europe can scarcely give an inch.

MADRID – On October 1, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced his government’s support for an agreement that would lead to elections in the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk – large parts of which were seized by Russian-backed separatists in 2014 – with the ultimate goal of granting them special self-governing status. It was an important development, not only because it signaled Ukrainian acquiescence to a process that could end hostilities in the country, but also because of its implications for a world order in turmoil.

From Iran’s audacious attack on major oil facilities in Saudi Arabia to the launch of an impeachment inquiry against US President Donald Trump, the last month has underscored the volatility gripping the international order. As Saudi Arabia and Iran vie for dominance in the Middle East, and as China’s position in the international order continues to evolve, three other major players – Europe, Russia, and the United States – are transforming their global roles.

Begin with Russia. Since 2014, when the country invaded Ukraine and illegally annexed Crimea, the conventional view has been that President Vladimir Putin had decided to act as a spoiler in international affairs. After all, while the country was powerful enough to cause trouble – and, it hoped, to safeguard its sphere of influence – it lacked the resources to reprise its role as a global heavyweight.

In line with this perspective, when Russia intervened in Syria to prop up its embattled ally, President Bashar al-Assad, many viewed the move as simple opportunism: Putin was taking advantage of the chaos to show that he could still thwart the West’s plans. Growing Russian involvement in Venezuela and Africa was regarded in much the same way.

Yet, today, Russia is a genuine global power broker. In Ukraine, Zelensky’s acceptance of the so-called Steinmeier formula represents a major step toward normalizing Russia’s presence in the country and its ties with Europe and the US. As such, it was a significant victory for Putin on his quest to revive Russia as a global power.

Similarly, in Syria, the United Nations announced last month the finalization of a 150-member committee – comprising pre-approved representatives from government, civil society, and the opposition – to re-write the constitution, a plan initially proposed at a Russia-hosted peace conference in 2018. Even as Syria moved towards stabilization, the Kremlin signaled its intent to maintain its long-term presence, releasing within days of the UN announcement plans to expand Russian air and naval bases in the country.

Russia’s renewed prominence has come partly by default, owing to America’s retreat from global leadership. The contrast was on stark display following last month’s strikes on Saudi Arabia.

On the US side, Trump immediately tweeted bellicose threats: the US was “locked and loaded,” he boasted, and was only waiting to hear from the Saudis “under what terms” to proceed. But, as is so often the case, Trump didn’t follow through. Instead, he ordered another round of sanctions and deployed a small number of troops and some additional military equipment to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Putin, by contrast, presented Russia as a potential underwriter of regional stability. Careful not to assign blame – Iran continues to deny its involvement in the attacks – Putin made it clear that he would work with all parties. Russia’s state arms exporter also announced that it would meet with Middle Eastern countries to sell them anti-drone weapons systems – a clear bid to usurp a key American role in the region. This is the approach of a strategist, not a spoiler.

The US is moving in the opposite direction. Despite its gradual departure from global leadership – a process that began during Barack Obama’s administration – much of the world continues to regard the US as the primary status quo power. But this is more a force of habit than a logical assumption, given that the US has shown no inclination to lead.

Indeed, judging by its withdrawal from major global initiatives like the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement, the US seems to have little impulse even to participate. Given America’s clout – in many ways, it remains an indispensable actor – this retreat is sometimes tantamount to behaving like a spoiler. As the impeachment inquiry monopolizes America’s attention, this trend is likely to accelerate.

That leaves Europe. Neither strategist nor spoiler, Europe is essentially a systemic facilitator. For example, France and Germany played a vital role in bringing about the October 1 agreement in Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron also reportedly attempted to broker an agreement on framework negotiations between the US and Iran on the sidelines of the recent UN General Assembly, albeit unsuccessfully.

Such efforts should inspire optimism; Europe still has a role to play, and it is attempting to play it. But, at a time of shifting global power dynamics, European leaders must approach this responsibility with great caution, taking care to consider all the potential consequences of the agreements they facilitate within a shifting global order.

As a key global facilitator, Europe needs to know exactly whom its efforts serve. After all, as the protests that have erupted in Ukraine underscore, even a deal that promises to bring an end to years of hostilities can be riskier than it might seem.

MOSCOW – When Russians hear paeans to the “rules-based” order, their standard rejoinder is to ask who is actually writing the rules. In fact, that same question now encapsulates the Kremlin’s attitude toward Western-championed multilateralism.

The way Russia sees it, the United States will not hesitate to act unilaterally when it needs to, and it is precisely this double standard that has eroded global rules. Whenever Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov appears on the international stage, he tirelessly recounts America’s purported violations of international law, from the 1999 bombardment of Yugoslavia and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, to the 2011 airstrikes that helped topple Muammar el-Qaddafi’s regime in Libya.

To be sure, when the US wants a legal pretext for its actions, it will turn to multilateral bodies such as the United Nations Security Council. But if its plans meet resistance there from Russia or any other council member with veto power, America can always fall back on the default option: brute force and the mobilization of its allies.

It is little wonder, then, that Russia sees debates about the multilateral rules-based order either as hypocritical or, worse, as a sophisticated plot to undermine the role of international law as codified in the UN Charter. Whatever the case, the Kremlin itself no longer takes international law into consideration when it believes that critical Russian national interests are at stake.

The most vivid examples of this approach are Russia’s formal recognition of two breakaway regions of Georgia in 2008 and its takeover of Crimea in 2014. In the Russian leadership’s view, these actions were “defensive” measures. As a Russian diplomat once explained to us, the Kremlin has surmised that if the US can break international law around the world, then Russia should “break the American monopoly on breaking international law,” at least in cases where it has skin in the game and the resources to enforce its will.

And yet, Russia does not actually want to see the rules-based multilateral order erode. When Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior officials express a desire to restore international law and the central role of the UN, they mean what they say. The UN, after all, is Russia’s preferred multilateral forum. As a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council – and as a formidable military power – Russia exercises a lot of influence there.

The problem, in the Kremlin’s estimation, is that the UN-centered system of multilateral institutions is now in a crisis brought on by American dominance. Russia’s leaders would love to see a world in which everybody, especially the US, observes the UN Charter. But failing that, Russia’s preference is to be pragmatic and cynical: a great power that elbows its way through the international system and carves out a sphere of influence in its neighborhood. That, in the Kremlin’s view, is no different from what the US, China, India, and Iran are already doing outside their own respective borders.

Nonetheless, renewed multilateral cooperation through the UN would play to Russia’s strengths and allow it to deploy its own expertise. Consider the issue of nuclear non-proliferation. A nuclear power in its own right, Russia is one of the main parties to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. Working within the UN framework, the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany) managed to bring Iran to the negotiating table through sanctions. And once there, they were able to craft an enforceable legal framework based on independent monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency, itself a part of the UN-centered system.

Now that US President Donald Trump has abandoned the JCPOA, it is not clear whether Russia – or any of the other remaining parties – can salvage the deal. But the fact that an agreement exists carries an important lesson: on issues in which Russia has a stake and the relevant political and diplomatic expertise, it can play an important and constructive role.

By the same token, in areas where Russia has neither a direct interest nor significant expertise, it does not invest much effort in multilateral cooperation. The country’s painfully slow accession to the World Trade Organization is a case in point. Because Russia exports mostly commodities, its decision to join the WTO was driven more by the prestige that would come with membership than by more tangible economic considerations. As a result, it took 19 years for Russia actually to join the organization (which it did in 2012).

Another example is climate change. Although Russia is formally a party to international negotiations and frameworks to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, it is certainly not at the forefront of the climate debate. In the Kremlin’s view, global warming does not pose an immediate threat to Russia, and thus is of little concern.

In the absence of a world truly governed by international law and the principles of the UN Charter, Russia’s preferred version of multilateralism is something akin to the nineteenth-century “Concert of Nations” in Europe. Under that kind of arrangement, a select few great powers should come together occasionally to discuss global issues and take collective action when their interests coincide, such as in the fight against terrorism or combating piracy off the Horn of Africa. At the same time, these powers should refrain from interfering in each other’s affairs, in order to preserve their respective spheres of influence.

The fact that Russia harkens back to a time when it was a global superpower should come as no surprise. What is less clear is whether its interest-based approach will redound to its benefit in the long run.

This article is part of a joint initiative of the Körber-Stiftung and the Munich Security Conference on the future of multilateralism, multilateral best practices, and regional perspectives on multilateral cooperation. Starting September 19, the full project will be available for download at www.munich-young-leaders.org. 

STOCKHOLM – While the European Union gears up for new leadership this fall, and while US President Donald Trump has just launched his 2020 re-election campaign, Russian President Vladimir Putin is sitting steady in the saddle with a mandate stretching to 2024. But what, exactly, does Putin intend to do with his next five years in the Kremlin?

Like leaders of all major powers, Russia’s elite must regularly try to divine the future, in order to shape the country’s strategic priorities in a way that anticipates likely challenges. The United States conducts such assessments every four years under the direction of the National Intelligence Council; the EU does so every five years, and has just published a semi-independent study of likely global trends between now and 2030.

In Russia’s case, geostrategic forecasting is one of the activities of the semi-official Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), which has published a global outlook for 2035. Generally speaking, its assessment of future trends is similar to that of the US and the EU. Where the report gets interesting is in its appraisal of the implications for Russia. The authors identify several strategic dilemmas the country will face.

For example, according to the report, Russia’s top priority is “preserving and improving its position in the world hierarchy of powers and responsibility.” But achieving that will require a “structural reconstruction of the Russian economy.” That is, without far-reaching economic reforms – or what the authors describe as “radical changes” – Russia’s international standing will almost certainly decline. The same point is made with great force in Anders Åslund’s acclaimed book Russia’s Crony Capitalism.

Following the discussion of Russia’s economic plight, which is no small matter, the report addresses a number of complicated geostrategic issues. The authors expect an “inevitably long political conflict with the West in connection with Russia’s role in the post-Soviet space, first of all in defining the future of Ukraine and neighboring territories.” In the near term, they conclude that such tensions will make it necessary for Russia to turn to China and the East.

The implication is that the authors see no possible resolution to the conflicts that Russia has created in its attempts to undermine its immediate neighbors’ sovereignty. The study simply takes for granted that the Kremlin will continue to pursue revanchist policies abroad, despite the obvious negative impact its aggressive behavior had on Russia’s international standing and domestic economy. It is as though Russia’s illegal incursions into Georgia and Ukraine are mere historical matters, admitting of no solution in the present.

As for moving closer to China, this has been a hallmark of the Kremlin’s foreign policy at least since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014 provoked Western sanctions. Already this year, Putin has paid a visit to Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, and Xi has met with Putin in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The problem, as the IMEMO study shows, is that pursuing closer cooperation with China is not really a viable option for ensuring Russia’s long-term development. “In the long run,” the authors point out, “cooperation with China and other Asia-Pacific countries cannot become a strategic alternative to cooperation with the West.” Accordingly, the authors believe the Kremlin should be directing its efforts toward “working out its own agenda for possible active cooperation with” Europe and the US.

The upshot, then, is that Russia has not only failed to modernize as it should; it has also enmeshed itself in regional conflicts that have precipitated a crisis with the powers upon which its own development depends. This has forced Russia to rely ever more on China, even though it knows that becoming a junior partner to its eastern neighbor is not a desirable way forward. One way or another, Russia must find a way to restore relations with the West. This cannot happen immediately, given that the conflict in Ukraine remains a live issue; but it must be on the long-term agenda.

The obvious solution to the dilemma – admit that the conflict with Ukraine was a huge strategic mistake, and seek an honest settlement – was probably beyond the mandate of a study like this.

The question, of course, is whether Putin himself takes IMEMO studies seriously, or even reads them at all. I sincerely doubt it. Most likely, shorter-term security assessments are what command his attention. Nonetheless, it is notable that a respected semi-official institution with strong support among influential members of the Russian elite has produced such a report. Though its language is often cautious and obscure, it is a clear critique of Putin’s entire approach to foreign policy.

Moreover, the IMEMO is absolutely correct: Russia has created a situation in which its global standing might well deteriorate. Continued conflicts with its neighbors at the expense of its relationship with the West will inevitably prevent it from pursuing economic modernization and development. And without a strong economic foundation, it will have no chance of securing a respectable “position in the world hierarchy of powers and responsibility” that Putin seems to find so important.