{"id":29300,"date":"2016-10-28T06:00:18","date_gmt":"2016-10-27T19:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=29300"},"modified":"2016-10-27T10:30:05","modified_gmt":"2016-10-26T23:30:05","slug":"the-return-of-containment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-return-of-containment\/","title":{"rendered":"The return of containment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Image<\/p>\n

\u2018The main element of any US policy towards the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment,\u2019 the US diplomat George Kennan wrote in 1947 in a Foreign Affairs<\/em> article<\/a>, famously signed \u2018X.\u2019 Replace \u2018Soviet Union\u2019 with \u2018Russia,\u2019 and Kennan\u2019s \u2018containment policy\u2019 makes perfect sense today. It is almost as if, in nearly 70 years, nothing has changed, even as everything has.<\/p>\n

Of course, the Soviet Union has been, one might say, permanently contained. But Russia is showing the same \u2018expansive tendencies\u2019 of which Kennan warned. In fact, today, the level of trust between Russia and the \u2018West\u2019 is at its lowest point since at least the end of the Cold War. According to Vitaly I. Churkin, Russia\u2019s ambassador to the United Nations, the current tensions \u2018are probably the worst<\/a> since 1973,\u2019 when the Yom Kippur War brought the United States and the Soviet Union closer to a nuclear confrontation than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis.<\/p>\n

Such pessimism is warranted. This year alone, the sources of discord with Russia have multiplied and deepened. Russia has withdrawn from a number of nuclear agreements, and the Kremlin recently placed Iskander missiles, which can transport medium-range nuclear devices, in Kaliningrad, near the Polish border.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the Ukrainian crisis is far from resolved: the Minsk ceasefire agreements are not respected, and armed conflict may escalate at any moment. And it seems likely that Russia has been intervening directly in the internal politics of Western democracies, using leaks of sensitive documents and financing right-wing populists, from Marine Le Pen to Donald Trump, who would be supportive of the Kremlin.<\/p>\n

Then there is Russia\u2019s role in Syria. The ink was barely dry on a ceasefire agreement negotiated with the US when Russia, along with its ally, President Bashar al-Assad\u2019s regime, began to carry out massive bombings that decimated Aleppo. When the US expressed its anger, Russia shot back that the Americans were being hypocrites. After all, they are not protesting Saudi Arabia\u2019s bombings of Sana\u2019a, Yemen\u2019s capital, which is controlled by Iran-backed Houthis. (To engage in some macabre accounting, the difference is that hundreds of thousands have died in Syria, versus a few thousand in Yemen.)<\/p>\n

It seems clear that the West needs to impose some limits on Russia. But how? It is a question that inspires deep divisions among European countries along geographic, historical, political and commercial lines. Even within countries, the question generates considerable tensions.<\/p>\n

In Germany, which is preparing for a federal election next year, the Social Democrat Party (SPD) seems to be thinking in terms of d\u00e9tente<\/em>, while Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Christian Democratic Union takes a tougher line. For the SPD\u2014which seems to be nostalgic for the early 1970s, when the party was led by the charismatic Willy Brandt\u2014this distinction might work well; public opinion polls show that Germans tend to be much closer to the SPD than to Merkel on Russia.<\/p>\n

In France, both Le Pen\u2019s far-right National Front and the far left, led by Jean-Luc M\u00e9lenchon, support Russia. But, closer to the political center, the differences are significant. On the right, the difference between the moderate but firm line of Alain Jupp\u00e9\u2014the clear favorite to win next year\u2019s presidential election\u2014and the \u2018understanding\u2019 advocated by Nicolas Sarkozy and Fran\u00e7ois Fillon goes beyond nuance. On the left, President Fran\u00e7ois Hollande\u2019s stance\u2014clear in content, but sometimes incoherent in approach\u2014is far less positive toward Russia than that of, say, former Defense Minister Jean-Pierre Chev\u00e8nement.<\/p>\n

All of this disagreement raises doubts about the capability of the West to define a \u2018long term, patient but firm\u2019 strategy to contain Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s dangerous behavior. In fact, Putin himself seems convinced that the West has no such capacity. In his view, the West is far too weak, divided, and obsessed with national electoral calendars to offer anything more than harsh words and ineffective action.<\/p>\n

Some in the West argue that the key to handling Putin is to capitalize on Russia\u2019s economic weakness, just as Putin has capitalized on the West\u2019s political weakness. It certainly sounds rational, especially compared to a more diplomatic approach of lifting some economic sanctions in exchange for, say, cooperation in Syria. Responding to Russia\u2019s razing of Aleppo with carrots would amount to paying tribute to a cynical, criminal policy.<\/p>\n

But the stick option\u2014reinforcing the sanctions regime against Russia\u2014may not do the trick, either. For Russia\u2019s wealthy and powerful, sanctions have little impact. It is ordinary Russians who suffer\u2014and the Kremlin has made it very clear that it does not care much about what happens to ordinary Russians. In any case, Europe and the US are nowhere close to a consensus on toughening sanctions.<\/p>\n

If the West is to halt Russia\u2019s dangerous rush into the unknown, it must find something to agree on. It should, at least, begin to respond to the Kremlin\u2019s shrewd and highly professional disinformation strategy with far more clarity and candor. Such a policy should be relatively uncontroversial, at least as compared to more concrete foreign-policy moves.<\/p>\n

If it is to succeed, the West must recognize the advantages that Russia already wields\u2014namely, Putin\u2019s understanding of the Western psyche and political circumstances. On the international stage, Putin is tapping anti-American sentiment, which exists whether the US is strong or weak. Within countries, he is encouraging anti-elitist and anti-globalization movements.<\/p>\n

Toward the end of the Soviet era, Russian leaders looked like the rearguard of a lost ideological cause. Today, by contrast, they can be perceived as the avant-garde<\/em> of a movement toward isolationism, jingoism, and even hyper-nationalism. It is precisely because Western countries have now been swept up in this movement that it is so critical for rational leaders to stand up and advocate coherent strategies for containing Russia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018The main element of any US policy towards the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment,\u2019 the US diplomat George Kennan wrote in 1947 in a Foreign Affairs …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":474,"featured_media":29301,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[599,1354,163,31],"class_list":["post-29300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-cold-war","tag-containment","tag-russia","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe return of containment | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-return-of-containment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" 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