Russia: To understand relations between Russia, the European Union and the United States today, it is a good idea to withdraw the threads back to the time before 1991, to the old Cold War. During the old Cold War, there were quite different perceptions of the Soviet Union. Would a weakly crisis-hit Soviet Union be less dangerous to the West than a more consolidated and stable one? Sanctions against the Soviet Union were mainly focused on weapons and weapons-related technology and formulated by the so-called “COCOM rules”. The most widespread view was that sanctions other than on weapons would hit the West as much or more than the Soviet Union, in short, be counterproductive. Today, during the new icy hybrid war, the liberal-social-democratic “mainstream” in the EU wants opposite sanctions that include not only weapons and weapons technology, but also other goods, including Russian oil and gas. Denmark, as you know, belongs to Europe’s “superhate”, and has thought/believe that sanctions and armament will lead to victory.
Denmark is not alone in this view. In Thomas Graham’s book “Getting Russia Right” and in John J. Mearsheimer and Sebastians Rosato’s “How States Think”, both from 2023, we will be presented with other countries. As you know, the United States has changed course with Trump back at the White House. The “Donro Doctrine” is clearly different from Biden’s “democracy promotion” and naive belief in a new and lasting international system with the United States in the leadership role. As I said in the “Getting Russia Right” Donroe Cectrine means that Trump will go further than Europe when it comes to peace in Ukraine and concessions to Russia. The second course, the “offshore balancing” bet before 1989 on only a few states in Europe, above all France, England and Germany to balance the Soviet Union. The United States would only have to step in if necessary. That line isn’t completely abandoned by Trump, at least not outwardly. “Containment” (containment) stood and stands for the United States to remain in Europe to balance the Soviet Union/Russia. That line is not backed by Trump. The father of the doctrine of containing (“contain”), George Kennan, has been strongly opposed to NATO’s expansions after 1991. The last option, “roll back” (recurring), was to undermine the Soviet Union’s control over its near abroad. We find it in Europe, less in the White House.
Graham is in the book “Getting Russia Right, certainly not in favor of the policy that Russia has pursued and certainly not when it comes to the military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the time thereafter. But the West had a co-responsibility for it getting that far, he believes.
Since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, relations between the West and Russia, contrary to the time before 1991, have been characterized by “vast asymmetry”. China has taken the place as America’s biggest challenger. Since 1991, Russia has demanded to be recognised, not as a superpower but as a great power with global interests and the right to sit at the table when making important decisions. In other words, Russia has demanded respect and acceptance on an equal basis with other great powers. It didn’t happen, even in the 1990s, that is, until Putin came to. All U.S. presidents bet on Russia joining the West („joined the West“) and introducing Western democracy and free market economy as we know it, and that even though the country’s culture and history are very different. In 1991, Russia had lost its superpower status, but Russia was and is the world’s largest country geographically, spans seven time zones, is the world’s richest in terms of natural resource, in possession of nuclear weapons and, not forgetting, also a member of the UN Security Council.
Russia’s economy is in recession, but not in ruins, although some wish and believe it. The best thing we can hope for, says Graham, is to reach a state characterized by “competitive coexistence”, where states compete on an equal footing for economics, trade, ideologies, technology, culture and rates on diplomacy and not on military strength and victories in war, be it hybrid war or real war. In short, a form of peaceful coexistence known from the old Cold War. Strategic stability with negotiations on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction and the fight against terror is not to be despised, he believes. The question is whether the West will negotiate with Putin or try to have him brought before the international criminal court. In other words, does the West have a “Putin problem” or a “Russia problem”? Peace requires “constructive commitment” also from the West’s side. Demonizing other states and suffering from overconfidence, of “hybris,” is certainly not the most viable path to peace.
As mentioned in Mr.east.dk, Europe has been weakened, regardless of claims to the contrary, and without a view that it will be very different. JD Vance, the Vice-President of the United States, was probably right when, during the Munich Conference in February 2025, he stated that the threat to Europe comes not from Russia and China, but from within, in the European countries themselves. More and more countries are experiencing protest democracy. Liberal and Social Democratic mainstream parties are losing ground. Election defeats are not accepted, regardless of who wins or loses. Neo-McCartyism, the pursuit of political opponents, has increased. The phenomenon is not unknown in our small Denmark. The situation up to February 2022 was somewhat different. After all, after all, agreements were negotiated and concluded, e.g. the Minsk agreements. Right now, as mentioned in merest.dk, is being negotiated for peace in Ukraine based on the proposal from the President of the United States, not from Europe. And quite close to the proposals drawn up shortly after the outbreak of war, also called the Istanbul Agreement, which at that time had quite good prospects of ending the war if Boris Johnson and his friends did not block it and wanted to continue the fight.
Since then, the course towards Russia has been sharpened, has gone from “proxy” war to hybrid war. The question is whether peace is built on Ukraine to maintain areas equivalent to 75 per cent geographically and abandon NATO membership, but could achieve full membership of the EU should be called capitulation. The alternative, continued war may be worse. As I said in an article in “IntelliNews”, the hybrid war and sanctions have hit Europe at least as much as Russia itself. Ukraine’s economy is in ruins. The war cannot be won on the battlefield, nor is there any prospect of a Russian economic collapse. Continued war will take place without military backing from the United States. The new variant of the Istanbul deal from 2022 is the only realistic way out. Otherwise, a crisis-hit EU will have to take over and pay the bill, and it will be high, to say the least. Peaceful coexistence as during the old Cold War we do not get. The best thing can be a Balkan scenario. Despite bloody war and historical trauma, we have achieved non-war war here and reconstruction has begun. And several countries in the Balkans are negotiating membership of the EU.
