SHANDONG UNIVERSITY

山东大学

School of Political Science and Public Administration

MASTERS IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

How the Ukrainian Crisis Exposed the EU’s Weakness

Presented By

Bright Mhango (M2013071)

(European Politics)

February 2015

How the Ukrainian Crisis Exposed the EU’s Weakness

The European Union (EU) is a politico-economic union of 28 member states it

operates through a system of supranational institutions and intergovernmental

negotiated decisions by the member states. The institutions are: the European

Commission, the Council of the European Union, the European Council, the

Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Central Bank, the Court

of Auditors, and the European Parliament. The EU is considered a rational

player in international relations and it has its own foreign policy.

But as Ginsberg 2001 (class notes) puts it, ‘it is because foreign policy is widely

associated with nation states that the EU is overlooked as an international

political actor by many who study international relations,’ p.12

As a body, it meets various crises such as the Kosovo War in 1999. For its

military needs, the EU usually banks on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

(NATO) forces, as it did in toppling the Libyan regime under Gaddafi. Apart

from NATO, the EU has a de facto standby army… after the Kosovo War in

1999, the EU made strides to ‘have the capacity for autonomous action, backed

by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them, and the readiness

to do so, in order to respond to international crises without prejudice to actions

by NATO.’ As a result, the result was initiatives such as the Helsinki Headline

Goal a military capability target set for 2003 during the December 1999

Helsinki European Council meeting with the aim of developing a future

European Rapid Reaction Force and the EU Battlegroups initiative which can

quickly deploy military personnel if needed1. But as Paul says, ‘The EU states

have never felt the need to make the organization into a powerful military

alliance. They already have NATO to undertake that task2.’

The Maastricht Treaty in 1992 set up the Common Foreign and Security Policy,

which it said "might in time lead to a common defence". But that is not coming

into fruition soon and these initiatives are seen as slowly moving in that

direction.

1 New force behind EU foreign policy BBC News – 15 March 20072 Wilkinson, Paul. International Relations. Oxford University Press. p. 100

It has deployed peacekeeping missions to Africa, Middle East and West Asia3. It

is almost like a state, the EU is currently negotiating trade agreements with the

United States

Despite being all that a state should be and more, the EU is still unable to

effectively move past some foreign policy hurdles. The Ukrainian Crisis, which

was sparked by the EU is an example of the weak EU foreign policy. This

paper argues that the EU, due primarily to its structure, makes it vulnerable in

times of crisis such as the Ukrainian Crisis. The paper suggests that the EU can

become a better player, and a stronger one by becoming more like the United

States, with member states’ maintaining sovereignty over many issues but with

a united and centralized foreign policy and security front.

EU foreign policy background

Many scholars, such as the realist Robert Kagan (2003) argue that the EU

follows a Kantian Liberal model in contrast to the United States which pursues

a Hobbesian Realist model. Kagan says the Europeans do not have the will and

capacity to acquire the military capabilities that the US has and as such cling to

Kantian international law.

The realist paradigm assumes an anarchic international state system, a

conception of political units as independent sovereign states, and the primacy of

military power. The EU does not easily fit into this mould as it is not a unitary

sovereign body. The EU is not all Kant, as much as it puts a lot of faith in

bodies such at the UN, WTO and ICC, some European nations are eager to

ignore the UN as they did when they went to war with Serbia over Kosovo in

1999.

But as Sebastian Rosato states “The European Community is best understood as

an attempt by . . . France and Germany . . . to balance against the Soviet Union

3 Council of the European Union (April 2003)."Overview of the missions and operations of the European Union". Europa web portal. Retrieved 16 February 2015.

and one another.” (p733) This means that at the heart of the EU is geopolitics

and realism but as Moravcsik writes in confirmation saying over six decades,

economic interest dominated European integration, with geopolitics playing a

secondary role4. It is this lack of focus on geopolitics that is coming to haunt the

EU now.

As Robert Kagan (2003: 1) sees it the EU looks at the world as ‘moving beyond

power into a self-contained world of laws and rules and transnational

negotiation and entering a post-historical paradise of peace and relative

prosperity, the realization of Immanuel Kant’s perpetual peace.’

Morgan (2005) also says that the democratic peace theory which says that

democracies are unlikely to war with each other stems for the reinterpreting of

Kant’s Perpetual Peace. He also says that the democratic peace theory is at the

heart of European Foreign Policy. (p.201) He argues that despite the EU not

being enthusiastic about spreading democracy to other nations like the US is,

their demand that nations be properly democratic before they join the EU is an

indicator that the EU is at par with the US in terms of commitment to

democracy.

Part of European dormancy would stem from the fact that the Europeans have

always rode on the back of the United States which has played a major role in

trying to balance out communist nations, but as Morgan argues, the Europeans

are now exposed now that the US having defeated the communist nations, is

now focusing on some other areas such as the Middle East. Which not only

leaves the EU prone to dogs like Russia but also inflames the Muslims inside

Europe who might harm Europeans because to some fanatics, the EU and the

US are one. The EU, cannot for example use significant NATO force without

the agreement of the United States.

4 Andrew Moravcsik (2013) Did Power Politics Cause European Integration? Realist Theory Meets Qualitative Methods, Security Studies, 22:4, 773-790, DOI: http://www.princeton.edu/~amoravcs/library/integration.pdf

Morgan also argues that the EU nations never abandoned their geopolitical

goals and their support for multilateral organisations is just an attempt to further

their interests without causing alarm. He gave an example of the United States

which supported the creation of bodies such as the UN to ultimately further its

goals without causing panic in the international order.

Many scholars have countered Kegan’s realism by arguing that Europe has

alternative and equally important forms of power, such as economic power,

civilian power, and the power of influence or goodwill (Haseler, 2004;

Moravcsik, 2002; Reid, 2004; Rifkin, 2004).

The EU, as Morgan agrees should do more to become a unitary state. The US

has been where the EU is now, since its establishment in 1777, the US had

statutes that gave each member state sovereignty.

And this internal sovereignty, writes Morgan (2005), meant that: ‘the

Confederacy could neither protect itself effectively from its foreign enemies,

nor enter into binding agreements with foreign allies. While the US Constitution

went some way to remedying this problem, the Constitution did not establish

anything resembling a unitary sovereign state. The United States thus remained

at the mercy of European powers like France and Britain.’ (p.205)

To become a superpower, as some EU fans desire, the Europeans must

centralise their political might and charge ahead as one body and in Morgan’s

words: ‘If neoclassical realists are correct, the EU can only become a

superpower by following in the path of other superpowers and forming itself

into a unitary sovereign superstate,’ and he adds, cheekily, ‘the alternative is for

Europe to remain dependent for its security on the United States.’

To solve the crisis in Ukraine, with a defiant Putin fuelling the flames from the

East, the EU needs more than Kant or the UN or sanctions or more generally,

liberal ideas…Russia is a realist nation, it can only understand the language of

hard power and similar deterrence.

For Morgan (2005) a better model would be that of the United States of

America, “which combines a political system that is highly centralised in some

areas (foreign and military affairs, revenue raising, and immigration) and highly

decentralised in others (education, police forces, and medical care). There is no

reason why a unitary sovereign Europe cannot introduce a similar political

system of government,” (P.206)

Ukrainian Crisis background

The European Union spent years trying to perfect an association agreement with

Ukraine and then suddenly in 2013 the Ukrainian president announced that he

would not sign the deal (Spiegel, 2014). In November of 2013 tens of thousands

of Ukrainians who had been hoping to get even closer to Europe stormed the

streets and public squares in Ukraine to voice anger over what they called lack

of accountability of the ruling elite and bowing to Russian pressure. (BBC,

2014).

Mearsheimer points to the West as the architects of the crisis in Ukraine, writing

on Foreign Affairs, he argued that the West’s ‘triple package of policies --

NATO enlargement, EU expansion, and democracy promotion -- added fuel to a

fire waiting to ignite. The spark came in November 2013, when Yanukovych

rejected a major economic deal he had been negotiating with the EU and

decided to accept a $15 billion Russian counteroffer instead.’

Mearsheimer argues that elites in the United States and Europe have been

blindsided by events only because they subscribe to a flawed view of

international politics saying those leaders tend to ‘believe that the logic of

realism holds little relevance in the twenty-first century and that Europe can be

kept whole and free on the basis of such liberal principles as the rule of law,

economic interdependence, and democracy… but this grand scheme went awry

in Ukraine. The crisis there shows that realpolitik remains relevant -- and states

that ignore it do so at their own peril.’

The launching of The European Neighbourhood Policy in 2004, to the EU

citizens is a simple tool to strengthen cooperation and to spread Western values.

The drafters of the policy seem to be oblivious what engaging Ukraine in such

treaties would entail and the current crisis is the result of that negligence.

As this paper is tendered in, in February of 2015, the demonstrations in Ukraine

brewed into a full scale civil war with those sympathetic to Russia, mainly from

the east of Ukraine vowing to break away from Ukraine. The war has displaced

about a million people and claimed over 5000 people. For some, the intent by

Europe to expand eastward has created one of the biggest issues for European

foreign policy since the Cold War.

For its part, the EU had negotiated a nearly 1,000-page treaty, but officials in

Brussels hadn't paid close enough attention to the realities of those power

politics. Even in Berlin, officials for too long didn't take Russian concerns --

about the encroachment of NATO and the EU into Eastern Europe -- seriously

enough. The idea that Moscow might be prepared to use force to prevent a

further expansion of the Western sphere of influence didn't seem to register with

anyone.

In the Ukrainian case, Europe is faced with a realist Russia under Putin. Despite

the many rounds of sanctions that Europe has lambasted Russia with, Russia is

not toning down its defiance in what Mearsheimer believes to be one of those

instances where nations are willing to absorb just to protect their core interests.

Russia also maintains an advantage on Europe, which has to rely on Russian

energy to stay warm and to grease the economy. The Russian Federation

supplies a significant volume of fossil fuels and is the largest exporter of oil and

natural gas to the European Union. In 2007, the European Union imported from

Russia 185 million tonnes of crude oil, which accounted for 32.6% of total oil

import, and 100.7 million tonnes of oil equivalent of natural gas, which

accounted 38.7% of total gas import5. In any case where Russia can switch off

the energy supply, Europe can suffers huge economic and human losses.

It is not just energy, Russia also buys most of the European agricultural output,

and this has already been demonstrated with Russia banning the importation of

some of Europe’s products.

Europe came to this by believing too much in interdependence as a way out of

conflict. Liberal Kantian ideals fooled the Europeans, they did not stop to have

alternatives and to see the world as a cruel one where selfishness is virtue. Now

the Russian president can safely call the shots on Ukraine a nation that is

supposed to be independent.

If Europe was like the United States, with its own army and cognizant of the

realpolitik of international relations, Russia would not be bullying Europe as it

is doing.

There are now reports that Russia is floating submarines and violating EU

airspace on an almost daily basis6, Russia cannot do this with the US or China,

its neighbour.

The biggest hurdle in Europe’s foreign policy, as Morgan (2005) also noted, is a

fragmented Europe and an electorate with different values. The people heading

Europe have no clout in important matters. The European leaders are sceptical

of a centralised Europe and the anti-EU movement is fast picking up speed on

the ground.

5 "Energy Dialogue EU–Russia. The Tenth Progress Report." (PDF). European Commission. November 2009. pp. 4–6. Retrieved 24 January 2010.6 Birnbaum, M (2014) NATO says Russian jets, bombers circle Europe in unusual incidents retrieved from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/nato-says-russian-jets-bombers-circle-europe-in-unusual-incidents/2014/10/29/6098d964-5f97-11e4-827b-2d813561bdfd_story.html

But as Hedley Bull warned in 1982, the EU cannot go anywhere by being a

civilian power, as described by Francois Duchene or a normative power as

proposed by Ian Manners. The EU needs to be a force, a military force replete

with nuclear deterrents and a force ready to deploy at a moment’s notice.

As Stelios Stavridis also argues, the EU can still be a civilian or normative

power but it also needs to have military power in tow. And in his words it is

because ‘it is only by wielding military power that civilian ends can be pursued.

Force can be necessary to promote human rights and democratic principles, and

the EU should not hesitate to use it for those purposes.7’

In summary, the EU, a body obsessed with Kantian modules and liberal intent,

has been since its formations and until now, trying to ignore the significance of

looking at the world in realist terms. Whether because the internal rivalry

between the big EU powers makes it hard to make a properly united front or

simply because of over-reliance on the United States for security…whatever the

reasons, the EU finds itself vulnerable to an aggressive Russia, an uninterested

US and a hoard of crises creeping over its wars. The crises include the growing

Islamic extremism, trade issues and an increasingly hostile Russia.

The EU finds itself in 2015, with a lot of money, influence and civilian

capabilities but crises like the one ongoing in Ukraine expose the weak soft

underbelly of EU foreign policy. Anyone with a sharp twig can poke at it and

the result will only be huge talk and little action and with Russia able to absorb

the rhetoric and sanctions and with an advantage of being the guarantor of EU

energy security and also buyer of EU goods, the EU is left with no options and

once more has to rely on the US to do its dirty work.

Realists past and present have urged the EU to never ignore the realism that

once made Europe fierce. The solution is for the EU to be like the United

7 Class notes, Lecture number 8, Civilian Power VS Military PowerKaren Smith 2005 – Slide number 33.

States, to maintain the sovereignty of the individual members but to have a

united security front to deal with issues like the one it faces now in Ukraine and

embodied in the nation of Russia.

Bibliography

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February 2015

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