Stephen Szabo writes: One of the most important stories in the ongoing confrontation between the West and Russia has been that of Western unity. Despite a wide array of different histories, interests and geography, the U.S. and the European Union have held together in a common response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s violation of Ukrainian territorial integrity and the larger threat it poses to the European security order. At the heart of this unity has been the German-American partnership. Berlin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have taken the lead in both shaping that response and negotiating with Putin. This solidarity has clearly surprised Putin, who has regarded the West as weak, decadent and divided.
One of Putin’s major goals is to divide Europeans from each other and Europe from the United States. He has attempted to do this in a number of ways, waging information warfare and disinformation campaigns on social media and through the purchase of major newspapers and the financing and cultivation of anti-European political parties, most notably the National Front in France, Jobbik in Hungary and Syriza in Greece. His recent visit to Hungary, where he was warmly received by Prime Minister Viktor Orban, is another indication of fault lines opening in Europe.
Putin has tried to capitalize on the Snowden effect in German public opinion, hoping to feed a sense among Germans that both the U.S. and Russia are equivalent in their behavior and that Washington is trying to drag Germany and Europe into a confrontation. He has used his extensive business and criminal network, including a number of former members of the East German secret police who worked for him when he was a KGB agent in East Germany, to foster corruption and to buy favor among German decision-makers. This effort has largely failed.
This also reflects the deeper social and geographic connections between Germany and Russia. The American business stake in Russia is significantly lower than that of Germany, and while Germany gets about 39 percent of its oil and gas from Russia, the U.S. has no real energy dependence on that country.
Americans may have to think of Russia as Germany’s Mexico, an unavoidable neighbor. Germans should understand that Americans have a concern for anything which smacks of appeasement of an aggressive dictatorship and that the polarization of American politics is producing outsized rhetoric more directed internally than to foreign audience.
Both sides have to understand that this is going to be a long game with Putin, which requires a long-term approach, similar to the containment strategy devised by George F. Kennan in the late 1940s. Sanctions may not be sexy and require the kind of patience that an immediate, results-oriented America lacks, but they are likely to have a significant long-term impact.
