European Policy Analysis Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2016 | Page 16
Immigrants, ISIS the Refugee Crisis, and Integration in Europe
in 2004, when Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and
Slovenia joined. It, in fact, occurred after
2008, despite several efforts by Obama to
improve the relationship. The most recent
NATO enlargement involved countries—
Albania and Croatia—that are not on
Russia’s borders.
It is true or at least arguable
that, with hindsight, the Europe and
the United States might have taken
a more consultative and inclusive
position vis à vis Russia during most
recent NATO expansions and during
Ukraine’s European Union association
negotiations. But these mistakes, if that
is what they were, cannot possibly justify
Putin’s behavior since then: his 2008 war
against Georgia and, above all, his 2014
annexation of Crimea, an invasion (as
Putin eventually admitted) and border
alteration of the sort not seen in Europe
since World War II. Von Beyme, rather
incredibly, does not mention Crimea at
all. Perhaps more importantly, neither
Putin nor anyone else in Russia can tell
sovereign states which associations they
may or may not join. Moreover, Russia’s
treatment of Georgia and Crimea suggest
that the fears of Eastern European
countries that sought NATO membership
were entirely justified. That so many
in Germany, a country that has gone to
such great lengths to repudiate its own
history of militarism and imperialism,
should indulge Russian militarism and
imperialism is as mystifying as it is
unconscionable.
There are further factors worth
mentioning, none of which is flattering
toward Putin or reassuring for his
German sympathizers. All evidence
suggests that Putin is utterly hostile to the
idea that countries he regards as within
the Russian sphere of influence—Georgia,
Ukraine, and Moldova, along with the
rest of the Caucasus and Central Asia—
might determine their own future, and he
likes destabilized states that he can draw
into his sphere of influence. Domestic
politics also play a role here: Putin’s turn
to extremism—his closing down of the
free press, the exile and poisoning of
his critics, the murder of journalists—
correlates with his overwhelming fear of a
domestic reaction against his corrupt and
autocratic regime, above all since 2008.
For Putin, power is a zero-sum game:
when others have it, he does not, and
when others are weak, he is strong. It is
possible, and horrifying, that what Putin
wants in Syria is not so much an Assad
victory—bad enough, but one with which
a tough realist could live if it brought
stability—but permanent conflict and a
flow of militarized refugees to a Europe
that he will never forgive for applying
sanctions on Russia. Putin is particularly
incensed by Germany, a country he
flattered himself into believing he
understood because of his KGB résumé
and knowledge of the language, as it was
Chancellor Merkel who anchored the
sanctions agreements. Again, it is odd
that von Beyme adopts such a critical
stance toward Western neoimperialism
while remaining seemingly indifferent to
Russian neoimperialism.
Von Beyme’s discussion of
immigration and refugees is equally
ambitious and thought-provoking. Von
Beyme is absolutely right that efforts
to achieve responsibility sharing the
distribution of refugees have resulted in
absolute failure. I am doubtful, though,
that better negotiation would have
changed the result. There partly was not
sufficient time—hundreds of thousands
16