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While the still new Obama Administration may change the tone of foreign policy between the US and Russia, the policy experts believe the onus is on Moscow to open up to the concept that there could be common interests with the West in order for any potential strategic partnership to succeed.

Atlantic-Community.org has asked twenty-one experts from EU and North American think tanks and universities for their assessment of relations between the West and Russia. We also wanted to know whether the experts felt the global economic crisis was a window of opportunity to enhance cooperation. Moreover the policy analysts shared with Atlantic Community their recommendations on how to make EU countries act more cohesively towards Russia. We publish the results of this survey in four parts.

Part One: Do the West and Russia have more common or more conflicting interests?

Fourteen of the twenty-one experts polled by Atlantic-Community.org felt that the West and Russia shared more common interests than conflicting. The experts from eleven EU countries and the United States argued that Russia needed to recognize that they shared many interests with the West - such as free trade, non-proliferation, stability in the Caucasus and Central Asia, fighting terrorism, organized crime, and climate change.

At present, many of these issues were interpreted differently by the West and Russia which has lead to misunderstandings. Katinka Barysch of the Centre for European Reform in the UK said: "Objectively, they have a lot of common interests but they interpret the situation very differently at times." This gives rise to the feeling that Russia and the West have less in common than they do.

In fact, Elzbieta Stadtmuller from the University of Wroclaw in Poland explains that "Russia is not aware of such common interests because it is attached to the realistic paradigm and sees international politics as 'loser-winner' relation," while the West has by and large shifted towards a win-win game.

Janusz Bugajski from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington remarks that "the current government in Moscow does not share the long-term strategic targets of either NATO or the EU." While Jeffrey Mankoff from Yale University adds that "a genuine partnership will have to accept that Russia remains apart from the West, but nonetheless shares a range of common interests."

If the common interests outnumber and outweigh the conflicting interests, can the United States and the European Union turn Russia into a strategic partner in the next three years? Read the experts' responses in the second installment of Atlantic-Community.org's four part survey: A Future with Russia as a Strategic Partner?

Although this poll was done specifically with analysts from the US and the EU, we'd like to ask Russian experts on their nation's relationship with the West whether they agree with the thesis above. Is it just the Russian mindset that requires change or is there more the West could do to bring about a strategic relationship?

Part II: A Future with Russia as a Strategic Partner?

Part III: Economic Crisis not Severe Enough to Change Kremlin Policy

Part IV: Broad EU Debate Needed on Russia's Role

Experts, who participated in the Atlantic-Community.org survey:

Katinka Barysch, Centre for European Reform, United Kingdom

Dr. Michael Brzoska, Institut für Friedensforschung und Sicherheitspolitik, Germany

Janusz Bugajski, Center for Strategic and International Studies, United States of America

Leonidas Donskis, Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania

Dr. Hans-Georg Ehrhart, Institut für Friedensforschung und Sicherheitspolitik, Germany

Sami Faltas, Centre for European Security Studies, The Netherlands

Dr. Hans J. Giessmann, Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management, Germany

Merijn Hartog, Centre for European Security Studies, The Netherlands

Andres Kasekamp, Estonian Foreign Policy Institute, Estonia

Lukasz Kulesa, Polish Institute of International Affairs, Poland

Teemu Naarajärvi, University of Helsinki, Finland

Marek Madej, Polish Institute of International Affairs, Poland

Dr. Jeffrey Mankoff, Yale University, United States of America

Maciej Mróz, University of Wroclaw, Poland

Heiko Pääbo, University of Tartu, Estonia

Luca Ratti, American University of Rome, Italy

Ivo Samson, Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association, Slovak Republic

Eugeniusz Smolar, Center for International Relations, Poland

Elzbieta Stadtmuller, University of Wroclaw, Poland

Jan Závěšický, International Institute of Political Science of Masaryk University, Czech Republic

Milan Znoj, Charles University, Czech Republic

June 8, 2009

Donald Stadler, Self-employed, Diamond Contributor (1052)

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I like this comment! What's this?

"So, if the common interests outnumber and outweigh the conflicting interests, can the United States and the European Union turn Russia into a strategic partner in the next three years? "

The answer to this question is no. There are measures which can be taken to be more open to Russia, but what people frequently seem to forget is that there is no way a single party in a bilateral relationship can compel the other to adopt it's views or make it into a partner. This is true not only of Russia, the US, China, or India (in the case of the EU mindset).

The EU can share power in international bodies (the UN and others) and truly listen and negociate; they can persuade but not compel. Too often the EU has tried to compel under the guise of persuasion - that hasn't worked well. Will the EU do this? Remains to be seen....

June 8, 2009

Alan Austin, USA

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A panel about West – Russia relationships without a single Russian analyst, but with five from Poland. That’s work of a research genius.

Common, Atlantic-Community. We could expect something like this from the former Soviet Union...

June 9, 2009

Donald Stadler, Self-employed, Diamond Contributor (1052)

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That's an excellent point, Alan. The least they could do is include some Russian expats or some ex-KGB analysts or something.....

As I noted above you cannot solve the problem by offering the Russians what you think they want, you have to actually ask them what they want: and that may be more than you can afford to give! A similar principle applies when dealing with any recaltricent 'outsider' like the US, China, or India - you have to actualy negociate with the real thing, not with simulated Russians, Americans, Chinese, or Indians.

I have some sympathy for the Russians; it isn't pleasant to be the object of ham-handed attempts to force one to toe a line that the EU has drawn. Many americans can sympathize about that if in few other ways.

The EU has created a system in which 80% of the world have been made into outsiders; is it any wonder that you find your system unsteerable?

So what if the Russians (or Americans, or Chinese, or Indians, or any other outlandish barbarian country) refuses to see it your way and demands something you cannot give? Then you need to cultivate patience. Keep talking in as friendly as manner as possible, and wait. The situation may change.....

June 9, 2009

Joerg Wolf, Atlantic Community, Editor

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@ Alan

Thanks for your comment.

This survey was done specifically with experts from the US and the EU to get a round-up of Western views on relations with Russia. This was just the first of four parts.

We will later ask Russian experts in a new survey for their perspective: Russian views on relations with the West.

June 9, 2009

Member deleted

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When one faces such headlines as "Russian Mindset is Greatest Barrier to Improved Relationship with the West", one is immediately concerned about one's twitching eyebrows. Somehow that always happen to me. The idea of a "west" is self-defeating, since no fair definitions have emerged about what it connotes - to be 'west'! Perhaps, some erudite article over the meanings and comprehension of the notion of 'west' might have helped one compare certain regions better.

Do Russians look at geography in such political terms, or rather such 'sociological' terms whose foundations are rather sketchy and barely traceable? The very envisaging of such 'block' formations usually betray a certain reticence. One remembers Carl Gustav Jung and wonders about many of his observations. He surely must have been grossly mistaken - or such 'block' visions are.

The willingness to carve the world out in such blocks usually would necessitate an expectation of other regions talking in similar terms. Sounds suspiciously like Samuel P. Huntington's seminal thesis of The Clash of Civilizations & the re-making of world order, minus his expansion of it - since it dealt with certain tendencies. A major aspect of such a tendency is this imagination of such 'block'.

But then Alan seems more sensitive and aware of a few things than people like me who look at the portal as a fair medium of exchange of views across the globe. The former Soviet Union and the comparison...

But yes, professional opinions apart, the issue is then more basic vis-a-vis the portal and the issue of international relations and the discipline of it. Perhaps, Carl Gustav Jung ...

Tags: | views | mindsets | disciplines | surveys |

June 29, 2009

Matthew Kallechy

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I like this comment! What's this?

Do the West and Russia have more common or more conflicting interests?

Is this not a contradiction of a question? More conflicting interests are in fact parallel to more common interests by proxy of the link "interest" binds to both clauses. In this article the author seems to glaze over tension and crisis as the end direction of catalysis instead of the proprietor to which tension and crisis is of concern. It seems the point made that, "Objectively, they have a lot of common interests but they interpret the situation very differently at times" is the direction needed to make sense of the bigger picture.

Equifinality is the principle that in open systems a given end state can be reached by many potential means

In business, equifinality implies that firms may establish similar competitive advantages based on substantially different competencies.

In psychology, equifinality refers to how different early experiences in life (e.g., parental divorce, physical abuse, parental substance abuse) can lead to similar outcomes (e.g., childhood depression). In other words, there are many different early experiences that can lead to the same psychological disorder.

In archaeology, equifinality refers to how different historical processes may lead to a similar outcome or social formation. For example, the development of agriculture or the bow and arrow occurred independently in many different areas of the world, yet for different reasons and through different historical trajectories. Highlights that generalizations based on cross-cultural comparisons cannot uncritically be made.

In geomorphology, the term equifinality indicates that similar landforms might arise as a result of quite different sets of processes.

In environmental modeling studies, and especially in hydrological modeling, two models are equifinal if they lead to an equally acceptable or behavioral representation of the observed natural processes. It is a key concept to assess how uncertain hydrological predictions are.

June 30, 2009

Donald Stadler, Self-employed, Diamond Contributor (1052)

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" Do the West and Russia have more common or more conflicting interests?"

I think even framing questions in terms of Russia and the "West" has become a misleading paradigm, because it assumes that there is a vast gulf between a 'Russian' POV and a 'Western' one.

It's not so much that I disagree that Russia is going to look at thing differently, but I question whether 'Western' is as useful an abstraction as it once was. That is, I see fissures widening within 'Western'. The assumption that the US and Germany or France think from a single POV is fatally flawed. Germans are closer to Russians on some issues than they are to the US - and this is a major crsis, possibly an existential crisis for NATO.

Other issues have relatively litle to do with Russia, or only as a side-effect. Iran policy has as much to do with China as Russia. Where there is an impact are on things like the missile defense being deployed in Eastern Europe against Iranian missiles. Russia surprised the 'West' by making this an issue. Riussia may be wrong and thyinking thta the defense is aimed at theml; but they are not wrong about their concern. They are concerned, that is a fact. And we need to deal with that concern somehow, unless Russia really IS the target after all....

July 8, 2009

dr. gesine palmer

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Interesting, how universal ideas of fairness seem to be. Indeed, to make "Russian Mindset" the problem, seems to create an outset that is unacceptable from the start. That this structure comes to mind in most contributions at first sight, is a marker of good quality in the contributors. If listening to Russians and to what they really want - as many here have recommended of right - we should probably even enforce a debate of mutual criticisms concerning the situation with human rights in the respectvie countries. Maybe common concern for these matters might develope out of a kind of concurrence in doing better in this field. If competition works, why not for good? We don't have to force anybody into a common rhetoric of peace and brotherhood, but maybe we can develop in competetive ambition in democracy. This might be a better approach than to speak about the other's mistrust: a way of talking that has never ever in the world solved one single little problem but always only increased problems of mutual understanding. We don't need a common interpretation of events or histories, but a debate on them, driven by a concurring and also competetive desire to come close to the truths of the matters and to greater efficiency in bringing together prosperity and democracy.

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