La crise en Ukraine, analyse néoréaliste

Chair of International Relations
Proseminar: Introduction to international and European politics (winter term 2017)
Lecturer: Dipl. -Pol. John-Paul Banchany

Author: Riviere Antoine
Degree course: BA Political Science
Semester: 5        

Foreign Affairs - Neo-Realism and Ukraine crisis analysis

           What conflict in 2017 in Europe spread such violence and tensions, causing the death of more than 10.000 people, including around 2800 civilians, and injuring more than 23.000 people? This conflict, which is mainly entitled as “the Ukraine crisis”, began in the very end of year 2013, as Ukraine’s former President Viktor Yanukovych came around about an association agreement which was about to be signed with the EU, in favor of a more advantageous one with Russia, which triggered the anger of a big part of the Ukrainian population. “It began as a dispute over a trade agreement, but it mushroomed into the bloodiest conflict in Europe since the wars over the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s” (Nick Thompson, CNN 2017).
In response, Ukrainian gathered and strongly demonstrated in the so-called Euromaidan in central Kiev in November 21, 2013, which led to clashes with police forces and leaving dozens of people dead. Western countries try to help by trying to negotiate a new presidential election but in February 22, 2014, Yanukovych flees Kiev, feeling threatened as his guards abandoned the presidential compound. An interim government is set up and furthermore awkwardly restores the Ukrainian language as one and only state language. Vladimir Putin denunciate a “coup” and on March 21, 2014, Russia enters Crimea and shortly after, Russia officializes its annexation of Crimea in a referendum, that is designated as illegitimate in (CNN, 2017) Donetsk and Lugansk are also stormed by pro-Russia “separatists” and are taken over.
Finally, a series of economic sanctions on behalf of the EU, conciliation attempts, ceasefires in the eastern parts of Ukraine, (e.g. Minsk, Minsk 2), breakdown of ceasefires and striking events such as the Malaysian Airlines MH17 flight crashed after being hit by a Russian-made Buk missile over eastern Ukraine. Russia’s fault has often been spotlighted, as it apparently initiated the Ukraine crisis by invading Crimea for example. From that point of view, one’s is easily led to think Russia is the first to be blamed.
Yet, on an international relation perspective, we will not argue on which country first sparked off the crisis. We will try to analyze the interests, goals and arguments given by each party, and more specifically Russia and try to understand its reaction. We will tackle notions such as balance of forces, legitimacy of action when it comes to national’s physical security and the problem of perspective.
         With these pieces of information and a precise line of attack, we can now wonder « Based on the Neo-Realist theory, how can one’s analyse Russia’s reaction concerning Ukraine crisis? »
           In order to answer this problematic, we will first analyse the Neo-realist theory, based on the work of the most influential searcher in this subject, Kenneth Waltz, his vision of the Neo-Realism and his concept of « self-help » and Joseph Mearsheimer, displaying his famous « premises » and his approach of the offensive and defensive realism. Finally, we will three events related to the Ukraine’s crisis and try to analyse them with a Neo-Realist perspective, in order to verify the application of this theory in this context.

          When it comes to Neo-Realism, the first person who comes in mind is Kenneth Waltz. Indeed, Waltz appeared to be the first who enunciated the principles of Neo-Realism and its differences with classic Realism in his book Theory of International Politics. He first took the former premises of realism such as primacy of states and anarchy in the international system. (Le réalisme en relations international, 2014: 2) In his book, Waltz considers that the structure of the international system conditions the behaviour
of states.
It clearly distinguished itself from traditional Realism. Indeed, Hans Morgenthau Realism theory is based on an anthropological perspective, considering Machiavel and Hobbes work to define Human beings as bad and power-hungry. An explanation that is well summed-up in this quotation of Hobbes in his book Leviathan “I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire for Power after power, that cease only in Death.”
Yet, Waltz has a “systemic approach” of the international relations, i.e. analyzing relations between entities as a binding relationships states’ system rather than considering entities as independent and autonomous. (Asterion revues, 2011 : 1)
          Morover, for Waltz, three components define the structure of the international system.
The first one is anarchy which is defined by the presence of "functionally undifferentiated" (Waltz, Theory of International Politics : 97) individual state actors lacking "relations of super- and subordination" (p. 88) that are distinguished only by their varying capabilities (Wikipédia, Theory of international Politics). For Waltz, “Anarchy explains the international system” (Waltz, 1979 : 126). The concept is opposed as hierarchy, where the international system would be clearly organized with a precise hierarchy of supra-national institutions ruling over countries.
The second principles edicts that the main goal of a state is to survive in the international system. Indeed, from his point of view, states do not seek for power for power in itself, as a goal, but as a mean of ensuring national security. “In anarchy, security is the highest end. […]  Only if survival is assured can states safely seek such other goals as tranquility, profit and power” (Waltz, Theory of International Politics : 126).
Finally, the third principle is the distributing of capabilities. Waltz says that the “state units of the international system are distinguished primarily by their greater or lesser capabilities for performing similar tasks, the structure of the system changes with changes in the distribution of capabilities across system’s units” (Waltz, 1979; 97). It means that structural realists explain the international system by the number of greats powers in it. The most obvious example in history is the cold war, with two great powers : URSS and the USA, characterized a “bipolar system”.
Considering these three premises, Waltz describes an anarchical and unbalanced system where states try to survive by themselves or “self-help” system, in which states must look after themselves, since there is no one to look after them. States are concerned with their own security, which make other states as potential threats. Therefore, states are balancing powers against each other like Morgenthau claimed. (Morgenthau, 1985) For example, great powers are more sensitive than others seeing potential threats near their home territory. “Imagine the outrage in Washington if China built an impressive military alliance and tried to include Canada and Mexico in it” (Mearsheimer, 2014)
        At this point, it is relevant to talk about the security dilemma and the prisoner dilemma since these two notions are closely linked and let us help how nations basically react in a conteext of multipolar system and global uncertainty. According to the Neo-Realists, the security dilemma is the issue when a state increases it military forces leading the other states to be concerned about it and about the other state’s intentions. Therefore, they increase their owns. “States start to increase their spending as retaliation and states start to compete over security measures but no state feel secure” (Herz, 1951).

          Moreover, Grieco explains the Prisoner Dilemma in the context of international relations: When to countries are considering increasing their military forces, they face a two-possibility dilemma. Or the increase their military or they don’t. If they both increase, the chances of war increase so it would be bad for both. If one increases and the other one doesn’t, that leaves them open to attack so one side wins and thee other loses. If neither increase, then nothing changes. Because the decision of the other is unknown, it’s creates a problem that leads them to think that It’s better to increase no to be opened to attacks. (Grieco 1988)
Both concept put the stress on the fact that without any supra-national institution, or a simple cooperation between states, one state is constantly struggling and wondering whether it should be threatened by its neighbors or not. John Herz really sums it up: “groups or individual who live alongside each other without being organized into a higher unity must be […] concerned about their security from being attacked, subjected, dominated, or annihilated by other groups and individuals. Striving to attain security from such attack, they are driven to acquire more and more power in order to escape the impact of the power of others. This, in turn, renders the others more insecure and compels them to prepare for the worst. Since none can ever feel entirely secure in such a world of competing units, power competition ensues, and the vicious circle of security and power accumulation is on” (Herz 1950 : 157).

         With Mearsheimer work, one has been able to distinguish two forms of Neo-realism: Offensive and Defensive Realism. Offensive realists such as Mearsheimer edicts that the context of anarchy pushes states to seek for power and to become hegemons. For him, offensive realism looks for primacy to “ensure their safety and security” (Mearsheimer, 2014). On contrary to Brown, who states that offensive states have “aggressive and unpredictable intentions” (Brown, 1997), Mearsheimer claims that “great powers recognize that the best way to ensure their security is to achieve hegemony now, thus eliminating any possibility of a challenge by another great power. Only a misguided state would pass up an opportunity to be the hegemon in the system because it thought it already had sufficient power to survive”
Concerning Defensive realism, it is originally Waltz who first explained it. Defensive realists argue that anarchy pushes states to choose defensive and moderate policies. They argue that "the first concern of states is not to maximize power but to maintain their position in the system" (Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 1979 : 126). Their goal is to maintain “statu quo” also by using power but for defensive purposes. Waltz says that states will seek balance of powers not by cooperating with the strong state but with the weakest, in order to counterbalance power and set an equilibrium in the international system. When a state feels threatened, it will look for balancing. Indeed, “realist scholar argue that the normal response to threat is to form a balancing alliance. Therefore, states should expect that expansion will reduce their security insofar as it threatens other states and provokes an opposing coalition”. (Snyder 1991 : 22)


Now that we have been through some major points in the Neo-Realist theory, we will be able to use it as glasses to analyze the Ukraine crisis from that perspective.
The annexation of Crimea in March 2014 surely deteriorated the situation and from a western point of view, fanned the flames to the bad relationship currently existing. For some, Vladimir Putin regrets the good old time of the URSS and that he was testing the water to see the kind of reactions he would get. Russia would have been too week since the 90s, the end of the Cold War, with the USA, a hegemon promoting NATO enlargement. The truth is, from a logical standpoint, Russia couldn’t pacify all Ukraine with its army because it is not big enough and one can suppose that Russia would never put its all army in a single place. Moreover, its economy would suffer even more due to sanctions and the majority of Ukrainian would want to stay in Ukraine and would resist.
Now, on a Neorealist perspective and based on Mearsheimer work, Europe and western countries in general clearly caused the current situation. To him, the reaction of Russia is due to three major actions: NATO enlargement and promotion (an argument not embraced by all), EU expansion and democracy promotion in eastern Europe (Fig. 1, NATO’s expansion). Also, making deals with western countries and institutions would integrate Ukraine, would draw Ukraine more and more to the west. Indeed, Russia felt threatened with the idea of Georgia and Ukraine joining the EU, considering the latter as a growing power, side by side with NATO. Other events worsened the situation with the Ukrainian government setting the Ukrainian language as the one and only state language and that in 2015, eastern regions and Crimea couldn’t vote for the elections. Actually, the reaction of Russia in Ukraine “can be seen as balancing” (Daniel Castle : 9). As a matter of fact, with all these threats from Russia’s perspective, and considering the face that Ukraine has an economic, cultural and strategical importance in particular for the access to warm seas, and the economic intermediary between gas-providing Russia and the very energy consuming UE, Russia had to show that it is still a great power and to rebalancing the forces in play.
Furthermore, Mearsheimer says that “Great powers are always sensitive to potential threats near their home territory”. He gives the example of the United States: “Imagine the outrage in Washington if China built an impressive military alliance and tried to include Canada and Mexico in it. Some would say that Russia have no right to prevent Kiev from joining the West. Did Cuba have the right to form a military alliance with the Soviet Union during the Cold War ? The United States certainly did not think so, and the Russians think the same way about Ukraine joining the West”. (Mearsheimer, 2014) According to him, Ukraine is too strategic a country, and having it in NATO would represents such a risk for Russia, geographically and economically speaking, that Russia can not just let it do whatever it likes. Russia, by using hard power, can so prevent risks, survive and protect its physical security.

Then, the second event which is worth considering is the militarization of Eastern Europe by US and NATO. Indeed, NATO has embarked on a process of intense militarization of Eastern Europe, taking as evidence the Ukrainian armed conflict and the so-called aggressive attitude of Moscow. vis-à-vis Ukraine and the West. Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s current general secretary said “This is a response to Russia's aggressive actions, which violated international law and annexed Crime”. This involved the increase in troop numbers, military manoeuvres, provision of new weapons, training of Ukrainian armed forces and demands for funding from NATO member countries

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