East European Politics and
Societies and Cultures
Volume 29 Number 2
May 2015  531­–540
© 2014 Sage Publications
10.1177/0888325414559050
http://eeps.sagepub.com
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http://online.sagepub.com
Geopolitics of a Divided Europe
Mitchell A. Orenstein
Northeastern University
Europe is again a divided continent. When it comes to governance, political economy,
or values, two contrasting poles have emerged: one Western, liberal, and democratic,
another Eastern, statist, and autocratic. The dividing line between them has become
ever sharper, threatening to separate Europe into two distinct worlds. This new divide
in Europe arises from a clash between two geopolitical concepts for the continent: One
is the Western project of a “Europe whole and free,” an enlarging zone of economic
cooperation, political interdependency, and democratic values. The other is the Russian
project of a “Eurasian Union” to rival the European Union. This article shows how
these two sides of Europe have grown further apart in their conceptions of the European
space, their values, governance, and economic models. It explores the reasons for the
belated Western responses to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s program to divide
Europe. The Russo-Georgian war was a turning point, but the West took a long time to
recognize the full implications of Putin’s policy. The current confrontation between
Russia and the West is not exactly like the Cold War. Russia’s position is weaker. And
the battle will be fought out primarily with economic instruments. However, it is clear
that this conflict places Central and Eastern Europe back on the front lines of a divided
Europe, raising any number of demons from the past.
Keywords:  geopolitics; Europe; Russia; Putin; European Union
Europe is again a divided continent. When it comes to governance, political
economy, or values, two contrasting poles have emerged: one Western, liberal,
and democratic; another Eastern, statist, and autocratic. The dividing line between
them has become ever sharper, threatening to separate Europe into two distinct
worlds. After 1989, a number of countries moved from one pole to another. Freed
from Soviet influence, they rapidly integrated into the West. Other countries remain
caught in between. Russia’s post-Olympic invasion of Crimea in 2014 and ultimatum
to Ukraine not to join the European Union or the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) seem intended to sharpen this divide further and retain parts
of Ukraine on the Eastern side. Other European countries, such as Moldova, await
their moment of reckoning.
This new divide in Europe arises from a clash between two geopolitical concepts
for the continent: One is the Western project of a “Europe whole and free,” an enlarging
zone of economic cooperation, political interdependency, and democratic values.1
The other is the Russian project of a “Eurasian Union” to rival the European
Union.2 These geopolitical projects differ on multiple dimensions: their conception
of the European space, its governance, values, and economics.
559050EEPXXX10.1177/0888325414559050East European Politics and SocietiesOrenstein / Geopolitics of a Divided Europe
research-article2014
532  East European Politics and Societies and Cultures
Dividing the European Space
A fundamental issue in Europe is whether the Eastern boundary of the
European Union can ever be definitively resolved. Timothy Garton Ash took it
up in a remarkable 2001 article in the New York Review of Books.3 Writing
before the European enlargement that added eight new Central and East
European member states in 2004, he argued that the issue facing Europe was not
whether it would be a Europe of fifteen or twenty-seven states but whether it
would be a Europe of forty-one or forty-two states and would Moldova be
among them? This has proved to be a prescient point in a Europe whose geographic
boundaries are ill-defined and oft-contested. Turkey has long been an
applicant for membership in the European Union. Its justification for its membership
application is, in part, geographical, thanks to its ownership of a small
piece of territory that is indisputably European—on the Western side of the
Bosporus straights. By that logic, Ukraine and Russia would also qualify for
aspirant membership status. Yet, geography is not the only factor that qualifies
a country as European. Former European colonies in North Africa have signed
Association Agreements with the European Union, including Morocco and
Tunisia.4 Israel may one day seek the same. Their claims may one day be recognized
since the European Union has never declared whether the designation
“European” is a cultural, geographical, moral, linguistic, historical, or religious
one. Europe does have extra-European territories, for instance in the Caribbean,
the Falklands, and Polynesia.
At least in continental Europe and its hinterlands, the European Union has grown
unchallenged, taking in Eastern European and Mediterranean countries that share a
commitment to European values, most recently Croatia. Now, Russia seeks to draw
a hard boundary and settle Garton Ash’s question once and for all. No Moldova in the
EU, also no Ukraine, and no Belarus.
After years of insisting that it opposed NATO’s Eastern expansion, but not the
European Union (EU), in 2012, Russia began to publicly voice its opposition to EU
membership for former Soviet states. In fact, Russia began a campaign to prevent EU
membership for former Soviet states as early as 2009, when the European Partnership
indicated an EU intent to structure the geopolitical realities in the former Soviet
space.5 Russia has used a variety of means to oppose this. It has built alternative
geopolitical linkages with former Soviet states, most recently the Eurasian customs
union.6 It has used coercive tactics to undermine or prevent its neighbors from making
the changes necessary to join up with Europe, using threats of trade wars to prevent
free trade agreements, cutting off supplies or raising prices of gas, support for
anti-EU political parties, and even military threats or invasion.
While for Russia, the continued enlargement of the EU is a threat, Europe sees
Russia’s use of force to hive off parts of neighboring countries and prevent its
Orenstein / Geopolitics of a Divided Europe  533
neighbors from joining the peaceful EU as a threat to the Western order.7 The EU
is based upon the notion that the use of force in international affairs should be
avoided at all costs, that most conflicts can be resolved through economic interchange
and diplomacy, and that nations should be free to decide their political
fates. These principles have enabled the EU to help keep the peace in Europe for
nearly seventy years, and European political leaders believe that they remain relevant
today. Russia and Europe, then, have sharply differing concepts of how to
order the European space.
European Values
In addition, Russia and Europe are increasingly at odds in public values and
culture. Since Russia hosted the winter Olympics in 2014 and plans to host the
2018 World Cup, some of the most vivid and visible culture clashes have come
about in the domain of sports. In August 2013, the Zurich-based International
Federation of Association Football (FIFA) questioned the Russian Federation, the
host of the 2018 World Cup, about a law it had recently passed that banned homosexual
“propaganda,” essentially making it illegal in Russia to expose minors to
any pro-gay speech. Even wearing a rainbow button would qualify. FIFA wrote
that it would “foresee zero tolerance against discrimination based, among other, on
sexual orientation.” FIFA echoed a similar appeal made by the International
Olympic Committee, which was concerned about whether the law would be
applied to participants and spectators of the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi. The
anti-gay law in Russia—as well as questions about its application, which have
been answered in contradictory manner by various Russian authorities—underscored
how far Russia is out of line with European values of democracy, freedom
of expression, and rule of law. Russia is not moving gradually toward Western
values but determinedly away from them.8
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been hailed as the leader of a worldwide
conservative values movement—against gay marriage, in favor of traditional gender
roles, national identity, and Christian values. In his speech at the Valdai conference
in 2013 that brings Kremlin insiders together with Western thought leaders,
Putin criticized “Euro-Atlantic” countries for “rejecting their roots, including the
Christian values that constitute the basis of Western civilization. They are denying
moral principles and all traditional identities: national, cultural, religious and even
sexual.”9 This stance has gained support from U.S. conservative and far right groups
who share a similar critique. Yet, Russia’s conservatism goes beyond what is
accepted in the West—as illustrated by the imprisonment of the Pussy Riot rock
band for performing unauthorized in a church—and is used as a justification for
authoritarian rule.
534  East European Politics and Societies and Cultures
European Governance
The most difficult aspect of Putin’s project for Europe is in the area of governance.
It is no secret that President Putin has centralized power in Russia. After the
dysfunction that characterized the presidency of President Boris Yeltsin, Putin
launched a program of power consolidation, wresting control from regional governors
who had exercised great influence on the basis of direct elections. He imposed
seven federal regions on top of the governors and created a party of power, “United
Russia,” to control an unruly Duma, which has now become a rubber stamp. He
promoted a network of former security officials to top positions throughout the
bureaucracy, the so-called siloviki. He built official “civil society” organizations
such as the “Nashi” youth movement to mobilize the population in support of his
program. Under Putin, Russia became an authoritarian state, one that holds periodic
rigged elections.10
At the same time that Russia has slid toward greater authoritarianism, countries
seeking to join the EU have gone in the opposite direction. Freedom House democracy
scores improved dramatically between 1999 and 2010 in the Western Balkans
under EU tutelage, for instance in Albania, Croatia, and Serbia, while they declined
steadily in Russia and aligned former Soviet Union states (Figure 1).11 The EU has
been one of the most effective democracy promotion organizations in the world, creating
incentives for prospective new member states to adhere to community norms.12
While these norms have been under attack in Hungary and elsewhere recently, and the
European Union has had trouble responding to democratic backsliding by existing
Figure 1
A divided Europe
Source: Freedom House , “Map of Freedom,” Freedom in the World 2013. Light (green) = free; very light
(yellow) = partly free; dark (purple) = unfree.
Orenstein / Geopolitics of a Divided Europe  535
member states, on the whole it has had tremendous success promoting democracy in
Eastern Europe. In this way too, Russia and the EU are completely at odds.
European Economics
Russia and Europe also increasingly diverge on economic policies, with the
European Union representing free trade and movement of labor, capital, goods, people,
and services, and Russia creating a corrupt, centrally controlled, economically nationalist,
natural resource–dependent economy. President Putin’s signature economic policy
was reining in the oligarchs, forcing them to sell strategic media and natural
resource enterprises to the state, give up any independent political ambitions, and
submit to Kremlin control. These practices have had an impact on Western companies
too, most notably when, after Putin came to power, Russia forced Western oil companies
to cede control of some of their shares in lucrative projects to Russian enterprises.
Another example of the increasing differentiation in the business environment between
Russia and the West comes from the world of sports.As Russia’s foreign policy toward
its “near abroad” has become more aggressive, Russia has sought to force its oligarchs
to repatriate capital to Russia, including Russian-owned sports teams. The Brooklyn
Nets, owned by oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, under pressure to repatriate ownership,
considered transferring ownership of the team to a Russian-based company. However,
they seem to have dropped that after the NBA and other team owners raised objections
about their ability to enforce league standards on a team based in Russia. In another
sign of disdain for European free trade norms, Russia led the world in adopting protectionist
trade measures in 2013. Russia’s vision for the “Eurasian Union” is not of a
command economy but an economy dominated by, and most likely paying tribute to,
the center. The contrast with EU economies is great.
Putin’s Project and Western Responses
Russia has sought to erect a barrier between itself and the West and assert its difference
along four dimensions: its concept of the European space and its values,
governance, and economic model. In this way, Putin seems to be replaying the game
plan of the Soviet Union or positioning himself as the new Metternich, champion of
a regressive conservatism on the continent. This strategy seems designed to enhance
the durability of his rule, strengthen the Russian state, or enable the independent
development of Russian culture. From a Western perspective, this strategy looks like
an exercise in futility, the resurrection of a failed approach. It seems barely credible
that Russian leaders could adopt it. This helps to explain the belated and mixed
response to the threat of Putin’s Russia.
536  East European Politics and Societies and Cultures
Despite the many signals that Russia has been pursuing an anti-Western foreign
policy since 2000, the West has until now not perceived it clearly or known how to
oppose it. The West continued to believe that Russia would continue on the path
Gorbachev and Yeltsin charted—a course toward Western–style modernization, only
with somewhat greater state control.
Yet, Putin represented a volte-face in Russia’s relations with the West. He sought
not only to centralize state power, but to change its policy from one of Westernization
to national self-determination. He connected Russian pride to the legacy of the Soviet
Union, making the tune of the old Soviet anthem the new national anthem of the
Russian Federation. The European Union, for a number of years, believed that the
false presidency of Dmitri Medvedev indicated a liberalizing and Westernizing trend.
Likewise, the U.S. “reset” with Russia under Barack Obama was premised on the
thought that Russia could be induced to share Western values. Now, both projects are
dead. Western governments are finally able to see what Russia has become: a revisionist
power that seeks to establish a countervailing alliance in Europe that is nationalist
and authoritarian. Russia has finally been ejected from the G7 and the West has
responded to the invasion of Ukraine with a ratcheting level of economic sanctions.
Yet, with the breathing room it had between 2000 and 2014, Russia has been able
to exert influence from its authoritarian pole on a number of countries through international
alliances of various sorts. As Europe democratized, with Serbia taking great
strides and Croatia joining the European Union, Russia responded by digging in its
heels in the former Soviet Union. The latest and sharpest episode in this struggle has
taken place in Ukraine, which has been pressured to choose either the EU or the
Eurasian Union. Russian pressure finally led to military intervention. Yet similar
struggles are taking place in Moldova, Georgia, and even in Belarus. In future, they
may even arise in countries that have made clear their allegiances to one camp or the
other, such as Hungary, which recently purchased a Russian nuclear reactor and
whose prime minister praised the Russian economic and political model.
Geopolitical conflict between Russia and the West has sharpened over time. A key
turning point came in 2007–2008 in the run-up to Kosovo’s independence and the
Russo-Georgian war. The West underestimated the Russian response to the United
Nations’ Ahtisaari plan in 2007 and Kosovo’s subsequent declaration of independence
in February 2008. Russia made clear its displeasure with both initiatives and
announced that it would retaliate by declaring independence for the breakaway
Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which it did after the August 2008
Russo-Georgian war. On 27 August 2008, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev wrote
in the Financial Times, “We argued consistently that it would be impossible . . . to tell
the Abkhazians and Ossetians (and dozens of other groups around the world) that
what was good for the Kosovo Albanians was not good for them. In international
relations, you cannot have one rule for some and another rule for others.”13 Those
two events—the Western recognition of Kosovo independence and the RussoGeorgian
war—not only created a deeper confrontation but also established the
Orenstein / Geopolitics of a Divided Europe  537
geopolitical boundaries of a divided Europe: the Balkans to the EU, the former Soviet
states to Russia.
A few countries, however, remain caught in between.14 Moldova, which has experienced
democratic movements and pro-European policies at times, has remained
suspended in its national ambitions by the “frozen” conflict in Transnistria, and the
existence of a Russian-supported breakaway republic. Georgia has struggled to overcome
the legacy of the 2008 war and Russian occupation while reforming its economy.
Ukraine, however, is the big prize. Russia has fought tenaciously to keep
Ukraine out of the West, though Ukraine is famously divided geographically and has
strong reasons to want an association agreement with the European Union. Its oligarchs
and business leaders want the deeper trade relations that the Association
Agreement with the EU will bring. This helps to explain why it was eventually
signed in 2014 after dramatic events—months-long protests on the Maidan, the collapse
of the Yanukovich government, the election of a new, pro-EU government, and
a war with Russia.
Russia openly sought to prevent Ukraine from signing an Association Agreement
with the EU and to join the Eurasian customs union instead. While the government
of President Viktor Yanukovych continued to negotiate with the EU, his sudden decision
not to sign in November 2013 after last-minute meetings in the Kremlin caused
the Ukrainian opposition to cry foul. Mounting street demonstrations were supported
by Western leaders, who complained of Russian interference in negotiations between
the EU and a sovereign state. Ukraine was forced to choose between closer association
with the EU or the Eurasian Union.
European policy, at times, has appeared to be caught in between a desire not to
anger Russia and cede a sphere of influence in Europe to its erstwhile geopolitical
foe—and to support continued enlargement of the EU, hoping that Russia would, in
the end, drop its objections. In 2008, Germany seemed to support Russia’s claims to
a sphere of influence in Europe, when it opposed U.S. efforts to offer a NATO membership
prospect to both Ukraine and Georgia. In 2013, German Chancellor Angela
Merkel changed tack, signaling that Ukraine should be free to make its own international
agreements and alliances without Russian pressure. This shift was caused by a
number of factors but primarily the hard line President Putin took in international and
domestic politics and the manner in which he reasserted his hold on the Presidency,
where Germany had hoped to see a transition to a more liberal power. With the
demise of Medvedev’s promise of a more liberal Russia, Europe began to perceive
the reality of a growing divide between Russia and the West.
Central Europe on the Front Line
One unfortunate consequence of the growing confrontation between Russia and
the West is that it puts Central European states on the front line again, after years of
538  East European Politics and Societies and Cultures
relative peace. Presently, all eyes are on Hungary, whose super-majority right-wing
government led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has changed the constitution in
ways that have led the EU to issue a reprimand for undemocratic behavior while
reorienting Hungary’s foreign policy toward Russia. Russia also reportedly has
approached Baltic states to see what price they would want to leave NATO and join
the Eurasian Union. These countries are likely to continue to be a hotbed of competition
between Russia and the West for some time. This conflict will be played out
through hydrocarbon refining, transit, and pipeline construction deals, through
nuclear and other energy contracts, military threats, exercises, and bases; Central
Europe will return to its well-known role as a zone of competition between East and
West and a hotbed of spies.
What Is to Be Done, Now?
Russia’s strategy over the coming years is clear. It will try to build its declared
Eurasian Union into a serious competitor of the EU and seek to thwart U.S. and EU
efforts to exert influence in Europe and Eurasia. The Western strategy is somewhat
less clear. It seeks to integrate Russia into Western practices, values, and organizations,
such as the World Trade Organization, but must also defend itself and others,
from Russian pressures. The West has yet to decide whether it will continue to
address the challenge posed by Russia through a policy of engagement or return to
the policy of containment that marked the Cold War.
While Russia and the West seem headed toward a replay of the Cold War,15 this
conflict is being played out more through more subtle means. On the one hand,
Russia does not plan a massive invasion of Western Europe and the United States no
longer has hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in Europe. On the other, Russia
has become far more integrated into the European economy through its extensive oil
and gas exports and ownership of European assets. For this reason, one of the most
important venues in which this competition plays out is in energy policy. Russia has
sought to use energy policy as a lever to exert political influence through shut-offs
and contract renegotiations with the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Central Europe. The
European Union, by contrast, seeks to force Russia to break up the Gazprom monopoly
and get Russian companies to play by EU rules of the game. After years of delay,
a concerted European energy policy appears to be having some effect. European
countries are establishing alternative gas suppliers, investing in LNG terminals, and
demanding access to the Russian internal market. In addition, shale gas investments
in Central and Eastern Europe may help a number of Central and East European
countries to gain energy independence and force down the price of gas. This would
considerably weaken the Eastern authoritarian pole in Europe, which gains most of
its revenues from trade in natural resources. It was notable that in Russia’s invasion
of Ukraine, it concentrated primarily on those territories with considerable gas, coal
Orenstein / Geopolitics of a Divided Europe  539
shale resources: Crimea and the Donbas, seeking to limit Ukraine’s sovereignty by
eliminating its energy independence.
In conclusion, we are entering a new era of European geopolitics. Today’s Europe
is divided again. The lines being drawn across Europe are different from those during
the Cold War, as are the actors, the means, and the scale of competition. Russia has
less territory than did the Soviet Union. It does not have the benefit of an ideology
with worldwide adherents, nor the illusion that its economic system is more powerful.
Russia’s military is a shadow of what it once was. Russia today is a regional
power seeking to regain past glory. Many of its former satellites have changed allegiances
to the West. Ukraine seems to be on the same path. Huge armies no longer
face off in Europe, ready to replay the Second World War. Military conflicts are small
and contained, often fought by Russian proxies. At the same time, the United States
has withdrawn its military from Europe, and European countries continue to underfund
their militaries. Germany has emerged as the preeminent country in Europe, yet
it will not militarize because of the burden of its past. The European Union continues
to struggle with building the capacity to conduct its own foreign and security policy.
At the same time, Russia itself is far more economically integrated with the West,
and nearly a dozen Central and Eastern European countries are members of the
European Union.
All of this leaves Central and Eastern Europe on the front lines of a complex
struggle between East and West that will be played out economically, militarily, and
through control of information. Just when the region was settling into a boring normality,
great power politics have again shaken the small nations of Europe’s borderlands,
awakening its demons from their shallow graves.
Notes
 1. Heather Grabbe, “Europeanization Goes East: Power and Uncertainty in the EU Accession
Process,” The Politics of Europeanization 27 (2003); Atsuko Higashino, “For the Sake of ‘Peace and
Security’? The Role of Security in the European Union Enlargement Eastwards,” Cooperation and
Conflict 39, no. 4 (2004); Frank Schimmelfennig, “The Community Trap: Liberal Norms, Rhetorical
Action, and the Eastern Enlargement of the European Union,” International Organization 55, no. 1
(2001).
  2. Thomas Ambrosio, Authoritarian Backlash: Russian Resistance to Democratization in the Former
Soviet Union (Aldershot, United Kingdom: Ashgate, 2009); David R. Cameron and Mitchell A. Orenstein,
“Post-Soviet Authoritarianism: The Influence of Russia in Its ‘Near Abroad,’” Post-Soviet Affairs 28, no.
1 (2012); Mark Kramer, “Russian Policy toward the Commonwealth of Independent States: Recent
Trends and Future Prospects,” Problems of Post-Communism 55, no. 6 (2008).
  3. Timothy G. Ash, “The European Orchestra,” New York Review of Books 48, no. 8 (2001).
  4. Karen E. Smith, “The Outsiders: The European Neighbourhood Policy,” International Affairs 81,
no. 4 (2005).
  5. James Greene, “Russian Responses to NATO and EU Enlargement and Outreach” (briefing paper,
Chatham House), http://www.chathamhouse.org (accessed 5 January 2012).
  6. Cameron and Orenstein, “Post-Soviet Authoritarianism.”
540  East European Politics and Societies and Cultures
 7. Theodor Tudoroiu, “The European Union, Russia, and the Future of the Transnistrian Frozen
Conflict,” East European Politics & Societies 26, no. 1 (2012): 135–61.
 8. M. Steven Fish, Democracy Derailed in Russia: The Failure of Open Politics Cambridge
University Press, 2005); Anna Politkovskaya, Putin’s Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy Macmillan,
2007); Joanna Szostek, “Russia and the News Media in Ukraine A Case of ‘Soft Power’?” East European
Politics & Societies 28, no. 3 (2014), 463–86.
  9. Marlene Laruelle, “Conservatism as the Kremlin’s New Toolkit: An Ideology at the Lowest Cost,”
Russian Analytical Digest 138 (8 November 2013), 2–4.
10. Mikhail Myagkov, Peter C. Ordeshook, and Dimitri Shakin, The Forensics of Election Fraud:
Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
11. Cameron and Orenstein, “Post-Soviet Authoritarianism,” 1–44.
12. Rachel A. Epstein and Ulrich Sedelmeier, “Beyond Conditionality: International Institutions in
Postcommunist Europe After Enlargement,” Journal of European Public Policy 15, no. 6 (2008): 795–
805; Anna Grzymała-Busse and Abby Innes, “Great Expectations: The EU and Domestic Political
Competition in East Central Europe,” East European Politics and Societies 17, no. 1 (2003): 64–73; Wade
Jacoby, The Enlargement of the European Union and NATO: Ordering from the Menu in Central Europe
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Schimmelfennig, The Community Trap: Liberal Norms,
Rhetorical Action, and the Eastern Enlargement of the European Union, 47–80; Milada Vachudova,
Europe Undivided (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
13. Dmitry Medvedev, “Why I had to Recognise Georgia’s Breakaway Regions,” Financial Times 26
(2008).
14. Cameron and Orenstein, “Post-Soviet Authoritarianism,” 1–44.
15. Edward Lucas, “The New Cold War,” How the Kremlin Menaces both Russia and the West
(London: Bloomsbury, 2008).
Mitchell A. Orenstein is Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Northeastern
University in Boston, MA. His articles on Russo-European relations have appeared in Foreign Affairs
and other publications. He has taught at Brown, Yale, Syracuse, Johns Hopkins, and Moscow State
Universities.