"German-Russian Relations: How to Cope with Moscow’s New Assertiveness" - a Pittsburgh Warburg Chapter Discussion and Luncheon with Prof. Hannes Adomeit

Relations: How to Cope with Moscow's New Assertiveness”

Professor Hannes Adomeit was most recently a Bosch Public Policy Fellow at the Transatlantic Academy in Washington, DC, writing a paper on German-Russian relations under Merkel and Putin. Until 2014, he was Professor for Russian and European Studies at the Warsaw campus of the College of Europe. Prior to that, he was a Research Associate and head of the research section on Russia, Eastern Europe, and the Caucasus at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. His academic degrees include, in Germany, an M.A. in Political Science from the Freie Universität in Berlin and, in the United States, an M.A. degree in International Relations, a Certificate in Russian Studies, and a Ph.D. with distinction, all from Columbia University in New York City. In the past, he also held teaching and/or research positions at institutions in se­veral countries, including the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the Royal Military College of Canada, and the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, California. From 1989 to 1997, he was Professor of International Politics and Director of the Program on Russia and East-Central Europe at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplo­macy in Boston as well as a Fellow at the Harvard Russian Research Center. He has written many arti­cles in academic journals and books, including Imperial Overstretch: Germany in Soviet Policy from Stalin to Gorbachev: An Analysis Based on New Archival Evidence, Memoirs, and Interviews. He was was born in 1942 in Memel, East Prussia, now Klaipeda, Lithuania.

Abstract: Since 1999, until Moscow’s annexation of the Crimea and its military intervention in eastern Ukraine, German-Russian relations were officially called a “strategic partnership.” A decade later, the “strategic” partnership was to be supplemented by a “partnership for modernization.” The idea was that Russia, despite setbacks and delays, was engaged in “transition” from a communist system with a one-party state and a command economy to a Western-style democracy. The transition was to be fostered by an expansion of trade and investments (Wandel durch Handel). This would give rise in Russia to a liberal, reform-minded middle class as an agent of democratic change. Such hopes and expectations have turned out to be unrealistic. Russia’s internal structure, the “Putin system,” has solidified into an authoritarian political construct sui generis. National-patriotic mobilization has replaced socioeconomic modernization as a goal to be pursued. In the “common European neighborhood,” German-Russian relations are characterized by competition and conflict. Chancellor Merkel has taken the lead in Europe to impose and stick to sanctions on Russia. She has rejected returning to “business as usual” and rapprochement short of a full implementation of the Minsk accords. But how sustainable is that approach? Throughout the electoral campaign and thereafter, Donald Trump had cast Putin in a favorable light, doubted the effectiveness of the sanctions, expressed disinterest in Eastern Europe, and distanced himself from engagement on Ukraine, saying that “rich and powerful Germany” and other countries “directly affected” by the conflict should deal with the problem. The lecture will examine the current state and possible development of Germany’s Ostpolitik and Russia policy in light of transatlantic challenges.