Archives des guerreUkraine - L'IHEDN : Institut des hautes études de défense nationale

Anne de Tinguy : « Le Kremlin a gravement sous-estimé la capacité de résistance des Ukrainiens »

Adèle Thoumieux — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 13:31:54 +0000

Anne de Tinguy is Professor Emeritus at INALCO and researcher at the CERI at Sciences Po, and a former auditor at the IHEDN (42^th session), author of "Le géant empêtré. Russia and the world from the end of the USSR to the invasion of Ukraine" (published by Perrin, September 2022). This interview looks at the latest edition of "Regards sur l'Eurasie".CERI's annual online publication, for which she is responsible.

THE OUTCOME OF THE WAR IN UKRAINE "IS NOT YET CLEAR", YOU WRITE. CAN WE STILL ENVISAGE DIFFERENT SCENARIOS?

The scenarios that can be drawn up are marked by the durability of the conflict and the resulting rise in tensions.

The first would be a cessation of hostilities following a decision by the Kremlin to put an end to the all-out war it has unleashed and to withdraw its troops from Ukrainian territory. With Vladimir Putin showing no sign of committing himself to this course of action or of negotiating (cf. his statements on 14 and 19 December and 9 and 29 February, among others), and with no State or institution appearing capable of persuading him to take such a decision, this outcome currently appears totally illusory.

The second scenario would be for Ukraine to reclaim the territories occupied by Russia and return to the 1991 borders. In the eyes of Ukrainian officials and most Western leaders, this would be the best way, if not the only way, of restoring lasting peace and ensuring Europe's security. In the short term, given the current state of the Ukrainian forces and the equipment at their disposal, this path is not realistic, as confirmed by the failure of the counter-offensive launched by Kiev this summer.

The third scenario would be a Ukrainian defeat resulting either from a cessation of hostilities under conditions that would allow Russia to keep the 17 % of Ukrainian territory that its forces occupy and that it annexed in 2014 and 2022; or from an exhaustion of Ukraine's material and human resources, which would force the Ukrainian authorities to capitulate. This scenario, which would be tragic for Ukraine and would have far-reaching consequences for European security, seemed unlikely until recently, at least in the short term: on the one hand because of the inability of the Russian forces to achieve decisive victories over the last few months, and on the other because of the determination and resistance of the Ukrainians, which remain extremely strong. But if the US Congress does not vote within a reasonable timeframe to continue aid to Ukraine, if Donald Trump is re-elected President in November and if he implements the Ukrainian policy he announced during the election campaign, the risk of such a scenario becoming a reality seems very real.

"WE NEED A MUCH GREATER COMMITMENT FROM THE WEST".

The fourth scenario is one of "neither victory nor peace" (to use Colonel Michel Goya's expression): with neither side able to significantly alter the balance of power, this would mean "a permanent state of war" that could last for many years. The current situation bears a striking resemblance to this.

To prevent the third scenario and emerge from the fourth, we need a much greater commitment from the West than we have at present. This is the sense of the "European leap forward" that President Macron and most of his European counterparts are calling for. This leap forward would be linked to the perception of a crescendoing Russian threat, to the refusal of the US Congress to continue its commitment to Ukraine, and to a desire to prepare for the consequences of the re-election of Donald Trump.

UKRAINE, BUT ALSO MOLDAVIA, ARMENIA AND GEORGIA, ARE CONSOLIDATING THEIR FOOTHOLD IN THE WEST. DIDN'T THE RUSSIANS ANTICIPATE SUCH REACTIONS WHEN THEY INVADED UKRAINE IN 2022?

Ukraine, Moldavia, Georgia and, to a lesser extent, Armenia are consolidating their anchorage in the West, an already long-standing anchorage that was accelerated by Russian aggression in Ukraine. The first three now have EU candidate status, and Brussels has voted to launch accession negotiations with the first two. Armenia, which was pressured by Russia in 2013 not to sign an association agreement with the EU, is not there yet. But the shock of what it considers to be Russia's betrayal in the Nagorno-Karabakh affair has led it to give fresh impetus to its links with the EU, particularly with France.

For centuries, one of the hallmarks of Russia's neo-imperial policy has been the establishment of asymmetrical relations. It has resulted in a refusal to recognise the full sovereignty of these states, and of Ukraine in particular - Ukraine's sovereignty, according to Vladimir Putin, is only possible within the framework of a partnership with Russia - and to accept that they can make internal and external choices that would distance them from Russia and its zone of influence.

RUSSIAN POLICY "BASED ON NUMEROUS ERRORS OF JUDGEMENT

This policy was based on numerous errors of judgement. The multifaceted ties that have united Russians and Ukrainians for centuries should have translated into a keen understanding of Ukrainians. This has not been the case. Locked in an imaginary world nourished by historiography and convinced of their superiority, the Russians were unable to gauge the strength of the Ukrainians' desire for independence.

In 2022, betting on a rapid collapse of the Ukrainian army and government, the Kremlin seriously underestimated the Ukrainians' capacity for resistance. It did not imagine that the Russian forces would be confronted by an armed nation determined to defend its territory and its independence. Nor did it realise that by massively invading Ukraine after annexing Crimea, it would strengthen Ukrainian national sentiment and hasten its integration into the Euro-Atlantic community. Despite warnings to the contrary, he also failed to anticipate that his decision would mobilise Western states to support Ukraine over the long term, strengthening European unity and transatlantic ties.

YOU SAY THAT "IT IS FORESEEABLE THAT RUSSIA WILL NOT EMERGE UNSCATHED FROM THE WAR OF AGGRESSION IT HAS UNLEASHED": TO WHAT EXTENT? COULD PRESIDENT PUTIN, WHO WAS RE-ELECTED YESTERDAY, ALSO SUFFER AS A RESULT?

After 24 years in power, Vladimir Putin was re-elected yesterday for a further six years, until 2030. Will he see his new term of office through to the end? No one knows when that will be and what the post-Putin era will be like. What is already foreseeable, however, is that Russia will not emerge unscathed from the all-out war it is waging against Ukraine. In the event of a military defeat that the Putin regime would probably not survive, some are not ruling out the scenario of civil war, or even the break-up of the Federation.

Whatever the outcome of the conflict, this conflagration opens a new chapter in its history. In particular, it marks the end of an empire and a geopolitical reorientation, synonymous with identity upheavals. The mental map held by Russia's ruling elites is dominated by the conviction that their country is a great power and that the sphere of influence that is the post-Soviet space is its foundation. Today, Russia has lost Ukraine, which for centuries was the jewel in the crown of its empire. It must mourn the loss of "Little Russia", the name given to Ukraine during the Tsarist period, and give up thinking of itself as an empire. This upheaval means that a painful rebuilding of identity is needed.

"RUSSIA DISCONNECTS FROM EUROPE AND TURNS TO ASIA

The question of identity is also at the heart of Russia's historic break with its traditional partners, the European states, and its pivot towards China and Asia. Today, Russia, a Eurasian country that has long been largely oriented towards Europe, is disconnecting from Europe and turning towards Asia. Its partnership with China has enabled it to limit its isolation on the international stage and the effects of Western sanctions. But Chinese support comes at a cost: it makes the country much more dependent on Beijing.

Its economic development threatens to deal a further blow to its ambitions for power. For centuries, Russia has thought of itself as a great power. However, it has never given priority to the development of the country, which would have enabled it to catch up with Western Europe and North America, and now with China. The Russian economy withstood the shock of the war better than expected.

But as many economists have pointed out, the medium and long-term prospects in this area are poor. The aggression in Ukraine, the war economy that has been put in place (to the detriment of sectors such as health and education) and Western sanctions are holding back the investment that Russia needs to modernise its infrastructure and diversify its economy (which remains a cash economy), restricting its access to cutting-edge technologies and leading to a deterioration in the international integration of its economy.

In this context, in the words of economist Vladislav Inozemtsev, its economy "has no chance of developing in the coming years". What's more, its development is bound to be affected by the country's severe demographic and environmental pressures.

L’article Anne de Tinguy : « Le Kremlin a gravement sous-estimé la capacité de résistance des Ukrainiens » est apparu en premier sur L'IHEDN : Institut des hautes études de défense nationale.

« Tout ce qui sort de la bouche de Poutine n’est pas un mensonge »

Adèle Thoumieux — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 14:43:12 +0000

Ukrainian historian Tetiana Zemliakova and French historian Guillaume Lancereau are Max Weber fellows at the European University Institute in Florence. Teachers and coordinators for theInvisible University for UkraineTheir work includes analysing the speeches of the President of the Russian Federation, which they analyse in detail for the IHEDN.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN FEATURES OF PUTIN'S RHETORIC?

There is nothing fascinating about Vladimir Putin's rhetoric. It articulates a series of Third World clichés from the Cold War era and a cast of imaginary characters - "the collective West", "the world majority", Russia - all shrouded in a thick fog of international law.

This rhetoric is not entirely devoid of meaning: what Vladimir Putin has been saying for decades shows that his reasoning is based on the concrete state of the political, intellectual and legal world. When he defends the vision of a "multipolar" world, opposed to the machinations of the "collective West", its "hegemony" and its "neo-colonial" practices, he shows that he has understood something about the reception of contemporary post-colonial discourse: from the Sahel to US campuses, via the last communist parties in Western Europe. The same is true, moreover, when he proclaims that his war in Ukraine is a "war of national liberation", against a backdrop of geopolitical strife over what policy to adopt towards Hamas.

When he claims that Russia must exclude or condemn anyone with an openly "non-traditional" sexual orientation, in the name of the specific values that have always been anchored in every Russian, he is turning international calls for respect for sovereignty, which insist on the right of every State to preserve its cultural and spiritual specificities, on their head.

"HIS SPEECHES ENDLESSLY REHASH THE SAME OLD MOTIFS".

Finally, he shows that he is no stranger to the legal formalism that permeates international relations when he argues that the regions of Donets'k, Lugans'k, Zaporižja and Kherson would have had an "inalienable right" to become part of the Russian Federation, guaranteed by Article 1 of the United Nations Charter.

Putin's discourse borrows blithely from the language of international bureaucrats and ministerial officials, while exploiting the most hackneyed clichés of news journalism. His discourse, which could therefore formally echo some of the watchwords of today's international institutions, thrives on a breeding ground of anti-Americanism, distrust of NATO and the incessant struggle for the self-determination of peoples - whose logic he distorts to the point of legitimising the preposterous idea of a "people of Donbass" whose mission it would be for Russia to liberate.

At the start of a third year of war, however, it is clear that the stakes go far beyond his speeches, which endlessly rehash the same hackneyed motifs while weaving them together with dubious logical links. The real collective danger for Vladimir Putin's opponents is the all-too-common habit of placing too much faith or importance on formal coincidences between his own themes, lexicon and obsessions and those of the common political language. So every time Vladimir Putin uses familiar clichés, the informed listener turns a deaf ear, without noticing that the ideological merchandise is being misled.

"IT HAS NO OTHER OBJECTIVE THAN TO MAINTAIN ITSELF IN A PERPETUAL PRESENT".

However, we should be wary of seeing Putin's rhetoric as a coherent corpus, either in terms of its content or its ideological roots. Vladimir Putin only says what suits him. He benefits from presenting himself as a fearless leader of men, determined to usher in the future with his demiurgic hand, while the rest of the world clings to the comforts of the present or the ruins of a bygone past.

The Russian President repeats that his priority is the "historic future" of the Russians as a people, and not any return to the past. On 30 September 2023, when he announced the annexation of the four Ukrainian regions mentioned earlier, he exclaimed: "There is no longer a Soviet Union and we will not revive the past. That's not what Russia needs today, that's not what we want.

Yet Vladimir Putin is in no way ushering in the future. He has no other objective than to maintain himself in a perpetual present, just as it was for him on the eve of his war: that of absolute power and multiplied wealth. He has only one objective when he equates his destiny with that of the entire Russian population: to maintain his usurpation.

A NUMBER OF HIS STATEMENTS APPEAR FALLACIOUS FROM OUR SIDE OF EUROPE. DOES HE BACK UP THESE STATEMENTS WITH FACTS? CAN WE TELL WHETHER HE SINCERELY BELIEVES THEM, OR WHETHER THEY ARE PART OF A STRATEGY?

Not everything that comes out of Vladimir Putin's mouth is a lie. In particular, the international conduct of the United States and Europe provides him with an excellent opportunity to criticise the abuses committed by "the West" around the world. For example, he is right when he says that NATO's bombing of Belgrade as part of Operation Allied Force in 1999 contravened international conventions, or that George W. Bush's United States was the first to withdraw from the ABM Treaty signed in 1972 with the USSR to prevent the proliferation of anti-ballistic missiles.

Where the Russian President's rantings are more blatant is when it comes to Ukraine. He has gone so far as to claim that "biological weapons" aimed ethnically at the Russian population are being prepared in laboratories in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odessa, an allegation that is as absurd politically as it is chemically - although he makes up for the enormity of this assertion by evoking the United States' lie about weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which he periodically refers to.

Another of his indignant fantasies concerns the 'denazification' of Ukraine. Asked in his recent interview with Tucker Carlson to demonstrate this political trend at work in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin had nothing to point to but the elevation to the status of national heroes of two Ukrainian nationalists, Stepan Bandera and Roman Šukhevyč, who had once collaborated with Nazi Germany. Memorials and names on flags would justify the deaths of at least 200,000 people on both sides of the front line.

"WE NEED A POLITICAL RESPONSE, NOT A HISTORICAL, FACTUAL OR DISCURSIVE ONE".

It is equally foolish to reduce Ukraine to an "anti-Russia", deprived of all political autonomy by the "collective West", which is said to have manipulated it into committing "genocide" against the "people of Donbass". Finally, this nonsense reaches a climax when Vladimir Putin describes the Maïdan revolution in 2014 as "a fascist coup d'état" and the current Ukrainian government, which came to power after democratic elections, as a pure puppet.

In reality, the most important thing is not to know to what extent Vladimir Putin is lying, whether he believes his own lies, or whether he is sincere in certain parts of his speech. The fact that he is right about NATO expansion and wrong about the Nazification of Ukraine does not change the nature of his war or the action that must be taken against it. The factual rectifications that Western commentators are so fond of, believing themselves to have acted when they have pointed out an error or an approximation, have never deflected a single Iskander or S-300 missile.

Vladimir Putin thinks and acts politically. We need a political response to this - not a historical, factual or discursive one. In this sense, General Bruno Maigret, former commander of France's strategic air forces, perhaps did not realise how right he was when he said in 2022: "We need to rethink a model based on political assumptions.

HAVE YOU NOTICED ANY CHANGES IN HIS DISCOURSE SINCE THE START OF THE WAR IN 2022?

There has been no fundamental change. On the nature of the Ukrainian nation, Vladimir Putin is still only repeating what he proclaimed in his 2021 essay on The historic unity of Russians and Ukrainians. When it comes to the recent history of the West, Russia and the USSR, his latest speeches are no different from those of 24 February 2022. Vladimir Putin's world is not populated by real things, but by abstract entities or invented characters. In this sense, his rhetoric cannot change unless the vision of the world that underpins it changes.

If Vladimir Putin is not renewing his discourse in any way, it is because he is not trying to convince anyone. It doesn't matter to him whether his lies are exposed or cleverly contradicted. Nor does it matter to him how many new supporters he has won among the inhabitants of the "Global South" after yet another speech to the Federal Assembly, or how clearly he needs to set out the political aims of his war. And why should he, since his military aims are now limited to new fortified bases on the edge of the Donets'k region? In this sense, Putin is not looking for supporters; he is looking for nothing more than discord among his opponents.

"ENCOURAGING OPPONENTS TO GET BOGGED DOWN IN DISCUSSIONS OF DETAIL".

One of the favourite refrains of Russian propaganda - "things are not that simple" - perfectly sums up the pragmatism of Putin's speeches. All he has to do is sow doubt and encourage his opponents to get bogged down in discussions of detail. He demonstrates his true potential for adaptation by his ability to distort the entire "news chain" to his advantage. Whether it's major events (from Israel's war against Hamas to speculation about the Ukrainian grain) or perfectly trivial episodes (a broken shop window or the presence of 'mixed toilets' in a European capital), everything is a pretext for him to prophesy that a black sun is gradually spreading over a 'collective West' in decline.

It may come as a surprise to see the Russian President forever hammering out the same arguments, the same facts, the same references, in a world that is constantly changing - if only on the scale of his own war, since we have gone from "taking Kiev in three days" to the current war of positions.

In reality, if Putin's words have not changed one syntagm, it is because, from his own point of view, they should not change: the fact that they remain identical is consistent with his ends. A usurper has no need to adapt to a changing world, since his sole objective is to keep the world as it is.

L’article « Tout ce qui sort de la bouche de Poutine n’est pas un mensonge » est apparu en premier sur L'IHEDN : Institut des hautes études de défense nationale.

De Sun Tzu à Portal Kombat : la désinformation au fil de l’Histoire

Adèle Thoumieux — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 11:40:16 +0000

2023-24: "DOPPELGäNGER" AND "PORTAL KOMBAT" OPERATIONS

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the aggressor country has distinguished itself by its hybrid strategy: in addition to the conventional offensive it is waging on the front line, it is also waging informational warfare in the West.

At the beginning of February, the French government department responsible for combating foreign digital interference Viginum has published a report on "Portal Kombat": comprising "at least 193 sites", this "network of digital 'news portals' with similar characteristics" disseminates "pro-Russian content aimed at international audiences".

In its analysis, Viginum explains how it works and what its objectives are: "The sites in this network do not produce any original content, but instead relay publications mainly from three types of source: social networking accounts of Russian or pro-Russian actors, Russian press agencies and official sites of local institutions or actors".

"The main objective seems to be to cover the Russian-Ukrainian conflict by presenting the "special military operation" in a positive light and denigrating Ukraine and its leaders. Highly ideologically oriented, this content exposes manifestly inaccurate or misleading narratives which, with regard to the portal targeting France, pravda-fr.com, play a direct part in polarising the French-speaking digital public debate."

In 2023, Viginum had already uncovered another Russian operation. Called "Doppelgänger" ("evil double" in German) or "RNN" (named after the Reliable Recent News website), it consisted of duplicating the graphics of official or news websites in Western Europe, but with misleading pro-Russian content. "At least 58 articles" were published on sites in France posing as those of Le Monde, 20 Minutes, Le Parisien and Le Figaro, as well as the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs.

2018: FACEBOOK-CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA SCANDAL

In the mid-2010s, the British company Cambridge Analytica (CA) began illegally "mining" the personal data of millions of Facebook users - more than 87 million in total. It then offered to target certain users according to their political preferences, based on their behaviour on the social network.

Through "micro-targeting", users see certain information displayed in their news feed that is likely to influence them. Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign was one of the first clients, along with that of his rival Ted Cruz. Facebook users identified as Trump supporters receive positive images of their champion in their feed, as well as practical information about polling stations. As for undecided voters, they see celebrities supporting Trump, or negative content about his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, claiming, for example, that she is corrupt.

However, it remains difficult to determine to what extent the data delivered by Cambridge Analytica favoured the election of Donald Trump. With regard to the referendum of 23 June 2016 on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union, more commonly known as "Brexit", several whistleblowers have helped to better document the deceptions. Through AggregateIQ, a Canadian company owned by the same shareholder as it, Cambridge Analytica provided data from Facebook to several organisations in the 'Leave' camp, after cross-referencing it with election data. Christopher Wylie, research director at CA, said after deciding to blow the whistle: "Without AggregateIQ, the 'Leave' camp could not have won the referendum, which came down to less than 2% of the vote."

1944: OPERATION FORTITUDE

The Second World War was the occasion for numerous disinformation operations - we remember, for example, the role of the American Elizabeth Peet McIntosh, who rewrote letters from Japanese soldiers to their families by blackening reality in order to demoralise the rear. But the most famous of these operations, which included several others, concerned the Allied landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944: Operation Fortitude.

While the massive arrival of troops in France was being prepared in the United Kingdom, the Allies were trying to "poison" the Germans by suggesting that the landings would take place in Norway (Operation Fortitude North) or in the Pas-de-Calais (Fortitude South). To give credibility to these hypotheses, dummy units were set up on British soil, with a real command, real insignia and as much radio activity as in real barracks, but with inflatable tanks, dummy planes and dummy landing craft. Double agents passed on false information to the Nazis, while diplomats from neutral countries were also fooled, deceiving the German services in turn. The Pas-de-Calais was heavily bombed, particularly on 5 June.

The next day, when the landings took place on the Normandy beaches, Fortitude entered a second phase: making people believe that it was just a decoy, and that the real landings would take place further north. It was a success: the Germans kept the bulk of their troops in the Pas-de-Calais, and only realised this at the end of August/beginning of September. In the meantime, Paris had been liberated.

1812: THE FALSE WILL OF STONE THE GREAT

Shortly after the invasion of Ukraine in March 2022, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, criticised in no uncertain terms a statement by his then British counterpart, Liz Truss. The latter had just stated that if Russia was successful in Ukraine, it could attack the Baltic states and Moldova. Denying this, the Russian retorted: "This is quite exemplary of British culture, politics and diplomacy. The British wrote Peter the Great's forged will in exactly the same way."

This reference takes us back 210 years, to the eve of Napoleon 1's Russian campaign.^er. In 1812, an anonymous work appeared in Paris. It contained what was presented as the testament of Tsar Peter the Great (1672-1725), the moderniser of Russia. In it, he advised his successors to ally themselves with the two great Western European powers of the time, before betraying them in order to dominate the entire continent:

"It is important to propose separately, and under the seal of secrecy, to Versailles and then to Vienna, to share the world empire with them. If one of the two accepts, which is easy to obtain by flattering ambitions and self-esteem, it will be appropriate to use it to annihilate the other, before crushing the one who remains... The outcome of the battle is not in doubt, because Russia already possesses the whole of the East and most of Europe."

Under Napoleon and up until the First World War, these few sentences were used in anti-Russian propaganda in Western Europe. It was only in the 20th century that historians proved that this will was a forgery - Peter the Great did not leave any. But whatever Sergei Lavrov may think, the forgery did not come from an Englishman. Its author was Michal Sokolnicki, a Polish officer exiled in Paris during the Revolution, anxious to obtain support for his country against Russia.

VI^e CENTURY BC: THE PRECEPTS OF SUN TZU

The oldest surviving treatise on strategy is the famous "Art of War". Its author, the Chinese general Sun Tzu (or Sun Zi), is thought to have lived from around 544 BC to 496 BC. The 13 articles of the Art of War, which deal with all aspects of tactics and strategy (means, topography, attack, etc.), have influenced every theorist since.

In his 13^e and final chapter, "On Concord and Discord", Sun Tzu discusses disinformation. Referring to "five kinds of division" (or discord), he lends "death division" the same objectives as "Portal Kombat" in 2024: "polarising debate" and undermining cohesion in enemy ranks. Here's how the strategist defines it: "The division of death is that by which, after giving false opinions on the state in which we find ourselves, we spread tendentious rumours."

He goes on to explain the expected effect. In ancient times, long before the mass media and the Internet, we inevitably think of the contemporary situation - just add to the equation public opinion, non-existent at the time: "If you have spread rumours, both to persuade people to believe what you want them to believe about you, and about the false steps you assume to have been taken by the enemy generals; if you have passed on false information to the court and the council of the prince against whose interests you are fighting ; if you have been able to cast doubt on the good intentions of the very people whose loyalty to their prince is best known to you, you will soon see that among the enemies suspicion has taken the place of trust, that rewards have been substituted for punishments and punishments for rewards, that the slightest clues will take the place of the most convincing evidence to destroy anyone who is suspected. "

L’article De Sun Tzu à Portal Kombat : la désinformation au fil de l’Histoire est apparu en premier sur L'IHEDN : Institut des hautes études de défense nationale.

Claudia Major : « Tant que la Russie ne change pas d’objectifs, l’Europe doit l’affaiblir »

tanguy.morel@ihedn.fr — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 13:34:15 +0000

Claudia Major has a doctorate in political science from the University of Birmingham (UK), and is a graduate of Sciences Po Paris and the Free University of Berlin. She heads the Security Policy research unit at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin (SWP). She is also a member of the Advisory Council for Civilian Crisis Prevention at the German Federal Foreign Office.

In this interview with IHEDN on the occasion of the two-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine, she gives her views on the European defence industrial base, the long-term structural change caused on the continent by this conflict, and long-term security guarantees for Ukraine: "The idea is to have a kind of network that irrevocably links Ukraine to transatlantic structures".

She also comments on the Franco-German defence relationship, which she has studied for a long time: "In the past, the Franco-German couple was necessary and sufficient. Now, the Franco-German compromise is still necessary, but it is no longer sufficient.

L’article Claudia Major : « Tant que la Russie ne change pas d’objectifs, l’Europe doit l’affaiblir » est apparu en premier sur L'IHEDN : Institut des hautes études de défense nationale.

Julien Vercueil : « La guerre et les sanctions ont coûté à la Russie 5 % de son PIB »

tanguy.morel@ihedn.fr — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 14:15:24 +0000

Julien Vercueil holds a doctorate in economics and is a university professor and vice-president of the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO). After writing his thesis on the transition and opening up of the Russian economy between 1992 and 1999, he specialised in the economies of Russia and the post-Soviet states, as well as international trade. Since the outbreak of the war, he has focused in particular on the impact of Western sanctions on the Russian economy.

THE EUROPEAN UNION HAS ALREADY ADOPTED 13 "SANCTIONS PACKAGES" AGAINST RUSSIA, IN ADDITION TO THE AMERICAN AND BRITISH SANCTIONS. WHAT IS THEIR REAL IMPACT ON THE COUNTRY'S ECONOMY?

The first (financial) sanctions considerably destabilised the Russian financial system, which had already been hard hit by the outbreak of war. The capital outflows they accelerated risked emptying the reserves of the Central Bank of Russia in a matter of weeks and triggering a major financial crisis. The monetary authorities reacted swiftly and managed to contain the impact by introducing drastic exchange controls, even stricter than during the 1998 crash.

Subsequent rounds of sanctions, which had a greater impact on the real economy (exports and imports), had sectoral effects. This was the case for Western exports of sensitive or dual-use components [Industrial and military] In the words of the vast majority of Russian companies interviewed, it is still more difficult and more expensive for them to source imported components and machinery than it was before the war.

Inflation, which persists in Russia at relatively high levels two years after the start of the war, is only slightly linked to the sanctions, but it is not totally unrelated to them and represents a major imbalance in the economy. If we take an overall assessment of these two years, we can say that the war and the sanctions have cost Russia 5 to 6 % of its GDP, i.e. two years of economic growth. And they will continue to weigh on the Russian economy in the future.

IS RUSSIA MANAGING TO GET ROUND THESE SANCTIONS? A REPORT BY THE KYIV SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS ESTIMATES THAT BETWEEN JANUARY AND OCTOBER 2023, ALMOST HALF THE COMPONENTS USED IN WAR EQUIPMENT CAME FROM COUNTRIES THAT HAD ADOPTED SANCTIONS...

This is a point that had already been observed for other countries under sanctions, such as Iran. [Editor's note: regularly sanctioned since 1979].. Yes, the Russian economy is adapting and to some extent managing to get round Western sanctions. This is because it is still lucrative today for a foreign - sometimes European - entity to take the risk of being sanctioned by trading with a Russian entity, given the likelihood of being confused.

To circumvent international sanctions on foreign trade, it takes at least two: the Russian company and its foreign partner. This is why Russia's economic recovery in 2023, despite the sanctions, is not just a sign of the resilience of a Russian economy that is used to hardship, as is sometimes claimed: it is above all a sign of the ability of players in today's globalised capitalism to adapt to a rapidly tightening regulatory environment.

RUSSIA CLAIMS THAT THESE SANCTIONS ARE HAVING A MAJOR IMPACT ON FOOD PRICES, PARTICULARLY IN THE POOREST COUNTRIES. IS THIS REALLY THE CASE?

Attributing the rise in food prices to Western sanctions is misleading, for a number of reasons. This rise is the continuation of a trend that dates back to the end of Covid. It was initially driven by the recovery in Chinese demand (particularly for maize, wheat and barley). In 2021, agricultural prices rose sharply, reaching levels not seen for ten years. Sanctions were not in place at that time.

Against this bullish backdrop, Russia's outbreak of war in Ukraine had an accelerating effect: by attacking one of the world's leading exporters of cereals and oilseeds, Russia destabilised the world market and triggered speculation on many products.

Russia has not only occupied and rendered unproductive part of Ukraine's grain-exporting territory, but has also bombed other cultivated areas from a distance, reducing Ukrainian harvests. Finally, it carried out a naval blockade of unoccupied Ukrainian export ports and destroyed storage silos, in violation of all international conventions. These abuses have reduced Ukrainian grain export volumes in 2022, keeping prices rising.

"THE RISE IN FOOD PRICES PRE-EXISTED WESTERN SANCTIONS".

Russia has also reduced its exports of nitrogen fertilisers (of which it is traditionally the leading international supplier). As a result, fertiliser prices have risen, which has had an impact on the agricultural production costs that depend on them.

From summer 2022, an agreement has been reached between the UN and Russiaunder the aegis of Turkey, guardian of the Bosphorus straits, to allow a number of Ukrainian grain vessels to leave the country. [Editor's note: since 17 July 2023, Russia has suspended its participation in this agreement].. This was enough to quickly bring international grain prices down to pre-war levels. It was therefore the naval blockade that kept them at abnormal levels.

It can therefore be said that Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine is the cause of the acceleration in the rise in world food prices. This rise pre-existed the Western sanctions. They were a response to Russia's war of aggression and did not play a significant role in the rise in prices that was observed: they have since been tightened, and yet grain prices have fallen.

L’article Julien Vercueil : « La guerre et les sanctions ont coûté à la Russie 5 % de son PIB » est apparu en premier sur L'IHEDN : Institut des hautes études de défense nationale.

Entre résistance ukrainienne et persistance russe, deux ans de guerre en questions

Adèle Thoumieux — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 09:53:43 +0000

It is now two years since Europe turned its back on the famous "peace dividend" reaped since the end of the Cold War. The conflict unleashed by Russia in Ukraine is having a major impact on a number of fronts, including The Great Continentmagazine published by the Geopolitical Studies Grouphas taken the opportunity to explore a conference on Tuesday 20 February at the École normale supérieure in Paris.

In his speech, the Minister for the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, evoked this period before 24 February 2022: in terms of armaments, "for 20 years, innovation dominated all battles, and the question of stocks and the capacity to produce ammunition did not arise". It is now crucial, and "for the past two years, we have been trying to have a defence industry that 'rebrands' itself", he summarised, acknowledging that "we had lost our independence in terms of the production of certain munitions".

Pointing out that France has "increased its production of Caesar guns by a factor of 2.5", the Minister announced: "In the coming weeks, the artificial intelligence incremented in a Caesar gun will make it possible to almost halve the amount of ammunition consumed", by increasing the accuracy of shots.

"HALF THE AID TO UKRAINE, WHICH WAS AMERICAN, HAS DISAPPEARED".

This is all the more important given that, as researcher François Heisbourg points out, "for the last two months, not a single American munition has arrived in Ukraine", because the aid plan has been blocked by Congress. As a result, "half of the aid to Ukraine, which was American, has disappeared".

"In France, we have yet to demonstrate that we know how to make our defence industry work," says François Heisbourg, special adviser to the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique. "We are now producing 3,000 shells a month, having tripled our production. Meanwhile, in Germany, Rheinmetall has produced 700,000 by 2023. For him, this is necessary: "we will have to continue to increase military appropriations and go to 3% of GDP, whereas we have just reached the 2% decided in 2014: Poland is already at 3.9%, Greece at 3%".

Jean-Dominique Merchet, diplomatic and defence correspondent for the daily L'Opinion, believes that "we need to pull out all the stops in industry: it's the heart of the matter. The material aspect is essential. It's us that Putin sees as the enemy". The journalist therefore advocates a "common defence architecture" as well as "a military Schengen": "It makes no sense that military equipment cannot easily cross the borders of the EU or NATO", he believes, advocating "the free movement of soldiers and military equipment".

Pointing out that France is the only EU member with a nuclear deterrent, Jean-Dominique Merchet believes it is essential to "revise our nuclear doctrine, which is 60 years old": "We should propose to our European partners that they share our nuclear weapons, by putting double-key weapons on their territory, as the Americans are doing in Germany, Poland and Belgium".

It is for this reason that the recent isolationist comments of putative candidate and former US President Donald Trump have had an "infinitely greater media resonance in Germany than in France", points out François Heisbourg. Even if Trump is elected in November, Jean-Dominique Merchet is optimistic, noting that "two-thirds of American aid to Ukraine goes directly to American manufacturers", who therefore have a commercial interest in supporting the country.

"ALMOST A HUNDRED AGGRESSIVE INTERACTIONS" BETWEEN RUSSIA AND FRANCE IN 2023

This rich symposium also addressed Russia, its domestic policy and its strategy. Opening the conference, the French Minister for the Armed Forces emphasised that Russia "no longer behaves towards us, France, as it did in 2022". He spoke of "much more military interaction between our two armies" in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Baltic Sea and the Strait of Hormuz. With "almost a hundred aggressive interactions in 2023", the Russians are "close to the threshold to see how we behave".

Listing in turn the arms race, the militarisation of space, threats to submarine cables and critical infrastructure, the "pursuit of blackmail" in agriculture and oil, the war waged through "proxies" and information warfare, Sébastien Lecornu believes that "it is because Russia is encountering difficulties on the conventional front that it is becoming more aggressive on hybrid threats". The most worrying of these, in his view, is "cyber": "Threats that used to be criminal are also becoming state-based".

In short, various threats that were "epiphenomena two years ago have now become systemic". Reminding us of France's firm stance in this power struggle, the Minister warned: "Maintaining a balance of power does not mean escalation.

"THIS WAR IS THE PERSONAL PROPERTY OF VLADIMIR PUTIN".

Guillaume Lancereau, a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, says: "Putin's sole aim in waging this war is to extend his power and increase his wealth. This specialist in the Russian President's speeches even believes that "this war is Vladimir Putin's personal property".

Referring to the recent death of opposition figure Alexeï Navalny, the academic points out that the Russian regime is more heterogeneous than you might think: "A truly arbitrary power would have taken it upon itself to kill an opponent, without imposing on his family and the whole world a macabre suspense about the whereabouts of his corpse". According to all the researchers present on Tuesday, there is no doubt: Navalny was "assassinated", or at least "probably".

For Juliette Cadiot, Director of Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS-CERCEC), there are still "forms of resistance" in Russia: associations continue to collect information on the war, and even help Ukrainians to leave Russia. But opposing the war is increasingly dangerous, because "the criminal arsenal has been redeployed and radicalised, and the length of sentences increased. Prison in Russia is dangerous, as the example of Navalny has shown: people are tortured, their personalities are degraded, and they can die or be murdered".

"WE CAN EXPECT THE WAR TO CONTINUE, AND EVEN TO SPREAD".

Céline Marangé, a researcher at the Institut de recherche stratégique de l'École militaire (IRSEM), points out that Alexeï Navalny's death was announced on the day that the Munich Security Conference began, and that Ukraine was signing security treaties with France and Germany: "I see this as a clear political signal". In her view, "we can expect the war to continue, and even expand, over the next few years". Even if, in two years, it has caused 300,000 deaths and injuries on the Russian side and 200,000 on the Ukrainian side, figures that she compares with the 11,000 Soviet deaths during the war in Afghanistan (1979-1989).

This war is of course having "very destabilising effects on Russian society", with the estimated departure of a million Russians, "most of them educated", adds Céline Marangé. But as well as "indoctrinating the population" with "unbridled propaganda", this war "creates economic opportunities and rents in Russia", to the extent that the country emerged from recession in April 2023. "The war offers symbolic and pecuniary rewards to poor men who previously had no prospects", she analyses. "50,000 $ for a dead soldier is a fortune" for his family in some remote regions.

As a result, Russia is experiencing a "construction boom", and "wealth disparities between regions are tending to narrow". For the IRSEM researcher, ending the war would therefore have "a significant economic and political cost for the Kremlin, which would suffer shocks in return". The war in Ukraine has therefore become indispensable to Vladimir Putin, for reasons of "internal stability".

"IT IS SIGNIFICANT THAT THE UKRAINIAN STATE HAS NOT COLLAPSED".

Marlène Laruelle, professor of international affairs and political science at George Washington University (USA), agrees: "In Russia, war is a social springboard, an element of prestige, recognition and financial success, and it opens up professional prospects". In her view, "the so-called civilisational war with the West has become the key element of Russian identity". She sums this up with a reference to the Communist period: "Today, going to the front is the new party card.

The successive sessions of the symposium naturally addressed Ukraine's resilience and adaptability - one of the round tables was entitled "How to rebuild Ukraine". For Muriel Lacoue-Labarthe, Deputy Director General of the French Treasury and Head of the Bilateral Affairs and Business Internationalisation Department (SABINE), "it is significant that the Ukrainian state has not collapsed". It has also been able to react quickly and think ahead: "Very quickly, the authorities decided to replace traditional light bulbs with LED bulbs", which has drastically reduced the country's electricity consumption at a time when Russia was attacking its critical infrastructure.

Jean-Dominique Merchet considers some of the successes of the attacked country to be "very impressive", in particular "what the Ukrainians are capable of doing in the Black Sea": "A country without a navy capable of challenging Russian supremacy in this sea is for me one of the great strategic surprises of this conflict. They are driving the Russian fleet out of Sebastopol! They shot down an AWACS [Airborne Warning and Command System], although France has 4 and Russia 5 or 6... That's precious!

L’article Entre résistance ukrainienne et persistance russe, deux ans de guerre en questions est apparu en premier sur L'IHEDN : Institut des hautes études de défense nationale.

Barbara Kunz : « Il faudra que la France et l’Allemagne développent une vision commune »

Adèle Thoumieux — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 15:50:40 +0000

Barbara Kunz has a doctorate in political science and is Director of the European Security Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Her research focuses not only on security on the continent, but also on transatlantic security cooperation and the Franco-German defence relationship.

In an interview with the IHEDN on the occasion of the two-year anniversary of Russia's aggression in Ukraine, she details the positions of France, Germany and the countries on Europe's eastern flank, the Baltic states and Scandinavia, vis-à-vis Russia and NATO.

According to her, in Europe, "there are two schools of thought": those who say that Russia must be completely isolated, and others who believe that there is no doubt about the Russian threat, but pragmatically say that "we must find a way to live alongside Russia, to find a minimum of cooperation on arms control" in particular.

The hardliners are on the eastern flank: the Baltic states, Poland and Romania, "countries with historical experiences of Russia that perhaps make them more sceptical about the possibility of living" with it.

France is "rather on the pragmatic side". But "where Germany stands, it's pretty hard to say" today, says the political scientist, whereas during the Cold War it tended to be on the pragmatic side.

Barbara Kunz has "the impression that the debate on the European security architecture has not really started". For it to begin, "France and Germany will have to develop a common vision". France is pushing for European strategic autonomy as a complement to NATO, while Germany is firmly Atlanticist.

While "the Europeans among themselves will no doubt find it difficult to agree on the approach to follow", the impetus may come from the other side of the Atlantic on 6 November: "The decisive factor will be the American elections". According to the researcher, in the event of the election of Trump or another Republican in favour of less involvement by his country in Europe, the idea of European strategic autonomy will come back with a vengeance, because "what other plan B do we have?"

For her, one thing is certain: "The conflict between the West and Russia will not end the day the war in Ukraine ends. We need to be prepared for antagonistic relations in the long term.

L’article Barbara Kunz : « Il faudra que la France et l’Allemagne développent une vision commune » est apparu en premier sur L'IHEDN : Institut des hautes études de défense nationale.

Générale Andrée Évrard : « Les Ukrainiens ont d’emblée pris la mesure de la guerre informationnelle »

tanguy.morel@ihedn.fr — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 16:10:42 +0000

Brigadier General Andrée Évrard is an officer in the French Army's engineering corps. After an initial operational career in the armoured engineering regiments of the French armed forces (3^e RG, 19^e RG) and in external operations, she has held various positions in international military relations, as head of office at the Directorate General of International Relations and Strategy (DGRIS) and defence attaché in the South Caucasus and Ukraine. Chargée de mission to the Major General of the Armed Forces since August 2022, she has spent seven of the last fifteen years in the post-Soviet space (Abkhazia/Georgia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Belarus). She is Russian-speaking and understands Ukrainian.

SINCE FEBRUARY 2022, THE WORLD HAS BEEN STRUCK BY THE SCALE OF UKRAINIAN RESISTANCE. WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE RECIPE FOR THIS MORAL STRENGTH?

The scale of the Ukrainian resistance is indeed admirable. The strength of moral forces is always a factor in the success of a war. This moral strength can be attributed to the cohesion of the country, which rallied round the desire to defend its sovereignty and integrity. An immediate consensus was formed between the different components of society - political, military and population - to defend and resist, each in its own way.

On 24 February 2022, President Zelensky assured Ukrainians that they would fight for their country. Since then, the entire political class and economic circles have observed a sort of "sacred union" to guarantee the continuity of the state, and to unite and embody this resistance. The security and defence forces are under the command of army general Zaloujny, who symbolises a new generation of military leaders, favouring command by intention, which allows subordinates initiative and freedom of action while respecting the intentions of their superiors.

Finally, the Ukrainian population is demonstrating its resilience in non-combat roles, and its resistance in combat roles.

Everyone plays a role, committing themselves according to their skills and abilities. Some continue to work in their pre-war profession, or volunteer for the armed forces, territorial defence, a non-governmental organisation, the cyber-army... For the non-combatant part of the population, resilience becomes resistance.

WHAT IS YOUR ANALYSIS OF PRESIDENT ZELENSKY'S COMMUNICATION STRATEGY?

President Zelensky's communication strategy is modern and effective. As you know, he was an actor and comedian before his election. So he knows the importance of communication and masters its codes, particularly on social networks. I think he has made it a pillar of his public diplomacy. His speeches are concise and direct. The key ideas are conveyed quickly and in simple terms.

In addition, his communication is authentic, humanised and embodied. He does not hesitate to show himself in situations, both in his personal life and in the performance of his duties. His communication is not abstract, but shows the facts, the players, each working in their own field. This communication is accessible and understandable by all, and a large majority of the audience can find messages in it. It targets the Ukrainian population, the Russian population and the international community, with references adapted to each audience.

"THE UKRAINIANS HAVE WON THE BATTLE OF STORYTELLING FOR WESTERN AUDIENCES".

It's a shared communication with the Ukrainians. If the President decides on the narrative, the population also feeds into it. This sharing is expressed in the form of a short daily address by the President to the population, in which he deciphers the progress of the war for the country. This sharing was also expressed through the promotion of resistance. Ordinary heroes", both military and civilian, are honoured on the networks every day. The courage and heroism of the Ukrainian people play a major role in its communications.

Finally, from the outset the Ukrainians realised that they would have to wage an information war against the Russians. Right from the start of the war, they implemented a highly effective information strategy, using images of fighting taken by the units engaged against the Russian army, emotional moments, such as the liberation of villages occupied by the Russians, and humorous remarks when they addressed donor countries to thank them and encourage them to give more. They have undeniably won the narrative battle with Western audiences, and we learn a lot from watching them.

WHAT COMMUNICATION SEQUENCES STRUCK YOU MOST DURING THE ALMOST TWO YEARS OF CONFLICT?

There were many memorable moments. I'd like to highlight four of them, which have had a great impact in Ukraine, and which are symbols today.

The capture of Snake Island

The capture of Snake Island by the Russian armed forces on 24 February 2022 takes place during the first hours of the war. The island was guarded by Ukrainian border guards, who were ordered by a Russian ship to surrender or face bombardment. To this injunction, the Ukrainian soldiers are said to have replied: "Russian ship, go to hell". [Editor's note: this last word is a toned-down version of the verb originally used].. This expression spontaneously and virally became the rallying word of Ukrainians, and the first slogan of resistance to Russian aggression.

The Ukrainian tractor

The Ukrainian tractor has also become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance. Initially, in the spring of 2022, Ukrainian farmers began clearing broken-down Russian vehicles from fields and roads. The aim was to prevent cultivated land becoming rubbish tips, but also to show solidarity with the Ukrainian armed forces, to whom the farmers were delivering this equipment. The intervention of these "new Ukrainian special forces" [Editor's note: tractors] was widely mocked on Russian social networks.

In the autumn of 2022, when Russia withdrew from the Kharkiv and Kherson regions, the tractors continued to collect damaged or abandoned Russian vehicles for the Ukrainian armed forces, which repaired this equipment when they could. During this phase, the Ukrainian side emphasised that Russia was Ukraine's leading supplier of military equipment, thanks to this recovery. The Ukrainian tractor has therefore found a place of honour among the symbols of this war...

The kidnapping of the Kherson raccoon

I have to admit that I didn't immediately grasp the magnitude of this sequence. After twenty-four hours, and having come across the word "raccoon" on social networks, which I didn't know in Ukrainian, I immersed myself first in the dictionary, then in the story of this animal that has become a national muse.

In November 2022, before withdrawing from Kherson, the Russian armed forces abducted several animals from the municipal zoo, including a raccoon, a llama, a wolf, a donkey and squirrels. The animals were reportedly taken to a zoo in Crimea. The founder of the animal protection movement UAnimals reported the abduction on social networks. The raccoon had been brutally dragged from its cage and had struggled. The raccoon's case was the subject of a flurry of media coverage, with the Ukrainian side highlighting the looting, brutality and abductions carried out by the Russian armed forces.

So the raccoon appeared on the poster and became a meme.

The Ukrainian government thanks France

France is also present in Ukrainian communications. France's support is welcomed at every opportunity, as shown by the following examples this video published by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, which in October 2022 thanked the Ukrainian government for the delivery of Caesar artillery guns using an unprecedented type of communication, albeit with very French cultural codes. A year and a half later, on 18 January 2024, the Minister for the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, launched the "Artillery for Ukraine" coalition with his Ukrainian counterpart, Roustem Oumerov.

WOULD THIS PRESIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION HAVE AS MUCH IMPACT WITH LESS RESISTANCE FROM THE UKRAINIAN POPULATION?

These two elements are linked by a reciprocal dynamic. The Ukrainian resistance finds its incarnation in the person of President Zelensky. And he represents and promotes the courage and heroism of his people at international level.

The will to defend the integrity, sovereignty and identity of Ukraine is shared by the President and the people. Despite the hardships endured by both the civilian population and the military, this determination is undiminished and, on the contrary, unites the nation.

L’article Générale Andrée Évrard : « Les Ukrainiens ont d’emblée pris la mesure de la guerre informationnelle » est apparu en premier sur L'IHEDN : Institut des hautes études de défense nationale.

Les batailles diplomatiques de l’Ukraine dans un monde « multi-aligné »

tanguy.morel@ihedn.fr — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 15:43:25 +0000

On 8 December, the think-tank Eastern Circles and the IHEDN organised a one-day event at the École Militaire in partnership with Diplomatie Magazine on the four fronts of the war in Ukraine: informational, economic, military and diplomatic. For this last round table, international specialists from Ukraine, India, China and Africa presented their analyses, which describe an increasingly 'multi-aligned' world behind the Western positions that are quite familiar in our latitudes.

Hosted by Canadian security consultant Yan St-Pierre, the meeting brought together researchers from the following fields Swasti Raofrom the Manohar Parikkar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi (India), Niagalé BagayokoDirector of the African Security Sector Network (ASSN), and Velina Tchakarovadirector of the FACE think-tank based in Vienna (Austria) and a specialist in China, and the researcher Hennadiy Maksakdirector of the Ukrainian Prism think-tank based in Kyiv (Ukraine).

India's position in the conflict poorly understood in the West

For Swasti Rao, the war in Ukraine came at a time when India was "at the peak of its global intersectional moment": presidency of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the G20, a successful mission to the Moon, an unprecedented increase in its technological and defence links with the West, etc. "But at the same time, India has continued its engagement with Russia, and will continue to do so". The researcher asks herself: "Are we experiencing this intersectional global moment because of our neutrality in the Russian-Ukrainian war, or in spite of that neutrality?"

"Initially, the Indian position in this war was less well understood in the West", she notes, "but this understanding has changed" in view of India's concern for strategic autonomy and its need to respond to the "3 Fs" crisis it is experiencing: fuel, food and fertilisers (fuel, food and fertiliser). It is this crisis that has led it to continue buying oil from Russia.

India achieves its strategic autonomy through its "multi-alignment". "It is now completely different from what it was during the Cold War: from being rather passive, it is now very active indeed. In her view, India is in the process of "recalibrating" its Russian strategy, since Russia "is being pushed around by China", with which India has a number of disputes, notably over borders. "India will need a great deal of stability in the world order if it is to continue its economic success, and that is precisely why it is so closely aligned with the West when it comes to the Indo-Pacific.

does russia want to destroy the european security order?

Velina Tchakarova analyses the "Russian calculation" both in the context of the bilateral Russia-China relationship and in that of Russia's multilateral relationship with the "Global South". "What we need to understand is that this calculation is not only aimed at the primary objective of subjugating Ukraine, but also at two other equally important objectives."

One is "the destruction of the European security order as we have known it for 30 years". The other, and most important, objective is not without China: "To gain pole position in the systemic competition that is emerging between China and the United States". "For me", continues Velina Tchakarova, "24 February 2022 also marked the start of the Cold War between the United States on the one hand and the bear-dragon on the other, in other words the China-Russia modus operandi that does not require entering into any kind of military or strategic alliance in the Western sense".

"Russia sees itself as a " game changer "Russia needs Russia for four reasons, according to the researcher. China needs Russia for four reasons, according to the researcher: as an outlet for its goods; for its technology as part of the fourth industrial revolution; for diplomacy, with the shared concern to impose new rules of the game; and, in practice, for the new alliances that these partners are forging.

As far as Africa is concerned, for Niagalé Bagayoko, the war in Ukraine has made visible a phenomenon that has been developing for "at least a decade, if not 20 years: the fact that most African countries have diversified their partnerships". Why has this happened? The main reason is that "friendly European countries, multilateral partners such as the European Union and the United Nations, but also African multilateral organisations, have completely failed to deal with the type of insecurity facing certain regions, particularly the Sahel".

The Cold War system totally challenged

The Congo and Sudan show the same thing: "The whole system defined at the end of the Cold War to prevent, manage and resolve conflicts has been totally challenged. It is in this context that we are witnessing the re-emergence of Russia, because it is a re-emergence". As a result, when they had to take a stance on the war in Ukraine, "most African states made it clear that they are ready to develop relations with powers that share their interests". In Africa, too, the trend is towards "multi-alignment".

Hennadiy Maksak is a researcher but, as debate moderator Yan St-Pierre pointed out, he is also very active in promoting Ukrainian foreign policy. "Our diplomacy is now like playing chess on several boards at once", he said.

These chessboards are numerous, and the Ukrainian detailed them one by one. The first is at the level of international organisations: "We are trying to forge coalitions within the United Nations General Assembly so that it adopts binding and non-binding resolutions, indicating where Russian aggression is taking place and what the consequences are". These efforts are aimed not only at Ukraine's Western allies, but also at "our partners in Asia, Africa and Latin America".

Another area is sanctions, "since it is also important to deprive Russia of the resources that fuel its war of aggression". "The process is mixed", admits Hennadiy Maksak, but in comparison with the 2014-2021 period, progress is significant: "We now have 11 sanctions packages and we are in the process of negotiating a twelfth." The next point is that "our diplomats are working to secure arms deliveries. Here too, developments are positive, with the 50+ coalition, which is much broader than the EU and the United States.

3 to 5 billion $ per month to keep the Ukrainian economy afloat

The financial arena is also crucial: "We are unable to keep our economy on track without the support of external partners", the Ukrainian researcher frankly admits. "The figure fluctuates, but we need between 3 and 5 billion dollars a month just to keep our social system afloat, because all the money we generate in Ukraine is spent on military objectives to defend ourselves.

Among other issues, Hennadiy Maksak mentions the judicial dimension, with plans to set up a special tribunal to investigate Russian aggression and war crimes, and the reconstruction of the country, its schools and hospitals, which could be carried out using frozen Russian funds. He also stresses the importance of the security architecture, in particular "Euro-Atlantic integration".

Ukraine also plays on the "multi-alignment" of its partners: "When we talk to different partners, we can include them in different coalitions. For example, the "Grain for Ukraine" coalition has 38 partners; if it's the Ramstein Group (editor's note: for arms issues), it's the 50+; for work on peace, the last meeting, in Malta, brought together more than 80 countries".

Depending on what is needed, Ukraine therefore calls on different partners in different coalitions. "This is the approach we have adopted for this second year of the war," sums up Hennadiy Maksak.

Find out more about the round table "Diplomatic wars, or how to win new and preserve old allies". on the YouTube channel of the Defence Academy of the École Militaire

L’article Les batailles diplomatiques de l’Ukraine dans un monde « multi-aligné » est apparu en premier sur L'IHEDN : Institut des hautes études de défense nationale.

Dimitri Minic : « Il y a une transparence dans la fabrique stratégique russe »

Adèle Thoumieux — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 08:17:17 +0000

Dimitri Minic is a researcher at the Russia/Eurasia Centre of the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) and holds a doctorate in the history of international relations from Sorbonne University. He is particularly interested in Russian strategic thinking, the Russian army and Russian hybrid and high-intensity capabilities. He also works on threat perception and the strategic culture of Russia's political and military elites. His thesis on the latter subject was awarded the Albert-Thibaudet prize and forms the basis of his book "Pensée et culture stratégiques russes, Du contournement de la lutte armée à la guerre en Ukraine" (published by Maison des sciences de l'homme, April 2023). On 13 November, he came to the IHEDN to present his book as part of a strategic debate presented by Guillaume Lasconjarias, head of the Institute's studies and research department.

What prompted you to write this book? How did you go about it?

I started thinking about this thesis in 2013-2014, at a time when Russia was annexing Crimea, carrying out subversive actions in the Donbass and seeking to destabilise Europe. At the same time, the media and experts, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world, were beginning to relay elements from the Russian military sphere, such as the concept of hybrid warfare and the Guerassimov doctrine.

I came up against several pitfalls: the problem with research at the time was not so much documenting what Russia was doing, because researchers and journalists were already doing that very well, but how Russians thought about strategy and how it related to politics: Doctrines, military literature, military dictionaries and encyclopaedias, speeches by military and political officials... all material that was little used or even absent, such as post-Soviet Russian military literature and encyclopaedias. Nor were we interested in the strategists and institutes that thought about strategy in Russia... To sum up, in the West there was a lack of understanding of Russian strategic thinking in the post-Soviet period.

I discovered that senior Russian officers and generals expressed themselves very freely on their conceptions of strategy. Not only that, but that what they theorised was reflected in the speeches of military and political officials, in doctrines and in practice. There is a form of transparency in the Russian strategic factory that I had no idea was there. These sources are therefore extremely rich, but they also have their limits, because they remain open sources. Their authors, whether active, retired or reserve officers, do not hesitate to criticise each other. There is a lively debate within the Russian military community, right up to the highest level.

I also noted two levels of transparency: horizontal, between military personnel, but also vertical, with criticisms addressed to the political and military leadership, sometimes concerning subjects outside the strategic field such as domestic policy.

What are the main characteristics of Russian strategic culture?

The beliefs that make up part of Russian strategic culture date back to the Soviet period, some of them even imperial, and have been renewed since the fall of the USSR. It is important to bear in mind that people have not changed from one period to the next, which has a major impact on the transmission of this cultural heritage to new generations of soldiers.

This cultural dimension has had an extraordinary impact on the way Russian military elites have thought about and implemented strategy, and in particular on the theorization of the circumvention of armed struggle. Information warfare, strategic deterrence, special operations and the other concepts that embodied the theorisation of circumvention are, to a certain extent, an emanation of specific beliefs and ways of thinking. This is one of the reasons why bypass should be described as a strategic tropism rather than a doctrine or model, which it overhangs. Three central beliefs stand out among the Russian politico-military elites:

The world is hostile to Russia on principle;
The West is omnipotent and omniscient;
Russia is a unique great power.

All this allows the Russian military elites to maintain the idea that Russia is constantly under attack, either because it is very strong, because it has a messianic destiny, or, on the contrary, because it has weakened.

The impact of conspiracism is also fundamental and is reinforced, beyond beliefs, by a specific way of thinking. It is characterised in several ways: firstly, a form of denial of chance in international relations; secondly, a denial of the autonomy of the individual, as well as of the spontaneous wills of the masses; a pronounced penchant for determinism (economic, civilisational, religious, but above all geographical, due to the central position of Russian Eurasia and its natural resources); and finally a tendency to think that the phenomena arising in international relations are interconnected and often hidden. This way of thinking reinforces beliefs.

Its environment is therefore populated only by enemies, or false friends. In this context, can Russia have friends?

Russia's political and military elites believe that their country has spent its entire history sacrificing itself for peoples who have never reciprocated. This is the case for the countries of the former Soviet space, for whom they believe that Russia has sacrificed itself, and that they are rewarding it by wanting to join NATO. This is also why Russia does not see itself (wrongly) as a colonising power, which would have been an unjust dominant power. The Russians feel the same way about the African countries, or elsewhere in the Third World, with which they forged relations during the Cold War.

So Russia sees itself as a fortress under siege, which is nothing new. This obsidional complex is crucial, but what interested me in this work on Russian military theory and doctrine is that this whole dimension of Russian strategic culture has produced a strategic concept, and has had very concrete consequences not only on strategic thinking, but also on institutions, training, military organisation and strategic practice... The theorisation of the circumvention of armed struggle by Russian strategists is an offshoot of this.

L’article Dimitri Minic : « Il y a une transparence dans la fabrique stratégique russe » est apparu en premier sur L'IHEDN : Institut des hautes études de défense nationale.