The cold peace: Russo-Western relations as a mimetic cold war

Abstract

In 1989-91 the geo-ideological contestation between two blocs was swept away, together with the ideology of civil war and its concomitant Cold War played out on the larger stage. Paradoxically, while the domestic sources of Cold War confrontation have been transcended, its external manifestations remain in the form of a 'legacy' geopolitical contest between the dominant hegemonic power (the United States) and a number of potential rising great powers, of which Russia is one. The post-revolutionary era is thus one of a 'cold peace'. A cold peace is a mimetic Cold War. In other words, while a Cold War accepts the logic of conflict in the international system and between certain protagonists in particular, a cold peace reproduces the behavioural patterns of a Cold War but suppresses acceptance of the logic of behaviour. A cold peace is accompanied by a singular stress on notions of victimhood for some and undigested and bitter victory for others. The perceived victim status of one set of actors provides the seedbed for renewed conflict, while the 'victory' of the others cannot be consolidated in some sort of relatively unchallenged post-conflict order. The 'universalism' of the victors is now challenged by Russia's neo-revisionist policy, including the defence not so much of Westphalian notions of sovereignty but the espousal of an international system with room for multiple systems (the Schmittean pluriverse).The world today faces enormous threats as the organisations and systems established to manage the Cold War order become increasingly dysfunctional in the post-Cold War era, and indeed to some degree these institutions themselves generate a state of affairs that we shall call a 'cold peace'.1 At the heart of the contemporary cold peace are Russo-Western relations, which remain in a no-man's-land in which there is neither the full-scale creation of a new political community nor an openly acknowledged conflictual relationship. If a Cold War is one that the immediate participants fear to fight directly, although ready to engage in any number of proxy wars, a cold peace is a far more fragile system of international order. A cold peace is an unstable geopolitical truce in which the fundamental problems of a post-conflict international order have not been resolved. While a Cold War accepts the logic of competition, a cold peace proceeds on the assumption that problems have been resolved, and this assumption itself becomes the cause of renewed conflict since it seeks to embed a particular hegemonic formation as universally applicable for all. In keeping with the liminal status of Russo-Western 1 I am grateful for the exceptionally detailed and helpful comments of the anonymous reviewers.

The EU Foreign Policy Analysis

“…Together with these, a clash of identities and interpretations of sovereignty has been a fertile ground for the appearance of various misunderstandings that have deepened the conflict. While the EU can be seen as a postmodern actor that has elevated itself from the constraints of sovereignty and nationalism, Russia has questioned the possibility of convergence with the Union on these terms (Sakwa, 2013). On the other hand, Russia has been perceived as possessing a premodern identity that predisposes it to a positive and objective interpretation of international law and state sovereignty.…”

Towards conflict or cooperation? The Ukraine crisis and EU-Russia relations

“…This tension can be traced back to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the way the West chose to handle it. Some have argued that in the absence of a treaty that would regulate security relations on the European continent following the end of the Cold War both Russia and the EU have been trapped in a cold peace or strategic impasse (Sakwa 2013). During the early 1990 and early 2000s, Russia appeared to be looking towards the West and seeking to embrace a liberal understanding of international relations.…”

“…Periods of cooperation have succeeded or overlapped with more conflictual ones, pointing to the ever shifting and complex nature of EU-Russia relations. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union both the EU and Russia have preferred to engage in peaceful cohabitation, aiming at least symbolically to strike a partnership -which for some resembled a cold peace (Sakwa 2013;Bugajski 2004).…”

One Europe or None

“…The second path is the one actually pursued, and has had some demonstrably nega- perpetuated, but recognition of the fact was suppressed (Sakwa, 2013). As in the interwar years, this was another 'twenty years' crisis', in which not a single fundamental problem of European security was resolved (Sakwa, 2008).…”