Biden will not change Putin but is right to talk to him

The west’s approach to Vladimir Putin’s Russia regularly falls prisoner to the perennial debate about realism and idealism in foreign policy. The choice is posed as between engagement and confrontation, the pursuit of interests and defence of values.

As Putin apparently threatens war in Europe by overseeing a menacing build-up of Russian troops on Ukraine’s eastern border, two thoughts arise. The Russian president is not about to change his ways. And the US and Europe have to deal with him.

Putin has been a big loser from Joe Biden’s presidential victory. Donald Trump fell under his spell. When they met in Helsinki in 2018, the then US president said of the evidence of Russian meddling in the 2016 US election, that he preferred the word of a former KGB operative turned Kremlin autocrat above that of his own intelligence agencies.

Trump offered Putin the respect he craves. It is always a mistake to underestimate the role of vanity in politics. Putin never forgave Barack Obama for an off-the-cuff reference to Russia as a “regional” power. Above all, Putin wants to be treated — and seen by Russians to be treated — as the leader of a nation that still stands as an equal with the US. The lopsided alliance he has forged with China will never serve as a substitute.

Biden’s victory has derailed eternal Kremlin hopes of splitting the Atlantic alliance. Washington’s relations with its European partners are warmer than for many years. German chancellor Angela Merkel looks increasingly friendless in her stubborn backing for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline being built to carry Russian gas under the Baltic Sea. French president Emmanuel Macron has failed in his efforts to recalibrate the relationship with Moscow.

Western diplomats are not sure what to make of the latest troop build-up. It contains an obvious warning to Kyiv not to seek to overturn the ceasefire with the pro-Russian separatists who seized territory in Ukraine’s Donbas after Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014. And there is a message to the US and Nato not to write a blank cheque for Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, and his government. 

Whatever the Kremlin’s ultimate military intentions, the deployments have served Putin’s purpose in grabbing the attention of the White House. Until this week Biden had largely ignored him, while offering a blunt assessment of the Russian regime. Putin is a “killer”, he remarked last month. Moscow was put on notice that the US would respond vigorously to cyber attacks and meddling in US elections.

The US president’s offer this week of a summit on neutral territory to discuss Ukraine and a clutch of other issues looks calculated to appeal to Putin’s vanity. Success or failure, a summit will offer clarity. And if it can take some of the tension out of the relationship by massaging Putin’s ego, why not.

It will not presage, however, a fundamental change in the relationship. The “reset” story has been played out many times during the past decade or so. The offer of a fresh start has come from several western leaders.

Logically, Putin should be attracted to the idea. Russia can survive US and European sanctions, but it badly needs western investment and technology. Its long-term strategic interests lie in a close economic relationship with Europe. If the Kremlin is in search of threats, it would do better to take a close look at China’s Eurasian ambitions.

Russia’s interests, though, are not Putin’s. His priority is the preservation of his own power and wealth. Autocrats need enemies. The supposed threat from the US and its allies sustains his populist pitch to Russian nationalism.

The question then becomes how much room there is for co-operation — whether on nuclear arms control, backing efforts to restore the nuclear agreement with Iran, or promoting stability in Afghanistan when US troops complete their withdrawal this year. The answer must be that the possibilities are worth exploring. Putin has already accepted Biden’s offer to extend the last remaining strategic arms treaty.

The notion of a binary choice between realism and idealism has never held much credibility. The argument that usefully can be had is not about the fact of engagement, but about its nature. Where does the line fall between securing interests and compromising values?

The idealists have a point when they say that the some of the overtures to Moscow in recent years have looked more like capitulation than engagement. Biden seems to have got the balance about right. Where it can, the west should work with Russia. Just not on Putin’s terms.

philip.stephens@ft.com