Wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill once famously described Russia as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”.
Though those words were uttered more than eighty years ago, after the announcement of the Nazi-Soviet alliance in October 1939, the superpower still remains a troubling – and dangerous – enigma to the West.
According to Jonathan Haslam, Professor Emeritus of the History of International Relations at the University of Cambridge and one of the UK’s most distinguished and respected experts on the former Soviet Union, a gross and systemic lack of understanding by Britian and its allies concerning Russia’s intentions and likely actions is ultimately to blame for the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War.
And this, he says, dates back decades, not years, with many egregious “missed opportunities” and “ignored warning signs” by intelligence agencies and governments alike that could, if handled differently, have potentially prevented the bloody conflict – which has so far claimed more than 30,000 civilian casualties – from ever occurring.
Speaking with Professor Haslam, 73, it is immediately clear that the handling of Russia and Putin by successive administrations, both in the UK and America, is deeply frustrating to him.
“This all comes back to a staggering lack of intelligence, in both senses of the word, on the part of the West, with America leading the way,” he says.
“The roots of the Russo-Ukrainian War can be traced back through a sequence of events to the early 1990s and which lead not to Russia or the Ukraine but to the other side of the Atlantic.
“In 1994, the White House under President Clinton embarked upon the expansion of NATO, urged on by the new governments of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, which sought admittance for the security membership would offer against Boris Yeltsin’s Russia.
“Even at this early stage, America was already eyeing up Ukraine for eventual membership. Subsequently, in the mid-2000s, the decision was made to expand NATO to include Central and Eastern Europe, including Ukraine.
“This was against the advice of every leading Russian specialist in government. Moscow had already wanted NATO to sign a pledge never to seek enlargement and to remove the allied military infrastructure in all countries that had joined since 1997, including Bulgaria, Estonia, and Latvia.
“Ukraine was a bridge too far. A significant part of its population were Russian-speaking and it was in direct proximity to Russia. It was, then, the red line that Putin wouldn’t allow NATO to cross without dire repercussions.
“Instead, the Americans pressed on, backing Ukraine’s eventual entry into NATO, which was agreed by NATO leaders at the 2008 Bucharest Summit.
“But they weren’t dealing any longer with President Yeltsin, who had been welcoming of greater international ties, but his successor, Putin – someone who felt humiliated by what he had seen as an uneven, subservient relationship between Russia and the West.
“But even up to the Maidan crisis of 2014, the US could have backed away,” he continues.
“It didn’t, and Putin seized Crimea, leading us down the path to where we are today with open warfare in Ukraine.
“It’s a spectacular chain of poor diplomacy, driven by hasty, unconsidered decisions but blame doesn’t rest solely at America’s feet.
“Britian, likewise, was keen to see Ukraine admitted, even if this was not always publicly expressed.
“To those at the top, it was a way of removing the Russian problem once and for all, but all it has ended up doing is exacerbate those tensions and threats tenfold.”
Haslam says that one of the major factors in Westminster’s misjudgement of Russia’s response lies with the Foreign Office, which he claims has “from longstanding practice” consistently refused to engage with Russia specialists outside Whitehall, instead preferring guidance from those within – and without direct familiarity with Russia.
“Britain, as well as America and Germany, had ceased taking Russia seriously after the collapse of the Soviet Union,” he adds.
“The new focus became the Middle East and talent was directed, or misdirected, there, while long-standing specialists in Russia within the Foreign Office all but disappeared.”
A lack of understanding is not something that can be levelled at Professor Haslam, whose career has been defined by his penetrating contributions to the fields of international relations, diplomatic history, and Cold War studies, with much of his work dealing with the history of the Soviet Union.
The distinguished academic has many seminal works to his name, including Russia’s Cold War: From the October Revolution to the Fall of the Wall, which provides a comprehensive analysis of Soviet foreign policy from the Bolshevik Revolution through to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Another of his books, The Spectre of War: International Communism and the Origins of World War II, received critical acclaim internationally for its penetrating exploration of the interplay between international communism and the geopolitical tensions that led to the outbreak of World War II.
Born in 1951, Professor Haslam’s intellectual fascination with Russia dates back to his childhood, with one of his earliest political memories being of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
“I was only 11 but it was then that I became truly aware of the dangers in the world,” he recalls.
“It was the only time that I saw my father afraid, and it left a lasting impression. With the knowledge early on that we could all be blown up one day, I’ve been impelled ever since by the need to understand why that would be.”
As a teenager he taught himself Russian, later spending time in the country to improve his fluency, and studied international relations at the London School of Economics and then, for his master’s degree, at Cambridge.
Since being awarded his Ph.D. in 1984, he has lectured at many of the world’s leading universities which besides his current residency at Cambridge have include Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge and Princeton, where he held the post of George F. Kennan Professor, Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton until 2021.
Haslam has also brought his extensive knowledge of Russia into the political sphere. In the 1990s, he was chairman of the International Committee Advising the Historical-Diplomatic Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry (MID), and in the early 2000s was a specialist adviser to the EU Committee of the House of Lords on Foreign and Security Policy.
Now his attention is turned to Ukraine, which has been at war with Russia since its invasion more than two years ago.
With Western-Russian relations now at their lowest since the end of the Cold War, Haslam feels it is of vital importance that the public understand what has brought us to this point.
To that end, he will soon be releasing Hubris: The Origins of Russia’s War Against Ukraine, a comprehensive account of the conflict’s roots, spanning three decades of political missteps and bungled diplomacy.
In writing the book, which will be published in September through Head of Zeus, Haslam has drawn upon extensive primary sources, including archives, memoirs and media coverage from around Europe and within Russia itself, as well as interviews with numerous senior officials.
“There is so much confusion and mistruths surrounding us about the origins of the Russo-Ukrainian War,” he says,
“With the end of the Cold War came the promise of a much-vaunted ‘peace dividend. Not only did that fail to materialise but we face a troubling future.
“People need to know the reasons why, and they all come back to how the West, led by America, continually got it wrong over how Putin would react to the proposed expansion of NATO to Russia’s doorstep.
“This bloody war, which remains in stalemate two years in, has had a huge toll not only in Ukraine but across the world, and the worst thing is that it needn’t ever have happened.”
Hubris: The Origins of Russia’s War Against Ukraine by Jonathan Haslam (Head of Zeus) will be released on 12th September and is available to pre-order on Amazon, priced £25.75 in hardcover, £13.99 as an audiobook, and £6.99 as an eBook. To keep up to date with Jonathan Haslam, Professor Emeritus of the History of International Relations at the University of Cambridge, visit www.throughrussianeyes.com or follow him on Twitter at @HaslamJonathan.
Q&A Interview With Jonathan Haslam
Professor Jonathan Haslam’s new book Hubris is the definitive account of the root causes of the Russo-Ukrainian War, and a striking lesson to future generations. In this exclusive interview, the academic, one of the UK’s leading experts on the former Soviet Union and Cold War, provides the bigger picture on the ongoing conflict.
Q. In brief, what are the root causes of the Russo-Ukrainian War?
A. From the outset, decisions made in the United States (initially under President Bill Clinton and then under George Bush Jr.) in favour of NATO expansion to the East placed Ukraine in potential confrontation with Russia. Ukraine had declared itself independent once the Soviet Union began to collapse and immediately faced Russian claims to ownership of Crimea and the entire Black Sea Fleet. But the country committed itself to non-alignment. However, unknown to the Ukrainian government or, indeed anyone else, in 1994 the White House listed Ukraine as a target for membership of NATO along with others. And, with the encouragement of Poland and the then government of Ukraine, in 2008 Bush sought to make that wish reality against explicit warnings from President Putin of Russia that this would be a red line NATO should not cross. The alliance effectively backed away until 2013-14 when Putin effectively vetoed Ukraine’s associate membership of the EU. This prompted what was effectively a coup d’etat against the pro-Russian president. A pro-American government came into office and Putin responded by seizing Crimea. Sanctions against Russia followed.
Q. Why were Western governments taken by surprise by the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War?
A. In spite of the confrontation in 2014, Germany under Chancellor Merkel made itself, and most of the EU, increasingly dependent on Russia for energy resources on the assumption that tighter economic ties would make for peace. NATO had become a lesser priority to the European allies despite President Trump’s loud calls for greater military expenditure. And when Biden took over in the United States, his desertion of ally Afghanistan signalled weakness to the Russians. Yet Biden persisted in support of Ukraine as a future member of NATO. By then Putin, increasingly a dictator whose true intentions were effectively closed to Western observers, had lost patience and wished to see out his term assured that Ukraine would at the very least remain non-aligned.
Q. The UK seemed to be at odds with Europe in the leadup to the Russo-Ukrainian War. Why was this?
A. The Americans and the British had the closest relations in the sharing of military intelligence. The Germans simply did not share their assumption that Putin seriously considered war an option.
Q. Given these significant political failings, what are the key geopolitical implications for the wider prospect of peace and stability in the coming years?
A. When governments, and the public opinion they dominate through the establishment media, refuse to acknowledge their own part in the breakdown of international relations, little improvement can be expected.
To what degree did the eventual outbreak of war depend on Russia having Putin as leader, as opposed to another figure?
A. No other figure with his mindset could have mobilised Russia for war with the risk of an unpredictable confrontation with NATO.
Q. Why did the Minsk agreements fail to prevent a war in Ukraine?
A. The agreements patched together by Germany and France with Russia and Ukraine in 2015 were not practicable in that they did not accept the fact of Ukrainian sovereignty and Merkel has since acknowledged that they were designed merely to buy time for Ukrainian rearmament against Russia.
Q. How do you see the Russo-Ukrainian War playing out from here to its end point?
A. Only the United States can end this war. The elections this autumn are therefore critical.
Q. Why are there so many misunderstandings among the public about the origins of the Russo-Ukrainian War?
A. Unfortunately, and ironically with the expansion of social media, the mainstream press – desperate at the loss of funding from advertising – has become increasingly monotone and far too dependent on government not only for information but also analysis.
Q. How far can an understanding of history help governments making similar mistakes in the future, thereby avoiding future conflicts with Russia?
A. No one of any importance learns from history. Instead they deploy a distorted version of history to justify policy.
Q. Why did you name your book ‘Hubris’, and what do you hope it achieves?
A. The end of the Cold War was unfortunately treated by the United States in a high-handed manner as victory over Russia. This is where the hubris comes in. But those in the White House also feared losing their premier status, being kicked out of Europe as they were obviously no longer vital for the defence of the continent. So, instead, they focused on being the only superpower, using NATO to sustain dominance in Europe and beyond. Instead of ‘walking softly while carrying a big stick’, they chose to “stride the world as a colossus”.