CONTENTS Apples of discord I n 2014, analysts and policymakers alike were largely caught by surprise by Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Some of these moves, such as the application of economic and political pressure on Kiev to dissuade it from signing a free- trade agreement with the European Union, hardly constitute new features in Russia’s policies towards the post-soviet space. The annexation of a piece of territory, Crimea, and the conduct of hybrid warfare in the east of the country, do, however. The key issue then is whether these actions are isolated convulsions specific to the context of the Ukraine crisis or, more profoundly, the symptoms of a new direction in Russia’s foreign policy? This question has been ranking high on the agenda of policy-planning units and executive secretariats of national diplomacies and international organisations, all of which have been striving to anticipate Russia’s next move. NATO has been exploring ways to provide strategic reassurance to its eastern member states and to develop tactical responses against new modes of hybrid warfare. Sweden and Finland are contemplating relinquishing their neutral status to join NATO. The EU is likely to see a heated debate between its member states on the prioritisation of the southern or eastern neighbourhoods – both mired in crisis – in allocating the bloc’s limited resource. Finally, the White House will need to decide whether the upcoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford Jr, is right to designate Russia as the greatest threat to US national security. Taking stock of the changes at the heart of Russia’s foreign policy is crucial, in that it allows us to investigate what prompted them and to reflect on the drivers of Russia’s behaviour in regional and international politics. A recent volume, Russia’s Foreign Policy: ideas, domestic politics and external relations, edited by me and LSE Professor Margot Light, set itself the analytical task of opening the black box of Russia’s foreign policy. Our collective analysis shows that recent changes in that country’s foreign policy are above all driven by domestic policy objectives and linked political regime consolidation at home. But what are these foreign policy changes? A first, salient change has to do with Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy discourse. Since the beginning of his third term, the Russian president has embraced a more ideological and more conservative tone, departing from the mainly managerial and largely pragmatic stance that had characterised him until then. His speech of 18 March 2014 on Crimea is, obviously, a paradigm in this regard but the trend goes beyond official speeches. Several Russia-based contributors to the book note a growing ideologisation of the ruling regime around conservative and traditional values. Second, the domestic representation of Europe has changed. Many specific apples of discord had been complicating EU– Russia relations over the last decade but now Europe is increasingly characterised as a cultural foe in itself, whose practices are antithetic to the Russian ethos. Beyond values, EU economic and trade Last year, Russia breached the rule of European security with its annexation of Crimea, leading to the most acute crisis in Russian–Western relations since the end of the Cold War. But what prompted this change in policy? David Cadier sets out why Putin’s drive to consolidate his domestic political regime has spilled over into foreign policy. policies towards the post-soviet space are presented as a geopolitical threat, with Moscow taking counter-measures to oppose them. All in all, Russia’s foreign policy discourse is now marked by a level of animosity towards the EU that was, until a couple of years ago, reserved for NATO. Third, Russia has been more systematic and less compromising in attempting to build a bloc around its interests in the post-soviet space. Regardless of its actual chance of success, the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) – a trade-integration regime which came into force in January 2015 and which reunited Russia and four other post-soviet states, Armenia, Belarus, Ka- zakhstan and Kirghizstan – represents a new instrument as it puts the emphasis on sectorial economic integration and on the harmonisation of regulations rather than on historical legacy or shared po- litical ideology. The EEU is undeniably the most distinctive and most ambitious project of Putin’s third term. These changes in Russia’s foreign policy can be linked to evolutions of the domestic political context in which it is formulated. Already inherent to the very nature of Russia’s political system, regime insecurity and Putin’s personal political insecurity have been augmented by certain external and internal developments. Measures taken in response by the Kremlin to consolidate the domestic political regime have spilled over into foreign policy. “Russia’s political order intrinsically generates insecurity, indeterminacy and short-termism in the conduct of policy” 16 I LSE Connect I Winter 2015 I