The west’s earlier inaction has exacted a heavy price and now attempts to overcompensate are dangerous
During the more than a decade that I have spent working for foreign policy thinktanks in Europe and the United States, I have been pretty hawkish on China and Russia. At the time when most foreign policy experts on both sides of the Atlantic believed that economic interdependence with China and Russia would turn them into “responsible stakeholders” in the international system, and perhaps even democratise them, I thought a tougher approach was needed. I was a particular critic of Germany, which had gone even further than the rest of Europe (which, in turn, had gone further than the US) in its belief in Wandel durch Handel, or “change through trade”. I criticised Germany’s free riding in security terms, especially its low level of defence spending and inadequate military capabilities and its dependence on Russia for gas and China as an export market. In short, I am neither a pacifist nor someone who equivocates about authoritarian states.
However, since the war in Ukraine started, I have suddenly been out-hawked. As we have all watched the horrible images from Ukraine, outrage has grown about the war crimes being committed by the Russian military. As the calls for us to do more to help the Ukrainian people have become louder, I have found myself on the doveish side of the debate, arguing for de-escalation and ways out rather than further commitments to Ukraine and regime change in Russia.
