Future shock

Russia and the 'West' are headed again into an era characterized by tension and hostility, but the structural environment of the world in 2014 is different than in the Cold War.

The Cold War was a struggle between antagonistic political ideologies embodied in two superpower blocs. The communist ideology of the Soviet Union advocated a global revolution threatening to up-end the liberal democratic and free-market traditions of Europe and the United States.

To be vanquished in the Cold War meant the end of a specific way of life. As such Washington, backed by Western Europe, faced off against the Soviet Union. The conflict between Russia and the West is no longer an existential matter; it is about spheres of influence in Europe and the global balance of power.

More complicated

At first glance this might lead one to believe that the current situation is simpler than the Cold War, in reality it is much more complex.

Russia seeks to preserve a Russo-sphere in Eastern Europe and Central Asia - Ukraine is critical to achieving this objective. The Kremlin worked assiduously to isolate Kiev from the West, first through bribes and rigged elections, and now through an engineered military stand off designed to make Ukraine an allergen for the EU.

The challenge for both the Kremlin, and the West, is that the world is significantly more globalized than during the Cold War. In the Cold War, the economic blocs of the West and the Soviet Union were relatively isolated from each other.

Now, Western money is invested throughout Russia, and Russian money is invested in the West. Moscow's treasury and weakening economy is reliant on commodity sales to Western Europe. Likewise, Western European homes and industries run on natural gas and oil supplied by Russia.

Western unity

The crisis in Crimea portends significant economic consequences for both Russia and the West should the EU and US choose to impose sanctions. This makes America's leadership role more difficult than in the Cold War.

Europe underwrote America's 'empire by invitation' during the Cold War, choosing to support American economic hegemony in exchange for protection from the USSR. Europe was dependent on the US and this led to greater (but by no means monolithic) unity within the West.

Today, Brussels does not fear a direct territorial attack from Moscow, but EU leaders are worried about fragile domestic economies. Therefore, obtaining and maintaining Western unity for a harder line against the Kremlin is inherently more difficult than it was 40 years ago.

Russian leverage

Dependency on Russia, however, is not limited to Russia. The American President must also consider the implications of a deteriorating relationship with the Kremlin on wider US interests, most importantly, the air bridge through Russian airspace into Afghanistan.

The air bridge supplies NATO operations daily, and is critical to the NATO troop draw down now underway. If Russia were to deny the US and NATO access, Washington would find itself between a rock and a very hard place in South Asia.

Some observers are also worried about what Russia might do vis-à-vis Syria and Iran. But since Moscow had no interest in resolving those issues to the benefit of the US even before the invasion of Crimea, this concern should once and for all be removed from the table in White House discussions.

The current international environment is characterized by cooperation and competition, rather than outright hostility and the threat of total annihilation. In many ways the situation now is more akin to the great power politics of the 19th century, characterized by conflict, but also shifting alliances of cooperation.

Grand strategy needed

Grand strategy today is much more necessary than at any time in the last 20 years; sadly it is largely absent in transatlantic discussions over the Crimea crisis.

The US and Europe must take into account their economic and strategic exposure to Russia when responding to the Crimea crisis, but they cannot afford to turn a blind eye to the situation as they did with the Russian annexation of Georgian territory in 2008.

For the last two decades the liberal argument for the ‘integration' of Russia into a liberal international order has won out in American and European policy debates. The time has come, however, to temper integrationist fervor with a healthy dose of political realism.

Beijing is watching

Russia has shown that it is willing to use the existing economic order simply to strengthen its power position in order to facilitate revisionism of the established international order. This sets a dangerous precedent, not in the least because the biggest difference between today and the Cold War is the rise of China.

China has acquiesced, but not endorsed the Euro-Atlantic world order. The interdependency of the US and China is much higher than in the Russian case, but it would be wrong to believe that while this might reduce the likelihood of war in Asia, it eliminates the possibility of it.

The Crimean crisis is a glimpse of the future and not our Cold War past. We might not like what we see, but it would be irresponsible to simply look away.

Michael John Williams is Associate Professor of International Relations at Royal Holloway College, University of London. From May 2014 he will be a DAAD Fellow at the Military Historical Institute in Potsdam. He began learning Russian in Crimea when he was 18 years old.