Russia, France, and the Idea of Europe (review)

This book provides a description and analysis of the shifting Soviet and then Russian views of Western Europe, focusing specifically on Moscow's perceptions of France. The period covered, from 1958 to 2001, witnessed profound historical change, including the construction of the Berlin Wall, the breach of it 28 years later, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Julie Newton analyses the evolution of Soviet and Russian perceptions and traces how Soviet and Russian policy changed toward the West. The central thesis of the book—that ideas both reflect and shape foreign policy—is difficult to dispute.

"Ideational factors, so often regarded as mere ancillary forces in international relations," Newton writes, "should not be given short shrift when trying to explain international change. Tracing the intellectual evolution of Soviet/Russian European policy over 40 years through which the prism of Franco-Russian relations revealed the vast extent to which shifts in beliefs, ideas and identity helped to change . . . the substance and form of Moscow's Westpolitik" (p. 248).

The book is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the post-Stalin period from 1958 to 1985. Newton discusses how the emergence of Gaullism and the increasingly independent role of France helped to spur the inception of the Soviet Union's détente policy. Newton includes the period under François Mitterand in this section, though that period represents more discontinuity in Soviet analysis than she implies. The second part deals with Mikhail Gorbachevs revolution from 1985 to 1991. Newton treats France here most effectively as a symbol in Soviet rethinking about Europe. The final part briefly discusses the post-Soviet era from 1991 to 2001. Newton describes the emergence of Russian foreign policy as something akin to a Russian version of Gaullism.

Newton argues that Vladimir Putin's Russia could not do without France for three interrelated reasons. First, she believes that France's ability to shape the military policy of the European Union (EU) is an important consideration for the Russians. Second, France, with one of the largest economies in the world, is an important economic partner for Russia. Third, "because France was the only major Western power that, like Russia, officially aspired towards a multipolar world (to give these two former great powers a new chance for international influence), France was important to Russia's quest to bolster the pillars of a future multipolar international structure" (p. 245).

The most interesting part of the book is part two, where Newton recounts the debates of the Gorbachev years. She identifies the various factions within the Soviet intellectual elite that analyzed both the evolution of Soviet policy toward France (and the West more generally) and the nature of their own society. Newton focuses on the ideational debates during this period, but she places less emphasis on the relationship of those debates to the increasingly profound and crucial debates about the future of reform within the Soviet Union itself. She ably discusses the evolving shift in the Soviet paradigm examining Western Europe. Less interesting is the final chapter briefly looking at the emergence of the Russian state and the view of Russian analysts of France and Western Europe.

The Mitterrand period was a time of fascinating change in- France's position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. The Euromissile crisis in the late 1970s and early 1980s induced the French president to offer strong support for U.S. policy in Europe, and it prompted his intervention in West German politics to support deployment of U.S. missiles. This development was not anticipated by Soviet officials and analysts, who had difficulty understanding why the French were shifting their European policy. Mitterrand was an old-style Europeanist who wanted Germany anchored in the West, and this meant that he would not be a strong supporter of unification. But here, too, French policy proved to be at odds with Gorbachev's own policy.

The book is weakened by its incomplete analysis of the central role of German unification within the Soviet and...