PRAGUE — Russia's Duma elections this December are almost certain to cement the power of forces loyal to Vladimir Putin. That outcome is likely to confirm Russia's emergence as the most divisive issue in the European Union since former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld split the continent into "old" and "new" Europe.
In the 1990s, EU members found it easy to agree on a common approach to Russia. They coalesced around a strategy of democratizing and Westernizing a weak and indebted Russia. That policy is now in tatters. Soaring oil and gas prices have made Russia more powerful, less cooperative and less interested in joining the West.
Today, Europeans cannot even agree on the nature of the Russian regime, let alone what policy to adopt toward it.