The limits of European "Soft Power"

EU has always put forward their so called soft power as their first mesure in their foreign policy making. It is often described as the ideal use of power by western democracies, the use of positive powers, such as free trade and win-win situations should prevail over hard powers such as threats and use of military power. Lately, the Swedish Euro-politician Gunnar Hökmark defended this view in an article in Svenska Dagbladet: http://www.svd.se/opinion/brannpunkt/vast-maste-nu-vanda-ryssland-ryggen_3320908.svd.

Now, during the intence crise with Russia and Ukraine, we can evaluate that this strategy has some major weak points. EU has the last years tried to persuade Ukraine to become a part of the European framwork with this kind of soft powers. For Ukraine, it is sure that this kind of "warm" diplomacy always is to prefer in front of the russian "cold" diplomacy. This has made EU to become the worlds largest market and by far the worls largests associate market if we include all their associated territory such as the eastern partnership. Even Russia would, in fact, has more in economic terms to win on a free-trade agreement between EU and Ukraine as this would make Ukraine as a bridge between russian and european goods and services. But this also has a major deficit: If you use soft power to persuade other countries to be a part of your club, in this case the EU and its free trade agreements, then you also reduce your real hard power in an eventual conflict between EU and other states. A very accurate example of this problem is the issue with Germany, today described in world press such as in Le Monde by Frédéric Lemaître. The main problem is that Germany does not want to put economical sanctions against Russia, as the country has a major industry linked to import of russian oil and gaz. Germany has the strongest tradition of this soft-powers in post-war Europe. Thus, economical prosparity through soft power has its price is crises like the one with Ukraine. 

We can not avoid conflicts, and therefor the strategy of EU:s soft power only works when you are dealing with countries that has the same geopolitical interests as your own. In the case of dealing with Russia this is a main deficit, and that is why the EU are trapped in a cage by Vladimir Putins hard, brutal power. Europe can not ignore this problem, but has to seriously to think about how to become more serious on a diplomatic stage. The Europen soft power has about the same real value for Russia as a bunch of Hippies in a Volkswagen bus. A common European defence is a necessity to be able to attein real legetimacy on the geopolitical stage. Russia don't cares about EU:s soft power. It does not share the view of Europe, nor its fundamental values. The only thing that matters for Russia is to keep Ukraine in its hands as it applies a picture equal to the one of the cold war. For dealing with that we can not have cases like the german when court term economical interest are superiour to the political best in long term. Europe has to reevaluate the legetimacy and use of soft power, or get used to be run over by russian tanks in every single geopolitical conflict.