• English Site
• >World
• >Russia
• >

  Russia and the West: The Cold Peace

Russia and the West The Cold Peace

By Ralf Beste, Uwe Klussmann and Gabor Steingart

Part 2: Western Chauvanism and EU Indecision

And McCain is seizing this opportunity. His war cry is: “We are all Georgians.” Suddenly, he is no longer ruling out the deployment of NATO troops, “if they are required.”

Last Wednesday, McCain sent his wife Cindy as a personal ambassador to the Georgian capital. He has accused his Democratic opponent of being soft on the Russians -- a position that allowed him to score points on two fronts. He has honed his image as a new Cold Warrior, and Obama has slipped back three or four percentage points in all the opinion polls since the Russians invaded Georgia.

McCain’s tough talk has set the tone of the campaign. Obama is pushing -- as is the incumbent President Bush -- for the former Soviet republic to be accepted into NATO and for the missile defense shield to be installed in Poland to intercept Iranian rockets. Obama’s foreign policy advisor Susan Rice says that when it comes to Putin, there is no alternative to Bush’s policies.

All of the leading foreign policy experts among the Democrats are pushing for NATO to end its cooperation with Russia -- from Ambassador Holbrooke to former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and Senator John Kerry, to President Jimmy Carter’s former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. They want to exclude Russia from G-8 summits and block the country’s bid to become a member of the World Trade Organization.

The result has been a rapidly growing cycle of threats and counter-threats that could quickly spiral out of control. “It is amazing how Wilhelmistic chauvinism has infected nearly everyone in Washington,” says sociologist Norman Birnbaum of Georgetown University, referring to the blind enthusiasm for military glory of the Kaiser period in Germany.

Failed to Pacify

The crisis with Russia comes at a time when US foreign policy is plagued by uncertainty. Bush, the warrior, is powerless to act. He commands the largest military machine in the world, and yet no major breakthrough has been achieved in Iraq or Afghanistan. America has occupied these countries, but failed to pacify them.

Bush doesn’t dare open up another military front. In private he was recently asked by a foreign visitor if the military option in Iran really was viable in his opinion, as he emphatically maintains in public. But Bush made a dismissive gesture and said: “You cannot bomb knowledge.”

For their part, the Democrats are uncertain if their much praised power of diplomacy will really be enough to solve world conflicts. Obama says in public that he would seek unconditional talks with the anti-American rulers. However, in confidential talks with Western heads of government -- such as during his recent trip to Europe -- he tends to take a tougher stance. When meeting with Merkel, he did not rule out the possibility, were he to become commander-in-chief, that he would order the US military to carry out strikes against nuclear facilities. An aide to the chancellor later said that Merkel was shocked by Obama’s statement.

On the other hand, the Americans are frustrated with Germany and other Western countries -- with their fear of aggression and radical solutions. The result, so far, has been gridlock and a Western inability to come up with a common position when it comes to Russia and Georgia.

They could not even decide on a common figure. The Americans and the British wanted the foreign ministers of the so-called G-7 group of leading industrialized nations to issue a joint declaration on Russia. It proved a controversial proposal. For the last 10 years, the G-7 has been the G-8 -- Germany, France, the UK, Italy, the US, Japan and Canada, plus Russia.

The Germans and the French strongly objected to the idea of reactivating the old G-7. Berlin argued that a declaration by the Group of Seven would de facto exclude the eighth partner. But the Americans were persistent. There were three phone conferences, and they once even called for an actual meeting. On Wednesday, Paris and Berlin very reluctantly relented. The German foreign office released a joint declaration that the Seven “condemn the actions of our G-8 partner.” But the foreign office neglected to mention that the communiqué was written by the G-7.

Even within the EU it is difficult to agree on a strong joint position. Much of the indecision comes out of the fact that the West -- particularly its European manifestation -- has grown. A number of former Warsaw Pact countries are now a part of the European Union, including the Baltic States, Poland and the Czech Republic. The threat they feel is much different than that felt by countries like Italy and Belgium. They wonder if their new allies would be prepared to die for Tallinn or Prague if the Russians were to march in. They tend to trust the Americans more in this regard -- leading to the fact that the Eastern Europeans generally support the positions of the US over those held by the other Europeans.

Huge Rifts Emerged

At the meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels on Thursday, the positions of the hardliners and moderates clashed. They quickly agreed that they had to reach an agreement and decided to provide massive aid for poor Georgia. It was also clear that the country’s territorial integrity had to be reaffirmed. But as soon as the focus shifted to Russia, huge rifts emerged. The British and Danish representatives called for a suspension of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA). There were also calls to suspend the agreement on easing visa regulations for Russia -- a move that would affect Russian businessmen and diplomats, but also schoolchildren and students.

The French did what wise diplomats always do when the going gets tough: They shelved the issue. Paris said that it would wait until this week to issue a proposal for the summit. It is very possible that this will only contain a feasibility study for the foreign ministers who will meet in Avignon at the end of this week.

Back in mid-August, Javier Solana, Europe’s chief diplomat, was assigned the task of assessing plausible options. His 10-page paper is intended to facilitate a decision at the summit. Essentially, Solana sees three options for an active mission: One possibility would be that of reinforcing the OSCE mission in Georgia. Another would be for the EU to send its own observers to Georgia to monitor the cease-fire.

A particularly robust approach that Solana has put forward would be an armed “EU peacekeeping force.” This would of course require a United Nations mandate, and thus the approval of all parties concerned, including the Russians. And, it is extremely unlikely. There is no legal basis for it and most EU members are not thrilled about the idea.

What’s more, everyone knows that Moscow has its own options for responding should the West resort to sanctions.

Russia is part of the Middle East Quartet, which continues to mediate the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. Furthermore, Moscow has for years reluctantly done its part in using sanctions against Iran to convince Tehran to halt its nuclear program. Since Sept. 11, 2001, Russia has been collaborating with the West in the fight against terror in Afghanistan. What would happen if the Russians were to suddenly stop cooperating because of the conflict with Georgia?

In September, the UN Security Council will vote on whether to extend the ISAF mandate for the stabilization of Afghanistan. A Russian Njet would eliminate the legal basis of the operation, and the German parliament, the Bundestag, could hardly extend its mission for 3,500 soldiers, let alone boost the number of troops to 4,500 as is currently planned. Russia could make it more difficult to supply the troops in the Hindukush by banning NATO military aircraft from flying over its territory.