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AS RUSSIAN TANKS ROLL, EUROPE REASSESSES
By Judy Dempsey
New York Times
August 15, 2008
United States
News Analysis
BERLIN -- The Russian tanks rumbling across parts of Georgia are
forcing a fundamental reassessment of strategic interests across
Europe in a way not considered since the fall of the Berlin Wall in
November 1989 and the subsequent collapse of Communism.
Skip to next paragraph Related News Analysis: No Cold War, but Big
Chill (August 16, 2008) For nearly two decades, European capitals in
concert with Washington have encouraged liberalization in lands once
firmly under the Soviet aegis. Now, they find themselves asking a
question barely posed in all those years: How far will or can Russia
go, and what should the response be?
The answer will play out not just in the European Union, but also
along its new eastern frontier, in once obscure places like Moldova
and Azerbaijan.
Already, French leaders, acting on behalf of Europe, have firmly told
the Russians they cannot insist on the ouster of Georgia's president,
Mikheil Saakashvili, as a precondition for a cease-fire.
Farther west, in Poland, a long-stalled negotiation on stationing
parts of a United States missile defense system was quickly wrapped
up, as American negotiators on Thursday dropped resistance to giving
the Poles advanced Patriot missiles.
The Poles, of course, had their own security in mind. "Poland wants
to be in alliances where assistance comes in the very first hours
of -- knock on wood -- any possible conflict," Prime Minister Donald
Tusk said.
"The reality is that international relations are changing," said
Pawel Swieboda, director of demosEUROPA, an independent research
organization based in Warsaw. "For the first time since 1991, Russia
has used military force against a sovereign state in the post-Soviet
area. The world will not be the same. A new phenomenon is unfolding
in front or our eyes: a re-emerging power that is willing to use force
to guarantee its interests. The West does not know how to respond."
At stake 20 years ago was whether the Kremlin, then under Mikhail
Gorbachev, would intervene militarily to stop the collapse of
Communism. But Mr. Gorbachev chose to cut Eastern Europe free as
he focused -- in vain -- on preventing the collapse of the Soviet
Union itself.
Communist bloc lands from the Baltic States in the north to Bulgaria
in the south have since joined the European Union and NATO -- a feat,
despite flaws, that in the Western view has made the continent more
secure and democratic.
But Russia never liked the expansion of NATO. In the 1990s, it was
too weak to resist; today, in the Caucasus, Russia is showing off its
power and sending an unmistakable message: Georgia, or a much larger
Ukraine, will never be allowed to join NATO.
The implications of Russia's action reverberate well beyond that,
from the European Union's muddled relations with a crucial energy
supplier, Russia, through Armenia and Azerbaijan in the south and east,
to Ukraine and Moldova in the west.
This region has everything that the West and Russia covet and
abhor: immense reserves of oil and gas, innumerable ethnic splits
and tensions, corrupt and authoritarian governments, pockets of
territory that have become breeding grounds or havens for Islamic
fundamentalists. As a result, the region has become the arena for
competition between the Americans and Europeans on one hand, and
Russia on the other, over how to bring these countries into their
respective spheres of influence.
The European Union -- as ever, slow and divided -- has offered few
concrete proposals to bring the countries of what Russia calls its
"near abroad" -- Belarus, Ukraine, the Caucasus and the Caspian --
closer to Europe. Analysts say the 27 member states have not been
able to separate their view of Russia from adopting a clear strategy
toward the former Soviet republics on the union's new eastern borders.
"The Georgia crisis shows that Russia is in the process of testing
how far it can go," said Niklas Nilsson of the Central Asia-Caucasus
Institute in Stockholm. "This is part of a much bigger geopolitical
game. It is time for the Europeans to decide what kind of influence
it wants in the former Soviet states. That is the biggest strategic
challenge the E.U. now faces."
NATO, led by the United States and several Eastern European countries,
has reached out more actively. At a summit meeting in Bucharest,
Romania, in April, Georgia and Ukraine failed to get on a concrete
path to membership as they had sought, but did secure a promise of
being admitted eventually.
Georgia and its supporters say that NATO membership would have
protected Georgians from Russian tanks. Western European diplomats
by contrast note with relief that Georgia is not in NATO, and thus
they were not required to come to its defense.
The newly resurgent Russians, buoyed by oil and gas wealth and the
firm leadership of Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, have played
their hand with less hesitation.
Tomas Valasek, the Slovak-born director of foreign policy and defense
at the Center for European Reform in London, says Russia has used
the ethnic and territorial card to persuade some NATO countries that
admitting Ukraine or Georgia would prove more dangerous and unstable
than keeping them out. Georgia's incursion Aug. 7 into South Ossetia
serves both these Russian arguments, as well as Moscow's passionate
objections to the West's support for an independent Kosovo.
Recognize Kosovo's break with Serbia, Mr. Putin warned last spring,
and Russia will feel entitled to do the same with South Ossetia and
Georgia's other breakaway enclave, Abkhazia -- where Mr. Putin needs
stability to realize his cherished project of the 2014 Winter Olympics
in nearby Sochi.
Ukraine, bigger than France and traditionally seen by Russians as
integral to their heritage and dominion, has been conspicuously
quiet over the past week. Senior Ukrainian officials say that the
weak European Union response on Georgia will only embolden Russia
to focus even more on Ukraine, where many inhabitants speak Russian
and, particularly in the eastern half, look to Moscow, not Kiev,
for leadership.
"The crisis in Georgia has clear implications for regional security,
and of course Ukraine," said Hryhoriy Nemyria, deputy prime minister
of Ukraine, who is responsible for European integration. "This crisis
makes crystal clear that the security vacuums that have existed in
the post-Soviet space remain dangerous."
From: Baghdasarian
By Judy Dempsey
New York Times
August 15, 2008
United States
News Analysis
BERLIN -- The Russian tanks rumbling across parts of Georgia are
forcing a fundamental reassessment of strategic interests across
Europe in a way not considered since the fall of the Berlin Wall in
November 1989 and the subsequent collapse of Communism.
Skip to next paragraph Related News Analysis: No Cold War, but Big
Chill (August 16, 2008) For nearly two decades, European capitals in
concert with Washington have encouraged liberalization in lands once
firmly under the Soviet aegis. Now, they find themselves asking a
question barely posed in all those years: How far will or can Russia
go, and what should the response be?
The answer will play out not just in the European Union, but also
along its new eastern frontier, in once obscure places like Moldova
and Azerbaijan.
Already, French leaders, acting on behalf of Europe, have firmly told
the Russians they cannot insist on the ouster of Georgia's president,
Mikheil Saakashvili, as a precondition for a cease-fire.
Farther west, in Poland, a long-stalled negotiation on stationing
parts of a United States missile defense system was quickly wrapped
up, as American negotiators on Thursday dropped resistance to giving
the Poles advanced Patriot missiles.
The Poles, of course, had their own security in mind. "Poland wants
to be in alliances where assistance comes in the very first hours
of -- knock on wood -- any possible conflict," Prime Minister Donald
Tusk said.
"The reality is that international relations are changing," said
Pawel Swieboda, director of demosEUROPA, an independent research
organization based in Warsaw. "For the first time since 1991, Russia
has used military force against a sovereign state in the post-Soviet
area. The world will not be the same. A new phenomenon is unfolding
in front or our eyes: a re-emerging power that is willing to use force
to guarantee its interests. The West does not know how to respond."
At stake 20 years ago was whether the Kremlin, then under Mikhail
Gorbachev, would intervene militarily to stop the collapse of
Communism. But Mr. Gorbachev chose to cut Eastern Europe free as
he focused -- in vain -- on preventing the collapse of the Soviet
Union itself.
Communist bloc lands from the Baltic States in the north to Bulgaria
in the south have since joined the European Union and NATO -- a feat,
despite flaws, that in the Western view has made the continent more
secure and democratic.
But Russia never liked the expansion of NATO. In the 1990s, it was
too weak to resist; today, in the Caucasus, Russia is showing off its
power and sending an unmistakable message: Georgia, or a much larger
Ukraine, will never be allowed to join NATO.
The implications of Russia's action reverberate well beyond that,
from the European Union's muddled relations with a crucial energy
supplier, Russia, through Armenia and Azerbaijan in the south and east,
to Ukraine and Moldova in the west.
This region has everything that the West and Russia covet and
abhor: immense reserves of oil and gas, innumerable ethnic splits
and tensions, corrupt and authoritarian governments, pockets of
territory that have become breeding grounds or havens for Islamic
fundamentalists. As a result, the region has become the arena for
competition between the Americans and Europeans on one hand, and
Russia on the other, over how to bring these countries into their
respective spheres of influence.
The European Union -- as ever, slow and divided -- has offered few
concrete proposals to bring the countries of what Russia calls its
"near abroad" -- Belarus, Ukraine, the Caucasus and the Caspian --
closer to Europe. Analysts say the 27 member states have not been
able to separate their view of Russia from adopting a clear strategy
toward the former Soviet republics on the union's new eastern borders.
"The Georgia crisis shows that Russia is in the process of testing
how far it can go," said Niklas Nilsson of the Central Asia-Caucasus
Institute in Stockholm. "This is part of a much bigger geopolitical
game. It is time for the Europeans to decide what kind of influence
it wants in the former Soviet states. That is the biggest strategic
challenge the E.U. now faces."
NATO, led by the United States and several Eastern European countries,
has reached out more actively. At a summit meeting in Bucharest,
Romania, in April, Georgia and Ukraine failed to get on a concrete
path to membership as they had sought, but did secure a promise of
being admitted eventually.
Georgia and its supporters say that NATO membership would have
protected Georgians from Russian tanks. Western European diplomats
by contrast note with relief that Georgia is not in NATO, and thus
they were not required to come to its defense.
The newly resurgent Russians, buoyed by oil and gas wealth and the
firm leadership of Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, have played
their hand with less hesitation.
Tomas Valasek, the Slovak-born director of foreign policy and defense
at the Center for European Reform in London, says Russia has used
the ethnic and territorial card to persuade some NATO countries that
admitting Ukraine or Georgia would prove more dangerous and unstable
than keeping them out. Georgia's incursion Aug. 7 into South Ossetia
serves both these Russian arguments, as well as Moscow's passionate
objections to the West's support for an independent Kosovo.
Recognize Kosovo's break with Serbia, Mr. Putin warned last spring,
and Russia will feel entitled to do the same with South Ossetia and
Georgia's other breakaway enclave, Abkhazia -- where Mr. Putin needs
stability to realize his cherished project of the 2014 Winter Olympics
in nearby Sochi.
Ukraine, bigger than France and traditionally seen by Russians as
integral to their heritage and dominion, has been conspicuously
quiet over the past week. Senior Ukrainian officials say that the
weak European Union response on Georgia will only embolden Russia
to focus even more on Ukraine, where many inhabitants speak Russian
and, particularly in the eastern half, look to Moscow, not Kiev,
for leadership.
"The crisis in Georgia has clear implications for regional security,
and of course Ukraine," said Hryhoriy Nemyria, deputy prime minister
of Ukraine, who is responsible for European integration. "This crisis
makes crystal clear that the security vacuums that have existed in
the post-Soviet space remain dangerous."
From: Baghdasarian