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Russia’s seat at the table: a place denied or a place delayed?
JONATHAN HASLAM
The simultaneous expansion of NATO and enlargement of the EU raise ques- tions as to the proper place for Russia in Europe. Judging by the statements emanating from both sides of the Atlantic, acknowledgement of Russia’s signal importance to the future of the region is uncontroversial. US Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy Walter Slocombe insists that ‘Russia’s development, both internal and external, is perhaps the central factor in determining the overall fate and future of European security.’ Britain’s new prime minister Tony Blair has reassured one and all that ‘good future cooperation with Russia is vital for Europe’s security’; and Lieutenant-General Wesley Clark, Director for Strategic Plans and Policy, Office of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, tells us that it is ‘the highest requirement of diplomacy, led by the United States, to find the appropriate role for Russia in the security structure of Europe after the end of the Cold War’. Words are not deeds, however.The plain fact is that both the enlargement of NATO and the expansion of the EU relegate Russia to the margins of Europe. For all the casuistry associated with the negotiations sur- rounding both processes, no one has convincingly made the case that either is in Russian interests. Russia itself has, indeed, expressed its dissatisfaction and, in some quarters, outright opposition to what is happening. Does Russia’s obvi- ous present weakness mean that its view does not matter? The question that requires to be addressed first is not how much Russia’s atti- tude matters, but rather what exactly has prompted the move to expand NATO.This is a crucial question, yet it has received very little public discus- sion in either Britain or the United States.The contrast between public silence and private conflict could not be greater. Both Washington and London found their Russian specialists lined up in virtual unanimity, regardless of past
Testimony, April , in The future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): hearing subcommit- tee on Airland Forces of the Committee of Armed Services, US Senate, th Congress, first session, April (Washington DC, ), p. . Speaking July : see Hansard, no. (London, ), col. . Testimony, The future of NATO, p. .
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differences during the Cold War, against those pressing the case for expansion. The views of knowledgeable professionals are, however, for good or ill, seldom decisive in international relations. More than half the art of influencing gov- ernment is the ability to catch and sustain the attention of those in political power. In this instance the receptivity of those in power in Britain and America was not enhanced by the fact that both capitals were distracted by events in the Middle East and Bosnia. As if this were not enough, Downing Street was also beleaguered by the destructive and paralysing issue of EMU membership. In this environment, several factors appear to have overridden more cautious and discerning counsels and prompted the decision in favour of NATO expansion, come what may: first, the evident determination of the countries of central and eastern Europe to enter NATO; second, Bonn’s desire to curtail its own freedom of choice in foreign policy through an extension of an integrated European security structure so as to reassure anxious neighbours; third, NATO’s concern to perpetuate its own existence; and, last but by no means least, the pressure of US domestic politics. The collapse of Soviet power in the wake of the coup against Gorbachev in August ended the international system brought into being by the allies in . In the West it was never intended that Russia be marginalized from that system. On the contrary, it was rightly assumed that Moscow’s support would be essential to any arrangements made. That assumption was not merely a natural concomitant of sentiment arising from Moscow’s critical contribution to victory over Nazi Germany, but was based upon a realistic assessment of the enormous preponderance of Soviet military power. Precisely what Russia’s role would be was not agreed upon, not least because the Russians themselves gave no clear oral or written indications of their true intentions, though their behaviour almost as soon as Soviet troops entered Poland, Bulgaria and Romania in the summer and autumn of had already given rise to serious concern.Views in the West as to what could be expected varied. Optimists like E. H. Carr, writing Times leaders from the lofty vantage-point of Printing House Square, blindly argued for a division of Europe into spheres of influence, the easy assumption being that Moscow had dropped its ideological commitments and was prepared to act in the manner of ‘normal’ Great Powers—no better, but no worse.This somehow made the prospect of Soviet hegemony over the countries of eastern Europe, some of which had played a willing hand in Hitler’s game, more palatable to its advocates. The kind of influence envisaged was more that of the United States over Canada or Mexico, or of Britain over Greece, than what actually occurred. Stalin and Molotov’s view was not at all that envisaged by Carr in London, Walter Lippman in Washington or, indeed, Maxim Litvinov in Moscow. Colonization might more accurately describe that tragic and often brutal process. To those who suffered as a result, the argument that Russia, after defeat in the Cold War, should be readmitted and reincorporated into the twenty-first cen- tury’ s equivalent of the Concert of Europe naturally seems not only an affront
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but dangerously naive—though in present circumstances they will not say so publicly,at least not in English.They argue that Russia is not properly a part of Europe; yet ironically, the insistence in Warsaw—accepted by the West—that Poland is a central European and not an east European state does not lend much credence to this line of approach: if the Poles are in central Europe, what exactly constitutes eastern Europe? Soviet tanks on departure left behind not only pools of polluting fuel but equally noxious memories. It is therefore only to be expected that self-respecting representatives of formerly subjugated nations should demand maximum protection against their one-time masters. That is why they have always been so eager to join NATO. Poland’ s foreign minister Andrzej Olechowski told the Frankfurter Rundschau on January : ‘We are not afraid of Russia, but of objective situations that could provoke her to behave in a way threatening to Poland. Such a situation is the security vac- uum that now exists in Central Europe.’And Olechowski was naturally partic- ularly alert to the ‘signals of imperial thinking’ flashing from Moscow during the Chechnya crisis. Germany, being so close to these countries, is corre- spondingly sensitive to such feelings.‘It is important to acknowledge’, noted Karsten Voigt, SPD spokesman on foreign affairs and President of the North Atlantic Assembly,‘that a primary reason for countries of Central and Eastern Europe to seek membership of the Alliance is to secure its protective mantle.’ We should not delude ourselves as to the stark reality of such fears, however misplaced they may be. The second factor explains an otherwise cryptic comment from Voigt that ‘there is a conceptual linkage between the enlargement of the EU and of NATO’ and that ‘enlargement of NATO and the EU will complete Germany’ s multilateral integration, already carried out in the West.’ Further elucidation can be found in a CDU–CSU policy paper of :
Now that the East–West conflict has come to an end, a stable order must be found for the eastern half of the continent, too.This is in the interest of Germany in particular since, owing to its position, it would suffer the effects of instability in the East more quickly and directly than others.The only solution which will prevent a return to the unstable pre-war system, with Germany once again caught in the middle between East and West, is to integrate Germany’s central and eastern neighbors into the West European post-war system and to establish a wide-ranging partnership between this system and Russia. Never again must there be a destabilising vacuum of power in Central Europe. If Western European integration were not to progress, Germany
For evidence of this in public opinion polls, see G. Cunningham,‘ EU and NATO enlargement: how public opinion is shaping up in some candidate countries’, NATO Review (webedition) : , May–June ,pp.–. New York Times, Oct. . K.Voigt,‘ NATO enlargement: sustaining the momentum’, NATO Review (webedition) : , March ,pp.–. Ibid.
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might be called upon, or be tempted by its own security constraints, to try to effect the stabilization of Eastern Europe on its own and in the traditional way.8
The idea that Hitler’s aggression can be explained in such forgiving terms takes one’s breath away. Clearly the authors of the document did not believe Germany was really a victim in the s, since their entire philosophy may be summed up as a strategy for self-containment designed precisely to prevent a repetition of such events. ‘A long-term bilaterally oriented policy on the part of Germany towards its partners in Eastern and Central Europe would proba- bly very soon cause the same old problems of imbalance which existed in the past,’ Voigt argues. Multilateralism is thus seen as the only way; hence his con- clusion, though he readily acknowledges that this does not entirely transform the traditional conduct of international relations.‘This multilateralism can also be an instrument of political power,’he writes.‘However, it is one whose means of damaging the interest of all other partners in favour of just one is limited.’ The enlargement of NATO and the expansion of the EU, however, if designed at least in part to contain the exercise of preponderant power in Germany, are to be limited to encompass only those states of eastern Europe unlikely to be able to counterbalance that power within either organization. The only power which could effectively keep Germany safely in line over the longer term is Russia—for all the fine words, the very power most definitely excluded from both organizations.The paradoxical nature of German policy on enlargement thus stands exposed. And surely the United States would scarcely welcome the emergence of a geschlossenen Handelsstaat like the European Union stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific? Reading transcripts of Senate hear- ings, one most certainly gets the impression that US politicians remain deeply suspicious of Russia, regardless of the momentous changes of . The third factor—NATO’ s survival—requires on the face of it little expla- nation.Any organization wishes to perpetuate itself.This case, though, is slight- ly more complicated than it may seem. Certain figures have played a notable role in a game that might well otherwise have ended in defeat. Former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs Richard Holbrooke was the most forceful advocate of enlargement. At one point he argued that enlargement was essential to sustain NATO.‘The threat is gone’, he stated in .‘I believe that if we left NATO unchanged in its present configuration, it would become irrelevant.’ Two and a half years later, in September he argued, rather differently, that NATO enlargement had been seized upon as a
Quoted by Robert Zoellik in, NATO’s future: problems, threats, and US interests: hearings before the Subcommittee on European Affairs of the Committee of Foreign Relations, US Senate, th Congress, first ses- sion, April and May (Washington DC, ), p. . K.Voigt,‘German interest in multilateralism’, Aussenpolitik : , ,pp.–. Testimony, March , in Overview of US policy in Europe: hearing before the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, th Congress, first session (Washington DC, ), p. .
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means of ensuring the security of eastern Europe in the absence of action by the EU:‘Almost a decade has gone by since the Berlin Wall fell and, instead of reaching out to Central Europe, the European Union turned toward a bizarre search for a common currency. So NATO enlargement had to fill the void.’ The problem with having two entirely different and purportedly exclusive explanations for the same policy is that neither carries any conviction. Some agreed with the basis for Holbrooke’s first explanation, but differed in the con- clusions drawn. Straight-talking Arnold Horelick of RAND told the US Senate that the end of the Cold War had left NATO in a state of torpor and that in ‘the presence of this conceptual vacuum, virtually the entire burden of reviv- ing NATO has been laid on enlargement.‘Frankly,’ he concluded,‘this burden is a lot heavier than enlargement can bear.’ Were this an isolated factor unsupported by any other, expansion would have been unlikely to follow. But in Europe itself, the traumatic experience of the Cold War years has left the Germans and the British, in particular, deeply ner- vous at the prospect of the United States withdrawing from Europe as it did in and again in , requiring a great effort to pull it back in on each occa- sion (in – and –). As Blair told the House of Commons in , ‘one of the purposes of NATO is to bind the Americans and the Europeans more closely together.’ It might better be said that for London the only pur- pose of NATO is to keep the Americans in Europe.The growing isolationist sentiments in US public opinion, only too evident in the election of Bill Clinton and the experience of persistent US indifference to the fact of Bosnia (partly a legacy of the Bush administration), underline the threat of eventual withdrawal from Europe.The fourth factor—the US domestic political scene— was thus decisive. On July NATO invited Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary to open talks for accession. A day later the British prime minister described the admission of the Visegrad countries as ‘a key objective of both the previous Government and this Government’. The fact is that NATO, London includ- ed, has been landed with a policy that the US government foisted upon it against its better judgement in the face of opposition from within the admin- istration from those with some knowledge of these matters.The well-informed correspondent for Die Zeit, Christoph Bertram, tells us that the final step towards enlargement was ‘less the result of a consistent, carefully thought- through strategy than of a combination of fits and starts’. Pressure for enlarge- ment from Bonn (notably defence minister Volker Rühe) and eastern Europe (above all Poland) led to a split within the Clinton administration in the
International Herald Tribune, Sept. . Testimony to the Senate, in NATO’ s future,p.. Hansard,no. (London, ), col. . Hansard,no. (London, ), col. . C. Bertram,‘ Why NATO must enlarge’, NATO Review, (webedition) : , March ,pp.–.
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autumn of . Both National Security Adviser Anthony Lake and Secretary of State Warren Christopher favoured enlargement. Christopher reversed his position in October of that year when Strobe Talbott, then ambassador at large for the former Soviet Union but named as Christopher’ s forthcoming Deputy Secretary, produced a memorandum denouncing the process. The victory of the extremist Zhirinovsky in the Russian parliamentary elections on December then widened the gap between the opponents of enlargement and its advocates, since the prospect of extreme Russian nationalism so close to power simultaneously frightened the doubters into seeking to slow the entire process for fear of making matters in Moscow worse and Russia’s panicky neighbours into seeking a hasty resolution of their security anxieties. The half-way house that was constructed to placate all sides was a quintes- sentially British invention: Partnership for Peace (PfP), described by a senior US diplomat as ‘a very skilful compromise between people who said we should do nothing to offend the Russians, and people who said we should let the East Europeans in now’. PfP opened channels for contact with NATO to both the east Europeans and the Russians, neatly paving the way for entry for the former but not for the latter. It was an unsustainable compromise on the grounds that you cannot fool all the people all the time. The proponents of enlargement came cynically to regard PfP as Policy for Postponement—which was, of course, what the British, more attentive to specialist opinion and in no need of appeasing central–eastern Europe, always intended it to be. Christopher was weak and burdened with the unhappy distinction of being the only Secretary of State ever called on by that pro-American journal The Economist to resign. Talbott, always an outsider and never entirely sure of his judgement, remained a featherweight in a welterwight contest. So it was not long before the fact of future enlargement was established. The issue then became one of timing.The energetic and ebullient Holbrooke had been per- suaded by the German case for enlargement when ambassador in Bonn.A man of no greater acuity of mind but much greater physical presence than either Christopher or Talbott, he is said to have talked Clinton into making haste by speaking the only language the President really understood: votes. With elec- tion in sight, the argument made was that nearly million Americans of east European descent were most heavily concentrated in states accounting for electoral votes. Moreover, of these states, Michigan, Ohio and New Jersey were pivotal to the entire process. This was December . The counter-
New York Times, Jan. . New York Times, Jan. . This comes from a reliable source who remains anonymous. Reference to Holbrooke’ s ‘ Herculean efforts’ in this direction appears in Senator Richard Lugar’s opening remarks to his hearings on NATO expansion: NATO’ s future,p.. For the figures see J. Rosner,‘The American public, Congress and NATO enlargement. Part II.Will Congress back admitting new members?’, NATO Review (webedition) : , January . For the timing, see testimony of Arnold Horelick of RAND, formerly National Intelligence Officer for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, in NATO’ s future,p..
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advice from such luminaries and old Cold War hands as John Foster Dulles’ former chief assistant Bob Bowie, veteran statesman and author of NSC- Paul Nitze, and leading former ambassadors to Moscow George Kennan and Jack Matlock was all to no avail in the face of such pressing considerations to a president who always regarded foreign affairs as an irritating intrusion into the proper purpose of government (re-election). If one had to create a security structure from scratch for Europe, one would certainly not come up with NATO, whose entire raison d’ être has vanished. There is no imminent or impending Russian military threat.The Russians are absorbed in the catastrophic collapse of empire, the management of a new democracy and the breakthrough into a market economy. It is the last of these processes and its consequences, future economic growth, which will ultimate- ly determine how much influence or power the Russians are likely to have over their neighbours to the west. Should the rouble become a very hard currency on the back of a healthy economy based on a massive domestic market and immense reserves of national resources, no amount of NATO armour or fire- power will avail countries like Poland in a contest of financial strength trans- muted into political influence.As financier George Soros has pointed out with respect to the states of eastern Europe: ‘to give them armies and military alliances misconstrues the threat.’ At present, however, Moscow’ s economic muscle is patently flabby. Since the mid-s when it began to totter, the Russian economy has been in free fall, and only now does it appear that bot- tom has finally been reached.The worst, it seems, is over. Production crashed and inflation reached a peak of per cent per annum in ; now it has dropped to about per cent. In the rapid reform that outpaced even that of Poland, the larger part of the economy is now privatized. Estimates of eco- nomic growth vary,not least because widespread tax evasion ensures that some- thing between per cent and per cent of economic activity goes unrecord- ed. Bearing this in mind, recent figures for GDP suggest that economic decline has flattened out, with industrial production on the increase for the first time. The enormous increases in the price of Russian shares—approaching per cent over two years—have come about in anticipation of that growth. Granted, the shape of economic reform is scarcely a model of moral probity. Russia’s is now an economy dominated by seven banking houses (the seven- bankirshchina) in unholy collusion with semi-feudal remnants of the old state apparatus.Yet we should not hasten to be too judgemental. Comparisons with
For the letter to Christopher from these and other former ambassadors, dated May , see New York Review of Books, Sept. ,p.. George Soros,‘Can Europe work? A plan to rescue the Union’, Foreign Affairs : , Sept–Oct. ,p. . See e.g. M. Feldstein,‘ Russia rebirth’, Wall Street Journal Europe, Sept. . Mr Feldstein, from Harvard, was formerly chairman of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Estimates vary; but at least one major fund manager in the region estimates growth of . per cent in GDP for , as against an estimate of per cent by the IMF: ING Barings, Emerging Europe strategy, third quarter ,p..
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the deeply corrupted but highly successful life of Georgian England during industrialization, Upton Sinclair’s famous description of the United States in the roaring s or, indeed, the bootlegging era of Coolidge and Hoover, let alone the Italy and Japan of our own time, would not go entirely amiss. The gap between Russian economic aspirations and EU perceptions is still wide, however, even though some unkind commentator might point out that the French economy now looks more centralized than contemporary Russia, and is not Germany now being sued for illegally subsidizing its coal produc- tion? Early in July Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin travelled to Brussels to plead with the EU to end discrimination against Russian exports. Duties levied against Moscow have in recent years included per cent on ferro-silicon in , per cent on calcium metal in and per cent on unwrought magnesium in . Chernomyrdin claims the cost of these bar- riers amounts to $ billion a year; the EU claims the figure is only $ mil- lion. The Americans have been as bad. But it is not so much the precise amount of the barriers as the attitude of mind behind them which sits uneasi- ly with the honeyed words about future cooperation with Russia. It is the EU definition of the Russian economy as still centrally planned which legitimizes the imposition and maintenance of heavy quotas on Russian exports west- wards.The extent and acuteness of Moscow’s frustration were only too evident when Chernomyrdin met Jacques Santer at the European Commission. His remarks came as a shock to all, exacerbated by the peremptory tone in which they were uttered:‘We will do everything so that Russia becomes a member of the EU. For us this is important. And Russia will be a member of the EU.’ Having thus dumbfounded his audience, Chernomyrdin went on to make explicit the central point at issue:‘The question of granting Russia the status of a country with a market economy—that is the central question of the meet- ing.’ Britain and France took years to recover from the gradual loss of empire. Some in both countries have yet to recover from the trauma.When Moscow lost its empire, not only did this occur in the briefest possible time, but the state itself retreated to the frontiers prevailing before Catherine the Great seized the Crimea and divided Poland.When tsarist Russia suffered a humiliating defeat in the Crimean War (–), not least due to its economic backwardness, Alexander II determined that the empire should bend all its efforts towards domestic reconstruction. He began by instituting a policy of glasnost—giving Gorbachev a precedent to follow over a century later. He liberated the serfs. And the newly appointed foreign minister, Prince Alexander Gorchakov (–), instructed ambassadors in a famous circular on August : ‘The emperor has decided in preference to focus his anxieties on the well-
Leader,‘Russia needs a friend’, Wall Street Journal Europe, Aug. . Quoted in K. Smirnov and V.Dorofeev,‘Rossiya prositsya v Evropu—Skazano: ES!’, Kommersant,no. (), July ,p..
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being of his subjects and to concentrate his activity on the development of the domestic resources of the country, which will be directed towards foreign affairs only when Russia’s interests require it without reservation.’ Like other reforming tsars, however,Alexander was eventually assassinated for his pains. Let us hope Yeltsin does not suffer the same fate. For although no such circular ever appears to have been sent to Russian missions abroad since , the thrust of policy is the same. It is a policy based on weakness and designed precisely to remedy that weakness so that the policy will eventually become a distant if unhappy memory. In Gorchakov’s time, the European state system was inter- nally divided, and the Russians could content themselves with winning over Prussia and playing it off against the rest, at least until Prussia became Germany and Germany ditched Bismarck. In the existing system no such option exists. The idea of drawing China in to counterbalance the rest is a pipe-dream that will only emphasize Moscow’s desperation to avert isolation. Japan is not a potential contender for the role because Russia’s damaged dignity will not per- mit it to accept the loss of further territory by signing a peace treaty on terms acceptable to the Japanese. The Americans are all in favour of expanding NATO and the EU.And Europe itself is drawing together without so much as a by-your-leave from Russia. In the nineteenth century, Gorchakov’s line was further elaborated by Nikolai Danilevskii, the only slavophile to elucidate the impact on international relations of a different path of development. In he published Russia and Europe, which focused on relations between the slavic world and what Danilevskii called the ‘German–Roman’ world. ‘The fact is’, he wrote, ‘that Europe does not recognize us as it own.’ Danilevskii argued that Europe excluded Russia and thereby placed Russia in opposition to Europe. In the s there were two alternative lines of thought, of which Danilevskii represented one.Today there are two Russias.There is the one we have known all too long, xenophobic, secretive, bureaucratic, sclerotic and, for these and other reasons, a potential threat to the other: a Russia characterized by democracy, the free market and good relations with its neighbours. It is the first Russia that has provoked the countries of east and central Europe into seeking speedy integration into NATO and the EU.This Russia is not only lit- erally the ageing Russia, it is also a house divided and semi-paralysed by the sheer impossibility of reversing (even by force) into even the more recent past. Against the gloomy backdrop of this inert mass, the new Russia is not only younger (the entrepreneurs at the top are largely men in their thirties) more cosmopolitan, less politically hidebound and more open-minded, but also by nature indefatigably dynamic and ambitious to increase its wealth. It is greed that fuels the new Russia’s passage westwards, and which ultimately makes NATO expansion useless for the security of central and eastern Europe.
From the foreign policy archives of Russia: quoted at length in S. Bushuev, A. M. Gorchakov (Moscow, ), p. . N. Danilevskii, Rossiya i Evropa: vzlyad’ na kulturnyya I politicheskaya otnosheniya Slavianskago mira k’ Germano-Romanskomu, th edn (St Petersburg, ), p. .
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Not only does NATO expansion leave the region insecure, but it also threat- ens to make it more insecure, because of its impact on the delicate balance of opinion within Russia. Democracy in Russia is still on probation and the mar- ket has yet to deliver all the goods (in particular stable employment). It has become customary in the West to consider democracy and the market as two sides of the same coin.The two examples of Chile under Pinochet and China after the Tiananmen massacre underline the fact that movement towards the market, in Chile’s case to an extreme degree, does not necessarily entail democ- racy,even if ultimately a successful market is the essential precondition of a sus- tainable democracy.One can conceive of Zhirinovsky and Lebed heading such a regime. Lebed maintains economic advisers of both complexions (market and planning), while Zhirinovsky has in the past appealed (certainly in private meetings) to both camps. An intensification of Russia’s isolation from outside, complicating the situa- tion within, might conceivably lead to dictatorship, should economic reform seriously destabilize society, whether that reform succeeded or not. Even with the current regime, is one to expect that it will see passive acceptance of the changes wrought by the other powers so close to its borders as the only course open to it? In the nineteenth century the European system worked by management of the balance of power. Danilevskii envisaged Russia undermining that balance to disrupt the stability of the European system by diplomatic means. In current circumstances it is not impossible that, excluded from the new system, Russia will try to destabilize it from without.The weakest point of penetration lies in central and eastern Europe, a region of countries at a relatively low level of development, with relatively small and vulnerable capital markets, faced with severe structural adjustments on joining an EU reluctant to embrace them with agricultural support and subsidies for weak industries, plus the need for increased taxation to buy the weapons required for NATO standardization. It is therefore not entirely improbable that the very thing these countries fear may be made more likely—though by different means—by early entry into the expanding west European and transatlantic economic and security systems.The countries of east and central Europe are too close to Moscow not to be the first to notice shifts in the wind from the east. Even though official policy indicates that they continue to see a Russian threat in terms of defence, signs are already emerging that they have a glimmer of concern of a very different order, against which they have little or no solid protection.Trivial though it may sound, it is none the less symptomatic that the most popular television series on Polish television in the spring of was Ekstradycja (extradition), the theme being the return of the Russians, not in tanks, but in the less tangible but no less lethal form of shady entrepreneurs (or criminals) threatening the health of the Polish economy and the country’ s national sovereignty.
See M. Kaminski,‘ The Russians are back’, Central European Economic Review : , Sept. ,p.. The Review is a supplement to the Wall Street Journal Europe, appearing on the first Monday of each month.
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What of west European economic and hence political interests as distinct from those of the United States? Germany is already heavily dependent on Russia for natural gas and its reliance is likely to increase with the passage of time. It is not in Europe’ s interests to be chained for its oil supply to the Middle East, a region in which instability is the watchword, whether one looks at Saddam’ s Iraq, fundamentalist Iran, the prospects for revolution in Saudi Arabia or the still burning struggle between Palestinians and Israelis. For all the prob- lems thrown up by the war in Chechnya, the Caucasus, Kazakhstan and Siberia may well prove a more stable and promising long-term source of oil and nat- ural gas for Europe. Liberation from dependence on the Arab world would also mean liberation from the awkward twists and turns of US foreign policy in the region, for there is no way Europe can secure its oil supplies in the Middle East without reliance on US power, as the Gulf war revealed. Perhaps Europe in close cooperation with Russia and the other successor states can create a stable alternative. In sum, expansion of NATO and the EU excludes Russia from the European and transatlantic security and economic systems, not least in order to reassure central and eastern Europeans. Russia’s own view is assumed not to matter much because of the country’ s present economic weakness and military dis- ruption. True, Russia is currently weak. But how long will it remain so? The central and east European assumption that the danger will come from Russian military power is equivalent to preparing for past wars, not future contingen- cies. Signs of a different sort of power, economic and financial, are already beginning to emerge, threatening a dominant influence over the region against which NATO membership is no remedy. Nor, in a world of free flow of cap- ital, will EU membership offer much protection. A Russia shut out and dis- connected will inevitably be troublesome. Is there no way of including Russia to forestall the very problem—albeit in a different form from the past—that the countries of east and central Europe are seeking to avoid? Russia’s proper place is a critical issue that the governments of the West, led by Germany and the United States but including Britain, have failed to address. Talbott, defeated on the key issue, now finds himself on the back foot, beating off the tendency elsewhere in the US government to seek to establish an American sphere of influence in the Caucasus and the Caspian to secure oil supplies. He also argues, in implicit but blatant contradiction to the entire enlargement policy pursued by Clinton, that the ‘integration’ of Russia is ‘cru- cial to US foreign policy in general’ and ‘key to US policy toward Russia in
Evidence of such aims is not hard to find. See e.g. the report that ‘Finding alternative routes for central Asia’s oil and gas has become not only a commercial imperative, but also a strategic one.The United States has made a foreign policy priority out of making sure that central Asia’s oil and gas are transport- ed via alternative routes.’The article continues:‘while this policy is ostensibly aimed at ensuring the west has access to those supplies, the political side effect of alternative routes would be to lessen these nations’ dependence on Russia, and consequently to lessen Russia’s influence in the region.’ C. Clovert,‘Battle for natural resources’, Financial Times, Sept. . One might add that this would also increase these nations’ dependence on the United States and presumably also thereby increase that of the UK.
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particular, since that country’s attainment of its most worthy aspirations will depend in large measure on its ability and willingness to participate in, con- tribute to and benefit from the process of globalization’. At least this has the merit of acknowledging the central problem that remains. The case for or against expansion may have been decided, but the future role and structure of NATO and the EU are not cast in stone.The issue of Russia, ignored during the first stage with respect to NATO, should be properly weighed prior to completing the process through incorporation of central and eastern Europe into the EU.A longer-term timetable for more extensive inte- gration than currently envisaged, which provided Russia with the certainty of a place, a place delayed rather than denied, would be safer and therefore better than further separation and, who knows, might ultimately one day pave the way for a more self-sufficient Handelsstaat from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Strobe Talbott,‘The battle for Russia’s future’, Wall Street Journal Europe, Sept. .