A newspaper from Germany Vol. 12, June/July 2015 www.atlantic-times.com Section A One Dollar Printed in Springfield, VA. In this issue Politics The limits Frozen conflict 2, 3 What does Ukraine’s future look like? And what goals is Vladimir Putin pursuing? Dmitri Trenin, Michael Stürmer and Wolfgang Ischinger give their answers. of summitry Iranian threat 4 Is the G-7 still fit for purpose in a changing Despite a nuclear agreement with Iran, the nightmare of an Iranian bomb is not geo-political landscape? | By Theo Sommer fundamentally banished, warns Michael Wolffsohn. What the West also overlooks – Iran is not just a danger to Israel and the wider Middle East. Ukraine lesson 6 In its attitude to Russia, NATO remains in “wait-and-see” mode. But is that enough? Michael Rühle calls for a more comprehen- sive discussion of European security. Jihadi rivalry 10 The recent violent excesses of the Islamic State (IS) have diverted attention in the West away from al Qaeda. But it remains the more dangerous opponent, warns Guido Steinberg. Proxy war 11 The balance of power has shifted in the Middle East between Sunni and Shia states. The ongoing proxy war in the region between Iran and Saudi Arabia is the main symptom – and there is no cure in sight, writes Markus Bickel. Business Everybody hurts 13 Economic measures against Russia over Ukraine are also hitting Europe. And countries like China are filling the gap left by falling EU exports. German business leader Eckhard Cordes calls for more politics and fewer sanctions. Economic warfare 13 War is out. Economic sanctions are in – they have “the grammar of commerce but the logic of war.” Mark Leonard on geo- politics of trade. No coal 15 Global warming will increasingly dominate the development of energy markets. IMAGO/KYODO NEWS IMAGO/KYODO Climate protection starts with renouncing fossil fuels. Stephan Kohler recommends he world is out of joint, chiefly with societal problems and the summit agendas are enormously All smiles before the G-7 meeting using energy more effectively. and there is nobody to set issues of global governance rather overloaded; they lack focus. at Elmau: EU President Donald Tusk, it right. Under the violent than with geo-economic, geostrategic Different formats are required to re- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, impact of Islamism, state and geopolitical bones of contention. install diplomacy in its rightful place. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Life Harper, US President Barack Obama, Tstructures in the Middle East and Inevitably, Ukraine, Chinese assertive- Since glamorous and time-consum- German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Party town 16, 17 North Africa are unraveling. Wars of ness, Greece cropped up in informal ing get-togethers like the Congress French President François Hollande, religion shake up parts of Black Africa. talks, but officially foreign affairs were of Vienna 1814/15 (nine months of Berlin has become a playground for British Prime Minister David Cameron, Perilous confrontations are building relegated to conversations around the negotiations) or the Berlin Congress Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi visitors from around the world. Two pages up in the Asia-Pacific region. And 25 dinner table. of 1878 (four weeks) are unsuitable and European Commission President of insider tips and some good advice from years after the end of the Cold War in The mountain in the Bavarian Alps instruments in our age of accelera- Jean-Claude Juncker. the New York Times writer Alison Smale: Europe, armed conflict has returned to went into labor and gave birth to tion, setting up permanent ambassa- Don’t forget the history side. the Old World – hybrid, not total war, a mouse. The final communiqué is dorial conferences for the settlement Past finder 18 but violent nevertheless. about as verbose as all of its predeces- of special problems might be the best understanding with Putin on the future Old certainties have evaporated in sors – and probably equally inconse- way to mitigate and minimize the relationship between Moscow and the Official Munich has not yet dealt the process: that Europe is irrevocably quential. Was the outcome worth the political conflicts which are pitting the West. Clearly Europe and the US must with its Nazi past, but the former on the way to an ever closer union; effort, the €130 million cost – not to powers against each other in Ukraine, ward off further Russian encroach- “capital of the movement” now has a that the security of Europe is central mention the annoying disturbance of the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific ments – “Thus far and no further!” – documentation center. to US strategy; that Russia no longer public order? Wouldn’t it have been region. must be the guideline. President Putin poses a threat to Western nations; that less trouble if the leaders had met In the pre-atomic age, diplomacy had has lied through his teeth in the face the rise of Asia, especially of China, on a battleship (like Roosevelt and three tools: persuasion, compromise of his Western interlocutors, no doubt would play out in the economic field Churchill, or Reagan and Gorbachev) and threat of force. The latter must about that. Still I think that our leaders ISSN 1864-3965 but would not have any geopolitical should beware of what Edmund Burke EUR 3,90 CHF 6,20 and geostrategic ramifications. called the “total want of consideration Challenges, crises and conflicts of what others naturally hope or fear.” spawn conferences. The year 2015 In an interview that Vladimir Putin has a surfeit of them. Three big UN The mountain gave to the Italian daily Corriere della summits will make headlines in the Sera on the eve of the Elmau summit, next six months: on financing devel- in the Bavarian Alps he made a number of statements that opment (Addis Ababa in July), on the should be taken seriously. He consid- follow-up to the Millennium Goals went into labor and gave ers Minsk II the only way to resolve (New York in September), and on birth to a mouse. the Ukrainian crisis, and he will do climate change (Paris in December). everything in his power to influence All of these subjects figured on the “self-proclaimed republics Donezk the agenda of the G-7 conference at and Lugansk” – the “separatists,” in Elmau. Protected by 20,000 police or on a cruiseliner far out in the ocean? be ruled out in a world in containing Western parlance. He denies any inten- and cordoned off from the world by The Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper a stockpile of around 70,000 nuclear tion to recreate the Soviet empire, let a 16-kilometer steel fence, the leaders dubbed the G-7 summit a “superfluous weapons. For the mitigation and alone of attacking NATO – “No one of the world’s seven leading indus- ritual” and asked: “What is the point minimization of conflicts the powers has to be afraid of Russia.” And he trial nations, spent 27 hours talking of all this unnecessary nonsense?” are thrown back to persuasion and put in a plug for the cooperation of the with each other. There was hardly a Summit meetings like Elmau won’t compromise. This means three things. European Union and his own Eurasian topic they ignored: Their “sherpas” change the world. First of all, they First of all: deal with the world as it Economic Union in the vast space had formulated detailed draft rec- are gatherings of the like-minded. The is instead of dreaming about what between Lisbon and Vladivostok. He ommendations and action plans: for troublemakers are not there – which it should be. Then, while guarding may be lying again, but the West had climate change and ridding the oceans makes proceedings less irksome but your interests, leave no stone unturned better probe his sincerity. Let’s take of plastic waste, resistance to antibiot- also less effective. Russia’s President to discover complementary interests him at his word. ics, women’s empowerment and work Vladimir Putin should, of course, have that facilitate accommodation. Finally, In a surprising remark about arms standards in developing countries. In been present; disinviting him deprived heed Jean Monnet’s advice – if a prob- control, nuclear weapons prolif- “outreach” sessions they focused on Western leaders of an opportunity to lem seems insoluble, widen the context eration and international terrorism, the Islamic arc of crisis, on trade and reason with him or, alternatively, to of your deliberations. Putin called himself an “ally” of the aid, on the lessons to be learned from read him the riot act. Second, these For the Ukrainian crisis this means United States. Actually it is hard to the Ebola epidemic. meetings are far too short for the that while it is indeed important to imagine how the turbulences in the But Elmau was an amazingly depo- principals to really master their brief implement the Minsk II agreement, The Atlantic Times 2000 Suite 335 M Street NW, Washington, DC, 20036 Washington, liticized summit, dealing, as it did, on such a vast array of issues. Third, it is just as crucial to attain a basic continued on page 8 2 June/July 2015 June/July 2015 3 Putin’s Russian revanche The Kremlin boss is playing a long game by his own rules: new order or no order | By Michael Stürmer ew order – or no order: This is how the happened on the last day of that annus horribilis 1991 terms, gave notice at the Munich Security Conference column, incapacitating any authority in Kiev. But participants of the annual Valdai Club when all the constituent parts declared independence, that the time of weakness was over and that the West if they are not returned to Ukraine they set an omi- meeting, high above the warm breezes notwithstanding their political, financial, economic had better recognize that Russia had serious griev- nous precedent and confirm the Russian claim that of Sochi, were greeted by their Russian links to what had been the Russian center of power.