CEPS European Neighbourhood Watch. Issue 52
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CEPS European Neighbourhood Watch. Issue 52
Editorial by Michael Emerson: "Scrapping the missiles - a tipping point?"
President Obama's decision announced on 17 September to scrap the plans for a radar installation in the Czech Republic linked to missile defence installations in Poland may herald a tipping point in US and EU relations with Russia. But which way? Will this usher in a new era or genuine cooperation with Russia and strategic matters, or will Russia's geo-political hawks feel emboldened to proceed with new adventures in their quest for hegemonic power in the former Soviet space?
First President Obama's short speech should be supported by more detailed information. His argument was that new information about Iran's capabilities and new defence technologies made the Czech-Polish plans no longer best suited for the purpose, and that more flexible systems, based at sea or at other locations more to the south, would be preferable. That being so there was no point in going ahead with the Czech-Polish plan, irrespective of the Russia factor. The plea to look at technicalities rather than geo-political arguments does not seem to be listened to yet, certainly not in Moscow, where commentaries are reporting a great political victory, nor in Washington conservative Republican circles which cry out ‘appeasement' and ‘weakness'. It is certainly highly desirable that the technical arguments be credibly presented, and so heard alongside the predictable banging of geo-political drums by cold war warriors.
Whatever the strength of the technical arguments it is obvious that this reversal of the Bush initiative carries a cost and risk. The original plan may have been both misconceived technically and poorly deployed diplomatically, but its reversal could not be without cost for the US-Central Europe relations, or risk of misinterpretation by Russia. The new member states of NATO already were apprehensive that their Article 5 guarantee was being diluted by the priority of the war in Afghanistan, and the scrapping of the missile defences will only intensify these concerns. Much of old Europe would consider that new Europe, i.e. new NATO and EU, is a bit paranoid over Russia as threat, but new Europe feel their instincts confirmed most concretely by what they saw in the war in Georgia a year ago. And Russia goes on with extraordinarily arrogant initiatives that deepen these concerns further. This August President Medvedev wrote a letter to President Yushchenko of Ukraine announcing Russia's refusal to replace their retiring ambassador until Ukraine showed itself to be more Russia-friendly, a diplomatic stance of semi-non-recognition usually reserved for pariah states. At the same time Moscow is, for example, supporting ultra-nationalist Russian ‘patriots' in stirring up inter-ethnic conflict with the Tartars in Crimea. Then Prime Minister Putin on 18 September greeted the Obama decision with the invitation to follow up with more, for example by easing the joint accession into the WTO of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, which is itself a highly dubious proposition on technical grounds.
The new NATO Secretary General, Fogh Rasmussen, tries the alternative track of proposing this moment as one to switch NATO-Russia relations back onto a track of deepening cooperation, for example over Iran and Afghanistan. But the EU could also follow through with ideas to test Moscow's preparedness to turn the page on the recent catalogue of mutual irritations, and engage in real cooperation in the wider European neighbourhood, and with Russia, East Europe and Central Asia in particular. There are several domains (energy, transport, environment, border management, crisis management) where there are or could be opportunities for mutually-beneficial, multi-regional cooperation between the EU and different segments of the post-Soviet space. The EU has been developing its regional policies in the wider Europe quite significantly in the last few years (new Northern Dimension, Eastern partnership, Central Asia strategy). Only one of these, the Northern Dimension, involves Russia. The Eastern Partnership was launched to bolster the six European former Soviet states, including Belarus but not Russia. Only Russia is to blame for this, since it reflects how Russia's ‘diplomacy' of recent years has been upsetting all its neighbours with crude efforts at pressurization. However the EU itself would be more than open to turning the page with Russia, if it received a signal of interest in genuine cooperation, seeking synergies between all, rather than intensified competition over spheres of influence. How might this be done? Maybe the EU should think about proposing the missing component of its wider Europe policy, to be called for example a ‘EurAsia Strategy', which would overarch the several components of the EU's multiple eastern policies (Russian strategic partnership, Eastern partnership, Central Asia strategy), and go on further to link up with projects in Central Asia of common interest in either China or South Asia as well as Russia. This connects with but goes beyond an idea of a new Ostpolitik that the German EU Presidency of 2007 liked, but never got underway, and got lost in the midst of the tensions of several EU-Russia friction points and then later the war with Georgia. It might be looked at again, and updated for the new situation.
№10(37), 2009