|
 Russia's military seizure of Crimea and preparations for a
possible annexation of the southern Ukrainian province have revived
fears, calculations and reflexes that had been rusting away since
the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Whether the crisis triggered by President Vladimir Putin's attempt
to prevent Ukraine, a strategic former Soviet republic, turning to
the West, becomes a turning point in international relations like
the 2001 Al Qaeda attacks on the United States or the 1962 Cuban
missile crisis, is not yet certain. There are still some steps to
play out.
But policymakers and strategic analysts are thinking through the
consequences of a potentially prolonged East-West tug-of-war. And
states in the middle such as Germany and Poland are starting to
weigh uncomfortable adjustments to their policy.
The standoff is already posing tricky questions about the balance
between sanctions and diplomacy, setting loyalty tests for allies
and raising the risk of spillover to other conflicts and of possible
proxy wars.
"Welcome to Cold War Two," Russian analyst Dmitri Trenin of the
Carnegie Foundation for International Peace declared in an article
for Foreign Policy magazine.
"The recent developments have effectively put an end to the
interregnum of partnership and cooperation between the West and
Russia that generally prevailed in the quarter-century after the
Cold War," he said.
Trenin is not alone in seeing the struggle for Ukraine as the
biggest game-changer in European security since the collapse of the
Soviet Union in 1991.
While no one imagines the superpowers returning to a hair-trigger
nuclear confrontation or a bloc-against-bloc military buildup — for
starters, Russia no longer has a bloc — the knock-on implications
for other security problems, and for the world economy, are
significant.
Frozen conflicts in Moldova, Georgia and Azerbaijan, all "near
abroad" post-Soviet states, could be reactivated.
In Berlin, policymakers worry that Russia could raise the stakes by
stopping cooperation with the West over Iran's nuclear program, the
civil war in Syria, security in Afghanistan and managing North
Korea's unpredictable leader.
Any one of those could make life more uncomfortable for the United
States and its European and Asian allies by destabilizing the Middle
East and southern Asia or raising tension on the Korean peninsula.
"THIS IS THE BIG ONE"
The realization that Germany, Europe's central power, has no special
influence with Russia when the geopolitical chips are down, and that
Chancellor Angela Merkel has been unable to sway Putin despite their
common languages, has concentrated minds.
In hindsight, Russia's 2008 military intervention in breakaway
regions of Georgia was a dry run. It had less global impact partly
because an erratic Georgian leader fired the first shots, but also
because it barely changed the status quo.
"Ukraine is different. It's on the fault line and it's too big,"
says Constanze Stelzenmueller, senior transatlantic fellow with the
German Marshall Fund think-tank, who led a recent major study on
Germany's new foreign and security policy.
"Now we are entering a systemic competition. That's why I think the
Cold War analogy is accurate. If you're in Berlin, that's the way it
feels. This is the big one."
Despite its strong economic interests in Russia, where 6,200 German
companies do business, and its dependency on Russian natural gas for
40 percent of supplies, Stelzenmueller expects Germany to "surprise
on the upside by being firm".
Moscow is only Berlin's 11th trade partner, below Poland. Germany's
main trade body said last week a trade conflict between the two
would hurt German business but it would be life-threatening for a
stagnant Russian economy.
[to top of second column] |
As former Hong Kong governor Chris Patten observes, while almost
every European household owns goods made in China, few if any have
anything produced in Russia, except gas and vodka.
Central European economies could be severely disrupted if Moscow
played with the gas taps, but stocks are high, winter is over and
Russia needs the revenue.
GOING NEUTRAL?
In Cold War One, hawks in the United States and western Europe
fretted that then West Germany could turn neutral in its pursuit of
detente with the Soviet Union and its east European allies,
including communist East Germany.
That never happened. Bonn remained firmly anchored in the Western
political and military camp. But there were some epic transatlantic
battles along the way.
They included a 1982 clash with the United States over a
German-Soviet gas pipeline deal which the Reagan administration
feared would make West Germany dangerously dependent on Moscow.
The Germans stood their ground. The pipeline was built and is one
reason why Germany remains so hooked on Russian energy.
That dispute — just a year after a Moscow-inspired military
crackdown in Poland — may have lessons for any new Cold War.
A year later, Bonn withstood mass protests and threats from Moscow
to deploy U.S. medium-range nuclear missiles on its soil in response
to Soviet SS-20 rockets pointed at the West. That led eventually to
a negotiated end to the East-West arms race.
Then as now, a perceived Russian threat ultimately united Europeans
and the United States, despite public misgivings reflected today in
opinion polls showing neither Germans nor Americans are keen to get
tough with Russia.
Then as now, both Moscow and the West turned to China to try to tip
the balance. Then as now, U.S. strategists traded charges of
appeasement and warmongering as they argued over the right policy
mix between containing Russia and taking its interests into account.
If Putin moves to annex Crimea, Europeans may soon have to
contemplate awkward sacrifices to show their resolve.
For France, this could mean suspending a contract to sell helicopter
carriers to Russia. For Britain, closing its mansions and bank
vaults to magnates close to Putin. For Germany, initiating gradual
steps to reduce dependency on Russian gas.
It will take Cold War-style determination for any of that to happen.
Maintaining EU unity if the going gets tough, with states in
southern Europe such as Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria closer to
Moscow, could prove a challenge.
(Writing by Paul Taylor; editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
