Why the U.S. can't look to NATO or the EU to support its Russia strategy Summer 2010
by Stephen Szabo <http://www.europesworld.org/NewEnglish/Home_old/PublicProfile/tabid/690/UserID/3006/Default.aspx> http://www.europesworld.org/DesktopModules/ITOmni.ContentRating/images/star_norating.pnghttp://www.europesworld.org/DesktopModules/ITOmni.ContentRating/images/star_norating.pnghttp://www.europesworld.org/DesktopModules/ITOmni.ContentRating/images/star_norating.pnghttp://www.europesworld.org/DesktopModules/ITOmni.ContentRating/images/star_norating.pnghttp://www.europesworld.org/DesktopModules/ITOmni.ContentRating/images/star_norating.png Europe is proving a foreign policy disappointment to the Obama Administration as it struggles to propound a clearer strategy toward Russia. Washington now recognises, says Stephen Szabo, that only Berlin has the key to a new relationship with Moscow America’s foreign policy leaders, both within the U.S. government and elsewhere, are losing patience with Europe. President Barack Obama, who by all accounts is proving a business like and unsentimental occupant of the Oval Office, is having to contend with a serious economic recession and now feels he has repeatedly turned to Europe yet has received little in the way of a concrete policy response. The White House believes his time was wasted at the last U.S.-EU summit in Prague, and so cancelled the next summit scheduled for Madrid. The decision to do so was a clear signal that the U.S. was not going to waste any more time with eurocrats and a leaderless Europe. Washington’s interpretation of the EU’s Lisbon treaty appointments has been that the major EU powers want to deal with foreign policy themselves, and do not want to see Brussels take on a significant role. There may be a single phone number in Brussels, but it is answered by a receptionist. Add to this the victory of David Cameron in the UK, the unpredictability of France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy and the lack of foreign policy leadership or vision in Berlin, and the conclusion in Washington is that it has no reliable partner on the European continent. Not that things are that much better in the United States. President Obama is increasingly pre-occupied by domestic problems and priorities and also lacks the resources to support America’s over-extended global role, let alone take on new commitments. The United States is being forced to down-size and out-source its foreign policy, and to make tough choices on where its key priorities in the world lie. In many ways, though, America needs a strong European partner more than ever, and one area where this partner is badly needed is in Russia policy. The U.S. relationship with Russia remains important to Obama’s agenda, not so much in a bi-lateral sense but in what it can do to assist the U.S. in dealing with key global issues. Obama would like to de-escalate tensions with Moscow so as to reduce the over-extension of America’s commitments. Being a realist, the President understands that America’s margin for error is thinner than it was during its era of dominance and that big powers matter more than small ones. Russia is important to dealing with many of the key challenges facing his Administration, including the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, combatting terrorism and shaping a more stable international order. Russia is also important in dealing with Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea. Moscow and Washington both have important stakes in the control and reduction of nuclear arsenals, while at the same time the U.S. does not accept Russian claims on Ukraine and Georgia or its attempts to use its energy resources to dominate east and central Europe. The U.S. can achieve some of its Russian goals bi-laterally, especially regarding the strategic nuclear level. But it needs European support to deal with energy security and to create stability in countries that lie between the EU and Russia. But when the United States looks for ways to engage Europe on these issues, neither the EU nor NATO look very promising. The EU brokered the Georgia-Russia ceasefire, but failed to follow-up on the withdrawal of Russian forces from the land they occupied in the August 2008 war. More importantly, Europe has no Russia policy. It remains deeply divided, not only between eastern and western Europe but within “old” and “new” Europe. Given that France and Germany have decided that they do not want the European Union to be a major player in foreign policy, and given the lack of consensus within Europe on Russia, Washington cannot look to the EU as a strategic partner in this area. And NATO is no better equipped for the task. The NATO-Russia Council depends on Russian willingness to make this a key policy arena, and the Russian leadership is quite clear that it continues to see NATO in zero-sum terms, and so as an adversary. Nor is NATO much of a player in energy security, and its outreach to non-member states threatened by Russia will not include NATO membership or Article 5 guarantees. There is in any case a serious split between the new NATO member states in the east and the old ones in the west on the nature and extent of the Russian threat. As NATO is no closer to possessing a Russia strategy than is the EU, it would be a mistake to believe that the EU could split NATO on Russia policy, or the reverse. Both are equally split, and along the same lines. If anything, the EU would be in a better position to deal with the issues in the eastern neighborhood than NATO as there is little potential for a “hard power” approach to this region. This leaves a number of bi-lateral options, or perhaps the creation of a coalition of the willing. The key national players in Europe are Germany, Poland and to a lesser extent France. Ukraine is also central, but given that it is not a member of the EU or NATO, is in a different category. Germany is by far the most important player in Europe on Russia, having the most extensive economic and energy links to Russia and being the country that Moscow takes the most seriously as an interlocutor. It is not too much to say that there can be no serious western strategy or policy on Russia which is not supported by Berlin. If Washington and Berlin were to be united on a Russia policy, Moscow would have few real options but to accept it, and the same is true of those countries that feel threatened by Russian power. It is therefore with Berlin that Washington is likely to shape those aspects of its relationship with Russia that involve Europe. >From the American standpoint, the problem is that Germany seems to have only >one strategy toward Russia, and that is that Berlin is wholly committed to a >policy of engagement and interdependence. At present this is compatible with >the Obama approach, but that leaves open the question of what happens if >Russia were to choose a path of confrontation with the West. In that case, >American policy would be likely either to become tougher, or to move toward >disengagement and benign neglect. Yet, neither of these is an option for >Berlin because the German stake in the relationship with Moscow is deeper and >the German preference for engagement rather than confrontation – carrots not >sticks – is much more engrained. German public opinion, though, is much more sceptical about the direction in which Russia is headed than the country’s political leaders appear to be. While there is little sympathy in Germany for the current leadership of Georgia, there is also little support or understanding for Russia’s use of force against a small country and its continued occupation of the territory it seized in the war. The Russian leadership certainly doesn’t have carte blanche in Germany, especially now that the new American president has improved the image of his country in Germany so substantially. The Russians will no longer get the benefit of the doubt with the German public in future confrontations with the United States. The prospects for a common German-America approach towards Moscow are therefore not bad, and this approach should be extended to include Poland and the other states in the region concerned with shaping a broader Russia strategy. Perhaps some sort of “contact group” of concerned Western states, a Visegrad-plus, should be created. But don’t look to the EU or NATO to be principal arenas for this strategy. http://tinyurl.com/2dgqp9t
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