From yesterday. Maybe it will take your minds off evolution for a day or two.
(In accordance with a prior reprint permission, I had to include their
advertising. Scroll down 33 lines to get to the subject matter.)
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Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 20:30:06 -0500
From: "Strategic Forecasting, Inc." <[log in to unmask]>
To: Stratfor Intelligence Brief Subscriber <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Between Moscow and Paris - Central
Europe's Emerging Reality
Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Between Moscow and Paris - Central
Europe's Emerging Reality
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THE GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT
Between Moscow and Paris: Central Europe's Emerging Reality
May 31, 2005 22 13 GMT
In the past month, two momentous events have taken place. First, the 60th
celebration of Germany's World War II defeat turned into an acrimonious
confrontation between the United States and Russia. After it was over, the
head of Russian intelligence accused the Americans and British of covertly
using political groups to try to destabilize and destroy Russia. Second,
French voters rejected the proposed European constitution. Since France is a
keystone of European unification, the French vote -- regardless of how
President Jacques Chirac tries to spin it -- represents a heavy blow against
extending European unification beyond the economic realm. The idea that a
European state is about to emerge has been shattered.
The deepening suspicion in Moscow and the events in France are important and
interesting to everyone in the world. But for the countries of formerly
communist Central Europe, from the Baltics to the Black Sea, these events
are riveting and ominous. A stalled or fragmenting Europe, coupled with an
increasingly hostile Russia, is their worst nightmare. Europe has not yet
shattered and Moscow has not launched a new Cold War, but what has happened
during these three weeks in May cannot be lightly dismissed. Central
Europeans are people who do not take things like this lightly. History has
taught them that pessimism and realism are one.
Let's consider what has happened from their point of view.
World War I caused the collapse of four empires: the Russian,
Austro-Hungarian, German and Ottoman empires. A string of new states was
created, running from the Baltic Sea to the Balkan Peninsula -- caught
between the new Soviet Union in the east and the remnants of Germany to the
west. None of these states were strong enough to resist either of the great
powers, nor did they trust each other sufficiently to create successful
local alliances. They were used, manipulated and dominated by Germans and
Soviets. In a practical sense, they were nothing more than a fragmented
buffer zone separating Germany and Russia, sovereign only to the extent that
the geopolitical calculation of the great powers allowed it.
Under these circumstances, countries such as Poland or Romania had only
three choices. First, they could attempt to be militarily self-sufficient,
at least to the point of posing a challenge significant enough to deter the
Germans or Soviets from aggressive action. Second, they could align with one
of the great powers, exchanging geopolitical alignment for domestic
autonomy. Finally, they could seek military and political alliances with a
third power -- normally France, supported by Britain. Poland adopted the
first and third policies, as did Czechoslovakia. Hungary pursued the second.
A combination of military self-sufficiency and alliance with an Anglo-French
power appeared on paper to be the most rational strategy. But this option
had two weaknesses. First, the Anglo-French entity could not project forces
east of Germany, meaning that it could not supplement indigenous power
directly. The only way that this entity could carry out its obligations was
to go to war with Germany from its own soil. That option wasn't available
with the Soviets. This led to the second problem. Whatever the treaty might
say, the French and British would go to war only if it was in their
interests to do so. They declined combat over Czechoslovakia. When they did
go to war over Poland, they were in no position to assist Poland directly.
Poland was not helped by intervention. Guarantees had only deterrent value.
Geography rendered the security guarantors irrelevant to national survival.
The result was catastrophic.
Poland's national catastrophe continued after World War II. The Soviet
Union, devastated by the German invasion, sought and won a buffer zone from
any future invasion launched from Western Europe. The buffer zone was the
Baltic-Balkan strip that had been created after World War I. With the
ambiguous exception of Yugoslavia, every Central European nation fell under
the control of the Soviets. Not only did they become the battleground of any
future war, but the linkage to the Soviet economy created generations of
poverty.
The collapse of communism and then of the Soviet Union created an historic
opportunity for these nations. For the first time since the fall of the four
empires, three conditions obtained:
1. Moscow was no longer the center of an aggressive and capable power.
2. The potential guarantors of Central European security and prosperity were
no longer separated from the Soviet satellite states by a hostile Germany.
On the contrary, Germany was an integral part of both NATO and the European
Union.
3. Hostile relations between Central European countries were minimal. With
the dramatic exception of the republics of the former Yugoslavia, all
Central European countries were able to suppress potential flashpoints.
To the extent to which there was any tension, it was the tension between the
increasingly unified Europe, led by France and Germany, and the United
States. These tensions did not begin with the Bush administration but
certainly intensified after it came to office. Nevertheless, there could be
no comparison to the level of tensions and the nature of the choices between
the interwar period and the post-Cold War period. The Central Europeans have
had a relatively easy time of it.
In the 15 years since gaining their independence from Soviet domination, the
Central European countries -- excepting Serbia -- have pursued a consistent
foreign policy. They have been driven by two primordial fears: First, unlike
the United States, they were not convinced that Russia, as the dominant
power of the region, was finished for good. They did not expect a sudden
reemergence of Russian dominance, but they were not convinced that, over
time, shifts in Moscow would not create new geopolitical realities.
Second, the people of Central Europe did not, at root, trust Germany. They
had seen Germany undergo too many shifts in policy to believe that German
history ran in a straight line. Particularly with the fall of the Berlin
wall and German reunification, Germany's emergence as a dominant European
power made them uneasy. Two things comforted them: NATO and the European
Union. So long as Germany was integrated into both structures, so long as
Germany spoke and acted through multinational institutions, they felt that
Germany would be contained. Indeed, they felt that Germany would be
self-contained.
The reversal in Moscow's tone over the past few months is unsettling to
Central Europe. It is not, ultimately, unexpected. The people of this region
think geopolitically. They have seen the contraction of Russia, and they
have seen the systematic way in which the United States in particular has
encouraged and exploited that contraction. Their hope was only that Russia
would have passed the point of no return before Moscow shifted policies. At
the moment, it is simply unclear whether that point has been reached. A
covert battle is intensifying in Russia's near abroad. From the Central
European point of view, any battle that takes place on the other side of the
Carpathians is a good battle, leaving them out of the line of fire. Still,
they have learned to expect nothing but the worst from the east in the long
run. There are no surprises there.
The events in Europe have been far more disturbing, particularly since they
have taken place in the context of the Russian reversal. Both of the main
European institutions have been seriously damaged. First, the U.S. invasion
of Iraq created a crisis from which NATO is having a great deal of trouble
recovering. Franco-German policy and Anglo-American policy have paralyzed an
institution that requires consensual decision-making.
This crisis has driven Central European leaders closer to Washington on
security matters. But even this is disturbing to them: Prior to World War
II, the states of this region depended on the British and French to
guarantee their security; they now depend on the Americans. In effect, it is
the same policy, with the same problems: They are dependent on an entity
that is too distant to bring military power to bear on their battlefields,
and must rely instead on a strategy of indirect pressure that didn't work
the first time around. The great comfort is that there are no immediate
threats to the security of Central Europe. Russia remains bogged down, with
more immediate concerns to its east. Nevertheless, the people of this region
are well aware that events evolve in unpleasant ways. The paralysis of NATO,
if it becomes permanent, and the re-emergence of a Russia pursuing its
national interests will be frightening for them.
The French vote compounds the crisis. Central European countries stood to
gain two benefits from the European Union: membership in an extremely
prosperous and successful economic entity, and the creation of a
transnational European state that would permanently contain German
nationalism. The Central Europeans saw the EU as a permanent solution to the
German problem.
That is not going to happen. Whatever comes out of the French repudiation of
the EU constitution, it will not be a robust solution that will
systematically suppress Europe's nationalisms. The vote was for French
nationalism, after all. And in any competition of nationalisms, the Central
Europeans know they will lose. In Germany, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder
called a snap election after his party's devastating defeat in a
traditionally Social Democratic state. Such an event is hardly historic, but
it does point to an important fact: Germany is not doing well economically
or socially, and the reasons are not transitory. There is a deep-seated
malaise in Germany and a national sullenness. There is nothing immediately
threatening or unusual about this mood. But it is a mood that the Central
Europeans have learned to regard with unease.
The Russians have not returned to Central Europe, but the mood in Moscow is
angry. NATO hasn't collapsed, but it is ineffective. The European Union
remains the center of gravity of Europe, but it is not likely to evolve into
a political and military entity. Germany is in no way threatening to Central
Europe now, but there will be no permanent institutional solution to the
German problem. There must be a recognition from the Baltic to the Balkans
that the region's situation has not deteriorated, but that it will not
improve much either. Put another way, from a national security standpoint,
the only direction in which the Central European states will move is down.
It is all the more important for them, therefore, that the situation east of
the Carpathians be clarified as quickly as possible -- and run against the
interests of Moscow. Two developments would be significant for the security
of Central Europe: First, the Ukrainian government must be consolidated and
protected; and second, as hinted by the United States, the Lukashenko
government in Belarus must be replaced by a pro-Western regime. The Russians
already have been accusing the Poles of meddling in these affairs. It is now
in the interests of Hungary and Romania to join that meddling as well.
The problem is that Russia now has its back up. Moscow understands the game.
The Central European states want to lock down their eastern frontiers by
crippling the Russians. For this, they need the Americans, who have their
own reasons for wanting to cripple the Russians. This creates an active
alliance between the United States and Central Europe, which further
fragments the EU -- something to which the Americans have no objection
whatsoever.
But the problem is this. The interests of the United States in this matter
coincide with those of the Central Europeans only at the secondary level.
However, the Russians are fighting for fundamental national interests. So
are the Central Europeans -- but in the end, they have minimal weight to
bring to bear. The United States is far away. The Russians are next door. If
Moscow can reverse the trends the United States has set in motion, it will
be the Central Europeans who will again face the brunt of the Russian return
in a decade or so -- and who knows what Europe will look like by then?
Central Europe has spent the past 15 years on a monumental high. We now see
the first sign that things might be getting a bit tougher for the region
soon.
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NNNN
Tracy Johnson
MSI Schaevitz Sensors
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