GEOPOLITICAL DIARY: A RUSSIAN MESSAGE FOR NATO

Stratfor
June 8 2006

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday in a speech
to the Duma that “Every country has the right to make sovereign
decisions…. At the same time, the acceptance into NATO of Ukraine
and Georgia will mean a colossal geopolitical shift and we assess
such steps from the point of view of our interests.” This is pretty
blunt language for a diplomat. Russia does not want to see a colossal
geopolitical shift, and that’s what it thinks is happening.

The Russian Foreign Ministry also condemned Ukraine’s decision to
bar several senior Russian lawmakers from Ukraine. One of these,
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, is a fairly notorious Russian nationalist. The
Russian Foreign Ministry doesn’t much care for Zhirinovsky, but it
also obviously doesn’t care for Ukraine barring Russian legislators
— even if, as the Ukrainians put it, he was known for “insulting
statements about Ukraine.” At the same time, a Ukrainian diplomat
was also refused entry to Russia.

Both Ukraine and Georgia clearly want to join NATO. There are
multinational joint military exercises scheduled for July in Ukraine,
to include U.S. forces. These have met with protests by pro-Russian
Ukrainians, whom the Ukrainian government claims are being stirred
up by the Russians. At the same time, Georgia announced that it will
build a NATO-compliant military based in Gori, to join the one already
built in Senakskaya.

As we have said, NATO’s expansion to Ukraine would be the break
point for Russia. Adding to that a NATO base in the Caucasus would
absolutely convince the Russians that the United States is planning
to encircle them. Russia has been busy trying to demonstrate the cost
of this strategy to NATO and the United States. It has intruded into
U.S. areas of interest in the Middle East, particularly regarding
Hamas and Iran. It has not intruded as aggressively as it could,
still signaling Washington that things are not past the break point.

Nevertheless, as NATO accession looms for Ukraine and Georgia, things
will get less pleasant.

There is a fundamental difference in NATO’s admitting Georgia and
Ukraine from the admission of other former Soviet bloc nations. NATO is
a military alliance. Bringing in Hungary or the Czech Republic meant
little from that point of view; there is no real, immediate threat
for NATO to protect them from. Admitting Ukraine and Georgia would
mean entering into a formal alliance with countries that face serious
regional threats. It would mean making a commitment to defending those
countries and therefore, in some way, to assuring their stability. It
is hard to defend an unstable country.

Every other expansion of NATO has been notional. By that we mean that
it amounted to a political signal, far more than a serious political
commitment. That is not the case with these two countries. In fact,
that is the point the Russians are working very hard to make. The
Russian statement today was a message. Russia regards Ukrainian and
Georgian membership in NATO as a major, unwelcome geopolitical shift.

As such, Moscow will resist this process — and failing that, will
consider these two countries a threat to Russia.

Geographically, the defense of either of these countries against a
major regional power — which Russia certainly is — is a significant
burden. Neither country can defend itself. Moreover, each country has
other regional antagonists that NATO would be committed against — such
as, in Georgia’s case, Armenia. That is quite a tangle to get into.

What is attracting Washington is the opportunity to guarantee, by
surrounding it with NATO members, that Russia will not re-emerge as
a superpower. The Russians see this move as that, plus a threat to
the long-term territorial integrity of the Russian Federation. The
Russians do not believe that they can simply accept this as a fait
accompli, as they accepted other NATO expansions. Therefore, this
will trigger Russian responses in the region and more broadly.

The most important thing to watch here is relations between Russia
and China. China has been very careful not to get entangled with
anti-American alliances. It has important economic issues to deal
with. However, given recent U.S. statements on how it views China,
access to Russian military technology becomes more important to
Beijing. And Russia knows it does not, by itself, have the weight to
counter the United States. Therefore, the logic here, over the coming
months, is closer ties between Moscow and Beijing. When this happened
last, in 1948, Washington found itself in an uncomfortable position.

Therefore, it has to calculate how quickly it can move and consolidate
its position via NATO before the Russians can act.

And then there is also the question of the European members of NATO —
particularly France and Germany — whose acceptance of NATO expansion
up to this point has been a signal to Washington of a willingness
to cooperate. On the other hand, NATO is going to a complicated
and dangerous place. Paris and Berlin may not have the appetite for
Washington’s game.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress