CARPE DIEM
by Sergei Markedonov
Russia Profile
id=International&articleid=a1228929186
Dec 10 2008
Russia
The Backlog in Accepting Ukraine and Georgia into NATO Gives Moscow
Grounds for Normal and Pragmatic Cooperation with the Alliance’s
Member States
Ukraine and Georgia have so far been unable to boost their status
in NATO. This is probably one of the most significant events of the
passing year. These countries will now have to either wait for a
more favorable political environment, or to essentially adjust their
approaches to foreign policy and national security. But although
the delay in processing Ukraine’s and Georgia’s NATO applications
can hardly be seen as a triumph of Russia’s diplomacy, it gives
Russia enough time to come up with the mechanisms needed to halt the
alliance’s eastward expansion altogether.
During a summing of NATO Foreign Ministers in Brussels, which took
place on December 2 and 3 and summed up, to a certain extent, the year
2008, the two former republics of the Soviet Union did not receive
a Membership Action Plan (MAP). Other issues became the focus of
attention in the capital of Belgium. "Albania and Croatia have already
completed important reforms. Our goal is to welcome two new members to
the alliance during our next summit," the communiqué summarizing the
results of the summit claimed. Thus, by the Alliance’s 60th birthday
(NATO turns 60 in 2009) the two Balkan republics will become its full
members. However, this will be the limit of yet another "eastward
expansion," at least for the time being. Even Macedonia has not yet
received a "final invitation" to the alliance, due to the problems
connected with its name.
Different positions and opinions are available today with regard to the
delay of Georgia’s and Ukraine’s North Atlantic integration. Russia’s
President Dmitry Medvedev expressed his satisfaction with the process
of halting NATO’s expansion eastward, emphasizing that "reason has
prevailed." According to Russia’s representative in NATO, Dmitry
Rogozin, the alliance’s position means a political defeat for the
"orange leaders." However, official Kiev and Tbilisi have a different
opinion of the problem. Just a few days ago, the head of Ukraine’s
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID), Vladimir Ogryzko, declared
that "Ukraine will take a different path into NATO." According to
Ogryzko, this is largely due to the fact that the path has become
"too politicized." The minister believes that in reality, Ukraine has
been fulfilling all requirements specified in the Membership Action
Plan for over two years now. And this is why, from the point of view
of the head of Ukraine’s MID, a formal offering of a MAP is something
that should not be overrated.
Similar judgments can be heard from the representatives of Georgia’s
authority. "I think that our chances of joining NATO are high, and I
think that at this stage the so-called Membership Action Plan for the
alliance is no longer relevant. This was interesting back in April,
but today it is not relevant anymore. Evidently, new mechanisms for
these processes are about to be developed, and we will definitely
become a member of NATO," said Temuri Yakobashvili, Georgia’s Minister
for Reintegration. But the minister did not explain what these new
mechanisms are, what their essence is, and, most importantly, why
the MAP that only yesterday was so much hoped for is suddenly "not
relevant." But it would have been difficult to expect such explanations
from him. Just a few days ago, he tried to explain that the Dagomys
Agreement and the Joint Control Commission were not "relevant" and
proposed to "unfreeze" the process of conflict regulation.
As of today, Georgia has lost not only part of the former South
Ossetian autonomy, but also the Akhalgori district, precisely as a
result of the search for a "relevant unfreezing."
For the sake of being objective, however, we should note that both
in Georgia and in Ukraine influential politicians and experts,
representing the reigning authorities and the opposition, are
trying to analyze their own failures and mistakes. Ukraine’s former
Minister of Foreign Affairs and now the Head of the Verkhovna Rada’s
Foreign Affairs Committee Boris Tarasyuk (who has the reputation of
a fervent supporter of NATO integration), claims that, to a large
extent, "we are to blame," and in particular the "internal political
instability" and constant clashes between the "orange coalition"
teammates. Another former political leader, the ex-speaker of Georgia’s
national parliament and a living symbol of the "Revolution of Roses"
Nino Burjanadze believes that "because of some inadequate actions of
its authorities, Georgia has lost the prospects of growing closer to
NATO. NATO did not give a MAP to Georgia’s authorities, not to the
whole nation or its people." However, it is impossible not to see a
fair share of slyness in this thesis. NATO gives a MAP (or refuses
to provide one) not to nations or people, but to states.
Be that as it may, Russia’s politicians and political analysts now
have to register some interim results of the "expansion" process,
which will most probably not stop for good this winter. After all,
Georgia and Ukraine did not receive MAPs, but the whole issue of
North Atlantic integration has not been taken off the agenda. And the
United States, along with Great Britain, the Baltic States and Poland,
continue to actively lobby the NATO aspirations of these two former
Soviet republics.
The decision to put the applications from Kiev and Tbilisi on the
backburner is extremely important for the internal political situation
in Russia. It will, at least for a period of time, silence the voices
of irreconcilable "hawks," the advocates of the conspiracy theory about
NATO that is trying to surround Russia. Once again, this demonstrates
that NATO is far from being the same as the Soviet Union Communist
Party’s Central Committee of Comrade Leonid Brezhnev’s era, which was
dominated by the concept of "unanimous support." Nowadays even such
a superpower as the United States cannot "impose" a decision without
the support of other members of the alliance. And if Germany, France,
Spain and the Netherlands are not ready to see Georgia and Ukraine
in NATO, then this position (in line with the national interests of
these countries) will be taken into consideration. The same is true
for Greece, which is willing to go to great lengths to prevent the
ex-Yugoslavian republic with the questionable (from Athens’ point of
view) name from getting recognized. There is no total unity in NATO,
and many members set the factor of cooperation with Russia above the
dubious, from the point of view of efficiency, "accelerated" expansion.
This fact was also proven by the latest session of the NATO
Parliamentary Assembly in Valencia. The resolution on the necessity of
reestablishing a military and political partnership and cooperation
with Russia was passed at the plenary session of the Assembly on
November 18. Russia’s cooperation with the Assembly was practically
scrapped after the "five-day war," precisely as a consequence of
the events of the "hot August" of 2008. The text of the resolution
clearly states the need for reestablishing cooperation in the field
of security, because there are many "security concerns shared by NATO
and Russia, including the terrorist threat, continuing instability
in Afghanistan and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
including Iran’s nuclear and missile programs." The President of the
NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Jose Lello of Portugal, also emphasized
the fact that "we must reestablish our relations with Russia to the
fullest extent." In the two weeks that passed between the session
in Valencia and the summit in Brussels, many representatives of the
Alliance confirmed the need to go back to the "spirit of 2001."
This means that a field for normal and pragmatic cooperation with the
member states of the alliance is now opened for Moscow. After all, thus
far nobody has really been able to explain to us why it is dangerous
for Ukraine to join NATO. They either point at the urban madmen with
gonfalons, or keep talking about Slavic solidarity (as if Poland, the
Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia are no longer members of NATO),
or better yet wage a war on the spirit of Ivan Mazepa. But this has
nothing to do with Mazepa or Slavic spirituality. The problem is that
Ukraine’s military industrial complex is extremely tightly integrated
with that of Russia. If Ukraine moves under the flags of NATO, it
will cancel multimillion contracts for Russia’s "defense complex"
(although, the process won’t be painless for Ukraine’s defense
industry, either). This is the pragmatic point of view that should be
used to deal with Ukraine, and our allies in this effort should be the
generals of Ukrainian military industry, not the marginal politicians
we see on our television screens. We should have realized long ago
that Russia’s interests in the world should be fought for not by the
supposedly "pro-Russian forces" in the CIS republics, but by serious
business, media and intellectual resources in the West (we can get
them to fight for us by creating a maximally favorable environment
for them in the areas where our pragmatic interests intersect).
Secondly, one of the other lessons we can learn from Brussels is
that the decision on Georgia and Ukraine did not become a triumph for
Russian diplomacy. It’s just that the spirit of pragmatism turned out
to be above the interests of the "democracy commissars." It would
probably be wrong to shrug off Russia’s firm position during the
"five-day war," too, along with the stirring up of the situation in
the Southern Caucasus (the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict regulation,
the signing of the Moscow Declaration on Karabakh).
All of this, however, had only an indirect influence on the decision
made by the NATO states. Even during the April summit of the alliance
in Bucharest, the representatives of the "old Europe" (especially
Germany) were rather skeptical about the potential "draftees" from
Georgia and Ukraine. Thereby, in the future it will be enough for
Moscow to simply use the existing disagreements between the United
States and "old Europe," between the ex-communist republics (whose
ambitions grow not because of their economic power, but because of
their scandalous behavior connected to Soviet history and political
advisability) and the European democracies.
Thirdly, it’s too early to celebrate, because the process of NATO’s
expansion will not stop completely. The problem here is not limited
to the "pro-Russian" positions of Germany and France. Georgia and
Ukraine (or at least its current president) are appealing to join the
alliance on their own, without any support from "old Europe." Other
states, whose status in the bloc today is lower than that of the two
above-mentioned countries, also see some prospects for themselves
in NATO. This is a reference primarily to Azerbaijan. The countries
of Central Asia are also taking a closer look at NATO. Thus the
problem is not even limited to the United States with its strategy of
"acceleration" in relation to the former fraternal republics of the
"unbreakable Union."
Here is the main problem: escaping from Soviet history (and escaping
from post-Soviet realities) is becoming the main trend on a sixth
of our planet’s dry land. Russia could offer its strategy of being a
good neighbor, an alternative at least to the "Eastern partnership"
which is being so actively promoted today by the European Union. This
strategy would be adequate to the geography, history and current
realities. However, such a strategy is not yet apparent, whereas Moscow
could have presented many of its actions during the post-Soviet period
in a much more positive light than the actions of NATO in Kosovo or
in Afghanistan.
However, this cannot be done without employing the democratic language
adopted in the West, without modernization tasks and other similar
things. Nobody nowadays is warmed by the feelings of nostalgia for the
Soviet Union, the "Slavic brotherhood" and the "Eurasian values." All
of this ideological baggage should be checked into storage, otherwise
it will work (and is objectively already working) against our interest
and in the interests of "accelerated expansion." Russia could have
become not an anti-Europe and anti-West, but an alter-West and an
alternative Europe. Though this is something that is not possible
without internal changes.
In December of 2008 Russia received a certain backlog of time. The
"expansion" process did not finish in Brussels, it simply slowed
down. Perhaps it will become more sensible; however, it would now
be premature to say that Russia has the resources, institutions
and mechanisms to stop such a process. Therefore, they should be
created. We still have a few years ahead, although we should have
started a few days ago.
Sergey Markedonov, PhD, is the head of the Interethnic Relations
Department at Moscow’s Institute of Political and Military Analysis.
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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
