RUSSIA PROFILE WEEKLY EXPERTS PANEL: EASTERN EUROPE IN DANGER?

Russia Profile
id=Experts’+Panel&articleid=a1236361826
March 6 2009

At a recent meeting of NATO defense ministers in Krakow, Britain’s
Defense Secretary John Hutton proposed establishing a 3,000 men-strong
rapid reaction force to defend Eastern Europe, including non-NATO
members like Georgia and Ukraine, against "outside aggression." Is
Russia a threat to Eastern Europe, or is it its savior? What will
the likely impact of the financial crisis be on the East European
perceptions of Russia and the security situation in that part of
Europe? Is there a realistic military threat from Russia?

Contributors: Patrick Armstrong, Stephen Blank, Ethan Burger, Eugene
Kolesnikov

Although the proposal did not go very far, it signaled a desire by
London and Washington to create a NATO capability that would enable
the alliance to interfere with such occurrences in Eastern Europe like
Russia’s war with Georgia last year. The proposal can certainly be
interpreted as NATO’s intention to provide deterrence against possible
Russian military action against Ukraine. Ukraine, however, is not
a NATO member, and is not covered by Article 5 guarantees. The real
question, though, is whether Eastern Europe is indeed under threat,
and what could NATO do about it? The answer is clearly "yes," Eastern
Europe is threatened, but not by Russia, while NATO is the wrong tool
to deal with the threat.

The mortal threat to East European democracies comes from the global
financial crisis. Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary, Romania,
Slovakia and even Greece are largely bankrupt at present. Their
government debt is trading at junk-bond valuations, and the prospect
of default is excruciatingly real. Last week, Standard and Poor’s
analysts released a report warning of a possible unraveling of the
Euro zone, due to the collapse of the financial systems in East
European countries. Almost all East European countries have been
plagued by serious political and social unrest, including violent
street protests and even seizures of government buildings.

Latvia, for example, has no solvent banks, no budget, no government,
and a huge public and corporate debt, prompting its business elite to
seriously entertain the idea of inviting a prominent Russian banker
and a native of Riga, Peter Aven, president of Russia’s Alfa-Bank,
to be Latvia’s prime minister (Aven declined the offer).

Ukraine is on the brink of a massive financial default on its
government debt, and the continued bickering between its president,
prime minister and parliamentary leaders offers little hope for
a possible way out of the impending economic catastrophe. Serious
political unrest threatens to engulf the nation. Ukraine is negotiating
a $5 billion stabilization loan from Russia after the International
Monetary Fund refused to provide the second stabilization facility due
to the government’s failure to come up with a realistic anti-crisis
program. Hungary and Bulgaria also requested financial assistance
from Russia, having failed to receive help from the EU.

Is Russia a threat to Eastern Europe, or is it its savior? What will
the likely impact of the financial crisis be on the East European
perceptions of Russia and the security situation in that part of
Europe? Is there a realistic military threat from Russia? Will the
British proposal for a rapid reaction force for Eastern Europe go
any further? Should NATO become involved if political instability and
social unrest engulf Eastern Europe? Should Russia get involved were
such a scenario to unfold in Ukraine?

Eugene Kolesnikov, private consultant, the Netherlands:

Rich Europe is scared. The fear arises from the utter uncertainty about
the course that the economic meltdown may take. Even the optimists
paint a picture of a deep, five-six year recession. Some prognoses are
much gloomier. Growth may not substantially resume for a long time (a
decade or more), and when it resumes, it may be very slow because there
is no feasible economic bubble on the horizon, such as the opening
of the former socialist markets, the Internet boom, and financial
pyramids were until last year. Protracted depression entails tens of
millions of unemployed for a long time, and deteriorating standards of
living for the majority of the population. Western European societies
are strong as long as there is prosperity. When the latter is under
threat, there is very little that keep burghers and working masses
from discontent. The first omens are there to see in Greece, France,
the UK, and Ireland.

Rich Europe will have to deal with this discontent by trying to numb
the pain through handouts, a lot of them, and for a long time. There
is simply not enough to go around. This is why the rich are holding
their purse tight. The money will be given out only to fight fires,
such as the IMF bailouts of Hungary and Latvia. Besides, Western Europe
will be prepared to let the new members experience much more pain
than that inflicted on their own countries – the local populace is
far more important than distant friends. If Western European leaders
were currently sure that $150 billion or more could solve the Central
and Eastern European problems once and for all, they would have paid
up. But uncertainty dominates strategy at the moment.

Central and Eastern European countries are therefore under multiple
threats. These countries will be subjected to protracted economic
and social suffering that will be much worse than that of the rich
Europe. This suffering may lead to political turmoil that can result
in chaos or a return to authoritarianism. Western Europe will try to
smooth this out, but all depends on how long and severe the economic
crisis is going to be. This crisis, in the worst case scenario,
may well lead to fundamental changes in political and economic
organization of Europe and of the world as a whole. In such times,
everyone will be inclined to put their own interests first.

Patrick Armstrong, Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Ottawa, Canada:

When NATO expansion was light-heartedly (George Kennan’s expression)
begun by the Bill Clinton administration, its proponents sold the idea
(I well remember earnest Americans patiently explaining this when I was
a diplomat in Moscow) as a means of improving European security. And,
had there been any serious intention to include Russia, perhaps it
would have been. But wiser people, like Jack Matlock, foresaw that
the exclusion of Russia would make things rather less stable.

And so it has proved to be. Even proponents of NATO expansion can see
the connection with Tbilisi’s attack on South Ossetia last August,
and are fond of claiming that Russia puts up gas prices in order
to weaken Ukraine (ignoring the fact that Russia has put up prices
for everyone – even Armenia and Belarus which have no intention of
joining NATO). NATO expansion has steadily crept east, from Poland
to Latvia and now to Ukraine and Georgia (although their accession
looks less likely today). Now the argument seems to be based on
the fact that since Moscow does not want these countries in NATO,
they must be admitted (and, above all, we must not give Moscow a
"veto"). A thin reason indeed.

NATO now has members that have re-painted their history under communist
rule: gone are the home-grown communists like Wladyslaw Gomulka or
Martin Latsis, and in their place is a picture of Russian imperialism
and native resistance. These countries are a lobby pushing NATO into
a reflexive anti-Russian stance. They do not need actual evidence of
Russian hostility: Russian imperialism is the very foundation stone
of their new historical mythology. Perhaps the most preposterous
example of this reconstruction of reality was the proposal that the
still-existing museum in Gori, Georgia, to its favorite son, Iosef
Bissarion-dze Jughashvili, be re-named the museum of the Russian
occupation of Georgia. Perhaps Russia should create a museum of
the Georgian occupation of Russia: given the importance to Russian
history of Joseph Stalin, Lavrentiy Beria, Grigory Orjonikidze, Sergey
Golglidze and Mikhail Gvishiani, this would have more historical
credibility. "In 1939 the whole of the Soviet Union could be said to
be controlled by Georgians and Mingrelians," says Donald Rayfield in
"Stalin and his Hangmen." But these people have been painted out of the
portraits – de-communization was often more airbrushing than an honest
recognition of the reality of enthusiastic native participants. And
now they’re selling these paintings to NATO. As Jack Matlock saw ten
years ago, "It creates greater polarization of attitudes as the line
moves east." George Kennan called it "a tragic mistake."

The actual problems of the post-communist countries are all
similar: corruption, outdated industry, bad work habits, decaying
infrastructure, crashing demographics and fragile economies. Countries
that had the full 70-year dose of communism are worse off than
those who received the 40-year dose to be sure, but the problems are
shared. NATO is not the answer to any of them.

There is no better illustration of this truth than the parlous state
of Ukraine today. The post "Orange Revolution" obsession with NATO
has only exacerbated the political division in the country.

And finally, why would Russia, which is surviving the financial storm
better than most – if not all – of its neighbors, want to acquire
these countries anyway? Much more trouble (and expense) than they’re
worth. After all, there wasn’t much stopping Russia from seizing most
of Georgia last August if it had wanted to.

Ethan S. Burger, Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University Law Center,
Washington, DC :

There is indeed a significant threat facing Europe (actually it
threatens most of the world) — it is the consequences of economic and
political instability. As conceived in 1949, NATO was not organized
to address such challenges. As a multinational organization, it
is doubtful that the political leaderships of the NATO members
could reach agreement on how to respond in a military fashion to
an ambiguous threat. It is likely that the political leaders would
decide to deploy forces when "success" was a certainty, with the
projected costs and concomitant risks judged to be minimal (witness
NATO’s role in Afghanistan). The British experience in Ireland, the
French experience in Algeria, and the U.S. experience in Iraq as well
as NATO’s deployment to former Yugoslavia are not easily forgotten.

The principal threats facing Europe and the Soviet Union’s successor
states are economic crime (both so-called "white collar" economic
crime as well as international organized crime, often economic as
well) and certain forms of terrorism that are not non-traditional
warfare being carried out by state-sponsored entities. This threat
can primarily be classified as the type of matter dealt with by law
enforcement, but under certain circumstances may be regarded as a
form of war. With respect to the first problem, it arises in part
since law and regulatory enforcement remain largely national, and the
difficulty of carrying out effective policies for numerous reasons (I
will gladly send the course syllabus on international economic crime,
which I offer at the Georgetown University Law Center, to anyone who
asks). Not being a military specialist I will stay clear of the other
variety of threat, though I would recommend the books of Wesley Clark
and writings of Steven Biddle.

International organizations (e.g. the Council of Europe, the European
Union, the International Monetary Fund, NATO, the OSCE, the UN and the
World Bank) are not without purpose, but are naive to think that states
will cease to be the most important actors in our global system. Today,
observers are noting that within the European Union, many countries
experiencing high unemployment are seeing nationalistic sentiments
reappear. Most people living on the continent think of themselves
as Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, and NOT Europeans. It is
difficult to expect regional organizations seeking to act collectively
in other parts of the world to do much better.

There are generally economic benefits from the free flow of capital and
labor between countries at similar levels of economic development –but
I have thought that since the establishment of the euro that it was
naive to think that governments would abdicate their right to establish
their own fiscal policies when the conditions demand it. The euro would
have collapsed if the European Bank enforced its rules concerning
the permitted levels of deficits euro zone members were permitted
to have. A large part of my thinking is that nationalism remains
the strongest force on the continent. Ironically, the EU permitted
states like Belgium, Britain, Italy, and Spain to function despite
ethnical/national/regional differences which have historic roots that
are far more important than linguistic or religious differences. The
late U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Thomas "Tip" O’Neil
(D-Massachusetts) is best known for his observation that all politics
are local.

Congressman O’Neil grew-up in Boston, where people were "hyphenated"
Americans (Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans), Boston Brahmins
(i.e. persons with English roots), and Blacks. He understood that
people, irrespective of their ethnic or religious background, had
common political concerns (jobs, schools, etc.) that transcended
other differences. Alas, the United States is largely a land without
a memory of major military conflict (with the exception of the Civil
War in the South).

At the present time, it is difficult to think of any economy
that is particularly strong after one performs appropriate
research. Interdependence has grown to such an extent that few
countries can pursue "beggar thy neighbor" policies. This can
entail major risks. There are cleavage lines throughout Europe,
as demonstrated not so long ago when Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia
broke-up. There remains a Hungarian and Russian irredentia. There are
probably 100 people alive today who can name all the ethnic groups who
live in the Caucasus region (and this is further complicated by mixed
marriage and minority communities). Armenia and Azerbaijan have had a
territorial dispute that on first impression seems relatively simple
to resolve, at least compared to that facing Jewish Israelis/Arab
Israelis and Palestinians.

Throughout the world, many companies and the products they produce
are indeed multinational — the Mini Cooper is a wonderful example. In
some ways this can bind countries together in a positive way, at other
times the multinational corporation’s relation with the countries in
which they operate can be a source of tension. The existence of such
entities makes it more difficult for governments to assess the impact
of their policy options. This is one of the reasons that no country
can be the economic savior of another until governments are willing not
to use economics as a political tool to enhance their countries’ power.

Usually most governments rule in the interest of a limited portion of
their country’s population. Perhaps in some cases, the leadership’s
fear of being toppled might result in more equitable economic domestic
policies, as well as policies that take into account the interest
of other states (not necessarily just their traditional friends
and trading partners). I hope that governments are wise enough to
understand that the use of force domestically, or to interfere in
another country’s sovereign affairs, will eventually have a high
cost. Personally, I doubt that World War II (including the Great
Patriotic War) would not have been possible but for the economic and
human consequences of the Great Depression (made worse (and perhaps
possible) by the calamity that we refer to as World War I). The larger
role Russian business leaders have in governmental policymaking, the
less likely it is that Russia will be perceived as a threat to others.

Lastly, the label "Eastern Europe" is an anachronism. The Czech
Republic is to the West of Hungary. Must Europe be arbitrarily divided
into "West," "Central" and "East"? When we mean "East," do we mean
the former Warsaw Pact countries? How would we classify what had been
"East Germany"? Finland borders Russia, but has always had ties to the
West. What is the proper category to place Turkey in? The late Winston
Churchill was wrong in one major respect — the "Iron Curtain" did not
stretch from Trieste in the Adriatic to Stettin in the Baltic. It began
at the Soviet border. Fortunately, such a border no longer exists,
but not everyone fully appreciates this fact, and this is a tragedy.

Professor Stephen Blank, the U.S. Army War College, Carlyle Barracks,
PA:

Frolov’s question and scenario are unfortunately disingenuous. The
economic crisis is for real, but it is not something NATO can do
anything about. The Russian threat is real. It must be pointed out
here again, despite unceasing Russian propaganda, that the war against
Georgia (and the evidence is there to support this) was a deliberate
and premeditated Russian provocation, even if this does not excuse
Mikheil Sakaashvili’s recklessness. Furthermore (a point not mentioned
by Russia’s advocates), Moscow even broke its own laws concerning
the use of military force abroad, i.e., on Georgian territory,
to wage that war. It has also threatened virtually every state from
the Baltic to the Black Sea with missiles if they dare exercise their
sovereign rights as NATO members to host U.S. missile defenses, which,
its own analysts admit, do not threaten Russia.

Likewise, Moscow unilaterally suspended its participation in the
CFE treaty, an act for which no legal category exists. There is a
very real threat of Russian military action, not least in Crimea
where Moscow is handing out passports and visibly equivocating about
Crimea’s belonging to Ukraine. Indeed, as we know Vladimir Putin told
the NATO summit that Ukraine was not even a state, and that if it
exercised its right to seek NATO membership, Moscow would dismember
it. Furthermore, as there is no democratic control of the military,
the temptation to militarized adventurism remains ever present. So
if Ukraine feels threatened, it has good reasons to exercise its
sovereign rights and seek NATO assistance.

The severity and urgency of the economic crisis does, for the moment,
eclipse military threats. But if it is unchecked it could lead, as in
the 1930s, to geopolitical explosions. Even if Russia can afford to
lend the kinds of sums involved to desperate governments, the terms
that it would impose, as we have seen in Ukraine which is already on
the verge of another gas crisis, would effectively compromise the
sovereignty if not the integrity of Ukraine for decades to come,
and undermine all the achievements in the post-Soviet space since 1989.

It is quite unlikely that anyone in Eastern Europe regards Moscow as
the region’s savior, even if the EU seems unprepared to step up to
the plate and assume its historical and political responsibility. For
states to surrender themselves to Moscow only restores the dangerous
bipolarity of a previous generation. While undoubtedly that would
be music in the ears of many Russian elites, it would be an utterly
discordant denouement to Europe’s present difficulties. But if military
instability does break out in Eastern Europe due to protracted failure
to come to terms with the present crisis, members may well call upon
NATO to act. If Moscow does not like the British proposal for a rapid
reaction force, it has only itself to blame. It alone remilitarized
Europe’s security agenda and must pay the price of its policy.