THE PROBABLE SCENARIOS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE REGIONAL SECURITY
RUSSIA-GERMANY
"Noravank" Foundation
30 April 2010
Gagik Ter-Harutyunyan
The developments round Armenian-Turkish relations went beyond the
scope of the regional format and moved to global politics. There are
grounds to believe that regardless of the results at the current stage
of the diplomatic processes the relations between Yerevan and Ankara
will stay at the agenda of our foreign policy for quite a long time,
because it is of strategic importance and in its significance it does
not cede to the problems with Azerbaijan on the NKR. It should also be
stated that till now the RA policy was systematized and it excelled in
diplomatic proficiency the Turkish party, which made serious mistakes
during the process of negotiations. Thus, the fears of some observers
that Turkey which has `imperial’ experience would `outsmart’ the RA
officials, proved to be fully wrong. As a result of the developments
connected with Turkey the positive political atmosphere has been
formed around Armenia and, in addition, the `Armenian Question’ has
again been actualized and became a subject to discuss for the
governments and parliaments of different countries.
No less important is the fact that the Armenian-Turkish processes
enriched Armenian political thinking and became a stimulus which
boosted the searching of the new resources and possibilities in the
sphere of the foreign policy of the RA. In this context the global and
regional changes going on as a result of the multi-polar system
formation are worth of attention. Particularly, the developments going
on within the European Union imply the same logic, and those
developments in our opinion contain new opportunities for the foreign
policy of the RA.
`Post-American’ region. It is difficult to present in a brief report
the complex of the military and political processes going on a global
plane, because they contain many shades of meaning, components of
civilizational, economical and other character. At the same time, let
us try to consider schematically the main tendencies which are caused
by rather morbid formation of the multi-polar world. The changes are
happening gradually and due to this, unlike the revolutionary collapse
of the bipolar system, they are not always noticeable in short-term
periods. At the same time the system changes, despite their intensity,
are always fraught with unpredictable consequences. It is not a mere
chance that some political scientists compare the current realities
with the situation before World War II.
Under such conditions, passing by the issue of the overstrengthening
of China and all the scenarios connected with that (they need special
scrutiny), from the point of view of the elaboration of the
prospective policy the most topical for Armenia is the relative
weakening of the influence of the United States in the region. The
manifestation of this are, particularly, the difficulties with Turkey
this power had while carrying out the mediatory mission in the
Armenian-Turkish relations. It is characteristic that like at the
beginning of the last century, today the representatives of the US
establishment are more often turning to the necessity to conduct the
policy of `isolation’ by the US. Particularly, the Congressman Ron
Paul who is taking leading positions in the Republican party today and
is one of the possible candidates at the presidential elections in
2012 not only plumped the full withdrawal of the US troops from Iraq,
but also called to leave the UN and NATO, to dismiss the Federal
Reserve system and to restrict the interference of the US in the
affairs of other countries.
Meanwhile, according to some analysts, the retreat of the Americans
may cause the explosive situation in the Near and Middle East, South
Asia (the so-called Eurasian Balkans). Let us mention that this region
today is also in a rather unstable condition, particularly because of
the processes going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, which has been mainly
provoked by that very US. But the US presence, though curiously
enough, proves the `stability of that instability’, the stationarity.
That means that the current chaos is more or less controllable, and
such a situation will hardly be preserved after the departure of the
Americans. It is a common belief that the retreat of the Anglo-Saxons
is more dangerous than their offence.
It is obvious that the creation of such uncontrollable region which
countries either possess or tend to possess the nuclear weapon (Turkey
among them) is a new challenge for Armenia and new resources and
political partners are needed to resist them. In this aspect new
developments taking place in Europe are of a certain interest.
The formation of `German’ Europe. It is known that the plans to create
`United Europe’ have rather long and rich history and the conceptual
approaches to the today’s EU were elaborated before the end of World
War II mainly by the joint Anglo-American efforts (it was mostly
contributed by the prime-minister of Great Britain Winston Churchill).
After that first practical steps were made in that direction, i.e. the
signing of the agreement by France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands,
Belgium and Luxemburg in Maastricht in 1951.
The EU was created as a structure which is based on interconnectivity
which should prevent the separate countries and first of all Germany
to act independently and restore as a mighty power. That mechanism was
rather effective in bipolar and one-polar systems. Consequently, the
EU, which is the biggest economics in the world, plays no serious
geopolitical role on global plane. But in multi-polar world and amid
the financial crisis when their own national interests became more
important the processes of division were initiated. This manifests
itself both in the weakening of the ties between the US and Europe and
the up growth of the contention and in the growth of the gap in
economic and other spheres between the countries of the EU.
Germany appeared to be the most prepared to the new situation. It is
suffice to mention that for recent 10 years the contention of the
German goods and services, as compared to other countries of the EU,
has grown on 25%. As a result, Germany today is not only the most
mighty economics in the EU but also the country which dictates (less
relying on France) the rules of the EU activity. It is remarkable that
the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel is often called in
international media `Frau Europe’.
The military and political claims of that country have also grown.
Today the representatives of the German elite sound the ideas about
the reforming NATO (meaning the growth of the role of Europe),
possessing nuclear weapon, withdrawal of the American bases from
Europe and etc. This comes to prove that in the near future the
`Germanized’ EU or, according to some scenarios Germany and its allies
acting out the EU format, will tend to take the descent place on
global geopolitical plane.
Russia, Germany and `Great Europe’. In the context of the
aforementioned trends the newly edited `Great Europe’ creation
programme which was offered by German military circles is remarkable.
It implies the involvement of Russia in NATO and thus, the
`Eurasification’ of that structure. Such a scenario can especially get
topical in case if the self-isolation tendency of the United States
(let us remember the statement by Congressman Ron Paul about the
withdrawal of the US from NATO) shift from the theoretical reflections
into a practical plane. It is obvious that such a development firstly
implies the preparedness of Russia, particularly if we take into
consideration the problems of the later with NATO and its expansion to
the East. But today the tendencies, which can make `Great Europe’
project real, are observed in the policy of Russia and this is
conditioned not only by the traditional considerations regarding
Moscow-Berlin geopolitical axis.
At current moment Germany is the main economic partner of the RF; they
implement big geo-economic energy programmes. There are some
agreements in the political sphere as well (particularly in the issue
of Georgia’s NATO membership). It is also important that in recent
years Russia has preferred indirect actions, i.e. it conducts more
subtle policy. E.g. the opponent of the `officially’ pro-Russian
Yanukovich on the presidential elections in Ukraine Timoshenko had not
had anti-Russian orientation, i.e. unlike the past experience the
favourable political field was formed before ahead1. The appraisal of
the elections by the Europeans has also been well-wishing. They, amid
the relative weakening of the US possibilities, are more adequate in
their appraisal of Russia’s influence on their `rightful’ territories
and they aspire not to `tear’ Ukraine off but to turn it into the
ground of cooperation between the EU and RF. A great number of
analytical materials devoted to that subject which have appeared on
the information field indirectly speak to the strengthening of the
ties between Russia and Germany2. There are also some European
integration tendencies observed in the Moscow-Warsaw relations.
There are many such examples and one can state without going into the
details that the idea of the creation of the `Great Europe’ being
adequate both to the logic of political commonalities and to the
realities of the multi-polar world seems to be acceptable to the
parties. Under such conditions the US and Great Britain, in contrast
to their distinctly negative stance to the relations between Russia
and Germany, now should not be opposed basically to `Great Europe’
programme, because such a union, according to some geopolitical
scenarios, may become a natural obstacle in case of the
Eastern-Chinese expansion.
The probable influences of the project on the region. Being located in
the neighbourhood of `Eurasian Balkans’ where the tendencies to the
loss of the control are observed, one of the main guarantees of the
security of Armenia still remains the military cooperation with the RF
and the military base of the later. In this aspect the possible
participation of the RF in `Great Europe’ project will undoubtedly
enlarge the possibilities of our ally. In such condition the German
presence can be useful.
Germany, acquiring some influence in Eurasian military and political
field, can use our region as a platform for the implementation of its
geopolitical claims (this kind of aspiration is shown by the Germans,
e.g. in Afghanistan) and in this case those claims should not
contradict to our national interests. The following factors speak to
that:
Germany does not have oil interests, which play the key role in the
policy of other Western powers and which are manifested in the partial
attitude towards Azerbaijan, in our region.
The official Berlin has serious problems with Turkey and here the fact
that there are about 3 million Turks living in Germany, 1.7 million of
whom are the citizens of Turkey and a considerable part of them on
principle and some by the directions of Ankara do not want to
integrate into the German society, plays role. That factor caused the
problems of civilizational and demographic character in German
society, which is partially reflected in the foreign policy
approaches.
1Õ?Õ¸Ö?
 5;½Õ¡Õ½Õ¿Õ ¡Õ¶ÕµÕ¡Õ&# xB6; Õ¶Õ¸Ö Õ¼Õ¡Õ¦Õ´&# xD5;¡Õ¾Õ¡ÖÕ 8;Ö?Õ©ÕµÕ¡Õ ;¶ Õ¡Õ¼Õ¸Ö?Õ& #xB4;Õ¸Õ¾ Õ¢Õ¶Õ¸Ö?Õ& #xA9;Õ¡Õ£ÖÕ¡&#x D5;¯Õ¡Õ¶ Õ§ Õ?ÖÕ²Õ¦Õ½& #xD5;¿Õ¡Õ¶Õ¸&#x D6;?Õ´
Õ¾Õ¥Ö&#x D5;»Õ¥ÖÕ½ Õ¿Õ¥Õ²Õ« Õ¸Ö?Õ¶Õ¥Ö? Õ¡Õ® «Õ£Õ¸Ö?Õ¶& #xD5;¡Õ¾Õ¸Ö Õ°Õ¥Õ²Õ¡&# xD6;?Õ¸Õ – Õ¸Ö?Õ©ÕµÕ& #xB8;Ö?Õ¶Õ¨», Õ¸ÖÕ¶ Õ¡Õ¯Õ¶Õ°&# xD5;¡ÕµÕ¿Õ¸
 6;Õ¥Õ¶
«Õ´Õ ;¸Õ½Õ¯Õ¸Õ& #xBE;ÕµÕ¡Õ¶» Õ®Õ¡Õ£Õ¸&# xD6;?Õ´ Õ¸Ö?Õ¶Õ«Ö?
2See, for example, «ÐоÑ?Ñ?и йÑ?ко-Ð ³ÐµÑма&# xD0;½Ñ?киÐ&#x B5; оÑ?ноÑ? ениÑ? в конÑ?Ð& #xB5;кÑ?Ñ?е
Ð µÐ²Ñоп&# xD0;µÐ¹Ñ?кÐ&#x BE;й безо&# xD0;¿Ð°Ñ?нÐ&#x BE;Ñ?Ñ?и», под Ñед. пÑоÑ?. Ð’.Ð`. ВаÑ?иÑ?Ð ;µÐ²Ð°, -Ð`.: Ð`Ð – ÐÐ?Ð’,
2009.
Other issues of author
YEREVAN-ANKARA: NEW STAGE OF POLITICAL MANOEUVRES [25.03.2010]
CONTEXT OF THE RA-TURKEY RELATIONS [09.10.2009]
NATIONAL SECURITY AND IDEOLOGY [11.06.2009]
ISSUES OF ORGANIZATION OF ARMENIANCY [16.04.2009]
ON THE PROSPECTS OF THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE USA AND CHINA [23.02.2009]
CHALLENGES OF MULTI-POLAR WORLD [26.01.2009]
SOME ISSUES OF `INFORMATION SOCIETY’ [21.07.2008]