New presidents for Europe and America?
The presidential race in the United States has been well underway for quite some time. Everyone has heard of the frontrunners John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and even those who have dropped out like Rudolph Giuliani. Less well known though is the fact that the position of ‘President of Europe’ is also up for grabs from 2009—or as soon as the Treaty of Lisbon is ratified and comes into force across our continent. In reality, the person who assumes the position will be president of the European Council, whose role it is to set the general political guidelines and steer the direction of the European Union. The ‘president’ will be able to hold the post for up to five years depending on renewal and will have the mandate to chair meetings of the Council of Ministers, represent the Member States, and act as a mediator between their competing interests. But he or she might also be able to craft out a position of authority, actually driving policy by shaping the parameters of debate. In part, depending on the candidate, the new position is likely to be one of considerable influence, which could lead to enhanced coordination and cooperation at the European level.Several names have already been put forward for the post. The European Council will appoint the best candidate either in late 2008 or early 2009, depending on the speed of the ratification process in each of the Member States. Out of several potential candidates, one name keeps popping up again and again and that name is Tony Blair. Online petitions have already been formed by the usual suspects in order to try and prevent his appointment, and a group on Facebook has already been formed to support him. Other potential personalities include Jean-Claude Juncker, Wolfgang Schüssel and Romano Prodi. I have to lay my cards on the table at this point and confess that I think Tony Blair—who is currently the Middle East Peace Envoy—is not merely the only dynamic candidate out of what remains as as otherwise rather uninspiring bunch, but is actually the natural candidate for the post. So why would Tony Blair make a good president of the European Council?
First, Mr. Blair is one of the most well-known politicians in the world. Unlike Mr. Prodi he is not a political failure, having been the only Labour prime minister in the United Kingdom to gain three consecutive terms in office. While many consider him to be a controversial figure, particularly given his support for the removal of the Ba’athist regime in Iraq, he is nevertheless a dynamic speaker, and a figure of authority. Some of his speeches—such as his ‘Speech to the European Parliament’ in 2005, or his speech on the ‘Doctrine of the International Community’ in Chicago during 1999—were truly groundbreaking, and in some ways have changed the course of European and global history. As European Council president, people from all over our continent and the wider world would be very likely to be interested in what Mr. Blair has to say on any range of issues. This can only be to the benefit of Europe, which will be provided with a higher international profile and greater cultural reach.
Second, the very fact that Mr. Blair is such a controversial figure is perhaps something to celebrate. What could be worse than a staid and politically boring figure as European Council president—a person of consensus, unwilling to make his or her voice heard above the din of contemporary European politics? While having Mr. Blair as president could turn droves of people against the project of European integration, he could also inject a renewed sense of political purpose in the whole project as people fight to have appointed a different candidate. Political struggle is constitutive of the socio-political community; without it, there could be no society. Unwittingly, by appointing Mr. Blair as president, European leaders could contribute to the ongoing creation of a European public sphere, whose emergence is already apparent within the blogosphere. The debate might even contribute one day to the prospect of an elected president and a connected European presidential race, which would provide the European Union with enhanced democratic legitimacy.
Third, Tony Blair would automatically command the respect of the other great powers. He is listened to in Washington, and has the political will and assertiveness to stand up to our competitors, such as the Russians and Iranians. As the former political head of the British state, he has a solid understanding of the dynamics of the international system, and a good knowledge of the way in which Europeans can exercise world power. Potential candidates like Romano Prodi, Wolfgang Schüssel and Jean-Claude Juncker come nowhere close in this area. Mr. Prodi cannot even keep together his own government in Italy. Wolfgang Schüssel maintained the so-called neutrality of Austria, meaning that he is hardly a good representative of Europe, while Mr. Juncker comes from Luxembourg, which is not known for its worldwide influence—something the European Union must inevitably have. Luxembourg is marginally larger in population than the city of Oxford, and little bigger in area than Greater London. And the delicacies of the Italian political system mean that Italy is not known for its global reach, even though it is comparable economically and demographically to France and Britain. That the first president of the European Council should come from one of the biggest Member States has seemingly also been acknowledged by Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown, who have both thrown their weight behind Tony Blair.
Finally, Mr. Blair is often criticised as having failed to bring Britain to the heart of Europe during his time in office. On so many levels this is right: he could have done more, not least in bringing Britain into the Schengen zone, and even the Euro. But Mr. Blair does better in other areas. He was instrumental in the widening, deepening and hardening of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, as well as the constitution of the European Security and Defence Policy. Those have been the two ‘growth areas’ of European integration since the latter 1990s, and further developments in these areas underpin many of the provisions in the Treaty of Lisbon. So actually, while the former British prime minister may have failed to convince the British public of the merits of European integration, he has certainly done much for the European cause. And that he has already expressed a keen interest in upgrading European military capabilities means that defence integration would be a key area of concentration under his potential presidency.
So in light of the four points identified above, Tony Blair could be a more attractive candidate than many people might at first realise. I therefore urge all Europeans to support his appointment as the first ‘President of Europe’.
Now we should turn briefly to the presidential race across the Atlantic. From a reading of the recent foreign policy ambitions of each of the major American contenders in Foreign Affairs, John McCain comes out in a very positive light. As he argued in his contribution to the journal:
The United States did not single-handedly win the Cold War; the transatlantic alliance did, in concert with partners around the world. The bonds we share with Europe in terms of history, values, and interests are unique. Unfortunately, they have frayed. As president, one of my top foreign policy priorities will be to revitalise the transatlantic partnership. Americans should welcome the rise of a strong, confident European Union. The future of the transatlantic relationship lies in confronting the challenges of the twenty-first century worldwide: developing a common energy policy, creating a transatlantic common market tying our economies more closely together, and institutionalising our cooperation on issues such as climate change, foreign assistance, and democracy promotion.
This means that Mr. McCain is the only candidate to have explicitly mentioned the necessity of a renewed transatlantic alliance, and for the need of the United States to work with the European Union. As such, he has identified the unilateral tendencies of George W. Bush and his administration as decidedly unhelpful, and he seems to look forward to dealing with Europeans as a united bloc (instead of Britons, French, Germans, and so on). Moreover, his proposals for a global League of Democracies might go some way in meeting the American urge for spreading democracy abroad and the European desire to build strong and effective global multilateral institutions. A Democratic League would integrate the two approaches in a synthesis, leading to better transatlantic relations. And Tony Blair, who also supports both the spread of constitutional government and the need for a vigorous Atlantic Alliance, would be keen to work with Mr. McCain for their mutual realisation.In their contributions to Foreign Affairs, the other candidates made only brief comments about the European Union. Hillary Clinton made a fleeting remark about the European Union as a model for Africa, while Barack Obama did not even discuss it, other than to say that the European Union is a leading source of pollution. This suggests that their worldviews are either outdated or that their priorities rest elsewhere. John McCain, on the other hand, has explicitly stated that he welcomes ‘the rise of strong, confident European Union’, indicating that he looks forward to working with us as Europeans. Although—as a progressive—I would have sympathies with the domestic agenda of Barack Obama, or even Hillary Clinton (though I am not keen on the establishment of political dynasties), I still believe to some extent in the principle of the national interest. That is to say that rather than standing in solidarity with political allies in foreign countries, we must instead pay closer attention to the way in which foreign leaders might assist our own agenda. The European interest must always come first; hence I urge Europeans to begin thinking about how we can work with the United States under John McCain.
19 comments:
James, without wanting to dampen your enthusiasm for Tony Blair too much, I think that it would be in order to discuss improving the election process first, starting with the embarrasing fact that the European Council (not a lawmaker presently, by the way) is a more restricted electoral college than the Conclave of Cardinals choosing a new Pope.
Although the final choice rests with the heads of state or government, they have the power to provide for open nominations, public debates and transparent decision making, which all could contribute towards some degree of 'ownership' by the citizens of the European Union.
At some later date a unified EU executive, politically accountable, could result in the merger of the Commission and European Council presidencies.
Thank you for linking to the Stop Blair petition, James. As for 'usual suspects', this is the first petition the European Tribune has drafted, and the blog has a diverse, though generally progressive, membership.
That the campaign against Blair furthers the creation of a European political sphere is an interesting side-effect. I do not think the effect will last when the campaign against Blair loses, though. Disillusionment about citizen's initiatives is the likely result. For many reasons, we badly need a win right now.
The matter whether Tony Blair is controversial is, to continue, a typical neutral story line, which allows you to not address the issue of whether what Blair did was wrong or right. To get out of the proxy debate, I'll ask you two straight questions.
Do you think that Blair was right to push for war in Iraq? Do you think that his use and actions towards intelligence and general information about Iraq were ethical?
Dear Ralf: I’m not sure what to say other than that I agree with you regarding the appointment process. My post was not really dealing with that issue; rather the candidates themselves.
Dear Nanne: This is a deeply complicated question and my responses could only be beyond a simple ‘wrong’ or ‘right’. But anyway, to try and give you the response you’re after:
(1) I think Tony Blair saw an opportunity to oust a decrepit and cruel leader, who had turned what might otherwise be the Middle East’s richest and most advanced country into a totalitarian basket case, and he went for it. This has to be seen in relation to the successful regime change—at least as it seemed in 2002—in Afghanistan and the previous successes in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, as well as 11th September 2001. Mr. Blair knew that alone, Britain no longer has the power to do something like this by itself, so could only support the United States. I think Mr. Blair might of hoped that American post-war planning would have been more extensive, and that many of the problems that arose after the invasion would have been mitigated. Indeed, had many other European Union Member States lent some support, then we might have been able to use weight in numbers to put pressure on the Americans to implement better occupation strategies. Nevertheless, at the time I wholeheartedly supported the British government’s stance; still, to this day, I cannot understand how so many of the Left were willing to leave millions of people under Saddam’s lash, when the opportunity presented itself to liberate them, setting them on their way to a better future. However, it seems that in hindsight, the preposterous post-invasion planning by the United States would lead me to reconsider. As a strategist, I completely accept that it is never good military policy to try and fight two wars on two—or more—fronts. I also know that Britain would always have to go along with American policies; this is why I want a stronger Europe, so we do not need to rely on American power. But what has been done has been done, and that is the situation we now find ourselves in, so the story is not yet played out.
(2) On the intelligence, many seem so eager to forget the fact that just about every Western intelligence agency believed that Saddam still had not gotten rid of his remaining Weapons of Mass Destruction. The Master of my college in Cambridge was actually the director of the British Secret Intelligence Service at the time, and I do not believe that anyone used false intelligence. But I might concede that some intelligence got ‘spun’ further down the political line as the government tried to garner public support for the war (e.g. the 45 minute claim—which probably referred to battlefield weaponry—and the ‘Dodgy Dossier’). I’m not sure there is any problem here though; not many wars—not least the war against the Nazis, or the struggle against the Soviets—would have been won without government sponsored propaganda. And in any case, I never supported the war on the pretext of ending Saddam’s potential Weapons of Mass Destruction. Instead, I hoped that we might be able to get rid of the Ba’athists, liberate the Iraqis and produce an environment where Iraq could prosper. In turn, the emergence of a democratic country in the heart of the Middle East would have—and still might—be able to provide an alternative means of identification for those who might otherwise join the ranks of the Islamists, enhancing our own security in the process.
If you need to spin that many words to avoid answering a basic question, you just lost all credibility. Everyone knows the answer, except those that keep parrotting the false spin.
By the way, seeing the two photos you chose, saved me a lot of reading.
Denmadrid: Clearly everyone doesn’t ‘know’ the answer. It’s subjective and will be sharply contested for years to come. But thank you for leaving a comment, even if you did not bother to read the post itself.
Thank you for your elaborate response, James.
Note that there are literally billions of people in the world living under oppressive, authoritarian regimes. Although Britain and the US do not have the power to topple all of those regimes, they certainly have the power to topple most of them.
The question is, though, whether such a course of action would actually effect anything positive.
It was rather obvious that the political situation in Iraq would be inherently unstable, tending towards civil war and ethnic cleansing, after an invasion. It was also rather obvious that the Americans did not have a post-war plan. Furthermore, it was rather obvious that Iraqi attitudes towards the US and the UK would be rather negative and that Iraqis would not like to be occupied by those countries.
It is one thing to believe that there were WMD - although there were also good reasons to believe Saddam Hussein was bluffing about those - it is another thing to believe that they constituted some kind of threat. That is where the intelligence was manipulated most.
That Britain feels forced to go along with the US is a matter of growing a spine, and building an autonomous delivery system for its nukes.
Dear Nanne: I do not agree that Britain and the United States have the power to topple most of the world’s authoritarian regimes. It is clear just how difficult ending a mere handful has turned out to be: we still have serious security problems in Bosnia and Kosovo years after intervention. And Afghanistan and Iraq could still turn out horribly wrong. Imagine trying to do the same thing to Iran, Zimbabwe, Burma, Russia—or China! There are non-military avenues to implement change, of course, and these should also be used, but often military and non-military means cannot be used exclusively but must be used together. That was what the British foreign secretary tried to point out in his recent speech on the ‘Democratic Imperative’.
But we might be able to speed the process of democratisation if we pinpoint our efforts on certain regimes in particular geopolitically sensitive regions. So that Serbia, Iraq and Afghanistan were dealt with opens up the possibility for change in the Balkans, Mesopotamia and South Asia. Militarily, we have enough to be getting on with for the time being and must ensure that those places we have intervened in turn out successfully. And I do not think it was ‘rather obvious’ that Iraqis were destined to turn against the British-American led coalition. Just after the invasion in 2003 our troops were actually welcomed as liberators; the problem was not so much the invasion, but rather the appalling insecurity that followed, and our inability—worsened by the fact that traditional allies like France, Germany and so on would not lend adequate assistance—to restore order and the rule of law. Had more boots been on the ground, Iraq might be in a very different position today. However, that is, as they say, history, and we have to live in the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
But we also need more than ever a coordinated European strategy to contain other dangerous regimes, not least Russia, whose bellicosity seems to grow by the week. Connected to this is our energy security. Here it would be helpful if Germany and others like Italy and the Eastern Member States put in place a long-term energy policy to wean themselves off Russian oil and gas. Wind and nuclear power is the way forward. It would also be helpful if the German government realised that appeasing the Russians in exchange for—to quote Edward Lucas—‘a few silver roubles’, is very bad policy.
Of course, if other European Union Member States, particularly Italy and Spain, and above all Germany, also realised that there exists a dangerous and unstable world beyond our immediate borders, and ramped up their defence spending to Anglo-French levels accordingly, we might have the capability to engage more assertively in the rest of the world. It is unacceptable that we Europeans still rely almost exclusively on the United States for our security and freedoms and then squawk loudly when they pay little or no attention to us. It is essential that Germany leaves its past behind it and moves into the modern era—what we need is for Germany to fully restructure its armed forces along British or French lines. This is in my opinion a bigger problem to European cohesiveness than whether or not the United Kingdom cooperates with the United States in maintaining its own nuclear deterrent.
I forgot to add that it would of course be better if we eventually have our own European Union nuclear deterrent. This would require Britain and France working more closely together, and countries like Germany and Ireland accepting that nuclear weapons are essential for our collective European security.
To prove your intend to fight for peace, love and democracy it would have been wise to
a) not claim that Saddam was involved in the attacks of 9/11 (despite that fact that every reasonable person new that he wasn't).
b) not attack a country with significant resources. Because this leaves you open to charges that you only did to acquire those resources.
Maybe we should not rehash the pros and cons of the Iraq war, but unfortunately it is a big part of Tony Blair's legacy. Otherwise I would be inclined to support him as President of the Council. But his unwavering support for the war, even after the criminal neglect of after war planning of the USA became apparent, makes it really difficult.
Dear RZ: Thanks for your comment.
(1) I did not and have not ever claimed anywhere that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for 9/11. That is clearly nonsense, and anyone who thinks that his regime was implicated is just plain wrong.
(2) Is there any country without any significant resources? To prove my point, the British intervention in Sierra Leone in 2000 was motivated primarily on humanitarian grounds, yet its detractors still maintain that the operation was for London to keep hold of the diamond and rutile supply from that country...
I am sorry that there was some misunderstanding. It did not want to imply that you claimed that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11.
I wanted only to note that public support in the USA was created, in parts, by conflating the threat posed by Islamic extremism and the goals of a war against Iraq, in an inappropriate way.
Now, it is not immediately clear how this reflects on Tony Blair, since he was not responsible for this campaign.
But it reflects badly on the war itself, that there was no discussion about the war aims in good faith.
Your ideas about the need for a common policy of nuclear deterrence are very interesting. I recently read reports that Sarkozy offered to share nuclear weapons with Germany, but Angela Merkel refused.
I think such a move can only work if it would be done through a European framework which gives it more legitimacy and makes clear it is not simply a German grap for the nuclear weapon.
RZ: I see what you mean now regarding the justification for the Iraq operation in the United States. I do think—and Tony Blair has also argued this—that there is some correlation between the existence of repressive regimes and the growth of Islamism though. When civil society is extinguished in the way that it is in so many Middle Eastern societies, religion is the only route left for the people to vent their frustrations. And the decrepit regimes know this, and actively fan the flames. We, the Euro-Atlantic democracies, then get blamed for all their ills.
I agree with you on the nuclear weapons issue. At some point this will have to be given serious consideration. We can’t have two Member States footing the bill for the erection of the nuclear umbrella over all the rest. Although I concede that this is as much the fault of the French and British, who remain steadfastly committed to their national deterrents.
James,
Re- your last comment, Nicolas Sarkozy actually floated the idea of sharing the 'strategic deterrent' with Germany -- in his usual off the cuff manner, upsetting the Germans. The French had done so before in the '90s.
Re- toppling democracies: you make precisely the point I made. It's one thing to topple a regime through military force, it's another thing altogether to do nation-building.
The US and Britain, as you will remember, had been bombing Iraq on and off for about 10 years. Before, they had fought a war against Iraq and incited an uprising in the south that they then did not back. In addition, Britain is a former colonial power, which in its day popularised the use of chemical weapons to surpress uprisings.
I am sure that the majority was happy to see Saddam Hussein gone, but on the other hand, to think that the US and Britain could stay on for any length as occupiers and remain popular was never realistic.
You cite some more or less successful interventions, which is fair enough, but history is also littered with unsuccesful interventions. You don't have to go far back for prominent examples, e.g. Somalia in the 1990s and Lebanon in the 1980s.
I don't know if Russia is all that belligerent, but the situation is certainly not aided by continuing efforts from Washington to encircle Russia though NATO expansion. I frankly don't see the strategic rationale for that.
The issue of gas is widely misread, particularly by the British foreign policy community. The EU has a monopsony on Russian gas - that is, we buy nearly 100% of Russian gas exports, while Russian gas exports make up only 25% of our imports.
The reliance works both ways, and it works stronger on the Russian side. We can deal with the issue merely by improving buffers and diversifying supply on our side.
I do not think that Germany should build an armed force directed at out of theatre force projection towards states. It eventually has to grow up further with regard to the use of force, and nuclear weapons. But when it gets there, Germany should focus more on its capacity to fight asymmetric threats than to project force against states.
Dear Nanne: Precisely, in which case it was just an ‘off the cuff’ comment. And given most Germans’ disposition towards nuclear weapons, I don’t think it was supposed to be serious. There are agreements between the British and French, not least the Franco-British Joint Commission on Nuclear Policy and Doctrine, but this has evolved rather slowly in comparison, say, to Anglo-American cooperation (unfortunately). Any move in the direction of pan-European deterrence will only come when London and Paris decide to make it so.
On the issue of toppling regimes, I’m not sure we’re singing from the same hymn sheet. You seem to be implying that it’s all too difficult and should not be done (perhaps I am crudely stereotyping your position, for which I apologise), but I am arguing that while it is difficult, it can be done with the right troop levels and logistical support, both of a military and non-military nature. Those unsuccessful interventions you mention were indeed unsuccessful, but they were very early interventions and we have learnt a lot since then.
On NATO enlargement: Firstly, NATO is enlarging because almost all of the countries once ruled by Moscow actually want to be part of the alliance, as it brings them democratic stability, European and American support and legitimacy. Russia no longer has any hold over the said countries anymore, so deserves neither to be consulted or given any say over whether or not those countries can join the Euro-Atlantic community. Secondly, it is sound strategic policy to encircle Russia and keep it contained. Russia is a natural competitor to the United Kingdom and the European Union in Central Asia and the Black Sea region. If we do not bring all of the former Soviet satellite states into the Euro-Atlantic community, Russia will simply pick them off, one after the other (as it has tried to do with Georgia and Ukraine). For the first time in history, we have successfully stalled Russia’s expansionary dynamic, and so long as we keep it contained, the country will never again rise to Great Power status.
Your point on energy security does not hold good. First, the European Union is unfortunately not a coherent or singular energy market or actor. Some Member States like Britain are not dependent on any Russian energy supplies, but others like Germany and Poland are far more so. Second, given that on current projections the European Union will become between 60%-80% dependent on Russian gas supplies within twenty years, we really need to consider the longer-term instead of the here and now. Being that dependent on a single source for such a crucial form of power is plain silly, as the Americans were keen to point out back in the early 1980s when Germany began proposing energy links with the former Soviet empire. Given the way in which the Kremlin has treated Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia, it seems inherently undesirable to put any faith in Russia.
And quite how you can suggest that Russia is not ‘at all that belligerent’ is beyond my comprehension. In the past few years, Russia has or is suspected of doing the following to Europeans:
(1) Sending assassins to kill a British citizen in London, with a radioactive poison mostly found in the Russian nuclear weapons/energy industry, and then failing to cooperate with the British authorities.
(2) Sending long range bombers armed with nuclear missiles close to European airspace, leading to RAF and Norwegian jets being scrambled in order to intercept them.
(3) Making statements underpinned by extraordinarily aggressive rhetoric, not least towards the United States and the United Kingdom, and on occasion made from within Germany itself.
(4) Internet war against Estonia.
(5) Threatening European cities with nuclear obliteration, e.g. in Poland, Czech Republic and Ukraine, when those countries support the United States’ defensive anti-missile system aimed at defending against limited missile strikes from places like Iran.
(6) Firing live missiles into Georgia.
(7) Meddling in the sovereign nation of Ukraine’s political system before an election, then later cutting off its energy supplies during a particularly harsh winter.
(8) Being decidedly unhelpful over the issue of Iran.
(9) Preventing the British Council from working legally and legitimately within Russia.
(10) Ugly murders in Russia itself, possibly politically motivated, and growing in number.
(11) A reduction of Russian domestic freedoms and a return to authoritarianism, where political dissidents disappear or are sent to psychiatric hospitals.
Much of this is now common knowledge and is detailed in The Economist’s Russian and Eastern Europe correspondent Edward Lucas’ excellent new book The New Cold War.
So far from misreading Russia, I think the British foreign policy community—which is one of the largest, longest established and most sophisticated in the world—has got the character of the new Russian regime spot-on. Russia, in the words of one British minister, is now an ‘ugly place’. It is actually the Germans that need to re-analyse the character of the country they are dealing with to their east, and redouble their efforts to diversify supplies and forms of energy so that Germany and the rest of the European Union cannot ever be held to ransom by the Kremlin.
Russia is our competitor. The sooner everyone realises this simple fact and brings their heads out of the sand, the better.
How can you expect anyone to take you seriously when the only concept you spread is war-projection into the future through this ´intellectual detachment´? Besides the endless repetition of news that have been PROVEN false, you only subtract from the possibilities for PEACE.
Have you heard of ´diplomacy´, or ´negotiations´...?, IMAGINE, just asking THE PEOPLE ANYWHERE whether they want peace in this 21st century, or their politicians becoming zillionaires on bribes from the fear and arms industries.
Clue: Which is really the point!
Dear Denmadrid: I do not spread ‘war-projection’ (whatever that might be), and nor am I ‘intellectually detached’.
Unsurprisingly, I have heard of ‘diplomacy’ and ‘negotiations’; these work very well when backed-up by military power. I am a Realist, and do not have time for illusions. That means that I understand the simple dictum: ‘If you want peace, prepare for war.’ It is only when we delude ourselves to the contrary that war becomes more likely. You might consider the interwar period (1919-1939) as a good example. When the democracies let down their guard—believing in disarmament treaties (e.g. the Five-Power Treaty) and collective security (e.g. the League of Nations)—truly abhorrent regimes grew to challenge them.
So ‘the people everywhere’ as you put it, must come to understand that if they want peace, they must be willing to pay for strong armed force, which will furnish the soldiers, sailors and airmen who keep us all safe and secure. I think John Stuart Mill sums up my argument aptly:
War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
James,
I do think successful nation-building is possible, but it also depends upon particularities. So we are not entirely on the same page. I do not see that there has been a learning process that has increased our capabilities to engage in nation building, since we keep making a lot of grave mistakes on simple matters, and on the other hand I do not think that a capability to engage in nation building in one setting can be easily transferred to another.
If we seek to encircle Russia by taking up Ukraine (where the majority is opposed) and Georgia, Russia will increase its efforts to break out of the encirclement. There are a number of levers it can easily use in those two countries. I don't see that NATO has the means or the will to defend Georgia effectively.
Russia will also respond to encirclement by intensifying military cooperation with China and other countries through the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. It is against our interests to further the creation of competing power blocks. We need a new detente.
The point that the EU does not have a single energy policy yet is a good one. We do need that. But I would not panic about Russian gas: in the end the Russians also need the money. The 60-80% number depends upon other developments; I've also seen numbers as low as 40%. There are a large number of measures that can be taken for gas alone: building gas lines to Central Asia and Iran, building more LNG terminals, using biogas, etcetera. What we mainly need to ensure to deal with political problems is maintaining enough spare capacity in the case of short term crises.
The crises with regard to Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia were all cases where these countries had been buying at subsidised rates from Russia. There probably was a political element with regard to the timing, but there are more sides to the story (long-standing problems with siphoning off gas in the Ukraine, for instance).
With regard to your long list, many of those things are suspicions. With regard to Litivenko, it appears more likely to have been mafia-related (see e.g. this Guardian article). These 'missiles into Georgia' appears to have been one dud, and Russia denied the charges by Georgia. Russia did not threaten outright to obliterate European cities, rather, Putin stated that he would point missiles to them if they install the American missile defence system. In other words: rational tit for tat playing. The large and sophisticated British IT security community, meanwhile, has determined that the DDOS attack on Estonian websites was, in fact, the work of angry youngsters rather than the Kremlin.
Edward Lucas, sadly, has a one-track mind on these issues. I've read his blog for a while, but it gets boring. You should triple-check everything he writes.
Dear Nanne: Thank you for your latest comment—I see from your posts on European Tribune that you’re ‘enjoying’ our exchanges. But I shall not comment further on the issue of nation-building. I think we’re effectively speaking from the same hymn sheet, except that I am perhaps a little more confident on the utility of the process.
On Russia, though, I cannot agree with you. I do not think Russia is in any position to ‘break out of encirclement’, for the simple fact that Russia is still so very weak vis-à-vis the United States or European Union. Materially, Russia’s economy is about fifteen times smaller than America’s and about sixteen times smaller than the European Union’s. Russian defence spending is approximately forty percent smaller than the United Kingdom’s. And Russia’s population is still in sharp decline, even though some figures suggest that the fertility rate has improved in the past two years. This disparity might be reduced in the coming years, but not greatly.
So Russia can only expand its influence should we—that is the European Union, and to a lesser extent the United States—allow it the opportunity to do so. We do not need any more détente; far from reducing Russian influence in our Neighbourhood, this will only serve to embolden the Kremlin, much as it did in the past. As we saw from the Cold War, it was a strategy of military resurgence and aggression on the West’s part that saw the Soviet empire fall into the dirt in the 1980s. By forcing the Soviet economy to compete against the vastly superior and efficient Western model, the West ended the Soviet Union once and for all. Today, however, it is hard to re-implement that policy, simply because Russia is already so weak (e.g. they can’t compete). But it is possible to retain the aggression and transfer it to the geopolitical domain. So the way forward has to be to expand the European sphere of influence as far as possible, to include Moldova and Georgia (both are so small and we have sufficient means to keep them in line). NATO has the means to defend Georgia; I’m not sure what evidence you have to the contrary? I concede that Ukraine may be more difficult, for the simple fact that so many Russians still live there, who still have a great hold over the country.
This is where the issue of energy comes in. I concur with you that in the longer term Europeans should be able to reduce their potential dependency on Russian energy. Those figures I quoted are of course worse-case scenario statistics, which should encourage us to speed up the transition. You’re right that LNG, biogas and so forth will help here, but not as much as would an integrated energy market and the implementation of a new nuclear energy policy, alongside more funding for renewables research (e.g. fusion power and hydrogen fuel cell technology).
But in the short term, the biggest problem facing Europeans is the simple fact that through trading with Russia, many European Union Member States are buying vast quantities of oil and gas. The consequence of this is that Western investment is pouring across the Russian border, leading to something along the lines of what has in the past been called the ‘Dutch disease’, along with a supplementary political impact.
First, the funding and investment is swelling the Kremlin’s coffers, emboldening and entrenching the regime of Mr. Putin and the siloviki around him. Thus, we are actively strengthening a potential if not nascent enemy, and a natural competitor. Second, this funding is distorting the Russian economy, creating a similar sort of influence as experienced in many Middle Eastern countries: the economy is distorted, and leans heavily towards the primary sector. This leads to a higher level of autocracy, which in turn promotes nationalism (or Islamism in the case of the Middle East) to hold together the people, who themselves suffer gross levels of socio-economic inequality due to both the distortion of the economy and corruption.
So to bring this back where I started, the emboldened Russia—flush with cash from the West—then uses those resources to stir up troubles in the European Neighbourhood. At first, dirty tricks were played against peripheral little countries like Moldova and Georgia, but now that Mr. Putin and his ilk are more confident, we are beginning to see Russian meddling in the European Union itself.
I suggest that you seem altogether too quick to dismiss Russian behaviour as ‘mafia-related’, or to accept Russia’s version of events. Some of us are a little more suspicious—notably the British government, which has pressed Moscow hard, particularly on the matter of Alexander Litvinenko. And those other issues you are so quick to gloss over are also not so clear cut. Even if the Estonian cyber attack was from angry youngsters, this was still a product of the Kremlin’s policies (e.g. promoting Russian ethno-nationalism through youth groups with ominous names like NASHI). Further, please do not paper over the threats made against Poland, the Czech Republic and Ukraine. Russia has no authority over any of those countries, which are our allies; they are free to make up their own minds as to whether they are willing to host the American missile system—just as Britain has done (I think it would be better if Europeans actively participated in the system, but a lack of resolve on our part prevents us from doing so). And I would prefer to believe the Georgian version of events over the Russian. Sometimes we have a moral obligation to support our friends, especially when they are small countries struggling to become democratic.
It is for these reasons that we need to ‘thrust’ Russia back into its own borders, so that it cannot export its internal contradictions. This will reduce the power of the regime in Moscow, while simultaneously enlarging European and Western power in both Central Asia and far Eastern Europe (e.g. Ukraine, Moldova and so on). We also need a steely determination to see down Russian aggression (the European mission to Kosovo was a good start). And we need to stop funding Kremlin expansion through the purchase of Russian energy.
Finally, you also seem very quick to dismiss Edward Lucas. True, he is certainly not in any way the only authority on issues such as these, but I suggest you read his book before you make claims (perhaps influenced by The Exile?) about the state of his mind. Having read Lucas’ and a number of other related books, and having attended several academic seminars on the subject of European-Russian relations, I must declare that what he has to say actually strikes a cord, and follows a line of similar reports on the state of contemporary Russia.
The time has come for European ostriches to take their heads out of the sand.
And Nanne: This link suggests just how bold and aggressive the Russians have become. I’ll leave you to consider the consequences of Russia trying to force its way into Kosovo...
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