Christopher King welcomes the European Union’s resumption of partnership talks with Russia and warns against pressure from new EU members such as Estonia to pursue a US-inspired, dominance-driven agenda, contrary to the European objective to “...make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible” by economic means.
Happily, the European Union has resumed the partnership discussions with Russia that were suspended following the clash between Russia and Georgia. At that time there were hysterical accusations from most politicians and Western media, particularly in the US and the UK, that Russia was bullying, invading, reverting to Soviet-style behaviour etc and should be punished. George Bush, Gordon Brown and our foreign secretary, David Milliband, led the demands.
Now, two former UK army observers for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe who were stationed in Tskhinvali and trapped in the hostilities are to give evidence that Georgia initiated an unprovoked, indiscriminate and disproportionate attack on Tskhinvali. So the Russian version of events was correct.
We have seen this sort of thing before. Before invading Iraq, George Bush and Anthony Blair claimed that Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons and had chemical weapons and made other wild accusations that were all found to be false. Since our politicians constantly, no, always get things wrong when speaking of the Middle East and Russia, this raises a large number of questions about our security services.
Colin Powell now claims that George Tenant, head of the CIA, assured him that the script that he received from the White House, making the case for the Iraq war to the United Nations, was accurate. Did Tenant lie or was the CIA incompetent? Similarly, Anthony Blair claims that John Scarlett, Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, provided the information on Iraq that formed his “dodgy dossier” and other false information on which he took the UK to war. In view of Mr Scarlett’s appalling incompetence, why was he promoted and given a knighthood? Are the UK’s security services incompetent, are they politicized or did Mr Blair lie? Are all three possibilities true?
Tskhinvali was being shelled and the Russian army entered South Ossetia on 8 August. On 10 August I posted an article saying that Georgia had militarily provoked Russia over South Ossetia, which was obvious from public information. As it was so readily available, why did Gordon Brown, David Milliband and the rest of our politicians not know of it? They postured for weeks, demanding punishment of Russia for its aggression. Why was George Bush warning the EU about talking to Russia due to its aggressive foreign policy on 14 November, three months later?
The evidence is that our politicians lie, to the detriment of our national interests. It is enormously encouraging then, to see EU ministers re-engaging with Russia despite UK and US absurd demands for Russia’s punishment.
The US-Georgian provocation of Russia raises another set of questions regarding those former Soviet countries, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Bulgaria that host US military facilities on Russia’s borders. In the event that one of these countries or the US provokes Russia into a military response, should NATO or the EU come to its aid?
Certain former Soviet states such as Poland, Lithuania and Estonia wanted to suspend the partnership talks with Russia as punishment for what they see as aggression. There may be an element of grudge here. One can understand genuine concerns, however, given their experience of the Soviet Union, as well as the existence of substantial ethnic Russian minorities in some states. Nevertheless, they are mistaken both on the facts and the basis on which they view them.
This difference of view is worth examining closely and fortunately we have some useful information from Estonia.
The president of Estonia, Toomas Ilves, gave a lecture at the London School of Economics on 16 October 2008. Speaking somewhat elliptically, President Ilves suggested that, in tolerating the Russian invasion of Georgian territory, there has been a shift within the EU from a values-based philosophy to a results-based or pragmatic paradigm in its foreign policy. He considers that the EU has condoned bad behaviour by Russia due to Europe’s need for Russia’s oil and in appeasing Russian military power, invoking Chamberlain’s infamous meeting with Hitler at Munich. President Ilves claimed that, by contrast, Estonia and other former Soviet states chose value-based foreign policies. He appeared also to be saying that, because it was democratically elected, the government of Georgia should be supported against the government of Russia which is not democratic. He clearly wishes some form of punitive action against Russia.
President Ilves’s values appear to be based on the primacy of territorial sovereignty and democracy. A problem with his case is that 150 Estonian troops are in Afghanistan, both violating that country’s sovereignty and attempting to terrorize its population into accepting democracy. With NATO as an example of the way Western democracies behave, that is unlikely to be successful. President Ilves gave no consideration to these contradictions.
Nor did President Ilves suggest how Russia’s attitudes and political system may be constructively influenced by the EU, that is, how the EU can assist Russia to move toward democracy since there is little possibility of invading Russia and forcing democracy on it as in Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, it should be evident that if any country is treated punitively as an enemy, it will react in like terms. The only prospect for improving Russia’s political system is to engage with it as the “old Europe” countries are doing.
Since he speaks of values, it must be that President Ilves has misunderstood the values operating in this situation. His wish to punish Russia derives from a confrontational philosophy which extrapolates in the final analysis to violence and warfare. Nor is he alone in this. That is the philosophy of the United States and the United Kingdom. One of the reasons for this is that in their history these countries have greatly benefited from warfare and expansionism.
The first settlers, mainly British, in what is now the US, confiscated native American lands. At the time of the declaration of independence in 1776, the US comprised 13 states, having about one quarter of its present area. Armed conflict with the First People and the British government were an integral part of the US’s creation. Subsequently, the US expanded its lands through warfare, purchase and annexation. The US’s 50th state is Hawaii, annexed in 1898 and made a state in 1959.
The US fought Japan in World War II because it was attacked by Japan. It was a lesser but important participant in two wars against Germany, with Russia bearing most of the war effort in World War II. Participation in these military successes are probably the basis of the folk myth that it is the US’s mission to bring freedom and democracy to the world.
More recently, the Bush administration has taken the US’s oil-orientated Middle East policy to its logical conclusion. Consistent with the country’s culture, it has invaded and occupied Iraq and Afghanistan following a de facto occupation of Saudi Arabia. Militarism and expansionism may be seen as integral to US culture
The UK built its wealth on a world empire that it now has difficulty in accepting no longer exists. It was also one of the victors in world wars I and II. Although it invaded and occupied many countries, the UK has not had an occupier on its territory for a thousand years; nor has the US in its short history.
The UK and US, therefore, have had their experience of warfare and expansionism reinforced by success and have no reason to seek another philosophy. They exemplify in practice the confrontational philosophy that President Ilves advocates.
By contrast, warfare and expansionism over many centuries within continental Europe came to be seen as harmful and undesirable. The European Union is a reaction World War I and World War II. There was a conscious attempt to find means of averting future European wars which began with the proposal by France to Germany in 1950 to form the European Coal and Steel Community, with the explicit objective to “...make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible”, by economic means. Economic cooperation was to be the peaceful means to a value-based end. Critically, economic success was not the primary objective. This cannot be over-emphasized: the primary objective was avoidance of warfare. The grouping of six original members evolved into the European Common Market and now the European Union. The EU has been highly successful in terms of its original objective of avoiding warfare, with economic success a fortunate side effect.
President Ilves suggests that there has been a paradigm shift to pragmatism within the EU. That is not the case. The current dissonance between the original EU members and the former Soviet satellites over Russia is because they do not feel the original impetus of the founding states. Their most recent experience is of 50 years of poverty under the Soviet Union so it is understandable that their primary motivations are firstly economic and secondly to gain security through NATO and the backing of the United States. They do not appreciate the US’s culture nor its strategy of world dominance developed by Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz in 1989 as the Defence Planning Guidelines, following the fall of the Soviet Union. The Eastern European countries’ belief that the US’s economic interests coincide with those of Europe is a mistaken one. The US seeks economic dominance. Similarly, it is the dominant partner in NATO, which it is currently using to further its stated vital interests in the Middle East in “pre-emptive” wars. This is far from the original purpose of NATO, which was intended to be purely defensive.
This misperception by the Eastern European countries, due to their recent history, of the philosophy underpinning the EU, is the reason why they are susceptible to military cooperation with the US against Russia and see no conflict between joining the EU while accepting US military installations on their territory. Indeed, some other EU countries appear to have lost sight of the EU’s original purpose, the UK in particular. Non-members, e.g. Turkey, see accession to the EU purely in terms of economic benefits. The US has pressed for the Eastern European countries to join both the EU and NATO, which it perceives as its route to influence Europe in its own interests. I have outlined why NATO is and always has been an illusory defence for Europe. Europe believed in the US’s benign nature immediately following World War II for the same reason that the Eastern European countries currently do.
Accordingly, President Ilves suggests that NATO undertook military action with the US in Afghanistan and Iraq in order to maintain its existence following the collapse of the Soviet Union. That is a completely pragmatic reason not compatible with his claim to have a value-based foreign policy.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the narrative of the US and EU is that they assisted Russia both economically and in setting up fully democratic institutions. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University was a key consultant who worked with the Russian authorities on the economic changeover from a command to a market economy, simultaneously with the change to a democracy. He had been successful in doing this in Poland where he obtained US loans for the purpose and wanted the US government to support the Russian economic changeover. He resigned from this assignment because he learned that Dick Cheney did not want to help Russia. Sachs says, “...he [Cheney] wanted Russia brought to its knees”. The reason is not difficult to see. A strong Russia, particularly in concert with the EU, would be independent of the US and would be a rival economic and military power. In the event, the Russian economy collapsed along with its new democratic institutions, to became an oligarchy. Monarchy may be considered to be a form of oligarchy, so Russia returned to these 19th century pre-revolution roots that are its only experience of government as an alternative to communism.
The 10 years or so of Russia’s post-Soviet economic weakness was a period that the US used to advantage in ignoring its agreement not to bring the Eastern European countries into NATO and in unilaterally abrogating the anti-ballistic missile treaty with Russia. Over this period, Russia has strengthened its ties with the EU. Its humiliating economic collapse and the US’s contempt for its treaties has caused resentments. Georgia’s unwise decision to resolve by military means its territorial dispute with Russia over South Ossetia was clearly an opportunity for the Russians to respond with substantial justice on their side and simultaneously send a message that they had been pushed too far.
Russia’s experience of World War II, or the Great Patriotic War, in which it lost 22 million dead, or 13 per cent of its total population, underlies its present security concerns. This shared experience and a shared European culture gives Russia a common interest with the EU in moving towards a closer partnership based on avoidance of war. As for the former Soviet satellites, the generation that remembers the privations of occupation and oppression might well find it difficult to work with Russia. It is nevertheless essential that they should do so, as France did with Germany only five years after World War II.
This motivation to avoid war is not felt by the US. It is a European matter and the US should stay out of matters concerning EU membership, which it has not done to date. It should also cease pressing for further enlargement of NATO in disregard of Russia’s concerns. As I have outlined, the EU needs to revise the terms of its NATO membership, possibly forming an independent European force as France proposes and possibly leaving NATO.
The US’s involvement on the Georgian side in the South Ossetian debacle, together with US bases and missiles in Eastern Europe, are clear indications of its objectives. They also highlight the necessity to raise awareness within Europe and especially within the Eastern European states that the primary purpose of the EU is not economic. It is the avoidance of warfare by economic means. From that perspective, every effort should be made to achieve treaties aimed at bringing Russia’s institutions into convergence with those of the EU. The EU’s success to date both in avoiding warfare between its states and, largely as a consequence, achieving economic prosperity, demonstrates the importance of that endeavour.
Christopher King is a retired consultant and lecturer in management and marketing. He lives in London, UK.
