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发表于 2014-5-2 04:20:50
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Ukraine as a Solution: Rethinking “living with Russia” for Europe
By Shiping Tang on April 28, 2014 in Op-eds
Shiping Tang 1
Nineteen years after the fall of the Berlin War, a new ‘Twenty Years Crisis’ is looming over Europe, in the wake of the Russia-Georgia conflict.
After all the indignation spitted out and all the ink spilled, it is apparent that most elites in both EU (European Union)/NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) and Russia are still thinking in traditional geopolitical logic, blinded by ethnocentrism, fear, greed, and perhaps even animosity. With each of their self-righteous condemnations and accusations against each other, the two sides are ratcheting up a security dilemma, one notch at a time. As a result, they are dragging themselves into an ever more likely cold peace—if not a cold war—and have few clues how to forestall it. Indeed, many on both sides do not want to forestall: what they want is to punish each other and fight it out. A real tragedy is in the making.
As the drama unfolds, many have come to see Ukraine as the next battle ground for the two sides’ resolve. On the one side, while major European countries remain muted on the subject, major U.S. politicians, from Bush, Cheney to Obama have all repeatedly asserted that Ukraine will be part of NATO one day. On the other side, Russia has made it clear that it would not accept a Ukraine inside NATO.
Yet, Ukraine can also present a golden opportunity for preventing a new Twenty Years Crisis in Europe. The solution is a Ukraine with membership of the EU but without membership of NATO—essentially a neutral Ukraine. A neutral Ukraine that is backed by the EU and Russia is in the best interest of Europe—Old and New—and Russia. A neutral Ukraine backed by the EU and Russia is a powerful signal that the two sides refuse to engage in another cold war and treat the other side as eternal foe. It would freeze the spiraling security dilemma between them and preserve the possibility of forging a more constructive relationship.
The end of the EU-NATO nexus
The expansion of NATO, which has always been and will remain a U.S.-centric alliance in perpetual need of an enemy, serves Europe’s core interests only sometimes.
By now, leading European states (read, France and Germany) must admit that the days when European leaders could pretend that the EU and NATO are always together ended when the Cold War ended. In post-Cold War Europe, the interest of the EU and that of America often diverge—sometimes fundamentally, and France and Germany cannot continue to pretend that they and America can patch up all the time.
In post-Cold War Europe, Europe’s core interests are best served by the enlargement of the EU, which seeks to produce a wide security community based on international law and norms rather than merely military might. The expansion of NATO, which has always been and will remain a U.S.-centric alliance in perpetual need of an enemy, serves Europe’s core interests only sometimes.
America’s primary strategic objective after the Cold War has always been to prevent the emergence of a peer competitor, explicitly advocated in the leaked Pentagon’s Defense Planning Guidance in 1992. For all their ideological differences, George Bush senior, Bill Clinton, and George Bush junior all have pursued this objective in earnest. And who can blame them; as America’s presidents, they must firmly believe that U.S. primacy is good for the United States thus the world and act accordingly.
Under the strategy of preserving primacy, America regards a united Europe—just like China, India, and Russia—as a potential peer competitor. Only in light of this logic can we understand why so many American policy elites were so worried about the Euro. The Euro can potentially unseat the dollar as the only reserve currency in the global financial system, thus weakening one of the pillars of America’s primacy.
For the United States, surely the easiest way to prevent the EU from becoming a peer competitor is the time-tested golden rule of “divide-and-rule”. As long as Europe remains divided, America will have one less peer competitor to worry about. Not surprisingly, America has been busy in driving wedges among European states. Donald Rumsfeld’s infamous calling the “Old Europe” as things of the past whereas the “New Europe” the future precisely reflects this strategic logic. By installing military bases in some of the “New Europe” states here and there, America has been making sure that there will always be some European states that value their ties to America more than their ties to the EU, thus dividing Europe into two camps effortlessly. Needless to say, such a strategy also achieves the ends of containing and humiliating Russia, thus further, if not permanently, dividing Europe.
20_year_crisis
Ukraine can present a golden opportunity for preventing a new Twenty Years Crisis in Europe
Toward a neutral Ukraine
The European Union, or more precisely, France and Germany, must put a stop to this U.S./NATO way of approaching European affairs, if they want to avoid making Russia their permanent enemy. Berlin and Paris have to speak loud and clear: when it comes to European affairs, they will take charge, although Washington will be consulted. Fundamentally, Berlin and Paris must demand that when it comes to making a choice, European states—“Old” or “New”—will have to choose the EU over NATO.
So far, however, Berlin and Paris have been reluctant to force other European states to choose, because they themselves do not want to make a hard choice. By allowing NATO to push further and further toward Russia and doing nothing to stop the process, Berlin and Paris have been willing accomplices to Washington’s drive to contain and humiliate Russia. Paris and Berlin have been hoping that Russia will simply swallow all its pride and all the bitter pills. Perhaps France and Germany, just like Russia, are still thinking in traditional geopolitical logic for all their talk of the EU being a “normative power”, thus secretly applauding NATO’s march toward Russia’s doorstep. For many in Berlin and Paris, the surest way to deal with Russia is simply to contain it. Due to this Russia-phobic policy, it is not surprising that fear and suspicion between the EU and Russia has increased substantially. Russia’s forceful partition of Georgia signals that Russia is not going to take it any more.
For many in Berlin and Paris, the surest way to deal with Russia is simply to contain it.
A neutral Ukraine puts a stop to this U.S./NATO-centric approach of containing and humiliating Russia. Yet, Russia does not get a free ride. A neutral Ukraine also demands Russia to signal its benign intentions by committing itself to uphold the territory integrity and neutrality of Ukraine. If Russia does agree to such an arrangement, Russia will be effectively binding itself against reconfiguring a new empire: a new Russian empire is impossible without first incorporating Ukraine.
Many may see the solution of a neutral Ukraine as appeasement. This will be cheap shot. Vladmir Putin is not Adolf Hitler, for all his tough talk. Hitler was one-of-a-kind and to paint Putin with the same brush is to distort the picture: doing so only serves to drive up the hatred and fear for domestic consumption. Putin is a typical Russian realist, grounded thoroughly in traditional geopolitical thinking. He wants a Great Russia that is respected by others, including the United States and Europe; but he has no ambition to turn Russia into a Third Reich. Moreover, there have been no credible signs that Russia wants to reconfigure its former colonies into a new empire by force and intimidation. Russia, for all its tough talk and faults, has not done the kind of things that Bush and Cheney have done. Russia did not tear down the ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missiles) treaty, scrap the Kyoto Protocol, and invade Iraq. Russia merely wants some prestige restored, and yes, some respect for their “sphere of influence”. And before European states (and the U.S.) denounce Russia’s talk of a sphere of influence, they better ask themselves: haven’t they been trying to expand their sphere of influence up to Russia’s doorstep with NATO’s expansion?
china_vietnam_friends
A Vietnamese Way?
Some elite in Ukraine may charge the solution of a neutral Ukraine is to sacrifice their hope of dual EU and NATO membership, for the sake of appeasing Russia. With all the unpleasant experiences, first in the Russian empire and then the USSR, fear and hatred against Russia runs deep in many former USSR republics and East European states. Ukraine is no exception; it thus wants to be totally safe from Russia.
Unfortunately, joining NATO is not even in Ukraine’s long-term interest. The hard reality is that if NATO wants to pull Ukraine into their alliance and Ukraine’s Russo-phobic elite want to escape from geography by allying with NATO, the Russian population in Ukraine may want secession. Once it happens, a civil war and then a partition of Ukraine along the ethnic-geographical divide is not an impossibility. And when it comes to push-and-shove, NATO and the U.S. may still stand on the sidelines just as they have done in Georgia: no sane American or European leader would risk a war with a nuclear Russia if Russia decides that it wants to partition Ukraine under the pretext of intervening in a civil war that kills ethnic Russians in the country.
A neutral Ukraine backed by the EU and Russia thus also demands Ukraine to commit herself to living peacefully with Russia. No country can escape from geography, and Ukraine is no exception. Despite its emotional attachment to the West, Ukraine thus must learn how to live peacefully with Russia. Making Russia Ukraine’s permanent enemy by joining NATO is to allow emotion to trump rational calculation.
Perhaps Ukraine will be wise to learn some lessons from Vietnam’s experience in living with China. Having fought China for a millennium (and France and the United States briefly) and allied with the Soviet Union against China from 1975-1989, Vietnam has grudgingly admitted that it can ill-afford to antagonize China regardless of how powerful its external allies are. Hence, in the past twenty years or so, Vietnam has been trying to achieve a delicate “middle ground” between China and other external powers (i.e., the U.S.), without declaring neutrality. Vietnamese leaders understand that the art of diplomacy is not to search for the emotionally gratifying, but the rationally possible, within geographic constrains.
In a similar vein, perhaps Georgia too should be presented with such an option of having EU membership but not NATO membership. If that is the case, Georgians may also come to recognize that their welfare is more tightly linked with EU rather than U.S. and NATO. A neutral Georgia will also commit Georgia to live alongside Russia peacefully, however grudgingly.
Get the balance right
If the EU cannot stop U.S.-centric NATO from pushing toward Russia, Russia can only become more fearful and angry. And if Russia cannot commit herself to a neutral Ukraine, then the EU may have to prepare for a possible new containment of Russia. A neutral Ukraine provides a test for their willingness of accommodating each other via credible commitments. Of course, a neutral Ukraine backed by the EU and Russia is only the first step toward a more tranquil Russia-EU relationship. If the U.S.-led NATO can also back a neutral Ukraine, it will signal America’s benign intentions toward Russia too. That would be an ideal outcome.
smashing-worldIf the EU and Russia cannot get Ukraine right, it will be Europe—Russia included—that will suffer the consequences. The result is likely to be a cold peace, if not a new although less ideological cold war. By then, geo-politicians in the U.S., China, and India will have a field day, laughing at the self-proclaimed enlightened Europeans at their stupidity. After two of the bloodiest wars in human history and only a short twenty years after the Cold War, the Europeans are now back at the game of hating, and possibly killing, each other again. Europeans, old or new, are just the same old bunch that cannot manage to live together with each other peacefully.
If Europe and Russia can get their acts together, however, perhaps the EU can provide the ultimate home for Russia that Russians have always longed for. God bless Europe.
Shiping Tang
Notes:
This commentary was written on Jan. 8th, 2009, in the aftermath of the Georgia-Russia conflict. At that time, no outlet wants to carry this commentary. The text published here has not been changed from the original other than some minor editing. At the time of writing this commentary, the author was a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. The author is now a distinguished professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University in Shanghai. He is the author of A Theory of Security Strategy for Our Time: Defensive Realism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), A General Theory of Institutional Change (Routledge, 2011), and Social Evolution of International Politics (Oxford, 2013). His articles have appeared in many leading journal of political sciences, institutional economics, and philosophy of social sciences. ↩
Shiping Tang
About Shiping Tang
Shiping Tang is a distinguished professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University in Shanghai. He is the author of A Theory of Security Strategy for Our Time: Defensive Realism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), A General Theory of Institutional Change (Routledge, 2011), and Social Evolution of International Politics (Oxford, 2013). |
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