Perils of
Next Week's NATO/Russian
Summit Signing
By JONATHAN POWER
LONDON-- In Paris on Tuesday (May 27th.) President Boris
Yeltsin and NATO's 15 heads of government are going to sign
a ``Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and
Security.'' As the Economist noted last week it is
``Russia's second surrender.'' Seven years ago the Soviet
Union ended its hold on eastern Europe. Now Russia will
allow its three most important ex-allies, Poland, Hungary
and the Czech Republic, to join the military ranks of its
long-time protagonist, NATO.
The western nations are making a mistake of far reaching
consequences, one they stand a more than even chance of
living to rue. They missed one historic chance to change for
the better the face of Europe in 1991-93, when the radical
democrats held the strings of power in Moscow, by refusing
to provide Russia with the economic wherewithal to make its
transition to capitalism a less debilitating and wrenching
experience. And now they are missing another, to insure that
the majority of Russians feel that the hatchet between East
and West is truly buried and that Russia's place, to use
Mikhail Gorbachev's phrase, is in a ``common European
home.''
It is, indeed, in the circumstances nothing short of
amazing that Yeltsin has pushed through an unwilling foreign
policy and military bureaucracy this compromise over NATO,
accepting its expansion and in return getting the
establishment of an ambiguously empowered ``Permanent Joint
Council.'' This is supposed to consider matters of common
interest, thus giving Russia a ``say'' in what NATO does or
does not do.
The Russian spin doctors are earnestly presenting the
arrangement as some sort of Russian veto tool over NATO
activities, but western diplomats make clear that Yeltsin
can present it at home anyway he wants but NATO will, as
always, be master of its own affairs.
Yeltsin, as Margaret Thatcher said after her first
meeting with the then rising politburo star, Mikhail
Gorbachev, ``is a man the West can do business with.'' But
he is not Russia forever and the tide of Russian opinion, as
much among the elite as among the crowds on the street, has
moved away from willing cooperation with the West on almost
any terms, the policy of Yeltsin's first foreign minister,
Andrey Kozyrev, to where, as the noted Russian scholar
Vladamir Baranovsky writes in a new book, ``Russia and
Europe'' (published by the Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute), it is focussed on ``Russia's use of
power to influence its neighbours, either crudely or
aggressively or in more subtle and refined ways.''
As this 580 page book makes soberly clear the window of
opportunity for forging a deep and profound cooperative
relationship with Russia has gone, a victim of ``hard-headed
realists'' on both sides.
Tragically, but perhaps inevitably, given the longevity
of the Cold War, the upper echelons of the military and
security establishments on both sides are peopled by those
who earned their spurs, reputations and promotions by
proving they were ``hard-headed.'' As Alexander Chancellor
wryly noted recently, ``there is a stale dreary
predictability about their posture as hard-headed realists
who will not allow emotion to cloud their judgement. In fact
their judgement is constantly being clouded by fear of
losing their status as hard-headed realists.''
How then to interpret Yeltsin's desire to compromise,
rather than confront this hard-headed, opportunity-taking
and mischief-making by President Bill Clinton and his fellow
western leaders?
Yeltsin is a supreme pragmatist. Russia has no resources
at the moment to maintain a confrontation. It needs every
small bit of help the West will give it. As long as there is
a face-saver, as there is with the Joint Council on this
occasion, he will go along to get along. Yeltsin, perhaps
thinks to himself&emdash;and presumably Clinton
too&emdash;Russia will outgrow its feeling of wronged
rancour, particularly if, as some observers predict, the
economy is now over the worst. Let's hope so. But it is a
gamble. There are plenty of issues lurking in the world's
highways and byways that might trip the optimists up. And
then the bitterness of repressed egotism and castrated
self-assertiveness will have its day. Meanwhile, there are
many ways the Russians can put the knife in the Duma, the
Russian parliament, continuing to refuse to ratify the SALT
2 treaty mandating missile cuts, for example.
What is so short-sighted and pitiful about NATO's
decision to expand is that there is another highly
acceptable way of meeting eastern Europe's security needs.
This is to offer such countries membership of the European
Union and wrap that in with an enlarged Western European
(Defense) Union.
EU membership need not be very expensive. A new study
published in the journal ``Economic Policy'' shows that the
net extra cost to existing EU members would be little more
than the gains to trade achieved with the new members.
This would give eastern Europe not only the political
security it craves, but also economic, all without
antagonizing Russia. It's difficult to know who to blame
most&emdash;Bill Clinton for starting this NATO hare or
Western European leaders for not offering this better
alternative.
May 21, 1997,
LONDON
Copyright © 1997 By JONATHAN POWER
Note: I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172
and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
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