So what’s the deal with the Russia-NATO-Ukraine-Georgia puzzle? During the Bucharest Conference and while reading related articles I naturally came to think of this. I also had the chance to witness two off the record, Chatham House rules, panels during the Bucharest Conference that debated this issue in particular. The first one, titled “Guns and Gas: The Role of NATO in Europe’s East”, ended up discussing Georgia and geopolitics (no wonder, since Mr. Saakashvili was one of the panelists), while the other one debated the topic “Does Ukraine care about NATO?”.
Ms. Angela Merkel declared openly that NATO should respect the strategic security interests of the Russian Federation. A lot of the panelists at Bucharest Conference believe – and, to my mind, rightly so – this declaration is unacceptable, as it was issued publicly by a NATO head of government. As Steven Erlanger (a participant in the GMF conference) mentions in his article in the International Herald Tribune, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier of German, when speaking about Ukraine and Georgia, publicly declared that after Russian anger over Kosovo’s independence, “we could see no convincing reason to create more tension.”
“Old Europe” entertained the same views as Ms. Merkel. “New Europe” and the US definitely supported the granting of MAP for Georgia and Ukraine. Undoubtedly there is fear over the Russian threat (a soft one nowadays, but hey… cutting the gas supply for a bit less than half a continent wouldn’t be a piece of cake). However, Russia is no longer as fearful as it claims to be in my opinion. Putin himself said it more or less between the lines and his tone was very mild at the summit. The US is starting to create strategic partnerships with countries rich in gas and oil supplies, from Azerbaijan to Turkmenistan and Turkey. It will most likely succeed to do so. Unofficially, Ukraine’s army is bigger than the Russian one.
In addition to this, despite strong desires of Georgian and Ukrainian politicians to play the “our country is democratic and vital for the West, so welcome us heartily” card, one should acknowledge what’s going on in these countries. Ukraine is dominated by the Party of Regions, a well-known anti-Western force that’s supported by more than half of Ukraine’s population. Timoshenko’s coalition is feeble. There were strong protests in Ukraine over NATO membership. Georgia is enforcing the martial law a day before elections, and harbours two very unpleasant frozen conflicts which would potentially drag the alliance in murky grounds.
Thus, one comes to wonder… How much of the alliance’s reluctance to accepting Georgia and Ukraine is due to Russia and how much is due to the internal problems these two countries are facing. I fear a lot of it has to do with the latter, although skeptics tend to think otherwise.
German economy needs a lot of energy to expand and to develop. So does French industry. France and Germany can’t support their need for energy because they don’t have the natural resources to do that. they could invest in alternative ways to produce energy but it’s too exepensive even for them. So they must import the resources needed to produce energy. And they import them from Russia. Vladimir Putin has regained Russian influence by using the “energy weapon”. It’s like a trade: we give you cheap energy,you help us acheive our goals.
And this is a normal thing. Russia still sees the former USSR republics as a part of it’s own teritory so it doesn’t want them to develop a strong state democracy because it would be harder for Moscow toimpose their politics on them. And the western states are more concerned on their own economic growth rather than helping eastern states to become free.
The only chance for Georgia and Ukraine to be seen as free,independent countries with an emerging economy is to clean up their system and make it work all by them self, without external help.
asta a fost si senzatia mea. ca nato n-a prea incercat, defapt. si-a manifestat nitelus interesul dar cam atat. deci vorba ta nu stiu cat a fost victoria rusiei si cat s-a lasat nato.