Shadows Of The Cold War

Today’s announcement from the Russian president Vladimir Putin, on strategic bombers flights being resumed, is after a series of other earlier events, another reminder that the situation between the West and Russia has never been so tense since the end of the Cold War. This could very easily be dismissed, as a meaningless gesture on the part of president Putin, yet when at the same time the links between Russia and China are growing this could very well be a step toward a new cold war.

Russia’s transition from the USSR to the country it is today was far from smooth, with coups attempts and instability throughout the nineties. Indeed of all the old USSR countries, only the Baltic countries managed to have a near perfect transition to modern democratic states. It is fair to say that things would have been different, had not leaders like the corrupted Boris Yeltsin had been elected. But the truth is that the West and more importantly, the United States have some responsibility in what is currently happening.

Attempting to meddle in Russia’s partners affairs, like in Georgia, Uzbekistan and Ukraine was a big mistake. Not to accept Russia as a fully fledged partner of the Western world was another mistake. Russia would surely deserve to one the main members of the European Union, but the current EU renders this impossible. I would even dare to say that the same is true for NATO, since the issues we face are after all pretty similar.

The building up of an alliance between China and Russia, could have serious consequences in the long term. In terms of economy, population, natural resources and brute military strength, the alliance would far outweigh Europe and the United States. Fairly warm relations between Iran and these two countries, could also forecast the inclusion of Iran in the alliance and nothing could stop them from acquiring nuclear weapons from that point. The whole situation in Asia and in the Middle East would be changed irremediably. The changes would also be highly unfavourable to us, with the potentially added dire consequence of having to rely exclusively on the Middle East for our energy needs.

It is however still possible to prevent such a scenario from happening, Russia wishes to integrate more closely with the West, as the growing economical links shows. Moreover while China is for the moment not a threat, tensions are present and could grow in the future, closer integration with China could also have dire consequences for the Russian Far East where Chinese immigration is rampant. Finally Russia has been a victim of Islamism as we have been.

The departure from office of Vladimir Putin next year, will surely ease the current tensions a bit and could provide an ideal opportunity for us to redefine our relations. A first mainly symbolical move in order to ease the tensions, would be to fully integrate Russia into the G8 structure. This could be followed by a long term aim of integrating Russia into the European institutions, the EU would have to reform herself considerably to allow this, but such a move would benefit everybody. Both Russian and Europeans companies would benefit from a greater market, Europe could at the same time fulfil her energy needs. Such a prospect remains nevertheless remote for the time being, mainly because the current European institutions would not allow such a membership and the Russians would undoubtedly resent the surrender of powers that would follow.

At the same time, the West must once and for all think twice about the validity of NATO in the present times. The West needs such an alliance, but then what about western countries like Australia and New Zealand? Or even countries like Japan, which are de facto allies? Transforming NATO into a new Western alliance encompassing current and future NATO members, as well as our others allies make perfect sense. Our different armies are already working together, in Iraq or in Afghanistan and the enemy against whom NATO was created no longer exist. New threats are on the horizon and this time it not just NATO which is targeted, thence uniting in the face of these threats make perfect sense to me.

Between playing with the ghosts of the cold war, and forging a powerful partnership of equals with Russia, the choice is clear for me. However both the United States and the European Union would have to make concessions, which in the case of the EU would be very high but, no one can achieve anything productive without making some concessions and in the case of the EU, forgetting the pipe dreams of ever closer integration would help everybody.