Glen Ruffle writes: A combination of different forces is aligning that could soon start a series of consequences which would undermine NATO’s future.
It began in April 2008, when NATO ministers met and agreed that eventually, Georgia and the Ukraine would join the alliance. The much sought after MAP (Membership Action Plan), the actual timetable for membership, was however denied.
The next major development was in August. From what it is possible to gather from the OSCE, the Georgian President, Mikhail Saakashvili, pulled the trigger first in a tense situation that had built up in South Ossetia. Separatist forces had for a long time been receiving aid and help from Russia, and when Saakashvili decided to try and crush them by force, he bit off much more than he could chew. Presumably he thought the West would help and be able to stop Russia, but geography worked against him. The West was helpless and Georgia was, and still is, at the mercy of Russia.
The brief war shook Georgia. The West was helpless. For all its bravado, the United States was shown to be a paper tiger in this situation. Georgian policy has since had a time of reflection. NATO, the United States’ military alliance, was unable to offer as much assistance as the French Presidency of the EU appeared to do. And, given the EU’s military ambitions and the fact that the new Treaty of Lisbon, forced through parliaments across Europe, duplicates NATO as a collective defence organisation in Article 42.7, suddenly the prospects of NATO membership seemed somewhat less enticing.
The Georgian war offered the Europhiles and Francophiles a fantastic opportunity as well. For the EU, it opened up the perfect opportunity to intervene and carry out diplomatic missions and peace keeping operations.With the full knowledge that Russia would not tolerate any NATO presence in such a role, the EU, so keen to build close relations with Russia as Russia is such a vital energy supplier, can slip perfectly into the role of middle-man, helping to keep both sides happy. Bernard Kouchner after all did lay out French policy clearly: “In the EU we want to maintain a dialogue with Russia…it is our neighbour…and we are consumers of their energy”. Georgia has the security of British and French military patrols, and EU taxpayers money, whilst Russia has the security of knowing its compliant partner, the EU, is bereft of NATO’s most unpopular member, the United States.
And it is the absence of the United States from EU missions that also pleases the Francophiles. Russian and French policy coincides at this point: both want to reshape the world order, and to establish a new system whereby the world is more multipolar and the US is ‘just another state’ amongst many. By strengthening the EU through peacekeeping operations and developing its military capabilities, France further undermines the need and credibility of NATO, which can be used as an instrument of US policy.
Subsequently, these celestial movements have produced a Saakashvili government in Georgia that recently, started emphasising EU relations rather than NATO membership (particularly after a new MAP was again denied recently), and an EU that is exploiting the situation to develop itself as a state and weaken US hegemony, and a Russia which is pleased as its policy of weakening the US is furthered by other international institutions. The Georgian border is of course not the only place where the EU is stepping up to missions. The former Yugoslavia, another region where Russian interests are significant, is also increasingly being managed by the EU instead of the United Nations. Only recently, the UN Mission in Kosovo handed all operations over to EULEX, the EU mission which will from now on manage this province.
Unfortunately there is little sign that the US has realised what is happening.Whilst dismissing Sergei Ivanov’s Russian plan for a new European defence treaty as blatantly anti- NATO, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Matthew Bryza failed to expand on the way the EU is undermining the raison d’etre of NATO as well. France, on the other hand, announced that Russia’s idea would be discussed, as the EU wants a renewed commitment from Russia to the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty. Such a commitment would undoubtedly include a clause that demanded the removal of the American missiles from Eastern Europe. This removal will be less of a blow to Eastern Europe if the EU acts as a new security guarantor, which the Treaty of Lisbon makes steps towards.
‘New Europe’ can thus be placated, and so we must look at ‘Old Europe’. Germany, Italy and France have been singled out as the main movers opposing any Membership Action Plan being given to Georgia or the Ukraine. For these ‘old Europe’ states, there is no fear of a neighbour who recently was your master. Russia is instead a major business partner and opportunity, and of course a vital energy supplier. So whereas ‘new Europe’ still feels it has a valid reason for NATO membership, the ‘old Europe’ heartlands no longer have the ideological glue that held the alliance together. Yet they are still members, and can thus from this strong negotiating stance can direct the organisation. As such, NATO is now no longer so much about ‘old Europe’s’ defence as is becoming a lever for ‘old European’ politics.
Such political manouevrings at NATO’s expense will only exasperate and alienate the US. NATO will no longer be the useful tool of US policy it once was. The US will assess it’s commitment to the alliance, and probably downgrade it, eventually relegating it to redundancy. The EU will be able to step in and offer to take over the buildings and structures of NATO, expanding the presence of the EU cell that currently already is installed in NATO supreme command in Belgium. The absence of one major enemy has produced a major ideological void in NATO that is being filled with national ideas, and as economic difficulties will be increasing, states will be looking for the best uses of their resources. Committed legally to the European Union, many states in Eastern Europe will feel obliged to put more effort into the EU’s Defence Agency and the “framing of a common Union defence policy”. This in turn will see NATO commitments weaken, and the likely long-term effect of it all will be the emasculation of NATO and its eventual abandonment, leaving the US with a weakened presence in Europe. Just what the EU, Old Europe and Russia want.
