5 June 2008
'Medvedev' doctrine: Russia 'in', America 'out'
© 2008, IRED.Com, Inc., Simeon Mitropolitski
Simeon Mitropolitski.
The new Russian president Dmitry Medvedev made Western Europe surprising offer. Behind the official wording the offer is: get rid of your American security umbrella and replace it for Russian energy. In a visit in Germany, the new Russian president and former energy boss offered new security pact for the entire continent. The price is to stop thinking in terms of blocs and allow Russia behave on equal terms with its western neighbors. Russia has never been good enough of hiding its interests. In this case the deal is to put America out of Europe, to dismantle NATO or make it worthless, to allow Russia to control parts of Eastern Europe (now EU and NATO members) in exchange for energy security. In the case of Germany, there may be an extra deal: a condominium over Eastern Europe and helping Berlin getting hegemony over Western Europe. Why Moscow is making such unacceptable offer in first place? Is this 'Medvedev' doctrine worth something?

With some minor exceptions, Russia has always played important role in European affairs since the early 1700s. The periods of withdrawal from Europe were exceptional, due to internal causes mainly. They didn't last for too long, usually for approximately 20 years each. After the Crimean War of 1850s it took the Russian empire 21 years before it returned to Europe and forced the Ottoman Empire to surrender some of its European possessions. After the October revolution of 1917 it took the Soviet Union 22 years before making a deal with Nazi Germany to divide Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and now, 17 years later, Russia looks impatient to take back some of what it considers to be 'hers'.

There are, however, some problems on the road. Europe is economically and militarily very homogenous since recent NATO and EU enlargements. Ukraine is a country that can switch quickly to the West, thus leaving Moscow in a precarious security situation unheard of since the early 1600s. Furthermore, the Western Europe is really united around a common project, for the first time since the Middle Ages. Playing Germany against France or vice versa may sound a good power politics in Russia, but it's far from what's in the heads of the politicians in Berlin and Paris, no matter how vehemently they defend their national interests within the EU. America, which stood by the EU cradle after the World War II, despite the strong rhetoric exchanges of 2003, is still considered as a friend for most Europeans. We don't even mention the interests of Eastern Europe; after several decades of Soviet hegemony, there is hardly any serious politician there who will advocate return to the status quo ante.

And, yet, the new Russia president is making this offer, an offer that will never be formally accepted, at least not in the terms already indicated. The energy is a sensitive issue for most Europeans; for the readers in North America, it should be sufficient to imagine a situation when the gas on the pump is 200-300% more expansive to have a glimpse of what's the real situation on the other side of the Atlantic now. The Europeans will do many things to get the energy cheaper and more secure, but there is a limit they are willing to pay, and destroying the Pan-European order is something they won't accept. The price is much too high. If this isn't the real goal of the new doctrine, then what's the goal, if there is any?

First, the president Medvedev wants to show who he is. Unlike his predecessor Putin, who tried to hide behind curtain and left the others guess about him indirectly by some of his acts, the new president wants to show who he is by declaring loudly what he wants, what's his worldviews and large projects. Second, he wants to create certain havoc in Europe; since the early 1990s Russia pretended to be weaker than it was despite its nuclear arsenal; now it's time to pretend being much stronger because of the large oil and gas exports. Should the European buy this bluff? If they don't, Russia will nevertheless has some extra time to press over its former Soviet 'brothers', such as Ukraine; if they do, Europe may decide to discard its plans of further enlargements and leave Ukraine to Russia.

No matter how the events will unfold, Russia is returning to Europe after its third historic withdrawal. It's for the politicians on both sides of the Atlantic to make sure that the institutions built after the last big war would last. When NATO was born after the war, it was called with certain originality an organization where Russia is 'out', America is 'in', and Germany is 'down'. Germany is no longer 'down', but it would be really bad taste for the Europeans to reverse the roles and let Russia 'in' by getting America 'out'.

http://www.ired.com/news/mkt/russia2008.htm