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30.04.2010

RUSSIA-GERMANY THE PROBABLE SCENARIOS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE REGIONAL SECURITY

   

Gagik Ter-Harutyunyan

The developments round Armenian-Turkish relations went beyond the scope of the regional format and moved to global politics. There are grounds to believe that regardless of the results at the current stage of the diplomatic processes the relations between Yerevan and Ankara will stay at the agenda of our foreign policy for quite a long time, because it is of strategic importance and in its significance it does not cede to the problems with Azerbaijan on the NKR. It should also be stated that till now the RA policy was systematized and it excelled in diplomatic proficiency the Turkish party, which made serious mistakes during the process of negotiations. Thus, the fears of some observers that Turkey which has “imperial” experience would “outsmart” the RA officials, proved to be fully wrong. As a result of the developments connected with Turkey the positive political atmosphere has been formed around Armenia and, in addition, the “Armenian Question” has again been actualized and became a subject to discuss for the governments and parliaments of different countries.

No less important is the fact that the Armenian-Turkish processes enriched Armenian political thinking and became a stimulus which boosted the searching of the new resources and possibilities in the sphere of the foreign policy of the RA. In this context the global and regional changes going on as a result of the multi-polar system formation are worth of attention. Particularly, the developments going on within the European Union imply the same logic, and those developments in our opinion contain new opportunities for the foreign policy of the RA.

“Post-American” region. It is difficult to present in a brief report the complex of the military and political processes going on a global plane, because they contain many shades of meaning, components of civilizational, economical and other character. At the same time, let us try to consider schematically the main tendencies which are caused by rather morbid formation of the multi-polar world. The changes are happening gradually and due to this, unlike the revolutionary collapse of the bipolar system, they are not always noticeable in short-term periods. At the same time the system changes, despite their intensity, are always fraught with unpredictable consequences. It is not a mere chance that some political scientists compare the current realities with the situation before World War II.

Under such conditions, passing by the issue of the overstrengthening of China and all the scenarios connected with that (they need special scrutiny), from the point of view of the elaboration of the prospective policy the most topical for Armenia is the relative weakening of the influence of the United States in the region. The manifestation of this are, particularly, the difficulties with Turkey this power had while carrying out the mediatory mission in the Armenian-Turkish relations. It is characteristic that like at the beginning of the last century, today the representatives of the US establishment are more often turning to the necessity to conduct the policy of “isolation” by the US. Particularly, the Congressman Ron Paul who is taking leading positions in the Republican party today and is one of the possible candidates at the presidential elections in 2012 not only plumped the full withdrawal of the US troops from Iraq, but also called to leave the UN and NATO, to dismiss the Federal Reserve system and to restrict the interference of the US in the affairs of other countries.

Meanwhile, according to some analysts, the retreat of the Americans may cause the explosive situation in the Near and Middle East, South Asia (the so-called Eurasian Balkans). Let us mention that this region today is also in a rather unstable condition, particularly because of the processes going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, which has been mainly provoked by that very US. But the US presence, though curiously enough, proves the “stability of that instability”, the stationarity. That means that the current chaos is more or less controllable, and such a situation will hardly be preserved after the departure of the Americans. It is a common belief that the retreat of the Anglo-Saxons is more dangerous than their offence.

It is obvious that the creation of such uncontrollable region which countries either possess or tend to possess the nuclear weapon (Turkey among them) is a new challenge for Armenia and new resources and political partners are needed to resist them. In this aspect new developments taking place in Europe are of a certain interest.

The formation of “German” Europe. It is known that the plans to create “United Europe” have rather long and rich history and the conceptual approaches to the today’s EU were elaborated before the end of World War II mainly by the joint Anglo-American efforts (it was mostly contributed by the prime-minister of Great Britain Winston Churchill). After that first practical steps were made in that direction, i.e. the signing of the agreement by France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg in Maastricht in 1951.

The EU was created as a structure which is based on interconnectivity which should prevent the separate countries and first of all Germany to act independently and restore as a mighty power. That mechanism was rather effective in bipolar and one-polar systems. Consequently, the EU, which is the biggest economics in the world, plays no serious geopolitical role on global plane. But in multi-polar world and amid the financial crisis when their own national interests became more important the processes of division were initiated. This manifests itself both in the weakening of the ties between the US and Europe and the up growth of the contention and in the growth of the gap in economic and other spheres between the countries of the EU.

Germany appeared to be the most prepared to the new situation. It is suffice to mention that for recent 10 years the contention of the German goods and services, as compared to other countries of the EU, has grown on 25%. As a result, Germany today is not only the most mighty economics in the EU but also the country which dictates (less relying on France) the rules of the EU activity. It is remarkable that the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel is often called in international media “Frau Europe”.

The military and political claims of that country have also grown. Today the representatives of the German elite sound the ideas about the reforming NATO (meaning the growth of the role of Europe), possessing nuclear weapon, withdrawal of the American bases from Europe and etc. This comes to prove that in the near future the “Germanized” EU or, according to some scenarios Germany and its allies acting out the EU format, will tend to take the descent place on global geopolitical plane.

Russia, Germany and “Great Europe”. In the context of the aforementioned trends the newly edited “Great Europe” creation programme which was offered by German military circles is remarkable. It implies the involvement of Russia in NATO and thus, the “Eurasification” of that structure. Such a scenario can especially get topical in case if the self-isolation tendency of the United States (let us remember the statement by Congressman Ron Paul about the withdrawal of the US from NATO) shift from the theoretical reflections into a practical plane. It is obvious that such a development firstly implies the preparedness of Russia, particularly if we take into consideration the problems of the later with NATO and its expansion to the East. But today the tendencies, which can make “Great Europe” project real, are observed in the policy of Russia and this is conditioned not only by the traditional considerations regarding Moscow-Berlin geopolitical axis.

At current moment Germany is the main economic partner of the RF; they implement big geo-economic energy programmes. There are some agreements in the political sphere as well (particularly in the issue of Georgia’s NATO membership). It is also important that in recent years Russia has preferred indirect actions, i.e. it conducts more subtle policy. E.g. the opponent of the “officially” pro-Russian Yanukovich on the presidential elections in Ukraine Timoshenko had not had anti-Russian orientation, i.e. unlike the past experience the favourable political field was formed before ahead1. The appraisal of the elections by the Europeans has also been well-wishing. They, amid the relative weakening of the US possibilities, are more adequate in their appraisal of Russia’s influence on their “rightful” territories and they aspire not to “tear” Ukraine off but to turn it into the ground of cooperation between the EU and RF. A great number of analytical materials devoted to that subject which have appeared on the information field indirectly speak to the strengthening of the ties between Russia and Germany2. There are also some European integration tendencies observed in the Moscow-Warsaw relations.

There are many such examples and one can state without going into the details that the idea of the creation of the “Great Europe” being adequate both to the logic of political commonalities and to the realities of the multi-polar world seems to be acceptable to the parties. Under such conditions the US and Great Britain, in contrast to their distinctly negative stance to the relations between Russia and Germany, now should not be opposed basically to “Great Europe” programme, because such a union, according to some geopolitical scenarios, may become a natural obstacle in case of the Eastern-Chinese expansion.

The probable influences of the project on the region. Being located in the neighbourhood of “Eurasian Balkans” where the tendencies to the loss of the control are observed, one of the main guarantees of the security of Armenia still remains the military cooperation with the RF and the military base of the later. In this aspect the possible participation of the RF in “Great Europe” project will undoubtedly enlarge the possibilities of our ally. In such condition the German presence can be useful.

Germany, acquiring some influence in Eurasian military and political field, can use our region as a platform for the implementation of its geopolitical claims (this kind of aspiration is shown by the Germans, e.g. in Afghanistan) and in this case those claims should not contradict to our national interests. The following factors speak to that:

  • Germany does not have oil interests, which play the key role in the policy of other Western powers and which are manifested in the partial attitude towards Azerbaijan, in our region.
  • The official Berlin has serious problems with Turkey and here the fact that there are about 3 million Turks living in Germany, 1.7 million of whom are the citizens of Turkey and a considerable part of them on principle and some by the directions of Ankara do not want to integrate into the German society, plays role. That factor caused the problems of civilizational and demographic character in German society, which is partially reflected in the foreign policy approaches.

1Ռուսաստանյան նոր ռազմավարության առումով բնութագրական է Ղրղզստանում վերջերս տեղի ունեցած «գունավոր հեղափոխությունը», որն ակնհայտորեն «մոսկովյան» ծագում ունի։

2See, for example, «Российско-германские отношения в контексте европейской безопасности», под ред. проф. В.И. Дашичева, -М.: ИЭ РАН, 2009.


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