Russia signals end of strategic retreat

Vladimir Radyuhin
The Hindu, 15 February

Vladimir Putin sent out a clear message to Europe: toeing the American line of trying to encircle Russia was fraught with new confrontation and was against the best interests of the continent.

FIFTEEN YEARS after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow has declared loud and clear that the unipolar world is dead, Russia is back as a global power, and the West should stop gloating over its victory in the Cold War. President Vladimir Putin hammered home this message with stunning bluntness at an annual security conference in Munich over the weekend. Dropping all diplomatic politesse, he told the United States that its global leadership had been a disaster, and it had no business staying in the driving seat.

Addressing a gathering of 250 top officials and political leaders from around the world, the Russian leader said the U.S.-led unipolar world was a non-starter and Washington's reckless policies were "ruinous" and made the world a dangerous place to live. "An almost unrestrained hyper-use of force in international relations" was breeding conflict after conflict and fuelling the arms race, with more countries seeking weapons of mass destruction to defend themselves against U.S. diktats, Mr. Putin said. "Unilateral, illegitimate" military actions "have not resolved even a single problem, and on the contrary, have created more human tragedies and more hotbeds of tension."

It was the most scathing and sweeping criticism of U.S. policies by a Russian leader since the end of the Cold War.

"We witness growing trampling of fundamental principles of international law," Mr. Putin said. "One state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders to impose its laws and its entire legal system on other states in all spheres — economic, political and humanitarian. Who will like it?"

"This is very dangerous," Mr. Putin continued as shocked Western leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates, listened with glum faces.

"Nobody feels safe anymore because nobody can find shelter behind the stone wall of international law. This policy fuels the arms race... pushes countries to get weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, new threats that have been around for some time, such as terrorism, are acquiring global dimension."

Mr. Putin underscored the new geopolitical reality of the world becoming multipolar. He pointed out that the combined GDP of India and China based on purchasing power parity was already bigger than that of the U.S., while the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries had among them a larger GDP than the European Union. "There is no doubt that in the foreseeable future the economic potential of these new centres of power will inevitably get converted into political clout and will strengthen multipolarity."

A resounding confirmation of Mr. Putin's words came a day later when the Russian leader travelled to the Persian Gulf to forge political and energy alliances and sell arms to some of the closest U.S. allies in the region — Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Jordan, while the Foreign Ministers of India, Russia, and China met in New Delhi to discuss closer interaction in a trilateral format.

Mr. Putin's frontal attack on the U.S.' aggressive policies must be seen as a warning to Washington amid mounting fears that the Pentagon was gearing for yet another war — against Iran. However, speaking in Germany, which assumed the rotating presidency in the European Union last month, Mr. Putin was primarily addressing Europe.

Under Mr. Putin, the focus of Russia's foreign policy has shifted from the U.S. to Europe. He has repeatedly said that Russia is a European nation even if its larger part lies in Asia and that Russians are Europeans by their culture and mentality. One of the main goals of Mr. Putin's presidency has been to forge strategic partnership with the EU on the basis of Russian energy supplies. Europe is Russia's top trade partner and main consumer of its natural gas, which accounts for 26 per cent of its needs. Mr. Putin has sought to tie Europe closer to Russia through mutual investment, visa-free travel, and defence cooperation.

Washington has fiercely opposed Russia-Europe integration as it threatens to weaken the American grip on Europe. Working through its satellites among the new East European members of the EU, above all Poland, the U.S. has pushed Europe to take a hard line on Russia over its "use of energy as a foreign policy weapon" and for "backtracking" on freedoms, and tried to torpedo talks on a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between Russia and the EU.

Europe divided

Europe is split on the issue of relations with Russia, with the U.S.-backed "new Europeans" advocating a hard-line "consensus approach" to Russia and "old Europeans" favouring closer cooperation. Old Europe has also distanced itself from Washington on such issues as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran.

Mr. Putin sought to widen the rift by blasting the U.S. global agenda. With just one year left to him to bring to fruition his European project before he steps down, Mr. Putin put his cards on the table in Munich: Europe has a choice of either continuing to support America's evil and doomed cause at its own risk or joining Russia and other rising powers in shaping a multipolar world.

"I am convinced that we have reached that decisive moment when we must seriously think about the architecture of global security," he said, stressing that Russia needed "responsible and independent partners" to build a better world where there would be "security and prosperity for all, rather than for a selected few."

For the last 15 years, the West has been cheating and lying to Russia on security issues seeking unilateral advantages. Mr. Putin recalled that way back in 1990 the NATO General Secretary promised there would be no NATO forces beyond Germany. What happened to those promises, he asked.

The U.S. was trying to engineer new divisions in Europe, Mr. Putin warned. Rubble from the Berlin Wall was "hauled away as souvenirs" long ago, he said, but "attempts are being made to impose new dividing lines and walls, which may be virtual, but are still dividing our common continent."

The continuing eastward expansion of NATO was "a serious provocative factor that eroded mutual trust." The Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) had been converted into "a vulgar instrument for advancing foreign policy goals of one country or a group of countries against other countries". The global missile defence system developed by the U.S. would "give it a free hand to launch, not only local, but global conflicts."

Mr. Putin made it clear Russia's strategic retreat was over. The proposed deployment of U.S. missile interceptors in Europe to neutralise Russia's nuclear arsenals would trigger "another round of inevitable arms race," he warned. Resurgent Russia would work to restore the global balance of power. Mr. Putin said Russia was building missiles capable of overcoming U.S. defences and hinted at resuming the production of medium-range missiles that inspired awe in Europe before they were banned under a 1987 Soviet-U.S. arms reduction treaty.

He questioned the wisdom of Russia continuing to abide by the 1999-revised Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe at a time when NATO countries refused to ratify it and the U.S. was setting up frontline military bases on Russia's borders in Bulgaria and Romania.

Mr. Putin sent a clear message to Europe: toeing the American line of trying to encircle Russia was fraught with new confrontation and was against the best interests of the continent.

U.S. politicians were quick to dismiss Mr. Putin's address as "unnecessary bravado" that failed to drive a wedge between Europe and the U.S. "He's done more to bring Europe and the U.S. together than any single event in the last several years," said Senator Lindsey Graham, who attended the Munich conference.

However, early European reactions showed Mr. Putin's speech may have deepened the split between "new" and "old" Europe. While Czech Foreign Minister Schwarzenberg thanked Mr. Putin for his criticism because he "clearly and convincingly argued why NATO should be enlarged," others, especially in Germany, welcomed it.

Chairman of the Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee Ruprecht Polenz said "many would agree with Putin over his opposition to U.S. plans to deploy the antimissile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic."

The former German Foreign Minister, Hans-Dietrich Gensher, expressed similar apprehensions about U.S. military plans for Europe. Writing in Der Tagesspiegel, he said Mr. Putin was advocating "equal global partnership," which was a key condition for constructive cooperation both in Europe and throughout the world.

A poll conducted in Germany after Mr. Putin's speech showed that two in three Germans supported his view that the U.S. was on a mission to become the world's "one single master"; at the same time, they were not concerned about a stronger Russian military.

"Imperial sunset?" queried Britain's Financial Times in a comment on Mr. Putin's speech. "America the all-powerful finds its hands tied by new rivals."