Nikolas Gvosdev, Parting with Illusions: Developing a Realistic Approach to Relations with Russia, Cato Policy Analysis No. 611, únor 2008, str. 14-15: Unfortunately, however, such a discussion is not taking place. Consider this: In March 2007, the U.S. Congress decided, by large margins in both houses, that NATO membership was the way for the post-Soviet states to safeguard their independence, when it approved legislation providing support for Ukraine and Georgia’s bid to join the Western alliance. What was amazing was the near-total lack of debate in the United States over what was to be gained by including Ukraine or Georgia in NATO. Few dared to ask whether the continual expansions of the alliance have weakened its ability to function as a collective security organ. Likewise, what the inclusion of those states would contribute to solving the major challenges to U.S. and Western security posed by Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, and international terrorism was never addressed, nor was the likely impact on U.S.-Russia relations. A zero-sum mentality for Eurasia—where the United States is confronted by a binary choice that only permits one of two outcomes (Ukraine in NATO or Ukraine “lost” to the West altogether)—flies in the face of America’s ability to successfully balance multiple and sometimes conflicting priorities in other parts of the world. In a number of complicated bilateral relationships, Washington has been able to avoid embracing the maximalist positions of either side in order to find acceptable, if imperfect, compromises. Early last year, Anatol Lieven, a long-standing critic of U.S. policy toward Russia, proposed an arrangement whereby the United States would agree to “abandoning NATO enlargement to [include] Ukraine and Georgia in favour of mutually agreed restraints on western and Russian behaviour on the territory of the former Soviet Union.”59 In practical terms, this might lead to a situation where the United States would drop its opposition to Russian-led multilateral institutions in which other Eurasian countries participate on a voluntary basis (such as the Common Economic Space or the Collective Security Treaty Organization)—in return for Russian guarantees that any Eurasian state is free to seek membership in the European Union. (This would also then put the onus on Brussels to decide when and where to halt EU expansion.) These sorts of compromises do not satisfy politicians in Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova, who would like nothing better than for the United States to put its full political, military, and economic might into changing their geopolitical position. It is equally unsettling for a number of American politicians who are unprepared to recognize that the unipolar moment has passed. But such an approach seems to have the greatest chance of satisfying the greatest number of U.S. objectives—acquiring some security guarantees for Russia’s neighbors, keeping the door in Eurasia at least partly open, and paving the way for closer cooperation with Russia on other issues. cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/parting-illusions-developing-realistic-approach-relations-russia
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 11:04:33 +0000
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