Georgia and the ever
expanding North Atlantic alliance
“The Americans promised that Nato wouldn’t move beyond the
boundaries of Germany after the Cold War but now half of central and eastern
Europe are members, so what happened to their promises? It shows they cannot be
trusted.” [1]
Those are the words of the last
President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail
Gorbachev, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph on 7 May 2008. Foolishly, Gorbachev gave the orders
for the withdrawal of the Red Army from Eastern Europe without getting the West
to sign up to this commitment not to expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
– and it has advanced eastwards since, and continues to advance ever farther
away from the North Atlantic. Russia can be
forgiven for thinking that it is being encircled. This critical fact is missing from the media
coverage of the proposals to admit Georgia
and Ukraine – and Russia’s
unhappiness about it.
(It was not just the Americans who
broke their promise. The Europeans – the
UK, France and Germany – did
likewise. See account by Pat Buchanan in
Appendix I.)
NATO grows
NATO had 16 members at the end of
the Cold War, 14 in Europe (Belgium,
Denmark, France, Germany,
Greece, Iceland, Italy,
Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway,
Portugal, Spain, Turkey
& UK) and 2 in North
America (US & Canada). Since then it has taken 10 states in Eastern
Europe into full membership (Bulgaria,
Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary,
Latvia, Lithuania, Poland,
Romania, Slovakia & Slovenia) making 26 members in
total.
But that isn’t the whole story. A further 24 states (including Russia) are associated
with NATO through the so-called Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council. These are: Albania,
Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan,
Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovena,
Croatia, Finland, Georgia,
Ireland, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz
Republic, Malta,
Moldova, Montenegro, Russia,
Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland,
Tajikistan, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine
& Uzbekistan.
50 states in all are now represented
on the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, including Finland,
Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland, which stayed out of
NATO during the Cold War, plus every former Soviet bloc state, plus every
former Soviet republic, plus every former Yugoslav republic.
Today, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership
Council almost circles the Northern Hemisphere from Alaska
in the West to the borders of China
in the East, encompassing such unlikely Euro-Atlantic states as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan,
Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic. Small wonder then that NATO is rarely
referred to these days by its full name – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
(NATO has extended its tentacles
southwards as well through its so-called Mediterranean Dialogue which was
launched in December 1994 [2]. This currently involves seven non-NATO
nations in the Mediterranean area: Algeria,
Egypt, Israel, Jordan,
Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia.)
Defensive
alliance
NATO was established in 1949 as a
defensive alliance against the Soviet bloc.
Under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, signed in Washington on 4 April
1949, parties to the Treaty are supposed to render collective assistance to any
party that is subject to an armed attack.
Article 5 states:
“The Parties agree that
an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be
considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such
an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or
collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United
Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith,
individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems
necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the
security of the North Atlantic area.” [3]
Article 6 limits the location of an
armed attack, against which a collective response is required under the Treaty
– the armed attack must be “on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or
North America, … on the territory of or on the Islands under the jurisdiction
of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer”
or “on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over
these territories … or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north
of the Tropic of Cancer”. So, for
example, the capture of the Falkland Islands by Argentina
didn’t qualify for a collective NATO response in support of Britain.
Article 5 has been invoked only once
in NATO’s history – when New York and Washington were attacked
by al-Qaeda on 9/11. The NATO Council
met the next day and agreed that “if it is determined that this attack was
directed from abroad against the United States, it shall be regarded as an
action covered by Article 5 of the Washington Treaty” [4]. It was so determined a few weeks later and,
on 2 October 2001, NATO invoked Article 5 for the one and only time in its
history [5].
However, the US had already determined that NATO was not
going to be involved as an organisation in its invasion of Afghanistan. That was going to be carried out by a
“coalition of the willing” under the unfettered leadership of the US – there
wasn’t going to be a repeat of the US experience in bombing Yugoslavia in 1999,
when it was prevented from bombing the targets it wished by other NATO members.
(NATO as an organisation did
contribute one military asset to the war effort: five NATO Airborne Warning
& Control Systems (AWACS) aircraft were deployed to the US for
“homeland” defence.)
No limit to
area of operation
Logically, NATO should have disbanded
itself, when the Soviet Union collapsed and
any threat from the Soviet bloc had disappeared. Instead, NATO has expanded relentlessly
eastwards and seems intent on continuing to do so. But it continues to operate under the North
Atlantic Treaty drawn up in 1949, in a very different geopolitical environment.
Furthermore, since 1990, NATO has
taken military action without any of its members being attacked for example, in
bombing Yugoslavia
in 1999. (The latter was manifestly
contrary to the UN Charter since it constituted the use of armed force, which
wasn’t in self-defence and wasn’t authorised by the UN Security Council).
Also, NATO increasingly operates
“out of area”, that is, outside the Euro/North American territory of its
members specified in Article 6 of the Treaty.
The Treaty doesn’t forbid such action, but it wasn’t envisaged in 1949
when the Treaty was drawn up. Today,
there is no limit on NATO’s area of operation in the world, justified by the
need to “fight terrorism”. As the NATO
website page entitled NATO and the fight
against terrorism puts it:
“NATO’s immediate
response to September 11 was further strengthened by a decision, at the Reykjavik meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers in May 2002,
that the Alliance
will operate when and where necessary to fight terrorism. This landmark declaration effectively ended
the debate on what is and what is not NATO’s area of operations and paved the
way for the Alliance’s future engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq.” [6]
In not much more than a decade, a
defensive North Atlantic alliance whose raison
d’etre disappeared at the end of the Cold War has evolved into an aggressive
alliance, ready to engage in military action to “fight terrorism” abroad in the
name of security at home.
Gordon Brown told British soldiers
in Afghanistan
recently:
“… you know that you are
on the front line of the fight against the Taliban, and you know that what you
are doing here prevents terrorism coming to the streets of Britain … .” [7]
The truth is the other way up – the
best way of preventing “terrorism coming to the streets of Britain” is for Britain to stop interfering in the
Muslim world. And the same is true for
other NATO states that have volunteered to “fight terrorism” in Afghanistan and Iraq. By being led by the nose into Afghanistan and Iraq
by Britain and America, NATO
members are not only sacrificing blood and treasure, they are making their
homelands less secure.
Yes to Georgia (and Ukraine)
On 3 April 2008, at a meeting of
heads of state in Bucharest, NATO decided in
principle to allow Ukraine
and Georgia
to become full members. The declaration
issued from the meeting stated:
“NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations
for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become
members of NATO. Both nations have made valuable contributions to Alliance operations.” [8]
But NATO didn’t specify a
timetable. Indeed, neither state was allowed
to embark on the next step towards membership, which is the drawing up of a
Membership Action Plan (MAP). On this,
the declaration from the Bucharest
summit said:
“MAP is the next step for
Ukraine and Georgia on
their direct way to membership. Today we make clear that we support these
countries’ applications for MAP. Therefore we will now begin a period of
intensive engagement with both at a high political level to address the
questions still outstanding pertaining to their MAP applications.”
Germany, France and other states successfully resisted
intense pressure from the US
(with the support of the UK)
to draw up MAPs for Ukraine
and Georgia
right away. A decision may be taken at
NATO foreign ministers meeting in December 2008. As the Bucharest
declaration states:
“We have asked Foreign
Ministers to make a first assessment of progress [re outstanding questions about
their MAP applications] at their December 2008 meeting. Foreign Ministers
have the authority to decide on the MAP applications of Ukraine and Georgia.”
This doesn’t guarantee that MAP
applications will be granted in December.
Even if they were, it could take a few years before either became full
members of NATO.
(Albania
and Croatia were invited to
begin accession talks for full membership at the Bucharest summit. Albania
has been at the MAP stage since 1999 and Croatia since 2002. A third state, the former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, which has also been at
the MAP stage since 1999, was not invited to begin accession talks – because of
the ongoing dispute with Greece
about its name. It was agreed at Bucharest that an invitation
would be extended “as soon as a mutually acceptable solution to the name issue
has been reached”.)
After Georgia’s
attack on South Ossetia on 7
August 2008, and Russia’s response,
NATO foreign ministers met in Brussels on 19
August 2008 to consider the situation in Georgia. The statement issued afterwards “reaffirmed”
the decision taken in Bucharest in relation to Georgia’s membership,
leaving it up to the foreign ministers meeting in December to progress the
matter [9]. As of this meeting then, the conflict between
Russia and Georgia had neither accelerated, nor
decelerated, Georgia’s
progress towards NATO membership.
Yes to US
missile defence
To add to Russia’s annoyance, the
Bucharest meeting also gave NATO approval to US plans to deploy a missile
defence system in Europe (with radars based in the Czech Republic and
interceptor missiles in Poland) ostensibly to counter threats from Iran. The Bucharest
declaration states:
“We recognise the
substantial contribution to the protection of Allies from long-range ballistic
missiles to be provided by the planned deployment of European-based United States
missile defence assets.” [8]
There are grave doubts about whether
this system will be effective if it is deployed (as there are about the systems
already deployed on the West coast of the US,
ostensibly to counter threats from North Korea). The new, two-stage interceptor for the
European system has not yet been built, let alone tested. Russia’s worries about the system are, not so
much about the effectiveness of the initial very limited system, but about
future versions which might be used, and be effective, against Russian
missiles, thereby reducing Russia’s first strike capability and disturbing the
nuclear balance between Russia and the US.
Reputable defence analysts are of
the opinion that Russian fears in this regard cannot be dismissed out of hand
(see, for example, European Missile
Defense: The Technological Basis of Russian Concerns by George N Lewis and
Theodore A Postol in Arms Control Today,
October 2007 [10]).
The deployment of these missile
defence systems would have been in breach of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM)
Treaty the US signed with
the Soviet Union in 1972. So in June 2002 the US unilaterally
withdrew from the Treaty.
The Treaty barred the US and the Soviet Union
from deploying nationwide defences against strategic ballistic missiles. The reasoning behind this, as stated in the
preamble to the Treaty, was the belief on both sides that “effective measures
to limit anti-ballistic missile systems would be a substantial factor in
curbing the race in strategic offensive arms and would lead to a decrease in
the risk of outbreak of war involving nuclear weapons” [11]
Russia
recognises South Ossetia and Abkhazia
On 26 August 2008, Russia recognised South
Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states. Under Soviet rule, both were autonomous areas
within the Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia. The Georgian state, established when the Soviet Union broke up in 1990, tried but failed to
establish control over them by military means.
Georgia’s military action
on 7 August 2008 was a further attempt to take control of South
Ossetia.
Up to now, South Ossetia and
Abkhazia have been universally recognised, including by Russia, as part
of the territory of the Georgian state, even though they have remained outside
its control. As the US/UK have been quick
to point out, as late as 15 April 2008, Russia voted for Security Council
resolution 1808, which reaffirmed “the commitment of all [UN] Member States to
the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Georgia within its
internationally recognized borders” [12].
However, there is little doubt that
the people who live in these areas now do not want to be part of Georgia and that they are delighted that Russia has recognised the areas as independent
from Georgia. It is also true that considerable numbers of
Georgians who used to live in these areas in Soviet times have either left
because of the conflict or been expelled.
It is, of course, highly unlikely
that South Ossetia and Abkhazia will be recognised by any state other than Russia. They have no chance of being accepted into
membership of the UN – if necessary, Western vetoes on the Security Council
will see to that, just as the Russian veto will, if necessary, ensure that Kosovo
won’t become a member.
However, it can be guaranteed that,
from now on, Russian military power will ensure that the Georgian state has no
control on the ground in South Ossetia and
Abkhazia and any attempt to exert control will be countered with the same
overwhelming military force as the Georgian attack of 7 August 2008.
Kosovo
parallel
The parallel with Kosovo is obvious
(though Russia
is insisting that it isn’t, otherwise it would have difficulty mounting an
argument against recognising Kosovo as an independent state). The agreement which brought the NATO attack
on Yugoslavia to an end was
enshrined in Security Council resolution 1244 [13] passed
with one abstention (China)
on 10 June 1999. This resolution, and
the agreement itself, was founded on the principle that the territorial
integrity of Yugoslavia
would be preserved, in other words, that the final settlement would not include
an independent Kosovo.
(Yugoslavia
then consisted of two republics, Serbia
– which included Kosovo – and Montenegro. The latter has since opted for independence
and Yugoslavia is now Serbia.)
Resolution 1244 reaffirmed “the
commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of
the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia” and set down (in Annex 1 of the
resolution) as one of the principles of the agreement:
“A political process
towards the establishment of an interim political framework agreement providing
for a substantial self-government for Kosovo, taking full account of the
Rambouillet accords and the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity
of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the other countries of the region,
and the demilitarization of the KLA;”
By recognising Kosovo as an
independent state earlier this year, the US/UK and others have abrogated the
principle on which the agreement was founded.
And Russia has good
grounds for feeling aggrieved since it played a major role in persuading Yugoslavia to
accept the agreement based on that principle, without which there wouldn’t have
been an agreement.
When the US/UK criticise Russia
recognising South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states thereby infringing
the territorial integrity of Georgia, it’s a matter of the pot calling the
kettle black.
Western
reaction
The US
reaction to Russia’s
recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as
independent states has been remarkably muted.
The President didn’t even interrupt his holiday to make a statement to
camera, let alone rush back to Washington
for crisis meetings. He merely issued a
written statement, which criticised the decision, saying it was inconsistent
with Security Council resolutions that Russia
had voted for and with the 6-point ceasefire agreement brokered by Sarkozy –
and saying that the territorial integrity and borders of Georgia must be
respected [14].
But there was no talk of sanctions
of any kind against Russia. There seems to be a general acceptance in Washington that there is nothing much the US can do about Russia’s actions. Early on in the conflict, vice-President
Cheney insisted that there would be “serious consequences” for Russia because
of its actions, but they have yet to be specified.
As
for the would-be presidents, John McCain initially got carried away and
proclaimed that “we’re all Georgians now” but realism has since asserted
itself. Barack Obama has been realistic
throughout.
There
has been no official criticism of President Saakashvili’s actions on 7 August
that led to US
impotence in the region being made manifest.
And the official US
position remains that Georgia
(and the Ukraine)
should be allowed to join NATO. The same
is true of the would-be presidents.
Nobody could accuse the British
foreign secretary, David Miliband, of being realistic. As this is written, he is in Ukraine
building an alliance against Russian aggression. One can but hope that Germany and France will keep him under control.
He would do well to listen to Nick
Brown, his colleague in Government, on Georgia joining NATO. Here’s what he wrote in the The Guardian on 19 August 2008, in
response to Conservative leader, David Cameron, who initially demanded that Georgia be admitted to NATO right away, and
rushed to Tbilisi
in solidarity:
“Cameron urges Nato to
admit Georgia.
Nato is a mutual defence pact. This position will have gone down very well in Tbilisi, but do we really mean to commit ourselves to
all-out war against the Russian
Federation if something like this happens
again? I don’t favour that approach, and I don’t know anyone who does [Does he
not know David Miliband?]. There is a bigger point here. If western hawks
really are advocating Nato membership for every small country that borders the Russian Federation,
even a government far more charitably disposed towards Nato than the present
Russian one is going to see the move as a direct challenge. Constantly
reprimanding the Russians isn’t the right way to deal with this problem. It
makes us look pompous and ineffective.” [15]
Appendix I Breaking faith with Russia
This is the title of a section in
Chapter 2 of a book by Pat Buchanan entitled A Republic, Not an Empire, published in 1999, the text of which is
given below [16]. About future US
relations with Russia,
it is very perceptive.
(Buchanan sought the Republican
presidential nomination in 1992 and 1996, having worked for Presidents Nixon,
Ford and Reagan, but left the Republican Party in 1999.)
By pushing a U.S. alliance up to Russia’s
borders, we are violating solemn pledges given when Moscow agreed to German reunification. U.S. leaders say we never gave any written
reassurances, but Gorbachev could never have brought the Red Army home had Russia's
military believed its bases would be occupied by NATO troops. Regarding a
high-level meeting in Moscow in which German
Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher and Secretary of State James Baker
participated, Susan Eisenhower, a scholar on Russia, writes:
[Genscher] promoted a “no
expansion of NATO” concept, an idea that Baker, too, had advanced. It was at
the February meeting that the key words were spoken, words that are still a
source of debate. If a unified Germany
was anchored in NATO, Secretary Baker said to Gorbachev, “NATO's jurisdiction
or forces would not move eastward.”
Apparently, Gorbachev was
receptive to that assurance and emphasized that “any extension of the zone of
NATO is unacceptable.”
“I agree,” Baker said.
Heartened by Baker's
comments, several months later, in May, Gorbachev gave up his idea that Germany must
remain neutral, or at least, a member of both blocs. He conceded (without
consulting his advisers) that the German people should be able to choose the
alliance they wished to join.
“Against that
background,” writes Eisenhower, “it is not surprising that NATO expansion has
been viewed with great hostility across the entire Russian political spectrum.”
Adds scholar Stanley Kober, “Russians are now experiencing ... [a] sense of
betrayal because they apparently were promised when Germany was reunited that there
would be no further expansion of NATO.” In the words of former Russian Prime
Minister Yevgeny Primakov:
“In conversations with
Mikhail Gorbachev, Eduard Shevardnadze and Dmitri Yazov, held in 1990-1991,
i.e., when the West was vitally interested in the Soviet troop withdrawal from
the German Democratic Republic and wanted us to ‘swallow the bitter pill’—the
disintegration of the Warsaw Treaty Organization ... Francois Mitterrand, John Major, and [James]
Baker, all of them said one and the same thing: NATO will not move to the east
by a single inch and not a single Warsaw Pact country will be admitted to NATO.
This was exactly what they said. These conversations were not codified in the
form of official documents at that time.”
Former Soviet Ambassador
to Britain Anatoli Adamishin contends that when Moscow
let the Berlin Wall come down and began to withdraw its troops from Eastern Europe, “we were given repeatedly assurances that
NATO would not expand an inch eastwards.” Jack Matlock, the U.S. ambassador to Russia in 1990, “confirms that
Gorbachev had reason to believe that he had been given a ‘blanket promise that
NATO would not expand.’”
In the early 1990s the
romance of the age was between America
and a Russia
liberated from Leninism. Reagan was being toasted in Moscow for having been right about the evil
empire. Boris Yeltsin was being toasted in America for having stood atop a
tank and defied communists attempting to reestablish the ancien regime. How far
away that all seems. An agitated Russia—believing America is taking advantage
of Russia's present weakness to humiliate the nation—has sacked its pro-U.S.
foreign minister, named an ex-KGB chief to be prime minister [Putin], refused
to ratify the START II arms treaty, moved closer to Beijing, funneled weapons
into the Caucasus to destabilize pro-U.S, regimes, sold weapons and nuclear
technology to Iran, and sided with Saddam Hussein. “[T]he most fateful error of
American policy in the entire post-cold war era,” says George F. Kennan of the
expansion of NATO.
Russia is today a bankrupt,
demoralized nation whose presidency is lusted after by democrats, demagogues,
ex-generals, and communists with a single conviction in common: All believe
NATO expansion to be a provocation, an example of American bad faith in
exploiting Russian weakness. Russian military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer warns
that “public opinion is changing. NATO expansion will turn a whole generation
of Russians anti-American.”
We soothingly reassure Moscow that NATO’s
expansion is benign. But if the Russians gave war guarantees to Mexico and
began arming and training Mexican troops, would any Russian assurance diminish
our determination to run them out of our hemisphere? If rising resentment in Russia leads to Yeltsin’s replacement with an
anti-American nationalist, full blame must rest squarely with a haughty U.S. elite that has done its best to humiliate Russia.
Why are we doing this?
This is not 1948. Stalin is dead; the Soviet empire is dead; the Soviet Union is dead. European Russia is smaller than the
Russia of Peter the Great. Between the vital interests of our two nations,
there is no conflict. But these proud people retain thousands of nuclear
weapons. A friendly Russia
is far more critical to U.S.
security than any alliance with Warsaw or Prague. If the United States has one overriding national
security interest in the new century, it is to avoid collisions with great
nuclear powers like Russia.
By moving NATO onto Russia’s
front porch, we have scheduled a twenty-first-century confrontation. Europe’s sick man of today is going to get well. When Russia does, it
will proclaim its own Monroe Doctrine. And when that day comes, America will face a hellish dilemma: risk
confrontation with a nuclear-armed Russia determined to recreate its
old sphere of influence, or renege on solemn commitments and see NATO collapse.
Are we really willing to
use nuclear weapons to defend Eastern Europe—for
that is what NATO membership means? And if we make good on the commitment of
Clinton and Madeleine Albright to bring in the Baltic republics, it is
impossible to see how these tiny nations can be defended, short of an
escalation to a nuclear crisis similar to Cuba, 1962.
David
Morrison
26 August
2008
www.david-morrison.org.uk
References:-
[1] www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/1933223/Gorbachev-US-could-start-new-Cold-War.html
[2] www.nato.int/med-dial/summary.htm
[3] www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/treaty.htm
[4] www.nato.int/docu/pr/2001/p01-124e.htm
[5] www.nato.int/docu/update/2001/1001/e1002a.htm
[6] www.nato.int/issues/terrorism/evolve01.html
[7] www.number10.gov.uk/Page16651
[8] www.nato.int/docu/pr/2008/p08-049e.html
[9] www.nato.int/docu/pr/2008/p08-104e.html
[10] www.armscontrol.org/act/2007_10/LewisPostol
[11] www.state.gov/www/global/arms/treaties/abm/abm2.html
[12] www.david-morrison.org.uk/scrs/2008-1808.pdf
[13] www.david-morrison.org.uk/scrs/1999-1244.pdf
[14] www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/08/20080826-2.html
[15] www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/19/davidcameron.conservatives
[16] www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/buchanan-republic.html