Paul
Goble
Staunton, November 5 – Most politicians
and analysts in both Moscow and the West are so used to considering the
countries in between Russia and Western Europe only along an east-west axis
that they fail to pay much attention to the efforts of some of these countries
to promote a north-south axis – or dismiss such moves as the work of Washington
or Moscow.
Many Russians see any conversations
about such a north-south alliance as nothing more than an effort by Poland to
recover its former greatness or Washington to push Russia even further away
from Europe. And many in the West, typically dismissive of “the countries in
between” as actors in their own right, also routinely cast doubt on its
potential.
But in fact, this north-south grouping
of countries from Baltic states in the north to Ukraine, Moldova and even
Georgia in the south is currently marked by ever more intensive efforts to find
ways for the governments involved to support one another both directly and by
making appeals to others.
Yesterday, at a mini-NATO summit in
Bucharest, nine countries – Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, the Czech
Republic, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia signed a joint declaration calling for
NATO to maintain a permanent presence in their countries to deter Russian
aggression (radiopolsha.pl/6/137/Artykul/227522).
The nine countries said that this
was a necessary response to “the illegal annexation of Crimea by the Russian
Federation, an action which casts doubt on the security of the entire
continent.” In addition, the nine called on NATO to expand cooperation with the
European Union and on Russia to respect international law.
The idea of a Baltic-Black Sea
alliance has a long and complicated history. See in particulate Marek Jan Chodakiewicz’s magisterial Intermarium:
The Land between the Black and Baltic Seas (Transaction, 2012), and the
present author’s “New Polish President Makes Baltic-Black Sea Alliance a
Centerpiece of His Foreign Policy,” August 13, 2015, at jamestownfoundation.blogspot.com/2015/08/new-polish-president-makes-balticblack.html.
And it is clear that the obstacles
to its formation both from Moscow and the West and within its possible ranks,
especially Belarus and Ukraine, are extremely large, making it easy for many to
dismiss this out of hand. But there are
at least two reasons why doing so is almost certainly a mistake.
On the one hand, being forced to
look at a region of the world from a different perspective on that focuses on
an unfamiliar matrix is useful in and of itself as a heuristic device. And on the other, discussions about the
possible creation of such an alliance puts in play ideas which may resonate far
beyond the scope of those who offer them.
If the document signed in Bucharest
is the most obvious high-level realization of the current drive to create an
Intermarium, the resolution of a meeting of NGOs from across the region in
Warsaw a week ago shows the direction in which thinking about the possibilities
of a different approach among those in this region are taking.
Below is a translation of the
resolution of the Baltic-Black Sea Community at Warsaw, October 27, 2015, that
was provided to the author by one of the participants:
“Guided by the principles of
humanism and international law, the participants of the constituent conference
in Warsaw adopt the following resolution:
1.
We
consider the Russian Federation an aggressor since March 2014 for its military intervention
in sovereign Ukraine and with its seizure of Crimea and the eastern portion of
the country. We demand an end of the
occupation.
2.
We call
upon the authorities of Ukraine to create a Crimean Tatar national-territorial
autonomy within Ukraine.
3.
We support
the action of the Crimean Tatar people by means of the economic blockade of
Crimea, which is based on the principles of non-use of force.
4.
We
recognize the territory of the Chechen Republic Ichkeria as territory occupied
by Russia since 1999.
5.
We call
upon the countries of the West and the Middle East to provide all possible
assistance to Chechen refugees who have fled their motherland in order to save themselves
from persecution by the occupiers.
6.
We
consider the alienation by Russia via military means of Georgian territories in
2008 as illegal and view these territories as occupied to this day.
7.
We call
upon FIFA to review its decision to award the 2018 World Cup competition to
Russia, a country which is in occupation of others.
8.
We demand that
Russia withdraw its forces from all territories of the Chechen Republic
Ichkeria, Georgia and Ukraine it now occupies in order to allow the restoration
of legitimate authorities.
9.
We welcome
the efforts of the Global Coalition in support of the legislation ‘On human
rights in North Korea’ …
10. We demand the withdrawal from the territory of
Belarus all Russian military bases and
all Russian units on Belarusian territory.”
No comments:
Post a Comment