The Mazeika Report September 4, 2008 go to "blog" link to http://mazeikabloginternationalnews.blogspot.com/ for archival reports for the months of July and June, 2008Pass this link on to other readers! Breaking stories.....your comments are welcome.... Place this "blog link" into your computer favorites for easy access. =======================================================
Visit our interactive website and new featured listings....at http://www.ocrelocate.com/ Ocean to Mountains Real Estate for all Orange County Tony & Danute Mazeika...... 949 721-3445 pager.... 949 929-9051 cell
Celebrating 21 years and more than 500 successful real estate transactions... Don't miss incredible market opportunities....... Prices are at Year 2002 level... May home sales up significantly ...Positive signs of market recovery are here. Inventory is decreasing. You may qualify for a credit on closing costs and savings on escrow fees...Ask us how...... Don't delay..call us today! 949 721-3445 ================================================================ Please support this unique blog.....Buy your ....Books, Dvds, and CDs on our special link access to Amazon.Com Tony & Danute ===================================================================== Breaking news & commentary ....click on active links for multiple photos!
What is the ACT! for America Congressional Scorecard?
(Before looking at the voting records of Members of the House and Senate, it is recommended you read the following information to understand how the congressional scorecard works.)
ACT! for America has reviewed hundreds of votes related to national security and the threat of Islamofascism cast in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House between 2003 and 2008. The House and Senate votes we have chosen to highlight reflect a broad range of issues, including…
Intelligence gathering and protection of classified information
Detention, trial and punishment of terrorists
Financing of terrorism
Dealing with Iran and Iraq
Protecting American citizens who report suspicious activity
Grounds for deportation of suspected terrorists
Energy proposals to reduce American dependence on oil produced by countries unfriendly to the United States
See how your Congressman voted on important issues re: security, intelligence, terrorism, and the war. Click on the active link below:
http://www.actforamerica.org/index.php/house-110th-session-of-congress-2007-2008-
=======================================================
The Medvedev Doctrine and American Strategy
Stratfor Today »-->September 2, 2008
By George Friedman
The United States has been fighting a war in the Islamic world since 2001. Its main theaters of operation are in Afghanistan and Iraq, but its politico-military focus spreads throughout the Islamic world, from Mindanao to Morocco. The situation on Aug. 7, 2008, was as follows:
The war in Iraq was moving toward an acceptable but not optimal solution. The government in Baghdad was not pro-American, but neither was it an Iranian puppet, and that was the best that could be hoped for. The United States anticipated pulling out troops, but not in a disorderly fashion.
The war in Afghanistan was deteriorating for the United States and NATO forces. The Taliban was increasingly effective, and large areas of the country were falling to its control. Force in Afghanistan was insufficient, and any troops withdrawn from Iraq would have to be deployed to Afghanistan to stabilize the situation. Political conditions in neighboring Pakistan were deteriorating, and that deterioration inevitably affected Afghanistan.
The United States had been locked in a confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program, demanding that Tehran halt enrichment of uranium or face U.S. action. The United States had assembled a group of six countries (the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany) that agreed with the U.S. goal, was engaged in negotiations with Iran, and had agreed at some point to impose sanctions on Iran if Tehran failed to comply. The United States was also leaking stories about impending air attacks on Iran by Israel or the United States if Tehran didn’t abandon its enrichment program. The United States had the implicit agreement of the group of six not to sell arms to Tehran, creating a real sense of isolation in Iran.
Related Special Topic Page
The Russian Resurgence
In short, the United States remained heavily committed to a region stretching from Iraq to Pakistan, with main force committed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the possibility of commitments to Pakistan (and above all to Iran) on the table. U.S. ground forces were stretched to the limit, and U.S. airpower, naval and land-based forces had to stand by for the possibility of an air campaign in Iran — regardless of whether the U.S. planned an attack, since the credibility of a bluff depended on the availability of force.
The situation in this region actually was improving, but the United States had to remain committed there. It was therefore no accident that the Russians invaded Georgia on Aug. 8 following a Georgian attack on South Ossetia. Forgetting the details of who did what to whom, the United States had created a massive window of opportunity for the Russians: For the foreseeable future, the United States had no significant forces to spare to deploy elsewhere in the world, nor the ability to sustain them in extended combat. Moreover, the United States was relying on Russian cooperation both against Iran and potentially in Afghanistan, where Moscow’s influence with some factions remains substantial. The United States needed the Russians and couldn’t block the Russians. Therefore, the Russians inevitably chose this moment to strike.
On Sunday, Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev in effect ran up the Jolly Roger. Whatever the United States thought it was dealing with in Russia, Medvedev made the Russian position very clear. He stated Russian foreign policy in five succinct points, which we can think of as the Medvedev Doctrine (and which we see fit to quote here):
First, Russia recognizes the primacy of the fundamental principles of international law, which define the relations between civilized peoples. We will build our relations with other countries within the framework of these principles and this concept of international law.
Second, the world should be multipolar. A single-pole world is unacceptable. Domination is something we cannot allow. We cannot accept a world order in which one country makes all the decisions, even as serious and influential a country as the United States of America. Such a world is unstable and threatened by conflict.
Third, Russia does not want confrontation with any other country. Russia has no intention of isolating itself. We will develop friendly relations with Europe, the United States, and other countries, as much as is possible.
Fourth, protecting the lives and dignity of our citizens, wherever they may be, is an unquestionable priority for our country. Our foreign policy decisions will be based on this need. We will also protect the interests of our business community abroad. It should be clear to all that we will respond to any aggressive acts committed against us.
Finally, fifth, as is the case of other countries, there are regions in which Russia has privileged interests. These regions are home to countries with which we share special historical relations and are bound together as friends and good neighbors. We will pay particular attention to our work in these regions and build friendly ties with these countries, our close neighbors.
Medvedev concluded, “These are the principles I will follow in carrying out our foreign policy. As for the future, it depends not only on us but also on our friends and partners in the international community. They have a choice.”
The second point in this doctrine states that Russia does not accept the primacy of the United States in the international system. According to the third point, while Russia wants good relations with the United States and Europe, this depends on their behavior toward Russia and not just on Russia’s behavior. The fourth point states that Russia will protect the interests of Russians wherever they are — even if they live in the Baltic states or in Georgia, for example. This provides a doctrinal basis for intervention in such countries if Russia finds it necessary.
The fifth point is the critical one: “As is the case of other countries, there are regions in which Russia has privileged interests.” In other words, the Russians have special interests in the former Soviet Union and in friendly relations with these states. Intrusions by others into these regions that undermine pro-Russian regimes will be regarded as a threat to Russia’s “special interests.”
Thus, the Georgian conflict was not an isolated event — rather, Medvedev is saying that Russia is engaged in a general redefinition of the regional and global system. Locally, it would not be correct to say that Russia is trying to resurrect the Soviet Union or the Russian empire. It would be correct to say that Russia is creating a new structure of relations in the geography of its predecessors, with a new institutional structure with Moscow at its center. Globally, the Russians want to use this new regional power — and substantial Russian nuclear assets — to be part of a global system in which the United States loses its primacy.
These are ambitious goals, to say the least. But the Russians believe that the United States is off balance in the Islamic world and that there is an opportunity here, if they move quickly, to create a new reality before the United States is ready to respond. Europe has neither the military weight nor the will to actively resist Russia. Moreover, the Europeans are heavily dependent on Russian natural gas supplies over the coming years, and Russia can survive without selling it to them far better than the Europeans can survive without buying it. The Europeans are not a substantial factor in the equation, nor are they likely to become substantial.
This leaves the United States in an extremely difficult strategic position. The United States opposed the Soviet Union after 1945 not only for ideological reasons but also for geopolitical ones. If the Soviet Union had broken out of its encirclement and dominated all of Europe, the total economic power at its disposal, coupled with its population, would have allowed the Soviets to construct a navy that could challenge U.S. maritime hegemony and put the continental United States in jeopardy. It was U.S. policy during World Wars I and II and the Cold War to act militarily to prevent any power from dominating the Eurasian landmass. For the United States, this was the most important task throughout the 20th century.
The U.S.-jihadist war was waged in a strategic framework that assumed that the question of hegemony over Eurasia was closed. Germany’s defeat in World War II and the Soviet Union’s defeat in the Cold War meant that there was no claimant to Eurasia, and the United States was free to focus on what appeared to be the current priority — the defeat of radical Islamism. It appeared that the main threat to this strategy was the patience of the American public, not an attempt to resurrect a major Eurasian power.
The United States now faces a massive strategic dilemma, and it has limited military options against the Russians. It could choose a naval option, in which it would block the four Russian maritime outlets, the Sea of Japan and the Black, Baltic and Barents seas. The United States has ample military force with which to do this and could potentially do so without allied cooperation, which it would lack. It is extremely unlikely that the NATO council would unanimously support a blockade of Russia, which would be an act of war.
But while a blockade like this would certainly hurt the Russians, Russia is ultimately a land power. It is also capable of shipping and importing through third parties, meaning it could potentially acquire and ship key goods through European or Turkish ports (or Iranian ports, for that matter). The blockade option is thus more attractive on first glance than on deeper analysis.
More important, any overt U.S. action against Russia would result in counteractions. During the Cold War, the Soviets attacked American global interest not by sending Soviet troops, but by supporting regimes and factions with weapons and economic aid. Vietnam was the classic example: The Russians tied down 500,000 U.S. troops without placing major Russian forces at risk. Throughout the world, the Soviets implemented programs of subversion and aid to friendly regimes, forcing the United States either to accept pro-Soviet regimes, as with Cuba, or fight them at disproportionate cost.
In the present situation, the Russian response would strike at the heart of American strategy in the Islamic world. In the long run, the Russians have little interest in strengthening the Islamic world — but for the moment, they have substantial interest in maintaining American imbalance and sapping U.S. forces. The Russians have a long history of supporting Middle Eastern regimes with weapons shipments, and it is no accident that the first world leader they met with after invading Georgia was Syrian President Bashar al Assad. This was a clear signal that if the U.S. responded aggressively to Russia’s actions in Georgia, Moscow would ship a range of weapons to Syria — and far worse, to Iran. Indeed, Russia could conceivably send weapons to factions in Iraq that do not support the current regime, as well as to groups like Hezbollah. Moscow also could encourage the Iranians to withdraw their support for the Iraqi government and plunge Iraq back into conflict. Finally, Russia could ship weapons to the Taliban and work to further destabilize Pakistan.
At the moment, the United States faces the strategic problem that the Russians have options while the United States does not. Not only does the U.S. commitment of ground forces in the Islamic world leave the United States without strategic reserve, but the political arrangements under which these troops operate make them highly vulnerable to Russian manipulation — with few satisfactory U.S. counters.
The U.S. government is trying to think through how it can maintain its commitment in the Islamic world and resist the Russian reassertion of hegemony in the former Soviet Union. If the United States could very rapidly win its wars in the region, this would be possible. But the Russians are in a position to prolong these wars, and even without such agitation, the American ability to close off the conflicts is severely limited. The United States could massively increase the size of its army and make deployments into the Baltics, Ukraine and Central Asia to thwart Russian plans, but it would take years to build up these forces and the active cooperation of Europe to deploy them. Logistically, European support would be essential — but the Europeans in general, and the Germans in particular, have no appetite for this war. Expanding the U.S. Army is necessary, but it does not affect the current strategic reality.
This logistical issue might be manageable, but the real heart of this problem is not merely the deployment of U.S. forces in the Islamic world — it is the Russians’ ability to use weapons sales and covert means to deteriorate conditions dramatically. With active Russian hostility added to the current reality, the strategic situation in the Islamic world could rapidly spin out of control.
The United States is therefore trapped by its commitment to the Islamic world. It does not have sufficient forces to block Russian hegemony in the former Soviet Union, and if it tries to block the Russians with naval or air forces, it faces a dangerous riposte from the Russians in the Islamic world. If it does nothing, it creates a strategic threat that potentially towers over the threat in the Islamic world.
The United States now has to make a fundamental strategic decision. If it remains committed to its current strategy, it cannot respond to the Russians. If it does not respond to the Russians for five or 10 years, the world will look very much like it did from 1945 to 1992. There will be another Cold War at the very least, with a peer power much poorer than the United States but prepared to devote huge amounts of money to national defense.
There are four broad U.S. options:
Attempt to make a settlement with Iran that would guarantee the neutral stability of Iraq and permit the rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces there. Iran is the key here. The Iranians might also mistrust a re-emergent Russia, and while Tehran might be tempted to work with the Russians against the Americans, Iran might consider an arrangement with the United States — particularly if the United States refocuses its attentions elsewhere. On the upside, this would free the U.S. from Iraq. On the downside, the Iranians might not want —or honor — such a deal.
Enter into negotiations with the Russians, granting them the sphere of influence they want in the former Soviet Union in return for guarantees not to project Russian power into Europe proper. The Russians will be busy consolidating their position for years, giving the U.S. time to re-energize NATO. On the upside, this would free the United States to continue its war in the Islamic world. On the downside, it would create a framework for the re-emergence of a powerful Russian empire that would be as difficult to contain as the Soviet Union.
Refuse to engage the Russians and leave the problem to the Europeans. On the upside, this would allow the United States to continue war in the Islamic world and force the Europeans to act. On the downside, the Europeans are too divided, dependent on Russia and dispirited to resist the Russians. This strategy could speed up Russia’s re-emergence.
Rapidly disengage from Iraq, leaving a residual force there and in Afghanistan. The upside is that this creates a reserve force to reinforce the Baltics and Ukraine that might restrain Russia in the former Soviet Union. The downside is that it would create chaos in the Islamic world, threatening regimes that have sided with the United States and potentially reviving effective intercontinental terrorism. The trade-off is between a hegemonic threat from Eurasia and instability and a terror threat from the Islamic world.
We are pointing to very stark strategic choices. Continuing the war in the Islamic world has a much higher cost now than it did when it began, and Russia potentially poses a far greater threat to the United States than the Islamic world does. What might have been a rational policy in 2001 or 2003 has now turned into a very dangerous enterprise, because a hostile major power now has the option of making the U.S. position in the Middle East enormously more difficult.
If a U.S. settlement with Iran is impossible, and a diplomatic solution with the Russians that would keep them from taking a hegemonic position in the former Soviet Union cannot be reached, then the United States must consider rapidly abandoning its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and redeploying its forces to block Russian expansion. The threat posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War was far graver than the threat posed now by the fragmented Islamic world. In the end, the nations there will cancel each other out, and militant organizations will be something the United States simply has to deal with. This is not an ideal solution by any means, but the clock appears to have run out on the American war in the Islamic world.
We do not expect the United States to take this option. It is difficult to abandon a conflict that has gone on this long when it is not yet crystal clear that the Russians will actually be a threat later. (It is far easier for an analyst to make such suggestions than it is for a president to act on them.) Instead, the United States will attempt to bridge the Russian situation with gestures and half measures.
Nevertheless, American national strategy is in crisis. The United States has insufficient power to cope with two threats and must choose between the two. Continuing the current strategy means choosing to deal with the Islamic threat rather than the Russian one, and that is reasonable only if the Islamic threat represents a greater danger to American interests than the Russian threat does. It is difficult to see how the chaos of the Islamic world will cohere to form a global threat. But it is not difficult to imagine a Russia guided by the Medvedev Doctrine rapidly becoming a global threat and a direct danger to American interests.
We expect no immediate change in American strategic deployments — and we expect this to be regretted later. However, given U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s trip to the Caucasus region, now would be the time to see some movement in U.S. foreign policy. If Cheney isn’t going to be talking to the Russians, he needs to be talking to the Iranians. Otherwise, he will be writing checks in the region that the U.S. is in no position to cash.
Tell Stratfor What You Think
This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to http://www.stratfor.com/
======================================================
September 03, 2008
NATO States Seek To Reassure Baltics
by Reuters
BRUSSELS -- NATO states back a U.S. call to show the alliance is prepared to defend Baltic members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from any attack after Russia's intervention in Georgia, an alliance spokesman says.U.S. envoy Kurt Volker said in an interview published in the "Financial Times" that the 26-nation Western military alliance must send signals through "planning and exercises" that it intends to help shore up the Baltic states."Those countries are members of NATO; so if there is any attack on those countries, we will respond," Volker told the paper in an interview."They are feeling a little rattled by seeing Russia use military force to invade a sovereign, small neighboring country. We need to send signals to shore them up a little bit."We will have to make sure ... that the Article 5 commitment is realizable, not just as a political matter, but as a military matter too," he said.NATO's Article 5 guarantees defense of a NATO member by other members of the alliance in the event of attack.NATO spokesman James Appathurai said the U.S. proposal was under discussion by NATO states and was expected to be a topic for NATO defense ministers when they hold a informal meeting in London on September 18."I think he has reflected a sentiment that is more widely shared within the alliance," Appathurai told a news briefing. The spokesman said he was not aware of any request from the Baltic states for more visible NATO deployments, but they had sought more routine defense planning."There has been an exchange of views as to whether or not it is necessary to do it in a routine way or if we were faced as an alliance with a particular situation," he said.Appathurai said NATO had full capability to provide collective defense for its members. "NATO clearly has the capability to do it and do it very quickly," he said.Latvia and its Baltic neighbors Estonia and Lithuania have been strong supporters of Georgia in its conflict with Russia. All four of the small nations are former Soviet states and the Balts particularly have a strong mistrust of Moscow.NATO has promised Georgia eventual membership of the alliance -- something that greatly angered Russia -- but Tbilisi is not currently covered by the security guarantee.Russia's intervention in Georgia has cast a pall over recent efforts by NATO and Russia to improve military ties.NATO has said normal contacts are not possible until Moscow abides by terms of a French-brokered peace deal, and Russia has cast doubt on various joint projects between the two.
http://www.rferl.org/articleprintview/1196103.html
====================================================
'Stop! Or We'll Say Stop Again!'
FROM TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPESeptember 2, 2008
With apologies to comedian Robin Williams, that's the line that comes to mind when weighing the European Union's declaration yesterday on Russia's continued occupation of Georgia.
At a special meeting in Brussels, EU national leaders told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to abide by the terms of a French-brokered cease-fire, including a pullback of Russian troops to their preconflict positions. If he doesn't do so, they warned, they will hold another meeting.
That's all. It's been almost three weeks since Mr. Medvedev signed the cease-fire, and five days since Moscow broke with the rest of the world by recognizing the self-declared independence of Georgian provinces South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Yet Europe's leaders evidently need more time to ruminate over the situation in the Caucasus.
Well, that's almost all. The European leaders did make one concrete "threat." The EU said it would freeze negotiations with Moscow on a new economic cooperation agreement if Russian forces haven't pulled back to their pre-August 7 positions by next Monday. But this is meaningless. It had taken the Europeans months to agree among themselves to begin the talks, and even before the Russian invasion of Georgia Eastern European leaders had signaled that their countries were unlikely to sign off on any deal anytime soon. Nor was Moscow pushing very hard for it.
During a postsummit press conference, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who holds the rotating EU presidency, got the obvious question: Is the EU a "paper tiger"? Mr. Sarkozy, visibly angered by the suggestion, responded that "Demonstrations of force, verbal aggression, sanctions, countersanctions . . . will not serve anyone." He didn't say how Brussels' latest tsk-tsk-ing serves anyone in Georgia.
Mr. Sarkozy also insisted that his efforts to reach a cease-fire had borne fruit. Again, the Georgians might beg to disagree. Russia has used the agreement's vague language to justify a continued presence in Georgia far beyond the original conflict zone. The cease-fire called for international talks about security and stability for the separatist regions, but that didn't stop Mr. Medvedev from recognizing their independence. Europe's call yesterday to begin these talks rang hollow; that horse isn't going back into the barn.
The most cynical comment of the day, though, was Mr. Sarkozy's attempt to use the conflict to bully the Irish over their rejection of the union's Lisbon Treaty in June. "This crisis has shown that Europe needs to have strong and stable institutions" like those it would have gotten under Lisbon, Mr. Sarkozy said.
No, what Europe needs is political will -- and a new treaty isn't going to solve that. Rather than scolding Irish voters for exercising their democratic rights, Mr. Sarkozy would do better to name and shame those member states whose desire to curry favor with Moscow kept the EU from taking a firmer stand yesterday.
For now, the Continent is determined to talk things out with Moscow. When will it realize that Moscow doesn't to listen?
See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal1.
URL for this article:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122030756867788409.html
Hyperlinks in this Article:(1) http://online.wsj.com/opinion
=======================================================
'I Fear for Germany'
By DANIEL SCHWAMMENTHAL FROM TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPESeptember 2, 2008
Erich Honecker's heirs are making a remarkable comeback in Germany. The Left Party, an amalgam of the successors to the former East German Communist Party and disgruntled Social Democrats, is now the country's third-strongest political force. With about 15% public support, it is quickly closing the gap with the Social Democrats, whose popularity is at a historic low of 20%, according to a Forsa poll published last week.
With general elections scheduled for next year, it's even possible that the Communists may be able to return to power a mere 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Such a development would undermine nothing less than Germany's standing as a market economy and Western ally.
It is the Social Democrats who may pave the way for the Communists' relaunch. Currently in an uneasy grand coalition with the Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats might be tempted to lead the next government by joining forces with the Green Party and the Left. Such a three-way coalition, were it to occur, already has enough votes in parliament to elect a Social Democratic Chancellor; it could possibly gain a majority next year.
While the Social Democrats have been cooperating with the Left in regional parliaments in East Germany, doing so in West Germany, let alone at the national level, has been taboo. Social Democratic leader Kurt Beck said last month that this won't change -- at least not for now. While ruling out cooperating with the Left next year, he added that "No one can know today what will exist in 2020."
That's not exactly reassuring. The recent speculation about a national alliance with the Communists has been fueled by the Social Democrats' about-face in the state of Hesse, in the former West Germany. Ahead of January's regional elections there, Social Democratic leader Andrea Ypsilanti solemnly pledged to keep a cordon sanitaire around the Left Party. That promise held until election day, when it turned out that she would need the Left's support to become governor.
She has been trying since March to form a government with the Left's help. The party agreed on Saturday to support a Social Democratic-Green coalition without officially joining it. The Social Democrats will discuss in the following weeks whether to accept this offer.
Ms. Ypsilanti's decision to break her election promise in Hesse may lead to the breakup of the grand coalition in Berlin, warns Christian Wulff, the Christian Democratic governor of Lower Saxony and one of Chancellor Angela Merkel's deputy party leaders. If Ms. Ypsilanti is elected governor with the votes from the Left, "nobody will believe the Social Democrats that they wouldn't do that with the Communists also at the federal level," he told the Bild am Sonntag.
By supporting a Social Democrat-Green government in Hesse, the Left can eat its cake and have it: The Communist party would wield power and thus gain prestige without having direct responsibility for the government's policies.
The Social Democrats, on the other hand, can only lose credibility. The Left is already picking up Social Democratic voters angered by the economic reforms of the previous Social Democrat-Green government in Berlin. In panic, the Social Democrats have been drifting leftward in the hope of regaining lost ground. But pushing a minimum wage and rolling back some of the welfare reforms hasn't helped them. Voters who want anti-capitalist polices seem to prefer the original Communists. Reneging on their election promise to keep the Left at arm's length may cause a further voter exodus of more conservative supporters to the Christian Democrats or other parties.
Considering the Left's success in driving Germany's economic debate from the opposition bench, it's not hard to imagine the damage the party could inflict once in national government. Its reach would go beyond just economic policy and affect foreign affairs as well.
That's a worrying prospect as Germany is already one of the weaker links in the Western alliance. Former Social Democratic Chancellor Gerhard Schröder successfully tapped into anti-American feelings when he disagreed with Washington's Iraq policy and tried to sabotage it. Mr. Schröder also pushed for closer ties with Russia while insisting on toothless diplomacy to stop Iran's nuclear program.
His successor, Angela Merkel, has had only limited success in reversing those polices. After all, Mr. Schröder's former chief of staff, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, is her foreign minister.
If trans-Atlantic relations are still a little frosty under the grand coalition, wait until Berlin is run by a coalition government that includes the Communists. The Left Party has contacts to terror organizations around the globe. Spiegel Online documented on Sunday the party's friendly relations with the FARC in Columbia and Eta, the Basque separatists, among others. The Left Party also advocates Germany's pullout from both Afghanistan and NATO. Given that Germany's deployment of non-combat troops in Afghanistan is not particularly popular among Greens and left-wing Social Democrats either, it's not too far-fetched to see such a coalition actually bringing German troops home. Berlin wouldn't then even have to bother pulling out from NATO. The alliance would hardly survive such an act of betrayal.
"I fear for Germany," Mr. Wulff told Bild am Sonntag," as I know in which direction the journey with the Left is going." It is hard to call those fears exaggerated.
Mr. Schwammenthal edits the State of the Union column.
See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal1.
URL for this article:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122030766392588417.html
Hyperlinks in this Article:(1) http://online.wsj.com/opinion
=======================================================
September 1, 2008
Russia Claims Its Sphere of Influence in the World
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
MOSCOW — President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia on Sunday laid out what he said would become his government’s guiding principles of foreign policy after its landmark conflict with Georgia — notably including a claim to a “privileged” sphere of influence in the world.
Speaking to Russian television in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, a day before a summit meeting in Brussels where European leaders were to reassess their relations with Russia, Mr. Medvedev said his government would adhere to five principles.
Russia, he said, would observe international law. It would reject what he called United States dominance of world affairs in a “unipolar” world. It would seek friendly relations with other nations. It would defend Russian citizens and business interests abroad. And it would claim a sphere of influence in the world.
In part, Mr. Medvedev reiterated long-held Russian positions, like his country’s rejection of American aspirations to an exceptional role in world affairs after the end of the cold war. The Russian authorities have also said previously that their foreign policy would include a defense of commercial interests, sometimes citing American practice as justification.
In his unabashed claim to a renewed Russian sphere of influence, Mr. Medvedev said: “Russia, like other countries in the world, has regions where it has privileged interests. These are regions where countries with which we have friendly relations are located.”
Asked whether this sphere of influence would be the border states around Russia, he answered, “It is the border region, but not only.”
Last week, Mr. Medvedev used vehement language in announcing Russia’s recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Though he alluded in passing to respecting Georgia’s territorial integrity, he defended Russia’s intervention as necessary to prevent a genocide.
Mr. Medvedev, inaugurated in May, was an aide to Vladimir V. Putin, the former president and now prime minister.
Mr. Putin appeared on Russian television on Sunday from the nation’s far east, where he was inspecting progress on a trans-Siberian oil pipeline to China and the Pacific Ocean, a clear warning to Europe that Russia could find alternative customers for its energy exports. He was later shown in a forest, dressed in camouflage and hunting a Siberian tiger with a tranquilizer gun.
Leaders of the 27 members of the European Union, who will meet in an emergency session on Monday, were considered highly unlikely to impose sanctions or go beyond diplomatic measures in expressing disapproval of Russia’s conflict with Georgia.
The members in Eastern Europe have tended to be more wary and more confrontational toward Russia, while Western European countries have tended to be more concerned with not jeopardizing energy imports from Russia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/world/europe/01russia.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
============================================================
Visit our interactive website and new featured listings....at http://www.ocrelocate.com/ Ocean to Mountains Real Estate for all Orange County Tony & Danute Mazeika...... 949 721-3445 pager.... 949 929-9051 cell
Celebrating 21 years and more than 500 successful real estate transactions... Don't miss incredible market opportunities....... Prices are at Year 2002 level... May home sales up significantly ...Positive signs of market recovery are here. Inventory is decreasing. You may qualify for a credit on closing costs and savings on escrow fees...Ask us how...... Don't delay..call us today! 949 721-3445 ================================================================ Please support this unique blog.....Buy your ....Books, Dvds, and CDs on our special link access to Amazon.Com Tony & Danute ===================================================================== Breaking news & commentary ....click on active links for multiple photos!
What is the ACT! for America Congressional Scorecard?
(Before looking at the voting records of Members of the House and Senate, it is recommended you read the following information to understand how the congressional scorecard works.)
ACT! for America has reviewed hundreds of votes related to national security and the threat of Islamofascism cast in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House between 2003 and 2008. The House and Senate votes we have chosen to highlight reflect a broad range of issues, including…
Intelligence gathering and protection of classified information
Detention, trial and punishment of terrorists
Financing of terrorism
Dealing with Iran and Iraq
Protecting American citizens who report suspicious activity
Grounds for deportation of suspected terrorists
Energy proposals to reduce American dependence on oil produced by countries unfriendly to the United States
See how your Congressman voted on important issues re: security, intelligence, terrorism, and the war. Click on the active link below:
http://www.actforamerica.org/index.php/house-110th-session-of-congress-2007-2008-
=======================================================
The Medvedev Doctrine and American Strategy
Stratfor Today »-->September 2, 2008
By George Friedman
The United States has been fighting a war in the Islamic world since 2001. Its main theaters of operation are in Afghanistan and Iraq, but its politico-military focus spreads throughout the Islamic world, from Mindanao to Morocco. The situation on Aug. 7, 2008, was as follows:
The war in Iraq was moving toward an acceptable but not optimal solution. The government in Baghdad was not pro-American, but neither was it an Iranian puppet, and that was the best that could be hoped for. The United States anticipated pulling out troops, but not in a disorderly fashion.
The war in Afghanistan was deteriorating for the United States and NATO forces. The Taliban was increasingly effective, and large areas of the country were falling to its control. Force in Afghanistan was insufficient, and any troops withdrawn from Iraq would have to be deployed to Afghanistan to stabilize the situation. Political conditions in neighboring Pakistan were deteriorating, and that deterioration inevitably affected Afghanistan.
The United States had been locked in a confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program, demanding that Tehran halt enrichment of uranium or face U.S. action. The United States had assembled a group of six countries (the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany) that agreed with the U.S. goal, was engaged in negotiations with Iran, and had agreed at some point to impose sanctions on Iran if Tehran failed to comply. The United States was also leaking stories about impending air attacks on Iran by Israel or the United States if Tehran didn’t abandon its enrichment program. The United States had the implicit agreement of the group of six not to sell arms to Tehran, creating a real sense of isolation in Iran.
Related Special Topic Page
The Russian Resurgence
In short, the United States remained heavily committed to a region stretching from Iraq to Pakistan, with main force committed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the possibility of commitments to Pakistan (and above all to Iran) on the table. U.S. ground forces were stretched to the limit, and U.S. airpower, naval and land-based forces had to stand by for the possibility of an air campaign in Iran — regardless of whether the U.S. planned an attack, since the credibility of a bluff depended on the availability of force.
The situation in this region actually was improving, but the United States had to remain committed there. It was therefore no accident that the Russians invaded Georgia on Aug. 8 following a Georgian attack on South Ossetia. Forgetting the details of who did what to whom, the United States had created a massive window of opportunity for the Russians: For the foreseeable future, the United States had no significant forces to spare to deploy elsewhere in the world, nor the ability to sustain them in extended combat. Moreover, the United States was relying on Russian cooperation both against Iran and potentially in Afghanistan, where Moscow’s influence with some factions remains substantial. The United States needed the Russians and couldn’t block the Russians. Therefore, the Russians inevitably chose this moment to strike.
On Sunday, Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev in effect ran up the Jolly Roger. Whatever the United States thought it was dealing with in Russia, Medvedev made the Russian position very clear. He stated Russian foreign policy in five succinct points, which we can think of as the Medvedev Doctrine (and which we see fit to quote here):
First, Russia recognizes the primacy of the fundamental principles of international law, which define the relations between civilized peoples. We will build our relations with other countries within the framework of these principles and this concept of international law.
Second, the world should be multipolar. A single-pole world is unacceptable. Domination is something we cannot allow. We cannot accept a world order in which one country makes all the decisions, even as serious and influential a country as the United States of America. Such a world is unstable and threatened by conflict.
Third, Russia does not want confrontation with any other country. Russia has no intention of isolating itself. We will develop friendly relations with Europe, the United States, and other countries, as much as is possible.
Fourth, protecting the lives and dignity of our citizens, wherever they may be, is an unquestionable priority for our country. Our foreign policy decisions will be based on this need. We will also protect the interests of our business community abroad. It should be clear to all that we will respond to any aggressive acts committed against us.
Finally, fifth, as is the case of other countries, there are regions in which Russia has privileged interests. These regions are home to countries with which we share special historical relations and are bound together as friends and good neighbors. We will pay particular attention to our work in these regions and build friendly ties with these countries, our close neighbors.
Medvedev concluded, “These are the principles I will follow in carrying out our foreign policy. As for the future, it depends not only on us but also on our friends and partners in the international community. They have a choice.”
The second point in this doctrine states that Russia does not accept the primacy of the United States in the international system. According to the third point, while Russia wants good relations with the United States and Europe, this depends on their behavior toward Russia and not just on Russia’s behavior. The fourth point states that Russia will protect the interests of Russians wherever they are — even if they live in the Baltic states or in Georgia, for example. This provides a doctrinal basis for intervention in such countries if Russia finds it necessary.
The fifth point is the critical one: “As is the case of other countries, there are regions in which Russia has privileged interests.” In other words, the Russians have special interests in the former Soviet Union and in friendly relations with these states. Intrusions by others into these regions that undermine pro-Russian regimes will be regarded as a threat to Russia’s “special interests.”
Thus, the Georgian conflict was not an isolated event — rather, Medvedev is saying that Russia is engaged in a general redefinition of the regional and global system. Locally, it would not be correct to say that Russia is trying to resurrect the Soviet Union or the Russian empire. It would be correct to say that Russia is creating a new structure of relations in the geography of its predecessors, with a new institutional structure with Moscow at its center. Globally, the Russians want to use this new regional power — and substantial Russian nuclear assets — to be part of a global system in which the United States loses its primacy.
These are ambitious goals, to say the least. But the Russians believe that the United States is off balance in the Islamic world and that there is an opportunity here, if they move quickly, to create a new reality before the United States is ready to respond. Europe has neither the military weight nor the will to actively resist Russia. Moreover, the Europeans are heavily dependent on Russian natural gas supplies over the coming years, and Russia can survive without selling it to them far better than the Europeans can survive without buying it. The Europeans are not a substantial factor in the equation, nor are they likely to become substantial.
This leaves the United States in an extremely difficult strategic position. The United States opposed the Soviet Union after 1945 not only for ideological reasons but also for geopolitical ones. If the Soviet Union had broken out of its encirclement and dominated all of Europe, the total economic power at its disposal, coupled with its population, would have allowed the Soviets to construct a navy that could challenge U.S. maritime hegemony and put the continental United States in jeopardy. It was U.S. policy during World Wars I and II and the Cold War to act militarily to prevent any power from dominating the Eurasian landmass. For the United States, this was the most important task throughout the 20th century.
The U.S.-jihadist war was waged in a strategic framework that assumed that the question of hegemony over Eurasia was closed. Germany’s defeat in World War II and the Soviet Union’s defeat in the Cold War meant that there was no claimant to Eurasia, and the United States was free to focus on what appeared to be the current priority — the defeat of radical Islamism. It appeared that the main threat to this strategy was the patience of the American public, not an attempt to resurrect a major Eurasian power.
The United States now faces a massive strategic dilemma, and it has limited military options against the Russians. It could choose a naval option, in which it would block the four Russian maritime outlets, the Sea of Japan and the Black, Baltic and Barents seas. The United States has ample military force with which to do this and could potentially do so without allied cooperation, which it would lack. It is extremely unlikely that the NATO council would unanimously support a blockade of Russia, which would be an act of war.
But while a blockade like this would certainly hurt the Russians, Russia is ultimately a land power. It is also capable of shipping and importing through third parties, meaning it could potentially acquire and ship key goods through European or Turkish ports (or Iranian ports, for that matter). The blockade option is thus more attractive on first glance than on deeper analysis.
More important, any overt U.S. action against Russia would result in counteractions. During the Cold War, the Soviets attacked American global interest not by sending Soviet troops, but by supporting regimes and factions with weapons and economic aid. Vietnam was the classic example: The Russians tied down 500,000 U.S. troops without placing major Russian forces at risk. Throughout the world, the Soviets implemented programs of subversion and aid to friendly regimes, forcing the United States either to accept pro-Soviet regimes, as with Cuba, or fight them at disproportionate cost.
In the present situation, the Russian response would strike at the heart of American strategy in the Islamic world. In the long run, the Russians have little interest in strengthening the Islamic world — but for the moment, they have substantial interest in maintaining American imbalance and sapping U.S. forces. The Russians have a long history of supporting Middle Eastern regimes with weapons shipments, and it is no accident that the first world leader they met with after invading Georgia was Syrian President Bashar al Assad. This was a clear signal that if the U.S. responded aggressively to Russia’s actions in Georgia, Moscow would ship a range of weapons to Syria — and far worse, to Iran. Indeed, Russia could conceivably send weapons to factions in Iraq that do not support the current regime, as well as to groups like Hezbollah. Moscow also could encourage the Iranians to withdraw their support for the Iraqi government and plunge Iraq back into conflict. Finally, Russia could ship weapons to the Taliban and work to further destabilize Pakistan.
At the moment, the United States faces the strategic problem that the Russians have options while the United States does not. Not only does the U.S. commitment of ground forces in the Islamic world leave the United States without strategic reserve, but the political arrangements under which these troops operate make them highly vulnerable to Russian manipulation — with few satisfactory U.S. counters.
The U.S. government is trying to think through how it can maintain its commitment in the Islamic world and resist the Russian reassertion of hegemony in the former Soviet Union. If the United States could very rapidly win its wars in the region, this would be possible. But the Russians are in a position to prolong these wars, and even without such agitation, the American ability to close off the conflicts is severely limited. The United States could massively increase the size of its army and make deployments into the Baltics, Ukraine and Central Asia to thwart Russian plans, but it would take years to build up these forces and the active cooperation of Europe to deploy them. Logistically, European support would be essential — but the Europeans in general, and the Germans in particular, have no appetite for this war. Expanding the U.S. Army is necessary, but it does not affect the current strategic reality.
This logistical issue might be manageable, but the real heart of this problem is not merely the deployment of U.S. forces in the Islamic world — it is the Russians’ ability to use weapons sales and covert means to deteriorate conditions dramatically. With active Russian hostility added to the current reality, the strategic situation in the Islamic world could rapidly spin out of control.
The United States is therefore trapped by its commitment to the Islamic world. It does not have sufficient forces to block Russian hegemony in the former Soviet Union, and if it tries to block the Russians with naval or air forces, it faces a dangerous riposte from the Russians in the Islamic world. If it does nothing, it creates a strategic threat that potentially towers over the threat in the Islamic world.
The United States now has to make a fundamental strategic decision. If it remains committed to its current strategy, it cannot respond to the Russians. If it does not respond to the Russians for five or 10 years, the world will look very much like it did from 1945 to 1992. There will be another Cold War at the very least, with a peer power much poorer than the United States but prepared to devote huge amounts of money to national defense.
There are four broad U.S. options:
Attempt to make a settlement with Iran that would guarantee the neutral stability of Iraq and permit the rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces there. Iran is the key here. The Iranians might also mistrust a re-emergent Russia, and while Tehran might be tempted to work with the Russians against the Americans, Iran might consider an arrangement with the United States — particularly if the United States refocuses its attentions elsewhere. On the upside, this would free the U.S. from Iraq. On the downside, the Iranians might not want —or honor — such a deal.
Enter into negotiations with the Russians, granting them the sphere of influence they want in the former Soviet Union in return for guarantees not to project Russian power into Europe proper. The Russians will be busy consolidating their position for years, giving the U.S. time to re-energize NATO. On the upside, this would free the United States to continue its war in the Islamic world. On the downside, it would create a framework for the re-emergence of a powerful Russian empire that would be as difficult to contain as the Soviet Union.
Refuse to engage the Russians and leave the problem to the Europeans. On the upside, this would allow the United States to continue war in the Islamic world and force the Europeans to act. On the downside, the Europeans are too divided, dependent on Russia and dispirited to resist the Russians. This strategy could speed up Russia’s re-emergence.
Rapidly disengage from Iraq, leaving a residual force there and in Afghanistan. The upside is that this creates a reserve force to reinforce the Baltics and Ukraine that might restrain Russia in the former Soviet Union. The downside is that it would create chaos in the Islamic world, threatening regimes that have sided with the United States and potentially reviving effective intercontinental terrorism. The trade-off is between a hegemonic threat from Eurasia and instability and a terror threat from the Islamic world.
We are pointing to very stark strategic choices. Continuing the war in the Islamic world has a much higher cost now than it did when it began, and Russia potentially poses a far greater threat to the United States than the Islamic world does. What might have been a rational policy in 2001 or 2003 has now turned into a very dangerous enterprise, because a hostile major power now has the option of making the U.S. position in the Middle East enormously more difficult.
If a U.S. settlement with Iran is impossible, and a diplomatic solution with the Russians that would keep them from taking a hegemonic position in the former Soviet Union cannot be reached, then the United States must consider rapidly abandoning its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and redeploying its forces to block Russian expansion. The threat posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War was far graver than the threat posed now by the fragmented Islamic world. In the end, the nations there will cancel each other out, and militant organizations will be something the United States simply has to deal with. This is not an ideal solution by any means, but the clock appears to have run out on the American war in the Islamic world.
We do not expect the United States to take this option. It is difficult to abandon a conflict that has gone on this long when it is not yet crystal clear that the Russians will actually be a threat later. (It is far easier for an analyst to make such suggestions than it is for a president to act on them.) Instead, the United States will attempt to bridge the Russian situation with gestures and half measures.
Nevertheless, American national strategy is in crisis. The United States has insufficient power to cope with two threats and must choose between the two. Continuing the current strategy means choosing to deal with the Islamic threat rather than the Russian one, and that is reasonable only if the Islamic threat represents a greater danger to American interests than the Russian threat does. It is difficult to see how the chaos of the Islamic world will cohere to form a global threat. But it is not difficult to imagine a Russia guided by the Medvedev Doctrine rapidly becoming a global threat and a direct danger to American interests.
We expect no immediate change in American strategic deployments — and we expect this to be regretted later. However, given U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s trip to the Caucasus region, now would be the time to see some movement in U.S. foreign policy. If Cheney isn’t going to be talking to the Russians, he needs to be talking to the Iranians. Otherwise, he will be writing checks in the region that the U.S. is in no position to cash.
Tell Stratfor What You Think
This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to http://www.stratfor.com/
======================================================
September 03, 2008
NATO States Seek To Reassure Baltics
by Reuters
BRUSSELS -- NATO states back a U.S. call to show the alliance is prepared to defend Baltic members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from any attack after Russia's intervention in Georgia, an alliance spokesman says.U.S. envoy Kurt Volker said in an interview published in the "Financial Times" that the 26-nation Western military alliance must send signals through "planning and exercises" that it intends to help shore up the Baltic states."Those countries are members of NATO; so if there is any attack on those countries, we will respond," Volker told the paper in an interview."They are feeling a little rattled by seeing Russia use military force to invade a sovereign, small neighboring country. We need to send signals to shore them up a little bit."We will have to make sure ... that the Article 5 commitment is realizable, not just as a political matter, but as a military matter too," he said.NATO's Article 5 guarantees defense of a NATO member by other members of the alliance in the event of attack.NATO spokesman James Appathurai said the U.S. proposal was under discussion by NATO states and was expected to be a topic for NATO defense ministers when they hold a informal meeting in London on September 18."I think he has reflected a sentiment that is more widely shared within the alliance," Appathurai told a news briefing. The spokesman said he was not aware of any request from the Baltic states for more visible NATO deployments, but they had sought more routine defense planning."There has been an exchange of views as to whether or not it is necessary to do it in a routine way or if we were faced as an alliance with a particular situation," he said.Appathurai said NATO had full capability to provide collective defense for its members. "NATO clearly has the capability to do it and do it very quickly," he said.Latvia and its Baltic neighbors Estonia and Lithuania have been strong supporters of Georgia in its conflict with Russia. All four of the small nations are former Soviet states and the Balts particularly have a strong mistrust of Moscow.NATO has promised Georgia eventual membership of the alliance -- something that greatly angered Russia -- but Tbilisi is not currently covered by the security guarantee.Russia's intervention in Georgia has cast a pall over recent efforts by NATO and Russia to improve military ties.NATO has said normal contacts are not possible until Moscow abides by terms of a French-brokered peace deal, and Russia has cast doubt on various joint projects between the two.
http://www.rferl.org/articleprintview/1196103.html
====================================================
'Stop! Or We'll Say Stop Again!'
FROM TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPESeptember 2, 2008
With apologies to comedian Robin Williams, that's the line that comes to mind when weighing the European Union's declaration yesterday on Russia's continued occupation of Georgia.
At a special meeting in Brussels, EU national leaders told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to abide by the terms of a French-brokered cease-fire, including a pullback of Russian troops to their preconflict positions. If he doesn't do so, they warned, they will hold another meeting.
That's all. It's been almost three weeks since Mr. Medvedev signed the cease-fire, and five days since Moscow broke with the rest of the world by recognizing the self-declared independence of Georgian provinces South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Yet Europe's leaders evidently need more time to ruminate over the situation in the Caucasus.
Well, that's almost all. The European leaders did make one concrete "threat." The EU said it would freeze negotiations with Moscow on a new economic cooperation agreement if Russian forces haven't pulled back to their pre-August 7 positions by next Monday. But this is meaningless. It had taken the Europeans months to agree among themselves to begin the talks, and even before the Russian invasion of Georgia Eastern European leaders had signaled that their countries were unlikely to sign off on any deal anytime soon. Nor was Moscow pushing very hard for it.
During a postsummit press conference, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who holds the rotating EU presidency, got the obvious question: Is the EU a "paper tiger"? Mr. Sarkozy, visibly angered by the suggestion, responded that "Demonstrations of force, verbal aggression, sanctions, countersanctions . . . will not serve anyone." He didn't say how Brussels' latest tsk-tsk-ing serves anyone in Georgia.
Mr. Sarkozy also insisted that his efforts to reach a cease-fire had borne fruit. Again, the Georgians might beg to disagree. Russia has used the agreement's vague language to justify a continued presence in Georgia far beyond the original conflict zone. The cease-fire called for international talks about security and stability for the separatist regions, but that didn't stop Mr. Medvedev from recognizing their independence. Europe's call yesterday to begin these talks rang hollow; that horse isn't going back into the barn.
The most cynical comment of the day, though, was Mr. Sarkozy's attempt to use the conflict to bully the Irish over their rejection of the union's Lisbon Treaty in June. "This crisis has shown that Europe needs to have strong and stable institutions" like those it would have gotten under Lisbon, Mr. Sarkozy said.
No, what Europe needs is political will -- and a new treaty isn't going to solve that. Rather than scolding Irish voters for exercising their democratic rights, Mr. Sarkozy would do better to name and shame those member states whose desire to curry favor with Moscow kept the EU from taking a firmer stand yesterday.
For now, the Continent is determined to talk things out with Moscow. When will it realize that Moscow doesn't to listen?
See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal1.
URL for this article:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122030756867788409.html
Hyperlinks in this Article:(1) http://online.wsj.com/opinion
=======================================================
'I Fear for Germany'
By DANIEL SCHWAMMENTHAL FROM TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPESeptember 2, 2008
Erich Honecker's heirs are making a remarkable comeback in Germany. The Left Party, an amalgam of the successors to the former East German Communist Party and disgruntled Social Democrats, is now the country's third-strongest political force. With about 15% public support, it is quickly closing the gap with the Social Democrats, whose popularity is at a historic low of 20%, according to a Forsa poll published last week.
With general elections scheduled for next year, it's even possible that the Communists may be able to return to power a mere 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Such a development would undermine nothing less than Germany's standing as a market economy and Western ally.
It is the Social Democrats who may pave the way for the Communists' relaunch. Currently in an uneasy grand coalition with the Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats might be tempted to lead the next government by joining forces with the Green Party and the Left. Such a three-way coalition, were it to occur, already has enough votes in parliament to elect a Social Democratic Chancellor; it could possibly gain a majority next year.
While the Social Democrats have been cooperating with the Left in regional parliaments in East Germany, doing so in West Germany, let alone at the national level, has been taboo. Social Democratic leader Kurt Beck said last month that this won't change -- at least not for now. While ruling out cooperating with the Left next year, he added that "No one can know today what will exist in 2020."
That's not exactly reassuring. The recent speculation about a national alliance with the Communists has been fueled by the Social Democrats' about-face in the state of Hesse, in the former West Germany. Ahead of January's regional elections there, Social Democratic leader Andrea Ypsilanti solemnly pledged to keep a cordon sanitaire around the Left Party. That promise held until election day, when it turned out that she would need the Left's support to become governor.
She has been trying since March to form a government with the Left's help. The party agreed on Saturday to support a Social Democratic-Green coalition without officially joining it. The Social Democrats will discuss in the following weeks whether to accept this offer.
Ms. Ypsilanti's decision to break her election promise in Hesse may lead to the breakup of the grand coalition in Berlin, warns Christian Wulff, the Christian Democratic governor of Lower Saxony and one of Chancellor Angela Merkel's deputy party leaders. If Ms. Ypsilanti is elected governor with the votes from the Left, "nobody will believe the Social Democrats that they wouldn't do that with the Communists also at the federal level," he told the Bild am Sonntag.
By supporting a Social Democrat-Green government in Hesse, the Left can eat its cake and have it: The Communist party would wield power and thus gain prestige without having direct responsibility for the government's policies.
The Social Democrats, on the other hand, can only lose credibility. The Left is already picking up Social Democratic voters angered by the economic reforms of the previous Social Democrat-Green government in Berlin. In panic, the Social Democrats have been drifting leftward in the hope of regaining lost ground. But pushing a minimum wage and rolling back some of the welfare reforms hasn't helped them. Voters who want anti-capitalist polices seem to prefer the original Communists. Reneging on their election promise to keep the Left at arm's length may cause a further voter exodus of more conservative supporters to the Christian Democrats or other parties.
Considering the Left's success in driving Germany's economic debate from the opposition bench, it's not hard to imagine the damage the party could inflict once in national government. Its reach would go beyond just economic policy and affect foreign affairs as well.
That's a worrying prospect as Germany is already one of the weaker links in the Western alliance. Former Social Democratic Chancellor Gerhard Schröder successfully tapped into anti-American feelings when he disagreed with Washington's Iraq policy and tried to sabotage it. Mr. Schröder also pushed for closer ties with Russia while insisting on toothless diplomacy to stop Iran's nuclear program.
His successor, Angela Merkel, has had only limited success in reversing those polices. After all, Mr. Schröder's former chief of staff, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, is her foreign minister.
If trans-Atlantic relations are still a little frosty under the grand coalition, wait until Berlin is run by a coalition government that includes the Communists. The Left Party has contacts to terror organizations around the globe. Spiegel Online documented on Sunday the party's friendly relations with the FARC in Columbia and Eta, the Basque separatists, among others. The Left Party also advocates Germany's pullout from both Afghanistan and NATO. Given that Germany's deployment of non-combat troops in Afghanistan is not particularly popular among Greens and left-wing Social Democrats either, it's not too far-fetched to see such a coalition actually bringing German troops home. Berlin wouldn't then even have to bother pulling out from NATO. The alliance would hardly survive such an act of betrayal.
"I fear for Germany," Mr. Wulff told Bild am Sonntag," as I know in which direction the journey with the Left is going." It is hard to call those fears exaggerated.
Mr. Schwammenthal edits the State of the Union column.
See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal1.
URL for this article:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122030766392588417.html
Hyperlinks in this Article:(1) http://online.wsj.com/opinion
=======================================================
September 1, 2008
Russia Claims Its Sphere of Influence in the World
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
MOSCOW — President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia on Sunday laid out what he said would become his government’s guiding principles of foreign policy after its landmark conflict with Georgia — notably including a claim to a “privileged” sphere of influence in the world.
Speaking to Russian television in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, a day before a summit meeting in Brussels where European leaders were to reassess their relations with Russia, Mr. Medvedev said his government would adhere to five principles.
Russia, he said, would observe international law. It would reject what he called United States dominance of world affairs in a “unipolar” world. It would seek friendly relations with other nations. It would defend Russian citizens and business interests abroad. And it would claim a sphere of influence in the world.
In part, Mr. Medvedev reiterated long-held Russian positions, like his country’s rejection of American aspirations to an exceptional role in world affairs after the end of the cold war. The Russian authorities have also said previously that their foreign policy would include a defense of commercial interests, sometimes citing American practice as justification.
In his unabashed claim to a renewed Russian sphere of influence, Mr. Medvedev said: “Russia, like other countries in the world, has regions where it has privileged interests. These are regions where countries with which we have friendly relations are located.”
Asked whether this sphere of influence would be the border states around Russia, he answered, “It is the border region, but not only.”
Last week, Mr. Medvedev used vehement language in announcing Russia’s recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Though he alluded in passing to respecting Georgia’s territorial integrity, he defended Russia’s intervention as necessary to prevent a genocide.
Mr. Medvedev, inaugurated in May, was an aide to Vladimir V. Putin, the former president and now prime minister.
Mr. Putin appeared on Russian television on Sunday from the nation’s far east, where he was inspecting progress on a trans-Siberian oil pipeline to China and the Pacific Ocean, a clear warning to Europe that Russia could find alternative customers for its energy exports. He was later shown in a forest, dressed in camouflage and hunting a Siberian tiger with a tranquilizer gun.
Leaders of the 27 members of the European Union, who will meet in an emergency session on Monday, were considered highly unlikely to impose sanctions or go beyond diplomatic measures in expressing disapproval of Russia’s conflict with Georgia.
The members in Eastern Europe have tended to be more wary and more confrontational toward Russia, while Western European countries have tended to be more concerned with not jeopardizing energy imports from Russia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/world/europe/01russia.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
============================================================
Saakashvili 'no longer exists' as Georgia's president: Medvedev
by Sebastian Smith Tue Sep 2, 4:57 PM ET
MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday Moscow no longer considered Mikheil Saakashvili as Georgia's leader, calling him a "political corpse" and accusing his regime of "aggression that ended in many deaths."
Speaking in an interview ahead of US Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to Georgia, Medvedev again accused Washington of helping Tbilisi "build its war machine" and urged the United States to review its relations with the country.
"For us, the present Georgian regime has collapsed. President Saakashvili no longer exists in our eyes. He is a political corpse," Medvedev said in the interview broadcast on Russian television.
Medvedev said Moscow was ready to hold talks with the international community "on all sorts of questions, including post-conflict resolution in the region" of the Caucasus.
"But we would like the international community to remember who began the aggression and who is responsible for people's deaths," he said.
The Kremlin leader said the US should reconsider its relations with Tbilisi "because it has put Georgia in a very difficult position, caused serious destablisation and launched an aggression that ended in many deaths."
The strong rhetoric came as Cheney was to head to Georgia in a show of support for the former Soviet republic that has been seeking to join NATO.
He will be the highest-ranking US official to visit Tbilisi since Russian tanks rolled into its smaller neighbour in early August and fought a five-day war over the Moscow-backed rebel region of South Ossetia.
Medvedev's interview was broadcast after Moscow claimed victory Tuesday following a European Union emergency summit, where EU leaders stepped back from imposing sanctions over Russia's partial occupation of Georgia.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who retains huge power after leaving the presidency earlier this year, praised what he called the EU's "common sense."
EU leaders decided at the summit in Brussels on Monday to freeze talks on a new strategic EU-Russia accord.
But the bloc did not accept proposals by Britain and eastern European nations for harder measures, including sanctions, over Russia's August military offensive in Georgia and recognition of two separatist regions.
"Thank God, common sense prevailed. We saw no extreme conclusions and proposals, and this is very good," Putin said in comments shown on NTV television.
Saakashvili, meanwhile, pointed to the moratorium on EU-Russia partnership talks as proof of Western solidarity behind Georgia.
"Russia failed to break the unity at the heart of Europe," he told France 24 television.
US President George W. Bush, one of Moscow's harshest critics during the crisis, also "expressed appreciation for the EU sending strong messages," the White House said.
The Russian foreign ministry said that "the intention to freeze talks about a new partnership agreement is a cause for regret."
Medvedev had earlier criticised what he called the EU's failure to understand Russian motives for going to war in Georgia.
"Unfortunately there is still no full understanding of the motives of the leadership of the Russian Federation when it took the decision to repel the aggression of Georgia," Medvedev said, according to state news agency ITAR-TASS.
However, Russia will fulfill all its contractual gas export commitments to the European Union, Medvedev also told Euronews television Tuesday.
"We will respect all our obligations as the principal provider of hydrocarbons to Europe," he said.
Moscow says that troops were sent to repulse an attempt by Georgia to restore control over South Ossetia, a tiny region where the local ethnic Ossetian population broke away with Russian backing in the 1990s.
Last week the Kremlin recognised the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. No other country has yet followed suit.
Georgia says the Russian incursion was part of a plan to annex its territory and bring down Saakashvili's government, which wants Georgia to join NATO and has positioned the country as a key export route for Caspian Sea energy.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during a visit to NATO-member Turkey that the alliance had been arming Georgia ahead of the conflict.
He also reiterated Russia's support for sending an international police mission to Georgia to help maintain security around South Ossetia and another secessionist region, Abhkazia.
However, the Russian envoy to the European Union was cautious on this issue, saying that the rebel governments in Abkhazia and South Ossetia would also have to agree.
"So far they said they would accept only Russian peacekeepers," he said.
Both rebel areas have made formal requests to host Russian military bases -- a move that Georgia says underlines Moscow's desire to annex the territories and weaken its statehood.
====================================================
FROM GEORGIA:
Dear Friends,
I have a request to all, who loves Georgia, loves Georgian people and herewith your own motherland
With our patriarch's consecraste, who has a wish, on Monday, 1th of september, at 15:00 (georgian time) (14:00 Estonia Time) (13:00 London Time) all must come out in street and make a live chain to make a world and at first Russia to see, that Georgia is united and we are together, georgians an all who loves georgia.
Please make this request extend to everybody, with your friends, in place where you live and express your support to Georgia and to georgian people.
God Bless us all
Beka Gonashvili (member of men’s ensemble which sang in Estonia)
============================================================
From Edward Lucas:
Here is a quick draft shopping list of possible reactions to theGeorgia crisis (I am back properly from holiday next week). I would beinterested in all thoughts about priorities, practicalities,desirabilities. Please post comments on my blogsiteedwardlucas.blogspot.com1) A "Georgia Solidarity Campaign" to lobby hard for a full troopwithdrawal, NATO soldiers in Georgia (see the "Checkpoint Georgia"article by ex-ambassador Donald Maclarin in today's Telegraph).International brigade of volunteers to help Georgia. Visa free travelto EU and US for Georgian (and Ukrainian) passport-holders. 2) Sweden and Finland into NATO ASAP3) Big counter-attack on information warfare, expose Kremlin lies,inventions, distortions of history. Hit hard on Katyn, Gulag denial,Stalin nostalgia. 4) Sue Chekists everywhere--Strasbourg, Hague, any western court(Can't someone in Spain get Pinochet-style arrest warrant out?) Makethem scared to travel.5) Use separatist weapon against Chekists Idel-Ural, Tatarstan, Chechnya6) Stop talking about "Russia". These guys aren't Russia. They arecriminal gang of bullies, crooks and murderers who have hijacked Russia. 7) Demand Germany and Netherlands pull out of Nord Stream 8) Build up NATO presence in Baltic states (Balts provide thebuildings, other NATO countries the people) 9) Constant name and shame of Chekist allies and stooges in Europe.What the **** is Cyprus doing? 10) Attack them financially. Raid Raiffeisen Bank, find out who ownsGunvor, RosUkrEnergo. Make all contact with Chekist-run commercialentitities toxic to reputations. Without bankers, auditors, lawyersetc they will find life much more difficult.This was a full-page piece in today's Daily Telegraph
Saturday, August 30, 2008Putin's pipeline to powerRussia is fighting a new Cold War with banks and pipelines, not tanksand warplanesBy Edward LucasIn classical mythology, Georgia was the land where the Argonauts hadto harness bulls with bronze hooves to win the Golden Fleece. ModernGeorgia is the source of a treasure scarcely less precious: oil andgas from central Asia and the Caspian, piped along the only east-westenergy corridor that Russia does not control. But whereas Jason andhis comrades triumphed, our quest has ended in humiliating failure.As the occupying power in Georgia, Russia can close or destroy thosepipelines whenever it wishes. The only country in the region that evencame close to sharing Western values, one vital for our energysecurity, has been humiliatingly defeated and dismembered.As politicians and voters in the free world return from theirholidays, two big questions require answering. What happens next? Andhow do we stop it?Decoding the Kremlin's precise intentions is as tricky now as it wasin the days of Kremlinology – a discipline as archaic as Morse code.But the outlines are clear.Russia wants to recreate a "lite" version of the Soviet empire ineastern Europe and to neutralise the rest of the continent. Unlike theold Cold War, military action is a last resort: for the most part, itis banks and pipelines, not tanks and warplanes, that are doing thedirty work.This may sound strange, given what has happened in Georgia. But it isvital to realise that this was not the beginning of a new Russianpush, but part of something that began in the mid-1990s.Russia has nobbled Belarus – the only other country, apart from theHamas-controlled Gaza Strip, that is ready to recognise the newstatelets of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It props up the narco-stateof Tajikistan, cossets the dictatorship in Uzbekistan and woos thebenighted despots of Turkmenistan. It has a cautious alliance withChina, in the form of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, anoutfit dedicated to fighting "extremism, terrorism and separatism"(although this last "-ism" has evidently been forgotten when it comesto Georgia).It has stitched up energy deals in North Africa; it flirts with Iranand sells weapons to Hugo Chavez, the America-hating windbag who runsVenezuela. And by using energy diplomacy and divide-and-rule tactics,it is stitching up Europe country by country, from Cyprus to theNetherlands.And it works. Over the crisis in Georgia, Europe has shown astonishingsoftness. The leaders of the EU have been all but invisible.Where is the supposed foreign-policy chief, Javier Solana? Or theforeign-affairs commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner? Meanwhile,Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has been humiliated by theblatant Russian breaches of the ceasefire agreement that henegotiated. Europe's weakness is the result of multiple forms ofsoft-headedness and short-sightedness.Partly it is simple anti-Americanism: if Vladimir Putin is making lifedifficult for George Bush, he must be a good guy. That attitude liesbehind the astonishing opinion polls in countries such as Germany,which show that people have more trust in xenophobic, authoritarianRussia than they do in the world's most powerful democracy.There is also a mistaken belief that Russia is an ally in the struggleagainst globalisation: here is a country, argue intellectuals such asthe British historian Correlli Barnett, that does not let itself bepushed around by multinational companies and the meddling do-goodersof the self-appointed "international community".But this is to misunderstand Russia under its kleptocratic andchauvinist ex-KGB rulers. Russia likes multilateral organisations, solong as it dominates them. It runs a whole bunch: for example, the"Commonwealth of Independent States", which it is using to legitimiseits occupation of Georgia.Russia is also advocating a new pan-European security organisation,with formal legal status. This, it hopes, will exclude the UnitedStates, and tie up the West in the knots of international law, so thatmilitary intervention of the kind seen in the former Yugoslaviabecomes all but impossible.Similarly, although the Kremlin makes life difficult domestically forWestern oil companies and tightly restricts foreign investment in anyindustry that it dubs "strategic" (which potentially covers almostanything), it is another story abroad. Russia delights in thepossibilities of the global economy. If regulators in New York aresniffy about listing stolen companies on the stock exchange, there isalways London. And if you fail even London's undemanding test, Dubai,Bombay and Shanghai await with open arms.Russia also uses its colossal war chest, fuelled by oil and gasrevenues, to buy up assets in other countries. And that is the taprootof European softness: money.In the Cold War, doing business with the Soviet Union was a rare andsuspicious activity. Now Russia has penetrated our markets andbusinesses to a huge degree. Energy companies such as Austria's OMV,Germany's E.ON and Italy's ENI work hand-in-glove with outfits such asGazprom, which is nominally Russia's biggest company, but betterdescribed as the gas division of Kremlin, Inc.This directly affects politics. Germany, with Russia, is building theNord Stream gas pipeline along the Baltic seabed to bypass Poland.Russia has already cut off energy supplies to punish Lithuania, theCzech Republic and other countries. When Nord Stream is built, it willbe able to do the same to Poland.advertisementYet even now, after a clear and brutal demonstration of Russianimperialism, Germany refuses to consider cancelling the pipeline.Angela Merkel was willing to pay a high-profile visit to the Balticstates – a likely target for Russia's next push westwards – to offersupport. But she would not even contemplate ending her energy alliancewith Russia.And it is hard to see this changing: European consumers will not payhugely higher energy prices to finance alternative supplies, nor willpoliticians give the EU the weight it needs to bargain properly withRussia (a country, don't forget, that is three times smaller inpopulation than the EU, with an economy roughly a tenth of the size).With the EU and Nato hopelessly divided, Russia can dismiss ourtoothless whimpers about Georgia. That leaves Eastern Europe to baseits security on the United States.Yet even America's willingness to confront Russia is limited. Everyincoming president since Bill Clinton has criticised his predecessorfor being soft on Russia. But none has proved any better. For all JohnMcCain's fighting talk, and Barack Obama's belated belligerence,neither man will be able to take a hard line. America needs Russia –for nuclear security, to hold back Iran, to contain North Korea, as asupply route to Afghanistan, in hunting down terrorists. And Russiaknows it. If the mood in Washington is frosty, the Kremlin need onlyflirt more intensively with Iran, Venezuela and China, or withholdco-operation on some pressing topic, and America will buckle.On top of all that, Russia's leaders have a massively secure positionat home. Their central bank has nearly $600 billion in hard-currencyreserves, while their popularity is far greater than the Politburoever dreamed of. Mr Putin, and the war in Georgia, are acclaimed – aview stoked by the docile media, which portrayed the conflict as avaliant crusade against genocide and Georgian leader MikheilSaakashvili as a murderous fascist.Abroad, Russia senses that power in the world is shifting east andsouth, to countries such as India and China, which see Georgia verydifferently. They may not much like separatism, but they also thinkthat the West is practising double standards: America would nottolerate the Kremlin's meddling in its backyard, so why should Russiahave to put up with an America protégé in the Caucasus?The German philosopher GF Hegel wrote that the owl of Minerva spreadsher wings only at dusk: we perceive historical changes only when theyare almost complete. We have enjoyed an extraordinary 20-year periodin which Russia was weak and seemingly benign. Europe became (mostly)whole and free.The idea that the continent could again become a battleground betweenEast and West is unwelcome, and to many still inconceivable. But it ishappening: and our resurgent enemy seemingly holds most of the cards.There is, however, one chink of light, for us if not for the Russians.In the long term, the Putin regime means catastrophe for his country.The political system is opaque and fossilised, unable to respond tothe needs of a changing economy or to rein in corruption, let alonedeal with the fast-growing Muslim population, which has soared to 25million – a 40 per cent rise since 1989 – as the birthrate among theSlavs has plunged. Modernisation of public services andinfrastructure, in a country awash with money, has been dismally slow.Foreign adventures are the traditional way for autocratic rulers todistract public opinion from problems at home, and Russia is noexception. The regime running Russia will come unstuck in the end. Butthe cost in the meantime will be dreadful.This was this week's Europe View. In deference to taste and decency Ihave renamed Khuiyovich as Shutnik (which means "Joker" in Russian).Amazingly, some readers of The Economist website seem not to realisethat this is satire and have been crossly demanding the "originaltext" and denouncing the "forgery". Shades of 1993...
==========================================================
Window on Eurasia: The Third Cold War Has Begun, Karaganov Says
Paul Goble
Vienna, August 31 – Most commentators who talk about a new cold war emerging after the events in Georgia are referring only to the geopolitical contest between the Soviet bloc and the Western alliance after World War II, but one of Moscow's most interesting commentators says that any new cold war will not be the second but the third the two sides have engaged in.
By pointing out that there were two earlier such competitions – one prior to the second world war which the USSR ultimately won in the course of that military conflict and the second, better-known one, which Moscow lost decisively, Sergei Karaganov provides some important insights into what the new conflict is likely to look like from Moscow's perspective.
In a lengthy article in "Rossiiskaya gazeta," the head of Moscow's Council on Foreign and Defense Policy says that he is convinced that the world is once again being divided between "ours and theirs," in which "ours" will be defended regardless of what they do and "theirs" will be condemned no matter how they act (www.rg.ru/2008/08/29/karaganov.html).
According to Karaganov, the new era of conflict reflects both the redistribution of resources in the world following the end of the second cold war, a development that he suggests will be long term, and the rise of authoritarian and semi-authoritarian states after the 1991 settlement, a temporary phenomenon but "for those who are losing – a matter of here and now."
After gaining economically in the immediate wake of the end of the second cold war, the "old" West started to lose out rapidly because increases in the price of oil and gas led to a massive transfer of resources away from the United States and Europe to those states, including Russia, where these critical energy resources came from.
Many of these energy suppliers, again including Russia, were authoritarian or semi-authoritarian, the Moscow analyst says, and this led to the rise of "authoritarian capitalism" as "the ideological system of the new 'enemy.'" The West needed an enemy to unite, he insists, but its effort to create "'a union of democracies'" against the authoritarian states was "tragicomic."
Other changes in the world – including the proliferation of nuclear weapons and America's loss of prestige around the world because of its actions in Iraq – simply reinforced this development, and effort after September 11th to use counter-terrorism as a unifying force proved a failure.
Thus, Karaganov continues, a new cold war became likely. The West is promoting it as a means to recover the positions it has lost. And Moscow has assisted this effort not only because Russia "has become a symbol and incarnation" of the changes the West opposes but also because Moscow has behaved in ways in Georgia and elsewhere that have only added to that image.
Both in the cold wars of the past and in the one starting now, the Moscow specialist on international relations says, geopolitics is more significant than ideology, and that reality, one often overlooked in recent commentaries, is likely to define the course of the international divide now opening.
Russia has certain advantages and certain disadvantages in this renewed struggle, Karaganov argues. On the one hand, it has a freer society and a richer one than in the past, making it more attractive to many. But on the other, it lacks the resources in terms of space, population and GDP that the Soviet Union had, making it less able to compete.
At the same time, however, Russia's "corrupt state capitalism" is something "hardly any of the thinking and patriotically inclined Russians" are happy about, he says, but the West has not focused on that political and economic elite in this new "cold war" but rather on Russia itself and thus on all Russians.
And it is worth remembering that what he calls "the old West" is now weaker than it was as well. The standing of the U.S. in the world has fallen precipitously because of its actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and this group of states controls a much smaller portion of the world's population and GDP than it did 30 years ago.
That helps to explain what has happened in Georgia. According to Karaganov, "Russia had no other way out" except to respond militarily to "the aggression of Tbilisi and of the forces standing behind" it and then to seal its gains on the ground by extending diplomatic recognition to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. While many are still focusing on those developments alone, "the main goal" of the current rise in tensions involves not Georgia but the potential entry of Ukraine into NATO. "That is absolutely unacceptable for Russia. And even if we were to suddenly agree to this, the logic of events would all the same lead to a confrontation and possibly a military one."
In order to block this, Moscow must denounce the Russia-NATO Council that when set up ten years ago opened the way to the expansion eastward of the Western alliance and was denounced at the time by some as "'a second Brest peace,'" a reference to the treaty Lenin signed with the Germans in 1918 that sacrificed Russian territory to win time for the Bolsheviks.
"It is time to recognize that this union is not only a relic of 'the cold war,' but that it is one of the basic instruments of its rebirth," Karaganov says.
Two other reports from Moscow about the possibility of a new cold war are worthy of note. First of all, Aleksandr Prokhanov, the editor of the nationalist newspaper "Zavtra," said on Ekho Moskvy that he welcomed such a conflict because "for Russia, a cold war today represents salvation" (www.echo.msk.ru/programs/personalno/536528-echo/).
Without one, he said, Russia would degenerate and die, whereas with one, its citizens will not only bring their money home but focus on developing their country so that it will not lose this latest episode of what he sees as the longstanding and inevitable conflict between Russia and the West.
And for those who are frightened that a new cold war will lead to a hot one, Prokhanov had this to day: "A third world war is not beginning [because] the Americans are not in a position to conduct [it]. They have a terrible crisis, their civilization is collapsing … and they have" incurred huge debts at home and abroad.
And second, Aleksandr Dugin's nationalist Eurasian website reported today that sources in the Russian ministry of education say that they are preparing a new required course for Russian schools on geopolitics, a course that they suggest may displace current courses in geography (evrazia.org/n.php?id=3893).
The officials reportedly said that the course will explain to students "how to build an empire" as well as "who its enemies and friends are," content that almost certainly would lead many Russian students to conclude that they and their parents have no option but to restore an empire and to engage in a cold war with the West.
Russia's isolation plays into China's hands
The Associated Press
Saturday, August 30, 2008
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has cast vague Central Asian support for Russia's actions in South Ossetia as a diplomatic victory. But a summit in the region held signs that China, already a powerful regional player, will benefit from concerns about an aggressive Russia.
As Moscow's combative rhetoric leaves it increasingly isolated, China may have tipped the balance of influence in Russia's backyard.
Russian peacekeepers ended Georgia's "barbaric aggression" according to "international legal standards," Medvedev told a news conference Friday after a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
The group comprises China, Russia and four ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia, whose energy riches are coveted by Russia, China and the West.
The summit members issued a statement Thursday vaguely praising what it called Russia's efforts to ensure peace after its war with Georgia this month.
But they did not condemn Georgia — as Russia had hoped — and none of them backed Russia's decision to recognize breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Russian media reported before the summit that Russia's efforts to insert wording condemning Georgia were thwarted by China.
The Chinese government is usually wary of supporting separatists in other countries, mindful of its own problems with Tibet and nationalists in the western territory of Xinjiang. It has also resisted being drawn into alliances that could damage its diplomatic standing.
"China has always stood in the middle and it has no intention of keeping with the same company as Russia," said Alexei Malashenko, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
China's approach to courting its Central Asian partners has been low-key but assiduous and based on concrete proposals.
While Russia and the West attempt to persuade gas-rich states in the region of the appeal of their competing pipeline proposals, China has already begun construction of a transit route that is expected to carry up to 40 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year from Turkmenistan by 2009.
Several crumbling highways in impoverished Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have been resurrected as a result of Chinese investment and technology. In stark contrast, Russian efforts to revive the vital Rogun hydropower plant project in electricity-starved Tajikistan have foundered in recent years.
Russia did secured some qualified support for its policy in the Caucasus.
"We all believe that Russia's actions were aimed at protecting the long-suffering residents of the South Ossetian capital," Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev said.
Speaking to reporters in Dushanbe, Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad offered a veiled defense of Russia's role in Georgia.
"These problems are in part caused by the interference of powers outside the region," he said. "The situation has also been caused by the mistaken behavior of some high-placed Georgian officials."
Nonetheless, most Shanghai Cooperation Organization members will remain circumspect about offering anything that could encourage secessionist impulses in their own countries.
"Kyrgyzstan has territorial issues in the south with ethnic Uzbeks and Kazakhstan are concerned with the ethnic Russian dominated north," said independent political analyst Parviz Mullodzhanov. "While we in Tajikistan have our own Gorno-Badakshan autonomous region."
The four Central Asian members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — are reluctant to endanger their relations with Europe and the United States.
Kazakhstan enjoys significant Western investment in its rich hydrocarbon sector, and impoverished Kyrgyzstan received U.S. aid and rent for hosting a U.S. air base that supports military operations in Afghanistan.
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=15754420
========================================
Russia 'may target' Baltic states next
From correspondents in London September 03, 2008
NATO must strengthen its defence of the three Baltic countries – Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania – after Russia's assault on Georgia, the new US envoy to NATO said in an interview.
Speaking to the Financial Times in Brussels after an emergency summit of European Union leaders there, Kurt Volker said it was important that NATO remained "credible".
"Those countries are members of NATO; so if there is any attack on those countries we will all respond," Mr Volker told the business daily.
"They are feeling a little rattled by seeing Russia use military force to invade a sovereign, small neighbouring country. We need to send signals to shore them up a little bit."
Mr Volker said NATO must send signals that it intends to help the Baltic states, and uphold its Article 5, which guarantees the defence of each signatory by all the rest.
"We will have to make sure ... that the Article 5 commitment is realisable not just as a political matter but as a military matter too," the American envoy said.
He continued: "We need to do what NATO ought to do, not in a provocative way and not in a rushed or hasty way. But NATO being credible is what's important."
Russia sent tanks and troops into Georgia on August 8, a day after Georgia launched an offensive to regain control of breakaway South Ossetia.
Moscow halted its offensive after five days but refused to withdraw all its troops, saying they are on a peacekeeping mission. Georgia has called them an occupation force.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24286674-12377,00.html
=======================================================================
EXHIBITION ON LITHUANIA’S DIPLOMACY OF THE INTERWAR PERIOD OPENS IN KAUNAS
On 5 September, at 16:00 h., an exhibition called ‘White Gloves: Official and Unofficial Diplomacy in Kaunas in 1918-1940’ will open at the historical Office of the President in Kaunas.
On 5 September 2008, we are celebrating the 110th anniversary of the birth of Stasys Lozoraitis (1898–1983), whom we call the chief of Lithuania’s diplomacy. Sixteenth of February this year also marks the 90th anniversary of Declaration of Independence in 1918.
The exhibition reflects official activities of diplomats: intergovernmental agreements, photos of the ceremonies of presentation of credentials, official meetings and state celebrations.
The exposition in two halls of the historical Office of the President is dedicated to Lithuanian diplomatic missions abroad, to the activity of Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1918–1940 and to the chief of the Lithuanian diplomacy Stasys Lozoraitis.
Photos of receptions and hunts that were organised during the unofficial meetings of high-ranking officials, cartoons, printings with funny stories, and some recollections about informal events are also on display at the exhibition.
The exhibition will be open from 5 September this year till 5 July 2009. Everyday working hours: 11:00-17:00 h. It is closed on Mondays.
The exhibition is organised by the historical Office of the President of the Republic of Lithuania in Kaunas with partners: the Lithuanian Central State Archives, Vytautas the Great War Museum and the Lozoraitis Family Museum. Sponsors of the exhibition are: Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kaunas City Municipality, Sport and Culture Support Foundation, the Embassies of Italy and of the Republic of Poland, Centre of French Culture. The exhibition was organised also in cooperation with the British Embassy and the German Embassy.
This year, Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also marks the 90th anniversary of its establishment on 11 November 1918. On this occasion in November at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs an exhibition on the history of the Lithuanian diplomacy will be organised. The exposition will include historical evidence for the origins of the Lithuanian diplomacy, diplomatic efforts to re-establish the statehood in the 19th century, and the interwar and modern Lithuanian diplomacy. The exhibition will consist of photos, documents, press, signs of diplomatic missions, seals and other paraphernalia of diplomats and Ambassadors.
http://www.urm.lt/popup2.php?ru=bS9tX2FydGljbGUvZmlsZXMvdl9hcnRpY2xlX3ByaW50LnBocA==&tmpl_name=m_article_print_view&article_id=20956
============================================================
Baltic States Failing To Protect Most Damaged Sea
enlarge
The poor state of the Baltic Sea environment has received attention this summer because of the extensive algal blooms caused by eutrophication and for recent scientific reports on the vast "dead zones" on the sea bottom. (Credit: iStockphoto/Janno Vään)
ScienceDaily (Sep. 3, 2008) — Nine Baltic sea states all scored failing grades in an annual WWF evaluation of their performance in protecting and restoring the world’s most damaged sea.
The assessment, presented today at the Baltic Sea Festival, graded the countries on how well they are doing in six separate areas - biodiversity, fisheries, hazardous substances, marine transport and eutrophication - and on how they have succeeded in developing an integrated sea-use management system.
The best grade (an F for just 46 per cent) was received by Germany, followed by Denmark (41 per cent) and the worst were Poland (25 per cent) and Russia (26 per cent).
“It is a shame no country could be given a satisfactory total score,” said Lasse Gustavsson, CEO of WWF Sweden. “The Baltic Sea is influenced by a multitude of human activities, regulated by a patchwork of international and national regulations and authorities.
“What the Baltic Sea needs now is political leadership that can look beyond national or sectoral interests and take an integrated approach to solving the problems.”
Behind the bad overall scores there were some rays of hope. Germany received an A on the biodiversity score for their protection of marine areas with around 40 per cent of the country’s sea areas protected.
Latvia and Lithuania have taken measures to combat illegal fishing of cod, partly by giving inspectors the mandate to impose sanctions on site. Estonia has a narrow lead in lowering the impact of hazardous substances.
Also at the festival WWF awarded Tarja Halonen, president of the Republic of Finland, with the Baltic Sea Leadership Award for “her persistent efforts to unite groups and encourage cross-border discussions on the future of the Baltic Sea”.
Finland is the only country in the region that has developed a cross-sectoral marine policy and several other countries are now taking steps to review their marine management.
“We now have an opportunity in the area of sea-use management with two current processes on the European level,” said Vicki Lee Wallgren, programme manager for WWF’s Baltic Ecoregion Programme.
She said initiatives such as the EU’s Maritime Policy and the EU Baltic Sea Strategy meant that “there is hope for the Baltic Sea”.
The poor state of the Baltic Sea environment has received attention this summer because of the extensive algal blooms caused by eutrophication and for recent scientific reports on the vast “dead zones” on the sea bottom. Seven of the world’s 10 biggest dead zones, where nothing can survive due to lack of oxygen, are found in the Baltic Sea.
