The Foreign Service Journal, December 2008

Time for a New Approach Since the recent unhappy evolu- tion of events in Georgia, many peo- ple have been arguing that everyone would be better off if we had pressed to develop a Pan-European “security system” rather than simply preserving and expanding NATO. A new, wider security pact might have allowed the West to co-opt Russia into the planning and upholding of a new European security order. This could have meant inviting it into NATO. Better, probably, would have been to put NATO itself on a back burner, as an insurance policy against unforeseen vagaries. Without some Pan-European dimension, however, an enlarged NATO is an insurance policy that attracts the very damages that it insures against. Of course, if we assume that America’s interest requires, above all else, cementing control over Western Europe, perhaps creat- ing a hostile and militant Russia is the best way to do so. But do we really need to dominate the new Europe in this fashion? Is it worth the risk of fragmenting the European Union? Wouldn’t a strong E.U. be a better way to balance Moscow than an American-run military alliance? Quarreling with both Russia and Europe at the same time, as we have tended to do, seems an egregious waste of diplomatic capital. As we ought to have learned over several decades, the great danger hanging over our glob- al policy is “overstretch,” arising from the failure to set real strategic priorities. Trying to do everything means that even our vast resources are inadequate. By now it should be apparent howmuch our resources are reduced these days. Our strength and prosperity depend increasingly on the good will of others, whose friendship should not be tested too far. The dollar today is, for example, being kept from collapse by massive Chinese intervention. Under these geopolitical circum- stances it seems excessively self-indulgent for the United States to dispute territories that have been part of Russia’s sphere for over two centuries. The issue is not only whether preserving NATO in its present form suits the geopolitical interests of the United States, but also whether it suits the geopolitical interests of the Europeans. For countries like Poland whose foreign policy horizon seems dominated by past conflict with Moscow, the answer seems self-evi- dent: Defeated Russia should be hemmed in militarily. But for the major Western European countries, and from the perspective of the European Union as a whole, it is difficult to imagine a happy future for Europe without a stable and friendly relationship with Moscow. Europe’s overriding geopolitical interest is therefore to get along with Russia. The Russians have re- sources and markets that Euro- peans need, and greatly need what they can offer in return. The new Russia has therefore been a historic golden opportunity. Surely, then, it does no harm to remember occasionally that Moscow is still a great power or that, in the end, it honorably renounced Stalin’s empire, making a new Europe possible. History is unlikely to applaud the mean-spirited squandering of such an opportunity. And for many Europeans, that will seem an unreasonable price to pay for American friend- ship. Strengthening the European Union Thinking about Europe’s own geopolitical interests should remind us that the continent has another institu- tion also regarded as an end in itself, the European Union. It, too, has enlarged itself for roughly the same reasons: to transform and stabilize European countries once part of the old Soviet sphere. Joining NATO has often been a useful preliminary step toward joining the E.U. Nevertheless, the Union does offer, by its nature, a much more complete model for democratization and capitalism. Moreover, it does its best to present itself to Russia as an opportunity rather than an antagonist. Enlargement has nevertheless greatly complicated the Union’s own governing structures. The E.U. succeeds when it achieves confederal agreement on policies in Europe’s general interest. Adding a large number of new states with different political positions and economic sit- uations has created a cacophony of diversity that can eas- ily become a vulnerability for the whole. Since the Iraq invasion, particularly, American diplo- macy has grown adept at manipulating this diversity to impede a European consensus not thought to be in our interest. One result is that Europe’s plans for a common F O C U S 44 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8 The widespread devotion to NATO reflects continuing support for a dominant American political and military presence in Europe.