Agency WPS
What the Papers Say. Part A (Russia)
December 6, 2004, Monday
BRZEZINSKI’S WARSAW MANIFESTO
SOURCE: Rossiiskie Vesti, No. 42, December 2, 2004, p. 9
by: Zbigniew Brzezinski
Well-known American political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski made a
speech in Warsaw a year ago, outlining the policy of US
Administration in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. At that
time, many of his conclusions seemed shocking, and even specialists,
let alone active politicians, refused to comment on them. But only a
year later, it appears that the scenario Brzezinski described has
started to be implemented in Ukraine. And it looks that this is only
the beginning. That is why we are publishing this reminder of
Brzezinski’s “Warsaw manifesto.”
* * *
We are now entering the third phase of Europe’s geopolitical
reconstruction following the end of the Cold War and the associated
dissolution of the Soviet Union. The first phase, to which I like to
refer as the “Warsaw Round,” attempted to resolve the most obvious
and pressing negative legacies of the Cold War by the introduction of
Poland, of Hungary, and the Czech Republic into the Atlantic
alliance. The second phase, which I would call the “Vilnius Round”
extended that process, and thereby matched also on the territorial
level the expansion of NATO with the expansion of the European Union.
This overlap between NATO and the European Union speaks for itself
and provides a very major justification for the expansion of each, as
well as for the expansion of both at the same time. The third phase,
which we’ll have to confront before long and which I’d like to call
the “Kiev Round,” will require moving into more uncharted waters with
greater historic political and social uncertainties. There is no
doubt about that, it is going to be more complex, more difficult,
there are more problematics. But I think there are strong historical
and geo-political considerations that justify our viewing the future
in terms of the Euro-Atlantic community that extends territorially
beyond the limits of the second “Vilnius Round”; that is to say, by
the inclusion of those peoples beyond the forthcoming territorial
definition of the Euro-Atlantic community.
Certainly, the Ukrainian people deserve, if they wish, to be part of
that larger entity. The key phrase, of course, is “if they wish.” And
if they wish, they can demonstrate it, and if they demonstrate it
they create an obligation on our part to be responsive, and the two
attitudes are synergistic, interdependent. The same is true, even
though it may look unlikely today, of Belarus. The same is true
eventually, even though it may sound remote today of Georgia, which
incidentally was Christian 600 years before Poland, and which
identifies itself with Europe, or Armenia.
The same is true, in some fashion, if it wishes and if it is serious,
of Russia, but only if it is serious and truly proves that it is
serious, because it is easy to say that we want to be part of Europe,
do you want us to be part of Europe, and then to leave it at that.
Being part of NATO, being part of the EU, is an opportunity, it is a
responsibility. It is also an obligation to fulfill certain
objective, as well as subjective, criteria. They have to be met
because building a truly democratic Euro-Atlantic community is a
serious undertaking which is based not only on institutions and on
laws, but on shared values that have to be genuinely subscribed to
and practiced and not only proclaimed by sloganeering, and this is
why we have to be very realistic.
We don’t know very clearly what the future of Belarus will be in this
context; and I am not quite sure of whether we should treat
Lukashenko the way we treated Jaruzelski after 1981, namely by
ostracizing him as well as the system, or whether we should treat him
like Ceausescu in the 1970s and 1980s by seduction which we hoped
would then become contagious in a pervasive manner. Maybe a
combination of the two, in fact, is needed given the present
complexities.
Connected with that is another fundamental which is important to
stress, namely, that Ukraine’s early accession to NATO and then to
the EU will accelerate, rather than delay Russia’s eventual
association. The longer it is delayed, the less likely Russia is to
be associated. If it is forestalled or made dependent on Russia’s own
association, it may not even happen, because then it will translate
imperial nostalgia into imperial self-isolation. But Ukraine’s
accession opens the doors for Russia to accelerate itself and hence,
I do hope that the Ukrainians and we, Americans, Poles, and our
allies, will do what we can to make Ukraine’s movement towards NATO a
reality.
Translated by Pavel Pushkin