ANALYSIS: BLACK SEA RIVALRY
By Professor Stephen Blank, ISCIP
2/
3 April 07
Taken in their totality, security dynamics in and around the Black
Sea littoral exhibit a stark dualism. To the south and west, we see
a picture of progressive advance, despite substantial (if gradually
eroding) impediments to both democracy and security. Romania and
Bulgaria entered the EU in 2007 and NATO in 2004, thereby accepting
those organizations’ recommendations for democratic governance in
politics, economics, and defense. Further east and south, Turkey has
made significant political and economic progress since the AKP (Party
of Justice and Development) government took over in 2002, again despite
substantial obstacles to economic, civil-military, and legal reforms.
Nonetheless, Turkey’s democratic odyssey remains incomplete. Its
application for EU membership evidently has stalled, due mainly to
a growing mutual disaffection of the parties. Turkey’s differences
with the EU over Cyprus, along with its refusal to confront the
"Armenian genocide" of 1915, or to recognize current Armenia, also
impede its full European integration. (1) These policies hold Turkey
back in European eyes and cast doubts upon the depth of Turkey ‘s
democratization because of its refusal to confront its own history.
Similarly, Russia’s refusal to confront its past adds greatly to the
general suspicion in which Russian objectives are held, and not only
in the Baltics.
Turkey’s inability to deal with Armenia both reflects and contributes
to the continuing instability of the South Caucasus on the Black
Sea’s eastern littoral. Indeed, throughout the South Caucasus
we see internal struggles among and within states, notably the
ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan
and Georgia’s internal conflicts with separatist, Russian-supported
South Ossetia and Abkhazia that are integral to its tense relations
with Moscow. Russo-Georgian relations are so bad that an actual
armed clash is neither inconceivable nor a remote possibility, even
though there has been a recent improvement in relations. (2) In the
last six months alone we have seen armed Georgian actions against the
Russian-supported insurgents; Georgian arrests of Russian agents who
were planning a coup; Russian economic sanctions against Georgia;
Moscow’s deportation of Georgians from Russia; Russian-backed talk
of invoking a Kosovo precedent to detach Abkhazia and South Ossetia
from Georgia; and Russian-backed referenda in those two provinces
that came out in favor of independence.
Moving north and west, we see Ukraine’s government torn apart by
incessant political warfare between Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych,
President Viktor Yushchenko, their supporters, and the third party
maneuverings of Yulia Tymoshenko. Despite progress in democratization,
the conflict in Moldova with Russian-supported secessionists in
Transnistria has made almost no progress toward resolution. (3)
Finally, Russo-NATO tensions over energy, NATO exercises in the Black
Sea, the "frozen" conflicts in Moldova and the Caucasus, Russia’s
use of energy as a weapon of political intimidation, rising American
and NATO interest in the Black Sea, and Western military bases in
Bulgaria and Romania all contribute to the overall deterioration of
East-West relations.
Geostrategic and Geopolitical Rivalry Thus, we can see two or
more security paradigms in the Black Sea. But, only one of them
offers a positive prospect of enhanced security, democracy, and
prosperity. Moreover, Bulgaria and Romania confirm that democratization
with the incentive of membership in NATO and the EU and integration
into Europe is, in fact, the best kind of security policy. (4) These
paradigms of Black Sea security duly comprise both hard security and
issues of governance and ideology, the stuff of political and economic
organization of states. Not surprisingly, "It is notable that the
EU and Russia are trying to create multiple, common European policy
spaces for almost everything except the most fundamental of all –
democracy and human rights. It is not hard to guess at the reason."
(5) Russia’s paradigm of unilateralist opposition to any multilateral
or Westernizing (and Moscow equates the two) democratization and
security processes consigns the Black Sea’s northern and eastern
littoral to unending suspended conflicts, backward and anti-democratic
regimes, and numerous hard and soft security challenges. Apart from
the so called "frozen conflicts," Moscow’s refusal to cooperate
with the investigation into the recent case where a Russian
man was caught smuggling weapons-grade uranium from Russia into
Georgia exemplifies all the hard and soft security risks facing the
littoral states: proliferation; smuggling of all kinds of contraband
(including prostitutes), drugs and weapons; illegal immigration;
and general criminality. (6) It is well known that the port of Odesa
and the Transnistrian rump state protected by Russia are havens of
smuggling. (7)
Moscow’s concurrent efforts to dominate the energy trade in the CIS
and southeastern Europe and to use the gas weapon against states
resisting Russian pressure (such as Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, and
Azerbaijan), while excluding rival producers (like Turkmenistan)
from the Turkish market, as well as its previous opposition to the
recently opened Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, further highlight the
centrality of energy security in this inter-civilizational zone and
international energy thoroughfare. Russia’s efforts at blackmail and
intimidation by using the energy card, along with its energy firms’
government connections and known association with intelligence and
criminal organizations raise the specter of an orchestrated campaign
to corrupt and undermine the foundations of democratic government
in Eastern Europe more generally, not just in the Caucasus and the
Balkans. (8) It is no coincidence that American analysts like Bruce
Jackson repeatedly proclaim the existence of a so-called " soft war"
by Russia against western influence in Eastern Europe, including in the
Black Sea zone. (9) Increasingly, we also encounter not just a soft
war, but a more classical geopolitical rivalry between Washington
and the West on the one hand, and Moscow on the other. Moscow’s
renewed attacks on American bases in the region and its opposition to
Bulgaria’s and Romania’s overall pro-western foreign policy orientation
are a major part of this rivalry. Russian military spokesmen describe
these new bases and potential new missions, including missile defense
and power projection into the Caucasus or Central Asia, as threats
directed against Russian interests, especially as NATO now has made
clear that it takes issues like pipeline security in the Caucasus very
seriously. (10) Russian resistance likely will grow geometrically if
stated US intentions of collaborating with Ukraine on missile defense
materialize. (11)
Similarly, despite talk of Russo-NATO cooperation, Moscow decided
to block NATO participation in Operation Active Endeavor, the naval
exercises in the Black Sea. Those exercises were directed against
precisely the kinds of soft security threats that plague the Black
Sea littoral, as enumerated above. Here Moscow supported Ankara’s
insistence that the Montreux Treaty forbade the use of naval ships
in moving through the straits for such exercises even in peacetime,
although the Russian military was surprisingly enthusiastic about
participating in Operation Active Endeavor in the Mediterranean. (12)
Nonetheless, Russia displayed this enthusiasm only after attempting
to impose special conditions on its participation in this exercise,
which has been a highly successful centerpiece of NATO members’
anti-terrorist naval cooperation since 2001: "Russia had wanted to
exempt its own commercial vessels from mutual inspection procedures –
the lynchpin of the operation. Then it demanded that ‘ Active Endeavor’
be governed by the NATO-Russia Council, even as it asked the alliance
to pay for Russian participation. NATO rejected all these, but
finally elaborated an awkward arrangement whereby the Russian Navy
operates in conjunction with NATO, but not under its command." (13)
Russia also reserved the right to use weapons during the exercise,
as it would be operating jointly with, but not as part of, the NATO
AFSouth (Armed Forces South) forces. (14)
But, when all of the other littoral states except Turkey proposed
conducting this exercise in the Black Sea, Moscow flatly refused to
support it. (15) While these states’ request made sense, given the
centrality of security issues to the Black Sea region as a whole,
Moscow’s attitude is not surprising.
When NATO conducted exercises with Ukraine along the Black Sea Coast in
2003, the Russian press reported Russia’s opposition to those exercises
on the grounds that Russian military men could not accept "alien"
NATO naval vessels in what they considered to be their lake. Worse,
since the scenarios of those operations postulated an anti-separatist
operation, Russian officials saw this as an intimation of future NATO
assistance to Georgia or Ukraine against Moscow-backed separatists
in Abkhazia or Crimea. (16)
Subsequent operations planned for the coast of Ukraine, involving
an amphibious landing against terrorists, (Operation Sea Breeze),
were aborted after Russian-instigated popular demonstrations made
it impossible for the Ukrainian government and NATO to conduct the
operation. Once Operation Active Endeavor raised the issue of the
Black Sea, the same concerns came to the fore: the potential for
internationalization of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict, in which
Russian-protected maritime gun running, smuggling, and other crimes
are rife, as well as tensions with Ukraine over the future disposition
of the Black Sea Fleet and boundaries along the Sea of Azov. (17)
Indeed, the struggle over the Montreux Treaty’s provisions brings
Russia and Turkey together against Washington, as both of them resist
further American presence in the Black Sea. In Turkey’s case, this
opposition has grown due to the war in Iraq, but it has its roots
in the deep-seated Turkish "Sévres syndrome" (after the location
where the treaties dismembering the Ottoman empire were signed after
World War I). American diplomats confirm that Turkey regards the
provisions of the subsequent Lausanne Treaty (reversing Sévres)
and of Montreux as sacrosanct, and Turkey will not yield because it
believes its sovereignty could be at stake if warships were allowed to
enter the Black Sea in peacetime. (18) For its part, Russia describes
the potential presence of NATO and of the US military in the Black
Sea not just as a military threat, but also as an opportunity for
America and/or NATO to meddle further in CIS affairs. (19) Indeed,
the US claims that it, or at least NATO, has rights in the Black Sea
based on the Montreux agreement. Moreover, Principal Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, Kurt Volker, has said that
"a broader perspective on the Black Sea – is to look at it not just as
a security issue, but as a regional issue of strengthening democratic
changes in political systems [and] market economies." (20)
Consequently, Moscow portrays US policy vis a vis the Black Sea region
as a threat to Russia’s vital foreign policy goal of establishing a
neo-imperial condominium over the CIS, and even further as purposely
targeted at fostering regime change throughout the CIS, including
in Russia itself. Indeed, any sign of a CIS state cooperating
with NATO triggers an immediate response, which indicates that the
Russian political elite still sees NATO and the EU as being, at the
core, enemies of Russia. Yuri Borko writes, "It is widely believed
among Russia’s political, business, and intellectual circles that
a policy toward integration with other members of the Commonwealth
of Independent States (CIS) is incompatible with a policy toward a
strategic partnership with the EU, toward integration into the Common
European Economic Space and close coordination of foreign-policy
and security activities. These circles will hardly cause the Russian
president to give up his European policy, yet their efforts may prove
enough for sinking the idea of concluding a new PCA (Partnership and
Cooperation Agreement)." (21)
For this reason, it makes sense to interpret the many Russian
calls for NATO cooperation with the Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) and its military alliance in Central Asia as
a Russian attempt to forestall NATO’s direct cooperation with the
Central Asian governments and to control that interaction, thereby
curtailing the CIS states’ full sovereignty in matters of defense. (22)
For example, in April 2004 the Kuchma government of Ukraine signed a
memorandum of understanding with NATO. This MoU mentioned the movement
of alliance vessels through Ukrainian territorial waters, including the
Sea of Azov and Kerch Straits. It also stated that Ukraine promised
"to supply NATO with all required technical, informational, medical,
and other assistance for the conduct of training exercises, as well as
full-fledged military or peacekeeping operations under the Partnership
for Peace program." (23)
The Russian response was predictable. Russia charged that the accord
violated the 2003 Russo-Ukrainian agreement on those waters, which
states that no third party vessels may navigate them without both
parties’ specific agreement, a statement missing from the MoU. (24)
Furthermore, unnamed sources in the Russian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs stated that, "Ukraine’s readiness to allow its territory to
be used for unspecified NATO operations without Russian permission
does not accord with Article 6 of [our treaty] – that stipulates,
specifically, that neither side may allow its territory to be used
in any way that jeopardizes the security of the other." (25)
Subsequently, Russian writers cast this issue in the light of a
potential Russo-Ukrainian armed conflict. "The document gives NATO
forces so called " rapid access" to the territory of Ukraine not
only during military exercises, but also when conducting military
operations. This means that Ukraine could become a beachhead for
waging any NATO operations, including those not sanctioned by the
UN Security Council. Under these circumstances rapid reaction forces
of the North Atlantic alliance could be activated across the entire
expanse of the European portion of Russia, and even blockade the RF
Black Sea Fleet based in the Crimea until the basing term there expires
[in 2017 – author]."
(26)
This analysis goes on to cite Russian concerns about future Ukrainian
pressure on the Black Sea Fleet and the eventual transformation of
the Black Sea into a NATO lake, greatly enhancing NATO’s aerial and
naval reconnaissance capabilities, undermining the entire concept
of a strategic rear for Russia, as well as any meaningful Russian
capability in the Sea of Azov or Black Sea. (27) As Ukraine now
has made clear that it wants the Russian Black Sea Fleet out of its
current bases in Sevastopol when the Russo-Ukrainian treaty expires
in 2017, Russo-Ukrainian tensions, already strained over energy and
other issues, almost certainly will grow over the future disposition
of that fleet and its assets and infrastructure. Thus, this analysis
of Russian fear of any NATO military presence in the Black Sea area of
the CIS or of Ukraine’s membership in NATO is clearly predicated on
the assumption of continuing Russo-NATO military-strategic rivalry,
especially concerning the CIS borderlands. Under the present
circumstances, it remains to be seen how NATO exercises in Ukraine
jeopardize Russian security, when Russia has proclaimed its partnership
with NATO, nor is it clear how Ukraine could be viewed as a potential
base for hostile activity against Russia; but this shows the ruling
outlook in Russia’s Foreign and Defense Ministries and in the Russian
government. Thus, any sign of Ukrainian adhesion to, or cooperation
with, NATO or the EU is likely to meet with a storm in Moscow.
Ukraine is not an isolated case. Indeed, Moscow essentially
contends that no state can be allies with Russia and with NATO
simultaneously. Moreover, in its "sphere of influence," Russia claims
that it alone ultimately has full authority over the members’ defense
policies. Thus, Defense Minister Ivanov openly updated the Brezhnev
doctrine’s concept of diminished sovereignty to cover the Central
Asian states, specifically in regard to NATO or American bases.
"The countries of the region are members of the Collective Security
Treaty Organization (CSTO). And [if the countries of the region are]
making a decision about hosting new bases on their territory, they
should take into account the interests of Russia and coordinate this
decision with our country." (28) Echoing this view of the CIS members’
inability to stand as fully sovereign independent states, Russian
diplomats still will not fully accept former Soviet republics as
genuine states, as illustrated when participants at an OSCE meeting
referred to Georgia as "some province." (29) This was no accident,
but, rather, represents a deeply held attitude in the Russian Ministry
of Foreign Affairs. (30)
These contrasting trends on the two sides of the Black Sea suggest
that the struggles for democracy and security across its littoral
are parallel, if not linked, and are even inextricable from each
other. As Tesmur Basilia, the Special Assistant on economic issues
to former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze wrote, in many CIS
countries, such as Georgia and Ukraine, "the acute issue of choosing
between alignment with Russia and the West is associated with the
choice between two models of social development." (31) Indeed, even
some Russian analysts acknowledge the accuracy of this insight. Dmitry
Furman writes that, "The Russia-West struggle in the CIS is a struggle
between two irreconcilable systems." (32) Furman even accepts the
regressiveness of the current Russian regime, saying, "Managed
democracies are actually a soft variant of the Soviet system." (33)
Whereas in 2005 much more progress seemed possible, particularly with
regard to Ukraine’s and Turkey’s ultimate entry into the EU and to
resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, at present those processes
have not moved forward.
(34) Nor have other hopes for progressive tendencies in and around
the Black Sea worked out as anticipated. (35) Nevertheless, those
governments and political actors who wish to extend the zone of
security along the Black Sea’s western littoral should not despair. One
of the major causes for the previous failure was the distraction and
loss of will among America, NATO, and the EU that manifested itself
in the absence of sustained action to effectuate a deeper integration
of all the Black Sea littoral states as the only way towards resolving
their security dilemmas.
What Is to Be Done?
There is no way around the conundrum that democratization in Europe
and Eurasia is the most desirable security policy, but at the same
time is described by Moscow and all those who hide behind its cloak of
"managed democracy" as a mortal threat. This ideological-political
struggle over the nature of governance in the region is intensified
by the involvement of such military juggernauts as NATO or America,
which are projecting their power ever further toward the CIS and
Russia. Therefore, achieving progress in bringing about this greater
security becomes a much more complicated affair.
However, this divisive conundrum is now an established fact of life
in regional and world politics. If peace, progress, prosperity,
genuine democracy, and security are to come to the troubled shores
of the northern, southern, and eastern Black Sea littoral, regional
governments will need to advance the European values that they already
have indicated that they profess. And this advance can ultimately only
come to fruition as a result of membership in both NATO and the EU,
institutions that socialize their members to democratic norms and
behaviors in politics, economics, and defense.
Furman’s and Basilia’s remarks above show that Russia has nothing
to offer its satrapies except the opportunity to gratify its own
rent-seeking and power hunger. But, Moscow has neither the means nor
the vision to create a legitimate security order here or elsewhere
and ultimately, due to the intrinsic pathologies of those managed
democracies, violence will ensue. The absence of legitimate succession
procedures, the lack of democratic control over armed forces and of
rule of law are all open temptations or invitations to the kind of
adventurism we see all too starkly in Chechnya, Transnistria, and the
Caucasus. Those cases exemplify the visible pathologies in one of
the Black Sea’s security paradigms. But the vision and momentum of
the other paradigm have not stopped moving forward, in spite of all
the difficulties its supporters have encountered. As Jean Guehenno,
Deputy Secretary of the UN for Peacekeeping wrote, "However, democracy
is not necessary just to control the policy-making process. It is
part and parcel of the substance of foreign policy. In the absence
of a clearly defined European polity and of self-evident ‘European
interests,’ which could be deciphered by an enlightened elite, the
policy-making process which would create a European foreign policy
becomes an essential component of a European foreign policy, and an
integral part of its substance."
(36) Even though there are competing security paradigms along the Black
Sea’s littoral, it is clear that only one offers any hope of resolving
the unfinished business of European integration and security building.
–Boundary_(ID_gUvdnKk2HsrL62Iq0pXizw)- –
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
http://politicom.moldova.org/stiri/eng/4008