FORMER SATELLITES STAND UP TO RUSSIA
Press of Atlantic City
Oct 1 2013
by Carl Gershman
Russian President Vladimir Putin has had some success using his support
for the Assad regime in Syria to strengthen Moscow’s position in the
Middle East. But this is much less important than Moscow’s growing
troubles in its “near abroad,” as it refers to the strategically
vital area to its immediate west.
In a replay of the East-West rivalry of the Cold War, but with the
United States on the sidelines, Russia has used economic and security
threats to try to draw neighbors into its Eurasian Customs Union
and to block the European Union’s Eastern Partnership initiative,
which seeks the reform and possible eventual integration of Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine into E.U.
structures. Russian pressures have escalated with the approach of
a November summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, at which several of the
countries could sign association or free-trade agreements with the E.U.
So far only Armenia has buckled under pressure, agreeing to join
the customs union after Moscow, which guarantees Armenia’s security
against neighboring Azerbaijan, signed contracts to provide Azerbaijan
with $4 billion worth of military hardware.
Elsewhere, Moscow’s bullying has backfired. Russia has banned Moldovan
wine, threatened to cut off gas supplies and warned that the people
of its Russian-occupied separatist enclave of Transnistria would
resist any agreement with the E.U. But Moldova remains committed to
initialing a free-trade agreement with the European Union, and it
responded to the threat of an energy boycott by agreeing with Romania
to build a pipeline linking the two countries.
Georgia, for years the target of Russian boycotts and threats,
is ruled by Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, rumored to be less
anti-Russian than outgoing President Mikheil Saakashvili. Yet it, too,
is about to initial a free-trade agreement in Vilnius, signaling that
European integration is a national aspiration, not the choice of any
particular party.
Ukraine is the biggest prize, and there Russia’s bullying has been
particularly counterproductive. In addition to the usual economic
threats and trade sanctions, including a ban on the import of Ukrainian
chocolates, Putin offended Ukrainians during a state visit in July,
saying that they and the Russians were a “single people,” and that
the Ukranians had flourished under Soviet rule – totally ignoring
the famine of the early 1930s that Ukrainians call the Holodomor, or
“extermination by hunger.”
In an August speech, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych called
association with the European Union “an important stimulus for forming
a modern European state.” In short order, Ukraine’s parliament passed
reforms required by the E.U. dealing with corruption, tariffs and
prisons.
Russia’s problem is more than tactical. Its neighbors prefer the
relative dynamism of Europe to Russia’s stagnant economy.
The process playing out in Europe has attracted little attention in
the U.S. or from the Obama administration, which has been preoccupied
with the Middle East and its pivot to Asia. But the opportunities
are considerable, and there are important ways Washington could help.
America should engage with governments and civil society in Ukraine,
Georgia and Moldova to ensure the reform process under way not only
promotes greater trade and development but also produces governments
that are less corrupt and more accountable to their societies. An
agreement with the European Union should be seen as a starting point
that makes possible deeper reforms.
Russian democracy also can benefit. Ukraine’s choice to join Europe
will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism
that Putin represents. There are signs of the emergence of a new
Russian nationalism: the strong performance by opposition leader
Alexei Navalny in Moscow’s recent mayoral election and polls that show
greater opposition to Putin in the Russian provinces, his traditional
support base. This nationalism is concerned not with the restoration of
Russia’s imperial greatness, which would be inconceivable if Ukraine
joined Europe, but with fighting corruption and addressing the severe
economic and social problems of the Russian people.
Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing
end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.
Carl Gershman is president of the National Endowment for Democracy. He
wrote this for The Washington Post.
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/opinion/commentary/carl-gershman-former-satellites-stand-up-to-russia/article_7c1f02c0-a1cd-5f18-9d17-cd36f3e8e163.html