Russia and the west: from the new international order to a greeping versailles

The comments and views exchanged on the Caucasian crisis have highlighted a concept of the European system that has been taking shape in a stepwise manner in the papers of several “analysts” of international relationships as well as being mirrored in media and political declarations.

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A commonly received view is that there is an inherent conflict in the relationships between post-Soviet Russia and her neighbouring countries, on the one hand, and the Western countries that have been keen to support freedom and independence of Russia. This conflict is allegedly due to Moscow’s determination in restoring her “empire” and the vital need for the Western world to prevent this from happening.

These considerations rely, however, on current events, whilst reference is often made to remote events in order to pinpoint the “roots” of today’s Russian politics with the help of stereotypes that have often little to do with what has been actually established by historical research.

The point is that today’s Europe is affected by a disease that is quite similar to the one that was rife in the 1920’s – the disease of a post-war period grounded on a “wrong peace”, to quote the poignant words used by Barbara Spinelli1 in the days when the debate on the Georgian crisis was at its liveliest.

In their memories – which were published under the very significant title of “A World Transformed” – Bush senior and Scowcroft, who were the veritable masterminds behind the final stages of the cold war, quote the Versailles treaty as often as seven times; in their introduction, they clarify that they had worked in order to prevent the laborious negotiations with Gorbacev from ultimately leading to a situation featuring winners and losers. They had succeeded in preventing yet another “Versailles” from casting its ominous shadows on the newly established framework.

By referring to the diktat imposed on Germany at the end of World War I, the two authors clearly hint to and share the widespread view among scholars whereby the punitive conditions set in that treaty are the very source of the unrelenting antagonism of Weimar’s Germany vis-а-vis Western democracies and thereby of the resulting tragedy of World War II.

In fact, the only reason why we were spared another Versailles at the end of the cold war is that Moscow counterparts, under US leadership, agreed on initiating a joint political action relying on the principles of the new international order mentioned by Gorbacev in his talks with Western partners as a concrete objective – and the agreements at issue were just the first step with a view to achieving that objective.2

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According to the Soviet president, in the new world order he intended to contribute to the specific interests of the individual States would be overridden by the principles of the new system; therefore, the waiver of Russia’s interests he was accepting became the first step of a new approach to international politics – indeed, it was sort of an example of the sincerity underlying Moscow’s new thinking in respect of the Western counterparts, who would be in a sense bound by this commitment to implement the new programme.

Far from continuing in this direction, the Western world followed a totally different approach after Gorbacev left the political scene – and in spite of Yeltsin’s obliging attitude: there was the “enlargement” of the NATO, which the Russians call “expansion”; the policy aimed at reducing armaments and military installa- tions was relinquished; and measures based on the use of force were taken outside the lawfulness safeguards that are a feature of the UNO.

These initiatives were taken by the Americans, often by the Western countries as well3, and they can be regarded as a creeping Versailles.

But this is actually of greater “import” than the Versailles treaty of 1919, because non-compliance with specific assurances or with an action plan that had been agreed upon specifically – and in whose respect the initial burdensome steps had been taken by one of the parties – can be actually more serious than a diktat that had been imposed and accepted obtorto collo but had nevertheless been the outcome of decisions agreed upon jointly.

Even though the assurances in question had been given verbally rather than via written agreements – as remarked disconsolately by Primakov4 in his memories – they were the veritable rationale of the solutions accepted by Gorbacev.

The drift at issue is unquestionably the product of what has been termed the “return of history”5 – namely, the new propensity by major international stakeholders to use a set of values and priorities that are quite similar to those used in the past by the great powers of modern age as the benchmark of their judgments and actions in the foreign and security policy. That is to say, we have to do with the return of power politics and the unrelenting attention paid to national interests in the justifications used by national governments to account for especially important political decisions – including the recourse to war in order to achieve the objectives they have set themselves.

This is an unprecedented novelty to Western democracies, since their main security body (the NATO) had always regarded the use of weapons exclusively as a means of defence against aggressions – never had war been referred to as one of the possible actions to be implemented by that organisation.

Indeed, the use of force was only envisaged in the Atlantic Pact to resist aggressions – so much so that article 5 of the Treaty, which deals with the casus foederis of the Alliance, refers explicitly to article 51 of the UN Charter to justify the recourse to weapons in the absence of a supporting decision by the UN Security Council.

Nowadays, we are faced with the return of what John Mearsheimer termed – in his masterful work – the tragedy of great power politics.6f The current developments had been foreseen by this insightful scholar ever since the summer of 1990, during the last decade of the 20th century – which proved to be almost unending – in a paper bearing a highly foretelling title: Back to the Future.7

In that paper, he argued that the end of bipolarism would be followed by the return to the old multi-polar system of shifting alliances, i.e. unstable alliances, that had featured throughout the history of Europe and the whole Northern hemisphere from the beginning of the modern age.

Today, we are facing a situation in which, once again, national interests are invoked continuously to account for governmental decisions and political choices – the raison d’état has become once again the actual (albeit concealed) driving force behind actions and undertakings that are too often in conflict with the principles

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solemnly subscribed to in San Francisco in 1945, in Helsinki in 1975, and in Paris in 1990. In fact, we are facing a situation in which war is regarded by and large as a necessary, indispensable tool to effectively counter the allegedly impending threats to freedom and security of “democracies”.8

This is a far cry from the perspective entertained by Gorbacev, Bush and Kohl when they drew up the agreements that ended the cold war and envisaged developments that ruled out any possibility of ever getting back to “hot wars”.

It is high time we wondered whether what happened over the past few years – this leap backwards of history, or “towards history”; this radical departure from the terms and rationale underlying the agreements between Bush senior and Gor-bacev – was really inevitable, and whether it might not have been possible to continue along the road leading to the new international order.

The point is that their plan was to be implemented in a stepwise manner. The waiver by States of their individual, specific interests was expected to take place in accordance with a mutual, balanced pattern by respecting, first and foremost, the assurances given to Gorbacev in the sequential steps that led to the reunification of Germany, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the Gulf War, and the programme launched by George H. Bush at the 1991 Atlantic Summit.

In the light of the above considerations, an impartial observer cannot fail to wonder whether Russia is really attempting to restore her empire or rather to prevent the regions of her former empire from becoming areas of influence of a third power – a repository for other parties’ military installations and accordingly a stepping stone for attacks against Russia.

It should be pointed out that the return of power politics entails that the focus of security planners in the individual countries shifts from the intentions declared openly by international stakeholders to those stakeholders’ potential.

Indeed, it is necessary for them to foresee the capability to react in a worst case assessment scenario rather than in a situation mirroring what is the current politically correct stance.

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