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Five days that shook world
politics
By M K Bhadrakumar
There is no Cold War ahead. Yet the period
between February 20 and 24 was extraordinary.
Seldom have fault-lines in world politics surfaced
with such clarity.
If the principal
objective of President George Bush's European tour
(February 20-24) was to heal trans-Atlantic rifts
stemming from the great differences over the Iraq
war, it was a success. Europe was willing to let
bygones be bygones. But it became apparent during
Bush's harmonious tour of "Old Europe" that
profound differences remained between the European
vision and the neo-conservative world view that
the Bush administration subscribed to during its
first term.
Fundamental to the differences
is the growing assertion by France and Germany in
advancing the European project. Underlining this
institutional rivalry between the US and "Old
Europe", German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has
called for a "strong European pillar" within a
"strong multilateral system".
Iran, Iraq
and China figure as major differences in the
trans-Atlantic divide. European powers insist on a
constructive engagement of Iran, firmly rejecting
the US neo-conservative agenda ("coalition of the
willing", preemptive strikes, "regime change",
etc). On Iraq, while willing to let the US off the
hook, the five leading European countries refuse
to put their troops on the ground in Iraq. At
best, Europe is willing to launch civilian
training missions in Iraq and to co-host an
international conference on Iraq's reconstruction.
Economic interests in the oil-rich Persian
Gulf region; estimation that the US is simply
incapable of undertaking an Iraq-like invasion of
Iran (for reasons both of lack of financial
resources and imperial overstretch); widely
prevalent antipathy toward the Bush administration
in the European public opinion; expanding Muslim
populations in Europe (specially in France and
Germany); and the sheer diminution of European
dependency on the US for its security ever since
the removal of the Soviet threat in the East - all
these are contributing factors in the European
calculus.
But it is over the question of
China that trans-Atlantic rivalries are poised
close to a flare-up. Central to the dispute is the
European decision to lift an arms embargo against
China in June (imposed in the wake of the
Tiananmen incidents of 1989), despite strident
warnings of grave consequences by Washington.
European countries are keen to claim a slice of
China's military spending - estimated by the
Pentagon to be in the region between US$50 billion
and $70 billion. (The US-Japan joint statement on
collaboration over security in the Far East was
released in Washington on the eve of Bush's visit
to Europe.) US apprehensions regarding the
European move to lift the embargo against China
are to be seen not only in security terms but also
the competitive disadvantage for US firms in the
Chinese market.
Equally so, trans-Atlantic
economic rivalries could erupt over China. Apart
from the business interests in the Chinese market
(Airbus versus Boeing aircraft, etc), the fact is
China is subsidizing the US budget deficit by
holding US government bonds. With the steady
weakening of the US dollar, the euro could become
attractive to China as an alternative reserve
currency. Many countries are likely moving in this
direction - Russia, Indonesia, Bahrain, South
Korea, etc. Admittedly, this will be an
incremental process stretched over time. But
getting China out of its embrace of the US dollar
in favor of the euro is a high-stakes game that
could cut into America's flesh. There could be
blood in the water.
In other words,
similar to the US-China-USSR equations of the Cold
War era (when any two pillars of the triangle
could together trump the third - the logic of the
Nixon-Kissinger initiative toward China in 1972),
a three-way equation involving the US, the
European powers and China could be in the making -
with far-reaching consequences for the US global
domination of the 21st century.
Thus when
Bush met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in
Bratislava last Thursday at the end of his
European tour, both Washington and Moscow were
keen to work on a balancing of mutual interests.
The Bratislava summit made it clear that anyone
who thought there was going to be a "cold war"
around the corner was simply barking up the wrong
tree. The summit was a triumph of the
"conservative realists" in the US foreign-policy
establishment vis-a-vis the neo-conservatives and
the liberals. (Henry Kissinger would seem to have
contributed to preparing the ground for
Bratislava!)
The US has been making
optimal use of the "democracy" card in recent
weeks to keep Russia-Europe relations off balance
(and to pressure Moscow), but in the event, at
Bratislava, Bush drew Putin into the matrix of a
cooperative, mutually beneficial relationship for
the coming four-year period. Moscow had worried
that a bullish second-term Bush administration
might ignore Russia's global standing and trample
on its national interests, including in the former
Soviet republics.
Washington's interest in
present-day Russia is focused on three specific
areas: nuclear proliferation, the "war on terror",
and energy cooperation. In actual substance,
Russia's cooperation with the US oil companies
lies at the core of this cooperation.
The
US would like to draw Russia away from Europe (and
China) toward the US energy market. Russia is not
only holding vast reserves of energy but is also
flush with oil-revenue cash to invest. The Russian
economy is in better shape than ever before: the
investment climate is improving; it is keen to
repay debts ahead of schedule; and, with high oil
prices, things could get still better for Russia's
economy. Thus, whereas Russia's planned expansion
into the US energy market was originally meant to
take place by 2010 or so, the Bratislava summit
brought the date forward to 2008 (running
concurrently with Bush's term in office).
Ahead of the Bratislava summit, it was
announced in Moscow on February 12 (when Kissinger
was in town) that Gazprom was "determined" to
choose its US partners within the next two to
three months on a project to export liquefied
natural gas (LNG) to the US market.
Among
Gazprom's tentative partners are ExxonMobil,
ConocoPhilips and ChevronTexaco. It plans to
collaborate with these US partners for developing
its most promising gas fields of all, the Stockman
gas condensate deposits in the Barents Sea center
that is evaluated at holding 3.2 trillion cubic
meters of gas plus 32 billion tons of gas
condensate. Gazprom has estimated that even the
initial stage of the Stockman project for gas
extraction, liquefying and shipment to the US
market can be valued at $10 billion. According to
Gazprom officials, "The US administration is
willing to see Russia in the American market and
we are eager to come to the American market and
take part in gas distribution and supply to the
end user. We are making it a point to engage in
the entire process, deposit development,
liquefied-gas production, transport and work in
the US market."
Washington has closed the
Yukos file. Bush did not even refer to Yukos at
Bratislava - a festering wound with multiple scabs
that was meant to be at the very heart of Putin's
authoritarian tendencies. Again, according to
Russia's Novosti agency, quoting a "disclosure" by
an unnamed "high-ranking US administration
spokesperson", Bush and Putin simply "merged their
positions" over Iran.
In briefings, US
National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley went out
of his way to play down the highly excitable issue
of "democracy" in Russia. He drew attention to the
"very constructive relationship with Russia", a
"complex relationship" with "common areas of
endeavor" and "some important areas of
collaboration". As for democracy, Hadley patiently
explained what Bush really had in mind: "We
understand that democracy will not look the same
in all countries, that it will reflect - that it
cannot be imposed, it has to be found and fought
for, and developed internally, and it will reflect
culture and history. And I think it is important
to say that for all the discussion there has been
about Russian democracy, this is not the Soviet
Union you're seeing. That is history. This is
Russia."
Hadley was harking back to a time
much before the Cold War - to a time before the
Bolsheviks spoiled it all by needlessly injecting
ideology into human endeavors.
M K
Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the
Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years,
with postings including India's ambassador to
Uzbekistan (1995-98) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd.
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