Published in Nacional number 645, 2008-03-24

Autor: Maroje Mihovilović

BACKGROUND BEHIND CROATIA’S INVITATION

Russia and NATO battle for the Balkans

NATO is accepting Croatia into permanent membership above all because it wishes to strengthen its position in the area of the former Yugoslavia in a broad action of its new confrontation with Russia on the wide space stretching from the Adriatic Sea to the Chinese province of Xinjiang. At issue is the new era definition of new spheres of influence and interest between Moscow and Washington, when Moscow is no longer the centre of Communism, but has, thanks to Russian energy wealth, definitely emerged from the crisis of the 1990s. Thanks to its new-found power, it wants to set new borders to its sphere of influence.

In Eastern Europe that border is relatively firmly established. The former Soviet satellites in Central Europe have moved from East to West and become members of the European Union and NATO, as have the Baltic States. Belarus remains the only possible unknown, now a firm Russian ally, but there could be perturbation there.

The situation to the south is quite different. The latest developments surrounding Kosovo, and Serbia's strengthening of ties with Russia in the fields of both politics and energy have provided Russia with an even better opportunity to enter an area the West felt it had covered well with its military and political presence in the years immediately following the war in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, preparing it for possible integration into the Western military and political system over the coming decades. The formal integration of the area had been planned by way of the Adriatic Charter, the closing act of which was to have been the invitation of Croatia, Macedonia and Albania to NATO membership at the NATO Summit in Bucharest.

The NATO Summit in Bucharest from 2 to 4 April will be an exceedingly important one as it will define the alliance's mid-term strategy in the area from the Adriatic to Caspian Seas and further. Bucharest was not picked by chance, because it is the capital of a NATO member country that is the focal point of this future policy. When the United States of America had previously insisted that Bulgaria and Romania be accepted to NATO and the EU as soon as possible, it was said that the reason for it was the fact that these two countries are strategically well positioned to maintain airborne transport lines towards the Middle East, the focal point of the War on Terror, the focal point of the conflict between the USA and Islamic extremism. It is now more and more evident that the USA's interest was to shift the border of NATO as much to the east as possible towards Russia and to further reduce its sphere of influence, especially in the Black Sea area.


The Black Sea basin has become a key area in the defining of new spheres of influence and interest between Russia and the West. Not too long ago, it appeared that the West would succeed in formally tying the two key countries of the area, Georgia and Ukraine, to itself. After political revolutions in both these countries in 2003 and 2004 people oriented to the West came into power as presidents, eager to join the European and Atlantic integration processes. It had been announced previously that these two countries would receive invitations in Bucharest to enter some kind of pre-phase of NATO integration, but it appears by all accounts that that will not be the case, at least not in the formal sense. Over the past few years, Russia has succeeded in exerting significant pressure on these two countries and has, in so doing, rendered their path to European and Atlantic integration processes more difficult. Along with that, Russia has started to exert pressure on some Western countries, warning that Ukrainian and Georgian membership in NATO could disrupt relations in general between Russia and Europe. In the rivalry with the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin has scored a significant success here. In a similar fashion Russia also succeeded in neutralising the possible intentions of some political forces in Moldova to strengthen ties with the West, so that Western overtures towards that country are also currently blocked.

In recent days, some very interesting processes have been ongoing when it comes to the membership of Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. The Interfax new agency reported from Kiev on 18 March that Ukrainian President Viktor Jushchenko would be present at the NATO Summit. Jushchenko announced his attendance at the Summit to the local and international press at a very late phase, as a result of the increasingly bitter dispute within the Ukraine regarding that country's relations with NATO. Two very powerful and opposed blocks have emerged in the national political leadership, one that feels that the Ukraine should not strengthen its ties to NATO, but rather with Russia, and the other – to which President Jushchenko and Prime Minister Julia Timoshenko adhere – that feels that the Ukraine should become a member of NATO as soon as possible, but also of the European Union, because that is where the future of the Ukraine lies.

President Jushchenko and Prime Minister Julia Timoshenko have forged an alliance after the last parliamentary election in Ukraine, and their political parties have formed a ruling coalition, but one that has a strong opposition in parliament. This parliamentary opposition was fiercely opposed to an action spearheaded by the ruling coalition to see NATO offer Ukraine the start of the next phase in the preparation for membership, the Membership Action Plan, at its Bucharest Summit. That would open the doors wide for Ukrainian membership, in the process of which it would certainly be accepted to membership if, on the basis of the plan, it met all of the necessary political and military demands. Jushchenko and Julia Timoshenko had previously sent a letter to NATO General Secretary Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, in which they sought that the Ukraine be offered the Membership Action Plan.

Invitations and assurances came to the Ukrainian leadership from NATO that the Ukraine was welcome to NATO, and it was assumed that it would receive a formal framework for its accession to NATO. But it is evident that these invitations have dropped in frequency recently and that scepticism has begun to grow in Western capitals concerning Ukrainian membership in NATO. The situation with Georgia is virtually the same.

A recent comment by German Chancellor Angela Merkel is indicative of the change in climate in this regard. She opposed a fast track to membership for the Ukraine and Georgia, justifying the position with the fact that there is no public support for NATO membership in both countries. In the Ukraine, more than two thirds of the population is opposed to NATO membership. When it comes to Georgia, there is an emphasis on the fact that Georgia has unresolved disputes with separatist tendencies in some of its regions. French President Nicolas Sarkozy agrees with the German scepticism towards the membership of the Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. The fact that Angela Merkel has expressed a reserved position towards the accession of the Ukraine and Georgia to NATO membership is without a doubt a major victory for Vladimir Putin's diplomacy. Putin would not shrink from speaking openly against it. At a joint press conference held during Jushchenko's visit to Moscow in February Putin warned him: "Accession to NATO will make the Ukraine a country of limited sovereignty. If Ukraine wishes its sovereignty to be limited, so be it."

He had similar words on 8 March when Angela Merkel was in Moscow. He reminded at the occasion that "most Ukrainians do not want their country to join NATO, but their country is nevertheless drawn in, which is undemocratic". He asked that the people of the Ukraine and Georgia decide on the membership of the Ukraine and Georgia to the Western alliance, and not their ruling elite. The further expansion of NATO into this area is not only unnecessary, but also harmful and counter-productive. The West's attempt to replace the United Nations with the NATO pact is dangerous because the potential for conflict will only increase, Putin warned.

According to some diplomatic sources, Putin warned Angela Merkel during their discussion of the possibility that it could significantly disrupt the relations between Russia and the European countries, including Germany, and he also spoke of the possibility that Russia could limit its assistance to the West, very important to date, when it came to combating Islamic terrorism. It appears that the talks in Moscow had a significant influence on Angela Merkel, who in a speech on security issues two days upon her return from Moscow, expressed her opposition to giving the Ukraine and Georgia a Membership Action Plan.

But within NATO, there is a large group of members who feel that the Ukraine and Georgia should be offered the Membership Action Plan in Bucharest. There are ten countries in the group, and along with Canada the other nine are all countries of Central and Eastern Europe who were once under Soviet domination, or within socialist federate states: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. They have submitted a joint document to the NATO leadership seeking that the doors of NATO be opened concretely to the Ukraine and Georgia. According to the German news agency DPA, whose reporter had access to the document, it states that the move would bolster the stability and security of Europe, and would be a logical continuation to the current policy of cooperation with these two former Soviet republics, which have already made some military and political steps when it comes to membership criteria.

The document shows that NATO members have differing positions and criteria when it comes to this sensitive issue, which boils down to much more than just the membership of these two countries in NATO, and that is the relation of western countries towards Russia. The cited smaller NATO member countries from the former European socialist sphere, based on their experience when the USSR was a power, want the alliance to expand into the area bordering Russia, because they believe that NATO will thus be strengthened in this strategically important area, thereby reducing the threat that an empowered Moscow could represent. Germany and France, which are not directly concerned for their security by a new strengthening of Moscow, but are large Russian economic partners, especially Germany in the energy sector, have entirely different priorities, and do not wish to see relations with Russia exacerbated and deteriorated over the issue of Ukrainian and Georgian membership, at a time when pro-Russian forces are exerting pressure on the governments of both countries to stop their efforts aimed at NATO membership. That is why an interesting debate is expected on the matter in Bucharest. Jushchenko will attend, bolstered by the support of the ten NATO member states, to lobby for the Membership Action Plan, because getting an invitation to enter the program would strengthen his political position, both on the international and domestic arenas. Before that Jushchenko will have an opportunity to lobby during US President George W. Bush's official two-day visit to the Ukraine, starting on 31 March, just ahead of the Summit. Perhaps it will be the Bush-Jushchenko meeting that will be decisive. And so the NATO member countries will come to Bucharest facing a new strategic situation that is somewhat less favourable for NATO than what had been previously envisaged. That is the result above all of the fact than an empowered Russia led by a very skilled president has managed to answer NATO move for move when it comes to its expansion, i.e. the expansion of Western influence to the areas directly surrounding Russia. The events surrounding Kosovo can be viewed in this very broad context, and likewise the position of Serbia and its relationship with Russia. The current Serbian government, which has stepped down, once advocated Serbian neutrality, and had thereby indicated that it did not want Serbia to continue the process of integrating with NATO.

Serbia will not then receive an offer in Bucharest to move forward in the process, which will be offered to Montenegro and Bosnia & Herzegovina. But, since the outcome of the political competition in Serbia is unclear, and will only come about after the elections scheduled for 11 May, and since there is an open possibility of a strengthening of Russian influence in Serbia after these elections, NATO wants to strengthen its position in the Serbian neighbourhood. That is why Croatia and Albania will get an invitation to membership in Bucharest, and there are efforts to remove the final obstacles to Macedonian membership, that being the Greece veto on account of its name. Lengthy negotiations mediated by the United States concerning a resolution to the dispute over Macedonia's official name have succeeded in reducing the gap between the positions of the two sides.

Precisely because of the intensification of the crisis surrounding Kosovo, the deepening internal crisis in Serbia and the agile entry of Russia into the area in the spheres of politics and energy by way of Serbia, it is important for NATO to strengthen its position in the area. And that is the key reason why these three countries are wanted in NATO membership – not to send their soldiers to Afghanistan. In light of this redefining of the borders of the spheres of influence and interest between the West and Russia from the Adriatic Sea to Central Asia after the Kosovo declaration of independence, this area has entered an entirely new phase in the resolution of the crisis, in which Serbia is again attempting to destabilise the situation by stirring up new violence and threatening new conflicts, even against UN forces in the northern part of Kosovo, believing even that it could thereby draw Russia into the conflict more directly on the ground. With the accession of Croatia, Albania and possibly Macedonia into the NATO system of collective security, the possibility that the crisis could expand into their territory is significantly reduced, Serbia is further isolated, which in the period up to the elections for Serbian parliament on 11 May, more than ever puts before the Serbian populace the task of giving long and hard consideration to their own future.

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