Ukraine and the new defence architecture in Europe

The EU game plan for Ukraine must match Russia´s will to cooperate. That has to be made very clear to the Kremlin. If Russia´s ambition goes beyond reasonable expectations and leads to the annexation of Crimea and other parts of Ukraine, the EU has to move beyond economic and budgetary assistance and have a comprehensive approach. It is true that the EU defence policy is too short. But its member states could help Ukraine to reach a stronger partnership with the existing defence mechanism that the West has in place.

  

That is the message that needs to be put across to the Kremlin. If things on their side go too far then they can expect Ukraine to become much more integrated in the Western defence architecture. In other words, if Russia changes the balance of power in Eastern Europe, then the West will have to find a new equilibrium that would certainly include the new Ukraine. 

Moving away from Russia may gain speed

President Putin believes he will be in a stronger position after the Crimean referendum on Sunday. He knows that the result will be favourable to those who advocate the integration of the Peninsula in the Russian Federation. This is not a very difficult guess as many of those who oppose it will be intimidated and will stay away of the polling stations. But he is wrong to believe this will strength his hand. This will give additional weight to all those in the West that keep saying we shouldn´t cooperate and trust the current Kremlin leadership. And these people will push for less dependency of Russia´s natural resources and markets. For less economic links as well. They will stress that alternatives do exist. And that will be a strong trend in the next few years.

  

Calm down on Ukraine, please!

The rhetoric on Ukraine remains too passionate. It is time to de-escalate the war of words as well. At the end of the day, the EU and Russia should unite to save the country from violent conflict. They should also co-sponsor a joint economic recovery programme that would bring the Ukrainian economy back to its feet. That should be the aim of the diplomatic initiatives in the next few days. 

Clinton´s Hitler

Madness is a key ingredient in the making of a political leader. The crazier one is the greater are the chances of getting in charge. We tend to let mad people go ahead with their folly and they end up in positions of power.

Today´s candidates to top the crazies and dreamers lists look like stranger idiots from the cold. These are dangerous times.

This is also a very regrettable trend.

Mrs Clinton felt she should joint this club. And to be sure she would be accepted in the inner circle, she came to the fore and compared Hitler with the Russian leader. A very unfortunate comparison. But it can certainly bring a good handful of votes. And in politics that´s much more important than being reasonable and moderate. 

Back and promoting negotiated solutions to shared crises

Back from a long voyage, I recall that one of the last posts I wrote before travelling has been about Russia and NATO. That post remains so current!

But I should add that we, on our side of the world, have a biased view of Russia as well. The Russians might believe in confrontation. But we have also shown we share the same believe. We might say that everybody wins if we cooperate and dialogue. However, we love to impose sanctions on others and still think that the ultimatum is a fine diplomatic instrument. Or the best diplomatic tool is to be able to understand the strategic interests of the adversary and initiate a dialogue taking such interests as the starting point for a negotiated solution.

Vacation notice

THIS BLOG WILL BE OFF DURING FEBRUARY.

IT WILL RESUME PUBLICATION ON 3 MARCH.

PLEASE COME BACK THEN:

Russia and NATO

Russia is still obsessed with NATO. The Russian leaders cannot understand that today´s NATO is very different from the Cold War organisation. In result, they still believe that NATO is a race against Russian interests. That´s the way they look at events in Ukraine, for instance. They see the West´s hand everywhere and always against Moscow´s strategic security interests.

From our side, we have the responsibility to help the Russians to overcome such a vision of today’s world. The dialogue and the partnership with Russia needs to be re-thought very carefully and with great attention to the concerns that feed the other side´s fears. 

Germany and the peacekeeping operations

Joachim Glauck, the German President, in his speech at the opening of the Munich Security Conference, expressed the view that his country should be more involved in multinational peacekeeping operations. 

Such position is most welcome.

Germany has been the noticeable absent in many of the key military deployments authorised by the UN. Besides Afghanistan and Kosovo, the Berlin leadership, particularly Angela Merkel, says automatically no to any suggestion their armed forces should be part and parcel of EU and UN operations. They have said no to Mali, to Central African Republic, just to mention recent examples. That´s not what one should expect of a key country like Germany. Being economically strong gives them the responsibility to be more engaged in world affairs.

Hollande has cut short the socialist ambitions

The West European socialists, on the centre-left, the social-democrat kind of socialists, feel these days very betrayed by François Hollande. Based on his press conference of 14 January, they think he has changed course and is basically courting the employers. For them, Hollande is now more interested in making it easier for the capitalists to invest than in matters such as employment, public investment, and protecting the social rights of the workers.

There is disappointment in the air, within the socialist circles.

And also the fear that they will lose quite a number of seats in the May European Parliament elections.

The fact of the matter is that the European socialist movement has lost the initiative. It has not be able to come up with a coherent and appealing body of ideas that could be seen as a credible alternative to the Right.

Why is it?

Munich is far away from Africa

The 2014 Munich Security Conference (MSC) will open this Friday. With time, the MSC has become an important and very high profile annual event. If you are somebody in the area of international security, you better be there.

This year´s agenda has somehow surprised me. There is no session on Africa, not even on the Sahel. Cyber issues, energy, intelligence, the Middle East, in particular Syria, Central and Eastern Europe, with a special session on Kosovo, all that is on the table, during the three-day meeting. But Africa? Out of order…

How can we explain this omission?