Toward a Separate Black Sea Command

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Toward a Separate Black Sea Command

• Hall Gardner
• Professor, International and Comparative Politics
  Department
• American University of Paris
• Cicero Foundation
• October 26, 2008

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Hall Gardner Ashgate 2007
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Hall GardnerPalgrave 2007
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Toward US-EU-Russian Strategic Dialogue

• The wider Black Sea region has been called the
  Bermuda Triangle of Western strategic studies
• A region lost between European, Eurasian, and
  Middle Eastern security spaces, few had really
  studied it from a strategic perspective prior to,
  or immediately after, Soviet collapse
• Certainly it was not studied by the US and NATO
  when the NATO enlargement debate began in the
  1990s.

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BSEC

• Despite lack of American attention to the region,
  Turkey and other Black Sea riparian states
  understood the importance of the area.
• One of the more visionary accords that followed
  the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was
  consequently the formation of the Black Sea
  Economic Cooperation (BSEC) on 25 June 1992 in
  Istanbul.

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BSEC

• The Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) was
  established in Istanbul by eleven countries
  Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia,
  Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Turkey and
  Ukraine.
• In May 1999, it became the Organization of Black
  Sea Economic Cooperation and established its
  Headquarters in Istanbul in March 2004. Serbia
  and Montenegro then joined in April 2004. In
  2005, the United States applied for, and was
  granted, observer status at BSEC. 2005, the
  United States applied for, and was granted,
  observer status at BSEC.

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BSEC

• Neighboring non-littoral countries like Albania,
  Greece, Serbia, Montenegro in the Balkans, and
  Azerbaijan and Georgia in the Caucasus, plus
  Moldova, along the Dneister, are full members.
• The major European countries and the USA possess
  only observers status in the BSEC.
• Initially only Greece was simultaneously a member
  of NATO, the EU and the BSEC, but was then joined
  by Romania and Bulgaria, thus widening NATO and
  EU influence.

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BSEC

• The BSEC has developed an extensive institutional
  framework of cooperation that covers all levels
  of governance (inter-governmental, parliamentary,
  and financial).
• It has formulated a number of binding agreements
  and common action plans on key issues of regional
  cooperation (some 33 by 2008).
• It has sought out trade and economic cooperation
  (including cross-border activities, trade
  facilitation and the creation of favorable
  conditions for investment). A number of these
  have been earmarked as areas of potential linkage
  with EU policies.

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BSEC

• The purpose of the BSEC is to ensure peace,
  stability and prosperity and good-neighborly
  relations in the Black Sea region.
• Yet the BSEC needs further guidance in order to
  continue along the path of cooperative security
  and to implement a full-fledged multilateral
  regional security community so as to ensure the
  peace, stability and prosperity and
  good-neighborly relations in the region, if not
  in the world, for the very long term.

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Importance of BSEC region

• Key commercial rivers (the Danube, Dniester, and
  Dnieper)
• Controls the trans-Ukrainian oil and gas
  pipelines running to the energy markets in the
  north of Europe.
• Russian energy export facilities lie near
  Novorossiysk in Krasnodar Krai hemmed between
  the Ukrainian Crimea and Georgia.
• Blue Stream natural gas pipeline links Russia and
  Turkey under Black Sea.
• The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline links to
  the Mediterranean and provides an alternative to
  Russian-backed routes (but still transits
  Turkey).

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Geopolitical Shift

• Moscow and the Warsaw Pact no longer dominate
  the Black Sea region in face-to-face
  confrontation with NATO member Turkey.
• Moscow now shares the Black Sea littoral with the
  independent states, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania,
  Georgia and Ukraine. (In addition, Abkhazian
  independence has now been backed by Russia).
• Moscow controls only a small part of the
  northeastern shores of the Black Seaplus naval
  facilities at Sebastopol that have been leased
  from Ukraine in the Crimea until 2017.

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Question of Turkey

• Turkey has been regarded as a secondary energy
  transit route to the EU, after Russia
• It has been accused of seeking to use energy as a
  lever to pressure EU policy due to its
  geostrategic position as a recipient of oil and
  gas from Azerbaijan, Iran (and the Caspian Sea)
  as well as Russia (if not Iraq).
• Russia is Turkeys major trading partner and
  provider of two thirds of its natural gas.

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Turkish Options

• Turkey has been blocked from obtaining energy
  imports from Iran due to American opposition,
  thus increasing Turkeys (and Europes)
  dependence upon Russia.
• Turkeys economy was harmed by the the first
  Persian Gulf war in 1990 and by years of embargo
  on Iraq even five years after the 2003 US
  military intervention in Iraq, high quality Iraqi
  crude has not yet reached its full market
  potential and transported through Turkey

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Russo-Turkish Combo?

• In March 2006, NATO member Turkey, along with
  Russia, openly opposed the extension of NATOs
  naval Operation Active Endeavor (OAE) from the
  Mediterranean into the Black Sea.
• The OAE had been supported by both Bulgaria and
  Romania, as well as by Ukraine and Georgia. These
  Black Sea littoral states tend to regard Russian
  and Turkish efforts to check NATO as a means to
  establish a Russo-Turkish energy  condominium 
  over the BSEC pact and to prevent the US/NATO
  from interfering more directly in their regional
  affairs.

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Russo-Turkish Combo?

• Ankara has argued that the OAE is unnecessary as
  it duplicates the already-existing Black Sea
  Naval Force of all six Black Sea riparian states.
  The Black Sea Border Coordination and Information
  Center (BBCIC) additionally possesses NATO
  connections.
• Ankara argues that the OAE violates the 1936
  Montreux convention that permits Turkey to
  control the straits.
• Which has priority the Euro-Atlantic alliance or
  Russia-Turkey?

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Montreaux Convention?

• The OAE issue thus raised the question as to
  whether the United States and EU need to demand a
  review of the Montreux Convention. (NATO has
  insisted on sending ships in the region on a
  rotating basis)
• Or, by contrast, should the United States
  encourage Turkey and Russia to take the lead in
  cooperation with US/NATO and the EU--- rather
  than expanding OAE into the Black Sea?
• Russia has planned to counter US/ NATO naval
  presence in the Black Sea with military manuevers
  with Venezuela in Caribbean in November 2008!

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Russian Oil Exports

• Russias oil export facilities near Novorossiysk
  have been crucial for its economic recovery,
  largely as a result of burgeoning energy prices
  from 2003-mid-2008. (After the October 2008
  financial crash, however, the outlook for
  continuing high energy prices looks dubious for
  the near future.)
• The Georgian port of Supsa lies just 12 miles
  from a buffer zone between Georgia and Abkhazia,
  whose independence has been backed by Moscow
  since August 2008. 

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Economic Importance

• The projection that Europe could be importing
  some 90 percent of its oil, 60 of its gas and
  66 of its coal from sources beyond Europe itself
  by 2030 (assuming Europe cannot soon develop
  viable alternatives to oil, gas and coal)
  indicates the importance of the region
• This means Europe needs to diversify to cut costs
  and in order to obtain secure access to energy
  supplies

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Limited Diversification Options

• Agreements of Georgia with Azerbaijan and of
  Armenia with Iran for gas imports, bypassing
  Gazprom, are not yet close to obtaining
  diversity, let alone independence from Russian
  supplies
• The Nabucco pipeline is dependent upon Turkmen
  and Iranian gas but Gazprom is trying to counter
  Nabucco with a Russian Hungarian project of
  re-exporting gas, supplied to Turkey through the
  Blue Stream via the territories of Bulgaria and
  Romania to Hungary, and then to Western Europe.

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Limited Diversification

• In addition, the 2007 South Stream project is to
  start from Russias Black Sea coast at
  Beregovaya near Novorossiysk (within Krasnodar
  Krai), the same starting point as that of the
  Blue Stream pipeline to Turkey. South Stream
  would run to Bulgaria, and then to Italy.
• Neither the BTC, nor its much heralded
  natural-gas partner, Nabucco, can ever hope to
  make a serious dent in Europe's thirst for
  energy. That is why, well before the current
  crisis, major investors and governments in the
  region have been quietly switching their support
  from Nabucco to Russia's own pipeline expansion
  project - Southstream.

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Efforts to Monopolize Energy Supplies

• Russia seeks to maximize the range of its export
  routes under full or partial Russian control.
  Adding to the existing pipelines -- Beltransgaz
  and Yamal through Belarus and Poland and the
  Ukrainian transit pipelines westward and
  southward -- Russia is building the Baltic seabed
  pipeline to Germany planning to extend its Blue
  Stream pipeline from Turkey farther afield and
  now targeting southern and central Europe through
  the South Stream pipeline. By putting a
  multiplicity of options on the table, Russia can
  pressure countries it regards as recalcitrant
  into transportation deals favorable to Moscow

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Diversifying Energy

• Diversifying energy resources and technologies
  needs to be taken no matter who is the supplier.
• The development of alternative energy resource
  supplies and energy saving technologies can, in
  turn, help moderate the Russian (and secondarily
  Turkish) strategic-energy stranglehold on a
  number of states, in addition to limiting US and
  European dependence upon energy suppliers in the
  Persian Gulf and Caspian sea, among other
  suppliers.
• Need an International Agency for the Development
  of Alternative Energy!

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Map
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Map
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Map
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Three Approaches to Black Sea Security

• The first is the full integrationist approach
  in which the Black Sea region is to be fully
  integrated into the Euro-Atlantic community.
• The second is NATO-EU self-limitation in which
  NATO and the EU enlarge membership to key states
  in the region, but attempt to mollify Russian
  security concerns by working with the
  NATO-Russian Council.

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A Third Approach

• The third is the cooperative security approach.
• The US/NATO, the EU, and Russia need to actively
  work together to forge a regional security
  community involving the formation a newly
  improvised and separate US/NATO-EU-Russian Black
  Sea Command structure
• This Black Sea Command can be created following
  the formulation of a new Euro-atlantic and
  Eurasian Security Treaty.

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A Critique of the Full Integration Approach

• Contrary to Asmus and Jackson, it does not appear
  that political-military stability can be achieved
  by defending our own (NATOs) integrationist
  logic.
• An alternative option Why cannot this wider
  region be part of a separate regional command
  structure under overlapping US, EU and Russian
  security guarantees?
• As opposed to full integration, the goal should
  be to bring Russia and other states into an
  interlocking, if not a confederal, relationship
  that permits a relative autonomy.
•  

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A Critique of the NATO-EU Self Limitation
Approach

• Membership of Romania and Bulgaria in NATO and
  the EU threaten to twist the interests of these
  states away from the Black Sea region and back
  toward US and European geo-strategic and
  political interests.
• Problems with the European Neighborhood Program
  Bulgaria, Romania and EU Enlargement fatigue?
• Russia is strongly signaling that it no longer
  accepts the so-called NATO self-limitationapproa
  ch after the Georgia-Russia conflict on August
  7-8, 2008

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Cooperative Security

• Through a fully empowered Black Sea Command, the
  US, the European Union and Russia can begin to
  engage the NATO-Russian Council, re-invigorated
  with strong EU input, the Euro-Atlantic
  Partnership Council/ Partnership for Peace (PFP)
  Working Group comprised of littoral states, and
  other regimes/ organizations in the effort to
  implement a full-fledged regional security
  community for the entire BSEC backed by US/NATO,
  Russia and EU security guarantees under a UN or
  OSCE mandate.

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Proposals

• A separate Black Sea Command can also help
  bolster US-Turkish relations and mediate a feared
  Russian- Turkish condominium over energy
  supplies.
• Such an approach would seek to accommodate
  American, European and Russian geo-strategic and
  political economic interests through use of
  relevant EU programs, coupled with EU cooperation
  with Turkey, while assisting Black Sea political
  cooperation and socio-economic development
• It would also seek investment from Japan and
  China, among other states and energy firms.

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A Bold Approach

• Such a bold approach would consequently help
  reinvigorate the largely moribund US/NATO-Russian
  relationship, augment the role of the European
  Union, strengthen the Euro-Atlantic Partnership
  Council and Partnership for Peace.
• It would also seek to boost deteriorating
  US-Turkish relations, in an area of important
  mutual interest that links Russia, the Caspian
  Sea, the so-called Greater Middle East and
  Europe.

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A bold approach in brief

• Such a bold approach would require the
  establishment of a US-European Transatlantic
  Security Council accompanied by the formulation
  of a separate US-EU-Russian Black Sea Command
  structure as an integral aspect of a more
  encompassing Euroatlantic and Eurasian Security
  Treaty--- in critical compromise with Russian
  proposals for a pan-European security pact
  ultimately leading to a new European Union and
  Community of Associated States!!!

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Shatterbelt

• The fact that the BSEC straddles two continents
  with differing cultures, religions and
  civilizations puts it in a shatterbelt of
  actually and potentially conflicting states,
  ethnic groups and geo-economic interests.
• These shatterbelt conflicts tend to crisscross
  differing  civilizations  in very different
  alliancescontrary to Huntingtons views. In
  Georgia alone, Abhazians, S. Ossetians and
  Russians are thus far aligned--- even if not part
  of the same  civilization  ---while Russia and
  Georgia are both of (conflicting) Orthodox
  Christian background!

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Potential for Wider Conflicts

• The current Russia-Georgia crisis stems, in part,
  from an uncoordinated NATO-European Union
   double enlargement  that has not necessarily
  taken into consideration legitimate Russian
  political, economic and security concerns and
  has hence risked a Russian backlash
• The August 2008 Georgia - Russia conflict has
  ramifications for the Caucasus, for the Black
  Sea, for energy routes, for the Crimea and
  Ukraine, and for Europe itself, particularly for
  those states bordering Russia, as well as for the
  global war on terrorism.

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Potential for Wider Conflicts

• The borders of states along the Black Sea are to
  a large extent an artificial product of the
  Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of World War II or else
  the consequence of historical Ottoman and Russian
  wars, or Russian conquest of the Caucasus.
• It is the region through which passes illegal
  immigrants, human traffickers, narcotics, and
  weapons, as well as various terrorist groups.

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Potential for Wider Conflicts

• Russian-Ukrainian conflict over Sea of Azov
  (adjacent to Krasnodar Krai) in 2003
• Russian-Ukrainian claims to the Crimea Ukraine
  wants Russia to withdraw from its naval port at
  Sebastopol which Russia has leased until 2017.
  Russian pan-nationalists and Eurasianists
  continue to claim the Crimea, stating that
  Khrushchev gave it away illegally
• Only other ports for the Russian fleet are in
  shallow waters near Novorossiysk or the newly
  independent Abkhazia

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Potential for Wider Conflicts

• Georgia Russia conflict affects US-EU-Russian
  policy toward the nuclear programs of Iran and
  North Korea
• Georgia - Russia conflict also affects
  NATO-Russian policy toward Afghanistan, in which
  the Russians have permitted NATO to supply
  Afghanistan through Russian transit routes in
  implementing the NATO-Russia Action Plan on
  Terrorism.
• The conflict has caused political disputes
  within the major international regimes the UN,
  NATO and NATO-Russia Council, the European Union,
  the OSCE, the World Trade Organization, the G-8,
  as well as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
  (SCO) and the Collective Security Treaty
  Organization (CSTO).

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Wider Conflicts

• As Russia has begun to rebound politically and
  economically circa 2003, Russian leaders have
  begun to denounce
• NATO enlargement, arms sales and military
  infrastructure in eastern Europe
• U.S. National Missile Defense (NMD)
• The 1990 Conventional Force in Europe (CFE)
  treaty (adapted in 1999). On July 14, 2007,
  Russia stated that it would suspend its
  participation in the CFE until NATO ratified the
  treaty.
• Moscow has been questioning the 1987 INF Treaty

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Wider conflicts

• Russia initially backed Serbian policy toward
  Kosovo but then Kosova independence provided
  Moscow with pretext to maintain Russian positions
  in the Transdniester, Abkhazia, South Ossetia,
  and Nagorno-Karabakh regions.
• Moscow is consequently using military threats to
  boost its influence in the  frozen  conflicts
  and to block NATO membership for Ukraine and
  Georgia.
• In leaving the CFE, Russia has threatened to
  build up conventional forces in Caucasian
  regions, in its Western areas and possibly place
  IRBMs in Kaliningrad

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From Shatterbelt to Shelterbelt

• The future dilemma is to how to transform the
  entire Black Sea regional shatterbelt (or
  conflict zone) into a shelterbelt (or stable
  regional security community)
• And how to prevent the region from being divided
  into destabilizing antagonistic major and
  regional power spheres of influence and
  security.
• Russian President Medvedevs June and October
  2008 proposals for a new  pan-European security
  pact  need to be critically exploredNot much
  time left to resolve this crisisand others
  perhaps a 3 to 4 year window of opportunity

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Frozen Conflicts

• There will evidently be no full-fledged Black Sea
  regional cooperation without an concerted effort
  to resolve the following
• Georgia- Russia conflict on 7-8 August 2008 and
  continuing disputes over Russias formal
  recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia
• Russian support for Transnister secession against
  Moldova
• Conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh in which Russia
  and Iran support Armenia vs Azerbaijan
• Plus the question of the Russian fleet at
  Sebastopol

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Russian Policy Backfiring?

• Russian recognition of S. Ossetia and Abhazia (as
  response to Kosovar independence) has tended to
  alienate Russia's own allies (China and Shanghai
  Cooperation Organization as well as the
  Collective Security Treaty Organization)
• Russian recognition of national independence
  movements also provides ideological justification
  for those national and ethnic groups that have
  historically opposed Russian imperialism and that
  might ultimately seek "independence" from Russia
  itself.

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Russian Policy Backfiring?

• Russia recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia
  could thus backfire Russia is also afflicted by
  secessionist movements which were largely managed
  by Yeltsin through autonomy accords (except
  Chechnya) but which have largely been placed
  under central governmental control when Mr. Putin
  abolished the direct election of governors in
  2004 in 89 regions
• This situation makes the central govt directly
  responsible for policy errors Russia risks
  further isolating itself from the world community
  and alienating a number of its own indigenous
  communities.

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Hope for Settlement

• Situation in Georgia is similar to Turkish
  recognition of northern Cyprus as few countries
  back Russias decision to recognize South Ossetia
  and Abhazia, just as few countries backed
  Turkeys decision to recognize northern Cyprus
  yet Greek and Turkish Cypriots are finally
  talking!
• There may still be room to compromise on what is
  meant by independence and Georgian territorial
  integrity-- by redefining the terms.

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Hope for Settlement

• Russia might not want to support and subsidize
  these impoverished regions indefinitely
  (particularly S. Ossetia)
• And these regions might not want a permanent
  Russian military presence.
• Abkhazia and South Ossetia could still reach for
  important security accords and trading
  arrangements with both Russia and Georgia that
  permit close cooperation. (The same could be true
  for Kosova and Serbia.)

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Hope for a Settlement

• The EU could extend its European Neighborhood
  Policy to the secessionist republics of Abkhazia
  and S. Ossetia to reduce their dependence upon
  Moscow
• Close political and economic cooperation between
  Russia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Georgia could
  result in a new definition of "independence" and
  in a form of "autonomy" or "confederation".
• Georgia can then, in turn, claim that its
   territorial integrity  remains intact,
  although not in the traditional sense of the
  concept.

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Hope for Settlement

• By redefining the concept of "independence," it
  may be possible for Russia to find a face saving
  way out of the crisis that will ultimately permit
  the deployment of international (not NATO)
  peacekeepers either along side Russian forces or
  in replacing those forces.
• Such an agreement -- involving mutual and
  overlapping security accords, backed by the UN
  Security Council or OSCE--- may also make it
  possible for Russia, Georgia, South Ossetia and
  Abkhazia to live side by side in peace and mutual
  prosperity, while protecting the rights of
  minority communities.

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Hope for a Settlement

• One simply cannot offer Ukraine a MAP or
  membership in NATO (or in the European Union)
  until the Russians and Ukrainians settle their
  own disputes over boundariesand over Russian
  irredentist claims to Crimea, in particular.
• Ukrainian elites and populations are divided over
  NATO question
• Germany, in particular, has thus far been opposed
  to alienating Russia by bringing Ukraine and
  Georgia into NATO
• Bringing Georgia into NATO does not resolve the
  complex security issues facing the Caucasus
  region as a whole. A regional approach needs to
  be taken.

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Hope for a Settlement

• With the European Union mediating, the US/NATO
  and the EU could work to create a Black Sea
  "security community" under a separate regional
  command structure that would include Russia,
  Turkey, Ukraine, Georgia, Bulgaria and Romania,
  under general UN or OSCE auspices.
• Joint naval and military cooperation to
  establish confidence
• Deployment of international forces and police for
  peacekeeping and  nation building  tasks under
  UN or OSCE authority. These forces could be
  trained by NATOs Partnership for Peace and the
  EU.

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Proposals

• A US-EU-Russian partnership or entente is crucial
  to establishing regional security, and in
  bringing all BSEC states into a more concerted
  relationship in the creation of a separate Black
  Sea Command structure.
• A US-EU-Russian Black Sea Command could support
  Turkish initiatives, such as the Black Sea Naval
  Task Force (BlackSeaFor), and Black Sea Harmony
  as a regional grouping involving the Black Sea
  littoral states.

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Proposals

• This proposed Black Sea Command needs to engage
  with the BSEC in airspace reconnaissance, border
  controls and coastal security in the effort to
  check drug smuggling, organized crime, human
  trafficking, as well as terrorist activities.
• The US, Russia and the EU will need to work with
  Kazakhstan and regional groupings such as the
  Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the
  "Caucasus Stability and Co-operation Platform"
  proposed by Ankara in August 2008 where possible.
  

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Proposals

• The US and NATO must accordingly try to tackle
  these important issues at the highest levels in
  direct cooperation with the EU and Russia
• NATO, having appeared to promise full membership
  for Georgia particularly, but also for Ukraine,
  needs to find a new form of membership for these
  countries through the formulation of a more
  encompassing Euroatlantic and Eurasian Security
  Treaty in compromise with Russian proposals for a
  pan-European security pact

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Proposals

• In addition to engaging in the European
  Neighborhood Policy (ENP), the EU itself needs to
  reach out to Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and Turkey
  in order to coordinate political, social,
  economic, and security policies throughout the
  wider Black Sea region.
• France/EU has expressed its support for Turkish
  proposals for a "Caucasus Stability and
  Co-operation Platform initially involving
  Turkey, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
• Nothing should prevent other concerned states,
  including the US, from supporting this
  initiative.

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Proposals

• The EU is already the major donor of development
  assistance to Ukraine. But such aid should be
  offered in such a way so as to not strengthen
  already deep political-cultural- ethnic divisions
  within the country.
• European aid and assistance for Ukraine should
  not be used (even inadvertently) in such a way so
  as to exclude Russia, but to include her, and to
  actually help build EU-Russian confidence.
• In other words, the EU needs to balance its
  development assistance between the essentially
  pro-European western regions and the generally
  pro-Russian eastern regions of Ukraine.

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Proposals

• Both US/NATO and the EU need to be as flexible as
  possible in dealing with their "new" neighbours.
• Both US/NATO and the EU will accordingly need to
  re-define their approaches to the new Europe by
  means of changing membership categories so as to
  better incorporate the differing legitimate
  interests of Russia, as well as those of Ukraine,
  Georgia and other states (not to overlook regions
  with "separatist" demands).

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Proposals

• In the short term, Ukraine (and Georgia) should
  remain "neutral" and not a member of either NATO
  or the European Union.
• In the longer term, however, just as Greece and
  Turkey came into NATO together, it is possible
  that both the Russia and Ukraine could come into
  NATO and the EU together, but not as "full"
  members of either regimebut as very close
  associate members.
• This would represent the development of a
  confederal relationship or asymmetrical
  federalism--- in the formation of a new European
  Union and Community of Associated States.

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Proposals

• Turkey could accordingly be member of the
  proposed Mediterranean Union and the "Caucasus
  Stability and Co-operation Platform" as well as
  an associate member of the EU, for example.
• Although approaches should be different, one
  option is to grant special, but limited, voting
  advantages to Russia, Ukraine and Turkey, as
  associate members of the European Union, once
  again in the process of forming a new European
  Union and Community of Associated States.

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Proposals

• The EU, having appeared to promise membership to
  every European country (including Turkey) thus
  needs to find some new associated membership
  formula that permits the BSEC some form of
  participation in EU decision making as a whole.
• Likewise, the US also needs to find new
  membership formulas that bring states into
  associated status with NATO through separate
  regional command structures.

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Proposals

• As the EU has been mediating between Russia and
  Georgia, the EU additionally needs a permament
  role in the NATO-Russian relationship--- by means
  of establishing a new US-European Union
  Transatlantic Security Council, which would seek
  to better coordinate political, defense, and
  economic issues as well as security concerns

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The Goal

• The goal would be to implement a separate Black
  Sea Command structure as an integral aspect of a
  new Euroatlantic and Eurasian Security Treaty (in
  critical compromise with Russian proposals for a
  pan-European security pact)
• Such an accord would envision Russia, Ukraine and
  Turkey as associate members of a new European
  Union and Community of Associated States!!!
• We also need an International Agency for the
  Development of Alternative Energy!

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Dangers Ahead

• US is concentrating its attention and resources
  on the global war on terror with its focus
  primarily on Iraq, Afghanistan and increasingly
  Pakistan, not to overlook Iran
• EU is suffering from enlargement fatigue. There
  is a real possibility that the US and EU will
  fail to invest enough attention and resources in
  the Black Sea area.
• This would permit both Russia and Turkey to
  install a regional energy condominium, but one
  that will not be stable or long lasting due to
  political economic tensions between the two
  countries.

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Dangers Ahead

• In a period of global financial crisis, US-EU
  issues of  burden  and  responsibilty
  sharing  versus  power sharing  will
  increasingly come to the forefront
• US policy will stall until elections take place
  and as the new leadership takes time to re-assess
  Bush administration foreign policy. At present,
  neither McCain nor Obama can be seen as weak
  versus Russia.
• Failure to bring Russia into greater cooperation
  with US/NATO and the EU will only exacerbate the
  real risks of a further destabilization of the
  Black Sea regionwith the real dangers of a
  Crimean War scenario lurking in the background.

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Surmounting the Dangers

• Georgia Russia conflict has raised fears of many
  European states that border Russia NATO, having
  moved from collective security to peacemaking and
  peacekeeping, plus global counter-terrorism,
  might need to return to its original task of
   collective security  ---
• But that is only if the present tensions with
  Russia cannot be resolved through closer
  US-NATO-EU policy coordination in the
  formulation of a new Euroatlantic and Eurasian
  Security Treaty

65
Surmounting the Dangers

• This proposed Euroatlantic and Eurasian Security
  Treaty- in critical compromise with Russian
  proposals for a pan-European Security pact- will
  need to be counterbalanced by a closer
  transatlantic cooperation through the formation
  of a US-European Union Transatlantic Security
  Council
• Closer US, EU and Russian cooperation could then
  lead to the establishment of a new European Union
  and Community of Associated States!!!

66
Averting Global War

• The goal must be to come together and take the
  steadfast and prudent steps now political,
  economic and, when appropriate, military to
  shape the international environment and choices
  of other powers Our policies and responses must
  show a mixture of resolve and restraint To be
  firm, but not fall into a pattern of rhetoric or
  actions that create self-fulfilling prophecies
  We must try to prevent situations where we have
  only two bleak choices confrontation or
  capitulation, 1914 or 1938. --- Robert M. Gates
  (Blenheim Palace, Sept. 19, 2008)

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Averting Global War Palgrave 2007