NATO Expansion and US Strategy in Asia

Surmounting the Global Crisis

H. Gardner

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137367372
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Relations internationales

Surmounting the Global Crisis critiques the impact of NATO enlargement and the US 'pivot to Asia' on both the Russia and China and examines how these dual US-backed policies may influence key countries in the Euro-Atlantic, wider Middle East, and Indo-Pacific regions in general.

CHAPTER 1

Breaking the Contemporary Impasse

The American decision to engage in NATO expansion deep into Eastern Europe—a strategy that is now being combined with the US “pivot” or “rebalancing”¹ in the Indo-Pacific—represents a post–Cold War reactivation of containment that is aimed at checking Russian, and lately Chinese, influence, both regionally and globally. These dual policies—which impact the western, eastern, and southern flanks of Eurasia—possess ramifications that directly or indirectly impact the foreign and security policies of the major centers of power and influence—Europe, Japan, and India, as well as the “wider Middle East,” in addition to Russia and China and their immediate regions.

Washington generally claims that its new post–Cold War strategy, which has been accompanied by the deployment of missile defense (MD) and radar systems throughout Europe, the wider Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific, is aimed primarily at countering the missile and nuclear threats posed primarily by Iran and North Korea. Yet there is a significant risk that the reactivation of containment could soon result in the formation of a tighter alliance between Russia and a much more powerful China, joined by other states, while concurrently risking the breakup of the European Union (EU) and the overextension of US military and political-economic capacities—and undermining American capacities for an effective foreign and defense policy and diplomacy.

Moscow has made its opposition to the reactivation of containment very clear, with heavy threats and anti-American rhetoric. In May 2012, then chief of General Staff, Army-General Nikolai Makarov, then responsible for defense modernization, threatened the possibility of preemptive strikes against NATO missile defences to be deployed in Eastern Europe, for example.² Meanwhile, Beijing, which has generally spoken more softly than Moscow in the post–Cold War period, has likewise protested against the US deployment of missile defense systems in both the Euro-Atlantic and Asia-Pacific regions—and in opposition to US backing for a more assertive Japan (see chapters 5 and 6).

US-Russian Relations

Prior to the May 2012 Russian elections relatively optimistic foreign policy analysts argued that Moscow and Washington should eventually be able to reach a consensus on the key issues of missile defense, NATO enlargement, Iran, and the burgeoning conflict in Syria, among other key US-Russian disputes, shortly after the election year charades to impress hard-liners on both sides were over. US president Barack Obama himself indicated the possibility of reaching major compromises in a private discussion with then Russian president Medvedev that was overheard by the American press. The conversation took place in March 2012 a week after Medvedev had demanded a written and legalized guarantee that American missile defense deployments would not eventually be aimed at Russia³ (see chapter 3).

Open democratic debate and election year politics can certainly inflate rhetoric and enhance suspicions of actual intent. On the American side, in an effort to expose Obama’s ostensible weakness with respect to his policy toward Moscow, Mitt Romney’s denunciation of Russia as the “No. 1 geopolitical foe” during the US presidential election campaign could have, at least initially, made it much more difficult to establish a positive working relationship with Russia, should Romney have been elected president. At the same time, however, Obama’s comments to Medvedev led hard-line American critics of Moscow to argue that Obama appeared much too willing to cave in to Russian pressures, and that he needed to toughen his policy. The domestic dimensions of foreign policy—often involving accusations by the domestic opposition that leaders are too weak and indecisive when dealing with a rival government—make it even more difficult to establish sufficient mutual trust.

On the Russian side, it is not entirely accidental that a tougher Russian foreign and defense policy has been coupled with accusations that the United States and Europe have tended to sympathize with anti-Putin dissent both before and after the May 2012 Russian elections. From Putin’s perspective, Washington has been seen as supporting domestic opposition groups who have protested Putin’s manipulation of loopholes in the Russian Constitution, which resulted in his second reelection as president after playing the role of prime minister. Complaints of election fraud and accusations of generalized governmental corruption (in which the United Russia political party, then backed by Putin, was denounced as the “party of swindlers and thieves”) were coupled with allegations of significant human rights abuses and crimes committed by Russian authorities. Moreover, Putin’s reelection tactics severely eroded the credibility of the former Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev, who ostensibly supported more “liberal” domestic reforms and foreign policies. This has provoked a general legitimacy crisis that Putin has hoped to overcome by shifting his domestic political allegiances away from United Russia and toward the more inclusive All-Russia People’s Front, coupled with bellicose anti-NATO rhetoric—not to overlook threatening tough action as was manifest in the August 2008 Georgia-Russia war (see chapter 4).

As preelection accusations in Russia mounted, Michael McFaul, the US ambassador to Russia, was accused of interfering in domestic Russian affairs and criticized by pro-Putin elites as well as by the proto-fascist Nashi movement for appearing to support political movements critical of the Putin regime. This was true despite McFaul’s support for Russian entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and for a reset of US-Russian relations after the August 2008 Georgia-Russia war.⁴ Initially, the new US reset policy (proposed by Vice President Joe Biden in February 2009) had gotten off to a touchy start in March 2009 when the term “reset” was mistranslated by the State Department in Russian as “overcharged” or “overloaded” on a red button that was presented by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. When Lavrov pointed out that the translation of reset meant “overcharged,” Clinton tried to make light of the poor translation, stating that “we won’t let you do anything like that (overcharge) to us.” For his part, Lavrov referred to the red button image to assert his hope that it would not lead to pushing “any other buttons associated with initiation of destructive hostilities.”⁵ The mistranslation accordingly represented a lapus révélateur: The contemporary diplomatic dilemma that prevents Washington and Moscow from establishing an entente or alliance relationship is precisely that Moscow sees Washington as “overloading” its defense capabilities through missile defense deployments and NATO enlargement, while Washington sees Moscow as too demanding and “overcharging” for any concessions and cooperative arrangements.

On the American side, key aspects of Obama’s attempt to reset relations with Moscow have been strongly opposed by the US Congress. McFaul’s nomination as ambassador to Moscow, for example, was temporarily held up by the Republicans in December 2011 in an effort to obtain written assurances that the United States would not provide Russia with any currently classified information on missile defense technology. The Obama administration replied that it did not want to limit its options by ruling out any exchange of sensitive information with Moscow that could be essential for substantial improvement in US-Russian missile defense cooperation⁶ (see chapter 5).

By mid-March 2013, the Obama administration (blaming Congress for lack of funding) was once again accused of caving into Russian demands when it decided to forego the fourth, and most controversial, phase of missile defense deployments in Europe. Moscow had argued that the fourth segment of the “phased adaptive approach”⁷ of American missile defense deployments (at that time, expected to be implemented by 2020) could eventually threaten the long-range Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) capabilities of the Russian Federation itself. This action was accompanied by a decision to boost MD systems in Alaska (and in Japan) in order to counter a potential North Korean missile threat—as a dimension of the new pivot to Asia⁸ (see chapter 6).

Obama’s decision to step back from the fourth phase of missile defense has appeared to represent a significant change in strategic policy that could impact relations with Russia, if not China as well, in that both Beijing and Moscow see advanced US missile defense systems as a potential threat to their nuclear deterrent. Yet Moscow’s reaction was to insist on a legally binding European Security Treaty to guarantee its security (see chapters 3 and 5). Consequently, a number of American senators and congressmen denounced Obama’s decision as a capitulation to Moscow.

For its part, Beijing agreed to strengthen UN sanctions, in the aftermath of North Korea’s firing of a satellite into outer space in December 2012, followed by yet another nuclear test in February 2013. But China remains concerned that its own behind-the-scenes soft diplomacy has not been capable of stopping North Korean “acts that could worsen the situation.”⁹ As China opted to tighten sanctions somewhat, President Obama stressed the hope that North Korean actions and threats could lead Beijing to “recalculate” its policy toward Pyongyang given a new US diplomatic rapprochement with Beijing.¹⁰

The issue raised here is that a radical change in US missile defense policy could positively impact US-Russian-Chinese relations, but only if changes in missile defense policy are eventually followed by the implementation of a new Euro-Atlantic security architecture, and if steps are taken to ameliorate tensions over the Korean peninsula, as well as over Syria and Iran, among other key issues of contention.

The Magnitsky Act and the Snowden Affair

In terms of US-Russian relations, it appears doubtful that the US Congress will soon sign an international treaty or some form of binding pledge, as first demanded by then president Dmitri Medvedev in June 2008, that would guarantee that the United States or NATO would not attack Russia—given presently strong anti-Russia sentiment in Congress. Most significantly, the passing of the Magnitsky Act in December 2012 with a huge majority of bipartisan backing in both Houses of Congress has demonstrated the apparently growing sentiment that the United States ostensibly needs to get tough in order to press Moscow to change its behavior with respect to private investment, human rights, large-scale governmental corruption and organized crime, among other concerns.¹¹ Yet, much as the Obama administration predicted before Congress passed the Magnitsky Act against Obama’s wishes, Moscow made good on its threats to engage in tit-for-tat countermeasures against Washington. Just as Washington blacklisted a select group individuals suspected of being involved in the Magnitsky affair, Moscow also blacklisted Americans who were not welcome in Moscow due to their alleged human rights abuses or other “illegal” acts (see chapter 3).

Likewise, despite President Obama’s demands to return him to the United States for trial for espionage, Moscow’s decision to grant whistle-blower Edward Snowden, who had revealed extensive US National Security Agency (NSA) electronic spying (or “securitization”) operations throughout the world, at least one year temporary asylum in Russia, has soured relations. While some in Congress have used the Snowden affair to demand legal restrictions on the NSA’s excessive invasion of privacy and to affirm US constitutional rights, Senator John McCain used the Snowden affair to call for so-called new thinking that would involve a tougher stance toward Moscow. McCain’s proposed policies would involve the expansion of the Magnitsky List, the rapid deployment of all four phases of MD systems, plus NATO expansion to Georgia¹² (see chapters 3, 6, and 7).

Given the negative nature of the US Congressional reaction to Russian actions, President Obama’s second term hopes to achieve a re-reset of US-Russian relations consequently appeared doomed despite some positive elements of US-Russian cooperation over the New START agreement, Afghanistan, North Korea and Iran.¹³ New thinking—but not that of Senator McCain’s—is definitely required if relations between Washington and Moscow are not to degenerate even further (see chapter 8).

An Uncoordinated “Triple Enlargement”

The post–Soviet Russian leadership of both Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin have been accused of seeking to divide the world into new spheres of influence and security.¹⁴ Critics have charged that Moscow has regarded both NATO and EU enlargement “through the prism of a tenaciously zero-sum and geopolitical worldview.”¹⁵ Yet one could counterargue that the United States and NATO have reactivated containment in the post–Cold War period versus Russia and now against China. Without concern for Russian views, for example, the US Congress demanded in May 2012 that President Obama speed up the process of NATO enlargement to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Montenegro—as well as to Georgia, if not to Ukraine.¹⁶ Moscow has argued that a further enlarged NATO would not only control former Soviet/ Russian spheres of influence in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, but it would also be in a position to interdict Russian exports and imports in the Black Sea and Caucasus regions. Moscow has opposed NATO enlargement not only because it represents a military alliance that could act for either offensive or defensive purposes, but also because NATO can provide its members with greater collective bargaining power. Issues that might be resolved bilaterally could prove more difficult to resolve if negotiations prove less flexible due to alliance constraints and if the interests of other NATO members come into play.

The issue raised here is that the United States and NATO have not truly transcended traditional geostrategic and political-economic concerns in the process of enlarging NATO’s mandate and membership. While it is claimed that NATO has enlarged its membership in support of emerging democracies, the fact of the matter is that both NATO and the EU have been expanding their respective spheres of influence since the end of the Cold War, along with the United States—in what can be called an uncoordinated “triple enlargement.” Moscow is likewise convinced that its external spheres of influence and security (the “near abroad”), as well as areas within the Russian Federation itself such as the North Caucasus (“the inner abroad”) are being undermined by the impact of external influence.

The Russian Federation has consequently sought to sustain controls or hegemony over post-Soviet spheres of influence and security, what has been called the near abroad as well as the inner abroad.¹⁷ Concurrently, Moscow forged the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) military alliance in 1992, which has included Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan, as well as Uzbekistan, at least off and on.¹⁸ Moscow has worked with China through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which has included China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Moscow has also sought to counter American alliances and political-economic influence through a counter-alliance with the so-called BRICS (Brazil,...