Michael Meacher
So Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the EU Commission, wants to set up a European army in the face of the threat posed by Moscow.
Quite apart from the fact that this would partly duplicate NATO and the suspicion that it is motivated more by the desire to centralise key powers at EU level since in terms of foreign policy (in Juncker’s words) “we don’t seem to be taken entirely seriously”, it completely misreads “the Russian threat”.
Over the last 20 years there has been a steady Western encroachment eastwards which was bound eventually to cause Russian resistance and retaliation.
It has also happened in blind disregard of Western pledges to do no such thing.
NATO’s expansion eastwards began under Clinton in 1996.
This came after explicit assurances had been given to Gorbachev, following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, by the US Secretary of State James Baker that NATO would “not move one inch” eastwards.
But since this was only a verbal agreement NATO expansion advanced anyway. The first new entrants to NATO included Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary.
Even a pliant Russian president like Yeltsin took this badly, but Clinton tried to mollify him with the assurance that no former Soviet republics would be incorporated into NATO.
Since then a further 7 Eastern European states – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania – have been incorporated into NATO, the first 3 being former Soviet republics.
That was provocative enough, but then Bush decided to deploy US Anti-Ballistic Missiles (ABMs) in Poland and Romania.
The implication is that if the US were then to order a nuclear first strike against Russia and destroy most of Russia’s Inter-continental Ballistic Missiles,the ABMs could then knock out any remaining ICBMs targeted on the US.
Unsurprisingly the Russians regarded this as a massive provocation.
When NATO as the greatest military power in history, with a manpower advantage of 4 to 1 plus a huge nuclear capacity over Russia, parks its military assets on Russia’s doorstep, it was inevitable that it was seen by the Russians as a hostile act threatening the very existence of their state.
In 2007 the Russian foreign minister Lavrov told the US that Russia would not allow further NATO expansion, albeit through the stalking horse of EU membership, to Georgia and Ukraine.
Of course it is said that Ukraine has the right to decide who it wants to ally with and the Russians have no right to prevent Kiev from joining the West.
But that is, rightly or wrongly, to ignore the habitual mode of operation of great-power politics.
Did Cuba have the right to form a military alliance with the Soviet Union in 1962 during the Cold War?
The Americans were determined it should not and even threatened a nuclear exchange to prevent it.
It is a lesson that the West should learn and be prepared to see it applied in the case of Ukraine rather than risk a war.
So Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the EU Commission, wants to set up a European army in the face of the threat posed by Moscow.
Quite apart from the fact that this would partly duplicate NATO and the suspicion that it is motivated more by the desire to centralise key powers at EU level since in terms of foreign policy (in Juncker’s words) “we don’t seem to be taken entirely seriously”, it completely misreads “the Russian threat”.
Over the last 20 years there has been a steady Western encroachment eastwards which was bound eventually to cause Russian resistance and retaliation.
It has also happened in blind disregard of Western pledges to do no such thing.
NATO’s expansion eastwards began under Clinton in 1996.
This came after explicit assurances had been given to Gorbachev, following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, by the US Secretary of State James Baker that NATO would “not move one inch” eastwards.
But since this was only a verbal agreement NATO expansion advanced anyway. The first new entrants to NATO included Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary.
Even a pliant Russian president like Yeltsin took this badly, but Clinton tried to mollify him with the assurance that no former Soviet republics would be incorporated into NATO.
Since then a further 7 Eastern European states – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania – have been incorporated into NATO, the first 3 being former Soviet republics.
That was provocative enough, but then Bush decided to deploy US Anti-Ballistic Missiles (ABMs) in Poland and Romania.
The implication is that if the US were then to order a nuclear first strike against Russia and destroy most of Russia’s Inter-continental Ballistic Missiles,the ABMs could then knock out any remaining ICBMs targeted on the US.
Unsurprisingly the Russians regarded this as a massive provocation.
When NATO as the greatest military power in history, with a manpower advantage of 4 to 1 plus a huge nuclear capacity over Russia, parks its military assets on Russia’s doorstep, it was inevitable that it was seen by the Russians as a hostile act threatening the very existence of their state.
In 2007 the Russian foreign minister Lavrov told the US that Russia would not allow further NATO expansion, albeit through the stalking horse of EU membership, to Georgia and Ukraine.
Of course it is said that Ukraine has the right to decide who it wants to ally with and the Russians have no right to prevent Kiev from joining the West.
But that is, rightly or wrongly, to ignore the habitual mode of operation of great-power politics.
Did Cuba have the right to form a military alliance with the Soviet Union in 1962 during the Cold War?
The Americans were determined it should not and even threatened a nuclear exchange to prevent it.
It is a lesson that the West should learn and be prepared to see it applied in the case of Ukraine rather than risk a war.
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