“It
was for the freedom and independence of Poland that Britain went into this war…It’s
also important that Poland is a Catholic country. We cannot allow internal
developments there to complicate our relations with the Vatican…”
Prime
Minister Churchill, by way of pompous opening…
“How
many divisions does the Pope of Rome have?”
Marshal
Stalin, in direct response.
Trakai, Lithuania. 16 January.
A myriad of miniscule snowflakes drift across the landscape before me giving the
impression I am enshrined in a Georges Seurat painting. The frozen lake and frigid
forest before me dipple and dapple as momentary shafts of weak sun paint
solitude in broad brushes. Here, at the truly beautiful IDW Esperanza Resort in
deepest Lithuania I have just had the honour of part-moderating the outstanding
annual Snowmeeting in support of Foreign Minister Linus Linkevicius and his
team. What was interesting to me was the marked difference between how the
Russians see the current strategic situation in NATO’s east, and how senior NATO
politicians and officials see it. If there was an implicit if unspoken theme
running throughout the Snowmeeting it was this; no more Yaltas.
Yalta I took place
between February 4-111945. Otherwise known as the Crimea (!!!) or Argonaut Conference,
the meeting was the last time British Prime Minister Churchill, US President
Roosevelt and Marshal Stalin of the Soviet Union were to meet. The purpose of the
meeting was in effect to ‘carve’ up post-World War Two Europe into spheres of
influence between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies.
Marshal Stalin certainly
understood that, as did Prime Minister Churchill, although by 1945 Britain was,
as it is today, a shadow power with little or no real influence. Unfortunately,
an ailing President Roosevelt still clung onto the idea that Stalin’s Russia
would be a constructive partner in a post-war United Nations which would see Machtpolitik in Europe replaced by Gesetzpolitik.
On several occasions over
the last year I have head Russians call for a Yalta II. As I rose to speak some
187 US main battle tanks, 4000 personnel, plus a couple of hundred other
assorted vehicles of the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team were
bedding down in Western Poland as part of Operation
Atlantic Resolve. US Army Europe yet
again to the fore of defending Europe. The Russian reaction was both typical
and illuminating, as though a virtual Yalta II already exists. That the
Americans were intruding on an existing sphere of Russian interest, rather than
reinforcing the defence and deterrence posture of NATO in pursuit of the
legitimate collective security of the Alliance.
Yalta was just one of a
whole herd of elephants in the room at the Snowmeeting. Perhaps the largest was
Colonel-General Kartapolov’s nearby Russian Western Military District which can
now boast both mass and manoeuvre forces way beyond anything NATO can put into
the field,. As I spoke there were some 400,000 Russian troops either side of me,
reinforced by treaty-busting short range nuclear missiles, including the estimated
800 tanks of the First Guards Tank Army.
President Putin’s
reaction to Atlantic Resolve is not that
dissimilar to Marshal Stalin’s put down of Churchill in 1945. For Putin power
is as power does. And yet at the Snowmeeting NATO officials put preservation of
existing structure above transformation and effect by highlighting the marginal
gains the Alliance has made by halting the decline in defence-spending as
absolute gains. President Putin, rather,
views Russia’s influence through the all-important prism of relative power. Russia
to Putin’s mind now ‘controls’ much of Eastern Europe simply by the fact of the
military vice Russia is constructing there. A few American tanks to his mind
makes little real difference to the politico-strategic situation, not least
because he thinks President-elect Trump is of a similar mind and about to ‘reward’
him with some form of Yalta II.
There are lots of caveats
in my analysis. Let’s see what President Trump really demands of Russia and
what, if anything, actually comes out of the Putin-Trump bromance. However, Trump
has a point in his critique of NATO. For too long Europeans have become
strategically ‘fat’, lazy and complacent under the protection of America’s
strategic umbrella. It really is about time an American president exerted pressure
on all of us to get our European strategic act together. A Yalta II might also look
superficially attractive to a president who is going to want to spend most of
his time meeting the needs of the people who voted for him. President Trump is
first and foremost a businessman. In business spheres of business influence are
an essential part of deal-making.
For all of the above
reasons President Putin believes he is well on the way to securing his
strategic objectives and the creation of a buffer zone – both actual and
virtual – between Russia’s Western border and the NATO he despises. Ukraine has
been divided, both the EU and NATO have all but abandoned any further enlargement
to Europe’s further east, Turkey has
been rendered semi-detached from the Alliance, and powerful Russian forces
exert an unwarranted influence over the Baltic States whether we like it or not.
What I heard at the
Snowmeeting was as ever interesting. However, I come away from Trakai with a
profound sense of unease. Business as usual is about to end, hard change is
coming fast to the transatlantic relationship, and yet what I heard was
business as usual. Europeans had better understand this in the way President
Putin clearly does. Unfortunately, we Europeans have become very good at
self-delusion, at forever ‘defending’ values, but useless at defending space,
territory and people, or even wanting to think about it.
To President Putin’s mind
NATO is the new Vatican – pious but powerless. President Trump could well be of
the same opinion.
A new Atlantic resolve or
Yalta II? Our choice to make!
Julian Lindley-French
