SPEAKING
FREELY The inevitability of a Eurasian
alliance By W Joseph Stroupe
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their say.
Please click hereif you
are interested in contributing.
On this
planet, there exists only one nation that is truly
Eurasian, and that nation is Russia. Covering 11 time
zones, Russia extends from Europe on the west to the
Asian Kuril Islands in the Sea of Okhotsk on the east.
Western Russia is without a doubt European Russia.
Central Russia is Central Asian Russia. And Eastern
Russia is East Asian Russia. As such, geographically,
culturally and economically, Russia exists as both the
eastern half of Europe to make Europe complete, and as
the top half of Asia, to make Asia complete. No other
nation can lay claim to being thus truly Eurasian in
nature. Hence, in the formation of any Eurasian
alliance, only Russia can play the key role to bring
such alliance together into a reality. And only Russia
can serve as the core of the alliance, around which the
other members must revolve.
Russia possesses
truly unique attributes, assets and abilities that,
combined with recent global and regional developments
and trends, place the country in an exceptional position
of opportunity, namely, to serve as the key player to
give impetus to the formation of a Eurasian alliance.
Russia's geography, as noted above, places it literally
in a unique position to draw its European, Central Asian
and East Asian neighbors together into an alliance. In
the spheres of transportation and communication
logistics and infrastructure, Russia's geography lends
itself exceptionally well to the progressive tying
together of the Eurasian landmass. That geography opens
many realistic and practical possibilities for much
deeper and profitable economic trade among all the
potential partners across the Eurasian landmass. The
much-desired creation of the so-called Silk Road,
employing roads, railways and other infrastructure to
make diverse connections among all the nations from
China clear to Western Europe, is already well under
way. Cooperation among the European Union, Russia, the
Central Asian states, India, China, Southeast Asia,
Japan and the Koreas in the economic, diplomatic and
even military spheres is continually deepening. For all
the players on the Eurasian landmass, the possibilities
are many, great and very exciting.
The forces
at work There exist forces of mutual attraction
drawing Europe and Asia together, as well as external
forces driving them together. Additionally, a growing
power vacuum left in the wake of the United States'
economic, diplomatic and military decline, coupled with
intensifying opposition to its increasingly militarized
and unilateral foreign policy, is fueling a widespread
and accelerating realignment of states on the Eurasian
landmass, where such states increasingly pursue a course
of greater independence from the US and a closer
alignment with their Eurasian partners.
With
regard to the decline of US military power, and the
resulting power vacuum that currently exists and is
growing, it is becoming clear that the United States,
the last superpower, can no longer dictate and control
global and regional events as it once did. In spite of
America's exceedingly powerful high-tech military, it
cannot control events in Iraq or Afghanistan to bring
stability and peace. Matters are actually moving toward
greater instability and even chaos in those two
countries. This fact has regionwide, and even global,
implications and repercussions. The aura of America's
virtual omnipotence, backed by its unequaled military,
has been severely tainted, and is collapsing. On display
to the entire world at large is the inability of the
military of the last superpower effectively to subdue
and control, post-invasion, two small and relatively
insignificant powers, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The
past two years have demonstrated the very real limits of
military power in general, and of the United States'
military power in particular. Hence, the decline in
America's military power is both real and perceived. It
is real because the US lacks the sizable forces it once
had, is seriously overdeployed and overstretched in its
military commitments, and in various ways has shown it
has pointed vulnerabilities to asymmetrical methods of
attack. Its decline is perceived because that former
aura of invincibility it once had has been removed. Both
the perception and the reality of America's military
decline is immensely important, for it gives various
nations deep second thoughts about forming, or
continuing, military agreements and alliances with the
US. It also encourages certain other nations to purchase
weapons systems and adopt strategies (including the
making of alliances) designed to blunt, and even to cut
short, America's military influence in their particular
part of the world.
Additionally, the decline of
the United States' diplomatic power is working in
conjunction with the aforementioned decline in military
power to cause a contraction of US influence throughout
the Eurasian landmass, in spite of the proliferation of
its military bases there. In only a few short years, the
US has been changed from the unquestioned global
diplomatic leader into a supplicant that pleads and
demands, but mostly does not receive, the tangible
support of the international community, and has even
been forced repeatedly to plead (unsuccessfully) of its
own (previously) pet alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO).
The US, by all standards of
measure, has been ravaged of its once-great diplomatic
power, largely as a result of its own foolish
squandering of such once-great power. And as that power
and influence do rapidly contract, a diplomatic
realignment of individual states and of existing
alliances is occurring, as well as the significant
formation of new alliances. This is manifesting itself
as states and alliances (such as the European Union and
NATO) pursue a course of increasing independence from
the US, and as some even pursue a course of direct
opposition to the last superpower. The scale and depth
of such independence from, and even direct opposition
to, the US was unthinkable only a few years ago, but it
is continuing to grow and even to accelerate.
America's economic decline both creates a power
vacuum to disrupt the former pro-US alignment and stance
of many states on the Eurasian landmass and exerts
energetic influence to cause economic realignment along
lines of independence from the US. The former comfort of
having one's economic wagon hitched firmly to the US
economy as the sole leading global economic engine has
rapidly turned to deep discomfort in the face of
America's economic decline, the current US economic
"recovery" notwithstanding.
Growing fear of US
economic instability in the face of mushrooming debt and
the bad, shortsighted economic policies coming out of
Washington are motivating Europe and Asia to strengthen
and deepen their own economic ties on many different
levels. They are having to consider seriously what they
would do if the US dollar collapsed, catching them in an
unprepared state. They cannot afford the risk of seeing
their own economies crash in the event that instability
in the US economy becomes too great. Along those lines,
as the global price of crude oil continues to climb,
Eurasian observers note how the formerly renowned US
economic stability and strength, as symbolized by the
dollar, is becoming significantly unhinged, as the deep
imbalances produced by massive US debt forcefully
manifest themselves. Hence, in the atmosphere created by
US economic decline, Europe and Asia seek to solidify
their own economic strength, significantly and
intentionally independent of the US economy. Failure to
do so is not an option for Eurasia. Hence a number of
positions have been recently taken which demonstrate
these facts. The EU and Russia continue to pursue
strategic economic cooperation even with those states
labeled as "evil" by the US strategic economic ties
between Europe, Russia, and Asia are quickly becoming
very extensive.
Terrorism unites
Europe and Asia Europe and Asia are being
drawn together in common interest to fight the plague of
terrorism with a united effort. And their common
philosophy and views of how to fight terrorism sharply
differ from those of the US. They are less and less
interested in cooperation with the US in militaristic
efforts widely seen as destabilizing and which instigate
more terrorism. Rather, they are progressively coming to
the conclusion that deeper and closer cooperation among
themselves is the key to fighting terrorism.
The
Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations are two primary examples of
cooperative organizations that address regional security
and economic issues, and which cooperate on many levels
with the EU. In the face of the threat of international
terrorism, such cooperation between Europe and Asia is
rapidly deepening, and will continue to develop. Each
terrorist attack of any proportions on the Eurasian
landmass significantly increases the drive toward
Eurasian unity in facing the terrorist threat. This is
becoming a very powerful force to unite the states
occupying the Eurasian landmass.
The quest
for energy security As Asia accelerates down the
path of industrialization, its quest for energy security
has taken a leading role in governing politics,
economics and diplomacy, bringing about an ever closer
relationship with oil-rich Russia and with the
energy-rich Central Asian states, which all have vast
reserves of oil, gas, and strategic minerals. As
US-instigated instability in the Middle East steadily
increases, both Europe and Asia have focused much more
attention on energy-related strategic cooperation
agreements with Russia and the Central Asian states.
This trend is set to continue and accelerate.
This is an extremely potent force drawing the EU
and all of Asia toward Russia. Since Europe and Asia
have no other viable and secure source of energy besides
Russia (and the former Soviet Central Asian states), and
the prospects for increased instability and uncertainty
in the Middle East are great, then Russia will continue
to be the focus of European and Asian efforts at
creating energy security alliances and agreements. For
example, both India and China are forming such
agreements with Russia and with the oil-rich Central
Asian states. Thus crude oil will greatly "lubricate"
the pathways of all Eurasian nations toward the creation
of a Eurasian alliance. In the shared view of Europe,
Russia and Asia, the unipolar world order of the last
superpower is inequitable and unstable. As lesser
powers, it is naturally in their interest to see the
creation of a multipolar world order where their own
power and influence are enhanced at the expense of the
global hegemon, the US. Since the collapse of the Soviet
Union in 1991, the US has mostly acted so as to validate
and justify their fears of unrestrained US global
dominance. Hence the common world vision shared by
Europe, Russia and Asia powerfully unites them, while it
also greatly weakens remaining ties to the US itself.
Geopolitically, movement in the international system is
significantly away from the US, or at least along lines
of significant independence from the US. Nations have
embarked upon such a course and have benefited in
various ways as a result.
Formerly, the
predominant global view was that independence from, or
even direct opposition to, the US was virtual suicide.
However, that fear-based view has recently been mostly
discredited in favor of one that admonishes and
encourages independence from the US in the diplomatic,
economic and military spheres. The new philosophy is
working quite nicely for those who have adopted it, and
is progressively drawing power away from the US and
placing it in the hands of weaker powers, which are
learning to act collectively, to form meaningful and
mutually beneficial alliances, in order to
counterbalance, and even roll back, US global dominance.
America's global dominance is certainly at
fundamental risk in the multitude of spheres detailed
above, and powerful but more or less gradual forces at
work at the elemental levels of the international system
are steadily building pressure for fundamental
reordering. At the present time there exists enormous
pent-up pressure for such fundamental reordering.
Additionally, the elemental and powerful, but gradual,
forces identified here are unlikely to produce, all by
themselves and gradually, the noted massive
tectonic-plate shift in the geopolitical system, which
plate shift we are identifying here as the formation and
solidifying of a true Eurasian alliance.
However, at the fundamental level, the
international system is actually being reordered in such
a way as to facilitate such future massive plate shifts.
As noted above, the existing elemental interconnections
between figurative tectonic plates are being both
weakened and reoriented, and enormous pressures for
massive change are steadily building beneath the
surface. But until a pointed catalyst event, or a series
of catalyst events, occurs that sufficiently disrupts
those remaining elemental interconnections, then the
massive shifting and reordering cannot occur; pressure
will continue to build beneath the surface, however.
It will require a true earthquake in the
geopolitical system to release the pent-up, steadily
intensifying sub-surface pressures that have been
building, to cause the kind of upheaval and geopolitical
reordering required to bring into existence a true
Eurasian alliance. What kind of earthquake would be
required? What are the chances that such an earthquake
will occur? If it should occur, when is the likely time
for its occurrence?
A geopolitical and/or global
economic earthquake that further stresses the already
strained global dominance of the US, and does so to a
significant degree, would be required before the noted
tectonic-plate shifts occur. And this earthquake must
also put at significant risk the economic and
geopolitical security and well-being of the nations on
the Eurasian landmass, such that the rapid solidifying
of a new Eurasian alliance will be seen by Europe,
Russia and Asia as absolutely vital, and as the only
answer to the uncertainty and upheaval caused by such an
earthquake.
The potential already exists for
such an earthquake, in that any number of crises in the
making could erupt to trigger very significant global
reordering. The Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan Strait,
Iraq, Iran and the rest of the Middle East are all
hotspots, any one of which definitely has the potential
to create an earthquake of sufficient proportions to
release all the pent-up sub-surface pressures for
enormous change. There is even the distinct possibility
that one region may explode into crisis, and thereby
rapidly pull the other regions one by one into a vortex
of crisis and upheaval.
What is very
disconcerting for the US at the present time is the fact
that, because of its already weakened influence, it
manifests very little ability to control events, to
marshal them in directions in which it wishes them to
proceed. In Iraq for example, the US has clearly lost
the political, diplomatic and military initiative, and
is mostly floundering in the wake of its own ill-advised
policies and actions there. Under the circumstances, the
chance for a very significant explosion into a
full-blown crisis is very great. If one merely stands
back to observe the events and trends in all the
hotspots mentioned above, a clear movement toward
crisis, or at least toward significant loss of US
influence and control of the respective situations, is
evident. Movement in that troubling direction shows
every sign of accelerating as well.
Sooner or
later, a catalyst event, or series of events, will occur
that sets loose the enormous pent-up forces to produce
the tectonic-plate shifts noted here. That is when the
Eurasian alliance, which is currently being prepared and
is, in effect, waiting in the wings, will be definitely
solidified. Massive geopolitical and global economic
tectonic plates are currently moving against each other,
with enormous sub-surface pressures building as a
result. The movement of those plates cannot be stopped.
Neither can their direction be changed. In the current
enormously important transition period from a unipolar
world order to a multipolar one, the forces for change
can only intensify until, at some point very soon,
massive shifting and reordering is triggered by some
crisis, or series of crises.
How do we know that
trigger is most likely to occur soon, in mere months,
perhaps even this autumn near the US presidential
elections, for example? Because we can measure the
intensity of the forces and the rapidity of the movement
of events currently placing a terrific and increasing
strain on the international order, and we can measure
the intensity of those forces against the history of
past tectonic-plate shifts to see that the current form
of the international order cannot endure such strains
for long. The interval of time until the massive plate
shifts occur must be measured in months, and not in
years. In the resulting geopolitical and global economic
reordering of things, as a center of power, the
approaching Eurasian alliance will be quite formidable
indeed.
