Zbigniew Brzezinski The grand chessboard

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.By 1999, the first new Central European members will have been admitted into NATO, though their entryinto the EU will probably not happen before 2002 or 2003.2.In the meantime, the EU will initiate accession talks with the Baltic republics, and NATO will likewise beginto move for ward on the issue of their membership as well as Roma nia's, with their accession likely to becompleted by 2005.At some point in this stage, the other Balkan states may likewise become eligible.3.Accession by the Baltic states might prompt Sweden and Finland also to consider NATO membership.4.Somewhere between 2005 and 2010, Ukraine, especially if in the meantime the country has made significantprogress in its domestic reforms and has succeeded in becoming more evidently identified as a CentralEuropean country, should become ready for serious negotiations with both the EU and NATO.In the meantime, it is likely that Franco-German-Polish collaboration within theEU and NATO will have deepenedconsiderably, especially in the area ofdefense.That collaboration could becomethe Western core of any wider Europeansecurity arrangements that mighteventually embrace both Russia andUkraine.Given the special geopoliticalinterest of Germany and Poland inUkraine's independence, it is also quitepossible that Ukraine will gradually bedrawn into the special Franco-German-Polish relationship.By the year 2010,Franco-German-Polish-Ukrainian politicalcollaboration, engaging some 230 millionpeople, could evolve into a partnershipenhancing Europe's geostrategic depth (seemap above).Whether the above scenario emerges in a benign fashion or in the context of intensifying tensions withRussia is of great importance.Russia should be continuously reassured that the doors to Europe are open, as arethe doors to its eventual participation in ;ui expanded transatlantic system of security and, perhaps at somefuture point, in a new trans-Eurasian system of security.To give credence to these assurances, variouscooperative links between Russia and Europe in all fields should be very deliberately promoted.(Russia'srelationship to Europe, and the role of Ukraine in that regard, are discussed more fully in the next chapter.)If Europe succeeds both in unifying and in expanding and if Russia in the meantime undertakes successfuldemocratic consolidation and social modernization, at some point Russia can also become eligible for a moreorganic relationship with Europe.That, in turn, would make possible the eventual merger of the transatlanticsecurity system with a transcontinental Eurasian one.However, as a practical reality, the question of Russia'sformal membership will not arise for quite some time to come and that, if anything, is yet another reason fornot pointlessly shutting the doors to it.To conclude: with the Europe of Yalta gone, it is essential that there be no reversion to the Europe ofVersailles.The end of the division of Europe should not precipitate a step back to a Europe of quarrelsomenation-states but should be the point of departure for shaping a larger and increasingly integrated Europe,reinforced by a widened NATO and rendered even more secure by a constructive security relationship withRussia.Hence, America's central geostrategic goal in Europe can be summed up quite simply: it is toconsolidate through a more genuine transatlantic partnership the U.S.bridgehead on the Eurasian continent sothat an enlarging Europe can become a more viable springboard for projecting into Eurasia the internationaldemocratic and cooperative order.Chapter 4.The Ulack HoleTHE DISINTEGRATION LATE IN 1991 of the world's territorially largest state created a "black hole" in thevery center of Eurasia.It was as if the geopoliticians' "heartland" had been suddenly yanked from the globalmap.For America, this new and perplexing geopolitical situation poses a crucial challenge.Understandably, theimmediate task has to be to reduce the probability of political anarchy or a reversion to a hostile dictatorship ina crumbling state still possessing a powerful nuclear arsenal.But the long-range task remains: how toencourage Russia's democratic transformation and economic recovery while avoiding the reemergence of aEurasian empire that could obstruct the American geostrategic goal of shaping a larger Euro-Atlantic system towhich Russia can then be stably and safely related.RUSSIA'S NEW GEOPOLITICAL SETTINGThe collapse of the Soviet Union was the final stage in the progressive fragmentation of the vast Sino-SovietCommunist bloc that for a brief period of time matched, and in some areas even surpassed, the scope ofGenghis Khan's realm.Hut the more modern transcontinental Eurasian bloc lasted very briefly, with thedefection by Tito's Yugoslavia and the insubordination of Mao's China signaling early on the Communistcamp's vulnerability to nationalist aspirations that proved to be stronger than ideological bonds.The Sino-Soviet bloc lasted roughly ten years; the Soviet Union about seventy.However, even more geopolitically significant was the undoing of the centuries-old Moscow-ruled GreatRussian Empire.The disintegration of that empire was precipitated by the general socio-economic and politicalfailure of the Soviet system though much of its malaise was obscured almost until the very end by its systemicsecrecy and self-isolation.Hence, the world was stunned by the seeming rapidity of the Soviet Union's self-destruction.In the course of two short weeks in December 1991, the Soviet Union was first defiantly declaredas dissolved by the heads of its Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian republics, then formally replaced by avaguer entity called the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) embracing all of the Soviet republicsbut the Baltic ones; then the Soviet president reluctantly resigned and the Soviet flag was lowered for the lasttime from the tower of the Kremlin; and, finally, the Russian Federation now a predominantly Russiannational state of 150 million people emerged as the de facto successor to the former Soviet Union, while theother republics accounting for another 150 million people asserted in varying degrees their independentsovereignty.The collapse of the Soviet Union produced monumental geopolitical confusion.In the course of a merefortnight, the Russian people who, generally speaking, were.even less forewarned than the outside world ofthe Soviet Union's approaching disintegration suddenly discovered that they were no longer the masters of atranscontinental empire but that the frontiers of Russia had been rolled back to where they had been in theCaucasus in the early 1800s, in Central Asia in the mid-1800s, and much more dramatically and painfully inthe West in approximately 1600, soon after the reign of Ivan the Terrible [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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