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anonymous

The State of the World: Germany's Strategy - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...state-world-germanys-strategy

shared by anonymous on 13 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • In writing about German strategy, I am raising the possibility that the basic structure of Western Europe since World War II and of Europe as a whole since 1991 is coming to a close.
  • Before 1871, when Germany was fragmented into a large number of small states, it did not pose a challenge to Europe. Rather, it served as a buffer between France on one side and Russia and Austria on the other.
  • However, in the event that there was no alliance between France and Russia, Germany was always tempted to solve the problem in a more controlled and secure way, by defeating France and ending the threat of an alliance. This is the strategy Germany has chosen for most of its existence.
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  • Rather than split France and Russia, the threat of a united Germany drew them together. It was clear to France and Russia that without an alliance, Germany would pick them off individually.
  • The idea that economics rule the decisions of nations is insufficient for explaining their behavior.
  • Germany was confronted with a strategic problem. By the early 20th century the Triple Entente, signed in 1907, had allied Russia, France and the United Kingdom. If they attacked simultaneously at a time of their choosing, these countries could destroy Germany. Therefore, Germany's only defense was to launch a war at a time of its choosing, defeat one of these countries and deal with the others at its leisure.
  • During both World War I and World War II, Germany first struck at France and then turned to deal with Russia while keeping the United Kingdom at bay. In both wars, the strategy failed.
  • The issue was to prevent Germany from returning to the pursuit of an autonomous national strategy, both because it could not resist the Soviet forces to the east by itself and, more important, because the West could not tolerate the re-emergence of divisive and dangerous power politics in Europe.
  • The key was binding Germany to the rest of Europe militarily and economically.
  • After World War II, West Germany's strategy was threefold.
  • First, it had to defend itself against the Soviet Union in concert with an alliance that would effectively command its military through NATO.
  • Second, it would align its economy with that of the rest of Europe, pursuing prosperity without undermining the prosperity of other countries.
  • Third, it would exercise internal political sovereignty, reclaiming its rights as a nation without posing a geopolitical threat to Western Europe.
  • Russia, or what was left after the collapse of the Soviet Union, was relatively secure so long as Germany remained part of European structures. The historical strategic problem Germany had faced appeared solved.
  • The situation became more complex after 2008. Germany's formal relationship with NATO remained intact, but without the common threat of the Soviet Union, the alliance was fracturing over the divergent national interests of its members.
  • Germany is the second-largest exporter in the world. It exports to many countries, but Europe is a critical customer. The free-trade zone that was the foundation of the European Union was also one of the foundations of the German economy.
  • However, the European Union no longer functions as it once did.
  • There were two possible solutions in the broadest sense.
  • One was that the countries in crisis impose austerity in order to find the resources to solve their problem.
  • The other was that the prosperous part of Europe underwrites the debts, sparing these countries the burden of austerity.
  • the German price for underwriting part of the debt is that European bureaucrats, heavily oriented toward German policies, be effectively put in charge of the finances of countries receiving aid against default.
  • If you accept the German view, which is that the debt crisis was the result of reckless spending, then Germany's proposal is reasonable. If you accept the view of southern Europe, which is that the crisis was the result of the European Union's design, then what Germany is proposing is the imposition of German power via economics.
  • It is difficult to imagine a vast surrender of sovereignty to a German-dominated EU bureaucracy, whatever the economic cost. It is also difficult to imagine Germany underwriting the debt without some controls beyond promises
  • In short, there is substantial synergy between the Russian and German economies. Add to this that the Germans feel under heavy pressure from the United States to engage in actions the Germans want to be left out of, while the Russians see the Americans as a threat to their interests, and there are politico-military interests that Germany and Russia have in common.
  • NATO is badly frayed. The European Union is under tremendous pressure and national interests are now dominating European interests.
  • However, Germany's strategic interest is not necessarily a relationship with France but a relationship with either France or Russia to avoid being surrounded by hostile powers. For Germany, a relationship with Russia does as well as one with France.
  • An ideal situation for Germany would be a Franco-German-Russian entente. Such an alliance has been tried in the past, but its weakness is that it would provide too much security to Germany, allowing it to be more assertive.
  • Normally, France and Russia have opposed Germany, but in this case, it is certainly possible to have a continuation of the Franco-German alliance or a Russo-French alliance. Indeed, a three-way alliance might be possible as well.
  • If Germany faces an impossible situation with the European Union, the second strategic option would be a three-way alliance, with a modified European Union or perhaps outside of the EU structure.
  • Germany's strategy, therefore, is still locked in the EU paradigm. However, if the EU paradigm becomes unsupportable, then other strategies will have to be found.
  • anonymous on 13 Mar 12
     
    The idea of Germany having an independent national strategy runs counter to everything that Germany has wanted to be since World War II and everything the world has wanted from Germany. In a way, the entire structure of modern Europe was created to take advantage of Germany's economic dynamism while avoiding the threat of German domination.
anonymous

Germany and the Failure of Multiculturalism - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...y_and_failure_multiculturalism

geopolitics germany

shared by anonymous on 19 Oct 10 - Cached
  • The statements were striking in their bluntness and their willingness to speak of a dominant German culture, a concept that for obvious reasons Germans have been sensitive about asserting since World War II. The statement should be taken with utmost seriousness and considered for its social and geopolitical implications. It should also be considered in the broader context of Europe’s response to immigration, not to Germany’s response alone.
  • To resolve the continuing labor shortage, Germany turned to a series of successive labor recruitment deals, first with Italy (1955). After labor from Italy dried up due to Italy’s own burgeoning economy, Germany turned to Spain (1960), Greece (1960), Turkey (1961) and then Yugoslavia (1968).
  • For most of its history, the United States thought of itself as a nation of immigrants, but with a core culture that immigrants would have to accept in a well-known multicultural process. Anyone could become an American, so long as they accepted the language and dominant culture of the nation. This left a lot of room for uniqueness, but some values had to be shared. Citizenship became a legal concept. It required a process, an oath and shared values. Nationality could be acquired; it had a price.
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  • To be French, Polish or Greek meant not only that you learned their respective language or adopted their values — it meant that you were French, Polish or Greek because your parents were, as were their parents. It meant a shared history of suffering and triumph. One couldn’t acquire that.
  • For the Europeans, multiculturalism was not the liberal and humane respect for other cultures that it pretended to be. It was a way to deal with the reality that a large pool of migrants had been invited as workers into the country.
  • Multiculturalism is profoundly divisive, particularly in countries that define the nation in European terms, e.g., through nationality.
  • Simply put, Germany is returning to history. It has spent the past 65 years desperately trying not to confront the question of national identity, the rights of minorities in Germany and the exercise of German self-interest. The Germans have embedded themselves in multinational groupings like the European Union and NATO to try to avoid a discussion of a simple and profound concept: nationalism. Given what they did last time the matter came up, they are to be congratulated for their exercise of decent silence. But that silence is now over.
  • Two things have forced the re-emergence of German national awareness.
  • The first, of course, is the immediate issue — a large and indigestible mass of Turkish and other Muslim workers. The second is the state of the multinational organizations to which Germany tried to confine itself.
  • Germany now sees itself as shaping EU institutions so as not to be forced into being the European Union’s ultimate financial guarantor. And this compels Germany to think about Germany beyond its relations with Europe.
  • This isn’t to say that Germany must follow any particular foreign policy given its new official view on multiculturalism; it can choose many paths. But an attack on multiculturalism is simultaneously an affirmation of German national identity. You can’t have the first without the second. And once that happens, many things become possible.
  • Merkel’s statement is therefore of enormous importance on two levels.
  • First, she has said aloud what many leaders already know, which is that multiculturalism can become a national catastrophe. Second, in stating this, she sets in motion other processes that could have a profound impact on not only Germany and Europe but also the global balance of power.
  • anonymous on 19 Oct 10
     
    "German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared at an Oct. 16 meeting of young members of her party, the Christian Democratic Union, that multiculturalism, or Multikulti, as the Germans put it, "has failed totally." Horst Seehofer, minister-president of Bavaria and the chairman of a sister party to the Christian Democrats, said at the same meeting that the two parties were "committed to a dominant German culture and opposed to a multicultural one." Merkel also said that the flood of immigrants is holding back the German economy, although Germany does need more highly trained specialists, as opposed to the laborers who have sought economic advantages in Germany. " By George Friedman at StratFor on October 19, 2010.
anonymous

France's Strategy - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...frances-strategy

shared by anonymous on 23 Jun 12 - Cached
  • Two events shaped modern French strategy. The first, of course, was the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 and the emergence of Britain as the world's dominant naval power and Europe's leading imperial power.
  • The second moment came in 1871 when the Prussians defeated France and presided over the unification of German states.
  • France had substantial military capabilities, perhaps matching and even exceeding that of Germany. However, France's strategy for dealing with Germany was to build a structure of alliances against Germany.
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  • First, it allied with Britain, less for its land capabilities than for the fact that Britain's navy could blockade Germany and therefore deter it from going to war. The second ally was Russia, the sheer size of which could threaten Germany with a two-front war if one began.
  • The combination of forces facing Germany convinced Berlin that it had to strike first, eliminating one enemy so that it would not be faced with a two-front war. In both the first and second world wars, Germany attempted to eliminate France first.
  • Charles de Gaulle recognized that France was incapable of competing with the United States and the Soviet Union on the global stage. At the same time, he wanted France to retain its ability to act independently of the two major powers if necessary. Part of the motivation was nationalism. Part of it was a distrust of the Americans. The foundation of post-war American and European defense policy was the containment of the Soviet Union.
  • De Gaulle was not convinced of the American guarantees, in part because he simply didn't see them as rational. The United States had an interest in Europe, but it was not an existential interest. De Gaulle did not believe that an American president would risk a nuclear counterattack on the United States to save Germany or France.
  • De Gaulle believed that if Western Europe simply relied on American hegemony without an independent European force, Europe would ultimately fall to the Soviets. He regarded the American guarantees as a bluff.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 23 Jun 12
       
      Back when I actually talked to friends about this, I was unuhmrrican for suggesting that this was a highly pragmatic stance and not just an example of 'frog sympathy.'
  • This was not because he was pro-Soviet. Quite the contrary, one of his priorities upon taking power in 1945 was blocking the Communists.
  • De Gaulle, above all others, understood national self-interest. But he did not believe that American national self-interest was identical to France's.
  • De Gaulle settled on the next best strategy, which was developing independent military capabilities sufficient to deter a Soviet attack on French territory without coming to the Americans for help.
  • But at the core of de Gaulle's thinking was a deeper idea. Caught between the Americans and the Soviets, with a fragmented Europe in between, half dominated by the Soviets and the other half part of an American-dominated NATO, he saw the fate of France as being in the hands of the two superpowers, and he trusted neither. Nor did he particularly trust the other Europeans, but he was convinced that in order to secure France there had to be a third force in Europe that would limit the power of both Americans and Soviets.
  • De Gaulle objected to NATO's structure because it effectively limited France's sovereignty. NATO's Military Committee was effectively in command of the military forces of the constituent nations, and at a time of war, NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe -- always an American -- would automatically take command.
  • De Gaulle understood the weakness in what would become the European Union, which was that national interests always dominated. No matter how embedded nations became in a wider system, so long as national leaders were answerable to their people, integration would never work in time of crisis and would compound the crisis by turning it from what it originally concerned into a crisis of mixed sovereignty. 
  • The foundation of this alliance had to be economic and military. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the urgency of the military threat dissolved. France's presidents since the end of the Cold War, Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, believed that the Gaullist vision could be achieved solely through economic ties.
  • It is in this context that Hollande is going to Germany. Although Sarkozy went as a committed ally of Germany, Hollande will not necessarily be predisposed to German solutions for Europe's problems. This is somewhat startling in post-Cold War Franco-German relations, but it is very much what de Gaulle would have accepted. France's economic needs are different from those of Germany.
  • anonymous on 23 Jun 12
     
    New political leaders do not invent new national strategies. Rather, they adapt enduring national strategies to the moment. On Tuesday, Francois Hollande will be inaugurated as France's president, and soon after taking the oath of office, he will visit German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. At this moment, the talks are expected to be about austerity and the European Union, but the underlying issue remains constant: France's struggle for a dominant role in European affairs at a time of German ascendance.
anonymous

Poland's Strategy - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...polands-strategy

shared by anonymous on 28 Aug 12 - Cached
  • Located on the oft-invaded North European Plain, Poland's existence is heavily susceptible to the moves of major Eurasian powers. Therefore, Polish history has been erratic, with Poland moving from independence -- even regional dominance -- to simply disappearing from the map, surviving only in language and memory before emerging once again.
  • Poland's national strategy inevitably is designed with an underlying sense of fear and desperation. Nothing in Polish history would indicate that disaster is impossible.
  • To begin thinking about Poland's strategy, we must consider that in the 17th century, Poland, aligned with Lithuania, was one of the major European powers. It stretched from the Baltic Sea almost to the Black Sea, from western Ukraine into the Germanic regions. By 1795, it had ceased to exist as an independent country, divided among three emerging powers: Prussia, Russia and Austria.
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  • It did not regain independence until after World War I -- it was created by the Treaty of Versailles (1919) -- after which it had to fight the Soviets for its existence.
  • Poland again was brought under the power of a foreign nation when Germany invaded in 1939. Its statehood was formalized in 1945, but it was dominated by the Soviets until 1989.
  • Poland has two strategic problems.
  • The first problem is its geography. The Carpathian Mountains and the Tatra Mountains provide some security to Poland's south. But the lands to the east, west and southwest are flat plains with only rivers that provide limited protection. This plain was the natural line of attack of great powers, including Napoleonic France and Nazi Germany.
  • For Poland, the existence of a powerful Germany and Russia poses an existential problem, the ideal solution to which is to become a buffer that Berlin and Moscow respect. A secondary solution is an alliance with one for protection. The latter solution is extremely difficult because dependence on Russia or Germany invites the possibility of absorption or occupation. Poland's third solution is to find an outside power to guarantee its interests.
  • This is what Poland did in the 1930s with Britain and France.
  • This strategy's shortcomings are obvious. First, it may not be in the interests of the security guarantor to come to Poland's assistance. Second, it may not be possible at the time of danger for them to help Poland. The value of a third-party guarantee is only in deterring attack and, failing that, in the willingness and ability to honor the commitment.
  • Since 1991, Poland has sought a unique solution that was not available previously: membership in multilateral organizations such as the European Union and NATO.
  • Ostensibly, they guarantee Polish security and remove the potential threat of Germany.
  • The solution also is problematic in that it assumes NATO and the European Union are reliable institutions. Should Russia become aggressive, NATO's ability to field a force to resist Russia would depend less on the Europeans than on the Americans. The heart of the Cold War was a struggle of influence across the North European Plain, and it involved 40 years of risk and expense. Whether the Americans are prepared to do this again is not something Poland can count on, at least in the context of NATO.
  • Moreover, the European Union is not a military organization; it is an economic free trade zone.
  • The emergence of a Germany not intimately tied to a multinational European entity but with increasing economic ties with Russia is Poland's worst-case scenario.
  • Poland has three strategies available to it.
  • The first is to do everything it can to keep NATO and the European Union viable and Germany contained within them.
  • The second is to create a relationship with Germany or Russia that guarantees its interests.
  • The third strategy is to find an outside power prepared to guarantee its interests.
  • That power is currently the United States. But the United States, after the experiences in the Islamic world, is moving toward a more distant, balance-of-power approach to the world. This does not mean the United States is indifferent to what happens in northern Europe. The growth of Russian power and potential Russian expansionism that would upset the European balance of power obviously would not be in Washington's interest. But as the United States matures as a global power, it will allow the regional balance of power to stabilize naturally rather than intervene if the threat appears manageable.
  • In the 1930s, Poland's strategy was to find a guarantor as a first resort. It assumed correctly that its own military capability was insufficient to protect itself from the Germans or the Soviets, and certainly insufficient to protect itself from both. Therefore, it assumed that it would succumb to these powers without a security guarantor. Under these circumstances, no matter how much it increased its military power, Poland could not survive by itself. The Polish analysis of the situation was not incorrect, but it missed an essential component of intervention: time.
  • This points to two aspects of any Polish relationship to the United States.
  • On one hand, the collapse of Poland as Russia resurges would deprive the United States of a critical bulwark against Moscow on the North European Plain. On the other hand, intervention is inconceivable without time.
  • This is a question of economics and national will. The economic situation in Poland has improved dramatically over recent years, but building an effective force takes time and money. The Poles have time, since the Russian threat at this point is more theoretical than real, and their economy is sufficiently robust to support a significant capability.
  • Today, the will to believe in the European Union and in NATO, rather than to recognize that nations ultimately must guarantee their own national security, is an issue for Poland to settle.
  • As the Poles know, Germany and Russia can change regimes and strategies with startling speed. A conservative strategy requires a bilateral relationship with the United States, founded on the understanding that the United States is relying on the balance of power and not the direct intervention of its own forces except as a last resort.
  • anonymous on 28 Aug 12
     
    "Polish national strategy pivots around a single, existential issue: how to preserve its national identity and independence."
anonymous

Sovereignty, Supranationality and the Future of EU Integration - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...lity-and-future-eu-integration

shared by anonymous on 02 Jul 13 - Cached
  • The European Union is an entity like no other in world history. After the end of World War II, the international system was configured around a series of multilateral organizations such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and NATO. But the process of economic and political cooperation that West Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg began in 1951 is fundamentally different from the rest of the post-war organizations.
  • The project was a direct challenge to the classical idea of ​​the nation-state and generated new forms of government and administration hitherto unknown.
  • Immanuel Kant believed that Europe would only overcome its constant state of war by achieving some form of political unity.
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  • From the Roman Empire to Nazi Germany, all the attempts to unify Europe meant war and conquest. It took World War II to convince the Europeans that the future of the Continent depended on overcoming age-old antagonisms and building a lasting political settlement to boost trade and prevent another war.
  • The central problem to be solved was the historical emnity between France and Germany
  • The French government understood that the only way to achieve lasting and sustainable economic growth in France was by ensuring a stable peace with Germany.
  • The European Economic Community, the institutional heart of the emerging continental unity, had three main objectives.
  • Its immediate goal was to create a customs union, which would eliminate trade restrictions between member states and establish a common external tariff for trade with the rest of the world.
  • It would also seek the consolidation of a common market, to allow the free movement of people, goods, capital and services.
  • Finally, it would seek the progressive coordination of social and fiscal policies among its members.
  • The rationale behind the European Communities was that if countries gave up sovereignty in specific areas, over time a greater amount of national prerogatives would be transferred to the supranational institutions.
  • Throughout the process, unanimity would be replaced by majority voting (so that the interest of the majority would overtake individual interests) and concessions of sovereignty would not be limited to economic issues, but also political and military affairs.
  • In other words, the process of European integration would progressively weaken the nation-state and its strategic interests.
  • Six decades later, many of these goals have been achieved.
  • The Commission, the Parliament and the Court of Justice today have powers that notably exceed those designed in the 1950s. More impressively, the European Union currently has 28 members, 17 of whom share the same currency. In 1945, with Europe in ashes and occupied by foreign powers, it was unimaginable to think that six decades later France and Germany would share the leadership of a continental alliance stretching from Portugal to Finland and Cyprus.
  • However, the remarkable growth of the European project did not bring about the abolishment of the nation-state that many analysts predicted.
  • EU institutions tend to generate their own agendas, which often go against the national strategies of some member states. As a result, the clash between national and supranational interests is often unavoidable.
  • This friction did not begin with the current economic crisis. In 1965, the French government withdrew its representation in the European Commission in protest of a plan that would give more power to Brussels in the management of the Common Agricultural Policy. To resolve the crisis, the Europeans reached an agreement under which a de facto veto power was given to member states on issues that were considered crucial to national interests. This agreement (commonly known as the Luxembourg Compromise) was designed to protect the intergovernmental nature of the European Communities and virtually froze the process of supranational integration in the 1970s and 1980s, until the Single European Act in 1986 introduced new mechanisms for qualified majority voting.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 02 Jul 13
       
      This paragraph is a good example of something I would never have known about otherwise. I wish I had been shown (much earlie) how history is shaped by the continuity and discontinuity of policies. Among, you know, an infinite soup of other variables. :)
  • On top of the traditional tensions between national governments and supranational institutions, in times of crisis member states also tend to distrust each other.
  • The creation of the euro has further complicated things. Seventeen countries with very different levels of economic development and competitiveness now share a common currency. This has particularly reduced Mediterranean Europe's room to maneuver, because it has deprived those countries of the possibility of applying independent monetary policy to tackle crises.
  • Governments must find a balance between their foreign policy objectives, pressure from the European Union and their desire to be re-elected -- which means decisions that may make sense for the future of the European Union (such as fiscal consolidation efforts) would probably not be made if governments consider them too unpopular among voters.
  • Other institutions, such as constitutional courts, often threaten to block decisions accepted by national parliaments. The recent investigation by the German constitutional court on the validity of the European Stability Mechanism and the decision by the Portuguese constitutional court to block some austerity measures promoted by Brussels and implemented by Lisbon are examples of this situation.
  • The deep unemployment crisis in the eurozone adds yet another complication to this problem. The European elites are still largely pro-European, and most of the voters in the eurozone want to keep the euro. But with the European Union's promise of economic prosperity weakening, its members have begun to rethink their strategies. Fidelity for the European project is not unbreakable. Nor is it strong enough to support an indefinite period of extremely high unemployment.
  • Despite its remarkable evolution, the European Union is still a contract. And contracts could be modified or even canceled if they stop being beneficial for their signatories.
  • Non-eurozone countries in Central and Eastern Europe have also begun to think of a more independent foreign policy. They remain formally aligned with the European Union and NATO, but the pursuit of closer ties with Russia is no longer taboo. And for most of them, joining the eurozone is no longer a priority.
  • Because of the pervasiveness of the nation-state, the future of the European Union will not be in the hands of the EU institutions, but in those of the same actors of 1951: France and Germany. Since the beginning of the economic crisis, Paris and Berlin have reiterated their commitment to the European Union, but as the economic downturn moves to the core of Europe, the differences between them become more obvious.
  • Like most economies in Mediterranean Europe, France's has lost competitiveness since the creation of the euro, and the common currency has led to a constant trade deficit with Germany. France will seek to change its relationship with Germany without breaking it (as Paris is still interested in containing Berlin), but Paris is increasingly aware that the European project should be remodeled.
  • In this context, Paris and Berlin will need to find a balance between their desire to preserve their alliance and the need to protect their national interests.
  • The Germans are interested in preserving their alliance with France and protecting the currency union because it benefits its exports to its neighbors and out of fear of the immeasurable financial consequences of a breakup of the eurozone.
  • Europe's main challenge will be to prevent these frictions from paralyzing the bloc. The European Union will also face the test of mitigating the alienation of its eastern members and closing the gap between eurozone and non-eurozone countries. In the meantime, Brussels and national governments will have to find ways to alleviate the bloc's corrosive unemployment crisis before it leads to dangerous levels of social unrest. In all these challenges, the European Union is running a race against time.
  • anonymous on 02 Jul 13
     
    "Tensions between the European Commission and France have escalated in recent weeks. After Brussels suggested that Paris should apply structural reforms to reactivate the French economy, French President Francois Hollande said that the Commission cannot dictate policy to France. A few days later, the Commission's president, Jose Manuel Barroso, criticized the French pressure to exclude the audio-visual sector from the negotiations for a free trade agreement between the European Union and United States."
anonymous

Europe: What to Expect After Germany's Elections | Stratfor - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...xpect-after-germanys-elections

shared by anonymous on 19 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • Germany's economic performance is tied strongly to external developments because of the country's reliance on exports.
  • Europe is Germany's largest customer, so the German economy depends on the strength of the European consumer base.
  • However, Germany's economy has not escaped the crisis unscathed. Over the past few years, German economic growth has slowed. According to the International Monetary Fund, Germany's GDP grew by only 0.9 percent in 2012, down from 4 percent in 2010.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Strengthening domestic demand -- by raising wages, for example -- would limit its exposure to external risks, but it would also make German exports less competitive.
  • One option under consideration is the introduction of a minimum wage.
  • Berlin will also address its immigration issue.
  • Germany has actually seen an uptick of immigrants over the past few years due to its resilience to the crisis, but historically it has trouble retaining them. Any new government will have to introduce policies to retain immigrants while allaying fears that foreigners will abuse the national social security system.
  • A third priority for the new German government will be re-evaluating the country's energy strategy.
  • Because Germany has few domestic energy resources, the country's energy strategy is also part of its foreign policy. Infrastructure integration with other countries is important for German energy imports, as are bilateral relations with Russia, Germany's main oil and natural gas provider.
  • How effectively Germany integrates Europe will depend largely on its willingness to aid other European countries, particularly those in the eurozone.
  • Continued financial assistance is a crucial element in Germany's national strategy of ensuring cohesion in Europe and preserving the currency union.
  • Legal and institutional hurdles will limit Berlin's ability to be proactive in helping other countries. Even if there were general consensus among the political elite that Germany should provide aid more extensively, small opposition groups can challenge and delay assistance plans relatively easily.
  • To ensure survival of the eurozone, Germany will also try to preserve the Franco-German alliance. Historically, European integration meant solidifying German economic strength and French political leadership, but the European crisis has strained their relationship. The pressure Berlin will face in giving in to French demands, which include allowing more government spending, mutualizing debt and changing the European Central Bank's role to accept higher inflation and to more openly intervene in sovereign bond markets, will largely depend on how strongly the economic performance of both countries diverges.
  • anonymous on 19 Sep 13
     
    "Much of Europe is eagerly anticipating the results of Germany's Sept. 22 parliamentary elections, but this anticipation may be somewhat misplaced. Of course, Germany's importance to Europe is well founded. It is Europe's largest economy and its main bailout creditor to struggling eurozone countries, so Germany's economic health is vital to the economic health of Europe as a whole. But the relationship goes both ways: Germany's economy relies on the free trade zone and on exports, which the rest of Europe can buy only if it can afford to do so. Thus any government in Berlin will continue to aid countries afflicted by the European crisis -- even at the risk of growing domestic opposition."
anonymous

The Geopolitics of France: Maintaining Its Influence in a Changing Europe - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...tralized_system_guarding_plain

geopolitics france

shared by anonymous on 14 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Mountain ranges inhibit trade and armies alike while peninsulas and islands limit the ability of larger powers to intimidate or conquer smaller ones. Because of such features, it isn’t as much of a surprise that Europe has never united under a single government as it is that anyone has ever tried.
  • two other geographic features that push Europe together
  • The first is the North European Plain
  • ...58 more annotations...
  • Northern Europe is home to the densest concentration of wealth in the world
  • The second feature — the Mediterranean Sea — plays a similar role to the continent’s south
  • Mix the geographic features that inhibit unification with the features that facilitate trade and communication and Europe becomes a very rich, very violent place.
  • three places on the Continent where this pattern of fragmentation does not hold
  • The first are the Seine and Loire river valleys
  • The second and third places where the fragmentation pattern does not hold are the Garonne and Rhone river valleys
  • The one thing these three geographic exceptions have in common is that they all have long resided in the political entity known as France.
  • France is nearly always engaged but is only rarely ascendant.
  • Mountain chains, rivers and seas therefore enclose France at all points save for one: the North European Plain.
  • Internally, aside from the Massif Central in the southeast, France is a country of relatively low-lying terrain with occasional hills.
  • The Beauce region is therefore the French core.
  • Paris is also close enough to the Atlantic — connected by the Seine — to benefit from oceanic trade routes but far enough away to be insulated somewhat from a direct naval invasion.
  • In comparison with its continental neighbors, France has almost always been at an economic advantage because of its geography.
  • Phase I: Centralization (843-1453)
  • The Beauce region of France has always been the core of the French state because of its fertile land and strategic location on the North European Plain.
  • Early France faced two problems, both rooted in geography.
  • The first dealt with the plains.
  • The solution to this military reality was feudalism.
  • French, one of the Langue d’oil, did not become the official tongue until the 1500s, and linguistic unification was not completed until the 1800s.
  • England considered continental France their playpen for much of the Middle Ages. In fact, the Norman leaders of England did not distinguish much between their French and English possessions
  • As in the conflict with the Muslims, it was a technological innovation that forced France’s political system to evolve, and this time the shift was toward centralization rather than decentralization.
  • The combination of the political disasters of the feudal period and the success of consolidation in the battles with the English served as the formative period of the French psyche.
  • Phase II: The Hapsburg Challenge and Balance of Power (1506-1700)
  • Europe’s Hapsburg era was a dangerous time for the French.
  • In three major wars — the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) and the Seven Years’ War (1754-1763, against Britain in North America) — France expended great financial resources in efforts to dominate one region or another, only to emerge at each war’s end with little to show for its efforts.
  • Phase III: Nationalism and the Rise of Germany (1789-1945)
  • two equally damning results
  • First, the depleted treasury led to a general breakdown in internal order, contributing to the French Revolution of 1789.
  • Second, Paris’ distraction with England and Spain led it to miss the emergence of Prussia as a serious European power that began to first rival and ultimately superseded Hapsburg Austria for leadership among the cacophony of German kingdoms.
  • One of the many unintended side effects of the French Revolution was the concept of nationalism,
  • From nationalism grew the nation-state, a political entity that harnesses all people sharing a similar ethnicity into a single governing unit.
  • The result was the one near-unipolar moment in European history.
  • Not only was France the only state to have embraced the concept of nationalism, but it also grafted the concept onto an already centralized system, allowing French power to pour forth across Europe and North Africa.
  • From 1803 to 1815, France nearly overwhelmed the rest of Europe before a coalition of nearly every major and minor power on the Continent combined forces to defeat her.
  • The lesson was a simple one, again rooted in geography. Even when France is united and whole, even when she is not under siege, even when her foes are internally distracted and off balance, even when she is led by one of the greatest organizational and military minds in human history, even when she holds the advantage of nationalism — she still lacks the resources and manpower to rule Europe.
  • But most of all the advantage of nationalism spread. Over the next few decades the political innovation of the nation-state spread throughout Europe and in time became a global phenomenon.
  • The culmination of this dichotomy was the events of May-June 1940, when the French military crumbled in less than six weeks. The defeat was by no means solely the result of geopolitical forces, but it sprang from the fundamental imbalance of power between France and a unified Germany.
  • Phase IV: Managing Germany
  • as France is concerned, however, STRATFOR views the entire post-World War II era as a single chapter in French history that has yet to come to a conclusion. In this phase, France is attempting to find a means to live with Germany, a task greatly complicated by recent shifts in the global political geography.
  • And far from being exposed and vulnerable, France found itself facing the most congenial constellation of forces in its history.
  • The stated gains of the EEC/EU have always been economic and political, but the deeper truth is that the European project has always been about French geopolitical fear and ambition.
  • Eventually the Cold War ended, and the Soviet collapse was perceived very differently in France. While most of the free world celebrated, the French fretted.
  • the Soviet collapse led to the reunification of Germany — and that was a top-tier issue.
  • Twenty years on, Germany cannot abandon the European Union without triggering massive internal economic dislocations because of the economic evolutions Maastricht has wrought.
  • that leaves the French with two long-term concerns.
  • First, the cage breaks, Germany goes its own way and attempts to remake Europe to suit its purposes.
  • Second, the cage holds, but it constrains France more than Germany.
  • Geopolitical Imperatives
  • Secure a Larger Hinterland
  • France is the only country on the North European Plain that has an option for expansion into useful territories beyond its core without directly clashing with another major power.
  • Always Look East
  • Being situated at the western end of the North European Plain makes France the only country on the plain that has only one land approach to defend against.
  • Maintain Influence in Regions Beyond Western Europe
  • Unlike the United Kingdom, whose expansion into empire was a natural step in its evolution as a naval power, France’s overseas empire was almost wholly artificial.
  • These colonial assets served one more critical role for Paris: They were disposable.
  • Louisiana was sold for loose change in order to fund the Napoleonic wars, while Algeria was ultimately abandoned — despite being home to some 1 million ethnic French — so that Charles de Gaulle could focus attention on more important matters at home and in the rest of Europe.
  • Be Flexible
  • Geopolitics is not ideological or personal, although few countries have the discipline to understand that.
  • anonymous on 14 Sep 10
     
    "France is bound by the Alps in the southeast and the Pyrenees in the southwest, the Mediterranean Sea in the south and the Atlantic in both the west and north. In the east, France is bound by the river Rhine and the low mountains of the Ardennes, Vosges and Jura." At StratFor on September 13, 2010.
anonymous

Germany's Geopolitical Opening - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/..._germanys_geopolitical_opening

geopolitics germany

shared by anonymous on 10 Nov 10 - Cached
  • Germany is, of course, not like any other country. It was the primary culprit behind the deadliest conflict to ever befall mankind — World War II — and of the greatest state-organized massacre of a single group of people — the Jewish Holocaust. As such, it essentially was forced to give up much of its sovereignty for the next 40 years and to serve as the board for the geopolitical chess match between Washington and Moscow throughout the Cold War.
  • Germany is forcefully defending its interests and national economic strategy ahead of the G-20 summit. The stage is therefore set for a serious disagreement between Washington and the chief trade surplus countries, specifically Germany and China, at the summit. Germany is also beginning to take shots at China, especially for its decision to limit exports of rare earth elements crucial for German industry. These economic disagreements come as Berlin becomes comfortable with its own geopolitical assertiveness. As far as Germany is concerned, it is no longer anybody’s chessboard. It is beginning to see itself as one of the world powers again — with grand strategies, pawns to sacrifice and everything else that goes along with the title of a chess grand master.
  • anonymous on 10 Nov 10
     
    "German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said on Tuesday that Germans as a nation "must really do something to articulate the relationship between regional security and economic interests without coming to deadlock." Guttenberg cited China's decision to limit rare earth element exports as an example of how competition for resources with the emerging powers could negatively affect Germany's economic well-being. In other words, Guttenberg made a direct link between Berlin's economic and security policies. In any other country such a link is obvious and often reiterated by policymakers, but when German President Horst Koehler expressed similar sentiments in May, he was forced to resign a week later due to criticism that he was overstepping his constitutional bounds (the presidency in Germany is a ceremonial position and one of Europe's constitutionally weakest head-of-state institutions). "
anonymous

The Nord Stream Pipeline's Possible Expansions - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...-pipelines-possible-expansions

geopolitics energy

shared by anonymous on 24 Apr 13 - Cached
  • Analysis
  • The Nord Stream pipeline project was initially designed by Russia to bypass transit states to supply Russian natural gas directly to Germany, its largest European market. In the mid-to-late 2000s, Russia had a series of energy and political spats with states that its oil and natural gas transited to reach greater Europe, leading to energy cutoffs and intentional pipeline breaks. So Gazprom, in consortium with the Netherlands' Gasunie, Germany's E.ON and Wintershall and France's GDF, built two lines from the Russian coast at Vyborg under the Baltic Sea to the German coast at Greifswald. Once on German soil, Nord Stream's natural gas supplies split into two systems. The first goes through the Opal pipeline system that supplies eastern Germany and connects to Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The other spur goes through the NEL pipeline system to enter northern and eastern Germany.
  • Currently, the first two legs of Nord Stream have a shared capacity of 55 billion cubic meters, though the pipeline carried only 28 billion cubic meters in 2012, since the second leg was unfinished. The 2012 exports also were intended mostly for German consumption. Though the primary purpose of Nord Stream was to link Russia directly to Germany, Moscow has long had further plans for the pipeline system. Since Nord Stream 1 and 2 were conceived, two more legs -- Nord Stream 3 and 4 -- have been considered. Nord Stream 3 would expand Nord Stream 1 and 2 under the Baltic Sea to Germany, while Nord Stream 4 would connect Russian supplies through the Dutch export networks to the United Kingdom. The Netherlands exports natural gas to the United Kingdom via the Balgzand-Bacton underwater interconnector pipeline (with a capacity of 16 billion cubic meters) and via Belgium along the Belgium-U.K. underwater interconnector (with a capacity of 25.5 billion cubic meters). Gazprom has said that preliminarily it would like to export an additional 40 billion cubic meters along Nord Stream 3 and 4 to the United Kingdom -- something BP said it is interested in discussing. If completed, these expansions would bring large amounts of Russian natural gas to Western Europe at a time when regional supplies are in decline and some of Russia's Central and Eastern European customers are diversifying their options.
  • anonymous on 24 Apr 13
     
    "The Nord Stream pipeline project was initially designed by Russia to bypass transit states to supply Russian natural gas directly to Germany, its largest European market."
anonymous

Merkel Defends Germany's Leadership - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...el_defends_germanys_leadership

geopolitics germany europe

shared by anonymous on 16 Nov 10 - Cached
  • Merkel defended the euro and Berlin’s efforts earlier in the year to bail out Greece, adding that Germany’s role is to “anchor a new stability culture in Europe,” concluding as she did at the height of the Greek sovereign crisis that “if the euro fails, then Europe fails.”
  • Merkel defended the euro and Berlin’s efforts earlier in the year to bail out Greece
  • She made a case for military reform that would end conscription in Germany
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The chancellor reaffirmed Germany’s Christian identity, stressing that “whoever wants to live here must learn German … (and) obey our laws,”
  • Merkel warned that Germany’s place as a global economic powerhouse was not assured or preordained
  • Germany is ascending to what it feels is its rightful place as a global power, if not one of the world’s true superpowers
  • This is not to say that such language does not still elicit an uncomfortable cringe from a wide spectrum of the German public and politicians. It does. However, Merkel gave Germans a very simple choice on Monday. They will either begin to speak of German European leadership, German military efficiency and German Judeo-Christian identity, or face being “left behind” by the world powers such as China, the United States and Russia, which have no qualms about such rhetoric.
  • This means both that Germany is firing at all cylinders and that it is relatively unimpeded by expenditures on youth and the elderly. Within a decade, however, Germany will see its productive age groups begin to retire, reducing its output and increasing burdens on the state.
  • Germany’s post-Cold War generation, born in the 1990s and psychologically unencumbered by Germany’s WWII experience, will also come to power at this moment.
  • Current Cold War-era institutions that dominate Europe politically, economically and in terms of security — the European Union and NATO — were not originally designed for a unified, assertive and unashamed Germany. The Germany that Merkel spoke to on Monday will either make these institutions work for Berlin or will leave them behind.
  • anonymous on 16 Nov 10
     
    "German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday gave an expansive 75-minute speech at a conference of the German ruling party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Merkel was re-elected at the conference as the party's leader with more than 90 percent of the vote, indicating that her support within the party remains strong despite slumping popularity of the CDU in recent polling." At StratFor on November 16, 2010.
anonymous

Germany: Mitteleuropa Redux - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...315_germany_mitteleuropa_redux

shared by anonymous on 16 Mar 10 - Cached
  • The global system is undergoing profound change. Three powers — Germany, Iran and China — face challenges forcing them to refashion the way they interact with their regions and the world. We will explore each of these three states in detail in our next three geopolitical weeklies, highlighting how STRATFOR’s assessments of these states are evolving.
  • German strategy in 1871, 1914 and 1939 called for pre-emptive strikes on France to prevent a two-front war.
  • They harnessed German capital and economic dynamism, submerged Germany into a larger economic entity, gave the Germans what they needed economically so they didn’t have to seek it militarily, and ensured that the Germans had no reason — or ability — to strike out on their own.
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  • STRATFOR has always doubted the euro would last. Having the same currency and monetary policy for rich, technocratic, capital-intensive economies like Germany as for poor, agrarian/manufacturing economies like Spain always seemed like asking for problems.
  • The resulting government debt load in Greece — which now exceeds annual Greek gross domestic product — will probably result in either a default (triggered by efforts to maintain such programs) or a social revolution (triggered by an effort to cut such programs). It is entirely possible that both will happen.
  • German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble on March 13 in which he essentially said that if Greece, or any other eurozone member, could not right their finances, they should be ejected from the eurozone. This really got our attention.
  • Back-of-the-envelope math indicates that in the past decade, Germany has gained roughly a 25 percent cost advantage over Club Med.
  • The implications of this are difficult to overstate. If the euro is essentially gutting the European — and again to a greater extent the Club Med — economic base, then Germany is achieving by stealth what it failed to achieve in the past thousand years of intra-European struggles.
  • It is not so much that STRATFOR now sees the euro as workable in the long run — we still don’t — it’s more that our assessment of the euro is shifting from the belief that it was a straightjacket for Germany to the belief that it is Germany’s springboard.
  • But this was not the “union” the rest of Europe signed up for — it is the Mitteleuropa that the rest of Europe will remember well.
anonymous

Germany: Creating Economic Governance - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...y_creating_economic_governance

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 18 May 10 - Cached
  • Berlin has written some very large checks to ameliorate the economic crisis — Germany’s combined contributions to the Greek bailout and the eurozone rescue fund are about 151 billion euros ($192 billion), not counting the German portions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) contributions — but in return, Germany wants to redefine how the eurozone is run.
  • The EU project has its roots in the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. As originally conceived it had two purposes. The first was to lock Germany into an economic alliance with its neighbors that would make future wars between Western Europeans not only politically unpalatable but also economically disastrous. The second was to provide a politico-economic foundation for a Western Europe already unified under NATO in a military/security alliance led by the United States against the Soviet Union. The memory of World War II provided the moral impetus for European integration, while the Cold War largely provided the geopolitical context.
  • As STRATFOR has said, the eurozone had a political logic but was economically flawed from the start.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • the eurozone has thus far been exceedingly economically beneficial to Germany. Berlin’s 151 billion euro contribution to the two bailout funds pales in comparison to the overall boost in exports that Berlin has received since forging the eurozone.
  • Furthermore, if the euro were to fragment or disintegrate, the EU would essentially end as a serious political force. Currencies are only as stable as the political systems that underpin them.
  • A collapse of a currency — such as those in Germany in 1923, Yugoslavia in 1994, and Zimbabwe in 2008 — is really just a symptom of the underlying deterioration of the political system and is usually followed closely by exactly such a political crisis.
  • The immediacy of the crisis is the impetus for such radical changes to Europe’s “economic governance.” French President Nicolas Sarkozy actually proposed something similar in the wake of the September 2008 crisis, but Berlin sternly rejected him at the time. The crisis that has followed, however, has changed Germany’s mind.
  • The bottom line is that Germany and other member states are shelling out cash and breaking EU treaties because it is in their national interests to do so at this particular moment. If they are to institutionalize such rules for the long term, it is inevitable that they will be broken once national interests revert back to the standard concerns of sovereignty over fiscal policy.
  • Once Germany has paid for its leadership of Europe, will it also be willing to enforce its leadership with direct punitive actions? And if it does, how will its neighbors react?
  • anonymous on 18 May 10
     
    May 14, 2010
anonymous

Europe: A Shifting Battleground, Part 2 | STRATFOR - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...e-shifting-battleground-part-2

geopolitics europe

shared by anonymous on 08 Jun 11 - Cached
  • When Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov meets with NATO’s defense ministers June 9, the main focus of their talks will be the ballistic missile defense (BMD) network set to be installed in Europe.
  • Moscow is primarily concerned with the U.S. presence in the region, which is seen as a tangible threat. (The Visegrad, or V4, Battlegroup and the Nordic-Baltic security relationship are budding alliances, but U.S. F-16s and BMD installations near Ukraine and Belarus are real.)
  • Therefore, Russia has shifted its tactics — while retaining the option of responding militarily — to facilitating the ongoing fragmentation of the NATO alliance. In Moscow, this strategy is called “the chaos tactic.” In other words, the Kremlin will sow chaos within Europe by cooperating with Western Europe on security issues. The offer of a joint NATO-Russian BMD system is an example of this tactic; it makes Moscow appear willing to cooperate on the BMD issue while painting the Intermarium countries as belligerent and uncompromising (“paranoid,” as the Kremlin often puts it) when they protest Russia’s participation. Two other specific examples involve the European Security Treaty and the EU-Russia Political and Security Committee.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The specifics of the treaty are irrelevant; the important point is that Moscow is negotiating with Western European countries. The mere act of Moscow’s talking to Western Europe about a new security framework irks the Intermarium; such talks show just how shaky the NATO alliance has become.
  • The current geopolitical shift in Europe will engender a crisis by the middle of the decade.
  • The Intermarium countries do not want to take Germany’s Cold War-era role as the chessboard upon which Russia and the United States play. Instead, the Intermarium and the Nordic countries — led by Poland and Sweden — want to move the buffer between Europe and Russia to Belarus and Ukraine. If they can get those two countries to be at the very least neutral — not formally within Russia’s political, economic and military sphere of influence — then Central Europe can feel relatively safe. This explains the ongoing Polish-Swedish coordination on issues such as the EU Eastern Partnership program, which is designed to reverse Russia’s growing influence in the former Soviet sphere, and the opposition of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko.
  • Although Moscow is currently acting cooperatively — while concurrently creating chaos across the continent — it can easily resume using more aggressive tactics. Moscow has contingency plans, including moving troops against the Baltic and Polish borders in Belarus, potentially increasing its military presence in Ukraine and the Black Sea, and placing missiles in Kaliningrad and Belarus.
  • But the overall balance between the United States and Russia in Central Europe will depend on another country: Germany. The question at this point will be the extent to which Germany is willing to see the Intermarium draw in a U.S. military presence.
  • Like Russia, Germany does not want to see a U.S.-dominated continent, especially when Berlin is strong enough to command the region politically and economically. Nor does Germany want to see a more aggressive Russia in a few years. Berlin has limited options to prevent either scenario, but it could use NATO and EU structures to stall the process — though it would cause an identity crisis for both institutions. It will be important to watch how the United States and Russia use Germany against each other in the fight over Central Europe.
  • Unlike Cold War-era Germany, the Intermarium states will not quietly accept becoming the staging ground for a U.S.-Russian contest.
  • anonymous on 08 Jun 11
     
    "As Central Europe works to counter Russia's resurgence in the region, Russia is responding with disruptive measures by cooperating with Western Europe on security issues, a tactic that both strengthens Moscow's ties with Western Europe (particularly Germany) and makes Central European countries look unreasonable. The growing rift between Western and Central Europe will eventually lead to a crisis as the Central European countries try to avoid serving as a buffer zone between Russia and the West."
anonymous

Visegrad: A New European Military Force | STRATFOR - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...ad-new-european-military-force

shared by anonymous on 17 May 11 - No Cached
  • The Visegrad Group, or V4, consists of four countries — Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary — and is named after two 14th century meetings held in Visegrad Castle in present-day Hungary of leaders of the medieval kingdoms of Poland, Hungary and Bohemia.
  • The group was reconstituted in 1991 in post-Cold War Europe as the Visegrad Three (at that time, Slovakia and the Czech Republic were one).
  • On May 12, the Visegrad Group announced the formation of a “battle group” under the command of Poland. The battle group would be in place by 2016 as an independent force and would not be part of NATO command.
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • First, they felt that the Russian threat had declined if not dissipated following the fall of the Soviet Union.
  • Second, they felt that their economic future was with the European Union.
  • Third, they believed that membership in NATO, with strong U.S. involvement, would protect their strategic interests.
  • Of late, their analysis has clearly been shifting.
  • First, Russia has changed dramatically since the Yeltsin years. It has increased its power in the former Soviet sphere of influence substantially
  • Second, the infatuation with Europe, while not gone, has frayed. The ongoing economic crisis, now focused again on Greece, has raised two questions: whether Europe as an entity is viable and whether the reforms proposed to stabilize Europe represent a solution for them or primarily for the Germans.
  • Finally, there are severe questions as to whether NATO provides a genuine umbrella of security to the region and its members. The NATO strategic concept, which was drawn up in November 2010, generated substantial concern on two scores. First, there was the question of the degree of American commitment to the region, considering that the document sought to expand the alliance’s role in non-European theaters of operation.
  • Second, the general weakness of European militaries meant that, willingness aside, the ability of the Europeans to participate in defending the region was questionable.
  • Germany’s commitment to both NATO and the EU has been fraying. The Germans and the French split on the Libya question, with Germany finally conceding politically but unwilling to send forces. Libya might well be remembered less for the fate of Moammar Gadhafi than for the fact that this was the first significant strategic break between Germany and France in decades.
  • There are strong political forces in Germany questioning the value of the EU to Germany, and with every new wave of financial crises requiring German money, that sentiment becomes stronger.
  • For all of the Visegrad countries, any sense of a growing German alienation from Europe and of a growing German-Russian economic relationship generates warning bells.
  • The Nordic countries share the same concerns as the Visegrad countries — the future course of Russian power, the cohesiveness of Europe and the commitment of the United States.
  • In the past, the Visegrad countries would have been loath to undertake anything that felt like a unilateral defense policy. Therefore, the decision to do this is significant in and of itself.
  • Poland is the largest of these countries by far and in the least advantageous geographical position. The Poles are trapped between the Germans and the Russians. Historically, when Germany gets close to Russia, Poland tends to suffer. It is not at that extreme point yet, but the Poles do understand the possibilities.
  • Some will say this is over-reading on my part or an overreaction on the part of the V4, but it is neither. For the V4, the battle group is a modest response to emerging patterns in the region, which STRATFOR had outlined in its 2011 Annual Forecast. As for my reading, I regard the new patterns not as a minor diversion from the main pattern but as a definitive break in the patterns of the post-Cold War world
  • We are in a new era, as yet unnamed, and we are seeing the first breaks in the post-Cold War pattern.
  • For the countries on the periphery, there is a perpetual sense of insecurity, generated not only by Russian power compared to their own but also by uncertainty as to whether the rest of Europe would be prepared to defend them in the event of Russian actions. The V4 and the other countries south of them are not as sanguine about Russian intentions as others farther away are. Perhaps they should be, but geopolitical realities drive consciousness and insecurity and distrust defines this region.
  • Pilsudski proposed an alliance stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and encompassing the countries to the west of the Carpathians — Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.
  • An alliance with Ukraine would provide significant strategic depth. It is unlikely to happen. That means that the alliance must stretch south, to include Romania and Bulgaria. The low-level tension between Hungary and Romania over the status of Hungarians in Romania makes that difficult, but if the Hungarians can live with the Slovaks, they can live with the Romanians. Ultimately, the interesting question is whether Turkey can be persuaded to participate in this, but that is a question far removed from Turkish thinking now. History will have to evolve quite a bit for this to take place. For now, the question is Romania and Bulgaria.
  • the decision of the V4 to even propose a battle group commanded by Poles is one of those small events that I think will be regarded as a significant turning point. However we might try to trivialize it and place it in a familiar context, it doesn’t fit. It represents a new level of concern over an evolving reality — the power of Russia, the weakness of Europe and the fragmentation of NATO. This is the last thing the Visegrad countries wanted to do, but they have now done the last thing they wanted to do. That is what is significant.
  • anonymous on 17 May 11
     
    "With the Palestinians demonstrating and the International Monetary Fund in turmoil, it would seem odd to focus this week on something called the Visegrad Group. But this is not a frivolous choice. What the Visegrad Group decided to do last week will, I think, resonate for years, long after the alleged attempted rape by Dominique Strauss-Kahn is forgotten and long before the Israeli-Palestinian issue is resolved. The obscurity of the decision to most people outside the region should not be allowed to obscure its importance. "
anonymous

Russia's Expanding Influence, Part 4: The Major Players - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...influence_part_4_major_players

shared by anonymous on 12 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Russia is working to form an understanding with regional powers outside the former Soviet sphere in order to facilitate its plans to expand its influence in key former Soviet states. These regional powers — Germany, France, Turkey and Poland — could halt Russia’s consolidation of control if they chose to, so Moscow is working to make neutrality, if not cooperation, worth their while.
  • Moscow is working to cultivate an understanding with regional powers outside the former Soviet Union that are critical to its expansion: Germany, France, Turkey and Poland.
  • Russia throughout the 19th century coveted territory held by the crumbling Ottoman Empire — especially around the Black Sea and in the Balkans — and had plans for dominating Poland. Currently, however, Moscow understands that the two regional powers with most opportunities to subvert its resurgence are Poland (in Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic states) and Turkey (in the Caucasus).
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • If it chose to, Germany could become Russia’s greatest roadblock. It is geographically more of a threat than the United States, due to its position on the North European Plain and the Baltic Sea, and it is a leader in the European Union and could offer Ukraine and Belarus substantial political and economic alternatives to their ties to Russia.
  • France and Germany are important partners for Russia because Moscow needs guarantees that its resurgence in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus will not face opposition from a united EU front.
  • Russia has less leverage over France than over any of the other regional powers discussed. In fact, Russia and France have few overlapping geopolitical interests.
  • Russia gives France and Sarkozy the respect reserved for Europe’s leader, for example by allowing Sarkozy to negotiate and take credit for the peace deal that ended the Russo-Georgian war in August 2008.
  • Russia wants to manage its relationship with Turkey for two main reasons: to guarantee its dominance of the Caucasus and assure that Turkey remains committed to transporting Russia’s — rather than someone else’s — energy to Europe. Russia also wants to make sure that Turkey does not use its control of the Bosporus to close off the Black Sea to Russian trade, particularly oil exports from Novorossiysk.
  • Russia maintains a considerable military presence in nearby Kaliningrad, with more than 200 aircraft, 23,000 troops and half of Russia’s Baltic fleet stationed between Poland and Lithuania.
  • Ultimately, Moscow’s strategy is to assure that Germany, France, Turkey and Poland stay out of — or actively support — Russia’s consolidation efforts in the former Soviet sphere. Russia does not need the four powers to be its allies — although it certainly is moving in that direction with Germany (and possibly France). Rather, it hopes to reach an understanding with them on where the Russian sphere ends, and establish a border that is compatible with Russian interests.
anonymous

New Dimensions of U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Russia - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...s-foreign-policy-toward-russia

shared by anonymous on 11 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • This is a new twist not because it makes clear that the United States is not the only country intercepting phone calls, but because it puts U.S. policy in Ukraine in a new light and forces us to reconsider U.S. strategy toward Russia and Germany.
  • Nuland's cell phone conversation is hardly definitive, but it is an additional indicator of American strategic thinking.
  • Previously, the United States was focused heavily on the Islamic world and, more important, tended to regard the use of force as an early option in the execution of U.S. policy rather than as a last resort.
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  • The strategy was successful when its goal was to destroy an enemy military force. It proved far more difficult to use in occupying countries and shaping their internal and foreign policies. Military force has intrinsic limits.
  • The alternative has been a shift to a balance-of-power strategy in which the United States relies on the natural schisms that exist in every region to block the emergence of regional hegemons and contain unrest and groups that could threaten U.S. interests.
  • The new strategy can be seen in Syria, where rather than directly intervening the United States has stood back and allowed the warring factions to expend their energy on each other, preventing either side from diverting resources to activities that might challenge U.S. interests.
  • Behind this is a schism in U.S. foreign policy that has more to do with motivation than actual action.
  • On one side, there are those who consciously support the Syria model for the United States as not necessarily the best moral option but the only practical option there is.
  • On the other, there are those who argue on behalf of moral interventions, as we saw in Libya, and removing tyrants as an end in itself.
  • Given the outcome in Libya, this faction is on the defensive, as it must explain how an intervention will actually improve the moral situation.
  • for all the rhetoric, the United States is by default falling into a balance-of-power model.
  • Russia emerged as a problem for the United States after the Orange Revolution in 2004, when the United States, supporting anti-Russian factions in Ukraine, succeeded in crafting a relatively pro-Western, anti-Russian government.
  • The Russians read this as U.S. intelligence operations designed to create an anti-Russian Ukraine that, as we have written, would directly challenge Russian strategic and economic interests.
  • The Russian response was to use its own covert capabilities, in conjunction with economic pressure from natural gas cutoffs, to undermine Ukraine's government and to use its war with Georgia as a striking reminder of the resurrection of Russian military capabilities.
  • Washington had two options. One was to allow the balance of power to assert itself, in this case relying on the Europeans to contain the Russians. The other was to continue to follow the balance of power model but at a notch higher than pure passivity.
  • As Nuland's call shows, U.S. confidence in Europe's will for and interest in blocking the Russians was low; hence a purely passive model would not work.
  • The next step was the lowest possible level of involvement to contain the Russians and counter their moves in the Middle East.
  • The United States is not prepared to intervene in the former Soviet Union.
  • Russia is not a global power, and its military has many weaknesses, but it is by far the strongest in the region and is able to project power in the former Soviet periphery
  • At the moment, the U.S. military also has many weaknesses.
  •  A direct intervention, even were it contemplated (which it is not), is not an option.
  • The only correlation of forces that matters is what exists at a given point in time in a given place. In that sense, the closer U.S. forces get to the Russian homeland, the greater the advantage the Russians have.
  • Instead, the United States did the same thing that it did prior to the Orange Revolution: back the type of intervention that both the human rights advocates and the balance-of-power advocates could support.
  • it appeared that it was the Germans who were particularly pressing the issue, and that they were the ones virtually controlling one of the leaders of the protests, Vitali Klitschko.
  • Berlin's statements indicating that it is prepared to take a more assertive role in the world appeared to be a historic shift in German foreign policy.
  • Although Germany's move should not be dismissed, its meaning was not as clear as it seemed. In her cell phone call, Nuland is clearly dismissing the Germans, Klitschko and all their efforts in Ukraine.
  • This could mean that the strategy was too feeble for American tastes (Berlin cannot, after all, risk too big a confrontation with Moscow). Or it could mean that when the Germans said they were planning to be more assertive, their new boldness was meant to head off U.S. efforts. Looking at this week's events, it is not clear what the Germans meant.
  • What is clear is that the United States was not satisfied with Germany and the European Union.
  • This is a touchy issue for human rights advocates, or should be. Yanukovich is the elected president of Ukraine, winner of an election that is generally agreed to have been honest (even though his constitutional amendments and subsequent parliamentary elections may not have been). He was acting within his authority in rejecting the deal with the European Union. If demonstrators can unseat an elected president because they disagree with his actions, they have set a precedent that undermines constitutionalism. Even if he was rough in suppressing the demonstrators, it does not nullify his election.
  • From a balance of power strategy, however, it makes great sense.
  • A pro-Western, even ambiguous, Ukraine poses a profound strategic problem for Russia.
  • Using the demonstrations to create a massive problem for Russia does two things.
  • It creates a real strategic challenge for the Russians and forces them on the defensive. Second, it reminds Russia that Washington has capabilities and options that make challenging the United States difficult.
  • And it can be framed in a way that human rights advocates will applaud in spite of the constitutional issues, enemies of the Iranian talks will appreciate and Central Europeans from Poland to Romania will see as a sign of U.S. commitment to the region.
  • The United States will re-emerge as an alternative to Germany and Russia. It is a brilliant stroke.
  • Its one weakness, if we can call it that, is that it is hard to see how it can work.
  • Russia has significant economic leverage in Ukraine, it is not clear that pro-Western demonstrators are in the majority, and Russian covert capabilities in Ukraine outstrip American capabilities. The Federal Security Service and Foreign Intelligence Service have been collecting files on Ukrainians for a long time. We would expect that after the Olympics in Sochi, the Russians could play their trump cards.
  • even if the play fails, the United States will have demonstrated that it is back in the game
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 11 Feb 14
       
      Whoopie.
  • The mere willingness of the United States to engage will change the expectations of Central Europe, cause tensions between the Central Europeans and the Germans and create an opening for the United States.
  • Of course, the question is whether and where the Russians will answer the Americans, or even if they will consider the U.S. actions significant at all.
  • if the United States ups the ante in Central Europe, Russian inroads there will dissolve.
  • If the Russians are now an American problem, which they are, and if the United States is not going to revert to a direct intervention mode, which it cannot, then this strategy makes sense.
  • The public interception of Nuland's phone call was not all that embarrassing. It showed the world that the United States, not Germany, is leading the way in Ukraine. And it showed the Russians that the Americans care so little, they will express it on an open cell phone line. Nuland's obscene dismissal of the European Union and treatment of Russia as a problem to deal with confirms a U.S. policy: The United States is not going to war, but passivity is over.
  • anonymous on 11 Feb 14
     
    "The struggle for some of the most strategic territory in the world took an interesting twist this week. Last week we discussed what appeared to be a significant shift in German national strategy in which Berlin seemed to declare a new doctrine of increased assertiveness in the world -- a shift that followed intense German interest in Ukraine. This week, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, in a now-famous cell phone conversation, declared her strong contempt for the European Union and its weakness and counseled the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine to proceed quickly and without the Europeans to piece together a specific opposition coalition before the Russians saw what was happening and took action."
anonymous

Geopolitical Journey, Part 2: Borderlands - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...cal_journey_part_2_borderlands

geopolitics europe fsu

shared by anonymous on 17 Nov 10 - Cached
  • A borderland is a region where history is constant: Everything is in flux.
  • The countries we are visiting on this trip (Turkey, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine and Poland) occupy the borderland between Islam, Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity.
  • My interest in the region is to understand more clearly how the next iteration of regional geopolitics will play out. Russia is far more powerful than it was 10 years ago. The European Union is undergoing internal stress and Germany is recalculating its position. The United States is playing an uncertain and complex game. I want to understand how the semicircle of powers, from Turkey to Poland, are thinking about and positioning themselves for the next iteration of the regional game.
  • ...35 more annotations...
  • I have been accused of thinking like an old Cold warrior. I don’t think that’s true. The Soviet Union has collapsed, and U.S. influence in Europe has declined. Whatever will come next will not be the Cold War. What I do not expect this to be is a region of perpetual peace. It has never been that before. It will not be that in the future. I want to understand the pattern of conflict that will occur in the future. But for that we need to begin in the past, not with the Cold War, but with World War I.
  • he Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires collapsed, the Russian empire was replaced by the Soviet Union, and the German empire was overthrown and replaced by a republic.
  • The Carpathian Mountains form a rough boundary between the Russians and the rest of Europe from Slovakia to the south.
  • The northern part of Europe is dominated by a vast plain stretching from France to Moscow.
  • Following World War I, Poland re-emerged as a sovereign nation.
  • Pilsudski is an interesting figure
  • The Russians defeated the Ukrainians and turned on Poland. Pilsudski defeated them.
  • It is interesting to speculate about history if Pilsudski had lost Warsaw. The North European Plain was wide open, and the Soviets could have moved into Germany. Undoubtedly, the French would have moved to block them, but there was a powerful Communist Party in France that had little stomach for war. It could have played out many different ways had Pilsudski not stopped the Russians. But he did.
  • His vision was something called the Intermarium — an alliance of the nations between the seas built around Poland and including Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Finland and the Baltic states.
  • Pilsudski’s Intermarium makes a kind of logical if not historical sense. It is not historical because this borderland has always been the battleground for others. It has never formed together to determine its fate.
  • As always, the Intermarium is caught between Russia and Europe.
  • the entire question of the price and value of the European Union became a central issue in Germany.
  • Germany has not thought of itself as a freestanding power since 1945. It is beginning to think that way again, and that could change everything, depending on where it goes.
  • For Poland, the specter of a German-Russian entente is a historical nightmare. The last time this happened, in 1939, Poland was torn apart and lost its sovereignty for 50 years.
  • geopolitics teaches that subjective inclinations do not erase historical patterns.
  • The question in Ukraine is whether their attempt to achieve complete independence is over, to be replaced by some informal but iron bond to Russia
  • There is no more important question in Europe at the moment than the future of Ukraine.
  • The area east of the Dniester, Transdniestria, promptly seceded from Moldova
  • Moldova is the poorest country in Europe. Its primary export is wine, sent mostly to Russia. The Russians have taken to blocking the export of wine for “health reasons.” I think the health issue is geopolitical and not biological.
  • Romania is oriented toward the European Union but is one of the many countries in the union that may not really belong there.
  • as its power increases in the Balkans, Turkey will be one of the forces that countries like Romania will have to face.
  • Russia as seen through the eyes of its neighbors is the purpose of this trip, and that’s the conversation I will want to have.
  • It is a theory that argues that the post-Cold War world is ending. Russia is re-emerging in a historically recognizable form. Germany is just beginning the process of redefining itself in Europe, and the EU’s weaknesses have become manifest. Turkey has already taken the first steps toward becoming a regional power. We are at the beginning of a period in which these forces play themselves out.
  • I am going to the region with an analytic framework, a theory that I will want to test.
  • Those who argue that the Turkish government is radically Islamist are simply wrong, for two reasons.
  • First, Turkey is deeply divided
  • Second, the Islamism of the Turkish government cannot possibly be compared to that of Saudi Arabia
  • The single greatest American fear should not be China or al Qaeda. It is the amalgamation of the European Peninsula’s technology with Russia’s natural resources. That would create a power that could challenge American primacy.
  • This is not a time of clear strategic thinking in Washington. I find it irritating to go there, since they regard my views as alarmist and extreme while I find their views outmoded and simplistic.
  • The United States is a vast nation, and Washington thinks of itself as its center, but it really isn’t. The United States doesn’t have a center. The pressures of the world and the public shape its actions, albeit reluctantly.
  • I regard NATO as a bureaucracy overseeing an alliance whose mission was accomplished 20 years ago.
  • The Intermarium countries remain infatuated with the European Union and NATO, but the infatuation is declining. The year 2008 and Germany’s indifference to these countries was not pleasant, and they are learning that NATO is history.
  • Washington still thinks of Russia as the failed state of the 1990s. It simply doesn’t take it seriously. It thinks of the European Union as having gone over a speed bump from which it will recover. But mostly, Washington thinks about Afghanistan. For completely understandable reasons, Afghanistan sucks up the bandwidth of Washington, allowing the rest of the world to maneuver as it wishes.
  • Nothing, of course, could be further from Washington’s mind.
  • I am not making strategy but examining geopolitical forces. I am not planning what should be but thinking about what will likely happen.
  • anonymous on 17 Nov 10
     
    "This is the second installment in a series of special reports that Dr. Friedman will write over the next few weeks as he travels to Turkey, Moldova, Romania, Ukraine and Poland. In this series, he will share his observations of the geopolitical imperatives in each country and conclude with reflections on his journey as a whole and options for the United States. "
anonymous

Germany, Greece and Exiting the Eurozone - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...ny_greece_and_exiting_eurozone

geopolitics geography

shared by anonymous on 18 May 10 - Cached
  • the economic underpinnings of paper money are not nearly as important as the political underpinnings
  • The trouble with the euro is that it attempts to overlay a monetary dynamic on a geography that does not necessarily lend itself to a single economic or political “space.”
  • Europe is the second-smallest continent on the planet but has the second-largest number of states packed into its territory.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • the Continent’s plentiful navigable rivers, large bays and serrated coastlines enable the easy movement of goods and ideas across Europe.
  • Europe’s network of rivers and seas are not integrated via a single dominant river or sea network, however, meaning capital generation occurs in small, sequestered economic centers.
  • southern Europe lacks a single river useful for commerce. Consequently, Northern Europe is more urban, industrial and technocratic while Southern Europe tends to be more rural, agricultural and capital-poor.
  • For centuries, Europe was home to feuding empires and states. After World War II, it became the home of devastated peoples whose security was the responsibility of the United States.
  • To join the eurozone, a country must abide by rigorous “convergence criteria” designed to synchronize the economy of the acceding country with Germany’s economy.
  • two scenarios of eurozone reconstitution that have garnered the most attention in the media
  • Germany would therefore not be leaving the eurozone to save its economy or extricate itself from its own debts, but rather to avoid the financial burden of supporting the Club Med economies and their ability to service their 3 trillion euro mountain of debt.
  • Germany could reintroduce its national currency with far more ease than other eurozone members could.
  • German banks own much of the debt issued by Club Med, which would likely default on repayment in the event Germany parted with the euro.
  • The option of leaving the eurozone for Germany
  • If Athens were able to control its monetary policy, it would ostensibly be able to “solve” the two major problems currently plaguing the Greek economy
  • Athens could ease its financing problems substantially.
  • the first thing the Greeks will want to do is withdraw all funds from any institution where their wealth would be at risk
  • The resulting conundrum is one in which reconstitution of the eurozone may make sense at some point down the line. But the interlinked web of economic, political, legal and institutional relationships makes this nearly impossible. The cost of exit is prohibitively high, regardless of whether it makes sense.
  • anonymous on 18 May 10
     
    May 18, 2010
anonymous

Eurozone Running Out of Peripheral Countries to Bail Out - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...t-peripheral-countries-bailout

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 11 Jan 11 - Cached
  • Despite denials to the contrary from Schaeuble and from the Portuguese government, nobody is buying the rhetoric that Lisbon will survive long without a bailout. Investors are certainly not buying it and neither are Portugal’s fellow eurozone members.
  • Portugal is on its way to a bailout and Europeans — bankers, investors and politicians — seem relatively resigned to it.
  • The more fundamental problem for Europe is that it is running out of highly indebted, small, peripheral countries on the edge of the eurozone map to rescue. Yes, enacting the bailouts is now an orderly, German-led process, but what happens when the bailouts are no longer of peripheral economies that are one-fifteenth the size of Germany?
  • anonymous on 11 Jan 11
     
    "German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Monday that Germany was not pressuring the Portuguese government to seek financial assistance from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. The statement followed a Der Spiegel report that Germany and France were trying to force the Portuguese leadership to request aid. The denial from Schaeuble came as financial media reported that bond traders claimed the European Central Bank was intervening Monday to buy Portuguese debt in secondary markets. The Portuguese yield rose to more than 7 percent before settling at 6.93 percent. Greece asked for its bailout in March 2010 as yields went above 8 percent."
anonymous

The European Perception of Biden's Russian Visit - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...erception-bidens-russian-visit

geopolitics russia

shared by anonymous on 10 Mar 11 - Cached
  • During Biden’s previous European visits, he concentrated on Washington’s relationship with its Central European allies. Europe, particularly Western Europe, does not play a minor role in the complex relationship between Washington and Moscow.
  • Despite this general preoccupation, France and Germany have increased their engagement with Russia in several ways.
  • First, Paris and Berlin lobbied for Moscow to be included as a “strategic partner”
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Second, France has stood firm regarding plans to sell Mistral helicopter-carrier amphibious assault ships to Russia
  • Third, Germany has in the last few weeks boosted its military relationship with Russia
  • From the perspective of Germany and France, Russia is no longer the existential threat that it was during the Cold War. Russia is in fact a lucrative business partner.
  • Europe should continue to engage Moscow, and the United States and Central Europe should not stand in its way, since aggression will only turn Russia inward.
  • Germany and France are not engaging Russia for the sake of transforming Russia into some sort of a liberal democracy — that is merely the explanation given to the United States and Central Europe — but because it is in their national and economic interests to do so.
  • Russia knows how to play the game with Western Europe. Specifically, it knows how to show hints of internal “reform” to satisfy the “soft power” complex of Europe. But at the same time, it is using its enhanced military relationship with France and Germany as a way to counter American influence in countries like Poland and Romania.
  • anonymous on 10 Mar 11
     
    "U.S. Vice President Joe Biden began his official visit to Russia on Wednesday by meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, to be followed by a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday. Prior to his visit, Biden made a half-day stopover in Helsinki, where he met with Finnish President Tarja Halonen and had a working lunch with Prime Minister Mari Kiviniemi. "
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