Europeans have a strong case to argue that it is in NATO’s strategic interest to pause its enlargement policy. While Russia has no veto on membership, a perceived threat is equally no automatic ticket to entry. Europe will want to invite the US to think strategically, not nostalgically, about the weight it wishes to attach to NATO in its regional policy.
Given that the West lacks obvious means to influence Russian behaviour, its best option may be simply to wait out the situation.
Shared interests
This approach seemed implicit in the outcome of the EU summit on 1 September, although it was harder to swallow for the Bush administration. A Russian government heavily dependent on energy exports for revenue has a strong incentive to maintain a dialogue with its Western partners. It wants to expand energy giant Gazprom’s already extensive global interests and needs to develop more oil and gas capacity.
A possibly hopeful sign in this area was the compromise reached on 4 September by the British oil company BP in a dispute with its Russian partners in the BP–TNK joint venture. This was an agreement welcomed by the Russian president’s economic aide, Arkady Dvorkovich, who said: ‘We are confident this will serve as an important message to foreign companies investing in the Russian economy.’
Russia’s economy has benefited substantially from foreign capital and expertise, and financial markets have been meting out their own punishment to Russian investments since the Georgian crisis. Among other shared interests with the West, Moscow wants to restrain Iranian ambitions to develop nuclear weapons and has voted for UN sanctions against Tehran.
That these shared interests will continue to play a part in Russia’s foreign relations seems logical. However, logic has not ruled in the Georgian crisis; there has only been a brutal reminder that large countries still have spheres of influence over small neighbours.
The failures of strategy that occurred have resulted in a mutual loss of confidence and a multiple loss of face. Even so, the war is far more likely simply to establish a new status quo in part of the complex Caucasus region than to be a step towards a larger East–West confrontation.
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