Tuesday, April 15, 2008

EU, Russia and the USA: musical chairs... two chairs left

David Seaton's News Links
The natural synergies between Russia and the European Union are central facts in today's geopolitics.

Russia, underpopulated at 140 million and amazingly rich in natural resources and the 400 million inhabitants of the European Union, unrivaled for adding value to everything tangible that comes into their hands are an obvious match up.


If Russia and the European Union can ever come to some harmonious understanding, the result would be the most productive concentration of humanity and raw materials in history. The question would be how to handle the United States. because two is company and three is a crowd. What would they need the USA for? Except as a provider of entertainment, what would America's further role be in the "West"?

If Russia is no longer a military threat to Europe, what possible justification could there be for the USA to station soldiers in Europe?
Why should the Mediterranean be filled with US warships? How would this affect Israel?

If Europe with the euro and the world's largest economy finally creates it own unified defense force... in the face of fierce American opposition and ridicule, just like when the euro was created, what then could possibly justify an American role in European affairs. America would be next to irrelevant in Europe.

Therefore keeping Russia and the EU apart is evidently an American strategic goal of the first order.

In my opinion this obvious synergy between Russia and the European Union and the logical consequences that would flow from it are haunting American foreign policy today... much more than Iran, China or the "Global War on Terror".

It seems to me evident that the USA is doing all it can to create tension with Russia in order to prevent and interrupt the natural flow between Europe and Russia. Something like a fireman who sets fires in order to justify his role and create a demand for his services. DS

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's interesting. Zbigniew Brzezinski makes a similar argument in his book "The Grand Chessboard". He claims that America's primary objective in foreign affairs should be to prevent the emergence of a unified Eurasia. An argument could be made that this is what drew the US into WWII, as the Germans and Japanese between them were obviously moving in that direction. I don't know how likely that is today, as the only thing with any chance of uniting such a diversity of peoples would be fear of some external threat...

David Seaton's Newslinks said...

Mostly it would be about be about cooperation and exploiting synergies, not about unifying politically. What the EU is set up workable standards. If you want to sell something to those 400m people it has to be made a certain way... that moves enough weight, you can wave any flag you like.

Anonymous said...

Sure. Unity can be relative. The idea is that Eurasia is open to US influence in inverse proportion to how integrated and at peace it is. Without division and conflict, the US has no role.

Of course, a single political unit is out of the question.