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Monday, 04 July 2016 02:34

HOW TO CRASH PUTIN’S BREXIT PARTY

Robert D. Kaplan, The Wall Street Journal, 30.06.2016    

 

NEVER SINCE THE COLD WAR HAS AMERICAN LEADERSHIP BEEN MORE VITAL TO NATO AND DEMOCRATIC EUROPE.    

 

For decades, NATO and the European Union have silently worked in unison. The former required a foundation of European unity, and the EU to a significant extent provided that, its elitist and statist bureaucracy notwithstanding. Now the architecture is being toppled, as the vote for Brexit may trigger a cascade of desertions.

 

Meanwhile, NATO still must defend Central and Eastern Europe against Russian subversion and outright aggression. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who yearns for European disintegration, must see Brexit as a victory. Never since the early days of the Cold War have NATO and Europe so required American leadership. Brexit is a test for this president and the next.

 

The NATO states bordering Russia and the former Soviet Union, from Estonia in the north to Bulgaria in the south, have the most to lose. In the 1990s these countries imagined themselves leaving history, with all of its tragedies, behind. Now Poland drifts toward right-wing populism, Hungary is in the grip of neo-authoritarianism, Romania stands relatively weak and burdened by corruption, and Serbia and Bulgaria especially are undermined by Russian subversion and infiltration. The returning geopolitical chaos is akin, in some respects, to the 1930s.

 

Collective security is becoming an abstraction. The more that Europe fractures, the less resolve there will be to invoke NATO’s Article 5, which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all. The United States can fill the emerging vacuum, without overextending itself, through a deft combination of diplomacy and projected military power. If it doesn’t, the victory in the Cold War will have been erased.

 

Start with the United Kingdom. The words “North Atlantic” from NATO’s acronym are crucial. Adrift from Europe, Great Britain should reinvigorate its alliance with America. Acting together, the two nations can still project power on the European mainland up to the gates of Russia.

 

This matters especially because Brexit has undermined a key goal of British geopolitics going back hundreds of years: preventing any one power from dominating the Continent. Yet now Germany is empowered to do just that. Who in Europe can rival it? France is increasingly a second-tier power facing its own populist surge (Marine Le Pen’s National Front) and unable to enact desperately needed economic reforms.

 

Germany and Britain lately have been allies, and trade between the two will continue. But restraint and common sense cannot be assured in the future. A long line of German chancellors, dating fromKonrad Adenauer, have reflected Atlanticism and an understanding of Germany’s unique responsibilities to European peace and stability. Future chancellors may not.

 

Looking beyond the era of Angela Merkel, the Germans eventually might become fed up with the thankless task of dealing with Greek debtors and Russian adventurers. They could strike a separate bargain with Russia or turn inward toward populist nationalism, as other European countries have done. Given that a wave of populism has exposed the philosophical emptiness at the base of so many traditional European political parties, why should Germany’s be exempt?

 

That’s why, since the end of World War II, American diplomacy has never been more vital in dealing with, encouraging, and supporting the German foreign policy establishment. Washington should allow no space between it and London, and between it and Berlin. Guiding Europe means guiding these two countries. If that can be done, the rest might fall into place.

 

Then there are Romania and Poland, the demographic and geographic cores of southeastern and northeastern Europe, respectively. The U.S. in May placed a ground-based, missile defense shield in Romania and broke ground at the same time on a similar system in Poland. Though operated by NATO, these are essentially American initiatives. In the wake of Brexit, they take on dramatically greater meaning. Though officially meant to deter Iran, this demonstrated military commitment to Romania and Poland also indicates to Mr. Putin that, whatever political chaos may be occurring inside Europe, aggression and subversion against these and nearby NATO member states comes with a cost.

 

The dispatch in April of two American F-22 jet fighters to the Romanian Black Sea coast may have halted temporarily Russian overflights in the region. Moreover, the Romanian coast, given the degree of Russian subversion in Bulgaria and Georgia, offers the best platform for the U.S. to build up its naval forces in the Black Sea. Poland is similarly in a position to help buttress the Baltic states, where there have also been Russian overflights.

 

The tremors from Brexit have just begun, and they will roil Europe for years. While the U.S. cannot fix the continent’s political and economic problems, it can protect allied democracies in Central and Eastern Europe to preserve the regional balance of power in Eurasia. Weakening the administrative superstate in Europe may arguably be good in the long run. But it is bad for geopolitics, and America must rise to the challenge.

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