The
relations of the European Union- Russia, from the Cold War until the war in Kosovo
: the geopolitical and strategic approach
by
Alexandre del Valle
The modern geopolictics is a multidisciplinary approach, which takes into
consideration the authorities rivalry as they concern to territories. As
the controlling (or the possession) territory is a mean to exercise an
authority or an influence on the people and resources, which are there. In
France, two great geopolitics analysts contributed to rehabilitate this
discipline, before mainly studied in Germany, in Russia and in the Anglo-Saxon
countries: the general Peter Marie Gallois, for whom the geopolitics studies
"the influence of the medium on the human", and the geographer
Yves Lacoste, according to whom the geopolitics is "an intellectual
process" have as a subject "the study of territorial rivalry of
authorities and their repercussions in the opinion"1.
Therefore does the modern geopolitics analyze particularly, with a view of
clarification, the "representations", "history
driving forces", which from on a hand and from the other, preside to
the elaboration of mobilization processes of antagonist camps, that the
stumbling block is in general a rivalry of powers as to territories
and resources. For Lacoste, the representations signifies "an
ensemble of ideas and collective perceptions of political, religious or other
order which animates social groups and which forms their vision of the world"2.
Therefore the "representations" are they intended in legitimate
the "desire of territory", "desire of power "
of the "Friend camp", and thus to disqualify the motivations and
requests of the " Enemy camp ".
If we study the war in Kosovo at the geopolitics of representations light,
it means that the Yugoslavian strategists, as well as their the same as their
NATO colleagues, in order to justify the air raids against Serbia or to
disqualify them, led first of all to a war of representations, for
which the process of mobilization that are the religion, the culture, the
political-ideology, the human rights, the nationalist interpretation of the
history, the patriotism, etc., were " requisitioned" maximally in
order to legitimate the attack for ones, the defense for the other, as the
geopolitics and " the geography, explains Yves Lacoste, " it
serves firstly to wage war" (1967). As the war in Kosovo was more than a
war against the authoritarian regime of Slobodan Milosevic. Under the diabolization
and the media war of representations, the operation Joint Forces was at
first a "western" war of the USA and NATO against the orthodox and
former communist world which the basis State remains Russia. Indirectly, it
carried even a war against Russia. A war planned at the beginning to lift a new
Iron and Blood Curtain between the space post -Byzantine former communist and
the West, which the Anglo-Saxons translate by the significant term of West (The
West). We shall show how, during lines, which follow, the war in Kosovo was
turned in a slight indirect manner against Moscow and in what the Anglo -
American and NATO strategies did not receive the geostrategic effect hoped,
namely the apparition of political anti-western reactions in Moscow, Vladimir
Poutine refusing to fall into the shock trap of the East-West civilizations and
opposing on the contrary the American strategy proposing to the Europeans and
NATO responsible faces to cooperate with the new Russia.
More forceful than ever after the Wall of Berlin Falling, post-Eltsin Russia
renews with the growth and the stability. Reasonable patriot and the supporter
of a national reconciliation of Russian around their double past, before the
communist and Soviet regime, Vladimir Poutine is the first chief of the new
Russia to have a real geopolitical formation and to propose a geostrategic and
politically global vision to make restore to his country its pride and
its place inside the concert of nations.
Conscious that the Western Europe remains weakened and unable to cut umbilical
cord which connects to Washington through NATO in particular, Poutine is besides
conscious that the least false step, the least marks of step anti-western of the
Russians, even justified, for example as reaction to the War in Kosovo, will be
used the strategies of NATO to justify a new Russian-phobia, a neo-
containment which does not say its name but the annual reports of Pentagon
as the manuscripts of western strategists recognize. It is in the frameworks of
this contra- strategy that the Russian President, formed from methods of the
psychological war and of rhetoric due to a passage in KGB that it is easy for us
to reproach him, but they overlooked to put in parallel with the fact" that
it is equally issued from " a clan from the liberals of Saint
Petersburg", formulated, soon after his election, Russia intention to
integrate into NATO and to work with the Western and the Europeans in collective
Euro-western Security face to new external common dangers, since Islamic sunni
international based in Afghanistan and acting in Chechnya as in Bosnia or
through different attempts anti-American imputed to the Saudi terrorist Bin
Laden.
By this rhetorical gesture of high symbolical and psychological range, Vladimir
Poutine hoped to make pass a double indirect message to the Western and to the
European Union: at first, "it is not the Soviet Russia that refuses the
West, but it is the last one that refuses to open the door of NATO to the
Russians ", the USA being thus obliged, through their refusals, to
recognize that NATO is against Russia and the Slav-Orthodox world. Then, the
Europeans have the choice between two geostrategic options: " to
continue to serve as glacis and as vassals to the American authority, or to
co-operate with Russia to a unity and a strategic independence of Old Continent"
the unique capable power to counterbalance the American unipolarity. Shortly, to
build the world multipolar order inside which the Great Europe, created since
the ideal axe Paris - Berlin-Moscow, will create a equilibrium pole not enemy
but equal to the American pole.
It is at the light of these different strategic options that it is necessary to
analyze the War in Kosovo as the war in Chechnya, these two wars, apparently
very different, being two geostrategic "moments " of vital importance
for the orthodox world which the Russia intends to be the Headlight State, to
reinstate the statement of Zbigniew Brzezinski. In the ex- Yugoslavia as in
Chechnya, Moscow played simultaneously its international credit status (zone of
orthodox influence and the access to the Mediterranean sea in " the close
foreigner" of Balkans) and its preservation (integrity of national Russian
territory and the control of the roads of petroleum in Chechnya). In the two
cases, Russia was or detached (ex- Yugoslavia) or obstracized by the
industrial nations (Chechnya).
The speech does not go, certainly, to deny the extreme violence of
Russian and Serbian interference in separatist provinces in Kosovo and Chechnya.
The geopolitical-analyst remains a human being. He is not insensitive to the
phenomena as injustice, violence, barbarity, etc. But he replaces them in the
strategic and geopolitical context. He states the disproportion, the
aggressions, and the injustice, from the reports of forces and the strategy
point of view, not from the exclusively moral point of view. It does not mean
that it places the hangman at the same level as the victim, it implies simply
that he tries to moderate the discussion and to take the detachment in
relation to the representations solicited from the one hand and from the other,
in order to study the facts and the reports of real forces, in general latent
with more or less successes. From this point of view, the use of the term
"genocide" concerning the civil wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, or Chechnya,
has some features of a driving rhetoric force, of a representation,
more than it does not describe an intangible reality.
Parallel to the geopolitical classical procedure and to the
clarification of the phenomena of "the informational war" and "
the economic war ", the "paradigm of the civilizations", dear to
the American professor Samuel Huntington, constitutes a grid of reading
indispensable to understand some geopolitical contemporary phenomena, in this
case the neo - containment against Russia and the climate of hostility
diffuses of West against the Slav - orthodox civilization, major obstacles,
according to us, in any political and geostrategic rapprochement between the
Western Europe and Russia.
In 1868, already, the Russian geopolitical Nikolaï Danilievski, the
author of Russia and Europe, expressed the thesis on which " the
Europeans see in Russia and in Slavs not only a foreign corps, but still a
hostile principle"3. Under the representation "the
Europeans", Danilievski nominated the hegemony quasi- incontestable of
Great Britain, the thesis inside of our theme of study because it is one of the
main consequences of the war in Kosovo would have been revived the old
"civilization identity" and Geopolicy wounds between the "West
" and Russia. Also that the "Europe" meant for Danilievski or
inline, the Western Europe under the Britannic hegemony, also the Russian
anti-western nationalists or communists specify, today, under the statement
" West ", the American hegemony or still the general
"Americanization" of the Europe, and not the Europe as a
plurimillenary civilization or as a geopolitical project, in which Russia
played always an important party but it feels eliminated by the " western
" (Zinoviev) forces, mainly Anglo- Saxons.
More than a century later, there are two American geopoliticians and
Strategists, who will approve the anti-western Danilievski, their thesis
constituting in some way the copy in negative of the Russian geopolitical one's.
The first is the former Jimmy Carter adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski. His
geostrategic doctrine, completely anti-orthodox, mainly based on the "roll
back" of Russia and of its spheres of influences, has no an equal one as
only in Danilievski anti-western and of his Russian modern supporters,
Alexandre Zinoviev, who criticizes the " totalitarian West ", in the
geopolitician and communist leader Anatoli Ziouganov, passing through the
leader of the extremely - right party Vladimir Jirinovsky, the author of
the geopolitical pamphlet " I spit upon the West". The Second is the
American historian - geopolitical-analyst Samuel Huntington, professor in
Harvard, apparently more neutral, who will restore, following to Braudel and
Lacoste, his letters of nobility to the civilization identity theory of
the Geopolicy but who will found the thesis of the "non- western "
character and at last "oriental " of the Slav-orthodox civilization.
Agreed with Danilievski, and even with the Englishman Arnold Toynbee or with the
German Spengler on this point, Huntington affirms as well that Russia and the
Slav world, to which belongs Serbia, being attacked by the West during the war
in Kosovo, are a distinct civilization of the West.
According to Samuel Huntington, the values of the modern West are
based on Christianity, pluralism, individualism and the authority of the law, as
much values "having permitted to the West to invent the Modernity, to
know the world extension and to impose as a model to other societies (...). The
Europe is the "source", the unique source of concepts of the
individual freedom, of the political democracy, of the authority of the law, of
the human rights and of the cult freedom "4. By these words, the author
let to be seen the strategic presuppositions, which are at the origin of the
representations which he, gives to the " West". For him, the values
which found the western civilization, common to the USA and the Europe,
are these written in the foundation principles of the Atlantic Charter and
protected by NATO: " the common faith in the role of the law and in the
parliamentary democracy; in the liberal capitalism and in the freedom of
exchanges; and in the cultural European common inheritance, that of Greece and
of Rome, including there the adhesion to the values, to the faiths and to the
civilization of our own century "5. For Huntington as for the essential
of the American intellectuals and responsible faces , NATO is "the first of
the western establishments", who can not be recognized as westerns those
who refuse the extension of NATO in the Europe, condemn the armed interference,
and reject, as it is the case "auto-managing" communists, the
nationalists or other "sovereign people", the supreme values of the
global free trade and of the trade capitalism, phenomena which has also the
habit to name by the polymorph terms of "universality " or
"globalization ".
Russia and the orthodox Block , not subordinating to the western
" globalization "
Among the representations typically western, the theme of the
emergence of " the planetary culture", of "a global
village", of a planetary identity, even of " an international
community ", the integrity being named in the generating acceptation of the
" generalization " or the "Globalization", is typically western
and it is often presented as the proof of the inanity of the paradigm of the
civilization identity shock . The defenders of the Globalization paradigm affirm
that " the shock of the civilizations" is improbable as the means of
the modern communication tend to create a new form of the "planetary"
membership. However, Internet and the satellites did not at all make the
civilizations and the identity of peoples disappears. They have on the contrary
allowed to these last to leave the limited framework and often historically
artificial of the national State, to reach "a civilization identity consciousness
", transnational, certainly, but not cosmopolitan. "The
explosion of the media, explains François Thual, namely the television
and the visual one, allows even more than in the past to intensify the request,
to exasperate the obsessions and to strengthen the threats. The internal
and external conductivity of the identity themes was accelerated by the
technical progress of the communication (...). The media transform the cultural
identity into an emotional stream of sounds and images"6.
If the philosophic - political internationalism isn't globally divided by the
Westerns themselves, the world ideology to speak in exact terms, that
Samuel Huntington named "Culture of Davos", concern at last an
insignificant party of the planet (1 % of humanity approximately), corresponding
to the western world, which excludes however Russia and the orthodox poor
post-Byzantine countries.
Therefore, from the point of view of the numerous Russian intellectuals, namely
the sociologist Alexandre Zinoviev, the Globalization under discussion is
perceived as a falsity and "a hypocritical mask " of the "
western and American imperialism ". "Even the idea of a
"global" society, is a western idea, and not universally human (...)
explains Zinoviev. The driving force of this initiative is not at all the
aspiration of various States and peoples of the planet to unite one with the
others - such aspirations are extremely rare - but the desire of some western
authorities to occupy dominant positions on the planet and to organize the
humanity completely in the correspondence with their concrete interests, and
certainly not according to the interests of an abstract humanity". We
understood, Zinoviev nominates by "some powers" the United States of
America and the Anglo-Saxon countries generally, accused to justify their
hegemony inside the western world under an " illusory international
community ", besides very bravely denounced by Condolezza Rice, the new
secretary of the Security of the President Bush in the same way as by Samuel
Huntington. "The modern West, pursues Alexandre Zinoviev, is not
a simple conglomerate of States: USA, England,
Germany, France and other western communities similar from the social
point of view. The speech goes about a stage of organization more complex and
superior. It is a young entity from the historical point of view, which began to
be formed only the next day after the second world war, and which is still
under the way of formation"8. For the author "We and the West",
the modern concept "of West " is today inseparable to that of global,
that is of " the social phenomenon of unification of the States and of
peoples of the western world in an unique entity. The historical initiative
within the framework of this process was resumed by the USA ".
Therefore, the War cold declared by the USA to the Russian - Soviet
world highly favored the integration of the western States around the American
power, and the global Americanization of the Old Continent. The integration of
the western world in an unique geopolitical or imperial entity, entity which
Zinoviev calls "western Supra-society " or "pro-westerner ",
conducts to the formation "a multitude of organizations, institutions and
establishments of a character universally western, that is supranational.
Millions of persons are henceforth involved in their activity ". These
federal " international " establishments, instruments of indirect
domination of the USA, under the covering of the "Atlantic community
", " international community ", " Euro-Atlantic", or
" West ", are qualified by Zinoviev as "superstructures ":
UNO, NATO, ORGANIZATION of economic COMPLEMENTATION And DEVELOPMENT,
INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND, INTERNATIONAL BANK FOR RECONSRUCTION AND
DEVELOPMENT, OMC, AMI, OMS, etc.
The infra - European civilization identity clash "strategically oriented
"
We understand better in this " representative " context, why the
defenders of the "Atlantis" recognize Turkey or Japan, non-European
and non-western nations - in an initial sense of the term - as "
western", and not the Serbs, defenders of the sovereignty of the socialist
Yugoslavia, or even the Russians, accused to be "nostalgic" of the
Soviet Soyuz - accusation regularly used against the President Vladimir Poutine
-, or simply not subordinating to the western liberalism or to the American
leadership. So it is explained the forceful propensity of the Anglo-Saxon
strategists to use the term " western " in a more strategic and
economic sense than of " civilization identity " or historical,
Huntington as Schlesinger putting the identity cultural European factors after
the economic and ideological aspects.
Certainly, the nations of Western Europe are the sisters of European
Slav-orthodox nations - Russia debiting as much to the Athens, as to the Romans
or to the Germans (through its ancestors Vikings founders) and certainly to the
spiritual Judeo - Christian inheritance, than to the Western Europe.
Undoubtedly, the Slav-orthodox world and the Europe belong to the same European
civilization, even if some historians, exclusively Anglo-Saxon or German,
from Spengler to Huntington, passing through Caroll Quigley, tried to prove the
contrary, impregnated by a vision extremely western, anti-Latin and northern, of
the European civilization.
From this side, as reaction in philosophical and psychological protestant way
and to the Anglo-Saxon influence of the western Europe just as for propre
reasons due to the historic - political evolutions , the Slav-orthodox world
does not always consider itself a full member of the " West ", concept
which is not only, for them, to the origin of the Great Schism, but which is
mainly turned against Russian world after arrival Soviet communism and the cold
War, which allowed a taking under control, by the, of the " western
world".
As we state reading of the civilization identity concepts strategically
" oriented " by Huntington, it is preferable, certainly, to not allow
itself to be deceived by the " paradigm of the civilizations ": the
adepts of the "civilization identity integrity " forgetting sometimes
that the civilization identity and the lever of cultural identity is frequently
instrumented and used as a driving force of representation justifying the
struggles for power more or less occult. "The paradigm of the civilizations
" does not dwell less allowable, because the "cultural identity representations
", that they are based on authentic facts or myths, give sense
inside the masses and the Geopolicy actors. That we wanted or not, they thrust
quantity of human beings of any civilization, since time immemorial, to accept
to die for their religion, their nation, their identity or their civilization
identity membership, even to destroy another civilizations presented as
enemies or strangers, as it was the case during the war in Gulf and in Kosovo,
not forgetting the war of silent destruction of peoples which constitutes the
embargoes and other " international sanctions".
"The West", "civilization identity illusion ", the main
detail of the "war of representations " against the Slav-orthodox
world
In different dictionaries, one of the definition given to the West is
"an ensemble of States of the Northern Atlantic agreement", at
the origin of NATO. Since the second world war and by opposition to the Eastern
Block, " the West " almost became a synonym of the transatlantic
community, the ensemble of States-members of NATO or, by extension, the
ensemble of the developed States more or less allied to the USA and adepts to
the market economy and liberal democracy. Under the cold War, the West was also
called " the free World ", as opposition to the "Eastern
Block" located on the other part of the awful Iron Curtain. On the one hand
the Welfare, the Freedom and the Richness, from the other hand the oppression,
the shortage, "the Empire of Evil" of Dulles and Reagan. The connected
concept, "the free World", by opposition to "the Soviet-communist
world", metaphor eminently ideological and not "civilization identity
", will contribute to forge the modern representation of the "
West". In this acceptance, Turkey, State situated in more than 90 % out of
the limits conventionally recognized of the Europe-civilization, the Muslim
countries from Caucasus and central Asia closely connected to the USA and Turkey
and joined to NATO, as Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan or Kirghizia, have
the vocation, following to Japan, to integrate the western system, however that
the Christian nations and the ethnic- cultural or linguistic " indo -
European" substrate (Dumezil), as Russia, Byelorussia,
Serbia or Armenia, are actually eliminated from the geopolitical and
ideological representation of the " West ".
Therefore, when the Serbs or Russian armies undertake operations of
anti-terrorist repression certainly extremely violent against the separatist
elements Bosnian - Muslim, albanian-kosavars or Chechens, they are
accused "to challenge the West ", the Islamic rebellions and the
Chechen or Albanian terrorists as well as the peoples of Turkish-Islamic
substrate being considered more "western" that the Slavs orthodox
soldiers. The use forcefully symbolical of the term "Allied", in
particular during the war in Bosnia, in Kosovo (the operation called "Joint
Forces" for this purpose) and in Chechnya, to specify the " Good
" (Bosnian - MMuslim, the Croatian Catholics or the Muslim Chechen
separatists) in acceptance with the " Bad " Slav - Orthodox (the
ex-communists not subordinating to NATO and to the liberal economy) who dare
" to challenge the West ", shows also the desire "to roll back
" Russia and the Slav-orthodox world apart from the western field in order
to cut the Europe in two and thus to immortalize the American hegemony in the
Europe weakening it.
United at the summit in Helsinki in November 1999, the western chiefs condemned
in fact resolutely Russia, during the first air bombardments in Chechnya,
calling Moscow to lift the ultimatum launched to the civilians from Grozny, and
qualifying Russia persistence to continue its offensive against the Chechens
"challenge referred to the West ". From its side, Brussels
threatened "to suspend " some clauses from the agreement of
partnership and cooperation which connects the European Union to Russia, the 15
ministers of foreign affairs of the EU condemning resolutely " the
disproportionate force used" by Moscow. "The Russian forces
challenged the West yesterday in Chechnya taking under control the city-symbol
of Bamout and continue their bombardments on Grozny, despite the appeals
to negotiations before opening of the OSCE summit", published Le
Monde from the 15th of November 1999, inform the official declarations from
Brussels. Better, the OSCE and the Council of the Europe was on the point to
exclude Russia from their instances, accusing Moscow " to mock at the
values of West". It will be necessary to wait February 2001 that, not
without the Anglo - American reticence, Russia be completely rehabilitated
inside these instances. From his side, the French Minister of the defense Alain
Richard, reminded that the Europe had a role of political persuasion and of
caution to play, advising to the Russian authority: distrust the
isolation and of the delimitation and to appear more and more as an
irreconcilable power with our values", the French Minister seems to dread
the extension of the ideological and civilization pit separating again the
" West " from Russia after the War in Kossovo. If we consider the
facts from the moral point of view, independently to the awful human drama which
really provoked the Russian bombardments, but from the point of view of the
geopolitical analysis of the "representations", the statement
"challenge the West" disclose taken party anti-Russian which is at the
origin of the tarnished statement " of West ". As if it was
only feeling of compassion which really animated the Westerns, these would
regret as much the "dramas " or the " human catastrophes",
the "absence of the human rights " which take place almost everywhere
in the world and more in Indonesia and in Turkey, closely allied States to the
USA, or in Africa or in Afghanistan as in Russia or Serbia.
The mark of a "Russian challenge towards the West" reveals the
strategic anti-Slav-orthodox directions (neo - containment) which push the
Western to reproach to the Russians their attitude in Chechnya while the mass
murders of the peoples Kurds since years by Ankara and Turkey persistence to
refuse to recognize the " Armenian genocide" was never qualified as
"a challenge to the West "... We see, the geopolitics of
representations does not consist to occult the human dramas or to whiten or to
incriminate such or such camp more than other, but to clarify the geostrategic
unofficial motive which push the States to seize some documents better than the
others.
According to some Russian intellectuals, the " West " finished to
nominate simultaneously the planetary capitalist
"Supra-society " defined by Zinoviev or by Soljenitsyn, the scarf of
the American hegemony, and a philosophical liberal concept and individualistic
of the world, described by Huntington or Francis Fukuyama, absolute antithesis
of the Russian - Soviet totalitarianism or Asian holism. It appears at last
logical that the statement West nominates today, as inflexible enemies,
not the " civilization identity opponent " traditional in the
Europe, namely the Islam (particularly the Turkish - Arabian East), but the
entities more or less recalcitrant to the liberal capitalist model of the
Anglo-Saxon society and mainly to the American hegemony-orientated
which under strives it: Russia ex or neo-communist; the socialist
Yugoslavia; the Maoist China, the communist Northern Korea; the "
anti-imperialist" and encrypted - communist Cuba, the bassist Iraq,
etc.. From a geographical and civilization identity concept
confidentially connected to the history of the Europe and of the Christianity,
the representation " West " evolved to an ideological and
economy-orientated concept of the world indicating a supra-member
neo-imperial and capitalist, dominated by the former northern- American colony
of the Europe. Since the "Great Rupture" observed by Vladimir Volkoff,
or Zinoviev, whence still " the cold Peace" announced by Huntington.
In a more meaningful language, the French strategist Pierre Marie Gallois
affirms that we assist to a new Cold War, a new Eastern- Western conflict
extended this time to the entire world. It is in this context that it is
convenient to replace, according to us, the recent war in Kossovo, which
succeeded to reactivate the shock of the civilization between the Western
Europe and the post - Byzantine area, in the strategic general purposes to
hinder the edification at term of a forceful and independent Europe and in the
framework of a new " cold global war " between, from one hand the USA
and their western glacis and, from the other, the Rest of the world potentially
concurrent and \or recalcitrant.
The Europeans entrapped by the " pro-westerner " and by the
neo- containment against Russia which follows
Proclaiming themselves the members and solidarity to the " West ",
that they know however under the global domination of USA, which monopolized in
some way even "usurped" the appellation " West ", which has
nothing in common with it initial European acceptation, the Europeans lose in
some way their own identity and mainly the sense of their vital interests.
After the definition which gives the French strategist Murawiec of the
subversion and of the "informative war" : "to make lose the
North, to disorientate", the Europeans lose gradually the sense of
their own auto- identification, they "lose the North" and they fail to
represent themselves according to their identity and own interests. The
American hegemony-orientated "benevolent " dressing apparently
representative wear more or less European of the "West". "The
missile taking the name even of a purpose", sneers at Arnaud-Aaron
Upinsky.
As always teach the strategists and the political-analysts, the definition
of a nation or of a civilization has of itself, as well as if its "enemies
" and "friends" (Julien Freund), conditions the elaboration of
its strategic thought and even of its policy of defense. Therefore, it is
necessary to state that during the end of the Second World War, the "West
" has indicated a more planetary marine Empire of Anglo-Saxon culture and
statement - supposed to grow endlessly and limitlessly of the cultural
boundaries, at the discretion of Americanization - standardization of nations -
that the civilization of the Europe itself.
Even if they dress the honorary status of a cultural and geographical
Mother-Country of this " West" metamorphosed, the nations of the Old
Continent, which persist to prefer to the Euro-Russian union the transatlantic
union, have not henceforth and already relegated to a status of the USA vassals,
as expresses Zbigniew Brzezinski without beating around the bush . They
are "out of the History " (the general Pierre Maria Gallois)
and were conquered by themselves, during the battle of representations at
term of which their name, their identity, and consequently their immune system,
were neutralized.
Better, the European nations serve today of force of supplement, of
external glacis and of "head of the geostrategic bridge" of the USA to
the Eurasia, as write in black and white the American strategist Brzezinski in the
Great Chessboard. Therefore the Russian writer Alexandre Zinoviev does he
state for its side that " to install the world order according to their
desire, USA should mobilize the forces of the western world entirely, as they
can not make this absolutely alone"12.
But the chiefs of the European states, when they realize that the
Americans speak about the "the western world" and "the
international Community " with the unique purpose to dilute their
hegemonic motivations and their own responsibilities, do not draw the
conclusions of this which result from this . Instead of realizing that the vital
interests well understood by the Europeans are different - not inevitably
opposed
- to those of the Americans, they are entrapped on the terrain of the
legitimacy and of the representations. They can not more, in some
way, step back and persist to prefer the comfort of the American protectorate at
the difficulty of the strategic rapprochement with Moscow and the post-Byzantine
Block.
A term probably pertinent in some epoch, as the West mixed up with the Europe,
before the colonization of the Americas, the " West" is henceforth a
real conceptual and semantic trap, "a civilization illusion".
It returns to cut continental Europe in two and to exclude from an European
field the post -Byzantine Slav- orthodox space, considered as foreign,
"oriental ".
At the light of the grid of reading of the " war of civilization
representations" and of the geopolitic and strategic constants and
variables, they state at last that in Chechnya, as in Kosovo, it is traditional
American pro-Islamic strategy and the geostrategic necessity to deprive the
Russians of the hydrocarbon road (Caucasus, the central Asia) which explains in
a large party the over - mediatization of the events and the fact that
"the West" decided to protect the Albanian and Chechnya
pro-independence insurgents, however issued the separatist terrorist - Mafioso
currents for the first (UCK) and the radical anti-western Islamic for the
second, connected to the Talibans and wahhabit Islamic network of Bin Laden,).
" I think that the Russians are on the way to do in Chechnya that that
Milosevic tried to do in Kosovo", will comment the general Wesley Clark
from the first "air attacks" of Moscow on Grozny. "Such
comment are absolutely unacceptable" replied the Russian minister of
foreign affairs to the former NATO supreme commandant, specifying " that it
would be better to abstain from making sermons, being surprised "that it
was Wesley Clark, one of the main culprit of the NATO aggression against
Yugoslavia which made anti-Russian declaration"13.
Anti-western renewal, the Russo- Chinese rapprochement and "The New cold
War", the consequences of the wars in Kosovo and in Chechnya
The USA, since the end of the cold War, have never really stopped to pursue
a major objective: to hinder the resurgence, on the European or Eurasian
continent, of a power comparable to that it was the ex Soviet Union, or any
other Eurasian ensemble population capable to contest the American unipolar
superiority. In this perspective the New Strategic Concept of NATO (1991-1999),
the spectacular augmentation of the budget of the American defense, and mainly
the different military American-western interference led - without the
agreement of the non-western members of the Council of Security - from the
falling of the Soviet Union (Iraq since1998, Bosnia, Kosovo, etc.), were
perceived, in Moscow, Peking as in New Delhi, as genuine "declaration of
the cold war" more as the warnings. The President Vladimir Poutine, once
elected, did not drop in the trap of the Euroscepticism and of the anti-western,
which seem justify the extension of NATO in the central and East Europe, the war
in Kosovo and the western media support brought to the Mafioso and Islamic
separatist Chechens (connected to the Afghanistan of Talibans and to the
international terrorist web of Oussama Bin Laden) had the essential functions to
revive the strategic-civilization breakage East -West, between the
two Europe.
"The appeasement East-West is questioned by the American aggression in
Kosovo, explains Pierre Maria Welsh, it is in such a way that widens the crack
between the Americanized western world and the government of
nations grouping soon a population about 3 milliards, at the level of life
precisely less elevated. It could be that the crisis from Kossovo and the
manner, which is treated, was the omen of a future great schism "14. It is
paradoxical, the USA, which intend want to induce China (allowed recently inside
WCO) and Russia to join the concert of the developed nations and which are
afraid above all of the constitution of the "anti-hegemonic"
alliances, seem have made everything to favor a spectacular rapprochement
between the two largest nuclear Eurasian forces, China and Russia. "The
diplomacy of bombardment which practices Madam Albright came to the concluded
that the State department was afraid more : a spectacular rapprochement between
Moscow and Peking ", states the General Gallois. Really, in hardly some
months after the operation Joint Forces, on the 9-th of December 1999, Boris
Eltsine departed to Peking to put an end to an old boundary disagreement and to
proclaim that Russia - as China - was " until the proof of the converse
a nuclear power" and that the "Westerns", refusing the
competition of these two States, should nevertheless " be careful to
interfere in their internal affairs": the Caucasus for Russia, the
Human Rights, Taiwan, the Spratleys islands, as China concerns.
Soon after the resignation of Boris Eltsine, in January 2000, one of the first
strategic decisions of the President Vladimir Poutine will revise the Russian
doctrine of use of the nuclear weapon, Moscow reserving to itself henceforth the
right to resort also only in case of aggression against " the only
existence of the Russian Federation", but in a conflict or all other means
would have failed. Parallel, Poutine decided the augmentation with 50 % of the
military Russian budget...
According to Anatoli Ziuganov, the chief of the Russian communist party and the
author of the geopolitical agreements, it would exist "a real
geopolitical world conspiracy against the ex-USSR" and "the main
threat for the Russia security " would emanate from the "progression
of the Atlantic Alliance military machine to the western boundaries of our
country"15. Far from considering the signature, in Paris, the 27-th of
May 1997, of the basic agreement of NATO-Russia as a sign of appeasement between
two former Blocks, Ziuganov affirms that the agreement of Paris "devoted
legally the victory to the West at the issue of the cold War".
Therefore "the simple common sense suggest us to strengthen our
connections with China, India, Iran and some Arabian countries"16,
pursues the author, having reminded "Mackinder appeals to destroy '
Russian domination" above the core of the Eurasia" were resumed by
the "Russian- phobic as Brzezinski or Kissinger"17. In his
newspaper of a writer, already, Dostoievski wrote " Russia not only
European, but also Asiatic . It is better, there can be more hopes for us in
Asia that in Europe. It is better, for our future destiny, Asia can be our main
discovery"18.
Therefore, since the crisis in Kosovo and in Chechnya, the anti-western
and anti-European feelings of the Russians considerably amplified: at the
beginning of April 1999, 49 % of Russians recognized "to have a negative
vision of the West and Western Europe", as Le Point from the
17-th of April 1999 reveals. But the Russian feeling according to which it
exists "a geopolitical conspiracy of the West against Russia",
representation deeply anchored at numerous Russian elite and intellectuals,
including the former anti-Communist dissidents as Soljenitsyn or Zinoviev, do
not cease to grow. Listen better to Zinoviev, declaring to the Serbs, during the
war in Kosovo: " We have rescued the humanity from the most awful threat
: the fascism. Now we are attacked by a new common enemy, the American
imperialism, which tries to dominate the world. The same intentions are
recovered against the Russians, you, the Serbs, and us: To break us by dividing
our country and by dissociating people, the final purpose being to exterminate
us. (...). We, the Russians, we have already capitulated before this enemy.
(...). While you, you resist. You struggle for your independence. (...). You
struggle also for us the Russians who have cowardly abandoned the History field
of battle. You struggle for the whole Humanity which threatens the aggressive
imperialism of the USA 19".
According to Zinoviev, the humanity seems really entered, under the influence of
the American hegemony, in the " post-democratic era " the planet
become "mono-State system" or " mono-polar system ",
the USA exercising a global hegemony, incontestable for the moment . "As
well as the democracy is henceforth superfluous for the leaders of the western
world. Much more, that it began to hamper in their conquest of the world
authority". Therefore Zinoviev does he not doubt to affirm that the
West which left victoriously the cold War, is directed "to a
totalitarianism of a special kind (...).The belligerent totalitarianism of the
West advances under the disguise of humanism, of democracy, of the struggle for
the Human rights, of justice"20.
The Slav-Orthodox world and the Western Europe, two irreconcilable world? The
refusal of the intra - European civilization identity clash
In The Grand Chessboard, Zbigniew Brzezinski, after Spengler, impregnated
the two of the German-Anglo-Saxon vision of the western civilization, explains
that the Orthodoxy is different civilization, even antagonist to
the "West". For him, as for Samuel Huntington, however, the events
suddenly occurred in Bosnia and in the ex-Yugoslavia are perfectly explained
after the paradigm of the civilization shock: the Moslems against the
Christians, the Catholic against the Orthodox, the Bosnian Moslems or the Turks
being for him more close, from the civilization point of view, to the Croat, the
Hungarians or the German Catholic that these last to their orthodox brothers. To
supply this thesis, Samuel Huntington explains "front line
civilizations" separating the two Europe, the Catholic- Protestant from the
Orthodox explains, passes, since the Grand Schism, through the Ukraine (divided
between the Catholic separatists and the pro- Russian Orthodox) and the
ex-Yugoslavia (Bosnia), where the Catholic and the Orthodox are identified to
the Roman-German West and in the Slav- orthodox post- Byzantine area. From two
parts of this boundary, two different alphabets, two different concepts of
Christianity, two representations of himself and of the world, despite the
membership to the same ethnic - linguistic Slav ensemble.
If it is real, this fracture is nevertheless more of an infra-civilization
nature, that is opposing the two histories and the two cultures
belonging to the same civilization, that inter-civilization identity.
Some people make an analogy between the schism Orthodoxy/Catholicism and that
which divided the Moslem Chits and Sunni. For Huntington and for the Anglo-Saxon
historians in general, the fracture Catholicity / Protestantism is practically
occulted, in such a way that we speak about the "western
Catholic-Protestant" civilization in relation to an Orthodoxy strange
and foreign. So we have really affair here with a partial
"representation", strategically oriented, which historical
basis is widely disputable. Really, the two large civilization identity splits
advanced by Huntington: the religious Schism between the Orthodoxy and the
cultural differences between the West and the Orthodoxy, belong widely to a
system of representation inherent from the Anglo-Saxon world, tending to
legitimize the Anglo-Saxon hegemony, since the end of the 18-th century, through
the promotion supposed civilization Catholic - Protestant unity, the
matrices of a "western" globalization more large, and through an
exacerbation of the "civilization identity" antagonism between the
Catholics and the Orthodox.
The largest manifestation of political and strategic origin of this war of
representation, carried by the Anglo-Saxon thalassocracy during two
centuries to strengthen artificially the western - orthodox shock, was without
any doubt the ruthless struggle led by London from the Turks part against the
orthodox Russia and its obstinacy to hinder Saint Petersburg and Moscow to reach
the Turkish Straits and the Mediterranean sea. Therefore the episode of the war
in Crimea was not it only a link among so other inside this strategy of divide
et impera which aimed at the end to isolate and to cut from the European
west the strategic heartland of the Old Continent, the Russian- orthodox
heartland described by the Anglo-American geopolitics theoreticians opposing the
marine empires to the continental authorities. As to us, we support that the
European nations from the West so from the East belong to the same civilization,
which geographical natural space is the Grand continental
"Euro-Siberian" Europe (to see maps I and II).
It is really in a context of geopolitical rivalry between the East Roman Empire
and the new "West Empire", then within the framework of accession to
temporary authority of the papacy, that will emerge two large crises which will
provoke a definitive rupture between the two Churches (schism
Orthodoxy/Catholicism) and the two worlds, the " western" and the
"eastern" (in " Byzantine " sense of the term and in
reference to the civilization issued from the Roman Empire of East).
Contrary to that which is affirmed here or there, the theological contention
opposing the two Churches are incomparably less important that those opposing
Rome to the Protestant Churches. In fact, the faith and the theology of the
"Eastern" (Orthodox) are much closer of these of "the Latin"
(Catholic) that to the "reformed " concepts, which question radically
not only Mary, as " the Mother of the God" (teotokos), but also, that
which touches the essential, the significance even of the Christ Body and
Blood during the communion (transsubstantion), without speaking about the
predestination doctrines, of the sola fide and sola scriptura of
the Protestants. Schematically, the two large obstacles dividing the two
churches concern: at first the problem of the superiority of the Pope,
secondly, the so mentioned "quarrel of the Diadic-union". We try thus
to see slightly more clearly.
Concerning to rivalry between the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Roman
Pope, who pretend the two to be the successors of Peter, each knows that it must
act there of a detail, from the faith and theology point of view, the
Credo of the two Churches being issued from the same Councils of Nicea and
Constantinople. Therefore is it good to remind that, during the Council in
Constantinople, in 381, bishops of Rome, Constantinople, Antakya and Alexandria
dominated on the same leg of equality, that was then accepted by all. The
bishop of Rome, becomes Pope much later, 23, had no more and no less then an
honorary superiority. Even at the moment of scission in 1054, the Orthodox did
not contest this superiority. They never stopped in exchange to denounce the
excessive political power that the Popes arrogated to themselves during
centuries, the pontifical States having been created by Pepin the Short, and
consecrated by Charlemagne, who will hand symbolically the keys of Rome over to
the Pontifical Governor.
The proof of the political crucial role played the German Charlemagne in
the exacerbation of the political-theological conflict between the Latin and the
Eastern, the term of Pope itself became official only at the end of the IX-th
century, at the moment of crowning of the French Emperor by Leon III, the
successor of the last one having been the first to carry the title of Pope. At
last, at the beginning of the Christianity, the bishops were in an overwhelming
majority " Eastern" - that we qualify today as Orthodox - at there
were thus for a very long time conclaves mainly composed the Greek- Eastern that
chose the Popes. It will be necessary eventually to wait the domination of
Charlemagne - who will create the dioceses almost everywhere in Europe and will
again equalize thus the composition of the conclaves in the "Western"
favor, that be elected the first "western" Popes by the
"suffragan" bishops. This revolution, extremely political, will be one
of the main deep sources of the future Grand Schism. It thus in this context and
following to the rupture engagement between Anne, the daughter of Constantine,
and Charlemagne - however considered, by the Byzantine, as a "false Emperor
" and "barbarous" semi-heretic German - that will emerge
"the quarrel of Diadic-union". Making enter in the Credo, until
then unanimously recognized by the Latin and by the Eastern, the addition to
Diadic-union, adding that the Holy Spirit proceeds not only from the Father but
"from the Father and the Son", Charlemagne hoped to provoke
religiously a political rupture already consumed between two rival Empires,
which required the same "Roman" inheritance .
Is it always that, briefly, the Orthodox and the Catholic recognize the validity
of the apostolic succession of their respective bishops and priests,
naming Pope so the greatest or one from most great bishops, the successor of
Peter, that of Rome, the Orthodox not refusing that the absolute superiority of
Pope on the other bishops and patriarchs; practicing the monachism, the
confession near the, and accord a capital importance, in difference from the
Protestants, to the role of Tradition, namely patristic (the students of
the Fathers of the Church). We precise that a faithful orthodox can take
communion in a Catholic church and on the contrary, that any of the two
Churches do not accord to the Protestants, while, since the Council of Vatican
II, the Popes and the Patriarchs recognize themselves mutually having lifted the
excommunications which stroke them reciprocally since the schism. There are
probably the historical traditions, which distinguish more that they divide the
Orthodox and the Catholics.
What is it now of "the cultural and historical ditch" between the
"two civilizations" described by Huntington or Pierre Behar, following
Spengler? It is, just as "the theological ditch", to relatives.
Let's remind nevertheless, that up to the XI-th centuries, almost set of Italy
of the South Byzantian, and that some of the most beautiful masterpieces of
christian art of Italy and the Balkan are the result of synthesis between the
Roman and Byzantian traditions. Italian Ravenne is one of architectural miracles
of the Byzantian style. Sacred Vital basil reminds very cleanly that from Sacred
Sophia of Constantinople, and Ravenne's mosaic represent Byzantian empress
Theodora with her servants. Actually, the big part of the European Mediterranean
sea, theoretically, included in categories of "West", should as much,
sometimes even more, to the Greek-Byzantian culture, that to the
"western" culture in roman-german-anglo-saxon sense of the term. In
Corsica, in Sardinia, in Sicily, in Naples (Nea Polis, or "New city
" in the Greek language) and in Italy of the South in general, the
Byzantian liturgies are shown even in local religious practices. Concerning
Sicily, they speak even about religious art and about the
"Normandy-Byzantian" architecture, the Catholic Norman aggressors,
forcing to survive in their achievements the gréco-Byzantian culture, which
they have found in the country of Cyclopes. Better, today still, at bishops of
several capitals of Italy of the South there are double ceremonies, Latin and
Byzantian, while the aboriginal of numerous villages of Sicily, Sardinia or
Corsica remain, to present day, adherents of Orthodox Church.
As to the Russian christian - orthodox Church, it is known that there are two
envoys of Pope, Cyril and Method, occurring of Greece, who will go,
century before the Big Split to transform ( convert) the Russians
(the Method was the Greek and Cyril Bulgare). The governor Bishop very
well could send in Russia two Latin missionaries. As it is known, the Pope has
approved the alphabet conceived by the Method and Cyril (Cyrillics) which
becomes that of orthodox Russians, Bulgarians, Byelorussians and Serb-
Macedonian etc. Therefore, if the Pope has chosen Latin missionaries, this
alphabet would be Latin today. At last, the problem of the uniatism, if
it is for someone the apple of discord, for mainly pastoral bases (authorities
and distribution of places of a cult), does not rest less the biggest
demonstration of spiritual and cult unity, Catholics Ukrainian uniats has
precisely the same liturgy, the same mess, the same ceremonies, as
Orthodox! The unique difference, of size, certainly, being the recognition of
the Authority of the Pope and a mark
of the name uniats during the time the mess . Only the fidelity,
in a result, very political instead of theological, in the
"Saint-Siege", divides two Churches. We see, that "the foundation
civilization identity ditch" separating Orthodoxy of the
"western" world catholic - reformed, is not as important, as
they say, in any case no deeper, than between Catholics and protestants. It does
not result of a shock of an irreversible civilization between two
enemy worlds, but faster the consequence of the split appeared inside the same
initial Greek - Roman civilization. Disagreements exist, certainly. Historical
wounds were reactivated even during the war of Kosovo, as regretted however the
Pope Jean Paul II and Romanian orthodox Patriarch Teoctist in the joint
Statement signed May, 8 1999 .
Of the civilization identity, geostrategic and political
of "Euro-Siberia" unity
From a point of view less exclusively cultural-religious and more
"secularize", the two Europe, in their modern change, may be
even more connected - vaguely, certainly, but very real - as in the past when
theological stumbling-blocks have noted cleanly less public consciousness of secularized
and industrialized societies that those of Homo religious
of the last centuries. The successor of the legal and political organization of
Romans, of the philosophies and sciences of Greeks, of ethnic-linguistic
Indo-European properties common for Celts, for Latin, for Germans as for Slavs,
and incorporated by the Jewish-Christian contribution, itself in a basis of
modern secular idea and in a basis of the paramount place of the individual, the
Europe is in the beginning "a big history shared ", a general
destiny, requiring ethics for the needs of the equipment and the moral of
the humane person. It is "a civilization of the person" as it has told
Henri de la Bastide, an extraordinary civilization including creation, research,
and development with high moral and spiritual requirements. Whether we want or
not, and even if Russia did not at all learn how some Russian - skeptical
explain, the Reform, the Revival and the French Revolution - "the three R
of the West ", Russia shares completely these values and it bombard
even more directly, than the Countries of the West in their Greece-Latin and
Jewish-Christian sources, not speaking about Bolshevik Revolution which played
in Russia the role of the second French Jacobean and terrorist revolution of
1793. Whether we want or not, the Europeans, have in common some essential
characteristic features: from Britain to Siberia, from Portugal to Behring,
family customs, believes, philosophical and cultural references (the Russians
recognize themselves as much in Victor Hugo and Russian, as the French or
Italians in Dostoïevski or Tolstoï or still any European in Plato, Leonard DA
Vinci, Dante Alighieri, etc.), moral references, just as the social problems of
Europeans (decrease of traditional morals, falls of birth rate, individualism
etc.), are deeply similar.
The Europe, in effect, more Euro-Siberian by sense than by choice, is a
"rich bourgeois family" for the best and for the worse, which various
branches have certainly taken pure directions but which, such Greek settlements
in relation to Barbaroï, are more than before interested - due to the
circumstances (generalization, logic geoeconomic "blocks", collisions cultural
civilization, threats from the Islamic South etc.) - to gather inside of
what Gorbatchev has named "the European City town hall".
Various historical and politico-theological stumbling blocks of the past,
mentioned earlier, seem today widely surpassed, even deprived of interests for
any supporter of construction of the Big independent Europe. However, the war of
Kosovo has well shown, that contrary to decades of faithless communistic
ideology and the generalized downturn on religious practice, the religion, as
a reality civilization identity basic more, than a theological
belief, has not stopped to print the mark and to impregnate deeply public
consciousness. However, they were actually rather insignificant, the
stumbling-blocks civilization identity opposing the European West to the
east the post-Byzantian live thoughtlessly whereas Europeans of two coasts fall
in the reef of division and instrumentalisation of civilization
identity shocks.
Not to doubt, the construction of an uniform and strong Europe, independent of
the thalassocratic American Empire, passes thus a "civilization
identity reconciliation" between the "two lungs of Europe ",
the western and the post-Byzantian, a reconciliation as easily sold from the
"Euro-Siberian" strategic point of view as it seems the utopian, from
the "pro-west" and pro-Atlantic point of view, question of postulates
of departure and desire. Europeans should be finally convinced, that
the agreement with Russia and the orthodox world is at the same time easy to
make, and even salutary, from the geopolitic point of view.
The necessary rapprochement European
Union - Russia or "an ideal direction"
Paris-Berlin-Moscow
The European union remains now a hybrid unit, "soft"
(Pierre Marie Gallois), difficult to distinguish from the Atlantic project and
deceived by the Globalization utopia, usurper- as well as we have
explained it - of the concepts of "West" behind which appears American
hegemony. So, the subordination of Europe to the USA and the support of
the NATO - historically created and maintained against Russia and the
Slav-orthodox Block - as the only structure of strategic European protection
(Europe of Protection leaving for itself humanitarian missions and the
preservations of the Peace known as the peace of "Petersberg"), is
unacceptable for the several bases:
- First, it is not justified against a continental Eurasia common danger,
the "Russian- Soviet" threat disappearing and the communistic China
not having in mind any more, as Russia to win the West. Actually, if continental
danger is present in Eurasia to repeat Zbigniew Brzezinski's statement, it
may not be felt such except for the English-American strategists who always were
afraid of geopolitic unity of Eurasia and of scripts of "anti-hegemonic"
continental plots to the American sea empire. If a new general threat
appears in Eurasia, it is the fact not of European peoples but of Islamic
Totalitarianism Sunni, which Vladimir Putin specifies through sound
statement of " religious fascism ", which the final purpose is
to win all world, by Jihad, from Africa, Caucasus, the Central Asia and
Europe, the main "soft border zones" of the Islamic continuum.
So, USA, as we have explained it once in a previous context , favored - and
continues to favor in some places - the expansion of the world bases of the Islam
to the detriment of the European interests.
This reality of "infringement of unity of the Euro-western civilization"
(Huntington) by USA, taken in pincer by their double world
politics, simultaneously occidental and Islamic-petroleum, would protect
even faster for the benefit of the strengthening of intra-european and continental
cooperation between the European union and Russia, in the question on protection
and on safety, against the same menacing and revanchist Islam of the
South. This strategic cooperation, aspiring to guarantee safety of three big
components making the Euro-western civilization (the Western Europe, Orthodoxy,
America), the President Vladimir Putin was the first European head of the state
to offer it (the cooperation) solemnly to the western colleagues, during the
European summits and during the first diplomatic visits to London and in Rome.
- Second, the European subordination is unacceptable, as Europe has
henceforth all advantages to equalize, even to surpass once the
American power, if it have only the desire: the population adjoins to 380
million inhabitants (720 million uniting set of peoples of the European
continent), against 260 for USA; the PNB combined by Europe of the
Fifteen - 7800 billion dollars in 1999 - equalizes that of America (7783 billion
dollars) and it surpasses already widely if consider the Western Europe as a
whole (EU +AELE: Norway, Switzerland, etc.) Or if take into consideration the
inevitable admission of the countries of central and East Europe (PECO), Cyprus,
Malta, etc.; at last, the standard of living of two blocks is widely similar,
when the PNB per capita was shaking average between 25 and 30 000
dollars from both sides of Atlantic. As to technological achievements, as to
scientific and medical research, as to commercial and industrial parameters, as
to an average intellectual and cultural level, and even as quality of life
(social orders, vital skill, art and culinary traditions, etc.), Europe has
nothing to envy to Americans. Opposite. Accept several areas, as high
technologies of protection or skill of space, where it has refused to keep the
first place, but where it might catch up easily the delay, Europe, with the
second Russian vital strategic lung, is globally at least as powerful and
advanced as USA and makes the first economic power of the world.
Also, in the case the European union would agree to go to the strategic
and political independence, and thus to rise distance in relation to the NATO or
at least to create a real European protection, independent of the American
supreme command, that would motivate Moscow to represent at last its nominee at
Brussels - the thing it could not do until then because of the natonisation of
the EU - the continental Europe shaped from the ideal direction
Paris-Berlin-Moscow would create the first strategic power of the planet.
Not only such a Big Europe might counterbalance and soften, more
than to challenge, the American unilateral action and the Uni.-polar
world, occurring from the end of the cold war, factors of global
infringement of balance and wars (Gulf, Kosovo, antimissile project of
USA and rise of race of arms, etc.), But it would have the most important
reserves of energy resources and strategic resources of the world, the best
brains - in overwhelming majority European but going too frequently to find
fortune in USA, where they are better remunerated, - the most enviable and
the most central geographical position, and, mainly, ability of
almost general economic, technological, military and political self-maintenance.
Nothing justifies thus the present full submission of the European union to
America, not even the belonging to the common allied system, the hegemony of
America and the NATO, being more the consequence of the European "desire of
powerlessness" (Pascal Boniface) than the reason of this last. In addition,
USA may not prevent Europe, the economic giant strategically weakened by
its returnable division, to become the political giant, "the general
power" capable to discuss equal to equal with them.
The division of two lungs of Europe, maintained by the NATO expansion in the
countries of the East candidates for the entrance in the European union, as well
as the vague neo - containment against Russia and the
post-Byzantian world, are thus as much the result of the English - American
strategy of divide and impera in Europe, as of the
European "desire of powerlessness" and something like "Russian-phobia"
almost congenital of the EU which rises to the bases and to the predecessors
itself of the Union of Fifteen, Pro- atlantic from sources. Let's remind,
that the present European Union occurring from the Contract of Rome and becoming
political with contracts of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice, was inspired
definitely by Washington and has created by European atlantistes in a
context of cold war to contain Russian-Soviet empire, as well as recognized its
founder himself, Jean Monnet, close to the father of the doctrine containment,
John Foster Dulles and employee of various services and the American bodies
(Council of Foreign relations) within several decades.
Learning lessons of war of Kosovo and of dangerous consequences of expansion of
the NATO in the central and East Europe : breakage between the "Two
Europe", Slav-orthodox and western; confirmation of the nominee of Turkey,
support of the Southern side of the Union etc., Europeans should proclaim
henceforth their "Doctrine Monroe" : "Europe to Europeans
", that means to answer, hundred twenty five years later, to the Americans
who, on the President Monroe's behalf, demanded the state of Europe not to
interfere in "internal" affairs of the American Continent. Still it
would be necessary, for this purpose, that Europeans do not call Uncle Sam for
help as soon as there is the regional event in Bosnia, in Albania or in Kosovo.
Therefore, we can badly see the bases of the American presence at the Balkan,
that of the Russians, appearing in exchange from a geographical, geographical
and historical point of view, more based. The refusal, on behalf of the
Countries of the West, namely on behalf of Group of Contact to involve Russia in
the settlement Rambouillet, a little before war of Kosovo, was a serious mistake
and promoted to sabotage peace process, the American military policy of
the interventionist tandem Clinton-Albright meeting no more any obstacle
on the dangerous road.
In our opinion, the European construction should renew with the right of being
first that is to continue the all-European continental political project,
as well as it has considered - long before Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman -
Coudenhove-Kalergi (1894-1972), real father of the European construction, before
its renewal in hands by the pro-American and atlantistes circles.
The same as modern America was constructed being thought - from the geostrategic
point of view - as the heart director of the American Continent, what
allowed to it to affirm itself as a world power and to release America of the
European post-colonial trusteeship, also Europe can not really assert to itself
as power as such, except for as when it will be thought as continental,
that is having included Slav-orthodox family through an ideal direction
Paris-Berlin-Moscow. It will exist only when it will demand highly and strong
its independence and its continental geopolitic sovereignty, conditions sine
qua nun of its Returning in the History and the
skill of the destiny demanding USA, if it is necessary, to not interfere with
the "internal" affairs.
Necessary definition of the geopolitic project and of borders of the
Big Europe: no to Turkey in the Union, yes to Russia
In relation to the present deviation of the European construction,
resolutely Atlantic and objectively revolved against Russia and the
post-Byzantian world in general, as testified various diplomatic and strategic
positions of Europeans in Iraq and in the Balkan from the beginning of the
ninetieth years, another choice is possible : that of "the Big Europe"
having the vocation to unite applicability, on average term, in the same
Union the states of western civilization on the territory of the Old
Continent, including Russia, but by no means Turkey which, geographically and
culturally , belongs and did never belong to Europe which geo-
civilization identity borders were drawn by Herodote.
The borders of Europe are determined not only by geographical parameters,
determinate but insufficient, Turkey having a small part of its territory in
Europe, but also by religious, cultural and Ethnic-linguistic criteria,
and mainly of major values, of philosophical references and social
behavior. They are naturally drawn by history and geopolitics: on Atlantic and
Pacific ocean in relation to American hegemony; on the river Amour in
relation to China; and lengthways of Islamic-European Limes in
Mediterranean sea, on Caucasus and in the Central Asia, in relation to the
Turkish-Islamic area which geo-strategist name "a zone of
storms" in view of its strong geopolitic seism. In a loud article appeared
in Le Monde from October, 24, 1997, the geographer Yves Lacoste has drawn
contours of what he named already "the Big Europe", a spacious virtual
geopolitic set from the Great Britain and Portugal in the West up to Kamchatka
(Behring) in the east, on a territory more than 25 000 km.
Our offer to include progressively Russia and the Slav-orthodox world inside a
continental all-European architectural complex seems fundamentally utopian to
some "realists" who remind, that the Big Europe may not force to live
in common Russian and east peoples colonized before by the Russian - Soviet
Empire. Then why those, who asserts, that it is "unreal" to make
Russia enter in Europe, consider as lawful, messenger and natural
(Jacques Chirac) to admit Turkey, the former century enemy of Europe, inside the
Union? Would Russia be "more menacing", "less
western" and "less democratic" than the nationalistic Turkey
created on ashes of a genocide of one and a half of million of Armenians, the
removal of two millions of Greeks and the prosecution of Christians, Alevis and
Kurds from Turkey? The question would deserve at least to be established.
If it wants to be able to accept the challenges of the 21-th century,
Europe, certainly, will want to be on good terms with Ankara - already a member
of council of Europe and OSCE, not negligeable, forums of the
coordination, and of the European Customs union - but it should persistently and
up to anything to unite members of western civilization, among which
Slavic- orthodox nations, keepers of the common cultural property brisk by a
same "desire to live together ", and being threaten by the same
dangers and misfortunes.
Necessary Policy of the European Protection
In our opinion, and according to the European con-federal political project
conceived Coudenhove-Kallergi, the true predecessor of Europe, the European
Policy of protection and safety would be, with the common foreign policy, the
main area of expertise and activity of the central con-federal authority of the
future Big "Euro-Siberian" Europe. Four purposes would head the
construction of the European Identity of Protection and really independent
Safety of USA and the NATO and involved to Russia:
- first: definition of a true Strategy of the European Protection similar
to National Strategy of the American Safety, estimating danger and threat for
the European Safety and developing the appropriate answers allowing to resist
and assure the stability and the power of Europe,
- then, the creation of the European Security Council, a concert of
nations of the European continent, intended to unite around the same
all-European strategic forum the states of Western, Central and East Europe
(including Russia), thus to conciliate three geo- civilization identity
strategic European poles - now divided because of the Atlantic
stumbling-block - around the fundamental axis of any European protection,
namely, Paris-Berlin-Moscow. This offer goes however in sense of projects of
European-Rusian cooperation, submitted to various reassessments by the President
Putin who thinks, that safety, diplomacy and protection are the area of
preference of rapprochement between new post-Soviet Russia and the European
union;
- establishment of the fourth support of the European construction using
achievements of the UEO and capable to conduct a real European Protection
which means an European army integrated and a continental system of planning and
the coordination in a question on strategic armaments and in a question on
informational systems;
- To make of a real common policy of arms, passing by the
reconstruction and the regrouping of the national industry of protection and
cooperation between these and Russian industry;
Necessary Strategy of the European Protection (SDE)
As we have sad it earlier, the deep bases of inability of
Europe to restore the European Policy of Protection and to solve the least
conflicts which take place on its own ground, occur mainly, because of the fact
that, from the contract of Rome, Europeans refused deliberatly to examine
delicate geostrategic problems, however essential, leaving without
identification to the USA - with the occasion of Cold war - the responsibility
of protection of Europe, for the benefit of vision extremely economic,
free- trade and anti-Russian of the European construction .
The Atlantic Union having been turned from sources against Russia, and
the frustrations appearing in the East Europe, not being able to find a viable
pacific exit, not taking into consideration Russian positions, the Europe of
Fifteen, and soon of Eighteen or even of Twenty seven, detaining as new
candidates only the countries beforehand selected by Americans for their
mistrust in relation to Moscow and their favor in relation to the NATO, it is
closed in the vicious circle of the "New Cold war", that is a
rupture in two of the Continent, the factor of instability, and a brake to
any Policy of Protection and independent all-European Safety.
Whether we want or not, there is the key - strategic and geo-
civilization identity - of problems, and it is to the western Europeans to
explain to the new accepted: Hungary, Poland, Check, soon Slovenia, the
Baltic countries, may be a day Ukraine etc., that the European union does no
have in mind to remain a "NATO's Society" revolved against
Russian-orthodox world. If it wants to maintain the Peace and to assure the
Safety, the Europe can not to be thought as continental, anti-western
further evolution of Russia being strongly reprehensible for its Safety.
In relation to new purposes of the 21-St century, Europe should be conscious,
that the integration of Russia is profitable for the two sides : gradual
inclusion of Russia in the Euro-Western world, better than confrontation to it;
being appreciated by fine power and mineral resources of the Russian capable, to
give to Europe the general power independence of more and more uncertain
and anti-western, Petrol-Islamic states; cooperation in a question on transfer
of high technology in military, space, aviation and medical areas where Russians
remain still high-efficient, number of Russian brains, compelled to escape to
USA because of absence of the European support; at last, necessary to put in
common of Russian and Western - European strategic powers in relation to the
same anti-western threat submitted by Islamic Totalitarianism, menacing
to burn Arabian -Islamic world, threat fully appreciable boiling up on
all length geo- civilization identity Limes separating Europe of
the Muslim world : from the western Mediterranean sea up to the Central Asia,
passing through the Balkan and Caucasus. "In the 21-St century, it is
the protection of an Europe going from Brest to Vladivostok which will have to
take into consideration. Therefore, this "Big Europe" is threatened,
on southern border, with instability and conflicts which persist in what some
have named "the zone of storms of the next century" , explains
Bernard de Bressy.
What is the question in accuracy? For the strategists, the "zone of
storms" appoints the huge arch of continuous endogenic crises"
going from Bosnia in the West up to the wall of China in the East : Balkan,
Caucasus (the Chechen Republic, Abkhazia, Azerbaijan etc.), Kurdistan (turkish
or Iranian), Afghanistan, Tajikistan, up to Chinese Turkestan. "All the
dangers of the new world disorder are there, around one country, Turkey, the
safety of this country is a nightmare in 360 °" marked Thomas
Friedmann in 1995 when "the zone of storms" corresponded to the
geopolitic sphere of influence of Turkey, a true ally of the West during cold
war and a southern support of the NATO, and also the traditional opponent of
Russia.
Clear in relation to American's hegemony in Europe and in relation to vassal
dependence of the Union in relation to Washington, but refusing to fall in the
trap of anti-occidental and of rejections from Europe, strongly protected
option in exchange by some nationalists and / or Russian communists as
Jirinovsky or Ziouganov, the President Vladimir Putin does not stop to offer to
the Europeans to cooperate with Russia in a question on foreign policy, in a
question on collective Safety and in a question on protection. To counterbalance
the American unilateral action shown by the American antimissile project who was
made active by the Administration of Bush JR, the President of Russia offers an
Euro-Russian cooperation in the question on strategic arms and a nationalization
of means and researches to restore the continental European antimissile system
which is hanging up to the National American Ballistic missile Defense.
Not falling all the same in width anti-turkish and not encouraging
the terrible shock of the civilization, that Europe has all chances to prevent,
if it continues a policy simultaneously of stability (in the Balkan, in
Kurdistan, in Aegean sea and in Cyprus) and of opening (inside the NATO, inside OSCE
and inside the Council of Europe), it is self-evident, that the interest of
Europe is more to ally to Russia, then to an ambivalent Turkey, irreducible,
and in authority of Islamic integration. "Russia will leave one day the
track, informs Bernard de Bressy. In the field of protection, this big
power on huge territory can be, as at the beginning of century, our major ally
if we are able to take, with it, into consideration the potential threats which
exist on its southern borders " .
In an alder of these inevitable realities, the all-European geostrategic Idea
should be, according to us, focused around of four main axis:
- growth of strategic and military power of Europe,
allowed by the expansion, by creating of an independent European
Protection, and by a close association of all states of Continent - thus of
Russia;
- restoration of the multipolar Order, that is, to not oppose to USA but
to be capable - due to the construction of independent Europe involving Russia -
to discuss equal to equal with Washington and to soften the neo-imperial
enterprises in the world, serious threats of consequences for stability and
world peace;
- at last, to face to the common external threats, mainly the
Islamic radicalized world or in process of radicalization and its
"zone of storms", that assumes, certainly, a cooperation with the
Moslems states, those of Black Africa, Maghreb and Turkey, but, in parallel, to
an ambitious and more effective policy of the Northern - southern development; a
stop of the Islamic-African mass immigration, encouraged at present by Brussels;
and the final deviation of the turkish nominee for an entrance in the European
union.
- For an "European Security Council"
Two obstacles obviously fundamental are regularly advanced to cancel the
offers, aspiring to create a policy of the all-European protection; first that
of the "nuclear Shock force", "15, 28 or even 50 fingers,
being unable to press together the same button". Second, a sharp
question of integration of Russia, the main European nuclear power. As to the
nuclear power which has considerably lost its strategic importance these last
years, the question is, according to the general Clerk , an imaginary problem,
nothing will empeach European nuclear authorities to agree inside a Group
of the nuclear Planning similar to the one that exists inside the NATO, only
that the "owner" of the nuclear, extremely national power, does not
loose the strategic sovereignty and the control above atom.
As to full integration of Russia inside the all-European, necessary
Confederation, this purpose - desirable and even vital - remaining at the
present moment, hardly sold, Russia, from its part, having never exposed its
nominee on an entrance in the Union, considered too "atlantiste".
Also the Trans-european cooperation with Moscow should pass, at least at the
beginning, in parallel to the European construction, by the integration of
Russia inside the "neutral" structure absolutely independent of the
NATO, that we have named the European Security Council (CSE), ), set
on a sample of Security Council of the United Nations.
The European Security Council based on a bonds and federation axis
Paris-Berlin-Moscow, would be created from main economic, political and/or
nuclear authorities of Europe : France, Germany, Russia, Italy, the Great
Britain, Spain, Poland. As explains Jacques Myard , expert of questions of
protection, the European Security Council would allow to the states of
Europe to operate their crises in common to release peace decisions. It would
establish "the European concert" which was badly needed,
Europeans have noticed it on their damages, during war of Kosovo, but which
would very probably allow to find a peace exit from the crisis, Russia, having
managed to pull off the Serbs the main concessions, capable to fill the essence
of the conditions required by the document Rambouillet. But because of absence
of the European Concert and because of absence of dialogue transcontinental,
USA, refusing to concede on the main strategic stumbling-block - to know the
presence of armies of the NATO on all ex-Yugoslavia instead of multinational
armies of the United Nations - will impose a military exit to the destabilizing
and reprehensible consequences for the peace of the European continent, still a
little bit more shared between "West" and "East".
Conclusion: the Axis Paris-Berlin-Moscow : the unique geopolitic unity,
capable to counterbalance the American Uni-polarized
Having exposed the fact, that his country "has broken the civilization
Identity unity" of the West and the two Europe supporting correlatively
the world poles of Islamic validity Sunnis and pan-turkish against
Russia and the post-Byzantian Block, thus against the Europe, professor Samuel
Huntington, explains, that USA which are put crossed against "States -
hooligans (voyous)", became themselves "Super state - hooligan
", "haughty" power by excellence, against which the recalcitrant
and the "rebellious" will finish inevitably to joint forces
between them, beginning with Russia. Whence the necessity to come back to a
policy less interventionist and "less haughty" to paraphrase
Condoleezza Rice.
But till "the benevolent empire" does not come back in the facts
with more wisdom, which does not seem to augur the antimissile unilateral
action of the project, the alternative to the New "haughty" American
Global order, Uni-polar, characterized by the Law - American - of
the strongest, would be what Henri Kissinger, another known American patriot
worried about the unforeseen consequences of the "haughty" deviation
of his country, names "a policy of balance", acceptance in calculation
of the multipolar character of the world after Cold war, and refusal of
neo-imperialism of Washington, generator of identities and
national frustrations, of anti-occidental and, inevitably, of wars. All
this in interest of USA, which can not indefinitely afford to make grow the anti-occidental
all over the world, a hatred especially strong as it is supplied with
performance of division which offer Europeans and the Countries of the West at
the presence of the world. Whence Vladimir Patina's historical offer to restore
the big european-western defensive union in relation to the common Islamic
danger. Even if it may seem paradoxical, the union of USA and Europe may be
effective only if the Western Europe is released from the American trusteeship
and comes nearer to Russia. As only a strong and independent Europe may cause
respect and make really hear its vital interests by an America which absence of
a counterbalance does not induce really to wisdom...
***
As any European strategic and geopolitic idea will remain, if not improbable, at
least, incomplete, if the atlantisme will prime on the strategic cooperation
with Moscow, also any declaration of a policy of the European protection will
live cleanly rhetoric if it will not be followed by the budgetary
concrete definition and led by a real political desire.
Taken in in pincer between an intermediary unique idea and the
categorical requirement of selective competition which arrange in the category
of themes "not carrier" any speech about the necessity to increase the
military budget, European heads are finally the first responsible for the
condition of the strategic subordination of the European union to USA - where
the budget of protection may be increased and where the themes of "a policy
of power" and independence are on the contrary carrier, and they are not
actually much based to expose "the American unilateral action",
especially concerning the project of Antimissile Protection (NMD), while they
have neither means nor desire to become themselves independent from USA and
NATO, independence which is offered to them by the new Russia of Vladimir Putin,
but which they refuse to study clearly.
NOTES_____________________________________________________________
1. Dictionary of geopolictics. Under the
direction of Yves Lacoste, Paris: Discovery. - 1993. - page 29.
2. Pascal Lorot and François Thual, Geopolicy, Key policy, Montchrestien, p 44.
3. Nikola_ Danilievski, The Russia and the Europe. Moscow, pp 50-51.
4.Huntington, The Shock of the Civilizations, p 344-345.
5. Huntington, cit.work , pp 340-341.
6.Francois Thual, The identity cultural conflicts, Ellipses, 1995, p 5.
7. Zinoviev, The Great Rupture, the Sociology of a shaken world, The age of the
Person, pp 76-77.
8. Alexandre Zinoviev, idem, p 14.
9.Zinoviev, idem, p 73.
10.Idem, p 75.
11. Alain Richard, the newspaper "Figaro", the 14 of December 1999.
12. Alexandre Zinoviev, The Great Rupture..., P 78.
13.The newspaper "Figaro", the 14 of December 1999.
14. The General Pierre Maria Gallois, " Super-force and bellicosity policy,
Iraq, the Balkans, the two catastrophes", What kind of Europe after Kosovo,
collective work, Ellipses, to appear, in April 2001.
15. A. Ziouganov, Russia after 2000, Geopolitical Vision of a new State",
Edition Mithec, 1998, p 134-135
16. Ziouganov, cit. work, p 78.
17. Ziouganov, cit.work, p 43. "Restoring the thesis according to which
Russia will inhale always to seize the coastal regions to have access to the
warm Seas, they see in our country the main threat to the wealth of the
commercial West which power is based on the domination of shores (Rimland)
", pursues Ziouganov.
18. Dostoievsky, Complete Works in 30 volumes, Leningrad, 1984, T 27. P 33.
19. Rujizevne Novine, the 5-th of April 1999.
20. Le Monde, the 24-25-th of May 1999.
21. In the ecclesial Latin , Diadic-union means "and the Son".
As to the Catholics, "the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the
Son" (Spiritu sanctu patri Filioque procedit), while according to the
Orthodox, "the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son "
(per Filium), that means that for the Eastern, the Spirit proceeds only from the
Father, thus from the Father through the Son and not from the Father and Son.
Renewing an old theological concept appeared in Spain in the VIth century to
struggle the arianist heterodoxy, Charlemagne, happy to teach a lesson to the
Emperor and to the Byzantine Patriarch, knew that generalizing the detail of
Diadic-union and making include gradually in the Credo of Nicea-Constantinople,
the western theologians would provoke the anger of the Byzantine, for whom
diadic-union there was no other than a heresy contesting only God the Father is
"the source ".
22. Credo, containing the ensemble of fundamental articles of the Christian
faith , common to the Catholics and the Orthodox, is issued from the two
ecumenical Councils: Nicea (325) and Constantinople (381), whence statement of
the Catholics "Credo of Nicea Constantinople ".
23. The Pope comes however from the Greek term pappas, " the father ",
the same as the Catholic comes from the Greek term catolicos, " universal
", term fluently used inside the orthodox Churches ..