Brzezinski analyzes European unity, Russia and American perceptions (08/13/00)

Brzezinski analyzes European unity, Russia and American perceptions

by Natalka Gawdiak
Ukrainian American Coordinating Council

WASHINGTON - Zbigniew Brzezinski addressed a standing-room-only audience at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on July 19 on the topic "Post-Divided Europe and American Policy." The audience in the Wilson Center's new quarters in the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington included other Wilson Center and Washington area scholars, government employees, students, and think-tank analysts, who heard Mr. Brzezinski take European unity, Russia and the United States to task for various "mystifications."

Dr. Brzezinski, national security advisor during the Carter administration and author of "The Grand Failure" and "The Grand Chess Game," outlined four mystifications that need clarification: 1) the concept of "union" in the European Union (EU) and how the United States views "post-divided" Europe; 2) the relationship the United States has with Russia; 3) Russia's perception of itself; and 4) the United States' supposed urgent need for a missile defense system.

The phrase "post-divided Europe" is awkward but deliberately so, noted Dr. Brzezinski, because to date both Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton have said that Europe is "whole and free." If one analyzes what is meant by "union," one sees that Europe is not like any existing union and never will be he said, yet "the United States feels uneasy about Europea being our co-equal in all its significant dimensions of power."

If the European Union pursues an integrated European security and defense identity, then it not only stimulates our fears, but also increases Europe's illusions in this regard, he continued. An autonomous European defense position has been talked about, and there is some idea that Europe, therefore, will be on its way to becoming a "real" union. "If we all recognize that this will never happen, our relations with Europe will be more relaxed, and we will be able to work on our real problems ... Europe will never become a federation."

Dr. Brzezinski likened the European Union to a huge, complex corporation and noted that a nation joining the EU must accede to 80,000 pages of regulations that must be approved by its legislature. Ask the typical American how the United States is governed, and he can tell you; ask the typical European how Europe is governed and very few will be able to give any cogent answer, he observed.

In discussing the U.S. view of Russia, Dr. Brzezinski pointed out that there is a tendency in this country to ascribe to Russia the same pursuit of freedom and democracy as had taken place in the last 10 years in Central Europe. He quoted Vice-President Al Gore as saying, in a recent interview, that there is more democracy and private ownership in Russia than in some Western European countries. "Now if I get mugged and my wallet is stolen," Dr. Brzezinski explained tongue-in-cheek, "one could say the new 'owner' of my wallet is a private owner. This is the kind of private ownership that best describes the situation in Russia today."

When the audience's laughter died down, Dr. Brzezinski described the break-up of the Soviet Union, not as an "organic rejection of Communism spearheaded by a group of democratic leaders," as had happened in former Communist Central European countries, but as "the collapse of an exhausted system, a collapse of will, imagination and power . ..."

"It was a collapse through political, economic, social and physical exhaustion," he said, adding that although the Soviet system collapsed, it left intact its political, ruling elite. "No one in Putin's government ... was associated with the dissident movement," Dr. Brzezinski said, and he expressed the conviction that were the USSR to be re-established, these same people could easily go back to work for the Soviets. They are from the same KGB background as Mr. Putin - this KGB elite included the "most ambitious, careerist, cynical people seeking the privilege of status; they were the best, in the most negative sense of that word," he stated.

As for U.S. foreign aid, Dr. Brzezinski observed that "much of the money we have given to Russia has been misappropriated - and we don't like to talk about this. The U.S. officials who worked closely on this are embarrassed about it."

Russia's own view of itself is the third area that needs de-mystification, according to Dr. Brzezinski, who quoted Mr. Putin as saying, "We are not seeking to make Russia a great world power because Russia is a great world power ... It is one of the great influential centers of the modern world." By examining Russia statistically and from its geostrategic location, Dr. Brzezinski demonstrated that the reality is quite different.

Some 70 million Russians live in urban areas where the level of air pollution exceeds the maximum levels allowable in the United States by the Environmental Protection Agency by a factor of five. Some 20 percent of all Russian first-graders have some degree of mental incapacity. Russia's population has declined from 151 million to 146 million, and deaths exceed births by 50 percent.

Russia's geostrategic position also does not give it cause for optimism, he noted. To the East, Russia is bordered by China, whose gross domestic product is five times greater than that of Russia's and whose population is far, far greater. Russia clearly would be the junior partner in any potential alliance between Russia and China. To the West, is the "mystifying, uniting" Europe with a GDP 10 times greater than Russia's, and "to the South, there are 300 million Muslims whose favor Putin is trying to court by his Chechen policy!"

Thus, the United States has a certain mystification about Russia, and "we should not make any unchecked, uncontrolled transfer of funds to Russia," Dr. Brzezinski concluded.

The speaker's final point was that the United States is wrong to pursue a national missile defense system as an "urgent" necessity because this only strains the U.S. relationship with its allies in Western Europe who do not share this sense of urgency. Furthermore, North Korea, the major potential target of such a missile defense system, is years behind in developing a nuclear missile threat, "even if she dropped everything else" to build such a system, Dr. Brzezinski explained.

It is projected that North Korea could not build a single intercontinental missile before 2005, and then it would need to develop and test a nuclear warhead to be carried by the missile. Developing and testing such a warhead is an extremely complex process, and the United States, Dr. Brzezinski noted, has carried out 1,000 tests of its missiles and warheads and still is not satisfied that it has perfected the process.

Rather than go in this direction, Dr. Brzezinski urged that the United States support a sustained expansion of the European Union and NATO. Otherwise, a large part of Europe will be left in an ambiguous situation. "We must help the countries in the former Soviet space to become more stable, because that will make Russia concentrate on becoming more democratic and stable. This is especially true for Ukraine, Georgia and Uzbekistan, where the Putin government has been focusing its efforts lately," he said.

In discussing intermediate steps that nations might take toward full EU and NATO membership, Dr. Brzezinski noted that, while Russia was not interested in the program, Ukraine has been very serious about its Partnership for Peace alliance. He also praised Ukraine's participation in recent years in NATO military exercises, as well as its participation with the combined NATO peacekeeping forces in Kosovo. No country should be excluded from the EU or NATO, not even Russia, he concluded, but "if they don't care to join, then that's their prerogative."

During the question and answer session, a Russian scholar currently at the Wilson Center strongly objected to what he called the speaker's "anti-Russian, negative propaganda," and asked Dr. Brzezinski what he meant by inferring that Russia is not a democracy. Dr. Brzezinski responded that he thought everyone in the room knew what such a basic term meant, but if the questioner wished, he would point out some of the basic elements of democracy. He defined a democratic nation as a place where the leader is elected in free elections "without coercion," where the press is free, where there isn't corruption on a "massive scale" and where political assassinations are investigated, reminding the questioner about unresolved assassinations in St. Petersburg.

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