EU integration is an attempt to assimilate
former Soviet satellites and dilute Germany's power by re-jigging rules
of voting and representation. If successful, this strategy will prevent
Germany from bidding yet again for a position of hegemony in Europe by
establishing a "German Union" separate from the EU. It is all still the
same tiresome and antiquated game of continental Big Powers. Even
Britain maintains its Victorian position of "splendid isolation".
The exclusion of both Turkey and Russia from these re-alignments is
also a direct descendant of the politics of the last two centuries.
Both are likely to gradually drift away from European (and Western)
structures and seek their fortunes in the geopolitical twilight zones
of the world. The USA is unlikely to be of much help to Europe as it
reasserts the Monroe doctrine and attends to its growing Pacific
preoccupations. It will assist the EU to cope with Russian (and to a
lesser extent, Turkish) designs in the tremulously tectonic regions of
the Caucasus, oil-rich and China-bordering Central Asia, and the Middle
East. But it will not do so in Central Europe, in the Baltic, and in
the Balkan.
Of these three spots, the Balkan is by far the most ominous. Russia -
as it has proved in 1877-8 - has historical claims there which it is
willing to back militarily.
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