The Belgian Curtain: Europe after Communism Part 2

As Vladimir Lukin, deputy speaker of the Duma observed recently, Britain having swerved too far towards America - Russia may yet become an intermediary between a bitterly disenchanted USA and an irked Europe and between the rich, industrialized West and developing countries in Asia. Publicly, the USA has only mildly disagreed with Russia's reluctance to countenance a military endgame in Iraq - while showering France and Germany with vitriol for saying, essentially, the same things.

The United States knows that Russia will not jeopardize the relevance of the Security Council - one of the few remaining hallmarks of past Soviet grandeur - by vetoing an American-sponsored resolution. But Russia cannot be seen to be abandoning a traditional ally and a major customer (Iraq) and newfound friends (France and Germany) too expediently.

Nor can Putin risk further antagonizing Moscow hardliners who already regard his perceived "Gorbachev-like" obsequiousness and far reaching concessions to the USA as treasonous. The sc.r.a.pping of the Anti Ballistic Missile treaty, the expansion of NATO to Russia's borders, America's presence in central Asia and the Caucasus, Russia's "near abroad" - are traumatic reversals of fortune.

An agreed consultative procedure with the crumbling NATO hardly qualifies as ample compensation. There are troubling rumblings of discontent in the army. A few weeks ago, a Russian general in Chechnya refused Putin's orders publicly - and with impunity. Additionally, according to numerous opinion polls, the vast majority of Russians oppose an Iraqi campaign.

By aligning itself with the fickle France and the brooding and somnolent Germany, Russia is warning the USA that it should not be taken for granted and that there is a price to pay for its allegiance and good services. But Putin is not Boris Yeltsin, his inebriated predecessor who over-played his hand in opposing NATO's operation in Kosovo in 1999 - only to be sidelined, ignored and humiliated in the postwar arrangements.

Russia wants a free hand in Chechnya and to be heard on international issues. It aspires to secure its oil contracts in Iraq - worth tens of billions of dollars - and the repayment of $9 billion in old debts by the postbellum government. It seeks pledges that the oil market will not be flooded by a penurious Iraq. It desires a free hand in Ukraine, Armenia and Uzbekistan, among others. Russia wants to continue to sell $4 billion a year in arms to China, India, Iran, Syria and other pariahs unhindered.

Only the United States, the sole superpower, can guarantee that these demands are met. Moreover, with a major oil producer such as Iraq as a US protectorate, Russia becomes a hostage to American goodwill. Yet, hitherto, all Russia received were expression of sympathy, claimed Valeri Fyodorov, director of Political Friends, an independent Russian think-tank, in an interview in the Canadian daily, National Post.

These are not trivial concerns. Russia's is a primitive economy, based on commodities - especially energy products - and an over-developed weapons industry. Its fortunes fluctuate with the price of oil, of agricultural produce and with the need for arms, driven by regional conflicts.

Should the price of oil collapse, Russia may again be forced to resort to multilateral financing, a virtual monopoly of the long arms of US foreign policy, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The USA also has a decisive voice in the World Trade Organization (WTO), members.h.i.+p thereof being a Russian strategic goal.

It was the United States which sponsored Russia's seat at table of the G8 - the Group of Eight industrialized states - a much coveted rea.s.sertion of the Russian Federation's global weight. According to Rossiiskaya Gazeta, a Russian paper, the USA already announced a week ago that it is considering cutting Russia off American financial aid - probably to remind the former empire who is holding the purse strings.

But siding with America risks alienating the all-important core of Europe: Germany and France. Europe - especially Germany - is Russia's largest export destination and foreign investor. Russia is not oblivious to that. It would like to be compensated generously by the United States for a.s.suming such a hazard.

Still, Europe is a captive of geography and history. It has few feasible alternatives to Russian gas, for instance. As the recent $7 billion investment by British Petroleum proves, Russia - and, by extension, central and east Europe - is Europe's growth zone and natural economic hinterland.

Yet, it is America that captures the imagination of Russian oligarchs and lesser businesses.

Russia aims to become the world's largest oil producer within the decade. With this in mind, it is retooling its infrastructure and investing in new pipelines and ports.

The United States is aggressively courted by Russian officials and "oiligarchs" - the energy tyc.o.o.ns. With the Gulf states cast in the role of anti-American Islamic militants, Russia emerges as a sane and safe - i.e., rationally driven by self-interest - alternative supplier and a useful counterweight to an increasingly a.s.sertive and federated Europe.

Russia's affinity with the United States runs deeper that the confluence of commercial interests.

Russian capitalism is far more "Anglo-Saxon" than Old Europe's. The Federation has an educated but cheap and abundant labor force, a patchy welfare state, exportable natural endowments, a low tax burden and a pressing need for unhindered inflows of foreign investment.

Russia's only hope of steady economic growth is the expansion of its energy behemoths abroad. Last year it has become a net foreign direct investor. It has a vested interest in globalization and world order which coincide with America's. China, for instance, is as much Russia's potential adversary as it is the United State's.

Russia welcomed the demise of the Taliban and is content with regime changes in Iraq and North Korea - all American exploits. It can - and does - contribute to America's global priorities. Collaboration between the two countries' intelligence services has never been closer. Hence also the thaw in Russia's relations with its erstwhile foe, Israel.

Russia's population is hungry and abrasively materialistic. Its robber barons are more American in spirit than any British or French entrepreneur. Russia's business ethos is reminiscent of 19th century frontier America, not of 20th century staid Germany.

Russia is driven by kaleidoscopically s.h.i.+fting coalitions within a narrow elite, not by its ma.s.ses - and the elite wants money, a lot of it and now. In Russia's unbreakable cycle, money yields power which leads to more money. The country is a functioning democracy but elections there do not revolve around the economy. Most taxes are evaded by most taxpayers and half the gross national product is anyhow underground. Ordinary people crave law and order - or, at least a semblance thereof.

Hence Putin's rock idol popularity. He caters to the needs of the elite by cozying up to the West and, in particular, to America - even as he provides the lower cla.s.ses with a sense of direction and security they lacked since 1985. But Putin is a serendipitous president. He enjoys the aftereffects of a sharply devalued, export-enhancing, imports-depressing ruble and the vertiginous tripling of oil prices, Russia's main foreign exchange generator.

The last years of Yeltsin have been so traumatic that the bickering cogs and wheels of Russia's establishment united behind the only vote-getter they could lay their hands on: Putin, an obscure politician and former KGB officer. To a large extent, he proved to be an agreeable puppet, concerned mostly with self-preservation and the imaginary projection of illusory power.

Putin's great a.s.set is his pragmatism and realistic a.s.sessment of the shambles that Russia has become and of his own limitations. He has turned himself into a kind of benevolent and enlightened arbiter among feuding interests - and as the merciless and diligent executioner of the decisions of the inner cabals of power.

Hitherto he kept everyone satisfied. But Iraq is his first real test.

Everyone demands commitments backed by actions. Both the Europeans and the Americans want him to put his vote at the Security Council where his mouth is. The armed services want him to oppose war in Iraq. The intelligence services are divided. The Moslem population inside Russia - and surrounding it on all sides - is restive and virulently anti-American.

The oil industry is terrified of America' domination of the world's second largest proven reserves - but also craves to do business in the United States. Intellectuals and Russian diplomats worry about America's apparent disregard for the world order sp.a.w.ned by the horrors of World War II. The average Russian regards the Iraqi stalemate as an internal American affair. "It is not our war", is a common refrain, growing commoner.

Putin has played it admirably nimbly. Whether he ultimately succeeds in this impossible act of balancing remains to be seen. The smart money says he would. But if the last three years have taught us anything it is that the smart money is often disastrously wrong.

THE WAR IN IRAQ

Germany's Rebellious Colonies

By: Dr. Sam Vaknin

Also published by United Press International (UPI)

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Invited by a grateful United States, the Czech Republic on Sat.u.r.day sent a representative to meet with Iraqi opposition in Kurdish north Iraq. The country was one of the eight signatories on a letter, co-signed by Britain, Italy, Spain and the two other European Union central European candidate-members, Poland and Hungary, in support of US policy in the Gulf.

According to The Observer and the New York Times, American troops in Germany - and the billions of dollars in goods and services they consume locally - will be moved further east to the Czech Republic, Poland and the Baltic states. This s.h.i.+ft may have come regardless of the German "betrayal". The Pentagon has long been contemplating the futility of stationing tens of thousands of soldiers in the world's most peaceful and pacifistic country.

The letter is a slap in the face of Germany, a member of the "Axis of Peace", together with France and Belgium and the champion of EU enlargement to the east. Its own economic difficulties aside, Germany is the region's largest foreign investor and trading partner. Why the curious rebuff by its ostensible prot?g?s?

The Czech Republic encapsulates many of the economic and political trends in the erstwhile communist swathe of Europe.

The country's economic performance still appears impressive. Figures released yesterday reveal a surge of 6.6 percent in industrial production, to yield an annual increase of 4.8 percent. Retail sales, though way below expectations, were still up 2.7 percent last year. The Czech National Bank (CNB) upgraded its gross domestic product growth forecast on Jan 30 to 2.2-3.5 percent.

But the country is in the throes of a deflationary cycle. The producer price index was down 0.8 percent last year. Year on year, it decreased by 0.4 percent in January. Export prices are down 6.7 percent, though import prices fell by even more thus improving the country's terms of trade.

The Czech koruna is unhealthily overvalued against the euro thus jeopardizing any export-led recovery. The CNB was forced to intervene in the foreign exchange market and buy in excess of 2 billion euros last year - four times the amount it did in 2001. It also cut its interest rates last month to their nadir since independence. This did little to dent the country's burgeoning current account deficit, now at over 5 percent of GDP.

Unemployment in January broke through the psychologically crucial barrier of 10 percent of the workforce. More than 540,000 bread earners (in a country of 10 million inhabitants) are out of a job. In some regions every fifth laborer is laid off. There are more than 13 - and in the worst hit parts, more than 100 - applicants per every position open .

Additionally, the country is bracing itself for another bout of floods, more devastating than last year's and the ones in 1997. Each of the previous inundations caused in excess of $2 billion in damages. The government's budget is already strained to a breaking point with a projected deficit of 6.3 percent this year, stabilizing at between 4 and 6.6 percent in 2006. The situation hasn't been this dire since the toppling of communism in the Velvet Revolution of 1989.

Ironically, these bad tidings are mostly the inevitable outcomes of much delayed reforms, notably privatization. Four fifths of the country's economy is alleged to be in private hands - a rate similar to the free markets of Estonia, Slovakia and Hungary. In reality, though, the state still maintains intrusive involvement in many industrial a.s.sets. It is the reluctant unwinding of these holdings that leads to ma.s.s layoffs.

Yet, the long term outlook is indisputably bright.

The ministry of finance forecasts a rise in the country's GDP from 59 percent to 70 percent of the European Union's output in 2005 - comparable to Slovenia and far above Poland with a mere 40 percent. The Czech Republic is preparing itself to join the eurozone shortly after it becomes a member of the EU in May 2004.