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Begin New Search Topic Diplomacy Political Geography Russia Publishing Institution Centre for East European Studies, University of Warsaw Publication Year within 25 Years Publication Year within 5 Years

1. The Modern Interfaces of Intermarium and the Fight against Destiny

Author:
Adrian Popa and Cristian Barna
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Warsaw East European Review (WEER)
Institution:
Centre for East European Studies, University of Warsaw
Abstract:
Russia’s recent buildup of A2/AD (anti-access/area denial) forces in Crimea and Kaliningrad, coupled with its increasingly confronting rhetoric in the Black and Baltic Seas, pose a serious challenge for the NATO’s Eastern flank countries. While the mare sui generis status of the Black Sea might be altered under the expected inauguration of Canal Istanbul in 2023 as it would probably require the revision of the Montreux Convention, the mare liberum status of the Baltic Sea might also be questioned as Russia contests NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence in this region. Facing this challenging geostrategic context, Pilsudski’s ideas of Intermarium seem to have revived within the Central and Eastern European countries under modern interfaces such as the Bucharest Nine and the Three Seas Initiative. This paper proposes a comparative analysis between the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea in terms of their newly-emerged geostrategic context, discusses the feasibility of the recent endeavours to promote cooperation within the Central and Eastern European countries and not ultimately, highlights the utility of a regional military alliance in support of NATO.
Topic:
NATO, Diplomacy, International Security, International Affairs, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, Crimea, Baltic Sea, and Baltic States

2. The Logic of Geopolitics in American-Russian Relations

Author:
Allen C. Lynch
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Warsaw East European Review (WEER)
Institution:
Centre for East European Studies, University of Warsaw
Abstract:
One of Zbigniew Brzezinski’s first requests as President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor in 1977 was to ask the Pentagon for its plans – including targets – for nuclear war against “Russia”. Brzezinski was outraged when he was presented with the plan for nuclear war against the Soviet Union. He could not believe that the U.S. military had no plans to spe- cifically weaken the Russian core of the Soviet empire. For the Pentagon planners, Russia and the Soviet Union were one and the same.1 I begin with this anecdote because it reflects well an enduring geopolitical logic to American-Russian relations: American policy toward Russia, whether it be in the Tsarist, Soviet, or post-Soviet period, has not been based on opposing a strong Russian state per se. (That state married to communist ideology was something else altogether.) In the after- math of the Russian Civil War, for instance, the United States delayed recognition of Baltic independence until 1922, two years after Soviet Russia had recognized the independence of Estonia in the Treaty of Tartu, on the grounds that Polish and Finnish independence apart nothing should be done to call into question the territorial continuity of the Russian Em- pire.2 Indeed, American officials seldom viewed the Soviet Union as an empire, as the Pen- tagon war plans just cited illustrate. Historically, the logic of geopolitics i.e., the influence of organization in space on international political relationships has often tended to frame American-Russian relations in terms of complementarities of interest. Of course, geopolitics is not the only logic in AmericanRussian relations; ideology, domestic politics, as well as vested institutional interests all play their role in varying degrees under varying circum- stances. But historically, insofar as geopolitical factors have prevailed, American-Russian relations have generally been harmonious, if also remote and indirect in nature. (By indirect I mean that each sees the other mainly in terms of other powers or processes, e.g., the state of the balance of power in Europe and/or Northeast Asia.) Let us recall that Russia, whether it be under Imperial, Soviet, or post-Soviet auspices, is an essentially continental Eurasian power. Its primary state interest for centuries has been to build and consolidate a trans-continental, multi-national and imperial state while also man- aging international power politics with a series of powerful adversaries throughout Asia and Europe. Above all, Russia sought to ensure that no powerful coalition of external (and in Eu- rope technologically superior) powers could unite to challenge the Russian Empire’s territorial or political integrity. Russian diplomats and rulers thus learned to play the European balance of power with considerable finesse (e.g., the Treaty of Nystadt, 1721, under Peter the Great; the Congress of Vienna, 1815, under Alexander I; the Treaty of Rapallo between Soviet Russia and Weimar Germany, 1922; the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, 1939; the Grand Alliance with the United States and Great Britain, 1941–45; and the Helsinki Final Act, 1975, to name just a few instances). As with Great Britain, maintaining a favorable European balance of power has been central to Russian statecraft.3 The United States, by contrast, is functionally an insular power (albeit on a continental scale) with respect to the rest of the world, surrounded as it is by two great oceans and militarily weak and isolated neighbors (i.e., Canada and Mexico). America’s primary foreign policy concern throughout most of its history has thus been, like Russia’s, to prevent the emergence of a hostile European hegemon that could threaten the country’s expansion in North America and its own hegemony in the Western Hemisphere. Once the United States had stabilized its independence from Britain after the War of 1812, U.S. and British geopo- litical interests tended to coincide.4 In this context, American and Russian interests have more often been complementary than antagonistic. It has been primarily the intrusion of ideological elements, reflecting for example Americans’ global democratic aspirations or the Soviet Union’s ultimate objec- tive of the triumph of communism worldwide, that have rendered the bilateral relationship intransigent and even dangerous.5
Topic:
International Relations, Cold War, Diplomacy, Bilateral Relations, Hegemony, Post Cold War, and Rivalry
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Soviet Union, North America, and United States of America