Americans may not be aware of it, but for quite some time, Russia has been promoting the idea of a new Europe-wide security organization that would exclude the United States.
According to this article from Russia’s Gazeta, the Obama Administration, in giving the impression that it considers Europe less important that past U.S. administrations, should provide new impetus to the plan, which was put forward by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
For Gazeta, columnist Fyodor Lukyanov writes in part:
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and two of her deputies have commented on Russia’s idea for a new security architecture for Europe. While raising the inadequacy of the existing system won the approval of the U.S. diplomats, they rejected this proposed method of solving the problem – no new institutions are needed, and it would be enough to perfect the existing ones.
The presidency of Barack Obama, for whom all of Europe cheered passionately during the election campaign, has turned out to be “un-European” in action.
Washington is concerned about the situation in the Middle East, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, South and East Asia. Europe is a partner everywhere – and everywhere, a secondary one. The only exception is, perhaps, Afghanistan, where the United States must rely on NATO, but mostly because of the background of this war, not a desire to fight alongside the allies.
Europe, for its part, doesn’t entirely understand America’s plans, and therefore is trying to hedge its bets for the future. Of course it’s difficult to imagine that Washington would entirely abandon Old Europe to its fate. But leading European states will have to get used to the new situation, as they become less and less able to determine the direction of global development, and more dependent on it.
The field of attraction and repulsion between the two most influential world powers is increasingly deciding the global political atmosphere.
This creates a fundamentally different situation for two other players used to being the center of attention – Russia and Europe.
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