RUSSO-GERMAN ENTENTE: WESTERN INTERESTS AT RISK FROM KOHL PLEDGE ON G-7, SIBERIAN GAS PIPELINE
(Washington, D.C.): Last week, German
Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Russian
President Boris Yeltsin summitted in
Bonn. These meetings provided a
desperately needed opportunity for the
two leaders to shore up their respective,
plummeting political fortunes.
The time-honored technique for
accomplishing this sort of rescue
operation “at the summit” is
through highly visible steps betokening
closer bilateral ties. Generally, the
price the Kremlin extracts for such steps
are significant financial, economic,
technological and/or political
concessions by the Western party. The
Kohl-Yeltsin meetings appear to have been
no exception.
Unfortunately, the history of close
German-Soviet/Russian relations is not an
altogether happy one. The Rappallo Treaty
between the democratic Wiemar
government and Lenin signed in 1922 and
the notorious Hitler-Stalin Trade and
Non-Aggression pacts of 1939 come to
mind.(1)
The greatest danger tends to
arise when the parties are less than
transparent about the exact nature of
their economic, financial and
technological ties.
A Stealthful Deal to Build
a New Siberian Gas Pipeline?
The Center for Security Policy has
received reports, for example, that
Russia and Germany (presumably with other
Western governments) have recently
completed negotiations concerning the
construction of a second strand of the
infamous Siberian gas pipeline.
Accompanying contracts have either been
signed or will be signed shortly. Such a
pipeline, scheduled to be completed by
1997 if not sooner, would
greatly expand Russian exports of natural
gas to Eastern and Western Europe (by
some 35 billion cubic meters annually),
increasing recipient nations’ dependence
upon this less-than-reliable source of
energy supplies.
This pipeline would not
transit Ukraine — as the first strand
does — affording Moscow a means of
completely cutting off its erstwhile
Ukrainian subjects without disrupting
supply to other customers
“down-stream.”
This initiative was first launched in
the early 1980s, but was aborted thanks
to assertive U.S. efforts led by
President Ronald Reagan. The reasons for
such American resistance remain largely
valid today:
- First, Moscow has an
established, debilitating
track-record of using energy
supplies as political leverage
and/or punishment. In
recent months, Ukraine, the
Baltic States, and the
Transcaucasus region have been
subjected to politically
motivated cut-offs or significant
reductions in Russian supplies of
natural gas and oil.(2) - Second, the Russian
energy sector remains the most
important source of hard currency
for Moscow’s military and its
supporting industrial base.
As the Center for Security Policy
noted in 1992 in critiquing an
inadequately secured $2 billion
Eximbank loan to Gazprom, the
state-controlled enterprise
responsible for Russia gas
industry:
These incidents have been but
the latest instances of the
Kremlin’s willingness to exploit
energy dependence to advance its
strategic objectives. As the
Center for Security Policy noted
in 1990, for example, the
then-Soviet Union systematically
threatened Hungary, Romania,
Czechoslovakia and Poland with
energy interruptions as a means
of shoring up Moscow’s waning
influence following the collapse
of the Soviet empire in Eastern
Europe.(3)
Threats to Estonia’s energy
supplies also featured
prominently in Russia’s 1993
campaign of intimidation against
Estonia.(4)
Today, as in the past, it is
in the interest of Western and
Eastern European nations to diversify
their energy sources — not to
increase their dependence upon a
supplier that remains disposed to
exploit energy blackmail when it
suits its purposes.
“…It is predictable
that the Russian energy
sector will simply serve once
again as a multi-billion
annual revenue stream for the
preservation of the
military-industrial complex.
Given the strategic
importance of energy and the
large-scale hard currency
cash-flow it could generate, the
importance of democratic and
free market reforms being
irreversibly in place prior
to such assistance
cannot be overstated.”(5)
Brzezinski, Kissinger, et.al.
Urge Clinton to ‘Promote Energy
Independence’
On 4 May 1994, the American-Ukrainian
Advisory Committee — chaired by former
Carter National Security Advisor Zbigniew
Brzezinski and including such luminaries
as Henry Kissinger, George Soros, Gen.
John Galvin and Malcolm Forbes, Jr.
(recipient of the Center for Security
Policy’s 1993 “Keeper of the
Flame” award) — sent an
extraordinary and highly relevant letter
to President Clinton. It expressed, among
other concerns, unease about Ukrainian
dependence on Russian energy supplies.
The Committee specifically recommended
that the upcoming G-7 Economic Summit in
Naples take steps aimed at providing
“assistance to promote energy
independence.” It cites as a
precedent for accelerating the
development of alternative, secure
sources of energy supply for Ukraine the
International Energy Agency Agreement of
May 1983, a landmark accord resulting
from the Reagan Administration’s
successful anti-pipeline diplomacy and
Poland-related sanctions.
The ‘G-8’ Commitment
Those parts of the Kohl-Yeltsin deals
that have been made public are
no less troubling. Take, for example,
Chancellor Kohl’s commitment to President
Yeltsin to secure membership for Russia
in the Group of Seven leading
industrialized nations, the G-7.
Unfortunately, this pledge is no mere
symbolic gesture; it would, if
actualized, constitute an immense — and
undesirable — change in the character of
this organization comprised of the West’s
most economically powerful democracies.
In fact, the predictable consequence
of including Russia — a nation with an
increasingly uncertain commitment to
democracy and an economy that is in
shambles — in all G-7 deliberations
and decision-making would, at best,
complicate the Group’s operations. At
worst, it would prevent this
forum from serving as an effective tool
for developing and harmonizing Western
economic security policies. In any event,
giving Moscow a permanent seat at the
table will exacerbate the already
disproportionate attention given its
financial, economic and other needs in
G-7 deliberations.
In short, were the other member
nations to accede to German pressure to
become the G-8, yet another
institution that had proved a valuable
tool for promoting U.S. and Western
interests during the post-World War II
era would be compromised, perhaps
irreparably so.(6)
‘Such a Deal’
Press reports suggest that, in
exchange for this extraordinarily
significant concession, Chancellor Kohl
managed to have President Yeltsin back
off some threatened unpleasantness. With
an extortionate touch reminiscent of
past, boorish Soviet behavior, Yeltsin
had threatened to “crash” an
American-Anglo-French ceremony next
September marking the end of the three
powers’ troop deployments in Berlin. Kohl
was understandably horrified at the
diplomatic and political maelstrom likely
to be occasioned by the unwanted
participation of the very Russian forces
whose threatening occupation of East
Germany had necessitated those allied
deployments.
Yeltsin also reportedly promised to
support Germany’s inclusion as a
permanent member of the U.N. Security
Council — according to different reports
— “when it is discussed” or
“if [the Security Council] is
expanded.” What remains to be seen
is how much effort Moscow will exert to
promote the expansion of the Security
Council.
‘Thanks, But No Thanks‘
What is already clear, however, is
that such an expansion will merely
exacerbate the U.N.’s present inability
to act in a manner that advances U.S.
interests. The enthusiasm that has been
expressed (for example, by U.N. devotees
like Ambassador Madeleine Albright) for
including as Security Council members — in
addition to Germany — nations like
Japan, India and Brazil is one of the
tell-tale signs of the syndrome known as
“mindless multilateralism.”
In this connection, the Center regards
testimony provided by a distinguished
member of its Board of Advisors, Richard
Perle, before the Senate Armed Services
Committee on 12 May 1994, to be required
reading. In it, Mr. Perle, a former
Assistant Secretary of Defense, was
sharply — and properly — critical of
the organization and its peacekeeping
operations.
“…It seems to me that the
essential standard for American
policy on questions concerning when,
where and how we support U.N.
peacekeeping operations must be whether
those operations serve the interest
of the United States. If
they do not, we ought not to support
them, no matter how many other
nations, with other interests, might
choose to do so….“…When you hear State
Department officials assure you that
the interests of the United States
will be fully protected in any U.N.
actions in which we choose
to participate, remember the embargo
[on arms transfers to Bosnia] the
President is enforcing even though he
opposes it. And as you think about
the embargo President Clinton would
like to lift, ponder the army of
Administration officials circling the
Senate even as we speak, lobbying to
keep it in place.”
The Bottom Line
In July 1990, at the time when
Chancellor Kohl was consumed not with
reelection but with reunification, the
Center for Security Policy issued a
strong warning of the dangers inherent in
non-transparent dealings between Bonn and
Moscow:
“It has been obvious for
months that Bonn’s all-consuming
preoccupation with German
reunification and Gorbachev’s
desperate economic situation had the
potential to produce a dangerous
marriage of convenience. Instead of
attempting to manage the risks
inherent in such a prospect, the United
States government and its allies have
looked the other way on — if not
actively encouraged — the sort of
non-transparent, largely untied and
undisciplined German economic and
trade relations with Moscow
that have brought the West
considerable grief in the past.”
The Center believes that the United
States and the other Western nations can
ill afford to indulge in such behavior,
on either their own parts or on
Germany’s. If serious misunderstanding
and suspicions among the Western allies
— and possibly dangerous strains in
relations between them — are to be
avoided, it is vital that Germany make a
full disclosure of the agreements it has
reached with Moscow. In addition,
assurances must be obtained that in the
future, no commitments will be made
affecting Western equities in the G-7,
for example, without prior consultation
with and agreement from Germany’s allies.
– 30 –
1. See in this
regard, the Center for Security Policy’s
papers entitled Fifty Years
of Tyranny: The Intolerable Legacy of the
Nazi-Soviet Agreements of August 1939,
(No. 89-50,
28 August 1989) and Ridley’s
Believe It or Not: What Are the Secret
Protocols to the New German-Soviet
Agreement?, (
18 July 1990).
2. See, for
example, the Center’s Decision Brief
entitled, Yalta II: Western
Moscow-Centrism Invites New Instability
in Former Soviet Empire, (
3 December 1993).
3. See Soviet
Economic Leverage: Moscow’s Tool for
Denying Baltic Independence Without Force,
(No. 90-3,
8 January 1990) and Energy
Leverage: Moscow’s Ace in the Hole,
(No. 90-20,
1 March 1990).
4. See Harbinger
of Things to Come? Russian Energy Sector
Imposes Boycott on Estonia After Getting
U.S. Aid, (
28 June 1993).
5. See Revolving
Doors: Eximbank Official’s Scandalous
Self-Dealing is a Blow to U.S. Taxpayers,
‘Red Carpet’ for Returning Russian
Hardliners — and Their American Friends,
(No.92-D
148, 22 December 1992).
6. For a further
discussion of this process see ‘What’s
Really Wrong With This Picture’:
Center’s Gaffney Dissects Clinton
Security Policy (
May 1994).
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