Editor’s note: This is the final installment in a series of special reports that Dr. Friedman wrote during his travels to Turkey, Moldova, Romania, Ukraine and Poland. In this series, he shared his observations of the geopolitical imperatives in each country and now concludes with reflections on his journey as a whole and options for the United States.
By George Friedman
I have come home, a word that is ambiguous for me, and more so after this trip to Romania, Moldova, Turkey, Ukraine and Poland. The experience of being back in Texas frames my memories of the journey. The architecture of the cities I visited both impressed and oppressed me. Whether Austro-Hungarian mass or Stalinist modernism, the sheer size of the buildings was overwhelming. These are lands of apartments, not of private homes on their own plots of land. In Texas, even in the cities, you have access to the sky. That gives me a sense of freedom and casualness that Central Europe denies me. For a man born in Budapest, with a mother from Bratislava and a father from Uzhgorod, I can’t deny I am Central European. But I prefer my chosen home in Austin simply because nothing is ever casual for me in Central Europe. In Texas, everything is casual, even when it’s about serious things. There is an ease in the intensity of Texas.
On my return, some friends arranged a small dinner with some accomplished and distinguished people to talk about my trip. I was struck by the casualness of the conversation. It was a serious discussion, even passionate at times, but it was never guarded. There was no sense that a conversation carried with it risk. I had not met some of the guests before. It didn’t matter. In the region I was born in, I feel that I have to measure every word with care. There are so many bad memories that each word has to be measured as if it were gold. The simplest way to put it, I suppose, is that there are fewer risks in Texas than in Central Europe. One of the benefits of genuine power is speaking your mind, with good humor. Those on the edge of power proceed with more caution. Perhaps more than others, I feel this tension. Real Texans may laugh at this assertion, but at the end of the day, I’m far more Texan than anything else.
Or perhaps I speak too quickly. We were in the Kiev airport on the way to Warsaw. As I was passing through security, I was stopped by the question, “Friedman? Warsaw?” I admitted that and suddenly was under guard. “You have guns in your luggage.” For me, that statement constituted a near-death experience. I looked at my wife, wondering what she had done. She said casually, “Those aren’t guns. They are swords and daggers and were to be surprises for my husband.” Indeed they were. While I stood in mortal terror, she cheerily chatted up the guards, who really couldn’t make out what she was saying but were charmed nonetheless by her complete absence of fear. In my case, the fear came in layers, with each decade like another layer in an archaeological dig. For her, memory is a much simpler thing.
The region I visited is all about memories — never forgetting, never forgiving and pretending it doesn’t matter any more. Therefore, the region is in a peculiar place. On the one hand, every past grievance continues to live. On the other hand, a marvelous machine, the European Union, is hard at work, making the past irrelevant and the future bright. In a region not noted for its optimism, redemption is here and it comes from Brussels.
European Dreams
Here is the oddity. The Cold War ended about 20 years ago. The Maastricht Treaty was implemented about 17 years ago. By European — or any — standards, both the post-Cold War world and the European Union in its contemporary form are extraordinarily new inventions. People who still debate the ethnic makeup of Transylvania in 1100 are utterly convinced that the European Union represents a permanent and stable foundation for their future. The European Union will, so they say, create prosperity, instill democracy and produce a stable system of laws that will end corruption, guarantee human rights and eliminate the Russian threat.
It is almost impossible to have a rational discussion about the European Union. The paradox between memories going back millennia and tremendous confidence in an institution less than 20 years old could have been the single most startling thing I found. People whose historical sensibility ought to tell them that nothing this new can be counted on are sincerely convinced that the European Union works and will continue to work.
Another oddity was that my visit coincided with the Irish crisis. At the heart of the crisis is Germany’s recognition that the way the European Union is structured is unsustainable. The idea that countries that get help from the European Union might have a different voting status than those that give help profoundly reshapes the union from a collection of equal states to various classes of states, with Germany inevitably in the dominant position.
I noted that countries already in the European Union, like Romania and Poland, did not find this a troubling evolution. Poland might have a rational reason for this view, since it is doing fairly well at the moment, but Romania has no reason to be confident. For the Romanians, it is as if it doesn’t matter what their status is in the European Union so long as they are in the union. They see it as a benevolent entity in which the interests of some countries will put others at a disadvantage.
Even more interesting are the many Moldovans and Ukrainians who still think they are going to get into the European Union and focus on where they are in the accession process. My view is that they are exactly nowhere, because the Greek and Irish crises, plus whatever comes next, will change and probably limit who will be permitted to become a member. It is impossible for me to imagine circumstances under which either of these countries becomes a member. I can more easily imagine expulsions and resignations from both the eurozone and the European Union than I can imagine continued expansion.
In this region, in spite of the Irish crisis, almost no one drew a connection between the ongoing financial crises, doubts about the future of the European Union, questions about whether EU membership is desirable, questions about whether the rules are going to change in some unbearable way, or questions about whether the rest of Europe will want to be associated with them regardless of what they do. The EU crisis simply has not affected the perception.
I think there are two reasons for this. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of the contemporary European Union coincided. For most of these countries, liberation from the Warsaw Pact coincided with the rise of the union. It and NATO were tickets out of the hell of Soviet domination. These countries have no vision of what they will be if the European Union changes. Starting a discussion of this would create a fundamental political crisis based on the question of national identity. No one wants to have that conversation. Therefore, it is better to pretend that what we see in the European Union are passing clouds rather than an existential crisis. Far better to postpone the conversation on what Romania or Poland is if the union becomes something very different than to have the conversation now. Therefore, it is declared, ex cathedra, that the European Union is not facing redefinition.
The second reason has to do with Germany. All of these countries lived through nightmares in World War II. For all of them, allied with or enemies of Germany at the time, Hitler led to national catastrophe. Germany has re-emerged as the dominant European power and EU center. If the memories rule, these countries should be panicking. They do not want to panic. Therefore, they have created for themselves a picture of a Germany whose very soul has been transformed since 1945, a Germany that has no predatory interests, poses no threats and will solve all EU problems.
There is a Germany between monster and saint that they don’t want to deal with. Germany is a democratic country, and the German public is not enamored with the idea of being Europe’s cash machine. The German elite have things under control for now, but if things get worse, Germany has elections like any other country. Germany does not have to be a monster in order to be unwilling to underwrite Europe — certainly not without major political and economic concessions. The tension between the German elite and the German public is substantial, and if the German elite are broken in the political process of a democratic country, the European Union can change. Europe is democratic, and it is not clear that the European public has an unshakeable commitment to the European Union.
The Eastern Europeans are confident that this won’t happen in Germany. The only exception, of course, is Turkey, which is officially eager for membership in the European Union and quite prepared to go forward without it. Turkey was the wild card on this trip, the country that didn’t fit. It is therefore not surprising that Turks should have a unique view of the European Union. They are doing well economically, and while the union might have a political and cultural attraction to many Turks, it is not in any way the existential foundation of the Turkish nation. To the contrary, like Germany, Turkey is at the center of its own emerging region. This makes it difficult to think of Turkey as part of this journey, with one exception. If my idea of the Intermarium is to have an anchor, that anchor would have to be Turkey. I think Turkey needs a relationship with Europe, and the concept I have been putting forward is an alternative to the European Union.
Polish and Romanian political leaders refer to their close relationships with German leaders. They don’t want to think about a wholesale cleansing of the German leadership. They may be right. It may not happen. But it is not something that can be excluded or even seen as unlikely. There is a combination of unwillingness to think of the consequences of this crisis and a sense of helplessness. Memories reverse here. Every house is filled with memories. These memories have been declared abolished by official decree. All is well.
The Question of Russia
Then there is Russia. Here there are fewer illusions, but then less time has passed. Everyone knows the Russians have returned to history. Far more than the Americans, they know that Putin is a Russian leader, in the full meaning of that term. The Ukrainians and Moldovans are divided; some would welcome the Russians, some would want to resist. The Turks, having never been occupied by the Russians but having fought many duels with them, depend on them for energy, feel uncomfortable and look for alternatives. The Romanians hope for the best with occasional combative outbursts. But the Poles have the cleverest response, actually dueling with the Russians in Belarus and Ukraine while simultaneously maintaining good relations with Moscow. I am not saying that they are effective, just that they are not passive.
But they also comfort themselves about Russia as they do about Germany. The Russian economy is weak. This is true, but it was weak when the Russians beat Napoleon and weak when they seized Central Europe. Russian military and intelligence capabilities have frequently outstripped the country’s economic power. The reason is simple: Given its security apparatus, Russia can suppress public discontent more than other countries can. Therefore it can compel the public to exist with lower standards of living without resistance and divert resources to the military. With Russia, you cannot correlate economic power and military power. Everyone has written Russia off because of its demographic problems. Russia is too complex a country to reduce its future to that. Russia tends to surprise you when you least expect it.
Of course, this is something that former members of the Warsaw Pact understand. There is genuine concern about what Russia will do in Poland and west of the Carpathians. Here, many look to NATO. Again, to me, NATO is moribund. It has insufficient military force, it has a decision-making structure that doesn’t allow for rapid decisions, and it doesn’t have a basing system. In addition, it has the Germans inviting the Russians into a closer relationship with NATO that everyone applauds but the Americans and Eastern Europeans. To me, NATO is no longer a defensive alliance; it is a gesture toward having a defensive alliance.
NATO is designed to come to the aid of Poland or the Baltics in the event of the unexpected and inconceivable, which would be Russia taking advantage of NATO weakness to create a new reality. For NATO to have any chance of working, it not only has to reach a unanimous agreement but it must also mobilize and move a multinational force while the Balts and Poles hold out. As in 1939, the issue is that they must remain effective fighting forces with the ability to resist and have a military capability of this generation and not the last. If the Russians are not going to attack, then there is no point in having NATO. Let it die and let the diplomats and bureaucrats go on to other careers. If there is a threat, it comes from Russia, so integrating Russia into NATO would make no sense, nor does the current NATO force structure.
