Tampa Prep 2009-2010 Impact Defense File
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- Russian influence expansion ventures fail – Georgia proves. Klitsounova 9
- There will be no red spread – economics and population issues will stop it. Mearsheimer 6
AT: Russian ExpansionismNATO contains Russian expansion Wilkinson 97 (Paul, Prof of IR at U of St Andrews, http://www.fas.org/man/nato/hrpc_nato_xpn.htm, AD: 7/6/10) The fundamental geopolitical reality in Central and Eastern Europe is the inherent imbalance of power between Russia and its immediate and near neighbors, either individually or in combination. This age-old reality is reflected in Russian dominion over Poland, the Baltic nations, Finland, Belarus, and Ukraine in the 18th and 19th centuries, and over the vast imperium of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact in the 20th century. The current eclipse of Russian military and economic power should not blind us to centuries-old realities of geography and economics. An expanded NATO remains an essential shield against a resurgence of Russian power. Even today, there is clear evidence of a revival of Russian expansionism: Russia has achieved a "reunion" with Belarus, a nation of 10.5 million the size of Romania. On April 2, 1997, Russian President Yeltsin and Belarussian President Lukashenka signed a treaty creating a union of the two countries with joint armed forces and common citizenship and currency, as well as a binational ruling body. The union will again bring Russian power, after an absence of only six years, to the eastern borders of Poland and the Baltic states--700 miles farther west. Russian commentators stressed that the "union" was a riposte to NATO expansion, and that it is open to other members. As a result, Russia will have achieved an expanded union before NATO does. Russia has serious border disputes with Ukraine, and has refused to define its thousand-mile border. Russia continues to claim the strategic Crimean Peninsula, as well as significant units of the former Soviet Black Sea fleet. Russia has repeatedly and brutally threatened the three Baltic Republics. TASS reported on January 9, 1997 that Russian Foreign Minister Y.M. Primakov stated at a cabinet meeting that "Russia should not be afraid to use economic sanctions" to in disputes with former Soviet republics over the status of their Russian minorities. A February 12, 1997 statement by the Russian Embassy in Washington warned that "entry of Baltic nations into NATO would... have an extremely negative impact on the prospects of formation of a long-term model of constructive cooperation in the region." That statement's insistence on "creating favorable transport conditions for the Kaliningrad region," prompted one analyst to observe: "If Poland becomes a member of NATO, Lithuania will be the only landbridge between the two. And Moscow is thus making it very clear it will demand a transit accord with Lithuania, something Vilnius is unlikely to agree to willingly." Russia maintains significant military forces in the Kaliningrad enclave bordering Lithuania and Poland--forces not restricted by the CFE Flank Agreement limitations. Russia's armed forces have seized control of portions of Moldava, a small state physically separated from Russia by 325 miles of Ukrainian territory, but contiguous to NATO candidate Romania. Russia has repeatedly intervened to destabilize and subvert the strategic Republics of Georgia and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus Mountains--the latter of which has newly-found, exceptionally important gas and oil reserves whose transit routes westward Moscow seeks to control. Russia has stationed its armed forces in Ukraine, Armenia and Tajikistan. And while tolerating dramatic deterioration in its Soviet-era force structure, the bankrupt Russian state still commits vast resources to military research and procurement that will bear fruit in the intermediate future--like the defeated German Reichswehr of the 1920's. Russia’s revised military doctrine in essence neglects current military assets to concentrate on leapfrogging potential foes by developing next-generation technologies. Since Russia observed the performance of U.S. high-tech assets in Operation Desert Storm, its doctrine "places new emphasis on the need for military technology advancements in C4I (command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence), long-range smart weapons, and increased mobility, especially in air and space." Russian spending for research and development of high-technology weapons has increased nearly sixfold over the past three years, rising from $2.1 billion in 1994 to almost $13 billion today--versus other defense spending of $19 billion. Current high-priority projects include production of an upgraded mobile ICBM, tactical nuclear weapons, miniature nuclear warheads, and a new Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile--all already in development or production. And Jane’s of Britain reports that Russia has developed several new chemical and bacteriological weapons, including a new strain of anthrax which antibiotics cannot counteract. Russia’s entire negotiating posture on NATO expansion reveals not a fear of aggression--which Russia’s leaders from Boris Yeltsin on down have disclaimed--but a conscious desire to dominate both the former Soviet Union and the former Warsaw Pact. Why else would the current Russian Foreign Minister (and former Soviet KGB head) Y.M. Primakov have opened negotiations with the following demands: That NATO accept a 10-year moratorium on the accession of any other Central European nation after the entry of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic in 1999. That NATO forswear ever placing troops, nuclear or other heavy weapons, or even military infrastructure on the soil of those new members Moscow is prepared to countenance. That no former Soviet Union republic--including the Baltic states forcibly annexed by the USSR as part of the infamous 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact--ever be considered for NATO membership. These negotiating positions made sense only if Russia seeks the ability to blackmail or actually occupy the whole former Warsaw Pact, and direct military dominance over the mis-named "Commonwealth of Independent States." Indeed, given the unfolding sequence of events, NATO expansion might fairly be characterized as a Western response to accelerating Russian efforts to revive the Soviet imperium. Promoting Democracy and Stability in the Former Warsaw Pact Beyond defending Western Europe from Soviet imperialism during the Cold War, NATO proved essential to fostering democracy and the rule of law in Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece, and Turkey. So too will NATO membership today lend stability to states still trying to revive or create capitalism and democracy after generations of Communist autocracy. NATO membership will in particular help inculcate the norm of civilian control of the military. And just as membership in NATO helped abate the historic rivalry between Germany and France and contain disputes between Greece and Turkey, so too will NATO membership help diminish longstanding animosities between Central European nations. Already, the mere prospect of NATO membership has helped promote settlement of outstanding issues predating the Second World War between Germany and the Czech Republic, and led Hungary and Romania to resolve their centuries-old territorial disputes. Russian influence expansion ventures fail – Georgia proves. Klitsounova 9(Elena, Centre for European Policy Studies “Russia’s Response: Sovereign Democracy Strikes Back” Oct. 30) Yet, while Russian soft power instruments may predominate on paper in a wide variety of policy areas, they seem to lack power in practice. The Georgian crisis of August 2008 clearly showed Russia’s limited ability to expand influence over its immediate neighbours by pulling only on the levers of soft power. And the situation is likely to become even more complicated in the near future. As a result of the crisis, the Russian cabinet has already announced budget cuts, so establishing and expanding new areas of external aid on a shrinking budget will be extremely difficult. At the moment, some institutional features of Russia’s political model seem to be attractive to quite a number of regimes in the post-Soviet region. Moscow’s impetuous rebellion against the “intervention of democracy promoters” seems to be viewed with some sympathy in many post-Soviet capitals. Nevertheless, it is important not to overestimate Russia’s political attractiveness. With a younger generation of politicians soon to come to power, Russia’s leadership is likely to lose a large part of its capital of personalised relationships with post-Soviet political elites. The ongoing world economic crisis may dramatically change the structures of interest and power in the region and thus undermine the effectiveness and attractiveness of non-competitive political regimes. And last but not least, the EU’s serious attempts at projecting its own political influence far beyond its borders may also change the expectations of political actors populating the EU-Russia common neighbourhood. There will be no red spread – economics and population issues will stop it. Mearsheimer 6 (John, prof of international relations @ the U of Chicago, International Relations, 20(1), p. 119-120) IR What about the prospect of another ambitious and powerful Russia, moving westwards and increasingly dominating a Europe which has been deserted by the United States? JM That is definitely not going to happen. Russia has roughly half the population of the former Soviet Union and it has a struggling economy, which is nowhere near as dynamic as the Chinese or German economies. IR But we are talking 20 or 30 years down the line, and your book importantly stresses the sweep of history. JM Most experts think that Russia’s population will shrink markedly over the next 20 to 30 years and that its economy will continue to face serious problems. I don’t think we have to worry about a second coming of the Soviet Union in the decades ahead. Directory: files -> documents documents -> North Mankato Taylor Library documents -> In the Red and Brown Water documents -> - documents -> I. Disaster Summary Sheet II. 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