America's New Eastern Problem

Posted: 15 August 2008

by A. Wess Mitchell

Crises, so the saying goes, have a nasty way of exposing pretensions. The Russian invasion and occupation of the republic of Georgia exposed the pretension that the United States is capable of effectively underwriting the security of small, isolated powers in Russia’s backyard. In singling out Georgia – America’s longtime regional protégé – Moscow employed a tactic that is as old as geopolitics itself: humbling a small-power proxy to demonstrate the impotence of its Great-Power patron. Distracted by two simultaneous land wars, a rapidly-arming Iran and a deepening economic crisis, there is little the United States can do to alter Russian behavior.

For the first time in living memory, a U.S. ally has been forced to endure sustained humiliation in full view of the international community without an effective counter-move by Washington. In Georgia, American weakness - and with it, the fiction of unipolarity - has been laid bare for the world to see. Now Washington faces an unfamiliar predicament: we cannot afford to divert scarce U.S. power assets to a part of the world that is now demonstrably beyond our strategic reach, but we also cannot afford to do nothing.

Should the United States allow the crisis to pass with only a symbolic rebuke, two far-reaching consequences will follow: (1) other former Soviet captive nations, including those in Central Europe, will begin to doubt America’s ability to act as a credible security guarantor and (2) Russia will be emboldened to repeat its tactic elsewhere.

A dangerous cycle could ensue in which U.S. allies feel a sharpened security dilemma and Russia continually tests the limits of its local power position. The net result could be that the vital strategic middle ground between Russia and Europe could gradually come back “into play” for the first time in two decades.

This would not be in the U.S. national interest. While the centrality of Georgia to key American interests may be, as some U.S. commentators allege, debatable, the importance of Central Europe is not. Of the three occasions in the past century when America has been pulled into global conflicts, all originated in the 800-mile strip of land between the Baltic and Black Seas. Only when this region, and with it, the eastern flank of NATO, are unambigiously in the Western ambit can America confidently turn its attention away from Europe and deal from a position of strength with issues further afield.

In an ideal world, the United States would be able to count on the European Union to quell disturbances in what is, after all, Europe's own strategic hinterland. However, as recent events have shown, many of the EU’s largest states are more interested in avoiding a rupture with Moscow than in protecting the vital interests of the Union’s eastern members. 

When Russia launched a cyber attack on Estonia last summer, the EU failed to issue a meaningful response. When Russia threatened to aim nuclear weapons at Poland and the Czech Republic for cooperation on U.S. missile defense, the EU said nothing. And when Russia invaded Georgia, eastern leaders were shocked to find their Western neighbors reluctant, not only to back proposals for a tough EU response, but to assign blame in the conflict at all.

If a convincing message is to be sent to Moscow, it will have to come from the United States. Perhaps it’s too late even for that. Perhaps the majority of analysts are right that America - distracted, out-maneuvered and over-stretched – is no longer capable of a tough response.

But perhaps not. There is one option that has not been discussed that could help to shift the diplomatic playing-field to the West’s favor. The United States should announce its intention to transfer, on a permanent basis, the entire Europe-based American military establishment to new locations in Central Europe. This should include the EUCOM headquarters and the bulk of the U.S. Seventh Army and Third Air Force – upwards of 60,000 troops. Ideally, these forces and facilities would be distributed between the three largest and most Atlanticist eastern states – Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania – thus covering the northern, southern and central approaches to the region.

As draconian as such a measure might sound, it would offer at least two significant advantages over the other options that are being discussed.

First, it would alter the actual power reality on the ground in the region. Most of the other options tried or talked about – referring Russia to the UN Security Council, canceling joint Russia-NATO military exercises, expelling Russia from the G-8 – are “prestige penalties,” none of which would outweigh the enhanced power status that Moscow achieved by initiating its offensive to begin with. Russia’s move was power-political; so too must be the response. By advancing U.S. military assets one square closer to the geostrategic fault-line (as we did by placing American bases in Germany during the Cold War), Washington would demonstrate Western seriousness and force Moscow to think long and hard before attempting another show of force.

Second, signaling our intention to shift U.S. bases eastward would provide a much-needed injection of confidence for U.S. allies in the region, both in and out of NATO. The “demonstration effect” that Russia has so far managed to produce must not be allowed to stick. A demonstration of equal or greater magnitude must be made, and soon. Already, Washington’s meager response has led to renewed calls in Warsaw for a bilateral U.S. security pledge over and above Article V. Allowing these jitters to spread could open a geopolitical can of worms that would be very difficult to shut. By launching basing talks with key eastern allies, the United States would send an unmistakable message that we are, and intend to remain, a force to be reckoned with in the region - a perception that, despite Central European membership in NATO, is beginning to slip.

An eastward shift in Europe's strategic center-of-gravity is long overdue. For years, Pentagon planners have talked about the benefits that would accrue from the placement of military installations in Central Europe, not only in the immediate vicinity but in the nearby Middle East as well. Accordingly, we have sought "lily pad" bases in Romania and Bulgaria and missile defense sites in the Czech Republic and Poland (the latter of which, as of yesterday, has been jolted out of its months-long torpor into signing an agreement). The crisis in Georgia should be seen as confirmation of this instinct and provide an impetous to continuing and accelerating the process.

Obviously, attempting to transfer U.S. forces eastward would be a lengthy, expensive and negotiation-laden undertaking. It might not work. And even it does, it is a long-term fix that would not save Georgia from its immediate travails. However, the very act of announcing that we are contemplating such a move, by demonstrating U.S. seriousness, creativity and commitment to the region, would help to strengthen the Western negotiating position at a moment when it is risibly weak.

In retrospect, the Georgian crisis is likely to be seen as the first in a series of friction-points in the transition to global multipolarity. It therefore matters how we acquit ourselves in the crisis. While we cannot continue the process of geopolitical expansion that brought us into Georgia, we also cannot precipitously retract. We must make intelligent use of the power assets at our disposal to consolidate our position and strengthen the disincentives against de-stabilizing Russian moves in the future. Doing so could help to ensure that, when the next crisis arises, we are able - unlike today - to deal with Moscow from a position of strength.

A. Wess Mitchell is Director of Research at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Center for European Policy Analysis.