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Droht eine Neuauflage des Kalten Krieges?

Jan 5, 2015 Mikhail Gorbachev

MOSKAU – Während sich das Jahr 2014 seinem Ende nähert, wird deutlich, dass die seit 1989 vorhandenen europäischen und internationalen politischen Strukturen ihre Bewährungsprobe nicht bestanden haben. Seit dem Ende des Kalten Krieges hat die Welt kein derart angespanntes und schwieriges Umfeld mehr erlebt, in dem vor dem Hintergrund eines Abbruchs des Dialogs zwischen Großmächten in Europa und im Nahen Osten Blut vergossen wird. Die Welt scheint sich an der Schwelle eines neuen Kalten Krieges zu befinden. Manche behaupten sogar, er habe bereits begonnen.

Unterdessen spielt das wichtigste internationale Gremium der Welt – der Sicherheitsrat der Vereinten Nationen – kaum eine Rolle oder ergreift konkrete Maßnahmen, um die Brandherde einzudämmen und das Morden zu beenden. Warum hat er nicht entschlossen gehandelt und eine Beurteilung der Lage vorgenommen, um einen gemeinsamen Aktionsplan zu entwickeln?

Ich glaube ein wesentlicher Grund ist der Zusammenbruch des Vertrauens, das durch harte Arbeit und die gemeinsame Bemühung geschaffen wurde, den Kalten Krieg zu beenden. Ohne dieses Vertrauen sind friedliche internationale Beziehungen in der globalisierten Welt von heute undenkbar.

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Mikhail Gorbachev

Writing for PS since 2001
11 Commentaries

Mikhail Gorbachev was the last head of state of the Soviet Union, and helped to bring about a peaceful end to the Cold War, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. He remained active in global and humanitarian affairs, most notably through his leadership of the Gorbachev Foundation. He was also the founder of the Green Cross International, an independent nongovernmental organization that addresses security, poverty, and environmental degradation.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 22 Comments on this article

John Kornblum Jan 12, 2015

The problem with this any many similar contributions to the "security dialogue" since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis is that it is based on false premises. If one examines the documents and statements which led to the so-called post-cold-war settlement, one soon discovers a common thread. This thread is individual freedom, civil society and respect for national sovereignty. There is no mention of the sort of mutual security apparatus which Russia first proposed in 1954 as a counter to German membership in NATO. the Helsinki Final Act, which Gorbachev praises marked the final breath of a system, which would be guided by the great powers in the sort of European Security Council championed by Gorbachev in this article. Thus, false premise number one: there was no agreement to take account of "legitimate" security interests of nations which violated the principles of the Helsinki Final Act. There was also no ban on former members of the Warsaw Pact or former republics of the Soviet Union from joining a democratic organization such as NATO or the EU.

The West understood that Russia would feel left out of the leadership group. Thus, the NATO-Russia Founding Act and Council. Thus also the special structures between Russia and the EU. But what Western countries could not do for Russia was to undermine their existing institutions or forbid others from joining them. In those days, we all assumed that Russia understood that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a victory and not a defeat for the Russian people.

Twenty five years later, we seem to have been overly optimistic or even naive in this belief. First efforts at civil society drowned in corruption and economic collapse. As the internal situation grew more difficult, new Russia leaders revoked a sense of integration with the West for a democratic future in favor of authoritarian solutions fed by Russian nationalism. Gorbachev criticizes the Wet in the Balkans, but the Dayton Agreement was a joint project between Russia and the West. He forgets also our joint agreement to help Ukraine give up nuclear weapons by guaranteeing its sovereignty.

Neither NATO nor the EU were expanded against Russia. Rather, they were widened in order to bring to Central and Eastern Europe exactly the democratic futures which Russia claimed also to support. It now galls Putin that no one wishes to join his economic union and that prospective members are looking West. But one look at the relative situations in Russia and the West is more than enough to explain why.

Now we are supposed to engage Putin again, promise him that we will again take him seriously so that he will stop the war he is conducting against a sovereign country, a country which has long considered itself to be of the same blood line as Russia. Are we to apologize for our support of democracy? Are we to join the Kissingers and Genschers who tut tut and our demand that Russia actually support the principles it signed on to a quarter of a century ago?

In the end, the answer will not come from Washington or Berlin or any other capital. the answer is already to be seen in the economic collapse Russia is experiencing. This is caused not by sanctions but by Putin's refusal to modernize either Russian society or its economy. Russia's most important capital is its people. They are leaving the country even faster than the rubles which go to Western banks. There is no new security dialogue which can right the tragic social and economic wrongs of recent decade. We can hope only that the Russian people will finally install better leadership, as they did in 1992. In the meantime, we must treat Russia as a threat. Not a global menace, but certainly a threat to civilization in the Eurasian world.
- Curtis Carpenter Jan 15, 2015
  
  A thoughtful reaction. Thank you.
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Gen Hektor Jan 11, 2015

Mikhail Gorbachev is neither "trolling" for Putin, nor pining for his country's glory days.
The man has made serious contributions to peace and stability and has never been shy of admitting when he was wrong.
Instead of being cynical, readers and world leaders would do well to unglue from their Cold War mentalities and realize that the present global instability is actually a warning of huge and imminent disaster if they fail to "think, propose and act together."
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Jonathan Lam Jan 9, 2015

Gamesmith94134: Capitalist’s Swan Song 2013
Inflation and unemployment Rejuvenated,
Labor And Wages Are Pooped.
No New Consumers is born; interest rate rises to cripple.
Nirvana Turns Into Mist In Emerging Market Nations.
Bernanke Is Stuffed To Grow More Trillion Or QE.
The REIT Is Crackling And ETF Is Freaking.
Dollar Fall Down, Or Yuan Goes Up, Rand To Float, Rupee Cut Its Throat.
What Goes Up Must Come Down---- The Law Of Nature.
Purgatory, It Is.
Glasnost To Perestorika
Open To Restore, Is Yet Soon To Come.
Mikhail, Mikhail, Where Are You?
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Julian Wynnyckyj Jan 7, 2015

Gorbachev it acting out as the fluttering flame of Soviet Diplomacy and he is “trolling” for Russia’s new Master. The present managers of the Russian Federation have saddled themselves with a bizarre mythical invention of the former Imperial Russian State picking a la carte the events that suit them from Soviet history and rejecting others as “harmful” to Russia. This is very much in parallel to what modern Islamists are doing not surprising that with his background Putin is looking for what frustrates the United States/the West most, unfortunately the US/West’s “whack-a-mole” strategy with Islamic Terrorism doesn’t quite fit the Russian narrative since itself is a static target and very susceptible to economic warfare and political isolation.
Everything since 1991 for the Russian Federation has come down in stature and strategic significance other than its aging nuclear stockpile. The Russian Federation has squandered twenty years of the possibility to truly reinvent itself but has chosen to try and maintain “a zone of influence” over neighbors without any incentives, the Baltic States and Poland have shown incredible resiliency and innovation, Romania/Hungary/Bulgaria/CzechRep/Slovakia have grown out of the “Soviet” model slowly, now its Ukraine’s turn.
Russia has now caught itself in the web of delusion and historical falsification/denial of history, Putinism has nothing to offer Central/Eastern Europe except the “threat” of instability without servitude, this is a basic Mafiosi state which is dismantled with a corruption free police department aggressive judicial system and a functional tax department using RICO laws. Reforming a criminal state much like the USSR is probably not in the cards, a removal of Putin is something similar or implosion are its only inevitable consequences.
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Jose araujo Jan 7, 2015

I disagree with Mr. Gorbachev views that Europe is losing importance on the new world scenario, in the sense Europe is going to be instrumental on the future of Russia.

Either continuing to support the Russian an oligarchy, giving Russia the room to maneuver in the suppression of the internal problems it’s going to face soon, validating the Russian westernization and giving a raison d’etre to the current system.

Or opposing the Russian oligarchy and hence starting a cold war II, and becoming the demons and raison d’etre for the failure of the Russian oligarchy.

One main question has to be solved and that’s the validation of the current Russian regime. Without communism there is very few the current regime can offer to oppose the western/European views. Either we are the standard the Russians want to achieve, or we are the daemons preventing Russia from achieving the goals. Any way Europe is going to be at the central stage of what I hope is the failure or change of a very corrupt regime.

Finally we have to face the reality and that we cannot continue to sell European property to the Russian plutocrats so they can live in Europe but instead we have to help Russians achieve European standards of living.
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Yoshimichi Moriyama Jan 7, 2015

When did Russia become a player in European international politics? At the Vienna Conference of 1814? During the Napoleonic Wars? Or at the time of the Great Northern War in the early 18th century? I do not know. But since then, the West might do well perhaps not to make-believe, making decisions among themselves, that it did not exist as at the Munich Conference of 1938.
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Michael Public Jan 6, 2015

Where you see ill fortune and bad judgement I see calculated intent. I think America has done its best to recreate a cold war for profitability reasons. They tried to make China the new enemy for a while, but China would not oblige - so they have turned back to their old foe Russia and repeatedly stuck their thumb in Russia's eye until they got the response they were hoping for. Mutlt-billion programs like the F35 don't get bankrolled unless there is an enemy worth fighting.
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Ibsen Lourenco Jan 6, 2015

Mr. Gorbachev’s article is beautifully written but empty in meaning. He talks about building trust, politics of inclusion and demilitarization of Europe. Mr. Putin didn’t send troops to Ukraine because of the personal economic sanctions. It was the other way around. Why not, as the first step to re-stablish a dialogue, Russians get out of Ukraine? Russia was part of the selective G8 and is a permanent member of the UN Security Council. How much more inclusive does he want it to be? In regards to the reduction of NATO forces and Europe’s security, look at the demilitarization of Ukraine brought them. I suppose that he doesn’t think that the demilitarization of Russia should come first.
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Curtis Carpenter Jan 6, 2015

I too would like to second Mr. Grobachev's observation regarding the collapse of trust over the last quarter century. But the effects of the collapse are evident not only in international, but in national politics as well. Dysfunction of the government in the U.S., possible disintegration of the EU, the global turn to the right toward more fundamentalist views (ipolitical and economic as well as religious), the reassertion of nationalism -- all are symptoms, in my view, of the phenomenon of lost trust in our institutions.

So it seems to me that serious thought needs to be given to how institutional trust can be restored (if, indeed, it can be restored) -- and that this needs to happen before there will be much hope of thinking, proposing and acting together -- within or across national borders. Personally, I believe that the effort to restore trust needs to begin at home -- and that mounting that effort will require some degree of disengagement from other people's problems.
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Fetewei Tewoldemedhin Jan 6, 2015

if i may say so, such triumphalist rhetoric has also led to the the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a financial crisis the likes of which the world is still trying to recover from...
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jagjeet sinha Jan 6, 2015

The mind behind Perestroika 1989 speaks at a time when his European heart bleeds again. Always wanting Russia to be ensconced in The Eurosphere - Russian ambitions unable to play Russian Roulette with the Sole Superpower. Always keen on a European solution. The Great Game where The Eurosphere emerges as the Winner. Can the EU accomplish the Eurosphere of his dreams ?
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William Wallace Jan 6, 2015

Sobering words. One hopes they reach the ears of the US Republican Party, to whom much of the jingoistic damage may be attributed. As frightening as things may be, perhaps that is how they need to be for all parties to take a step back and have a ponder. Sure do miss the sober and responsible pre-Reagan Republican Party. It's been nothing but mind-numbing ignorance and major errors in foregin affairs ever since.
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Paul Daley Jan 6, 2015

Good article. The allied powers had time to plan the end of WW II; the end of the cold war caught everyone by surprise. International arrangements, particularly in Europe, have not caught up with history and everyone is paying the price. Structures that bring Russia and the former Soviet states together with the EU are long overdue. Structures, like NATO, which hold those states apart truly need revision.
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John Brian Shannon Jan 6, 2015

Dear Mikhail,

I couldn't agree with your points more.

The human race has 'dropped the ball' very badly since the end of the Cold War and the world is lurching dangerously towards a new Cold War -- and this time around, it really could end in humanity's demise.

Well we remember the Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine whereby if one bloc was attacked or lost too much ground in a military skirmish it would then launch all of its strategic nuclear missiles at the aggressor. Requiring an identical response by the aggressor nation, until there was nobody left to manually enter the nuclear missile codes and push the launch buttons on any side of the conflict.

During the last Cold War, each bloc was in possession of enough nuclear-tipped missiles and nuclear bombs to destroy all life on planet Earth many hundreds of times over.

All in all, an exceedingly efficient way to end all life on the planet.

I must ask the world leaders; Is that what we're back to? Have we regressed to the law of the jungle; 'Do it my way, or we'll end you?'

Is that who we've become?

Or is it who we really are as a species -- after a very brief period of enlightenment in the 1988-1998 timeframe?

Surely we are better people than that!

A lack of vision, going forward together to a better world, was and still is the missing ingredient. It is precisely the reason we find ourselves in the present moment.

Due to a lack of an overarching theme that all nations could buy into -- something bigger than their own nationstate -- part 'inspired dream', part 'pathway to progress' and part 'guiding principles' to take us into and through the entire 21st century, we have become mired in the thoughts and beliefs (and therefore, the set of actions) of a previous century.

In the absence of an overriding and visionary accord agreed by all nations or at the very least, major powers -- politicians, military leaders and security agencies reverted to their default positions on all matters.

Is it any wonder we're back to where we started?

We need an agreement. We need an agreed-upon, mutually beneficial, and workable pathway to get us to our civilization's shared goals. This is way bigger than getting more GDP next year, it's bigger than the price of oil, it's bigger than Iran's (supposed) nuclear weapons programme. It's bigger than landing a man on Mars.

Why? Because if we don't forge a new accord, none of that will matter, because we won't be here.

Warmest regards to you from Vancouver, Canada, Mr. Gorbachev.
John Brian Shannon
http://johnbrianshannon.com
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Petey Bee Jan 6, 2015

I have tremendous respect for what Gorbachev accomplished. The peaceful unwinding an enormous and deeply dysfunctional imperial power/state/bureaucracy, especially considering all the potential energy that was coiled up in cold war relationship between the two sides. I hope the US has such a leader if or when such a leader is needed.

Anyways, I think his central observation (if I'm reading this right) -- that the trust is gone -- is exactly right. I think the best use of the year 2015 would be to think how that came about.

The subtext is also pretty clear. Russia wishes its relationship to other world powers to be a "partnership", rather than a "client state". The US wishes the reverse. The choices presented are "client state" or "fight", take-it-or-leave-it, with no middle ground.

So as of now, it is "no deal" and/or "rejection of the two choices"... stay tuned.
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j. von Hettlingen Jan 5, 2015

Mikhail Gorbachev asks whether "the world is on the brink of Cold War II"? There's a saying: "It takes two to tango". While he blames the West for being responsible for the crisis, he spares Putin the criticism. The NATO eastward enlargement was seen only as "a violation" of the 1990 London Declaration later. Russia didn't seem to mind it at first. It had been invited to join the alliance too. If the "war in Yugoslavia (particularly Kosovo), missile-defense plans, Iraq, Libya, and Syria" had enraged Russia, is because it couldn't do anything. For more than a decade, Russia was busy with its problems and only emerged economically strong when oil prices were sky high. It became more assertive in foreign policies in recent years and Putin began to be talk about Western - particularly American - "triumphalism" after the collapse of the Soviet Union!
If Gorbachev maintains the UN Security Council "is scarcely playing a role or taking concrete action to stop the fires and the killing," he has simply forgotten that Russia is one of the five veto-powers and it views power-politics more important than humanitarianism.
He regrets the trust deficit and calls for new trust to be built through dialogue between the West and Russia to resolve the crisis in Eastern Ukraine and suggests the west should lift sanctions against senior officials in Russia, saying they are "damaging to both sides". He believes that "the experience of the 1980s suggests a way forward". The problem is that times are different, even if "the international situation at the time was no less dangerous than it is today". Mikhail Gorbachev is not in power, but Vladimir Putin, who is known to be tough and unpredictable. While "the key to dialogue is political will and setting the right priorities," the question is what are Putin's "priorities"?
The West can't solve all these "global problems – terrorism and extremism, poverty and inequality, climate change, migration, and epidemics" alone and has not burnt all bridges with Russia. They still cooperate in many areas.
Gorbachev mentions that a "Security Council, or Directorate for Europe" had been discussed between his German and American counterparts years ago. Dmitri Medvedev had also taken up this issue while he was president. Gorbachev believes, had this "mechanism for European preventive diplomacy and mandatory consultations in the event of a threat to any state’s security", been in place, the crisis in Ukraine "could have been averted". Perhaps, who knows?
- Sim Gu Jan 6, 2015
  
  you wrote '' It had been invited to join the alliance too''
  could you please provide a link / source of this info...
  as far as I know Russia was refused when wanted to join NATO
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- Ibsen Lourenco Jan 6, 2015
  
  Well said, Mr. Hettlingen, well said!
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Mirek Fatyga Jan 5, 2015

I find it sad and disturbing that Mikhail Gorbachev, who should be properly recognized for his pivotal role in ending the cold war peacefully, has switched sides as it where, and is repeating the litany of at best half-truth trying to lay the blame for current problems in Europe on "the West" (ie the United States). He is damaging his legacy, and there is little time to atone given his age. Russia, and in fact most of the European post-Soviet sphere failed to reform. The task of reform was daunting, so perhaps this should not have come as a surprise. Nonetheless, blaming the "West" for failures of Russia is not helpful, not to the world nor even to Russia. This is not the first such failure in Russian history, and probably not the last one. Russia suffers from a profound absence of democratic tradition and seems to fatalistically revert to authoritarian rule. Western sanctions may be initially a reflexive political response to Russian actions, but over time they become a tool of economic disengagement from a hostile, authoritarian state. It is not that there should not be trade with Russia, but it needs to be structured differently. Russian energy companies are not companies in a free market sense, they are political instruments of that hostile state. If allowed to function without restrictions, they will seek to subvert the very marketplace in which they operate furthering political interests of their true owner, the Russian state.
To reiterate, the way forward is for Russians to stop blaming others for their own problems. For corruption, for the oligarchs, for epic theft, for return to authoritarianism and consequently foreign adventurism.
- Mr Econotarian Jan 6, 2015
  
  What else can Gorbachev say? If he spoke against the Putin regime, he could end up jailed on trumped-up charges.
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John Jones Jan 5, 2015

I read Gorbachev's "A time for peace" when it was first published - but had to get the local library to borrow it from the US as it was not published in UK - which I found unbelievable!
Even so I can't agree that the roots of our present malaise go back to the 1990s. Surely they go back to 1945 when the UN was founded. Granting the big 5 power of veto meant we were doomed to go on playing power games between E & W instead of ensuring the planet was at last governed. We should all have handed over our armies to UN command and blocked all future arms trading.Even now, so late in the day, I am utterly convinced this is the only way forward. See http://www.garrettjolnes.talktalk,net
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