Translated material
"Who will like it?"
Vladimir Putin called on the West to answer in Munich
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has the right to feel special satisfaction: Vladimir Putin, who spoke at her invitation on February 10 in Munich at the 43rd Security Conference, turned this event into an event of truly international proportions. The editor-in-chief of the Swiss newspaper Tan drew attention to this circumstance during the Russian president’s speech. Asking Putin a question, he expressed the hope that “historians will not write one day that a second Cold War was declared during the Munich conference.” “But they could,” the journalist added.In any case, Putin’s extremely tough speech, delivered within the walls of one of Munich’s historical landmarks, the Bayerischer Hof Hotel, may turn out to be a summation of some of the achievements, but also the disappointments of Russian foreign policy at the beginning of the 21st century. On the other hand, there is reason to consider what Vladimir Putin said in Munich as part of his foreign policy credo, the programs that he leaves for Russia even after 2008. If we put it briefly, the essence comes down to the following.
Attempts to build a unipolar world made after the end of the Cold War “failed.” And “everything that is happening in the world today is a consequence of attempts to introduce this concept into world affairs.And these things are going much worse than before.” “There are no fewer wars and local conflicts,” Putin insists, “and even more people are dying in these conflicts than before.” “Much more, much more!” - the Russian president strengthens this thesis.
Vladimir Putin speaks of “unilateral, illegitimate actions that have not solved a single problem,” and of disregard for the fundamental principles of international law. He directly accuses the United States of “imposing its system of law, in economics, politics, and in the humanitarian sphere, on other states.” And again, turning to the audience, he throws out there twice: “Well, who will like this? Who will like this?! And in the front row, right in front of the Russian president, sit influential American senators Joseph Lieberman and John McCain, former and current candidates for US president.
Putin recalls the growing economic power of China, India, Brazil and Russia and warns that this will inevitably translate into political influence and strengthen multipolarity. Already during the speech, he enters into controversy with “our colleague,” the Italian Minister of Defense, who noted that “a legitimate use of force can only be considered if it was accepted by NATO, the EU or the UN.” “If I heard correctly,” Putin noted, “he and I have different points of view,” and for us, “only the decision that is made within the UN is legitimate.”
Further, Vladimir Putin predicts possible destabilization in the world due to the “obvious stagnation” in the field of disarmament. He openly made it clear that Moscow doubts the sincerity of the United States' intentions to comply with the agreements on reducing strategic nuclear weapons to 1,700-2,200 warheads by 2012. And he invites the new US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who is in the conference hall, to announce right here, right now, that Washington “will not hide an extra couple of hundred warheads “for a rainy day.” Putin urges listeners to greet such a statement with applause if it is made.
The Russian President pauses, television cameras zoom in on the head of the Pentagon, but not a single muscle moves on his face. The former American intelligence officer did not succumb to the polemical reception of his former colleague from the other side of the Iron Curtain. (Yesterday, the day after Putin’s speech, Gates will say to himself: “a former spy sent for retraining”...)
After this, Vladimir Putin moves on to one of the two main points of his criticism of the United States. These are plans for the deployment of a missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland and NATO military bases in Romania and Bulgaria . He asks: “Who is this expansion against?” And he recalls the guarantees given by Western partners after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, citing the words of NATO Secretary General Manfred Werner on May 17, 1990: “The very fact that we are ready not to deploy NATO troops outside the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany gives the Soviet Union firm security guarantees.” “Where are these guarantees?” - Putin throws into the hall again.
Nobody answers him. Perhaps because there really is no clear answer. Or maybe it’s because everyone here is politically correct and doesn’t want to remind you that, in fact, carte blanche for NATO’s expansion to the east was given by the first Russian President Boris Yeltsin back in the mid-90s. This was when Poland and the Czech Republic asked to join NATO... However, there is also a fundamentally different interpretation of the reasons for NATO expansion, which is accepted in the West. One of the deputies of the German Bundestag recalled it in his question immediately after Putin’s speech: “Do you recognize that expansion is practically not expansion, but self-determination of democratic states that wanted to go this way? Why are you afraid of democracy? After all, this will stabilize (your - Ed. ) neighbors?
The next target of Putin's attack was the OSCE. This organization was literally pilloried as “a vulgar instrument for ensuring the foreign policy interests of one or a group of countries in relation to other countries.” Here the so-called “non-governmental organizations” also suffered. According to Putin, they are only “formally independent”, but in fact they are “purposefully financed”, and therefore “controlled”.
At the end of his highly temperamental speech, the Russian president recalled the thousand-year history of his country, which “almost always enjoyed the privilege of pursuing an independent foreign policy.” Putin promised not to change this tradition and expressed the desire to deal also with “responsible and independent partners, ensuring security and prosperity not for a select few, but for everyone.”
This hint, made to a European audience in the presence of the “heavyweights” of American politics, seemed more than transparent - it is obvious that “independence” in Putin’s mouth implied defending independence from the United States. Meanwhile, Federal Chancellor of Germany Mrs. Merkel, speaking to Putin, strongly emphasized the inviolability of common Atlantic values that unite the USA, Canada and Western Europe in NATO.
No less significant was the discussion that began as a result of the questions asked of Putin and his lengthy answer to them. Among the statements made by the Russian president, it is worth highlighting two related to the Middle East. First, there is a shared concern with the West regarding the “quality” of Iran's nuclear program . And secondly, that “in Lebanon, boxes from our anti-tank systems were actually seen, it’s true...”. It turns out that they “remained” in Lebanon after the Syrian army left there. Putin shared details of the work that was carried out between Moscow and Damascus after that.
Perhaps the obvious dissonance in the seemingly sincere rhetoric of the Russian president was his reasoning in response to the caustic remark of the head of the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch, Mr. Roth, about the incompatibility of the multipolar world that Putin insists on and the “unipolar government "in Russia. Can such a unipolar government, “obeying one party line,” be a reliable partner, a prominent human rights activist asked Putin. In response, the Russian president began to say that the Communist Party, United Russia, LDPR and other political forces are represented in the Russian parliament. To see how different their positions are, Putin invited those interested to come to Moscow. In contrast to the invitation made a couple of years ago to come to Moscow for circumcision to those who have questions about Russia’s anti-terrorist measures, this invitation from Munich looked quite harmless.
Yesterday the first reactions of the West to Putin’s “Munich” became known. NATO Secretary General Jaap De Hoop Scheffer said he "cannot hide his disappointment." “(Putin’s – Ed. ) speech did not help matters, I see an inconsistency between the NATO partnership with Russia, as it has developed so far, and Putin’s speech,” Mr. Scheffer said. The White House is also “surprised and disappointed by Putin’s statements.” "His accusations are false," said White House national security spokesman Gordon Johndrow.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who spoke at the Munich conference yesterday, expanded on his president's theses. He advised the United States to place its missile defense systems not in the Czech Republic and Poland, but in Turkey or Afghanistan. “It would be more logical,” said Sergei Ivanov, referring to the goals pursued by the United States, which is trying to protect itself and its NATO allies from Iranian missile attacks. “Arguments about the need for such systems in Poland and the Czech Republic do not suit us; we cannot buy this explanation,” said the Russian Deputy Prime Minister. Nevertheless, he made it clear that Moscow is still ready to bargain with Washington by inviting his American colleague Robert Gates to the Russian capital.