21st October 2010
Russia and Turkey Are Europe’s Gateway to the East
Mark Hanson
In an interesting analysis published in the Guardian, Simon Tisdall has made remarkable comments as to possible future co-operation between the EU and the near-east powers of Russia and Turkey.
The US is pushing the European NATO members, including Turkey, to support a renewed attempt to install a missile defence system to protect against Iran. Turkey has concerns due to its status as neighbour to Iran, and Russia also fears that the missile defence system will negate its own strategic defences.
Tisdall suggests that the tensions that are being exposed by the missile defences can be turned to advantage by Turkey and Russia, both of whom are warm to further co-operation with the EU. Turkey is currently seeking membership of the European Union, and recently NATO chiefs have expressed a desire to co-operate militarily with Russia. Tisdall writes: “Medvedev's [Russia’s President] signature policy is his quest for new ‘European security architecture’ that would inevitably reduce the American role on the continent, and potentially undermine Nato – a historical Russian goal.”
Russia and Turkey are key powers in the ambitions of the EU to expand eastward, and with the EU moving further towards being a military power in its own right, the promise of closer military co-operation could mark a turning point where Europe, with its future world governmental ambitions, overtakes the US as the main global player.
The US is increasingly being sidelined after its reputation in the world has been severely knocked by recent events, and Europe is well-poised to expand both its influence and its membership. The difficulty that Europe faces, however, is in its mixture of supposedly united individual states. The UK, in particular, would be reticent to snub the US, and some member states, such as France and Germany, are trying to block Turkey’s membership bid.
Yet Mark Leonard, co-author of a new European council on foreign relations report entitled "The spectre of a multipolar Europe", suggests enhanced co-operation between the EU, Turkey and Russia is both unavoidable and desirable. Current European security structures were dysfunctional, European capitals were pulling in different directions, and "the US is no longer focused on Europe's internal security … and is no longer a European power", he said.
This could well provide an opening that takes the EU forthrightly beyond the geographical continent.
