a new euro-atlantic strategy for the black sea region

8/8/2019 A New Euro-Atlantic Strategy for the Black Sea Region

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A NEW EURO-ATLANTIC STRATEGY FOR THE BLACK SEA REGION


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A NEW EURO-ATLANTIC STRATEGY FOR THE BLACK SEA REGION

Ronald D. Asmus, Konstantin Dimitrov and Joerg Forbrig Editors

2004


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TABLE OF CONTENTSPrefaceMircea Geoana ............................................................................................................7

IntroductionRonald D. Asmus, Konstantin Dimitrov and Joerg Forbrig ....................................10

Part I - The Rationale for a New Strategy

The Black Sea and the Frontiers of FreedomRonald D. Asmus and Bruce P. Jackson....................................................................17

The Sea Friendly to Strangers:History and the Making of a Euro-Atlantic Strategy for the Black SeaR. Bruce Hitchner ......................................................................................................27

Part II - Voices from the Region

A Ukrainian View of a New Euro-Atlantic Strategy in the Black Sea AreaBorys Tarasyuk ..........................................................................................................35

Europe is on Georgia's MindTedo Japaridze and Alexander Rondeli ....................................................................40

From the Near Abroad to the New Neighborhood:The South Caucasus on the Way to EuropeRouben Shugarian......................................................................................................48

Developing a New Euro-Atlantic Strategy for the Black Sea Region:Constraints and ProspectsHalil Akinci ................................................................................................................57

South Caucasus: Going WestLeila Alieva..................................................................................................................65

The Black Sea Area: A Mix of Identities in FormationIgor Munteanu ..........................................................................................................77

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Copyright 2004 by The German Marshall Fund of the United Statesand Individual Authors

Published by The German Marshall Fund of the United States

1744 R St. N.W.Washington, D.C. 20009

All Rights Reserved

Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Asmus, Ronald D., Konstantin Dimitrov and Joerg Forbrig (eds.)A New Euro-Atlantic Strategy for the Black Sea Region

p. cm.ISBN 80 - 969160 - 8 - 4 (paperback)

Layout and Printing:

VYV Public RelationsBlumentlska 3811 07 BratislavaSlovak Republic

Printed in the Slovak Republic


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PREFACE

Mircea Geoana

This is an important book. It addresses a key strategic question facing the Euro-Atlantic community today: should the United States and Europe embrace the goal

of anchoring the countries of the broader Black Sea region in the Euro-Atlanticcommunity? The authors of the essays contained in these pages argue that they should. They challenge us to go beyond those voices, which currently insist thatEurope's unification is complete and that the enlargement of NATO and the EUmust be put on hold. They challenge us to think - once again - in a big and boldfashion about adopting and pursuing policies that can change the map of Europe.

In the early and mid-1990s, I had the honor to represent Romania as Ambassadorin Washington. I saw firsthand how the idea of NATO and EU enlargementemerged in the think tank community and was put on the foreign policy agenda by a small group of strategic thinkers working with political leaders. RepresentingRomania, I had the opportunity to work with individuals in governments, think

tanks and NGO's who helped create the political coalition across the Atlanticcommitted to creating a new post-Cold War Europe whole and free. Later, asRomanian Foreign Minister, I was present when my country was invited to join theAlliance at the NATO summit in Prague as part of what became known as the "BigBang" enlargement of NATO and the EU. What many critics once deemed a bridgetoo far - membership in the core institutions of the West - had become the naturaland organic step in the reunification of Europe. For my generation of Romaniansand Central and East Europeans, regaining our place in Europe and the Atlanticcommunity was a defining moment and the fulfillment of a dream.

Today we have an obligation to extend that vision and that dream to those countriesof the Black Sea region that aspire to become part of our community of values. Inparticular, young democracies like Romania and Bulgaria who live on the westernshore of the Black Sea, along with long-standing NATO ally Turkey, have a specialinterest and obligation to reach out to our neighbors in Ukraine, Moldova and theSouthern Caucasus and help them gain their place in core transatlantic andEuropean institutions. Throughout the 1990s, we heard the voices of those whoargued that the enlargement process should be halted, that the West was incapableof extending its reach any further eastward or that further enlargement would

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Part III - Creating an Outreach Strategy

Transatlantic Strategy for Black Sea Stabilization and Integration (BSSI Strategy)Ognyan Minchev, Marin Lessenski and Plamen Ralchev........................................85

The Black Sea Region: A Role for NATO?Jaroslaw Skonieczka ..................................................................................................99

Towards a More Ambitious EU Policy for the Black Sea RegionHeather Grabbe ........................................................................................................106

Developing a Euro-Atlantic Strategy towards Black Sea Energy:The Example of the CaspianZeyno Baran ............................................................................................................116

Part IV - Conflicts and Cooperation:The Wider Context of the Black Sea

Frozen Conflicts: A Challenge to Euro-Atlantic InterestsVladimir Socor ........................................................................................................127

Five Reasons Why the West Should Become More Involved in the Black SeaRegionSergiu Celac ..............................................................................................................138

The Russian Factor in Western Strategy toward the Black Sea RegionF. Stephen Larrabee ..................................................................................................147

Appendices

Maps of the Region..................................................................................................159

About the Contributors ..........................................................................................164

Participants of the Black Sea Strategic Dialogue....................................................169

Snapshots from the Black Sea Strategic Dialogue ..................................................172

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Table of Contents

Mircea Geoana is Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania.


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The mission of building Europe whole and free will not be complete unless anduntil the countries of the Black Sea region have been embraced by the Euro-Atlanticcommunity. The area boasts ancient links to European civilization, as an increasingamount of historical and archaeological research shows. The strategic importanceof the region has been apparent since the days of the Greeks and the Romans as theregion lies at the crossroads of Europe, Asia Minor and the Caucasus. Today wehave the opportunity to embrace the countries of the region and anchor them inthe Euro-Atlantic community. By consolidating democracy and stability on the

shores of this historic body of water, we can help revive the ancient name of theBlack Sea and render it more valid then ever: Pontus Euxinus,"The Hospitable Sea."

Mircea Geoana

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inevitably alienate Moscow. Fortunately, those voices were resisted and today Europe is safer, more democratic and secure as a result.

I firmly believe that those of us who have benefited from a Western strategy of enlargement in the 1990s must now work to continue to extend those benefits toour neighbors in the Black Sea region in the years ahead. That is why I am delightedthat the German Marshall Fund of the United States decided to gather the best andthe brightest thinkers for such a discussion by launching this project on

"Developing a New Euro-Atlantic Strategy for the Black Sea Region." One of theproducts of this project are the essays in this book - written by men and womenwith daring, yet realistic minds from America, Europe and the countries of theBlack Sea region. Committed to the promotion of democracy and security, they took up the challenge of trying to sketch out a new Euro-Atlantic strategy for theregion.

The questions that the book seeks to answer are fundamental. They explore themoral and strategic reasons why the Black Sea region is becoming more importantto the West. They argue that the countries and peoples of the wider Black Searegion share with us a history and civilization that inevitably ties them to Europeand the transatlantic community. They embrace a vision of an even wider Europe

in which the desire for liberty, security and democracy can again become a drivingforce to transform and reform young democracies and anchor them in the West.They debate and explore ways in which we can again adapt our institutions andpolicy tools to help these countries integrate themselves into the free world.

I am convinced that the West can and must reach out to these countries whilecontinuing to build a new partnership with the largest Black Sea littoral power -Russia. No one would benefit more from the establishment of prosperity andsecurity around the Black Sea region more than Moscow itself. NATO and the EUare each determined to further developing their relationship with the RussianFederation, and a possible cooperative outlook on the Black Sea offers anopportunity to deepen that partnership.

At the same time, the Black Sea is the new interface between the Euro-Atlanticcommunity and the Greater Middle East. The stability and security of the region iscritical for the project of reaching out to and modernizing the Greater Middle East.The cultural, ethnic and social diversity of the Black Sea finds its match in many parts of the Middle East; there is a wide range of deeply embedded links betweenthe peoples living on the shores of the Black Sea and those in the Greater MiddleEast region.

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Preface


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A number of participants were asked to write - in their private capacity as thinkers -short, topical and bold think pieces to both spur and help guide these brainstormingdiscussions. Our goal was to synthesize and integrate the results of these discussionsinto a final strategy paper. However, we quickly discovered that many of the paperswere excellent. We concluded that a number of them deserved to be published in theirown right in order to share the rich ideas contained in them with a broader public.Thus, the idea to publish this book was born.

This book is organized in five parts. The first contains two chapters addressing thequestion of what the rationale for a new Euro-Atlantic strategy vis-a-vis the BlackSea region could be. Ronald Asmus and Bruce Jackson join forces to articulate astrategic rationale that would enjoy bipartisan support in the United States as wellas in Europe, drawing on the debates and experiences in anchoring and integratingCentral and Eastern Europe during the 1990s. One key issue raised during our firstseminar in Bucharest was the degree, to which the countries of the Black Sea regionformed a community, and the historic role that the civilizations of the region hadplayed in shaping and contributing to what we now refer to as "the West." Wetherefore turned to Professor Bruce Hitchner, a well-known ancient historian andarchaeologist at Tufts University, to understand whether there was a historical andcivilizational foundation upon which to build a current Euro-Atlantic strategy.

Professor Hitchner's keynote address from the Sofia seminar forms the basis for hiscontribution in this volume.

The second part contains essays from a broad set of voices from across the Black Searegion - ranging from current and former senior officials writing in their privatecapacities to leading NGO activists and scholars. Borys Tarasyuk, former UkrainianForeign Minister and Chairman of the Committee on European Integration inUkraine's Parliament, offers his thoughts on Ukraine's key interest and roles in theregion. The essay by former Georgian Foreign Minister Tedo Japaridze andAlexander Rondeli capture the excitement, hopes and aspirations unleashed by Georgia's "revolution of the roses" and its impact on regional perspectives. RoubenShugarian, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia offers his individualperspective on the prospects for building closer cooperation with the EU andNATO. Halil Akinci offers the wisdom of a long-standing NATO member and oneof Turkey's most seasoned diplomats and veterans on Black Sea issues and thechallenges that lie ahead. Leila Alieva and Igor Munteanu give us the views of twointernational scholars and civil society representatives from Azerbaijan andMoldova respectively. If there is a theme that comes through in all of these essays,it is the desire of these countries to move closer to the Euro-Atlantic community aswell as an awareness of the hurdles - both in these countries as well as in Westernthinking - that need to be overcome to forge a common strategy to promote reformand the anchoring of these countries in the institutionalized West.

Ronald D. Asmus, Konstantin Dimitrov and Joerg Forbrig

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INTRODUCTION


This book is the product of a project by the German Marshall Fund of the UnitedStates (GMF) entitled "Developing a New Euro-Atlantic Strategy for the Black Sea

Region." The idea for this project grew out of a conversation with RomanianForeign Minister Mircea Geoana in the spring of 2003. That conversation tookplace shortly after the Prague summit of NATO in November 2002 and focused onthe need to think through the future priorities of the Euro-Atlantic community following the completion of the double enlargement of the EU and NATO from theBaltic states to the western edge of the Black Sea.

One conclusion quickly reached was that the West lacked a coherent strategicframework or policy toward the Black Sea region. GMF decided that there was animportant need and the right time to form a working group to brainstorm aboutsuch a strategy. Participants would include both scholars and practitioners andcome from Europe, the Black Sea region as well as North America. The goal was to

think "out of the box" and to try to sketch out the contours of what a bold andambitious approach to help anchor the countries of the Black Sea region to theWest could and should look like. From the outset, we were joined by the Romanianand Bulgarian Ministries of Foreign Affairs as key partners as well as some of GMF's key NGO partners in those two countries.

Three brainstorming sessions were held over the course of the fall of 2003 and intothe spring of 2004. The first was held in Bucharest in early November 2003 incooperation with the Romanian Academic Society as well as the RomanianMinistry of Foreign Affairs. It was followed by a second seminar in Sofia in early February 2004 organized jointly with the Institute for Regional and InternationalStudies, the Atlantic Club of Bulgaria and the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Security aswell as the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense. Thethird and final brainstorming session was held in Bratislava, hosted by theBratislava Office of GMF together with the Slovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs, onthe eve of the EU's historic enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe.

Ronald D. Asmus is a Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of theUnited States. Konstantin Dimitrov is the Executive Director of the Institute of Euro-Atlantic Security in Sofia, Bulgaria. Joerg Forbrig is a Program Officer at the GermanMarshall Fund of the United States.


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contained in these pages will not only contribute to but also spur furtherintellectual debate and exploration of policy options.

This book would not have been possible without the assistance and support of anumber of close colleagues and friends. That list must start with Craig Kennedy,President of GMF, whose personal interest and support in the Black Sea region wascrucial for launching this project. A very special word of thanks goes to theparticipants of this working group who made the commitment and devoted the

time from their busy schedules to attend these sessions and contribute to thisproject. A list of seminar participants is enclosed at the end of this book. GMFwould also like to thank our institutional partners in Romania and Bulgaria for theintellectual, logistical and material support they provided for these seminars. AtGMF, a special word of thanks goes to Mark Cunningham whose enthusiasm andhard work was an essential ingredient of this project's success. Jeremiah Schatthelped pull this manuscript together to ensure a timely publication before theNATO Istanbul summit. As always,Pavol Demes was a great colleague, collaboratorand leader. His photographs at the end of the book capture the atmosphere andspirit with which this project was conducted.


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Part three of the book focuses on what a realistic yet ambitious outreach strategy on the part of the EU and NATO could look like. Ogynan Minchev and his team atthe Institute of Regional and International Studies use the lessons learned duringthe transformation of Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s to lay out thecontours of a comprehensive Black Sea stabilization and integration approach toanchor the region into a common Euro-Atlantic security space. JaroslawSkonieczka draws on the experience of NATO in Brussels and his work ondeveloping the alliance's partnership programs to explain how the alliance already

has the necessary tools and mechanisms to develop such a robust outreach strategy and how they could be applied to the region. Heather Grabbe from the Centre forEuropean Reform looks at both the limits and possibilities of what the EU couldoffer, reviewing its existing instruments and their possible adaptation to the BackSea region. Zeyno Baran from the Nixon Center looks at how the issue of energy and the Caspian Sea also needs to be a central part of a new Euro-Atlantic strategy toward the region.

Part four of the book focuses on western strategy for resolving conflicts andexpanding cooperation in the region. Vladimir Socor tackles one of the thorniest yet most important issues confronting Western policymakers - how to help resolvethe "frozen conflicts" that afflict the region and which retard Western integration as

well as regional cooperation. His essay addresses the nature of the frozen conflicts,including the roles played by outside powers, and how the West needs to rethink itspast approach in order to help resolve them as part of a new strategy toward theregion. Steve Larrabee addresses the issue of a western strategy toward Russia, thelargest of the littoral states on the Black Sea. He extrapolates from the experiencegathered during the 1990s in dealing with Russia in the context of EU and NATOenlargement to develop three strategies for how to engage Moscow and address itspotential concerns. Ambassador Sergiu Celac offers us his insight as a Romaniandiplomat as well as Director General of the International Center for Black SeaStudies to help us understand why the West should become more involved in theBlack Sea region and which role institutions like the Organization for Black SeaEconomic Cooperation can play in the overall approach of the Euro-Atlantic

community.

These essays were written as brainstorming papers. They were designed to start adebate and to catalyze fresh thinking, not to answer each and every question thatexists. We hope that the spirit of brainstorming, intellectual curiosity and openexchange that accompanied our dialogue throughout this project comes through inthese chapters. These writings, like this project more generally, were intended to bethe beginning and not the end of an intellectual and policy process. As editors, we join the authors of this book in expressing our hope that the ideas and thoughts

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Introduction


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Part IThe Rationale for a New Strategy


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THE BLACK SEA AND THEFRONTIERS OF FREEDOM

Ronald D. Asmus and Bruce P. Jackson

A series of historically unprecedented events have brought the attention of the Westto the wider Black Sea region - that region including the littoral states of the BlackSea, Moldova, and the Southern Caucasus countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, andGeorgia. The successful anchoring and integration of Central and EasternEuropean countries stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea in the Euro-Atlanticcommunity marks the end of the grand historical project of the 1990's, initiated inthe wake of the end of the Cold War.

The terrorist attacks of 9-11 and 3-11 have served to underscore the dangers of thenew century and have highlighted the fact that the greatest threats to both NorthAmerica and Europe are now likely to emanate from beyond the continent - inparticular, from the Greater Middle East. These events have begun to push the

Black Sea from the periphery to the center of Western attention. At the same time,they have emphasized the fact that the West currently lacks a coherent andmeaningful strategy vis-a-vis this region. Neither the United States nor the majorEuropean powers have made the Black Sea a priority, nor have they identifiedstrategic objectives in the region. Absent a compelling rationale that is attractiveand comprehensible to elites and publics on both sides of the Atlantic, this isunlikely to change. In addition, without such a rationale, Europe and the UnitedStates are not going to be willing or able to generate the attention and resourcesnecessary to engage and anchor the countries of the wider Black Sea region to theWest, let alone help them transform themselves into full partners and perhaps,overtime, full members of the major Euro-Atlantic institutions. We mean to explain inthis essay why the Black Sea region needs to be at the forefront of the Euro-Atlanticagenda.

Years of Neglect

Why has the West lacked such a strategy for integrating the Black Sea region andwhat has changed to make one so critical now? Four main factors explain the past

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Ronald D. Asmus is a Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the UnitedStates. Bruce P.Jackson is the President of the Project on Transitional Democracies in Washington,DC. This chapter also appeared as an article in Policy Review, No.125, June-July 2004.


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civilization, but also from a kind of historical amnesia. For some, "Europe" meantWestern Europe; for others, it extended to the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea - but inthe case of the latter, only to its western and southern edges. For many in the West,Ukraine and the Southern Caucasus seemed far-away lands of which we knew littleand, rightly or wrongly, cared less. Others were too afraid even to think aboutventuring into what Moscow claimed to be i ts "near abroad" and natural sphere of domination.

Many of these hurdles and constraints are starting to soften or change. As the Westsucceeded in implementing its agenda of the 1990's, it now can afford to lift itsgeopolitical horizon and think about challenges that lie farther afield. Thesuccessful example of the "Big Bang" of NATO and EU enlargements has helpedawaken aspirations in the wider Black Sea. Today, a new generation of democraticleaders in the region openly proclaims the desire to bring their countries closer to,and eventually to join, the Euro-Atlantic community. Having succeeded in joiningNATO, countries like Bulgaria and Romania are joining Turkey in trying to impressupon the West the need to make the Black Sea a higher strategic priority. Afterlargely ignoring the region for the past decade, the West is starting to wake up to theneed to determine just exactly what our objectives and strategy should be.

What is the Wider Black Sea Region?Historically, the Black Sea has stood at the confluence of the Russian, Persian, andOttoman Empires. During the Cold War, it was further divided between East andWest. Public images of the region were shaped as much by spy thrillers and JamesBond movies as anything else. The twin revolutions of 1989 and 1991, leading tothe collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the dissolution of the USSRitself, in turn opened the door for a new chapter in the region's history and calledattention to it for the first time since parts of the "Great Game" were played outalong its shores in the nineteenth century. With NATO members Bulgaria,Romania, and Turkey dominating the western and southern shores and newly minted CIS states Moldova,Ukraine, Russia, and Georgia along the north and east,

the region begins to take shape.

The wider Black Sea region must also include all three Southern Caucasus states -Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. In referring to the region, we implicitly refer tothe Euro-Asian energy corridor linking the Euro-Atlantic system with Caspianenergy supplies and the states of Central Asia. Moreover, we are also making someclaim to the projection of a Black Sea system northward from Trans-Dniester,Odessa, and Sukhumi because a stable system would require both the resolution of "frozen conflicts" along a northeast arc and access to the great commercial rivers


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lack of interest. First, in many ways the wider Black Sea region has been theBermuda Triangle of Western strategic studies. Lying at the crossroads of European,Eurasian, and Middle Eastern security spaces,i t has been largely ignoredby mainstream experts who tend to focus on other areas. Geographically located atthe edge of each region, the Black Sea has not been at the center of any. When itcame to Europe, our priority was with the arc of countries extending from theBaltic states to the Eastern Balkan states. When it came to the former Soviet Union,we were focused on building a new cooperative relationship with Moscow. And

apart from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the interests and attention of our MiddleEastern policy usually ceased at Turkey's southern border.

Second, given the crowded agenda of the Euro-Atlantic community since thecollapse of communism 15 years ago, there was little time or political energy left toaddress the wider Black Sea region. The task of anchoring and integrating Centraland Eastern Europe, stopping the Balkan wars,and putting those countries back ona path towards European integration - and, finally, trying to establish a new andcooperative post-Cold War relationship with Moscow - became full-timepreoccupations. If one looked at the list of priorities of an American Secretary of State or European Foreign Minister in the 1990's, rightly or wrongly, the Black Seararely broke through into the top tier of concerns. The exception was, of course,

Turkey, which fought a lonely political battle to get the West to pay more attentionto the region. Almost by default, our considerable interest in the safe and stableflow of energy through the region ended up driving our policy - as opposed to someoverarching vision of how we saw the place of these countries in the Euro-Atlanticcommunity.

Third, there was also little push from the region for a closer relationship with theWest. No Lech Walesa or Vaclav Havel emerged to capture our attention or poundat our door. The countries of the region, different and with widely varyingaspirations, were preoccupied with their own problems and at times engaged incivil war and their own armed conflicts. Any thought of joining the West in theforeseeable future seemed unrealistic or even utopian - in their eyes as well as ours.

In the West, there is always a tendency to ignore or neglect problems for which onehas no immediate answer or prospect for success: the "too hard to handle" category.Henry Kissinger is reported to have said that a Secretary of State should not tacklean issue without at least a 90 percent likelihood of success. The problems of thewider Black Sea region were seen as failing to meet that standard.

Fourth, the Black Sea has been a civilizational black hole in the Western historicalconsciousness. We suffer not only from a lack of familiarity with the region, itspeople, its problems, its rich culture, and its contribution to the spread of Western

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The Black Sea and the Frontiers of Freedom


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The Strategic Case

Why do we need a new Euro-Atlantic strategy for the Black Sea region today? Letus begin with the strategic case, which has two major reinforcing components. Thefirst element has to do with completing the job of consolidating peace and stability within Europe. The other has to do with addressing threats posed by the GreaterMiddle East. A subsidiary but still important strategic consideration pertains toEuropean access to energy supplies.

Over the past decade, NATO and the EU successfully projected stability and helpedconsolidate democracy throughout much of the eastern half of the Europeancontinent. As a result, Europe today is probably more democratic, prosperous, andsecure than at any time in history. At the same time, there are parts of the continentwhere peace and stability are not yet fully assured. They are centered in the WesternBalkans, Ukraine and Belarus, and the Black Sea. Whereas the EU and NATO areheavily engaged in the Balkans and are developing new approaches toward Ukraineand Belarus, the same cannot be said with regard to the Black Sea, a region just asstrategically important, and arguably more so.

The inclusion of the wider Black Sea region in the Euro-Atlantic system would both

consolidate the foundation of this system and buttress it against many of the futurethreats to its peace and stability, which concern us most. The case for inclusion iseasiest to illustrate in the negative. If one thinks about many of the major newproblems and threats Europeans today are concerned about - be they in the form of illegal immigrants, narcotics, proliferation, or even human trafficking - the widerBlack Sea region is the new front line in combating them. This region constitutesone of the key routes for bringing heroin to European markets and dangeroustechnologies to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. For the first time in more thana century, trade routes under the control of European states are being used for aspart of the sex-slave trade. Moreover, the four "frozen conflicts" monitored by theOSCE (Trans-Dniester, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Karabakh) run through theregion. It is widely and correctly believed that these unresolved fragments of Soviet

Empire now serve as shipping points for weapons, narcotics, and victims of humantrafficking, as breeding grounds for transnational organized crime and, last but notleast, for terrorism.

Another equally important strategic reason has to do with the Greater Middle East.During the twentieth century, Europe - and Central Europe in particular - was thelocus of the greatest potential conflict confronting the West. The Fulda Gap in adivided Germany was the place many feared the next major war would erupt.Today the only Gap left in Fulda sells blue jeans. Now the Greater Middle East is


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that flow into the Black Sea: the Danube, Dniester, and Dnieper. Conceptually,then, the wider Black Sea region is as broad and variegated a region as the NorthGerman Plain or the Baltic/Nordic zone.

Significantly, the concept of a unitary Black Sea region was envisioned in several1990's efforts to build regional cooperation, first in ad hoc structures and since1999 in the engagement of major Euro-Atlantic and European institutions. Limitedsystems of cooperation such as the Black Sea Economic Council and the so-called

GUUAM (a coordination mechanism among former Soviet republics Georgia,Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova) reflected a growing sense of common economic and political interest. The articulation of the so-called"Southern Dimension" of European security in 2001 and the accession of Romaniaand Bulgaria to NATO in April 2004 confirmed that three major states of the BlackSea region agreed that they shared a single security system, fully integrated into thelarger Euro-Atlantic system. As we approach the NATO summit in Istanbul, bothUkraine and Georgia are pursuing NATO membership, suggesting that these statesalso see their futures in terms of shared Black Sea security and cooperation.

A similar convergence of regional interests can be seen in the development of relations with the European Union. The countries on the southern and western

shores of the Black Sea - Turkey, Bulgaria, and Romania - constitute the entire classof formal applicants to the European Union and, therefore, potentially anintegrated political and economic system. After the anticipated decision on June12, 2004 to extend Europe's neighborhood policy to Georgia, Azerbaijan, andArmenia, all the countries on the northern and eastern shores of the Black Sea -including Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova - will be engaged in developing closerrelations with the European Union.

The engagement of other multilateral institutions - the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Minsk Group approach to the "frozen conflicts" of the Black Sea, the negotiations surrounding the southern flank of the Treaty onConventional Forces in Europe - all follow the formula of "Common Regional

Problems, Cooperative Regional Solutions." Common economic and security interests and the gravitational pull of a rapidly integrating Europe are driving theBlack Sea states towards some manner of regional convergence. While thepersistence of conflict and the fragility of national institutions suggest that theemergence of a fully functional Black Sea geopolitical system is still a few years off,there is strong evidence that the Black Sea is indeed starting to come together as aregion. It follows that the Euro-Atlantic states have an interest in and should havea strategy towards such an important and potentially positive development.

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against nuclear power, or unrestricted shipping off our beaches, we might lookseriously at what a stable and secure Black Sea system offers as an alternative.

The wider Black Sea region straddles and indeed dominates the entire Euro-Asianenergy corridor from trans-Ukrainian oil and gas pipelines running to the marketsin Europe's north to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline running to theMediterranean. A new Euro-Atlantic strategy geared towards anchoring andstabilizing the region can potentially bring the vast energy reserves of the Caspian

Basin and Central Asia to European markets through multiple secure andenvironmentally safe routes. Not only will these energy supplies help to ensure theprosperity of a politically independent Europe for decades to come but theconstruction and maintenance of these routes will provide an important economicstimulus to the economies that were left behind in the revolution of 1989.

The Moral Case

Just as important as the strategic argument is for Euro-Atlantic engagement in thewider Black Sea region, so too is the moral case. After all, it was precisely thecombination of moral and strategic factors that made the case for enlarging NATOand the European Union to Central and Eastern Europe so compelling and which

eventually carried both elite and public opinion. In a nutshell, that argument wasbased on the premise that the West had a moral obligation to undo the damage of a half-century of partition and communism and to make Europe's eastern half assafe, democratic, and secure as the continent's western half. Today that sameargument must be extended to the wider Black Sea region.

Reaching out to the Black Sea countries is the natural next step in completing ourvision of a Europe whole and free. Today there are growing numbers of voices inthe region articulating their aspiration to anchor themselves to, and eventually become full members of, the Euro-Atlantic community through membership inNATO and the European Union. Ukraine publicly claims to have made a strategicchoice along these lines (although some of President Leonid Kuchma's actions as

well as Ukraine's limited progress on reform have undercut that case). Morerecently, Georgia has clearly moved in the same direction. Azerbaijan has harboredNATO aspirations for some time. Armenia, with its close relationship to anddependence on Russia, thus far continues to be the odd man out.

These aspirations have evoked an ambivalent Western response - just as, for many,the aspirations of Central and Eastern Europe initially did a decade ago.Overwhelmed with the challenges of completing the integration of Central andEastern Europe, many Europeans do not want to consider any options for further


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the place from which the most dangerous threats to the Euro-Atlantic community are likely to emanate and where Americans and Europeans are most likely to riskand lose their lives.

The Black Sea region is at the epicenter of Western efforts to project stability into awider European space and beyond, into the Greater Middle East. As NATO expandsits role in Afghanistan, prepares for a long-term mission and contemplatesassuming added responsibilities in Iraq, the wider Black Sea region starts to be seen

through a different lens: Instead of appearing as a point on the periphery of theEuropean landmass, it begins to look like a core component of the West's strategichinterland.

Put simply, the interface between the Euro-Atlantic community and the GreaterMiddle East runs across the Black Sea, the new Fulda Gap. The generationalchallenge of projecting stability into the Greater Middle East will be much aided by a stable and successfully anchored wider Black Sea region. This is not just a matterof geography, territory, or Western access to military bases that might better enableus to prosecute the war on terrorism. We have a key interest in seeing the countriesof this region successfully transform themselves into the kind of democratic andstable societies that can, in turn, serve as a platform for the spread of Western values

further east and south. Azerbaijan's ability to transform itself into a successfulMuslim democracy may be as important to our ability to win the war on terrorismas access to military bases on Azeri soil. In short, what these countries become may be as important as where they are.

The mechanisms and alliances Europe and the United States develop in cooperativeefforts in the Balkans, Caucasus, and Black Sea regions will also likely be invaluablein tackling the long-term challenge of bringing democracy to the Greater MiddleEast. In the wider Black Sea region, ethnic conflicts, post-conflict societies, andeconomic devastation confront us with the same conditions we will find in theGreater Middle East. We may look back on a successful Black Sea strategy and seea proving ground on which effective multilateralism and nation-building were first

developed.

A final consideration in the strategic case pertains to the role of Euro-Asian energy supplies in providing for the energy security of Europe as well as the environmentalquality of the Euro-Atlantic. At present, Europe imports approximately 50 percent of its energy over complicated and often dangerous routes through the Bosphorus andEnglish Channel. By 2020, Europe will be importing 70 percent of its energy fromsources beyond Europe. To the extent that we might have political concerns aboutRussian or Saudi influence in European capitals, or harbor an environmental bias

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countries of the Black Sea to the West is likely to enhance both. While a full accountof how to craft a Western policy toward Russia is beyond the scope of this paper,one thing is readily apparent:Once again,the West faces the dilemma that a strategy aimed at further extending stability will in all likelihood be seen by many Russiansas hostile. And once again, the West will have to reject such thinking and insteadbe prepared to defend its own integrationist logic.

The reality is that NATO and EU enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe has

not created a new threat on Russia's western border. On the contrary, enlargementhas probably created a more enduring peace and a greater degree of security in theregion than at any time in recent history. An enlarged NATO and EU haveeliminated a worry that has haunted Russian leaders since Napoleon, namely, therise of an aggressive and hostile power to its west. Moreover, since September 11,the United States and its allies have done much to reduce the threat to Russia on itssouthern border through the successful war against the Taliban and the deploymentof a NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan.

Where to Start?

Developing a new Euro-Atlantic strategy for the wider Black Sea region must startwith the major democracies of North America and Europe recognizing our ownmoral and strategic stake in the region. In this regard, the European Union hasalready taken a key step by including the Southern Caucasus in Europe'sneighborhood policy, informally known as "wider Europe." This allows these newdemocracies to begin discussing the "Four Freedoms" of wider Europe - freedom of market access, direct investment, movement of labor, and travel. While theEuropean Union will begin discussions of its neighborhood policy on a bilateralbasis and will attach a high degree of conditionality, the liberalization of trade andlabor and capital flows with the Black Sea countries should quickly begin toproduce positive regional and subregional effects.

It is time for NATO to take a parallel step at its upcoming summit in Istanbul by

recognizing the strategic stake the alliance has in the region. Such a recognitionshould be matched by a stepped-up program of outreach and both bilateral andregional cooperation. As proved effective in Central and Eastern Europe, variousWestern countries can organize themselves to take the lead in working with each of the Black Sea countries on a bilateral or multilateral basis. The tools for expandedmilitary cooperation already exist under NATO's "Partnership" programs. What islacking is the political will and the guidance to tailor such programs to the specificinterests and needs of the region. Much as NATO responded to the changedgeopolitical circumstances of the Visegrad and Vilnius states, it must develop a


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enlargement down the road. In addition, many in the West have forgotten the key role that this region once played in the evolution of Western civilization. Alongwith the Mediterranean, it was the cradle and meeting place of many of the culturesand peoples that built the heritage of what we now call the West. Reclaiming thosecultures and helping these nations reform and transform themselves into societieslike ours represents the next step in completing the unification of Europe.

Once again, the West is struggling to define what constitutes "Europe" and the "Euro-

Atlantic community." At several points in the debate over NATO and EUenlargement during the 1990s, we faced the issue of how far membership in theseinstitutions could or should extend. At each and every step there were Westernvoices calling for a pause or a cap on the process. The proponents of an open-endedapproach prevailed with the moral argument that countries, which had sufferedlonger under communism or were simply less developed, should not bediscriminated against or punished, but should instead have the prospect of one day walking through the open doors of our institutions once they have embraced ourvalues and met the criteria for membership. We must press that case again today.

The moral case hinges on the extent of Euro-Atlantic collective responsibility tothose people beyond the immediate scope of our defining institutions but who

share some or all of the cultural and historical characteristics that define ourcivilization - as, for example, Armenians undoubtedly do. The European Union'snew neighborhood policy comes as close as Brussels could be expected to asking,"Am I my brother's keeper?" As Genesis informs us, opinion on this questionvaries. At one end of the spectrum are those who would narrowly define a "coreEurope" whose highly integrated markets would be restricted to existing EUmembers and remain a de facto "Christian club." At the other are those who see apolitically completed community encompassing a wide range of ethnicities andfaiths within a more modestly integrated Europe. At a minimum, we can say withcertainty that the answer to this moral question has existential consequences for the250 million people,most of whom live in the wider Black Sea region,and who awaitour judgment.

The second moral reason underlying the need for a new Euro-Atlantic strategy forthe wider Black Sea region revolves, paradoxically, around Russia. Today, all toomany people see Russia as a reason for the West not to engage in the wider BlackSea region - for fear that engagement will generate new tensions with Moscow. Theopposite may actually be the case. The long-term goals of the West are to supportthe democratization of the Russian state and to encourage Moscow to shed its age-old zero-sum approach to geopolitics. A policy that essentially cedes the Black Seato Russian influence is likely to retard both. The anchoring and integration of the

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THE SEA FRIENDLY TO STRANGERS:HISTORY AND THE MAKING OFA EURO-ATLANTIC STRATEGY

FOR THE BLACK SEAR. Bruce Hitchner

"This is not just a place but a pattern of relationships which could not have been thesame in any other place, and this is why Black Sea History is first of all the history of the Black Sea" - Neal Ascherson [1]

Is it possible to construct an understanding of the Black Sea's past that is bothhistorically tenable and meaningfully applicable to the creation of a Euro-Atlanticstrategy toward the Black Sea? This is a challenging question, for history is notalways a reliable guide in shaping international public policy. This is especially truewhen we are working with a region, such as the Black Sea,whose long-term history has not been the subject of intense historical analysis. We still lack, for example,comparable works of learning on the Black Sea to that of Fernand Braudel'smagisterial Mediterranean in the Age of the Phillip II or Peregrine Horden andNicholas Purcell's The Corrupting Sea. Indeed in many ways, it is not only thepresent but also the past of the Black Sea that is still in the process of definition. Wemust be careful, therefore, as we devise a strategy for closer linkages between theWest and the Black Sea region to not invent a contrived or false history.

To that end, I propose to offer here a provisional model for understanding the longterm history of the Black Sea on which we might, with reasonable confidence,hanga new Euro-Atlantic strategy for the region. It is a model that does not depend on

the arid search for ethnogenesis but on more universal criteria that emphasize thecommon heritage of the region. The model is built on a core supposition, that is,that the Black Sea is a distinct geographical unit, not unlike the Mediterranean,whose identity is still in the process of being historically constituted. That identity,to be sure, is firmly linked to the West, through its discovery in Greek antiquity, itsincorporation into the first great globalization of European and Mediterraneanhistory - the Roman Empire - and its role as the hinterland of the Byzantine Empire

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comprehensive Black Sea strategy that complements the political objectives of theEuropean Union.

Finally, North America and Europe, working through the OSCE and the UnitedNations, must step up and make a concerted effort to resolve the frozen conflictsthat continue to plague the region, thereby setting the stage for the withdrawal of Russian troops who have remained since the end of the Cold War. Persistentconflict and occupying forces are childhood cancers in relation to the development

of peaceful and prosperous regions. In place of economic development, a frozenconflict will substitute criminal enterprise and trafficking. In place of a sharedregional approach to security cooperation, Russian military bases have only fostered the proliferation of arms, a climate of intimidation, and protection rackets.Fifteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is time to make the resolution of thefrozen conflicts from Trans-Dniester to Karabakh a top priority of our diplomacy with Moscow.

Such steps can help contribute to a new dynamic of reform in the region. To besure, the impetus for reform and change must come from within these countries,but the West can both assist in that process and help create a foreign policy environment that reinforces such trends.

In doing so, we would be laying the foundation for the completion of the thirdphase of a wider Europe. The first phase focused on the anchoring of Poland andthe Visegrad countries. The second phase broadened our vision of an enlargedEurope by encompassing the new democracies from the Baltics to the western edgeof the Black Sea. Today we face the challenge of extending our strategy to embracea Europe that runs from Belarus in the north to the eastern edge of the Black Searegion in the south. The completion of this vision of a Europe whole and freewould be a tremendous advance for the cause of democracy, integration, andsecurity in the Euro-Atlantic region. It would also better position the United Statesand Europe to deal with the challenges of the Greater Middle East. The key question is not whether it is desirable but whether it is achievable. What we havelearned from the enlargements of NATO and the European Union and since 1994from coordinating the efforts of our multilateral institutions in the Balkans arguesthat a common and compassionate strategy toward the Black Sea is well within ourgrasp.

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R. Bruce Hitchner is Professor and Chairman of the Classics Department at Tufts University.


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empire, but by fiercely independent Aegean Greek poleis that failed accordingly tocreate a sense of regional or ethnic identity beyond the geographical. To be sure,part of the explanation for this extends beyond the Greek colonizing experience tothe larger realities of the Black Sea as a vast body of water that encompassed vastly different climates, landscapes and, by extension, cultural communities.Nevertheless, the foundation of Greek poleis along the Black Sea littoral proved tobe a powerful cultural instrument in the incorporation of the region into the arc of what later came to be identified as Western Civilization. Crimean Chersonesos in

the Ukraine, which survived for more than 2000 years from the time of itsfoundation in 422-1 B.C., was perhaps the most significant of these Helleniccommunities, serving as an outpost of Greek and later Byzantine culture, abreadbasket of empire, and an emporium which brought together both settled andnomadic peoples of the steppe.

The second major phase of Black Sea history was very much a creation of the RomanEmpire, or as I would call it Roman globalization. The empire encompassed an areathat now defines the sovereign territories of some 36 countries, including much of what is now the European Union, North Africa, and Middle East. Moreover, itsinfluence extended well beyond the imperial frontiers from Scandinavia to the LibyanFezzan and from Ireland to India.

This "immense body of empire," as Tacitus referred to it, was protected and securedby a professional military whose primary purpose was to preserve the peace, andsustained by a loosely structured government united by a common political andreligious ideology, headed by a benign, iconic and distant emperor. The centralgovernment of the empire was both remote and benevolent, a condition thatallowed regions and individuals to act with greater economic, social, and evenpolitical freedom within their own communities than ever before. At the sametime, the empire acted as a force of restraint against the petty tyrannies of localurban or tribal authority, further enhancing the rights of the individual. Theprofound transformation in the ancient world brought about by this new security order brought into being a civilian society in which most people experienced peacefor the greater part of their lives.

The Black Sea region was deeply shaped and indeed reinvented by this globalizingprocess. Linked to the vast tribute and increasingly consumer-based economy of the empire, it became a bulk producer of foodstuffs, grain, wine, livestock, and itserved as a major transitional cultural, commercial and military frontier. Thesecurity forces of this global system, the Roman legions and provincial auxiliaries,were posted along the Danube, in the Crimea and on the northern coast of Turkey.The long-term impact of Roman globalization is perhaps most manifest in theintroduction of Christianity throughout the region,and in the provincial structures

R. Bruce Hitchner

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and as the core of the Euro-Asian empire of the Ottomans. Even in the Sovietperiod, with its closure of the Black Sea as a zone of interaction, one could arguethat this was but another manifestation of the long and uneven process, by whichthe Black Sea region becomes incorporated into a broader European historical andcivilizational framework. That process has now, it may be argued, reached anotherphase with the emergence of the Black Sea as arguably the West's great easternfrontier.

Anyone who studies the history of the Black Sea over the course of the last threemillennia will, after some reflection, recognize that there is no straightforward,linear history of the sea and its region, but rather there are different historiesreflecting the evolution, complexity and diversity of the human experience alongthe shores of the Black Sea. If one were to characterize that experience one mightsay that it is a region whose role and place at the interstices between Europe, theMediterranean, the Asian Steppes and the Middle East has been invented andreinvented many times. This process of reinvention has contributed to theuncertainty that surrounds the nature of the Black Sea region and by extension tothe great complexity of forces still at work within it today.

There is, of course, no single perspective on the nature of Black Sea history, but inadvancing a vision of invention and reinvention for the region, I would argue thatwe can perhaps speak of five major historic phases of the Black Sea prior to thepresent, each quite distinctive despite their obvious connections to one another,with all contributing to the overall, long term westward orientation of the region.

The first, the phase of discovery, lies in antiquity. Regional identities frequently emerge in history not so much on their own, but as the result of external forces. Agood example of this in antiquity is Gaul, the predecessor of modern France. It hadno clear identity before it was conquered and absorbed by the Roman Empire, butthat very process of conquest helped forge an identity that has remained central toFrench national identity to this day. A somewhat similar though less far reachingprocess occurred with the Black Sea in the age of Greek colonization along itslittoral between roughly the seventh through fifth centuries B.C. The nature of thatidentity is revealed in the name that the Greeks gave to the sea, Pontos Euxeinos,literally the "sea friendly to strangers." What is important to remember for ourpurposes is not so much the detailed history and archaeology of the thirty or moreGreek colonies and their interaction with the Thracians, Scythians, Colchians, andother indigenous populations, but that it is in this period that the Black Sea firstemerges as a meaningfully constituted historical place in direct consequence of itsincorporation into the rapidly expanding eastern Mediterranean economy centeredon the Levant, Cyprus, and Aegean Sea. It is significant that this birth experiencewas externally shaped in a rather powerful way not by a single conquering state or

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The Sea Friendly to Strangers


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Mediterranean in the first place."[4] That is, while the Black Sea was emerging as aregion the Mediterranean was on its way to becoming the precursor of the worldeconomy. This transformation closed out for a time the links between the Black Seaand the West, not only via the eastern Mediterranean but also along the overlandroutes that had been reestablished in the ninth century via the Danube and theBalkans.

While it should be plainly evident by now that the human forces acting on the

region have largely emanated from the South, by the eighteenth century, theemergence of Czarist Russia was beginning to exert its influence from the North onthe Black Sea. This is not the place to rehearse the complex events of the 19th and20th centuries, but suffice it to say that the Black Sea became the focal point of agreat competition between the West, chiefly Britain and France, the emergingRussia Empire, and a declining Ottoman Empire. It was also a period of emergingethnic identities around the Black Sea littoral and nation-statehood on its westernshores. The shift in the balance of power may have moved northward, but all of thepolitical and ideological influences were flowing from the West.

When the Russian empire reconstituted itself as a Soviet Empire and emerged as aglobal superpower in the 20th century, the Black Sea economic logic of the

Byzantine and Ottoman empire was reproduced, albeit within a dysfunctionalmodel that was no longer appropriate to the world economy that had emerged asearly as the late 19th century. It was, to paraphrase Eyup Ozveren, an anomalousinterregnum, a structural inversion of the North-South axis, and an economicanachronism. The result was a Black Sea region that was fractured, paralyzed, andin terms of capital accumulation defunct. As with the Balkans in the 1990 s, theBlack Sea had become a region frozen in time.

With the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 and the expansion of NATO and the UNin the decade that followed, the Black Sea reemerged as a region of historic andstrategic importance. The Black Sea now represents for all intents and purposes theeastern frontier of Europe and as such will form an increasingly integral part of the

latter, the divergent ethnic, national, and cultural divisions of the region's recenthistory notwithstanding. The time may have finally arrived when the Black Sea isno longer a region to be discovered, exploited, enclosed, or dominated. Althoughthere are still complex problems facing the region as a result of its long, sometimesunfortunate, but always dynamic history, it must also be said that that same history has provided it with both the basis and, more importantly, the incentive forparticipating actively and successfully in the global economy and the internationalpolitical community.

R. Bruce Hitchner

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that retained some resonances in later regional state formation along the Black Sea'swestern and southern littoral. In many respects,the period of Roman globalizationhas many similarities to the contemporary situation in its incorporation of theBlack Sea region into the larger global system emanating from the West.

The sense of reinvention that so characterizes Black Sea history is no more clearly manifested than in the regional transformation that occurred as a result of thefoundation of Constantinople in the fourth century A.D. The establishment of a

mega-imperial capital on the Bosphorus transformed the region into more or lessa single vast productive hinterland and commercial entrepot serving the city. Theninth and especially tenth centuries marked the period of greatest Byzantineeconomic expansion into the Black Sea. Michael McCormick eloquently capturesthe flow of commerce across the sea: "By the later ninth century this streambranched off in three directions. Toward the northwest was the Bulgarian empireand the Rus traders beyond it. Northward across the Black Sea, on the doorstep of the Don River and the Khazer realm, stood the fortified outpost of Cherson.Overland trading links connected this region and its merchants to central AsiaFinally toward the east ships made along the southern shore of the Black Sea towardthe Caucasus and its mountain passes leading into Iran."[2]

The impact of Constantinople was no less apparent in its cultural and religiouspenetration of the Balkans, Anatolia, and Russia in the form of Christianorthodoxy, an alphabet, and rich artistic traditions. The Black Sea region as thegreat northeastern commercial and cultural frontier of Europe is clearly the legacy of Byzantium.

The great transformation of the Black Sea begun by the Byzantines was intensifiedwith the establishment of the Ottoman Empire - the fourth great phase - when forall intents and purposes, the region was separated from the Mediterranean, andreduced to the status of "an Ottoman lake." Braudel described it as follows: "Onehas the impression that Constantinople monopolized the long-distance trade aswell as the domestic trade of the Black Sea, acting as a screen between this

Mediterranean extremity and the rest of the sea. Almost on its doorstep, the BlackSea was the supplying region without which the mighty capital could not survive,for it was only inadequately provided for by the tribute of the Balkans (mostly sheep) and the wheat, rice and beans brought in by fleets of Alexandria along withspices and drugs."[3]

As Eyup Ozveren observes, it was in the Ottoman age that "the Black Sea became asmuch a unit - albeit a much smaller one - as the Mediterranean, as it came torepresent the opposite of the process responsible for the formation of the

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Part IIVoices from the Region

If there is a lesson to be taken from the model I have proposed here, it is that theBlack Sea region has benefited most when it has not been isolated or turned in onitself. The Black Sea may form a distinct geographical unit, but geography alonehas not been the source of its identity or strength in matters of politics andeconomy. Rather, its potential and performance has always been best harnessedwhen integrated into the larger communities of Europe and the Mediterranean.

If the West is committed to building lasting peace and security in Europe and theMiddle East, it cannot afford to allow the Black Sea to ever again fall into the statusof a region in isolation. To that end, the United States, NATO and the EU mustengage not only in military, political, and humanitarian efforts toward integratingthe region into the west, but also in historical, archaeological, cultural andeducational initiatives that emphasize the common ground between the states of the Black Sea and the West. If the frozen conflicts of the Caucasus are to be resolvedonce and for all, if human rights, democracy and prosperity are to be as much a partof the Black Sea as Western Europe, we must build a shared sense of Euro-Atlanticvalues, identity, purpose, and opportunity that stretches from the Atlantic to theCaspian Sea. That depends to some degree on a sense of shared history, a history that is larger than ethnicities and peoples, a Euro-Atlantic history to be sure.

References:1. Neal Ascherson, Black Sea (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), p.11.2. Michael McCormick, Origins of the European Economy. Communications and Commerce, A.D. 300 - 900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 588.3. Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Phillip II (London: Fontana/Collins,1976), p. 110f.4. Eyup Ozveren, "The Black Sea World as a Unit of Analysis," in: Tunc Aybak, Politics of the Black Sea. Dynamics of Cooperation and Conflict (London and New York: I.B. Tauris,2001),pp. 61-84,esp.p. 66.

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A UKRAINIAN VIEW OFA NEW EURO-ATLANTIC STRATEGY IN THE BLACK SEA AREA

Borys Tarasyuk In a relatively short period of time the Black Sea area has evolved into a priority region for the world's leading powers and major international and regionalstructures. Enlargement by NATO and the European Union has turned the regioninto a zone of vital concern for the West. A complicated concentration of political,economical, transporting, trading, cultural and religious factors has become adistinguishing feature of the Black Sea area. This concentration starts to affect theperformance of the interested countries. The search has begun for a more efficientform of regional and multilateral cooperation within the framework of regionalformats such as the Organization for the Black Sea Economical Cooperation andGUUAM (a coordinating mechanism among former Soviet republics Georgia,

Ukraine, Uzbekistan,Azerbaijan, and Moldova). Meanwhile, the successful work of such organizations is affected by severe internal tensions, which occur when theinterests of some countries do not meet the requirements of others. More than this,the aforementioned institutions are heavily influenced by large multilateralstructures such as NATO, the European Union and a handful of powerful countrieslike the U.S., the Russian Federation, and even India and China. As a result of therecent events related to Iraq, the tensions over the Middle East, and theimplementation of the U.S.'s "Greater Middle East" policy the above strategicplayers need to pay much more attention to the Black Sea region.

The creation of a political formula that would balance the concerns of NATO, theEU and the world's leading nations with regard to the Black Sea region shouldbecome a major priority of the international community. It does not seem realisticto think that one can establish some kind of pan-Caspian-Black Sea organization toact as a mediator or regional manager. Such an organization would hardly be ableto find the appropriate options for its internal institutions and functions. Lessonsproving this point could easily be drawn from the modest record of GUUAM.Therefore, it becomes clear that the main acting figures in the area are NATO, the

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Borys Tarasyuk is Chairman of the Committee on European Integration in the UkrainianVerkhovna Rada (Parliament).

Borys TarasyukA Ukrainian View of a New Euro Atlantic Strategy in the Black Sea Area


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did not ratify the referendum. One of the world community's top priorities shouldbe to reform the structure and the mechanism of the UN's decision-makingprocess, especially considering the fact that most of the members are undemocratic,even totalitarian, while others are known to support international terroristnetworks.

The use of deterrence through pre-emption, as defined in the National Security Strategy of the U.S., seems to be a natural reaction to the inefficiency of international organizations, above all the UN. It is not surprising to find elementsof this doctrine in various NATO doctrinal papers and in activities where the U.S.has taken the lead.

The NATO Factor in the Black Sea Region

The North-Atlantic alliance is beginning to play a key role in the stabilization anddefense of Black Sea area. The importance of the Black Sea region has beenrecognized, symbolically, by choosing Istanbul as a location for the next NATOsummit. This meeting should reaffirm the membership prospects for Croatia,Albania and Macedonia - countries bordering on the Black Sea region. Present andprospective NATO enlargement will greatly alter the nature of defense in the Black

Sea region as not only the southern but also the western part of the Black Sea areawill be taken under the direct defense control by NATO. This zone borders onUkraine and it will open the area to broader opportunities for internationalcooperation. This area will also become important for Western policy on theGreater Middle East. Ukraine's decision to provide an air space for NATO forcesrepresented a significant contribution to the peace and rebuilding processescurrently taking place in Afghanistan.

In additional to the abovementioned:1. The alliance's main task is to support peace and stability. The creation of theMultifunctional Peace Forces of South-Eastern Europe (MPFSEE) should help togreatly increase the safety and stability in the Black Sea region. Although these

forces include only land-based troops, they have developed an intensivecooperation with Euro-Atlantic institutions.2. The arrival of NATO could help to improve the region's economic climate, asimproved security conditions usually lead to stronger economic conditions.3. NATO can contribute to the preservation and regeneration of the environmentby supporting the implementation of international and local science andtechnology programs.

Borys Tarasyuk

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European Union, the U.S. - both individually and as a member of the alliance - andthe Russian Federation.

The enlargement of NATO to the shores of the Black Sea brings the alliance closerto the Greater Middle East and enhances its capacity as a contributor to peace andsecurity in the Black Sea region. In the meantime, by almost completing theEuropean Safety Strategy, the EU has created more opportunities for providing awhole range of "lower-level intensity" missions in the Black Sea area. The EU's

military potential could be particularly effective in this region as it could beeffectively used in response to the "Berlin plus" agreement following the experiencewith "Concordia" in Macedonia in 2003.

The Ukraine's location in an area that is rich in energy resources and itsmemberships in various regional political and economical organizations make theBlack Sea region one of the country's foreign policy and economic priorities. It isa widespread stereotype that the Black Sea area has, and potentially will have, a lackof stability. Meanwhile, such a limited interpretation of the region's role andcapacity in terms of international cooperation leads to policies of "politicalrestraint." In most cases, this kind of judgment causes negative economical, socialand international consequences, which restrict economic development andproduce a range of risks for international and regional security.

The threats originating from the wider Black Sea region are both external andinternal. The most important ones are:- intensification of the geopolitical influence exerted by international institutionsand other states which attempt to sort out their own differences and pursue theirown interests in the region without taking account of local concerns;- lack of regional capacity to create efficient structures and mechanisms forenhanced security and defense, and the inability of international institutions tocome up with an effective and integrated solution to cases of acute conflict;- country-specific political instability observed in a number of states in the region;- unresolved conflicts and their potential to escalate and spill over;- external and internal regional competition for transport routes for Caspianenergy resources.

Therefore, the main path towards eliminating these threats and ensuring theirfuture prevention must consist of initiatives, which intensify cooperation withinthe United Nations based on the universal system of law. However, the majority of initiatives launched by the United Nations during the last two to three years havenot been successful. The most prominent example of this in the past year was KofiAnnan's plan for the reunification of Cyprus, which failed when the Greek Cypriots

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A Ukrainian View of a New Euro-Atlantic Strategy in the Black Sea Area

Borys TarasyukA Ukrainian View of a New Euro-Atlantic Strategy in the Black Sea Area


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- assistance in the renewal of that region of Azerbaijan, which was severely damagedunder the control of Armenian troops;- support the OSCE monitoring of the Georgian-Chechen border, by providingtechnical assistance to Georgian border patrols;- support the rebuilding of the Ingur river energy center.

In sum, the processes of NATO and EU enlargement pose the following key question about the region: Is the Black Sea area capable of becoming an extensionof the "Euro-Atlantic space" or will it become a southern border wedged betweenEuro-Atlantica and a group of Asian geopolitical conglomerates? It is hard toimagine that this question will find a quick answer. However, it is not hard toenvision significant growth in the region within the next few years. And, of course,there is no doubt that an extended period of economic development would greatly affect the Black Sea region's future.

Borys Tarasyuk

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In the past, the Caucasus states used programs like Partnership for Peace and theMediterranean dialogue as important instruments in their cooperation with NATO.However, if Partnership for Peace has proved to be a useful and efficient tool foraction, the Mediterranean dialogue has shown great disadvantages. Perhaps, in thewords of Chris Donnelly of the British Defense Academy, "the best decision wouldbe to start, together, an umbrella programme," which would combine the bestaspect of Partnership for Peace with the best facets of the Mediterranean dialogue.If this type of program is to work, we will need to detail how these programs haveto be adapted to the region.

The EU's Role in the Region

The EU has designed and begun to implement TACIS (Technical Assistance to theCommonwealth of Independent States), TRACECA (trans-European transportcorridor) and INOGATE (oil and gas project), which stress the importance of theBlack Sea area. The EU has devised a special Wider Europe strategy, which includes,inter alia, the three South Caucasus nations.

Surprisingly, Moldova has not received any recent attention from the EU, despite itsgrave political, social and economical problems. Such a negative image has probably

been caused by the crisis in Trans-Dniester, which can only be described as a ghost-country. Ukraine continues to participate in efforts at conflict resolution, even thoughthe long-standing meetings have time and again proven to be ineffective. It has beensuggested that the European Union's Special Mission might be capable of positively affecting the process. But, in that case, the EU mission would have to deal with theRussian troops that are based in Trans-Dniester.

The EU discussed its stance towards the South Caucasus for a long time and itfinally decided to assign a EU representative to the area. Under his mandate fromthe EU, the Finish diplomat Heikki Talvitie has authorities to:- deliver necessary help upon a request;- support the return of refugees;

- cooperate with the regional representatives of other international organizations;- work on reconstructing the region and rebuilding conflict-affected areas;- support other institutions, such as the United Nations, the Minsk group and thoseresponsible for the implementation of the so-called "South Ossetian procedures."

The basic EU policy towards the Southern Caucasus was elaborated as late as 1999.Since then, European Union activity has concentrated on the following:- intensification of political dialogue with the three South Caucasus countries;- support for the OSCE in South Ossetia;

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A Ukrainian View of a New Euro-Atlantic Strategy in the Black Sea Area

Tedo Japaridze and Alexander Rondeli


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EUROPE IS ON GEORGIA'S MIND


It is breathtaking to discover new perspectives and identify new challenges, thoughin our country, we have an unfortunate tendency of getting dragged backwards by history - albeit into a sometimes glorious past. It is important to explore, amongother sensitive regional security issues, the implications of an event which hasopened a new and promising page in the history of Georgia: the Revolution of theRoses. During these revolutionary days we, Georgians, have become known forgrowing and proliferating the "roses of mass destruction." And this has, by the way,become an issue not only for Georgia's internal development, but has had adramatic impact upon democratization, stability and security within the entirepost-Soviet space.

Georgia's unique capability of organizing elections on Saturdays, revolutions onSundays and making almost a wholesale change of the government on Mondays hasaffected not only some professional careers, but it has changed dramatically theprospects of regional development as well. It is true that the problems of victory

are more agreeable than the problems of defeat, but they are no less difficult. MostGeorgians are well aware that it will take a lot of hard work and moral stamina topersevere, even though our society has long been assailed by doubt. The sense of victory, especially after the "palm revolution" in Ajaria, stirs our souls and warmsour hearts. But it also demands of us a realism and pragmatism that is rock-hard,clear-eyed, steady and sure; a realism and pragmatism that understands thatGeorgia is not yet united and that her very statehood is still at stake.

Georgia's current quest is no less noble and no less difficult than that of thegeneration of the first democratic Republic in 1919. We are seeking to make asuccessful transition from lawlessness and a distorted perception of whatdemocracy is to real liberal values and beliefs. More than that, we need to prove to

the outside world that democracy and stability are able to co-exist successfully inthe countries of the former Soviet Union, and that Georgia has turned resolutely away from practices that threatened to make it a failed state. While there is a lot of speculation about this in academic and political circles, in our opinion, what was infact disintegrating were elements of the Soviet past, coupled with some post-Soviet

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phenomena that grew out of the old, corrupt habits of the Soviet system. We alsobelieve that it was the rise of other, new elements in Georgia that made theRevolution of the Roses possible.

Today,we need to understand that courage and leadership can no longer be measuredby conquering an opponent in a battle. Instead the true test of our courage andleadership is our statesmanship. It will be measured by the will, the skill and bravery that it takes to achieve reconciliation and political legitimacy through dialogue, respectfor human rights,and the negotiated settlement of the disputes. We are going througha very delicate and turbulent period, but the new team is filled with the desire toquickly move onto a new and "correct" path.

Westerners were fortunate to have made their democratic choice centuries ago,while Georgia's democratic future and the no less painful process of democraticstate building have just begun. The rationale behind our current resolve is thedictum of one prominent Englishman who said that democracy is the worst formof government except for all the others. It seems that we Georgians have hadenough experience with the "others" and that we have now made our choice forgood.

There are plenty of experts who could explain that Georgia, due to its location andhistory, is the most unstable nation in the Caucasus. Georgia has found itself rightat the spot where the problems that have plagued the Caucasus cross and converge.And again,as has often been the case in our history,Georgia's fate, its statehood andits very existence are at stake. In the face of the complex interactions of internal andexternal forces we should pursue an active, balanced policy. Inside the country thisshould be a policy of democratic development, speedy implementation of economic and management reforms, national reconciliation and peacefulsettlement of conflicts, while outside the country it should be based on Georgia'sgradual integration with European and Euro-Atlantic structures, developingfriendly relations with all the countries of the region and cooperating with theworld community.

But one may ask how Georgia can fit into the Euro-Atlantic community? After all,we are located on the far edge of Europe,nowhere near the Atlantic. While this may be true, Georgia is also the critical hinge between the world of Western values andsuccessful democracies, and the tumultuous worlds to the south and east - betweenwider Europe and the Greater Middle East. We are defined by the convergence of our history and values with our strategic geography. One glance at a map is enoughto understand this point instantly. In this sense, the new Georgia is both a borderstate holding back militant ideologies and the pathologies that they spawn, and an


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Tedo Japaridze is former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia and Chairman of theTranscaucasus Foundation. Alexander Rondeli is the President of the Georgian Foundationfor Strategic and International Studies.

Tedo Japaridze and Alexander RondeliEurope is on Georgia's Mind


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cleanse the region of criminals and terrorists, both homegrown and alien. We havereason to believe that a number of Middle Eastern gentlemen who previously hadspent time in our country are currently guests of the United States Government invarious undisclosed locations. Our work in this area is not yet finished,and so ouroperations are still underway,but they can now be carried out at a much lower levelof intensity. Our friends should rest assured that Georgia has at its disposal enoughresources and qualified personnel to continue this operation to the very end.However, this problem will continue to persist unless the main source of it isstanched: the war in Chechnya. In this regard, the effective closure of the Georgian-Russian border from both sides is critical to restoring law and order in the PankisiGorge.

We are confident that Georgia and the whole region have a role to play in thebroader realm of international security. The crucial step in defining Georgia'sstrategic identity was our historic announcement at the Prague Summit makingclear our resolve to seek full membership in the Euro-Atlantic alliance. Let us putthis decision, a momentous one for our country, in context.

In November 2002, in Prague, NATO allies completed a 53-year effort to build astable and peaceful security system for central and northern Europe. The PragueSummit was truly an exceptional accomplishment, the magnitude of which is yet tobe fully assessed.

We believe that all of us must now focus our attention on the southern and easternparts of Europe in order to make the European Union consummate. The accessionof Romania and Bulgaria to NATO - and eventually to the European Union - instillsin us the hope that the final phase of building a truly unified Europe has begun inearnest. With the Prague decision, NATO now virtually embraces the entire BlackSea community either through direct membership or through special relationshipsof the kind enjoyed by Russia and Ukraine.

As the or iginal alliance between the United States and Western Europe was built onthe wartime Atlantic alliance and post-war responsibilities in the Mediterranean,

we believe that the future security architecture of Europe's East will be based on thethree Seas: the Baltic, the Adriatic and the Black Sea. As was mentioned earlier, theBaltic and Nordic democracies have largely completed the construction of adurable Baltic security system. Major efforts are already underway to "export" theBaltic model to the democracies of the Dalmatian Coast in order to provide thenecessary foundation for an Adriatic security system.

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outpost of democracy and tolerance, a laboratory, if you will, for our many non-democratic neighbors to emulate.

Moreover, we know the worlds to the south and east of us well as we have had longhistoric associations with them. One neighbor, in particular, forms much of thecontext of our historic family. Turks and Georgians have interacted as neighborsfor ages, though this relationship was not always peaceful; our nations were joinedby blood and marriage. We celebrate the mixing of our nations through biology and history and the organic attachment of the long border that joins us. For thelast century, Georgia has usually been described as part of Russia's southernperiphery because that is how the maps were colored. But this only disguised thefact that a significant part of Georgia's strategic identity is as Turkey's northernperiphery. As Georgia gradually pursues NATO membership, Turkey's influence onour strategic vision will only increase.

In a broader sense, Georgia's unique blending of strategic position andcommitment to the West underscores the point that today's geopolitics is notsimply about security, military might and energy resources. Increasingly thegeopolitics, at least of our region, are about shared Western values and beliefs. Atthe same time let us emphasize, that where shared values and beliefs are neglected,chaos will follow. This is why the Western community's commitment to Georgia,and to the entire South Caucasus in general,must be as strong as our commitmentto join European and Euro-Atlantic institutions. In the new, post 9/11, post 3/11geopolitical landscape, the West, Georgia and the South Caucasus are, by definition, joined at the hip, and as such, our way forward must be a two way street.

Let us touch upon some sensitive concrete issues. There is no doubt that one of thenew threats to our common security in the 21st century is international terrorism.It is a grave misconception to see this dangerous phenomenon as a problem of individual states. Lack of democracy is one of the primary sources of all forms of radicalism and constitutes a clear and present danger to tolerant and open societieseverywhere. Therefore, fighting international terrorism is not simply, let's say, anAmerican or British responsibility. Rather, it is the world's responsibility.

After the horrors of 9-11, Georgia became an active participant in the U.S.-ledglobal campaign against international terrorism and has contributed, when it wasappropriate, to counter-terrorism

a new euro-atlantic strategy for the black sea region

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