美国“重返欧洲”?

作者:2013年2月26日 综合整理

〈编按〉美国新任国务卿克里25日在伦敦与英国首相卡梅伦会谈,完成了他外交出访的“处女秀”。与高举重返亚太大旗的希拉里首次外访选在亚洲不同,克里的“第一次亲密接触”回到了欧洲。欧洲媒体欢呼“美国-欧盟轴心的复兴”;德国外长韦斯特韦勒称赞克里此行发出“重要的跨大西洋信号”。

稍早2月12日晚上,奧巴馬說,“今晚,我宣布我們將推出一個全面的跨大西洋貿易和投資夥伴關係與歐盟的談判”,“因為是公平和自由的跨大西洋的貿易將支持數以百萬計的高收入美國就業機會。“(And tonight, I’m announcing that we will launch talks on a comprehensive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union,” , “because trade that is fair and free across the Atlantic supports millions of good-paying American jobs.”)

这会是美国重新重视欧洲、修正重返亚太战略的信号吗?


作者  KIM SENGUPTA   2013年2月25日 英国《独立报》 

John Kerry’s decision to make London the first destination for an official visit as the new US Secretary of State was seen as a matter of kudos by the British government. And today, on arrival, the former presidential candidate spoke of his determination to reaffirm the “special relationship”.


It was immediately apparent, however, after Mr Kerry’s breakfast with David Cameron and prolonged meeting with William Hague, that despite the change of personnel the US remains resolute in several differences of opinion with the UK on foreign affairs.

Britain had argued unsuccessfully at an EU meeting in Brussels last week for arming of the “moderate” rebel groups in Syria; London is now pressing for substantive help for the opposition at an international summit in Rome this week.

Standing with Mr Kerry at the Foreign Office, William Hague said that “an appalling injustice is being done to the people of Syria, which the world cannot ignore. In the face of such murder and threat of instability, our policy cannot remain static as the weeks go by, and it is an important opportunity in Rome on Thursday to discuss this with our allies and partners.”
The US Secretary of State for his part said that he was “determined that the Syrian opposition is not going to be dangling in the wind, wondering where the support is, if it is coming”. He was, he added, “not going to Rome just to talk”. But there was nothing to suggest that Barack Obama’s veto on arming of the rebels – despite advice from Mr Kerry’s predecessor, Hillary Clinton, to do so – will be reversed.

There was one bit of positive news for the organisers of the Rome conference. Moaz Khatib, the leader of the Syrian Opposition Council, who had stated that he would not be attending in a protest at the lack of meaningful backing from America and Europe, announced last night that he may turn up after all after a phone call with Mr Kerry.

On the Falklands, the US signalled that it would not recognise next month’s referendum among Falklanders on their future. The result, the British Government believes, will show that they do not want to be under Argentine rule. Mr Kerry stated: “The United States recognises the de facto UK administration of the islands but takes no position on the question of parties’ sovereignty claims thereto. We support co-operation between UK and Argentina on practical matters.”

Mr Kerry went on to talk about the importance of the EU while discussing a proposed trade agreement. “The fact is that Europe, free-standing, alone, is the largest economy in the world. When you join that together with the USA, we have a powerful ability to be able to affect the rules of the road and raise standards and, most importantly, create jobs for all of our people.”

A number of senior members of the Obama administration visiting London recently had warned the Cameron government against holding a referendum on leaving the EU, maintaining that a UK isolated outside would have much less influence in Washington.






作者: William A. Galston 2013年2月20日 The Brookings Institution

At a time when everyone in Washington wants to talk about making a “pivot” to Asia, both economically and politically, it would be tempting to dismiss President Obama's decision, announced in his State of the Union address, to pursue a United States-European Union free trade area. It would also be a big mistake. The fact is, the U.S. and the EU have it in their power to enact a potentially game-changing policy that could boost economic growth on both side of the Atlantic, help the transatlantic allies deal more effectively with a rising China, and fill the void left by the collapse of global trade talks.

The focus on China’s surge during the past decade has obscured the continuing strength of Europe and the United States, and their continuing importance for each other. In 2011, the transatlantic economy represented about half of world GDP and $5 trillion in total commercial sales. Taken together, the EU and US account for 25 percent of global exports and 32 percent of global imports. And despite their recent travails, transatlantic consumers retain enormous purchasing power. GDP per capita is about $50,000 in the US and $32,000 in the EU, compared to about $9,000 in China.
To be sure, as trade with Asia has surged, the share of global trade represented by flows across the Atlantic has declined. But the absolute amounts have not, and the numbers are huge. According to a study by Dan Hamilton and Joe Quinlan of Johns Hopkins’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, the U.S. exports three times as many goods to the EU as to China, and the EU exports twice as much to the U.S. as to China. U.S.-EU merchandise trade totaled about $650 billion in 2012, up 68 percent from the beginning of the century. In addition, the US and EU are the world’s two leading services economies. In 2011, 38 percent of total U.S. service exports went to the EU, and 41 percent of its service imports came from Europe. Between 2001 and 2011, U.S. services exported to the EU more than doubled, from $102 billion to $225 billion, and despite the recent slowdown in Europe, US exports there continued to rise in 2012. .
Despite the surge in exports to China, 45 out of 50 U.S. states still export more to Europe than to China, typically by wide margins—eleven times as much for Florida, nine times as much for New Jersey, four times as much for Texas (the leading state exporter to the EU), and three times as much for Illinois. Even the famously westward-looking state of California exported twice as much to Europe as to China..
Moreover, the United States and Europe overwhelmingly favor one another as locations for foreign direct investment. Since 2000, the share of total FDI going from the U.S. to Europe has remained steady at 56 percent. European investment represents a remarkable 71 percent of total FDI in the United States. The growth of the Chinese economy has not fundamentally changed this calculus. Since the turn of the century, the U.S. has invested 14 times as much in the Netherlands as in China, and 11 times as much in the UK. .
Relatively small gains off this huge base could have a big impact. In recent years, trade talks have been divided between negotiations that are too big to succeed and agreements that are too small to matter. With the failure of the Doha round, the old post-war model—fully global trade treaties—has all but collapsed. Bilateral treaties with countries such as Panama, Columbia, and South Korea have proven to be achievable in recent years. But whatever economic boosts those deals provide are not large enough to produce noticeable gains in U.S. economic growth and jobs. The EU-US talks are obviously different. .
Although tariffs between the EU and the U.S. are comparatively low, a study by the European Centre for International Political Economy estimated the gains from a transatlantic zero-tariff agreement at between 0.99 and 1.33 percent of GDP for the U.S., and somewhat less for the EU. Another estimate by ECORYS Nederlands BV, which modeled the impact of a broader FTA agreement convering non-tariff barriers as well as tariffs, placed the increase in overall US exports at 5.7 percent. Encouragingly, the impact on job creation and real wages is projected to be positive for both skilled and unskilled workers. .
Of course, that leaves the question of whether an agreement is likely to emerge from the negotiations. From a U.S. domestic political standpoint, prospects for progress appear reasonably good. Because European labor, environmental, and regulatory standards are on a par (at least) with ours, the kinds of objections that have slowed the ratification of bilateral treaties with developing countries are much less relevant. At this point, the AFL-CIO seems willing to go along. And the fact that nearly all the states have substantial skin in the EU trade game suggests the potential for a broad coalition in Congress. .
Still, significant obstacles remain. Agreeing on an approach to regulation won’t be easy: Brussels and Washington approach this sphere with very different aims and norms. Because Europe’s government contracting is more open to foreign firms than is ours, procurement reform is likely to encounter U.S. opposition, especially among defense contractors. .
Agriculture will be especially challenging. Michael Froman, Obama’s advisor on international economic affairs, described it as the “elephant in the room that we can’t ignore.” Not only is Europe’s agriculture subsidy regime even more distortive than ours; the EU virtually bans genetically modified crops, which have become increasingly important in U.S. agriculture, and it doesn’t much like hormone-treated beef or chlorine-sterilized chicken either. In the hyper-polarized Washington atmosphere, there is agreement across party lines on one point: an EU-U.S. agreement that does not open up Europe to American farm products will be dead on arrival. .
In that sense, the greatest impediment to a deal may prove to be France. While Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel is gung-ho for a treaty, the French finance minister has been much cooler, describing his country as “open but vigilant.” France has more to lose from agricultural changes than does any other country, and it will resist intense pressure to relax the regime of cultural protectionism that irritates American producers of films and TV shows. On the other hand, France’s exports have fallen by 8 percent since 2008, 5 percentage points worse than Germany’s performance during that period, the economy is stuck in neutral (GDP declined by 0.3 percent between the third and fourth quarters of 2012), and French unemployment has risen by nearly a percentage point, to 10.3 percent, since 2011. If Europe’s other major economic powers can agree to put growth first, Francois Hollande may decide that he cannot afford to stand in the way of an agreement. .
But first, Obama will need to show that his commitment to a deal is more than just a matter of rhetoric. While Europe’s negotiating team is in place and ready to get started, the American side is much less settled. It’s hard to see how such detailed and wide-ranging talks could be run out of the White House; Obama will have to select a strong, credible figure as the next United States trade representative, do what it takes to get his nominee confirmed in a timely fashion, and then make sure the USTR has the staff and resources needed to conduct the negotiations. .
A policy that commands support across international borders as well as domestic party divisions and promotes long-term growth without spending scarce public dollars sounds too good to be true. And maybe that’s what it will turn out to be. Still, thanks to changing circumstances and quietly effective preparatory work, the chances of agreement appear brighter than in decades. Obama’s endorsement of U.S.-EU negotiations reportedly was a last-minute addition to the State of the Union. It might just turn out to be the speech’s most significant sentence..


作者:Robert A. Manning  2013年2月1日 The National Interest


Don’t look now, but for all the buzz about the Obama administration’s “pivot” to Asia and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, momentum is building on both sides of the Atlantic for a U.S.-EU free trade agreement that could be at least as consequential in shaping the world order. In fact, considering the messy geopolitical landscape with few opportunities and no shortage of challenges, a successful new U.S.-EU accord could well end up as the signature foreign-policy achievement of Obama 2.0.
A U.S.-EU High Level Working Group is expected to issue a report in February calling for initiating talks on a trade and investment accord this spring. This may seem counter-intuitive: isn’t all the economic action in emerging economies, China, or the BRICs? Europe, in contrast, is engulfed in financial crisis. The continent’s future and currency, the Euro, seem in doubt. But Europe cannot be ignored. Today we are beginning to see signs of the EU financial situation stabilizing, with the first positive net inflows in three years, as investors are returning one hundred billion Euros to the Eurozone.
The sheer magnitude of U.S.-EU economic relations is eye-popping. Despite the recession plaguing the West, the U.S. and EU still account for about 50 percent of the world’s GDP and have more than $3 trillion in foreign direct investment in their respective economies. U.S.-EU trade in goods and services reached $636 billion in 2011, nearly 40 percent of the world total. Reinforcing the transatlantic economic relationship could give new impetus and focus to a sagging U.S.-EU relationship and enhance the global leverage of both actors. Call it the new Trans-Atlantic Partnership.
Hardly had the votes been counted last November when Europe’s top trade official renewed a longstanding call for a new trade agreement with the United States, a view strongly supported by key allies such as Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel and UK prime minister David Cameron. The private sector on both sides of the Atlantic is no less enthusiastic. In a recentletter published in the Financial Times, a group of CEOs from Fortune 500 US and European firms stressed their enthusiasm for “a new and comprehensive deal to boost trade and investment flows across the Atlantic.” Reducing tariffs, regulatory barriers and opening new sectors to investment they argued, could boost U.S. and EU growth by as much as 1.5 to 2 percent a year, according to some studies.
Why now? At time when Washington and the EU’s twenty-seven member states are struggling to achieve growth and fiscal pressures make increased spending an improbable option, a trade accord could provide a stimulus at no cost to taxpayers. Such logic may also explain why the European Commission has given a green light to begin Japan-EU talks on an FTA. During a recent visit to Tokyo, senior Japanese officials stressed to me their bullishness on an EU accord, emphasizing that they sought close consultation with the United States as talks move forward. EU eagerness to pursue both accords may also reflect European concern at the proliferation of Asian FTAs and the U.S.-promoted Trans-Pacific Partnership that seeks to boost trade among APEC members.
Potential Obstacles
U.S. and EU trade tariffs are already low, averaging between 5 and 7 percent. However, a tariff-free accord would boost transatlantic commerce. But the larger issues are non-tariff, regulatory barriers: standards for testing, certification and licensing where the U.S. and EU diverge significantly. Unlike many previous free trade agreements such as NAFTA, where Congressional pressure to adopt U.S. labor and environmental standards has tended to be a sticking point, this time it’s likely to be EU environmental policies, particularly in regard to climate change, that will be tougher on the United States. Labor should not be an issue, as major unions such as the AFL-CIO appear to be supportive of a U.S.-EU trade accord.
There are some potential obstacles—mainly divergent regulatory approaches—that could well block a U.S.-EU trade accord. Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, was recently quoted in the Financial Times as saying, “We have differing takes on food safety, consumer protection, and environmental standards.”
Indeed. There have been some nasty disputes over phyto-sanitary standards (particularly in regard to U.S. beef). One macro-issue is the “precautionary principle,”which holds that if there is a risk of harm, the burden of proof is on the provider. This is a somewhat elastic concept: how certain is science? Is it 100 percent risk-free? One of the most the most dramatic divides is over genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which are increasingly used to enhance agriculture in the United States, China, India, Brazil and other countries. GMOs are viewed by many as an increasingly important part of the answer to meeting the challenge of feeding eight billion people by 2030 and nine billion by 2050. African farmers, who have large markets in Europe, have refrained from drought-resistant GMO crops for fear of not being able to export them.
Similarly, on climate change, the EU has adopted a host of policies to comply with the Kyoto Protocol, such as a cap-and-trade scheme for GHG emissions and a tariff on foreign airlines for GHG emissions.
Under strong protest from the United States—including legislation passed by Congress—the EU has suspended its effort to apply tariffs to foreign airlines. But is there room for compromise on GMO food? There are also divergent regulatory approaches to testing and licensing on chemicals, pharmaceuticals and several other categories of goods.
The idea of “mutual recognition” of regulatory standards is one considered way forward. Last spring the United States and EU did sign an agreement on this basis that facilitiates trade for thousands of “authorized traders.” But the gap on things like FDA approval standards for drugs and the EU’s precautionary principle may be a bit of a reach. More likely is a more modest version of mutual recognition: recognizing certified compliance with respective standards and regulations. While obviously not as sweeping or elegantly simple as full mutual recognition, such an approach would facilitate trade and lower transaction costs.
Global Impact
If there is sufficient political will on both sides of the Atlantic to reach a U.S.-EU trade and investment accord, the impact would have ripple effects well beyond a new impetus for a transatlantic relationship. An accord could shape new global standards in areas such as intellectual property and investment, as well as emerging new sectors such as industries based on nanotechnology, biotechnology, 3-D printing and electric vehicles.
At a moment when the Doha Global trade round is effectively dead, an agreement covering the world’s largest market and 40 percent of its trade could raise standards for other bilateral and regional trade accords, if not provide momentum for further liberalizing global trade and investment—one of the foundations of the global system. A U.S.-EU accord might, for example, give momentum to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
At a time of austerity, when many doubt the future military capabilities of NATO allies as defense budgets shrink, a trade accord could reinforce the EU role as a geoeconomic power. Europe has played a critical role, for example in tightening sanctions on Iran well beyond anything the mullahs anticipated. Collaboration with the EU is also key to pressing China to adhere to WTO rules. Acting in economic concert could be a source of leverage for the transatlantic community at a historic moment when power is diffusing to emerging economies like China, India, Brazil and Turkey.
There are multiple benefits, both economic and geostrategic, to both partners of a U.S.-EU free trade agreement—or economic partnership, as it is likely to be known. Whether its promise can outweigh the differences that must be overcome may be a key political question for Obama’s second term.
Robert A. Manning is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. He previously served in the State Department as a senior advisor to the Assistant Secretary for East Asia and the Pacific (1989-93) and on the Secretary’s policy planning staff (2004-08).

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Pivot?

-Central Europe’s Worries About U.S. Foreign Policy
作者: Pawel Swieboda  2012年12月4日 Foreign Affairs

Article Summary and Author Biography】Two of the Obama administration’s high-profile foreign policy gambits, the “reset” with Russia and the “pivot” to Asia, have made central and eastern Europe nervous, and with good reason.

 A woman sweeps the red carpet before Barack Obama's arrival at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw. (Peter Andrews / Courtesy Reuters)

During the 2012 U.S. presidential election, President Barack Obama accused his rival, Mitt Romney, of harboring a worldview better suited to the Cold War than to the twenty-first century. "The 1980s," the president said to Romney in the final debate, are "now calling to ask for their foreign policy back." It was a catchy campaign line and a useful anticipation of Romney's argument that Obama was wrong to pursue warmer relations with Russia at the expense of ties to traditional allies, particularly Poland. But as Obama prepares his foreign policy team for a second four years in office, he would do well to take this part of Romney's message to heart. The Cold War may be over, but the security equation in central and eastern Europe has not been totally solved; Russia still presents a major geopolitical challenge to Western democracies; and maintaining the strength of U.S. alliances in the region is just as important as ever. Even as it seeks to shift resources to the Asia-Pacific region and sustain positive relations with Moscow, the United States cannot afford to pivot away from central Europe.

Close ties between Washington and central European countries date back to 1999, when NATO welcomed the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland as full members. The enlargement of NATO did wonders to stabilize the region, ensuring that it continued on the path to democracy and prosperity. The United States enjoyed a sterling reputation at the time, as Washington provided political and security anchors that bolstered central Europeans' sense that their countries were moving in the right direction. Soon thereafter, Poland participated in the U.S.-led missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, becoming one of the main troop contributors in both operations, mainly to prove its loyalty. Not surprisingly, Poland remained one of the few Western countries in which U.S. President George W. Bush continued to enjoy favorable ratings, even as his Iraq policy inspired revulsion elsewhere in Europe.
Little of that good feeling is left today. Central Europe has become part of the European Union and has taken on much of the Western European public's skepticism about the intentions of U.S. foreign policy. The real change in sentiment, however, began just three years ago, when the Obama administration initiated its so-called reset with Russia. Coupled as it was with a number of gaffes, the move led central European leaders to believe that U.S. priorities had dangerously shifted. Washington's two-decade-old strategic approach to Russia, which aimed to consolidate a zone of democracy and stability on Russia's western flank, was replaced by a contractual approach that prioritized cooperation with Moscow on global issues.
Harboring bitter memories of Soviet domination, central Europeans have always gauged U.S. commitment by virtue of the United States' willingness to be physically present in the region, whether through armed deployments or military exercises. "The more NATO in Poland, the better for us," stated former Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich in 2010, upon inviting the NATO Response Force to hold its first training exercise in Poland.
Today, Poland and its neighbors worry that NATO's commitment to the region is waning. The alliance is in the process of scaling down its operational capabilities, meaning that it will be able to conduct fewer simultaneous operations than in the past. The withdrawal from Europe of two U.S. combat brigades, consisting of some 7,000 troops, makes central Europe similarly nervous. Washington's deployment of rotational units to the region is perceived on the ground as little more than a token gesture of support.
The ups and downs of the missile defense project have also led central Europeans to question the United States' resolve. Right at the outset of his presidency, Obama scrapped the Bush-era plans for installing a missile defense system in Poland, allegedly hoping to gain Russia's support for sanctions against Iran. The decision was unhelpfully announced on September 17, 2009, the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union's invasion of Poland. Polish leaders are still reeling from the decision; President Bronisław Komorowski said in August that his country's "mistake was that by accepting the American offer of a [missile defense] shield we failed to take into account the political risk associated with a change of president. We paid a high political price." Today, Warsaw is planning to build its own missile defense system as part of the larger NATO shield.
Central European countries feared that the Russia reset would mean not only a reduction of military support for the region but also a move away from a policy based on liberal principles toward one based on realpolitik. They understood that such a policy was exactly what Russia wanted, and that Moscow would exploit it with a vengeance. The ruthlessness with which Russia pursues its interests in Syria, in spite of the Assad regime's atrocities, is a case in point. Over three years after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with the infamous reset button, it remains unclear whether the United States' bid for warmer relations with Russia has paid off. True, Washington and Moscow have been able to cooperate to some degree on Iran policy, but Russia itself already has a strong national interest in preventing nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and likely would have worked with the United States even without prodding from the Obama administration.
At the same time, Russia has been quick to capitalize on the reset. Russian President Vladimir Putin's concept of a "Eurasian Union," a political and economic grouping of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan with designs to expand to other Eurasian states, is a cynical response to both Washington's reduced role in eastern Europe and the European Union's loss of influence in the area. Russia is now attempting to restore elements of its former empire with the autocratic regimes of Belarus and Kazakhstan as the foundation, having introduced among them a customs union and the Eurasian Economic Commission to institutionalize the ties. As a result, central Europe feels that it has been doubly abandoned by Washington, both materially, by means of a more lukewarm U.S. engagement in the region, and in terms of principles, as Obama has not been as steadfast a proponent of the so-called freedom agenda as his predecessor was. Washington's high-profile "pivot" to Asia, coupled with the U.S. Congress' zeal for smaller budgets, has only strengthened this perception.
A smaller focus on central Europe might seem sensible given the perception that the region has successfully transformed itself into a prosperous and democratic area, and thus does not require as much attention as it once received. To some extent, this is a valid point: Poland, at least, has enjoyed a golden decade of good feelings and rising levels of prosperity.
But the situation elsewhere is not as straightforward. The Hungarian and Romanian governments have turned their backs on democratic norms. At the same time, the region has not resolved all its security dilemmas. Russia's recent decision to install mobile surface-to-air S-400 missiles in Kaliningrad, near the Polish border, is one example of Moscow's provocative behavior. Russia has indicated to central European leaders that this is the price for agreeing to host the planned U.S. missile defense system, even though it has not yet been constructed and is explicitly directed at Iran, not Russia. As Estonian President Toomas Ilves put it, "We would very much like the allies who have proposed [missile defense] not to leave this area with less security" than before.
For central European leaders, then, the Obama administration's policy seems to have amounted to a premature and risky withdrawal from a region that has not yet balanced its geopolitical equation. Particularly as the European Union and the eurozone face a political and economic crisis, central Europeans feel that it is not the right time for Washington to retreat from their region.
The U.S. pivot out of central Europe should be measured by not only Washington's backtracking on earlier plans to increase its military presence in the region but also its loss of political influence there. In the 1990s, as the main architect of NATO enlargement, the United States became a major player in central Europe. Far from representing merely an extension of the security umbrella, NATO enlargement proved to the region's publics that their ambitions to rejoin the West would soon be realized. This was a great boost to morale. Today, however, Washington is no longer such a central player. This is largely the result of the region's successful integration into the European Union, a process that the United States has supported and that has had tremendous transformative power. But no matter how close countries such as Poland have drawn to Western Europe, its security remains fragile and could be thrown into jeopardy in the event of a crisis such as a skirmish along the lines of the 2008 Russia-Georgia war.  
This is not to say that Poland wants the United States to adopt an uncompromising attitude toward Russia. For its part, Warsaw has also pursued rapprochement with Moscow in recent years. Putin voiced commitment to working with Poland during his 2009 visit to Gdańsk on the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II. His friendly overtures were rooted in Poland's growing role in the European Union, which was still considered a rising force in world affairs at the time. Today, however, Russian leaders tend to believe that European integration has run its course and that the European Union is a declining power. Meanwhile, Warsaw continues to hope for a rapprochement but believes it can happen only if Russia reexamines its view of the world. "You cannot 'reset' with 1,000 years of history," Komorowski said in a 2010 speech. "But we can invest in new relations with Russia. Reset can happen at the end of the process, not the beginning."
Central European leaders share Washington's hope that Russia can become a predictable, cooperative, and engaged partner. But in geopolitics, miracles rarely happen by themselves. It would be folly to expect Russia not to exercise its power right up to the limits that other countries, especially the United States, draw for it. Yet ironically, the greatest fear in central Europe today is not Russia's strength but rather its weakness. Russia's economy and state budget are at the mercy of oil and gas prices, and its demographic situation looks bleak. These challenges could very well lead to Russia's behaving in unpredictable and provocative ways. After all, it has been only four short years since Russia's war with Georgia, in which Moscow reacted to Tbilisi's provocations with disproportionate force, invading a former Soviet republic for the first time since the end of the Cold War.
The United States need not, however, give up hope for warmer relations with Russia, provided Moscow embarks on a path to reform. A necessary sense of realism can be coupled with support for Russia's transformation. Given the autocratic character of the Russian leadership, the West must verify the country's intentions in world affairs at the same time that it encourages Russia to escape the limitations of its past. This means that the West should seek to integrate Russia more closely into the liberal world order, a process that the country's accession to the World Trade Organization indicates is already under way, at least to some extent.

PAWEŁ ŚWIEBODA is President of demos EUROPA -- Centre for European Strategy, a public policy institute in Warsaw.








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