Dr. Alexandr Nemets
Thursday, March 13, 2003

In the beginning of 2003 the Western world and NATO suddenly appeared to be split over the Iraqi problem. Was it something insignificant, or was it some great tectonic shift that would change the picture of the West and the entire world for the decades to come?

Naturally, it is extremely important. However, what’s even more important is that China, Russia, France and Germany formed something very close to a united group. Should we call this the emerging Eurasian Alliance?

It would be suitable to review some facts of the last decade.

In January 1992, just several weeks after the formal disintegration of the USSR, the first issue of the new magazine Elementy (Elements) was published in Moscow. This magazine proclaimed as its major task the struggle against the New World Order and, primarily, the leading role of America in this Brave New World.

Remarkably, this first issue of Elementy published a number of articles under the common headline "Euro-Soviet Empire." The articles were written by the leading Soviet/Russian and Western European geopolitical experts. All of them had a strictly anti-American orientation.

The major theses of this assembly were as follows:

• After the defeat of the USSR in the Cold War, the new unipolar, America-dominated world emerged. This is equally catastrophic for Russia and for Europe, particularly for Germany and France.

• Russia, France, Germany, other Western European countries and former Soviet republics should jointly find the way out of this deadlock.

• Establishing the "Euro-Soviet alliance," including, primarily, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus as well as France, Germany and Italy, would be the best solution to the problem. This huge alliance would have a great economic potential, surpassing the American one.

  Concretely, the mighty natural resources of the former USSR could be combined, in the frame of the new alliance, with the Western European processing industry. This would provide the base for rapid growth and prosperity to both the USSR and Europe.

• At the same time, the new alliance would become the leading military and political center of the world and would eventually spread its control over all of Eurasia. This new center would have, as its major adversary, America and its "European satellites," primarily the United Kingdom.

In January 1992, the publishers of the new magazine were firmly opposed to the Yeltsin regime. Later, some of them changed their position and even became consultants to the Kremlin and Russian government. However, they never changed their anti-American position.

In 1992-1996,the Yeltsin regime used, to the maximum degree available, Western – mostly American – financial and political support to struggle against internal opposition. No doubt this support became the decisive factor in Yeltsin’s victory in the presidential elections of July 1996.

Very soon after that "epochal victory," at the end of 1996, Moscow dramatically intensified its cooperation in all areas with China and with Western European countries.

"It’s time to change the unipolar [America-led] world to the multi-polar one!" became a major geopolitical slogan of the Kremlin. Beijing, Berlin and Paris eagerly supported this appeal.

More concretely, Germany and France agreed to somewhat reduce the huge debt Russia owed them and allowed Moscow to deploy, for the first time ever, several billion dollars of Eurobonds in the Western Europe financial markets. China significantly upgraded military-technological and strategic cooperation with Russia and even formed a "united Moscow-Beijing front" to struggle against the U.S. national missile defense (NMD) project.

These trends increased greatly in 1997-98. Markedly, in those years Russia significantly increased the export of its crude oil and natural gas – both through seaways and pipelines – to Western Europe and became the major hydrocarbon supplier to Germany, France and Italy.

This was accompanied by political and economic rapprochement of China with Germany and France. Particularly, the French-Chinese summit in Beijing, in May 1997, resulted in significant expansion of Chinese-French trade and political cooperation. China received broad access to French space and aviation technology.

It is possible to say that the first real sprouts of the "Eurasian Alliance" Emerged at that time.

In 1999, Chinese-Russian relations reached the level of a de facto military alliance. To the contrary, Russian relations with the Western European countries deteriorated because of the Yugoslav war.

Putin came to power at the end of 1999. Development of economic and political ties with Western Europe, along with further upgrading of the alliance with China and cooperation with "rogue countries," became the major foreign policy priorities of the Putin regime.

Remarkably, in 1999-2000 Germany became the first foreign trade partner of Russia. The share of Germany in Russian exports and imports reached 10 percent and 17 percent, respectively.

Jointly, Germany, France, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands provided at least 25 percent of Russian foreign trade. Their share in Russian export of crude oil, oil products and natural gas probably surpassed one-third.

Simultaneously, the Kremlin spared no effort to isolate America and "push it out" of Eurasia. In April 2001, Putin’s major strategist, Gleb Pavlovsky, published in the Moscow media a series of articles such as "Will America repeat the fate of the USSR?" He tried to prove that "America will exhaust its force in the pursuit of world domination and, eventually, will have to crawl back to the North American continent."

Surprisingly (even tragically), all this was ignored by the Bush administration.

Let’s summarize now the major changes of 2000-2002:

• Russian export of crude oil, oil products, natural gas, steel and non-ferrous metals, chemicals and other raw materials to Germany, France and Italy grew greater than ever.

  Russia became the major supplier of these goods to Western Europe. In exchange, Russia obtains from Western Europe all types of consumer goods and various equipment. In this aspect, the economic integration of Russia and Western Europe is under way.

• Russia also assists Western Europe in penetrating the former Soviet republics of Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. In particular, Germany has a "traditional" interest in Ukraine, and French oil companies are very eager to get a slice of the huge Kazakh hydrocarbon resources.

  In January 2003, the leaders of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan signed an agreement establishing a "united economic space." This space would be broadly open to Germany and France.

• Putin established very friendly ties with President Chirac of France and Chancellor Schroeder of Germany. In 2000-2002 he met both leaders a dozen times, much more frequently than he met "friend George."

  This "Russian-European" friendship became a solid base for close political cooperation between Moscow and Berlin, Paris and some other Western European capitals aimed primarily against America and, to a less degree, the U.K. It looks as if Berlin and Paris could even help Moscow in handling the former "disobedient vassals" in Eastern Europe.

• Beijing also expanded greatly, during 2000-2002, economic and political cooperation with the major Western European countries, primarily with France. And Russia became the major connecting link, both in geographic and geopolitical aspects, between China and Western Europe.

• Regarding the economic aspect, Moscow is definitely eager (if several major projects initiated recently are taken into account) to share hydrocarbon resources and other natural riches of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan with China and Western Europe. (A detailed description of this "sharing" requires a separate article.)

Most importantly, and tragically, the emergence of this alliance reduces almost to zero U.S. opportunities in its struggle against the Axis of Evil.

No need to remind the reader of the awful obstacles created by the Eurasian Alliance for the U.S. in its struggle against Iraq. By the way, this fight will transform gradually into the struggle of the U.S. and the U.K. against this alliance.

Kim Jong-il, the leader of North Korea, fearlessly challenges America. He knows that Beijing and Moscow are on his side. And if the nuclear problem of North Korea comes to the U.N. Security Council, whose side will France take? Probably not the American one.

Iran also enjoys very close economic, political and military-technological ties with the Eurasian Alliance. In 1997-2002, Russia and France, despite American protests, invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the huge South Parse gas deposit in this country.

Russia and, to a lesser degree, China are the major suppliers of conventional and also nuclear weapon technology to Iran. And Chinese import of Iranian oil is skyrocketing.

Remarkably, Russia is the core of the Alliance. Washington should understand this.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bush Administration
China/Taiwan
George W. Bush
Russia

Editor's note:
New Chinese Military Manual Calls for "Unrestricted" War Against America – Click here now