Twenty Years After the Fall of the Berlin Wall

“The fall of the Berlin Wall not only symbolized the breakthrough to freedom inside societies emerging from Communism, but also the freedom of their choice in foreign policy,” observes Carnegie Moscow Center director Dmitri Trenin. “East German demonstrators, who rallied under the slogan ‘Wir sind das Volk’ (‘We Are the People!’) in the autumn of 1989, switched their call to ‘Wir sind ein Volk’ (‘We Are One Single People!’) from the beginning of the new year. The issue of German reunification, to which even the ‘super-ambitious’ plan of Chancellor Kohl (mid-November 1989) assigned 10 years, was resolved after this in just 10 months. Obtaining their freedom, the people of East Germany voted against having a separate East German state.

East Germany was a part of a divided country; the other states of the former Eastern Europe were territorially united, but still suffered from the trauma of a divided continent. All of them – Poland and Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania – considered themselves as being an inalienable part of the European cultural, economic and political space, split apart by the Cold War. Their slogan became ‘A Return to Europe.’ In other words, their national causes became embedded in a program of continental integration. 

In one case, a nation had to break up before reunifying again. Two nation states emerged in place of Czechoslovakia, following a peaceful divorce. But not everyone proved able to peacefully dismantle their now-dysfunctional federal structures. Yugoslavia, which at the turn of the 1980s looked like the most ‘advanced’ of all the communist nations, was plunged for nearly a decade into an abyss of wars that took the lives of a quarter of a million people and created millions of refugees. Outside players managed to ‘localize’ the Balkan fire, but the house built by Marshall Tito had all but burned out from the inside.

One may only guess what fate awaited the former Soviet Union had the Russian leadership acted the same way as Slobodan Milosevic. An attempt to redraw the borders of a nuclear power could have led to a global catastrophe. This did not happen. Over the subsequent 20 years, all of the former Soviet republics – despite expectations – emerged as independent states, while Russia, after suffering through a period of extreme weakness, once more resumed its customary great power role.

Of diminished size and ambition, this power now borders an unprecedented formation, the European Union, which has absorbed all of Central (former Eastern) Europe and the Baltic nations, and which is now ready to accept the once war-torn Balkans. The ‘normative empire’ of the European Union is enormously attractive to the new Eastern European states: Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. Although the prospects of their EU membership are still foggy, the momentum is already in place, and the European project enjoys broad domestic public support.

If the fundamental economic, political and ideological pillar of the new European order is the European Union, the expanding and considerably transformed North Atlantic Alliance remains the military-political pillar of both Europe and the entire Euro-Atlantic region. In most cases, EU and NATO memberships were ‘merged.’ Nations have lined up to join NATO just like the European Union. But their efforts to join the alliance are being set back by serious domestic and international problems.

The 2008 war between Russia and Georgia demonstrated that the safe limits of NATO expansion have been reached for now. The issue of Ukrainian membership may only be responsibly decided if NATO membership is backed by the overwhelming majority of the nation’s population – including the Crimea with its predominantly Russian population and still-existent Russian Black Sea Fleet base. Until there is such support, a non-aligned status is the only reasonable option for Ukraine. For Georgia, where NATO enjoys nearly unanimous support, there is another problem: Georgia’s inclusion in the alliance within its internationally-recognized borders would ‘import’ the Russian-Georgian military standoff into NATO-Russian relations, which is extremely dangerous and therefore unacceptable. Until the Abkhazian and South Ossetian problems are resolved in one way or another, NATO membership is unattainable for Georgia, as well.

The stories of Georgia and Ukraine illustrate the overriding problem of European security today, 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Russia and its neighbors remain outside of the two pillars of contemporary Europe: the European Union and NATO. The fact that all of these nations are members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe changes little: both of these organization are considered too soft and loose to represent real pillars in a matter as delicate as security. The problem, however, rests not so much in the organizational structures and treaty frameworks than in the unresolved issues that remain in the wake of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet empire.

In essence, we are dealing with two versions of the same problem. Russia clings to a steadfast suspicion that the main – although secret – objective of the United States is to weaken the Russian Federation as much as possible. Powerful interests in Moscow used this very perspective to criticize the George Bush administration’s plans to expand NATO to the east and create a BMD system in Central Europe, as well as the Republican administration’s support for such ‘anti-Russian’ (from the Kremlin’s standpoint) politicians as Georgian President Saakashvili and Ukrainian President Yushchenko. In the opinion of Moscow skeptics, a change of the administration in Washington does not entirely resolve this problem: negative trends in U.S. policy could reemerge.

The Kremlin’s ‘American problem’ is almost directly reflected by the ‘Kremlin problem’ of some of Russia’s neighbors, including Georgia, Estonia and a few others. Powerful forces inside these countries are convinced that the Kremlin never abandoned its imperialist ambitions and is seeking to once again subject the former provinces, using tanks or gas pipelines, depending on the case. The Russian Federation, in their opinion, is the ‘Soviet Union today.’

It is clear that a problem like this cannot be resolved by a single treaty on European Security like the one suggested by President Medvedev. The ‘simple’ option – Russia’s inclusion in NATO – is also practically closed. What is to be done? Common sense suggests that each aspect of this problem must have its own leader. As far as Russia’s fears are concerned, this leadership position can only be assumed by the United States. It can by deeds convince untrusting Russians that Washington’s policy is not aimed against them. The key issue here is the problem of strategic missile defense (or BMD). Any reduction in offensive arms only confirms the status of mutually assured destruction (MAD) as the foundation of strategic relations between Russia and the United States. Real cooperation on a new joint BMD system can help change this old foundation in favor of a new platform for cooperation.

The Central and Eastern European line, for its part, must be headed by Russia. It is Russia that must change the minds of Balts and the Poles, presenting real proof about its lack of hostile intentions. Moscow must learn to respect its small neighbors, to take into account their interests and concerns, to open its archives to historians and foster a dialogue on joint development of border areas.

The fall of the Berlin War marked the end of the post-war order. The subsequent 20 years saw the construction of new orders, along differing and often divergent paths, none of which encompassed Europe as a whole. The need for a global approach is now apparent: otherwise, the ideal of a single and free Europe that filled the end of the 1980s with hope will once again slip out of reach.”