What Is Vladimir Putin Planning for Europe's Future?

The British government pledged today to spend 2% of its GDP on NATO every year for the next five years, which was a huge vote of support for the US effort to pump up NATO in the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggressivity. British Finance Minister George Osborne told Parliament during his budget statement on Wednesday that the British government is : "not prepared to see the threats we face to both our country and our values go unchallenged....So today I commit additional resources to the defense and security of the realm...committing today to meet the NATO pledge to spend 2% of our national income on defense, not just this year, but every year of this decade." Equally important, Osborne also said the government would guarantee a real increase in the British defense budget every year. A Treasury aide said the defense budget would reach 47.7 billion pounds ($73.18 billion) a year by 2020. US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the United States appreciated the leadership shown by "one of our greatest friends and our strongest allies" and added : "We strongly urge all NATO allies to do the same, and it's critically important that NATO be able to respond effectively to existing and future threats, and the only way to do that is for allies to make the necessary investment in their armed forces." Last month, NATO said it expected military spending by its 28 members to fall this year in real terms despite increased tensions with Russia and a pledge by leaders last year to stop reducing defense budgets. NATO expects five alliance members, including Britain, to meet the 2% spending goal in 2015, up from four in 2014. Britain is the largest NATO contributor after the US. ~~~~~ The British government has felt pressure from both Conservative and Labour members of Parliament to commit to the NATO 2% target, but Prime Minister David Cameron had previously declined to do so beyond the current financial year until a defense review currently under way is completed. Several top US military figures, including US Army Chief of Staff General Raymond Odierno, had also expressed concern about declining defense spending by Britain, which still spends more on defense than any other European NATO member. ~~~~~ Why are the British and Americans so concerned to see that NATO is operating at full financial capacity? The easy first answer is two words. Ukraine. Crimea. And that is more than sufficient to make NATO top up. But Vladimir Putin has recently begun to make disturbing noises about other pieces of the old USSR empire that were lost when it collapsed. Russia still feels humiliated by the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990 and 1991. The proof? The Russian Prosecutor General's Office is now reviewing the legality of the 1991 decision by the USSR State Council to recognize the independence of the Baltic republics - Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia - and their exit from the Soviet Union. Putin's United Russia party, which dominates the State Duma (parliament), as well as Russian politics, submitted the question to the Prosecutor General. Putin's United Russia lawmakers say the Soviet State Council was an unconstitutional body created in the chaos in 1991, so its recognition of Baltic independence should have no legal effect. The Council officially recognized the independence of the three Baltic states in September 1991 - a decision many Russians regard as leading to the irreversible breakup of the Soviet Union. The Russian Interfax news reports that sources familiar with the situation say that the Prosecutor General's probable answer to the Duma : "will be the same as a recent analogous request about Crimea. Legally, the decision to recognize the independence of the Baltic States is defective due to the fact that it was taken by an unconstitutional body." In June, the Prosecutor General's Office ruled that the Soviet State Council decision to transfer Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 was illegal. Putin had already used the same reasoning to justify Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 -- by discrediting the February 1954 transfer by Nikita Khrushchev of the Crimean peninsula to the administration of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. While Russia and many others may regard its forced retaking of Crimea as final, it is not yet clear how the Prosecutor General will decide about the Baltics. Today, the Baltic states are part of NATO and the European Union, and attempting to exercise any "control" over them, or shifting the dialogue in favor of their eventual return to direct Russian influence, would have serious consequences because NATO Charter Article 5 requires all member states to go to the aid of any attacked member state. So far, Putin is merely posturing to gain political advantage in a Russia that is both feeling nationalistic pain and suffering economically. But, Putin's posturing related to the Baltic states raises questions about whether he will in the future turn his attention to them, as well as other former Soviet republics in eastern Europe. ~~~~~ One current indication that Putin is at least trying to become the latest Russian champion of eastern Europe is Russia's veto of a UN Security Council resolution yesterday. The UN resolution was intended to condemn the Srebrenica massacre as a genocide to mark the 20th anniversary of the killing of 8,000 Moslem men and boys on July 11, 1995, toward the end of Bosnia's 1992 to 1995 war, when Bosnian Serb forces swept into the eastern Srebrenica enclave, a UN-designated "safe haven." They executed the 8,000 Moslem men and boys in the days that followed, dumping their bodies into pits. The resolution wording followed the advice of the UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia that ruled the massacre, the worst mass killing in Europe since World War Two, was genocide. While Russia exercised its veto, China, Nigeria, Angola and Venezuela abstained and the remaining 10 counci members voted in favor. The vote was delayed a day as Britain and the United States tried to convince Russia not to veto the resolution. Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin had appealed for the Security Council not to vote on the resolution, which he described as : "not constructive, confrontational and politically motivated. The blame for the past is placed basically on one people....Our vote against...will not however mean that we are deaf to the sufferings of the victims of Srebrenica and other areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina." Russia had proposed that the Security Council instead condemn "the most serious crimes of concern to the international community." Britain said it was outraged by the Russian veto. British Deputy UN Ambassador Peter Wilson told the Counci after the vote : "Genocide occurred at Srebrenica. This is a legal fact, not a political judgment. On this there is no compromise." Serbia acknowledged that a "grave crime" took place and adopted a declaration condemning the massacre in 2010 as it sought closer ties with the West, but stopped short of describing it as genocide. The draft resolution angered Bosnian Serbs and Serbia, who branded it as "anti-Serb" and sent a letter of protest to the United Nations. Serbia warned on Tuesday that the resolution would only widen ethnic divides in neighboring Bosnia. Serbia's President Tomislav Nikolic said yesterday that Russia had "prevented an attempt of smearing the entire Serbian nation as genocidal" and proven itself as a true and honest friend. ~~~~~ There you have it, dear readers. Putin's Russia rejected the idea that the systematic massacre of 8,000 people with a common ethnic and religious profile was genocide -- for Russia the resolution was to be vetoed in order to show friendship for a large group of eastern Europeans. It seems very likely that Vladimir Putin is storing up IOU's for future use. It is indeed time for the other 26 NATO member states to step up and pledge their 2% NATO contribution, as Britain and America have already done. Putin does not respect weakness -- Ukraine and Crimea prove that. But the time may unfortunately arrive when he will be obliged to respect NATO strength.