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Posts Tagged ‘NATO’
Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
It looks like the idea of non-alignment is gaining some traction amongst some of Ukraine’s politicians. As we at MBS have advocated previously, it remains one of the best options as it would allow Ukraine to “leap-frog” over other Eastern European nations in terms of development. It would also force Ukraine to reform at a quicker pace as well as decrease security related tensions in the region.
“Ukraine should be a non-aligned state,” according to Volodymyr Lytvyn, the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament.
“We must be a non-aligned state. We have to learn to live independently,” he said at a meeting with citizens of the town of Hadiach in Poltava region on Tuesday.
According to the head of the parliament, the question of whether Ukraine should join NATO or not NATO could be a source of conflict in the country.
The position of the people must be taken into account, and most of them oppose Ukraine’s joining NATO, Lytvyn added.
At the same time, he noted that the question on Ukraine’s joining the North Atlantic alliance is not a primary issue now.
(from Interfax)
The World Bank has also revised their economic outlook for Ukraine…and it is not very positive.
“Ukraine’s faltering economy will plunge into a deep recession and shrink by 9 percent this year, far worse than previously expected, according to the World Bank”
After nearly a decade of robust growth, the economy is being hit hard by the deterioration of the global economy and the national government’s failure to implement anti-crisis measures, the Bank said in a statement.
Inflation will hit 16.4 percent this year, better than last year’s 22.3 percent but still very high.
In December, the Bank had forecast that Ukraine’s economy would shrink by 4 percent and projected inflation at 13.6 percent. The International Monetary Fund expects the economy to contract by at least 6 percent this year.
Those estimates contradict sharply with government expectations of 0.4 percent growth and 9.5 inflation this year, which many analysts dismiss as unrealistic.
Ukraine’s economic crisis is one of the worst in Europe. Industrial output slumped by 32 percent in January and February compared with a year ago, and output in the construction industry dropped by 57 percent during that period, according to the World Bank.
The national currency, the hryvna, has lost about 40 percent of its value to the dollar since the crisis hit last fall.
Furthermore, constant political turmoil has worsened the effect of the global crisis on Ukraine by stalling the implementation of key anti-crisis policies.
The IMF withheld the second tranche of an emergency $16.4 billion loan this year after the government failed to trim spending and adopt other stabilization measures.
(from AP)
Tags: Anton Olff, Eastern Europe, MBS, mediterranean black sea, NATO, neutrality, President Viktor Yushchenko, Rada, Russia, tymochen, tymochenko, ukraine, World Bank
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Monday, February 9th, 2009
OK…it is one thing for Ukraine to send letters begging for money to the USA, the EU, even China…but Russia? What are they thinking in Kyiv? Sure…Russia will loan you the money. They may be running a bit short due to propping up rubles and oligarchs, but they will find some spare cash as they know they will gain considerably from any arrangement.
After all, they promised the Kyrgyz Republic some money too. However, the conditions-regardless of what is officially denied-is that a U.S. base be closed. Imagine what they will demand of Ukraine?
From www.ft.com:
Ukraine pushes for loans to meet shortfall
By Roman Olearchyk in Kiev
Ukraine has appealed for emergency loans from the world’s richest countries to help support its economy, which has been battered by the global financial crisis.
Yulia Tymoshenko, prime minister of Ukraine, said her government had sent letters to the US, Russia, China, Japan and the European Union asking for loans to fill a shortfall in budget revenues for this year.
“We have already received a positive response from some countries, including Russia,” Ms Tymoshenko said at the Munich Security Conference at the weekend. “Russia is ready to sign such loan agreements.” She did not clarify how much Kiev was seeking to borrow but reports in Ukraine suggested Russia could lend $5bn (€3.9bn, £3.4bn).
Ms Tymoshenko said Ukraine was keen to harmonise relations with Moscow, soured after last month’s gas prices dispute. She insisted Kiev would stick to a western integration agenda that included efforts to join the European Union and Nato.
News that Ukraine was seeking emergency loans amid frozen credit markets comes days after a senior International Monetary Fund delegation warned of “serious problems” brewing in Ukraine’s economy.
The fund delegation ended its one-week visit to Kiev last week but provided no clear signal on whether it would grant further disbursements from a $16.5bn standby facility agreed last year.
Ukraine received a first tranche of $4.5bn last November. Future disbursements depend on the implementation of tough conditions and are needed to keep Ukraine’s currency, the hryvnia, stable. It lost nearly 40 per cent of its value in 2008.
The IMF’s concerns centre on Kiev’s 2009 budget, which has a 3 per cent deficit in spite of a fund stipulation it be deficit-free. It also seeks a freeze on social spending at a time when more than 1m out of a population of 46m have lost their jobs.
Ukraine’s gross domestic product is expected to contract by around 5 per cent this , thus curbing budget revenues, complicating the state’s ability to rescueshaky banks and to provide unemployment benefits.
Ukraine is struggling to tame annual inflation of more than 20 per cent and toadjust to a fourth stiff price rise on natural gas imports from Russia in as manyyears.
The US and other western nations are keen to stabilise Ukraine for geopolitical as well as economic purposes, given its important position in Eastern Europe as a neighbour of Russia.
Technorati Tags: Ukraine, Russia, United States, European Union, China, Kyiv, MBS Ltd., Anton Olff, Kyrgyz Republic, military bases, loans, Roman Olearchyk, global financial crisis, Japan, Munich Security Conference, Yuliya Tymoshenko, Moscow, NATO, International Monetary Fund, hryvnia, gross domestic product, natural gas, geopolitics
Tags: Anton Olff, China, European Union, geopolitics, global financial crisis, gross domestic product, hryvnia, International Monetary Fund, Japan, Kyiv, Kyrgyz Republic, loans, MBS Ltd., military bases, Moscow, Munich Security Conference, NATO, natural gas, Roman Olearchyk, Russia, ukraine, United States, Yuliya Tymoshenko
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Thursday, December 11th, 2008
Some of my associates have asked me why I have not posted any news about the recent reformation of the Orange Coalition within the Ukrainian Government. Well…to be honest, I did read the news with some delight. It is not that I am a supporter of any political faction. On the contrary, my focus is business…and business craves stability and predictabilty. The financial crisis has forced political rivals to set aside their differences and come together and address the problems facing Ukraine. MAYBE.
I hate to sound like Machiavelli here, but is there anyone out there who believes that this grand alliance will be nothing more than temporary? There are “no permanent allies, only permanent interests” to paraphrase the Renaissance philosopher. Human nature being what it is-and it is a spectacle to behold-is not about to change because a few politicians have sheathed their metaphoric swords and embraced each other.
Ultimately, Ukraine will be stabilize when its politicians realize that they can benefit more from that stability, even if it means that they have to temper their personal ambitions to the greater good. This could come as a result of crisis, or it could come when Ukraine grows-and it will continue to do that-to the point when its politics have evolved. So far…and to its credit…Ukraine has not devolved to a command and control economy, nor has the democratic political trajectory been altered.
The bottom line for many of us who live, work and invest in Ukraine is that things will improve over the long term. Ukraine is in fact, more advanced than many of her critics want to admit-including some Western Europeans who recently used this to deny a road map to NATO.
Technorati Tags: Ukraine, Ukrainian Government, command and control economy, democracy, NATO, Western Europe, Anton Olff, politicians, Machiavelli, human nature, Orange Coalition, business, stability, predictability, political faction,
Tags: Anton Olff, Business, command and control economy, democracy, human nature, Machiavelli, NATO, Orange Coalition, political faction, politicians, predictability, stability, ukraine, Ukrainian Government, Western Europe
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Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008
The unwritten rule regarding the blog here at MBS, Ltd., was that we would focus on macro & micro economic and business issues ONLY. We would not stray into the murky and dangerous waters of politics.
Having stated such, we decided to dive into the political pool (or cesspool?) with this entry. The motivation for this diversion is the topicality and relationship of the subject matter to BUSINESS in emerging markets like Eastern Europe, Russia, Georgia and Ukraine. The subject is NATO.
Nick Witney’s article in the Moscow Times (www.moscowtimes.ru) captures, dissects and congeals the truth like few others have recently. The fact is, NATO in its current form is an obsolete, expensive and largely political club, where military and security matters are of primary importance mainly to its newest members and aspirants.
The subject of NATO is a divisive issue here in Ukraine, as well as further east. The inclusion or exclusion of Ukraine and Georgia into the current NATO organization, will affect the economic direction of these nations.
Some argue very coherently, that a byproduct of NATO inclusion is the acceleration of political-or what we could call “philosophic integration” between new members and “the West,” as well as increased trade. The hope among the practitioners of “realpolitik” in the West, is that an expanded NATO will act as a check on Russian, as well as Asian influence and ambitions in Europe.
The main problem with this thesis is that it ignores the weakness of NATO and the shifting alliances that have resulted.
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The Death of NATO
02 December 2008
By Nick Witney
NATO, whose foreign ministers will meet Tuesday and Wednesday, is dying. Death, of course, comes to all living things. And, as NATO approaches its 60th birthday next spring, there seems no immediate urgency about writing its obituary; 60-year-olds may reasonably look forward to another decade — perhaps two or even three — of active and productive life. But perhaps it is now time for some discrete reflection on the fact that “the old man” will not always be with us.
Human institutions, like human beings, can collapse with surprising speed once they have outlived their usefulness. The dramatic dissolution of the Soviet Union stands as a reminder of what can happen to organizations when doubts take hold as to whether they still serve any real interests other than those of their own apparatchiks — and how suddenly such doubts can grow when they attempt to convert themselves into something they are not.
NATO has, of course, shown remarkable tenacity. It should have disappeared when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Warsaw Pact evaporated because its job was done. But then came the Balkan crises of the 1990s, culminating in the realization that only U.S. military power could put a stop to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. And then came the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and this kept NATO in business, spreading its activities to Afghanistan.
But NATO’s repeated demonstrations of resilience should not blind us to the fact that it no longer provides a healthy basis for the transatlantic security relationship. As long as NATO’s raison d’etre was to keep the Russians out and the United States in, NATO’s internal dynamic of U.S. leadership and European obeisance was both inevitable and appropriate.
This unbalanced relationship still has advantages for both parties. Americans may find their European allies less pliable than before, but they can at least count on the absence of any serious alternatives for what NATO should become or what it should do. Europeans can continue to avoid responsibility for their own security and to invoke the catechism of “NATO — the cornerstone of our security” as a substitute for serious strategic thought.
But each now resents the behavior of the other. Americans find their patience tried by Europeans who are free with their advice and criticism, yet reluctant to shoulder risks. Moreover, the United States learned from the Kosovo experience of “war by committee” to distrust NATO as a place to run operations, and now Afghanistan highlights the organization’s limitations as a mechanism for generating force contributions.
As for Europeans, they are unhappy about pressure to participate in a U.S.-led “global war on terror” that they regard as dangerous and misconceived. They are also averse to policies seemingly designed to antagonize their more difficult neighbors like Russia and the Islamic world.
So what is to be done? None of the ideas for another dose of NATO rejuvenation looks like the answer. All the talk of an improved NATO-European Union partnership is mainly wasted breath. “Intensified strategic dialogue in Brussels,” in practice, boils down to the chilling specter of interminable joint committee meetings at which one nation’s ambassador to NATO explains his government’s position to a compatriot diplomat who is accredited to the EU and vice-versa.
The problem is not institutional relationships between the two organizations — except in the important but narrow case of Turkey and Cyprus, which remain bent on pursuing their bilateral feud without regard to the real risks to the personnel of their allies and partners deployed in Afghanistan and Kosovo. The real problem is relations between the United States and European countries, 21 of which belong to both organizations.
Nor does the answer lie in developing an EU “caucus” within NATO. The 1990s concept of a “European Defense Identity” within NATO proved to be unviable. Since then, expansion of the alliance and proliferation of NATO “partners” has made the idea of a special collective role for EU members all the more improbable. A double layer of decision-making would only cause an already ponderous organization to seize up.
There is nothing more dramatic to be done than to focus on upgrading the EU-U.S. strategic dialogue. The annual summits need to be made more substantial, and their focus needs to shift from transatlantic, bilateral issues to aligning EU and U.S. global policies and actions. President-elect Barack Obama should keep an eye on the calendar of the European Council, which brings the EU presidents and prime ministers together four times a year, and solicit an occasional invitation. The U.S. mission to the EU should be scaled up, and the EU representation in Washington needs to become a proper embassy. The more seriously the Americans show that they are willing to take the EU collectively, the more seriously the Europeans will take themselves.
Winston Churchill once remarked that you could always count on the Americans to do the right thing — after having tried all the alternatives. In the same way, the Europeans will eventually find themselves having to speak with one voice and act as one body in the wider world, if only because a globalized world will not allow them the luxury of doing anything else. As Charles de Gaulle forecasted: “It is not any European statesman who will unite Europe. Europe will be united by the Chinese.” Only collectively can Europeans be effective contributors to global security or achieve a robust transatlantic security partnership.
As NATO enters its twilight years, the United States should encourage the EU to grow into its global responsibilities. Despite all their differences and mutual dissatisfactions, Europe and the United States know that their relationship is as close to being best friends as they are likely to see for the foreseeable future.
Nick Witney, former chief executive of the European Defense Agency, is a senior policy fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations. © Project Syndicate |
Anton Olff
Technorati Tags: MBS, Ltd., EU, Turkey, Moscow Times, Nick Witney, Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, Barack Obama, Cyprus, Warsaw Pact, Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, Kosovo, Afghanistan, ethnic cleansing, realpolitik, Asian influence, security, trade, economic integration, Business, Europe, Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, NATO,
Tags: Afghanistan, Asian influence, Barack Obama, Brussels, Business, Charles de Gaulle, Cyprus, Eastern Europe, economic integration, ethnic cleansing, EU, Europe, Georgia, Kosovo, Ltd., MBS, Moscow Times, NATO, Nick Witney, realpolitik, Russia, security, Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, trade, Turkey, ukraine, Warsaw Pact, Winston Churchill
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