Newsletter 2013/06/28 – Russia Policy Scenarios
BERLIN/MOSCOW (Own report) – Hefty debates have ignited around
Germany’s policy toward Russia. On the heels of an incident between
two high-ranking personalities in the foreign policy establishment
over Germany’s strategy toward Moscow, the tension has been heightened
by last weekend’s official snub of the Russian government by the
German Chancellor. Immediately afterwards, she expressed her support
for expanding economic cooperation. To try to resolve the differences
within Berlin’s establishment, the SPD-affiliated Friedrich Ebert
Foundation has just published a paper with four scenarios for future
policy toward Russia, intended to make it easier to explore the
various options and their potentials. The scenarios range from
intensive cooperation, in the aftermath of regime change in Moscow; to
a simple hegemonic motivated cooperation in the aftermath of a partial
collapse of the Euro zone; to German-Russian arrangements on the
mutual control of Central Asia and Southeast Europe in the aftermath
of the USA’s “transfer of its focus to the Pacific.” A readjustment of
the German policy toward Russia is not out of the question in the
aftermath of the upcoming German parliamentary elections.
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