CIRSD Roundtable in New York

The Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development (CIRSD) hosted a high-level roundtable discussion at the Harvard Club of New York on February 18th, 2015, on the main theme of the current issue of its flagship magazine Horizons.

Moderated by CIRSD President Vuk Jeremić, the Davos-style debate was entitled “The West and Russia: A New Cold War?” and featured as panelists former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, former German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin, and Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs.

The CIRSD discussion explored a number of questions related to the Ukrainian crisis, beginning with the historical background to the current faceoff between the West and Russia. Panelists traced this back to how the end of the Cold War was perceived by various actors. Responding to the argument Guttenberg put forth in his Horizons essay, co-authored with former NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis, that “the Cold War did not just suddenly end; rather, it was spectacularly lost by one side,” Churkin said that for him, the end of the Cold War needed to be understood as the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, not the breakup of the Soviet Union. In his intervention, Sachs unfavorably contrasted the U.S. response to Poland’s economic travails in the late 1980s and early 1990s to that of the Russian Federation a few years later.

Drawing on his academic background as a historian and his experience as prime minister and foreign minister of Australia, Rudd concluded that the Ukrainian crisis represented a collective failure of international diplomacy. Guttenberg echoed this assessment in part, saying that “it’s not only Russia that’s to blame. […] There are certain points where I would harshly blame Russia, but it’s not that easy. There are also specific groups within Ukraine, that’s their burden of blame; there is a European Union which is still struggling to find a common security and foreign policy; and there is an American administration where I struggle to find a coherent message when it comes to that very issue. Many brick-stones need to be taken into account. Having said that,” he added, “to put it very mildly and diplomatically, the annexation of the Crimea was not one of the most helpful steps to find an equilibrium for that very situation we face.”

The CIRSD roundtable discussion also focused on the strategic consequences of the increased tensions between the West and Russia due to the Ukrainian crisis. Churkin underlined the importance Russia places on constructively engaging with the United States and its allies in other geopolitical theatres, especially in the context of the Iran P5+1 nuclear talks. Guttenberg emphasized the economic costs to German industry of the sanctions imposed on Russia, noting that Germany’s business community nonetheless continued to support them, as does he, because of the importance of defending the post-1945 international order. Rudd analyzed the effects of the Ukrainian crisis from the Asian perspective and examined whether China has been the unintentional beneficiary of rising tensions between the West and Russia. He also stressed the importance of United Nations involvement in all matters related to international peace and security, noting that its absence would represent a weakening of the international order. Sachs remarked that “the great powers are acting like the great powers” and questioned whether this was conducive to increasing the level of global safety and security.

The CIRSD panel came to an end with an examination of the prerequisites for a lasting peace in Ukraine. There was general agreement that the way forward represented by the recent Minsk agreement constituted a positive turning point. The question of Kiev’s eventual membership in NATO was also explored, with Guttenberg underscoring that while Ukraine, as a sovereign state, had the right to unrestrictedly pursue its strategic choices, the Atlantic Alliance also had the right to decide whether to embrace that choice. He stressed that when he was Defense Minister, he had opposed Ukraine’s membership.

As the moderator of the CIRSD roundtable discussion, Jeremić assessed that “leading authorities on the topic of relations between Russia and the West” had laid out the main issues of the Ukrainian crisis over the course of the discussion. “The conclusion that was drawn is that the situation is difficult, but that there is space for finding a solution acceptable to the relevant stakeholders. I hope,” he added, “that our debate in New York has at least minimally contributed to finding such a solution.”

The audience of nearly 200 was composed of a number of journalists, ambassadors and other senior diplomats, UN officials, political scientists, and international relations experts.

Photo gallery is available here

 

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