Бернанке во Франкфурте рванул «бомбу»
Михаил Хазин
Недавно глава Федеральной резервной системы (ФРС) США Бен Бернанке произнес очередную речь, которую было бы интересно проанализировать.
По очень простой причине: со дня принятия «судьбоносного» решения о продолжении активной эмиссии прошел уже почти месяц, а эффекта как-то не заметно; более того, стоимость кредита даже выросла. По этому поводу есть разные мнения, но это как раз не очень принципиально. Важно, что Бернанке должен или признать, что ошибался в рамках своей аргументации при принятии решения о новой программе «количественного смягчения», или же «пуститься во все тяжкие» и говорить о том, что просто эмиссия недостаточна. Ну, или, на самый худой конец, признать, что есть объективные причины, которые «выше» любой политики ФРС... И что же он сказал?
Прежде всего он произнес до того невероятно крамольную мысль – что долларовый стандарт ущербен, и что дефицит торгового баланса Америки подвергает ее опасности. «Было бы желательно, чтобы мировое сообщество с течением времени разработало новую международную валютную систему», – сказал он. Это – не просто сильное утверждение. Это – бомба. Дело даже не в том, что это говорит председатель центробанка относительно своей собственной валюты: дело в том, что альтернативной системы в мире просто не существует. И если сегодня доминирование США во многом основано именно на контроле над долларовой системой (в конце концов, именно она обеспечивает тот самый конечный спрос, который и поддерживает мировую экономику), то отказ от нее – это отказ от мирового доминирования, не говоря уже о спаде всей мировой экономики. Ну разве что США разработают альтернативную систему... Но беда в том, что самостоятельно это сделать невозможно (проще уж реформировать доллар, но это как-то не получается), а если всех привлекать – то ведь с ними же делиться придется…
Конечно, есть и еще один важный смысл такого заявления: оно говорит о том, что продолжение торговых войн практически гарантировано, поскольку доллар будет девальвироваться, что вынудит другие страны, зависящие от экспорта в США (а это как минимум Евросоюз, Япония и Китай), принимать ответные меры... Но посмотрим, что продолжает Бернанке.
«В целом, учитывая текущую экономическую траекторию, Соединенные Штаты рискуют увидеть безработными или не полностью занятыми миллионы рабочих в течение многих лет». Ну, тут – ничего нового. Он же не говорит, что безработица будет расти (а она будет!), а только отмечает, что падать она не перестанет. А то мы не знали...
«В нынешнем своем виде международная валютная система имеет структурный изъян», – говорит Бернанке. «Ей не хватает механизма, рыночного или какого-то другого, чтобы побудить необходимые коррективы в странах с положительным сальдо, что приводит к существующему дисбалансу… В то же время без такой работающей системы страны мира должны признать свою коллективную ответственность за достижение баланса, необходимого для сохранения глобальной экономической стабильности и процветания».
Оп-па! Простите, тов. Бернанке, тут Вы определенно ошибаетесь! Это США сами, добровольно открыли свои рынки для многих регионов мира, чтобы выстроить их в свою собственную систему разделения труда (в 1947 году – Западную Европу, в 1950-м – Японию, Тайвань и Сингапур, в 1956-м – Южную Корею, в начале 1970-х – Китай), и многие годы поддерживали их экономику своим спросом. Если теперь попытаться эту систему разрушить, то, во-первых, упадет жизненный уровень населения в самих США, а во-вторых, разрушится и вся система разделения труда, т. е. модель гегемонии США. И доходы их тоже упадут, о чем непрерывно талдычат китайские чиновники в ответ на просьбы ревальвировать юань, только никто их в Вашем, тов. Бернанке, ведомстве не слышит. Не говоря уже о термине «рыночный или какой-то другой». Тов. Бернанке, определитесь поточнее, что Вы подразумеваете под «какой-то другой»? Удары крылатыми ракетами? Или отключение Интернета отдельным странам? После случая с WikiLeaks такой сценарий вовсе не представляется чрезмерно экзотическим.
Впрочем, насчет «ошибаетесь» – это, конечно, некоторое преувеличение. Я думаю, что Бернанке все более или менее понимает. Он не может не знать нашей теории кризиса (другое дело, что как монетарист он ее может не признавать), но выводы-то он уже сделал такие же. Другое дело, что на этом он и остановился, поскольку на основании монетарной теории строить какие-либо дальнейшие конструкции просто невозможно: она в принципе не приспособлена для описания кризисов, связанных с резким изменением денежной массы и сокращением кредита для экономики. Это хорошо было видно на примере России 90-х годов: все монетаристские рецепты давали совершенно не предусмотренные в рамках этих рецептов результаты, подчас – прямо противоположные. Например, зажим денежной массы приводил не к падению, а к росту инфляции, о чем можно прочитать в моем докладе еще аж 1996 года.
Но в общем вывод ясен: Берданке уже понял, что никакими мерами ничего изменить нельзя, но вот отвечать за это он не хочет. А значит, он должен объяснить всему «прогрессивному человечеству», что это не он виноват, что это – объективные законы природы, причем (желательно) никак не связанные с предыдущей деятельностью ФРС. Потому что иначе возникнет вопрос, почему он, когда шел на должность начальника данной организации, не сообщил людям, как же на самом деле жизнь устроена...
Получится у него «отбиться» или нет – вопрос отдельный и даже в общем нам не очень интересный. Интересно то, что очень многие вещи, которые мы обсуждали много лет назад, и которые тогда вызывали бешенство, раздражение и даже насмешки наших оппонентов, сегодня звучат из уст их «гуру». Разумеется, они не будут вспоминать при этом наши слова – но факты-то от этого никуда не денутся!
понедельник, 6 декабря 2010 г.
WikiLeaks рассказал о плане НАТО по защите стран Балтии от России
WikiLeaks рассказал о плане НАТО по защите стран Балтии от России
НАТО в начале 2010 года разработало план по защите Эстонии, Латвии и Литвы от агрессии со стороны России. О существовании секретного плана говорится в документах, оказавшихся в распоряжении WikiLeaks, пишет во вторник, 7 декабря, британская газета The Guardian.
Решение о разработке плана защиты стран Балтии в случае агрессии со стороны России было принято командованием НАТО по настоянию США и Германии. В сообщении за подписью госсекретаря США Хиллари Клинтон, оказавшемся в распоряжении WikiLeaks, говорится, что этот план станет началом крупнейшего после "холодной войны" пересмотра стратегии НАТО в Европе.
План, пишет британская газета, предусматривает, что НАТО разрабатывает новую схему обороны для региона, в который войдут страны Балтии и Польша. Оборонительная схема, получившая кодовое название Eagle Guardian - "Орел-защитник", предполагает, что в боевых действиях, в случае агрессии со стороны России, будут задействованы девять дивизий НАТО - американские, германские, британские и польские. В северные польские и немецкие порты планируется отправить военные корабли США и Великобритании.
Первые учения по новой оборонительной схеме для региона, включающего в себя Польшу и страны Балтии, НАТО собирается провести в начале 2011 года, говорится в документах, попавших в распоряжение WikiLeaks.
НАТО, сообщает The Guardian, также провело параллельные переговоры с Польшей, в ходе которых предложило ряд мер, направленных на защиту от угрозы со стороны России. Речь, в частности, шла о размещении подразделений военно-морских сил в Гданьске и Гдыне, а также переводе военно-транспортных самолетов C-130 Hercules в Польшу с авиабаз в Германии. Кроме того, в Польше предлагалось разместить эскадрилью истребителей F-16.
Глава Госдепартамента США и другие высокопоставленные официальные лица в переписке, касающейся плана обороны стран Балтии, неоднократно подчеркивают необходимость соблюдения строгой секретности. Раскрытие информации о новом оборонном плане, цитирует The Guardian одно из сообщений, переданных по дипломатическим каналам, "приведет к нежелательному обострению отношений России и НАТО".
Lenta.ru: Новости: http://lenta.ru/news/2010/12/07/baltic/
07.12.2010, вторник, 09:05:20
Обновлено 07.12.2010 в 08:52:24
НАТО в начале 2010 года разработало план по защите Эстонии, Латвии и Литвы от агрессии со стороны России. О существовании секретного плана говорится в документах, оказавшихся в распоряжении WikiLeaks, пишет во вторник, 7 декабря, британская газета The Guardian.
Решение о разработке плана защиты стран Балтии в случае агрессии со стороны России было принято командованием НАТО по настоянию США и Германии. В сообщении за подписью госсекретаря США Хиллари Клинтон, оказавшемся в распоряжении WikiLeaks, говорится, что этот план станет началом крупнейшего после "холодной войны" пересмотра стратегии НАТО в Европе.
План, пишет британская газета, предусматривает, что НАТО разрабатывает новую схему обороны для региона, в который войдут страны Балтии и Польша. Оборонительная схема, получившая кодовое название Eagle Guardian - "Орел-защитник", предполагает, что в боевых действиях, в случае агрессии со стороны России, будут задействованы девять дивизий НАТО - американские, германские, британские и польские. В северные польские и немецкие порты планируется отправить военные корабли США и Великобритании.
Первые учения по новой оборонительной схеме для региона, включающего в себя Польшу и страны Балтии, НАТО собирается провести в начале 2011 года, говорится в документах, попавших в распоряжение WikiLeaks.
НАТО, сообщает The Guardian, также провело параллельные переговоры с Польшей, в ходе которых предложило ряд мер, направленных на защиту от угрозы со стороны России. Речь, в частности, шла о размещении подразделений военно-морских сил в Гданьске и Гдыне, а также переводе военно-транспортных самолетов C-130 Hercules в Польшу с авиабаз в Германии. Кроме того, в Польше предлагалось разместить эскадрилью истребителей F-16.
Глава Госдепартамента США и другие высокопоставленные официальные лица в переписке, касающейся плана обороны стран Балтии, неоднократно подчеркивают необходимость соблюдения строгой секретности. Раскрытие информации о новом оборонном плане, цитирует The Guardian одно из сообщений, переданных по дипломатическим каналам, "приведет к нежелательному обострению отношений России и НАТО".
Lenta.ru: Новости: http://lenta.ru/news/2010/12/07/baltic/
07.12.2010, вторник, 09:05:20
Обновлено 07.12.2010 в 08:52:24
WikiLeaks cables reveal secret Nato plans to defend Baltics from Russia
WikiLeaks cables reveal secret Nato plans to defend Baltics from Russia• Leaked diplomatic cables reveal Russia strategy
• British troops identified for combat operations
• Washington offers to beef up Polish security
Share Comments (…) Ian Traynor guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 December 2010 21.30 GMT larger
smaller Article history
US soldiers in the Polish town of Morag. The state department fears that Nato's policy shift could trigger unnecessary tensions between the west and Russia. Photograph: Wojtek Radwanski/AFP/Getty Images Washington and its western allies have for the first time since the end of the cold war drawn up classified military plans to defend the most vulnerable parts of eastern Europe against Russian threats, according to confidential US diplomatic cables.
The US state department ordered an information blackout when the decision was taken earlier this year. Since January the blueprint has been refined.
Nine Nato divisions – US, British, German, and Polish – have been identified for combat operations in the event of armed aggression against Poland or the three Baltic states. North Polish and German ports have been listed for the receipt of naval assault forces and British and US warships. The first Nato exercises under the plan are to take place in the Baltic next year, according to informed sources.
Following years of transatlantic dispute over the new policy, Nato leaders are understood to have quietly endorsed the strategy at a summit in Lisbon last month.
Despite President Barack Obama's policy of "resetting" relations with Russia, which was boosted at the Nato summit attended by Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, the state department fears that the major policy shift could trigger "unnecessary tensions" with Moscow.
The decision to draft contingency plans for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania was taken secretly earlier this year at the urging of the US and Germany at Nato headquarters in Belgium, ending years of division at the heart of the western alliance over how to view Vladimir Putin's Russia.
The decision, according to a secret cable signed by Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, marks the start of a major revamp of Nato defence planning in Europe.
The strategy has not been made public, in line with Nato's customary refusal to divulge details of its "contingency planning" – blueprints for the defence of a Nato member state by the alliance as a whole.
These are believed to be held in safes at Nato's planning headquarters in Mons, Belgium.
According to a secret cable from the US mission to Nato in Brussels, US admiral James Stavridis, the alliance's top commander in Europe, proposed drawing up defence plans for the former Soviet Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
The policy was put to top military officials from Nato's 28 states. "On January 22 Nato's military committee agreed … under a silence procedure", the cable notes, referring to a decision carried by consensus unless someone speaks up to object.
Attempts by Stavridis's predecessor, General John Craddock, to push through defence planning for the Baltic were stymied by German-led opposition in western Europe, anxious to avoid upsetting the Kremlin.The policy shift was decided by senior military officials rather than Nato's top decision-taking body, the North Atlantic Council, in order to avoid repeating the splits and disputes on the issue over the past five years. The plan entails grouping the Baltic states with Poland in a new regional defence scheme that has been worked on in recent months and is codenamed Eagle Guardian.
In parallel negotiations with Warsaw the US has also offered to beef up Polish security against Russia by deploying special naval forces to the Baltic ports of Gdansk and Gdynia, putting squadrons of F-16 fighter aircraft in Poland and rotating C-130 Hercules transport planes into Poland from US bases in Germany, according to the diplomatic cables, almost always classified secret.
Earlier this year the US started rotating US army Patriot missiles into Poland in a move that Warsaw celebrates publicly as boosting Polish air defences and demonstrating American commitment to Poland's security.
But the secret cables expose the Patriots' value as purely symbolic. The Patriot battery, deployed on a rotating basis at Morag in north-eastern Poland, 40 miles from the border with Russia's Kaliningrad exclave, is purely for training purposes, and is neither operational nor armed with missiles.
At one point Poland's then deputy defence minister privately complained bitterly that the Americans may as well supply "potted plants'.
Since joining Nato in 2004, the three Baltic states have complained they are treated as second-class members because their pleas for detailed defence planning under Nato's "all for one and one for all" article 5 have been being ignored. Article 5 is the heart of Nato's founding treaty, stipulating that the alliance will come to the rescue of any member state attacked. The only time it has been invoked was following 9/11 when the European allies and Canada rallied to support America.
The Poles and the Baltic states have long argued that rhetorical declarations of commitment to article 5 are meaningless without concrete defence planning to back them up.
The Baltic demands for hard security guarantees became much more desperate in the past three years.
A cyber-attack on Estonia in 2007 was believed to have originated in Russia, and the Kremlin invaded Georgia a year later.
Nerves were further set on edge last year when the Russians staged exercises simulating an invasion of the Baltic states and a nuclear attack on Poland.
The eastern European calls for hard security guarantees, however, were stymied by western Europe, led by Germany, which did not want to antagonise Russia.
"We've found the way forward with Russia. The Baltic states have received strategic reassurance," said a well-placed source. "That's backed up with contingency planning that did not exist before. It's done now. We told them we'll give you your reassurance if you agree to the reset with Russia. That made it easier for the Germans."During intense – if discreet – diplomacy last year, the resistance was overcome by the Americans, and the new policy was tabled as a joint US-German move.
"Most of the information on this is not in the public domain.
But the bottom line is that there is enough political will in Nato now to do defence plans for the Baltic states. The opposition has melted away over the past 18 months," said Tomas Valasek, defence analyst at the Centre for European Reform. He worked with Madeleine Albright, the former US secretary of state, on drafting Nato's new "strategic concept" this year.In a meeting last December in Brussels with the Nato ambassadors from Poland, the three Baltic states and the Nato secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, together with the US and German ambassadors, Ivo Daalder and Ulrich Brandenburg, secured agreement on the new policy.
"Ambassador Daalder acknowledged in these meetings that Germany had initiated the proposal," says another secret cable .The east Europeans were delighted. Paul Teesalu, a senior Estonian diplomat, described the policy shift as "an early Christmas present" when told last December in Tallinn, according to a cable.
Another secret report from the US embassy in Riga says the Latvian foreign ministry's security policy chief "expressed his government's profound happiness."
The Poles, although keen supporters of concrete Nato defence plans for the Baltic, were neverthless worried that the new policy could dilute alliance commitments to their defence, since a limited Polish contingency plan was being turned into an expanded regional blueprint for the four countries.
Poland's late deputy defence minister, Stanislaw Komorowski, told US diplomats in Warsaw that he was "sceptical that a regional approach was the best way ahead. Komorowski said Warsaw would prefer a unique plan for Poland.".
Komorowski, the Polish ambassador in London until 2004, was one of 98 people killed with the country's president, Lech Kaczynski, when their plane crashed at Smolensk, Russia, in April.
The Americans argued that adding defence planning for the Baltic states would reinforce rather than dilute Polish security.
"After two years, contingency plans have been successfully prepared for Poland," Bogdan Klich, the Polish defence minister told Warsaw newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza last month.
In January, after the decision was taken, the state department in Washington instructed US missions and embassies how to proceed, making clear that the drafting of defence blueprints for the Baltic was the beginning of a more ambitious overhaul of Nato's core military planning.
"This is the first step in a multi-stage process to develop a complete set of appropriate contingency plans for the full range of possible threats – both regional and functional – as soon as possible," said the secret cable.
The diplomatic traffic seen by the Guardian is from US state department and US embassies worldwide, but not from Pentagon or CIA communications, meaning that the cables reveal the policy and political decision-making processes but contain little on the specifics of hard military planning.
Details of the nine divisions earmarked for the plan and the prominence of the port of Swinoujscie, on Poland's Baltic coast, were leaked to Gazeta Wyborcza.
It is clear that the defence plans for Poland and the Baltic are to be orchestrated from Nato's Shape planning headquarters at Mons in Belgium and from the Joint Forces Command at Brunssum in the Netherlands, the nerve centre for overseeing the crucial German theatre during the alliance's cold war heyday.
The policy shift represents a sea change in Nato defence planning and in assessments of the threat posed by what a Polish official calls "a resurgent Russia."
Officially the US and Nato term Russia a "partner" and not an adversary, with the Germans, French, and Italians in particular tending to be deferential in dealings with Moscow. But the east Europeans, with their bitter experience of Moscow domination, argue that the Russians respect strength, despise and exploit weakness and division, and that Nato will enjoy better relations only if its most exposed and vulnerable members feel secure.
"The whole point is not to paint Russia as a threat. It is about reassuring those countries that are seriously worried.
The debate is primarily about Poland and the Baltic. Geography has a lot to do with it," said Valasek.
Repeatedly calling for the Baltic military plans to be kept utterly secret, Clinton and other senior US officials acknowledge that the policy shift "would also likely lead to an unnecessary increase in Nato-Russia tensions … Washington strongly believes that the details of Nato's contingency plans should remain in confidential channels."
John Naughton, page 27
• British troops identified for combat operations
• Washington offers to beef up Polish security
Share Comments (…) Ian Traynor guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 December 2010 21.30 GMT larger
smaller Article history
US soldiers in the Polish town of Morag. The state department fears that Nato's policy shift could trigger unnecessary tensions between the west and Russia. Photograph: Wojtek Radwanski/AFP/Getty Images Washington and its western allies have for the first time since the end of the cold war drawn up classified military plans to defend the most vulnerable parts of eastern Europe against Russian threats, according to confidential US diplomatic cables.
The US state department ordered an information blackout when the decision was taken earlier this year. Since January the blueprint has been refined.
Nine Nato divisions – US, British, German, and Polish – have been identified for combat operations in the event of armed aggression against Poland or the three Baltic states. North Polish and German ports have been listed for the receipt of naval assault forces and British and US warships. The first Nato exercises under the plan are to take place in the Baltic next year, according to informed sources.
Following years of transatlantic dispute over the new policy, Nato leaders are understood to have quietly endorsed the strategy at a summit in Lisbon last month.
Despite President Barack Obama's policy of "resetting" relations with Russia, which was boosted at the Nato summit attended by Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, the state department fears that the major policy shift could trigger "unnecessary tensions" with Moscow.
The decision to draft contingency plans for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania was taken secretly earlier this year at the urging of the US and Germany at Nato headquarters in Belgium, ending years of division at the heart of the western alliance over how to view Vladimir Putin's Russia.
The decision, according to a secret cable signed by Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, marks the start of a major revamp of Nato defence planning in Europe.
The strategy has not been made public, in line with Nato's customary refusal to divulge details of its "contingency planning" – blueprints for the defence of a Nato member state by the alliance as a whole.
These are believed to be held in safes at Nato's planning headquarters in Mons, Belgium.
According to a secret cable from the US mission to Nato in Brussels, US admiral James Stavridis, the alliance's top commander in Europe, proposed drawing up defence plans for the former Soviet Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
The policy was put to top military officials from Nato's 28 states. "On January 22 Nato's military committee agreed … under a silence procedure", the cable notes, referring to a decision carried by consensus unless someone speaks up to object.
Attempts by Stavridis's predecessor, General John Craddock, to push through defence planning for the Baltic were stymied by German-led opposition in western Europe, anxious to avoid upsetting the Kremlin.The policy shift was decided by senior military officials rather than Nato's top decision-taking body, the North Atlantic Council, in order to avoid repeating the splits and disputes on the issue over the past five years. The plan entails grouping the Baltic states with Poland in a new regional defence scheme that has been worked on in recent months and is codenamed Eagle Guardian.
In parallel negotiations with Warsaw the US has also offered to beef up Polish security against Russia by deploying special naval forces to the Baltic ports of Gdansk and Gdynia, putting squadrons of F-16 fighter aircraft in Poland and rotating C-130 Hercules transport planes into Poland from US bases in Germany, according to the diplomatic cables, almost always classified secret.
Earlier this year the US started rotating US army Patriot missiles into Poland in a move that Warsaw celebrates publicly as boosting Polish air defences and demonstrating American commitment to Poland's security.
But the secret cables expose the Patriots' value as purely symbolic. The Patriot battery, deployed on a rotating basis at Morag in north-eastern Poland, 40 miles from the border with Russia's Kaliningrad exclave, is purely for training purposes, and is neither operational nor armed with missiles.
At one point Poland's then deputy defence minister privately complained bitterly that the Americans may as well supply "potted plants'.
Since joining Nato in 2004, the three Baltic states have complained they are treated as second-class members because their pleas for detailed defence planning under Nato's "all for one and one for all" article 5 have been being ignored. Article 5 is the heart of Nato's founding treaty, stipulating that the alliance will come to the rescue of any member state attacked. The only time it has been invoked was following 9/11 when the European allies and Canada rallied to support America.
The Poles and the Baltic states have long argued that rhetorical declarations of commitment to article 5 are meaningless without concrete defence planning to back them up.
The Baltic demands for hard security guarantees became much more desperate in the past three years.
A cyber-attack on Estonia in 2007 was believed to have originated in Russia, and the Kremlin invaded Georgia a year later.
Nerves were further set on edge last year when the Russians staged exercises simulating an invasion of the Baltic states and a nuclear attack on Poland.
The eastern European calls for hard security guarantees, however, were stymied by western Europe, led by Germany, which did not want to antagonise Russia.
"We've found the way forward with Russia. The Baltic states have received strategic reassurance," said a well-placed source. "That's backed up with contingency planning that did not exist before. It's done now. We told them we'll give you your reassurance if you agree to the reset with Russia. That made it easier for the Germans."During intense – if discreet – diplomacy last year, the resistance was overcome by the Americans, and the new policy was tabled as a joint US-German move.
"Most of the information on this is not in the public domain.
But the bottom line is that there is enough political will in Nato now to do defence plans for the Baltic states. The opposition has melted away over the past 18 months," said Tomas Valasek, defence analyst at the Centre for European Reform. He worked with Madeleine Albright, the former US secretary of state, on drafting Nato's new "strategic concept" this year.In a meeting last December in Brussels with the Nato ambassadors from Poland, the three Baltic states and the Nato secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, together with the US and German ambassadors, Ivo Daalder and Ulrich Brandenburg, secured agreement on the new policy.
"Ambassador Daalder acknowledged in these meetings that Germany had initiated the proposal," says another secret cable .The east Europeans were delighted. Paul Teesalu, a senior Estonian diplomat, described the policy shift as "an early Christmas present" when told last December in Tallinn, according to a cable.
Another secret report from the US embassy in Riga says the Latvian foreign ministry's security policy chief "expressed his government's profound happiness."
The Poles, although keen supporters of concrete Nato defence plans for the Baltic, were neverthless worried that the new policy could dilute alliance commitments to their defence, since a limited Polish contingency plan was being turned into an expanded regional blueprint for the four countries.
Poland's late deputy defence minister, Stanislaw Komorowski, told US diplomats in Warsaw that he was "sceptical that a regional approach was the best way ahead. Komorowski said Warsaw would prefer a unique plan for Poland.".
Komorowski, the Polish ambassador in London until 2004, was one of 98 people killed with the country's president, Lech Kaczynski, when their plane crashed at Smolensk, Russia, in April.
The Americans argued that adding defence planning for the Baltic states would reinforce rather than dilute Polish security.
"After two years, contingency plans have been successfully prepared for Poland," Bogdan Klich, the Polish defence minister told Warsaw newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza last month.
In January, after the decision was taken, the state department in Washington instructed US missions and embassies how to proceed, making clear that the drafting of defence blueprints for the Baltic was the beginning of a more ambitious overhaul of Nato's core military planning.
"This is the first step in a multi-stage process to develop a complete set of appropriate contingency plans for the full range of possible threats – both regional and functional – as soon as possible," said the secret cable.
The diplomatic traffic seen by the Guardian is from US state department and US embassies worldwide, but not from Pentagon or CIA communications, meaning that the cables reveal the policy and political decision-making processes but contain little on the specifics of hard military planning.
Details of the nine divisions earmarked for the plan and the prominence of the port of Swinoujscie, on Poland's Baltic coast, were leaked to Gazeta Wyborcza.
It is clear that the defence plans for Poland and the Baltic are to be orchestrated from Nato's Shape planning headquarters at Mons in Belgium and from the Joint Forces Command at Brunssum in the Netherlands, the nerve centre for overseeing the crucial German theatre during the alliance's cold war heyday.
The policy shift represents a sea change in Nato defence planning and in assessments of the threat posed by what a Polish official calls "a resurgent Russia."
Officially the US and Nato term Russia a "partner" and not an adversary, with the Germans, French, and Italians in particular tending to be deferential in dealings with Moscow. But the east Europeans, with their bitter experience of Moscow domination, argue that the Russians respect strength, despise and exploit weakness and division, and that Nato will enjoy better relations only if its most exposed and vulnerable members feel secure.
"The whole point is not to paint Russia as a threat. It is about reassuring those countries that are seriously worried.
The debate is primarily about Poland and the Baltic. Geography has a lot to do with it," said Valasek.
Repeatedly calling for the Baltic military plans to be kept utterly secret, Clinton and other senior US officials acknowledge that the policy shift "would also likely lead to an unnecessary increase in Nato-Russia tensions … Washington strongly believes that the details of Nato's contingency plans should remain in confidential channels."
John Naughton, page 27
Подписаться на:
Сообщения (Atom)
