An amicable resolution of issues between America and Europe on addressing the Afghan quagmire is unlikely given that the end state is not clearly defined.
In a recent poll for the newspaper Le Parisien, 55 per cent of the French public expressed their disagreement with the presence of the French military in Afghanistan. A number of political and strategic mistakes contributed to this difficult situation being faced by Sarkozy’s government regarding the war in Afghanistan. The situation is also exacerbated by the fact that 10 soldiers of the 8th RPIMA lost their lives in the Uzbin sector in late August after a brilliantly orchestrated ambush by elements of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e-Islami which shocked the country.
Georgia was a constituent republic of the former USSR. In 1991, the dissolution of the Soviet Union led to the independence of Georgia. In turn, the autonomous regions of Georgia, namely South Ossetia and Abkhazia, attempted to break away from Georgia, resulting in civil strife in the early Nineties. These conflicts were settled with Russian involvement with the United Nations Mission in Georgia deploying in a peacekeeping role in Abkhazia and a Russian peacekeeping force deploying under a Joint Control Commission in South Ossetia.
The Russian military blitzkrieg to counter the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s dispatch of his Israeli and US trained and equipped forces to retake the breakaway region of South Ossetia on August 7, 2008 took many by surprise. Moscow brazenly took the war straight into the Georgian heartland routing the Georgian forces in South Ossetia and expelling them from the other main Georgian separatist region of Abkhazia.
Russia’s new President Dmitry Medvedev has put forward a fresh foreign policy blueprint and set forth a brand new idea of a Pan-European Security structure, which envisages a role for India in Euro-Atlantic affairs. The 7,000 word document makes a turn from the earlier roadmap that guided Putin’s agenda. Medvedev seeks no “Great Power” status but wants Russia to be one of the influential centres of the world. Not exactly distinct in form from Putin’s doctrine, the new concept entails style and diplomatic nuance; it talks about abandoning ‘bloc diplomacy’ in favour of ‘network diplomacy’.
On the face of it, India and NATO are poles apart. NATO is a military alliance. India is a non-aligned country with an independent foreign policy. Any engagement between India and NATO is, therefore, problematic.
France has taken over the half-yearly presidency of the European Union (EU) Council from Slovenia on July 1. The change of guard at the helm of the EU is a routine affair. However, the French presidency of the Union seems to point to a new impetus in EU affairs, as it is the first opportunity after Nicolas Sarkozy took the reins at The Élysée Palace. At present European affairs are more or less a rerun of the summer of 2005 when the French and Dutch electorates rejected the EU Constitution. This experience is again being enacted with Irish voters rejecting the Lisbon Treaty in June.
At the NATO Summit in Bucharest, Ukraine and Georgia’s loss became Russia’s overall gain. Ukraine and Georgia wanted to get the invitation for the pre-membership programme in NATO, which is the last step to full membership. Before the summit, President Bush went to Kiev and promised Ukrainian leaders that he would do all to support their country’s membership in NATO. But strong opposition from France and Germany put paid to Ukrainian and Georgian hopes.
Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence on February 17, 2008 is dividing the world into states that support the move and those opposed to it. It has also emboldened separatist movements across the world.
