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Financial Times (UK)
29 July 2002
From San Francisco to Vladivostok
By George Weidenfeld
Lord Weidenfeld is chairman of Weidenfeld and Nicolson, the publisher, and the
founder chairman of the Club of Three
The accelerated pace of rapprochement between the west and Russia, following the events of last September, threw a consoling shaft of light on a darkening horizon. It now offers fresh hope for our common future.
The prospect of entrenching new networks of friendship and trust between the west and the Russian Federation is greater now than it has been for many generations. In fact it is less utopian to talk today of a real partnership for peace between peoples living in the lands between Vancouver and Vladivostok than it was for Jean Monnet who, in the darkest days of the second world war, posted his theses of European unity based on enduring Franco-German friendship.
Today's partnership extends through economic and cultural co-operation to increasingly convergent notions of civil society and human rights. There is undoubted progress in a number of fields and the military "partnership for peace" between Russia and Nato is already a reality. In a demonstrably more relaxed environment, even sceptical Russians are beginning to believe that co-operation between the old enemies is more than a transient or cosmetic ploy.
A Russia set to host the Group of Eight summit in 2006 is now playing a full role in the club of the economic giants. Cultural and scientific exchanges are growing apace. Russian democracy is evolving slowly but not insignificantly. A quickening pace in the development of civil society looks likely to flow from its closer partnership with the west.
But there are still remnants of distrust on both sides. Many Russians suspect the US of hegemonic ambitions, a unilateralist stance in world affairs and seeking to fence Russia in. The US fears a Russian nationalist revival, implying the reconquest of lost spheres of influence coupled with a return to authoritarian rule. And the links between America and Europe are not as solid today as they have been in the past. Europe's perception of America's "arrogance of power" is matched by American disdain for Europe's "rage of impotence". The scope for mutual misunderstanding between each of the three players in the field of trade policy is brought home week by week.
Fortunately, there are also strong forces on all sides pressing to lift the mood of mutual disenchantment. But there is a need to pool these forces to create something more durable. We need bold visions for tomorrow, going beyond the next stages of European enlargement. Far from reverting to the bloc-building of classical "balance of power" politics by unifying the northern hemisphere and, as a result, retarding or even impeding north-south co-operation, we need to find a way to harness the movement towards closer relations between the US, Europe and Russia so that we can, on the contrary, enrich and accelerate north-south co-operation.
For one thing, these three have a near-monopoly of the instruments and processes that could bring progress in every sphere to disadvantaged and less fortunate peoples. For another, each of the three has its own magnetic fields and solid outreach to other continents. Countries to the east of Germany that are not yet candidates for the European integration process will feel more secure within a framework of genuine and continuing co-operation.
The new three-way partnership will have enormous potential for resolving conflicts and, indeed, helping in the transformation of the societies bordering their lands. Now is the time for systematic and structured debate, for constructive talking in consciously trilateral terms. There are many cobwebs of mistrust and prejudices to be removed. But it would be foolish to think too soon in terms of institutional frameworks or utopian constitutions.
There is a more pragmatic way. Six years ago, when relations between Britain, France and Germany were at a low point, a group of public servants, businessmen, academics and journalists in these countries founded the first Club of Three. Meeting in each capital city in turn, talking unofficially, frankly and honestly, they diagnosed each other's complaints and tried to find answers to the misunderstandings and the misconceptions. Whether in comparing their divergent agendas with the single currency, or arguing their cases on welfare and labour-market reform, or considering how to manage American power and Balkan instability, they found there was far more that united them than divided them.
Now, widening its brief, that original Club of Three means to extend the discourse to another threesome, a continuing debate between Americans, Europeans and Russians, each of them once and future allies. The work of putting this vision into practical effect will be arduous and the ultimate shape and direction of the partnership impossible to forecast. But the idea of launching this ambitious new trialogue is more than worthy. It is imperative - and achievable.
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