COUNTRIES OF THE BLACK SEA REGION AND EUROPEAN SECURITY

Abstract

The sociopolitical development of the post-Soviet countries of the Black Sea Region is marked by a special kind of intrigue. The initiators of Gorbachev’s democratization were totally unprepared for its outcome. No one could have imagined it would end in the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergency of newly independent states on its territory, whereby states expounding authoritarian regimes with the low political culture characteristic of many post-colonial communities. Democratic reform was not a particularly high priority for these states. It was more important to reinforce state independence, create solid pow er structures, acquire a cushy spot on the international arena, and so on. Based on Poland’s experience during the Pilsudskiy era, on Kemalist Turkey, on Antonescu’s rule in Rumania, etc., the most expedient form of government for the leaders of these countries to achieve their goals appeared to be the authoritarian regime. But Russia, with its aim to reintegrate the former Soviet republics into something akin to the former Union, began to clearly dominate in this new semi-closed community of authoritarian post-Soviet states, formally united by the abbreviation CIS. And authoritarian rulers of weaker states usually prefer to rein force their essentially clannish and oligarchic power by steering their countries in the same direction as their stronger neighbor than by upholding their own national interests and independence. In so doing, foreign forces capable of resisting such trends essentially condoned Moscow’s striving to establish its exclusive zone of responsibility in this region, since they probably had little faith in the ability of the post-Soviet states to undergo an internal and democratically oriented transformation and were concerned only with preventing large-scale conflicts there. Even the U.S.’s penetration into the Caucasus and Central Asia under the banner of the antiterrorist campaign has not really changed the overall picture. But the international situation in the Black Sea Region has been undergoing rapid changes recently. First, due to NATO’s enlargement to the East (at the expense of Rumania and Bulgaria), which essentially led to this region’s incorporation into the sphere of the alliance’s responsibility. Second, the situation in the Middle East required that the Western countries pay greater attention to the countries surrounding them. Third, but first in terms of significance, the revolutionary democratic changes in Georgia and Ukraine brought the entire imperial line of Russia’s foreign policy in the region to the brink of collapse. If the new wave of transformations in this part of the continent is successfully carried out, European democracy will continue moving toward the East and the region will find itself to be a kind of bastion on the avenues of approach to the Asian system of authoritarianism. 

From this angle, the tasks of organizing the Black Sea community of states take on a new look. These countries are historically and geographically linked, but due to civilizational and socioeconomic conditions they are still rather heterogeneous. As a fundamental element of domestic development in each of these countries, the European idea can help to overcome their historical isolation and form prerequisites for efficient regional consolidation. It is worth noting that the new democratic authorities in Georgia and Ukraine claim that the European factor dominates in their foreign policy, and adherence to European values are an intrinsic part of their domestic policy.