"The Visegrad Group"
Sydney M. Williams
Europe has become a focus of attention principally because of the political and financial instability in the region, an instability driven by nations falling into one of two camps – the parsimonious or the profligate. However, there are other developments worth watching, one of which has the potential to be consequential, and that was a decision last week by the Visegrad Group (V4) to form a “battle group.” Last week George Friedman wrote in Stratfor: “The obscurity of the decision to most people outside the region should not be allowed to obscure its importance.”
The V4 is comprised of four countries: The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. All are current members of the European Union; Slovakia is a Euro Zone member. All four are members of NATO and, naturally, all were members of the Warsaw Pact prior to its dissolution in early 1991.
The four countries, comprising a part of what is termed New Europe; sit between two historic enemies of each other and of the region – Russia and Germany. The history of the pact has its origins in 1335 when the leaders of Bohemia , Hungary and Poland met at Visegrád Castle in Hungary. They agreed to create new commercial routes, as a means of bypassing Vienna and to obtain easier access to Western European markets. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the three countries – then Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland – met on February 15, 1991 in the town of Visegrád and formed the Visegrad Group as a means of promoting their specific interests.
As a stand-alone group, the Visegrad Group has the fourth largest population in Europe (22nd in the world) and Europe’s seven largest economy (13th in the world.) Its original purpose in 1991 was to create a regional framework, with the purpose of joining the European Union and NATO.
The battle group would be placed under the command of a Polish general. It would be in place by 2016, as an independent force that would not be under NATO command. However, beginning in 2013 the four member countries would begin joint military exercises under the auspices of the NATO Response Force.
Factors that prompted the decision include:
A) Fear of the growing power and reach of Russia.
B) A perception of a developing weakness regarding a unified Europe.
C) Recognition of a fragmenting NATO.
Poland, the largest of the four members, borders both Germany and Russia and in the past 75 years has been occupied by both. As a buffer between the two, they realize they would be in the vanguard of a push from either direction. Russia under Putin and then Medvedev, over the past ten or fifteen years, has overthrown the conciliatory posture of Boris Yeltsin. The country has taken on a more aggressive attitude toward “influencing” its former satellites. Georgia was successfully invaded in August 2008. Friedman suggests the year 2008 may well mark the end of the first stage of the post Cold War era. Germany’s warming relations with Russia – a need for Russia’s energy and a need by Russia for Germany’s capital – send chills through Central European states. These countries, which spent forty-five years enslaved within the Soviet sphere have less confidence than we in the West do that the Cold War is only a memory.
A Europe increasingly split between the north (ex Ireland) and the south – between creditors and debtors – has lessened conviction of the long term sustainability of the union. They question Germany and France’s motivation in the recent crisis. Are they acting in the interests of a unified Europe, or are they protecting there own financial institutions? Europe, according to this analysis, has lost some of its allure.
The Libyan conflict has demonstrated a fragmentation between the France, Britain and Italy on one side and Germany on the other. How certain can the Visegrad Group be that NATO would come to their defense should the need arise? The United States, under pressure from Russia, has backed away from installing a missile defense system along Poland’s eastern border. America has pledged one brigade (about 5000 soldiers) to the defense of Poland, in the event of a conflict. (Russia, in 2007, had an army of 1,200,000 troops, with reserves of another 754,000.) Libya has also shown that NATO, absent U.S. leadership, is generally ineffectual. Here is an organization consisting of twenty-eight members including the U.S., in its 10th week of air attacks, authorized by the U.N. that has proven incapable of unseating the dictator of a country of 6.4 million people, a country geographically the size of Alaska, with an army of 50,000, including reserves.
Forming a battle group for their own defense was surely not a consideration when twenty-years ago these countries emerged from the yoke of Communism. The decision to do so must have been anguished, and it means valuable resources will have to be diverted from economically more productive venues. However, they felt it was necessary to act. The V4 will likely look south toward the Black Sea and north toward the Baltics for partners and allies. They may well ally themselves with other battle groups, for example the Balkan Battle Group (Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Slovenia & Romania) and/or the Nordic Battle Group (Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Norway & Ireland.)
War may not be the natural state of man, as Thomas Hobbes asserted almost 400 years ago. It does, though, reflect cultural differences – religion being the most important, but also factors such as trade and geography. Self interest governs states, and immutable differences have been resolved by conflict over thousands of years. We would like to believe that war in Europe is impossible; however, in the decade and a half before 1914, most observers of Europe did not predict the unbelievable slaughter that would become their fate.
At a time when America’s focus is dissecting the special election in New York’s 26th Congressional District and Europeans are attempting to thwart what seems like an eventual restructuring of Greek debt, these events in distant Central Europe may seem like small beer. “However,” as George Friedman writes, “sometimes it is necessary to recognize things that are not yet significant, but will be in ten years.” This could be one of those times. The Visegrad Battle Group bears watching.
Thought of the Day
“The Visegrad Group”
May 25, 2011Europe has become a focus of attention principally because of the political and financial instability in the region, an instability driven by nations falling into one of two camps – the parsimonious or the profligate. However, there are other developments worth watching, one of which has the potential to be consequential, and that was a decision last week by the Visegrad Group (V4) to form a “battle group.” Last week George Friedman wrote in Stratfor: “The obscurity of the decision to most people outside the region should not be allowed to obscure its importance.”
The V4 is comprised of four countries: The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. All are current members of the European Union; Slovakia is a Euro Zone member. All four are members of NATO and, naturally, all were members of the Warsaw Pact prior to its dissolution in early 1991.
The four countries, comprising a part of what is termed New Europe; sit between two historic enemies of each other and of the region – Russia and Germany. The history of the pact has its origins in 1335 when the leaders of Bohemia , Hungary and Poland met at Visegrád Castle in Hungary. They agreed to create new commercial routes, as a means of bypassing Vienna and to obtain easier access to Western European markets. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the three countries – then Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland – met on February 15, 1991 in the town of Visegrád and formed the Visegrad Group as a means of promoting their specific interests.
As a stand-alone group, the Visegrad Group has the fourth largest population in Europe (22nd in the world) and Europe’s seven largest economy (13th in the world.) Its original purpose in 1991 was to create a regional framework, with the purpose of joining the European Union and NATO.
The battle group would be placed under the command of a Polish general. It would be in place by 2016, as an independent force that would not be under NATO command. However, beginning in 2013 the four member countries would begin joint military exercises under the auspices of the NATO Response Force.
Factors that prompted the decision include:
A) Fear of the growing power and reach of Russia.
B) A perception of a developing weakness regarding a unified Europe.
C) Recognition of a fragmenting NATO.
Poland, the largest of the four members, borders both Germany and Russia and in the past 75 years has been occupied by both. As a buffer between the two, they realize they would be in the vanguard of a push from either direction. Russia under Putin and then Medvedev, over the past ten or fifteen years, has overthrown the conciliatory posture of Boris Yeltsin. The country has taken on a more aggressive attitude toward “influencing” its former satellites. Georgia was successfully invaded in August 2008. Friedman suggests the year 2008 may well mark the end of the first stage of the post Cold War era. Germany’s warming relations with Russia – a need for Russia’s energy and a need by Russia for Germany’s capital – send chills through Central European states. These countries, which spent forty-five years enslaved within the Soviet sphere have less confidence than we in the West do that the Cold War is only a memory.
A Europe increasingly split between the north (ex Ireland) and the south – between creditors and debtors – has lessened conviction of the long term sustainability of the union. They question Germany and France’s motivation in the recent crisis. Are they acting in the interests of a unified Europe, or are they protecting there own financial institutions? Europe, according to this analysis, has lost some of its allure.
The Libyan conflict has demonstrated a fragmentation between the France, Britain and Italy on one side and Germany on the other. How certain can the Visegrad Group be that NATO would come to their defense should the need arise? The United States, under pressure from Russia, has backed away from installing a missile defense system along Poland’s eastern border. America has pledged one brigade (about 5000 soldiers) to the defense of Poland, in the event of a conflict. (Russia, in 2007, had an army of 1,200,000 troops, with reserves of another 754,000.) Libya has also shown that NATO, absent U.S. leadership, is generally ineffectual. Here is an organization consisting of twenty-eight members including the U.S., in its 10th week of air attacks, authorized by the U.N. that has proven incapable of unseating the dictator of a country of 6.4 million people, a country geographically the size of Alaska, with an army of 50,000, including reserves.
Forming a battle group for their own defense was surely not a consideration when twenty-years ago these countries emerged from the yoke of Communism. The decision to do so must have been anguished, and it means valuable resources will have to be diverted from economically more productive venues. However, they felt it was necessary to act. The V4 will likely look south toward the Black Sea and north toward the Baltics for partners and allies. They may well ally themselves with other battle groups, for example the Balkan Battle Group (Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Slovenia & Romania) and/or the Nordic Battle Group (Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Norway & Ireland.)
War may not be the natural state of man, as Thomas Hobbes asserted almost 400 years ago. It does, though, reflect cultural differences – religion being the most important, but also factors such as trade and geography. Self interest governs states, and immutable differences have been resolved by conflict over thousands of years. We would like to believe that war in Europe is impossible; however, in the decade and a half before 1914, most observers of Europe did not predict the unbelievable slaughter that would become their fate.
At a time when America’s focus is dissecting the special election in New York’s 26th Congressional District and Europeans are attempting to thwart what seems like an eventual restructuring of Greek debt, these events in distant Central Europe may seem like small beer. “However,” as George Friedman writes, “sometimes it is necessary to recognize things that are not yet significant, but will be in ten years.” This could be one of those times. The Visegrad Battle Group bears watching.
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