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FORUM: 'New Europe' still matters

Edward Lucas' best-selling book, "The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West" (2008) seems to have come out of a time warp. Haven't we heard it all before, a quarter-century ago? Didn't Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin change it all? They did not. It is fast forward into the past.

On the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia has built a new port for nuclear submarines. The first of the eight planned submarines, Yuri Dolgoruky (Dolgoruky was the legendary founder of the city of Moscow), was completed in 2007. The next two also have symbolic names: Vladimir Monomakh (12th-century ruler of Ukraine) and Alexander Nevsky (fought the Catholic West in the 13th century). By 2017, all submarines will be operational. Each will have 12 ballistic missiles of the Bulava type and 10 nuclear warheads per missile. Their range is 5,000 miles.

In 1984, Ronald Reagan placed Pershing missiles in West Germany to protect Europe from a possible Soviet invasion. Hundreds of thousands of American troops were stationed in Western Europe for that purpose.

If Ronald Reagan were president today, he would place a shield against Russian missiles in Poland, the Baltic States, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. These are the pieces of Europe Soviet Russia disgorged as it went through the convulsions of changing its economic system.

"New Europe" is now part of the European Union. It has become its eastern flank. It protects Western Europe from a possible new bout of Russian belligerence (and Mr. Lucas says such a bout is within the realm of possibility).

President Bush wants to do something similar to increase U.S. and European security. He wants to place interceptor missiles in Poland and the radar shield in the Czech Republic.

Russia now has advantages it did not have in Soviet times. Its gas and oil are needed by the European Union. Eventually, Russia will be in a position to dictate conditions for delivery of energy to those states with whom it signs bilateral treaties (and it is in a hurry to do so). One of the long-term goals of Russian policy has been to decouple the United States and Europe. The more EU relies on Russian energy supply, the less reliable it becomes as an ally of the United States.

Therefore, maintaining cordial relations with "New Europe" remains important. The EU's new members are more eager to preserve links with America than "Old Europe."

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