Experts: Munich conference focuses on Russia

Despite the fact that the migration crisis in Europe and the war in Syria were announced as the main topics at the 52th Munich Security Conference, in fact, the main discussion was about relations between Russia and the West, during which Western leaders were divided into two camps, Russian and foreign experts said today, summing up the results of the conference.

A member of the Federation Council Committee for International Affairs, a representative of the executive body of state power of the Ryazan Region, Igor Morozov, noted that the Munich conference should become a space for dialogue between Russia and the West. "It has retained its status as the site where the most pressing problems of world politics are discussed," he stressed.

"Relations with NATO have become tough, the Alliance stopped its contacts with Russia, our advisory body hasn't worked for two years already, and the transfer of NATO's headquarters to Eastern Europe causes concern of our authorities," the senator pointed out.

A deputy of the Bundestag representing the Left Party, Aleksandr Neu, admitted that one could really feel the spirit of 'a cold war' at the Munich conference last weekend, and it was not the Russian prime minister who raised the theme, but his opponents, a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza reports. "I heard the speech of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who spoke in the rhetoric of the Cold War," he said.

The German MP stressed that now the international community is in transition. "The US and the West still want to use the possibility of 'a cold war'. America and the European Union have no desire to recognize growing countries. But right now we can create a multipolar world, though it is necessary to understand that the process of getting used to it is just beginning," the deputy noted.

The political scientist Alexander Rahr explained that "some say that the world order has failed, others say that a multi-polar world is being created. There was a certain unspoken program of the West at the conference, an attempt to isolate Russia. Fortunately, the situation was corrected by the French Prime Minister, he said that they cannot do certain things without Russia," he said.

"I think Medvedev's speech was not aggressive. The thing Russia is doing in Syria alone should have been done a long ago. The Russian Federation has shown that it is a military power, so both America and the EU must take it into consideration now," Alexander Rahr called on.

The political scientist warned that, in his view, the world situation is gradually heating up. "I worry about peace in Europe for the first time. The future NATO member Poland wants to discuss only Ukraine, not Syria. Central European countries incite war with Russia. The US wants to maintain control. The NATO Secretary General's words are also serious, because he speaks not only on his own behalf. It's very dangerous," he stressed.

An expert in the field of disarmament and arms control, a political scientist, Dr. Hubert Tilike, acknowledged that there was no diplomacy at the Munich conference. "It was only about confrontation, they tried to intimidate Russia," he said. "Manuel Valls said that Russia is a great power. Germany, being the OSCE chairman, should play a role so that international issues can be resolved in a diplomatic way. We still have an opportunity, but the question is, how to use it? We cannot constantly follow the US – it is necessary to formulate and represent our own interests," Tilike concluded.

The director of the Center for Political Information, Alexei Mukhin, expects that 'the war of stereotypes' will continue after the conference. "There is a great risk that we won't agree with the West. The United States showed that they are in a phase of self-isolation. In general, the conference stressed the fact that we are in a phase of global changes now," he said.

The Associate Professor of the Department of International Security of the Faculty of World Politics of Moscow State University, Alexey Fenenko, assessed the results of the Munich conference as even more pessimistic. "I'm afraid that a cold war is even an optimistic scenario, we are rather in the period of the First World War, because 'the Cold War' meant a certain stability and playing by the rules. In particular, there are no mechanisms for prevention of conflicts, the dialogue on arms control with the US is completely blocked, there is no dialogue on European security, there is no code of obligations in the event of conflicts with third countries," the expert listed.