By Vestnik Kavkaza
The 50th Munich Security Conference will begin in Germany on January 31st, 2014. Seven years ago Vladimir Putin made his famous Munich speech which was considered by some Western political scientists as a beginning of a new Cold War.
This time 20 heads of states and governments and more than 50 foreign ministers and defense ministers will discuss the situation in Syria, relations with Iran, crisis in Ukraine, the future of the Trans-Atlantic Union and roles of Russian, the EU, and the USA in settlement of important problems of the international security.
Patrick Keller, coordinator of Adenauer Fund for Problems of Foreign and Defense Policy, thinks that NATO's future is a topic for the whole year: “Withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan is scheduled. NATO has been acting in Afghanistan for 10 years. Germany participated in it actively as well. Germany is the third major power in Afghanistan. And at the moment NATO’s military participation in Afghanistan is announced to be over. And the question is: what will NATO do after Afghanistan? What for will the alliance continue its existence?”
According to Keller, it is important to recover mutual trust between the USA and Germany: “Snowden’s disclosures led to consequences which influenced relations inside NATO. Our task is to identify our mutual interests and spheres for working together. And I think we need common agenda and a program of cooperation with Russia in settlement of crises, for example, in Syria, as well as implementation of the steps which were developed at talks with Iran.”
Wolfgang Richter, the leading expert of Science and Politics Fund, is sure that major problems of the international politics will be discussed in Munich: “First of all, it is Ukraine and Syria. I mean attempts to put the awful war into certain limits, if not to end it. There are general political issues; non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. Iran sent positive signals in recent time. Furthermore, we, I mean Western nations and Russia, should discuss future mutual intensive work on collective security and problems which touch on all of us. I mean international terrorism, unfriendly countries. Today the cooperation is underdeveloped. And there are new threats, for example, terrorist activity in countries which are governed irrationally.”
