This was the conclusion drawn by most of the leaders who attended the Munich Conference
The traditional Munich security conference was attended by a record number of world leaders. It was addressed by US Vice President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicholas Sarkozy, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, and European Union leaders Jose Barroso and Javier Solana, among others.
Their presence confirms that the leading countries need new consultations and a new concept for changing the world order.
Humanity has yet to come up with answers to the major challenges facing it. At the Munich Conference two years ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a blistering attack on the United States for pursuing a one-sided and selfish foreign policy. On behalf of Russia, Mr Putin effectively proclaimed the end of a unipolar world. Moscow should not be provoked by deploying missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic. Instead, a joint effort was needed to change the world order rather than build it according to Western templates. It seems that Mr Putin's words have only now started to sink in. Newly elected US Vice President Joe Biden called for close cooperation between Russia and the European Union in building the new world order, adding that Washington will deploy missile defenses only if the idea proves viable. This amounts to a tentative backtracking on the idea of deploying radars and missile interceptors in Poland and the Czech Republic. Washington promised to seek the opinion of and cooperation with the European Union and Russia before making important foreign policy decisions.
Mr Biden did not call for expanding NATO to include the post-Soviet space. The Western media have dropped the Cold War rhetoric; everybody speaks about a warming of relations between Washington and Moscow. How can we take advantage of this situation? The global financial crisis is approaching its peak. It will be particularly acute in the US, Europe, and Russia in March and April. It is important that at this critical moment all the global actors work together and not against each other. President Sarkozy of France has agreed with Mr Putin's 2007 declaration that the world is not unipolar but multipolar. There is no longer one superpower; the world has several big powers.
Sarkozy called for cooperation with Russia in the energy field. He is basically seeking to play the role of a broker between Moscow and the West, the role Germany played successfully over the past decade. The German Chancellor also spoke about relations with Russia, urging the need for further expansion of NATO to include Ukraine and Georgia. At the same time, she proposed that the West's security interests should be linked to those of Russia.
The German leader was still of the opinion that NATO should be the foundation of the European security architecture. Russia could join it. However, Biden, Merkel, Sarkozy and other leaders endorsed a strategic dialogue with Russia, which will be good news for Dmitry Medvedev. At long last, the West is ready to engage in the dialogue on the new world order - "from Vancouver to Vladivostok" - that he has proposed. What is more, it is ready to discuss it in a practical way. The cause of the problem appears to be the previous Bush Administration, which avoided an equal dialogue with Moscow for ideological reasons. Some speakers in Munich struck a different note, however. Poland and the Czech Republic are unhappy about America's soft-pedaling of the process of deploying missile defense facilities on their territories. Polish Prime Minister Tusk spoke about universal human values as the foundation of a future Europe. The East European representatives have yet to understand that it is impossible to create a strong and prosperous Europe without Russia, or that the Cold War is over.
Alexander Rahr, expert with the German Foreign Policy Council
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