New Statesman: The next 100 years
...There are three nations that are already major or emerging regional powers that will be important to the US in dealing with Russia in the next decade or so: Japan, Turkey and Poland. Japan is already a great power. It is the world's second-largest economy, with a far more stable distribution of income and social structure than China. It has east Asia's largest navy - one that China would like to have - and an army larger than Britain's (since the Second World War, both Japan's "army" and "navy" have officially been non-aggressive "self-defence forces"). It has not been a dynamic country, militarily or economically, but dynamism comes and goes. It is the fundamentals of national power, relative to other countries, that matter in the long run.
Turkey is now the world's 17th-largest economy and the largest Islamic economy. Its military is the most capable in the region and is also probably the strongest in Europe, apart from the British armed forces. Its influence is already felt in the Caucasus, the Balkans, central Asia and the Arab world. Most important, it is historically the leader in the Muslim world, and its bridge to the rest of the world. Over the centuries, when the Muslim world has been united, this has happened under Turkish power; the past century has been the aberration. If Russia weakens, Turkey emerges as the dominant power in the region, including the eastern Mediterranean; Turkey is an established naval power. It has also been historically pragmatic in its foreign policies.
Poland has the 18th-largest economy in the world, the largest among the former Soviet satellites and the eighth-largest in Europe. It is a vital strategic asset for the US. In the emerging competition between the US and Russia, Poland represents the geographical frontier between Europe and Russia and the geographical foundation of any attempt to defend the Baltics. Given the US strategic imperative to block Eurasian hegemons and Europe's unease with the US, the US-Polish relationship becomes critical. In 2008 the US signed a deal with Poland to instal missiles in the Baltic Sea as part of Washington's European missile defence shield, ostensibly to protect against "rogue states". The shield is not about Iran, but about Poland as a US ally - from the American and the Russian points of view...
...Russia cannot survive its economic and demographic problems indefinitely. China must face its endemic social problems. So, imagine an unstable, fragmented Eurasia. On its rim are three powers - Japan to the east, Turkey to the south and Poland to the west. Each will have been a US protégé during the Russian interregnum, but by mid-century the US tendency to turn on allies and make allies of former enemies will be in play, not out of caprice but out of geopolitical necessity.
Two of the three major powers will be maritime powers. By far the most important will be Japan, whose dependence on the importation of virtually all raw materials forces it to secure its sea lanes. Turkey will have a lesser but very real interest in being a naval power in the eastern Mediterranean, and as its power in the Muslim world rises it will develop a relationship with Egypt that will jeopardise the Suez Canal and, beyond it, the Arabian Sea. Poland, locked between Russia and Germany, and far more under US control than the other two, will be a land power.
US strategy considers any great power with significant maritime capabilities a threat; it will have solved one problem - the Russian problem - by generating another. Imagining a Japanese-Turkish alliance is strange but no stranger than a Japanese-German alliance in 1939. Both countries will be under tremendous pressure from the established power. Both will have an interest in overthrowing the global regime the US has imposed. The risk of not acting will be greater than the risk of acting. That is the basis of war...more...
