World expects U.S. foreign policy turnaround

BERLIN, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- All eyes will be on U.S. Vice President Joe Biden at this week's 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy, where the world hopes to learn about a foreign policy turnaround in Washington.

The Feb. 6-8 conference, which draws political leaders from all over the world, is a major venue for backroom politics and high-profile speeches. In 2007 Vladimir Putin, then Russia's president, accused Washington of provoking a Cold War-like arms race with its plan to place ground-to-air missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic; it was the start of a major downturn in Russian-American relations.

This year the world is eagerly awaiting the first major security policy speech of a member of the new U.S. administration.

President Barack Obama has promised to undo the Bush Doctrine, and instead bank on multilateralism and calm-headed negotiations. European observers hope that as a result, the West's conflict with Iran and the constant bickering with Russia finally will come to an end.

While Obama won't attend the conference, he will send Biden to Bavaria, a sign that "America wants to make its first serve when it comes to foreign policy here in Munich," said Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German ambassador to the United States who is chairing the conference.

Political heavyweights such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Afghan President Hamid Karzai also will attend, but it's Biden who likely will be the star in Munich.

Observers anticipate his speech will extend a negotiation offer to Iran to end a 30-year diplomatic silence that some say is preventing progress in the nuclear conflict with the Islamic Republic.

They are eager to then hear a reply from Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, a former lead negotiator on the nuclear issue who will be attending the conference.

Significant improvement could also come to troubled relations with Russia.

In Washington, "there is a new kind of realism about dealing with Russia," John Hulsman, a trans-Atlantic expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, told United Press International in a telephone interview Wednesday.

U.S.-Russian relations since the turn of the millennium have been marked by emotional ups and downs. Bush and Putin got along extremely well in the beginning and extremely badly at the end of the Texan's eight years in office.

Because of Putin's muscle-flexing, the Bush administration tried to minimize Russian influence in Europe (for example, regarding energy supplies). Obama's camp, Hulsman said, has understood that Russia's economic influence in Europe is here to stay for at least another decade or so.

There are reasons to be optimistic regarding U.S.-Russian relations. The Kremlin has been angry about NATO's eastward expansion and U.S. missile plans for Eastern Europe, and both may now be given up.

Ukraine's chances of getting into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have been lessened by the latest gas row with Russia, and Obama also indicated he might be willing to scrap the controversial missile defense program initiated by the Bush administration. Obama's team is "questioning the science and the money" of the project, Hulsman told UPI.

This development has pleased the Kremlin, which recently backpedaled on its own rocket plans.

"Russia does not need to place Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad if a U.S. missile defense shield is not going to put fear into Eastern Europe," Russian news agency Interfax quoted an unnamed Russian official as saying.

For Hulsman, ditching the U.S. missile defense project makes sense.

"You give up something you don't much like, and you get something in return from Russia" -- for example, increased cooperation in dealing with Iran, he said.

Increased cooperation -- that's something Biden will likely ask of America's allies in Afghanistan.

It's an open secret that Washington wants large European nations -- for example, Germany -- to take on additional responsibilities in the war-torn country. And for all the enthusiasm in Berlin about Obama, direct requests for more troops or increased military engagement in the volatile southern provinces of Afghanistan will not go down well with the German government.

"When Biden will speak about Afghanistan, the Germans will look at their shoes," Hulsman said.

Germany currently has some 3,500 troops stationed in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. Their role is restricted to reconstruction efforts and training missions in the northern provinces. Berlin so far has refused to have its troops take part in the casualty-heavy fighting in the south and east of Afghanistan.

Yet as Obama has pledged to send as many as 30,000 additional U.S. soldiers to Afghanistan, it is unthinkable that European powers will get away without beefing up their commitment as well.

Germany and others will have to get ready for "doing tough things for the greater good," Hulsman said.