December 19, 2006
Column: Five events that changed the world in 2006
When Chou En-Lai was asked about the long-term impact of the French revolution, he famously replied: “It’s too soon to tell.” That sort of lofty vagueness can earn you a reputation for great wisdom if you happen to be a Chinese revolutionary leader. But for a journalist to adopt a similar approach would be professional suicide – rushing to judgment is all part of the job.
So, in that spirit, my offering this week is a shortlist of the five most significant events of 2006. Here they are, in chronological order.
January: Russia blocks gas supplies to Ukraine. A cut-off of energy supplies between two neighbouring countries, which lasted just a couple of days, could have been trivial. But Russia’s decision to turn off the taps to Ukraine marked the moment at which western Europeans began to feel directly threatened by developments inside Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The cut-off temporarily affected supplies to western Europe. That underlined both the European Union’s growing dependence on Russian energy and Russia’s willingness to use energy as a political weapon.
This is an extract from Gideon’s regular FT column. You can read the remainder here, or comment below.
