February 21, 2007
Russian reverberations
Some events make a big splash the next day - and quickly disappear from the news. And then there are others that take a while to sink in - but which grow in significance, the more people have a chance to think about them. Vladimir Putin’s speech to the Munich security conference on February 10th falls into the latter category.
Putin’s speech was startlingly blunt. He told his audience that he was going to "avoid excessive politeness" and he was as good as his word. The most striking passages were his attacks on American foreign policy. How’s this for example - "Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force - military force - in relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of conflicts." As well as laying into American unipolarity which "can be no moral foundation for modern civilisation", Putin attacked specific western policies on issues like Nato expansion, arms control and missile defence.
The vehemence of his attack took many in his audience aback, even at the time. But senior British, German and American officials seem, if anything, more shaken after having had some time to reflect on Putin’s words. Senator John McCain was in the audience and gave a fairly robust response to the Russian president. But McCain’s people say that some of their Russian contacts have since told them that they should regard Putin’s speech as the equivalent of Churchill’s "iron curtain" speech in Fulton, Missouri. A senior European diplomat says that Chancellor Merkel’s advisors in Berlin were "still reeling" from Putin’s broadside, days later.
A senior British minister says that Putin’s speech fits into a trend of increasing Russian nationalism that has been evident for some time. He says that the British have tried to explain that they support the spread of freedom and democracy to places like Ukraine because they are in favour of freedom and democracy - not because of any desire to encircle Russia.
But Putin does not believe this for a moment.
Western and central Europeans are more and more nervous about Russia - and this is increasingly being reflected in policy, in particular energy policy. Everybody is trying to diversify away from dependence on Russian gas. That is why - for example - the British were delighted to sign a long-term gas deal with Norway and why the Blair government is pushing nuclear power so hard.
There is a worry in Washington and London that Putin’s visceral hostility to unipolarity - expressed so forcefully in Munich - is tempting Russia to take the side of any country that has got on the wrong side of the US - from Iran to Venezuela. Given their permanent membership of the UN security council, that means the Russians could do a lot of damage. But the British see little point in responding to Putin’s speech with a counter blast. Their goal is to try and take the heat out of the situation.
One irony of Putin’s speech could be that it helps to create precisely the kind of informal anti-Russian front that he was complaining about. When Gerhard Schroder was in power in Berlin - and even a few months ago - there seemed to be a fairly clear split within the European Union. The Germans and the French wanted a "pragmatic", business-based relationship with Putin’s Russia. The central Europeans - with recent memories of Soviet oppression - took a much more alarmist view. After Putin’s speech, the alarmists are gaining ground across the European Union.
I have a wholesome view. I watched a recent interview/lecture by Joseph Stiglitz that was distributed with a french economic magazine. Though I am a technical guy but the imbalance created in the world because of economic policies of the USA was so clearly and thoroughly explained that I think the “crying” nations all over the world have all sorts of reasons to say things against the US policies, ranging from International security to global warming. Therefore it’s time for the USA to start listening to the World because an equilibrium is quintessential for any system and the world is full of people not just money and power.
Posted by: Kamal Gakhar | February 22nd, 2007 at 8:07 am | Report this commentSo a ’senior British minister’ tells Gideon Rachman that ‘the British have tried to explain that they support the spread of freedom and democracy to places like Ukraine because they are in favour of freedom and democracy - not because of any desire to encircle Russia.’
Last night I saw on the television a ’senior British minister’ who still seems to be under the delusion that Maliki represents the democratic will of a united Iraqi people against an insurgency animated by a hatred of ‘freedom and democracy’.
In fact as anyone with the faintest curiosity about Iraq knows, Maliki is a Shiite sectarian politician fighting a sectarian war against the Sunnis. The delusions of democratic messianism have already made us accomplices in the reduction of Iraq to a state of chaos far worse than the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. Some emergence from ideological simplicities into the real world might seem overdue.
In the case of the Ukraine, one is dealing with an overlay of different tensions and conflicts. Among them are tensions between different sets of rapacious oligarchs (their power created by Western-sponsored economic reform). Also, there are underlying tensions between parts of the Ukraine which have historically been part of the Russian Empire, and parts which were in recent times first part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and then of Poland.
Ukrainian nationalists commonly looked to Germany. One result is that underlying some of the recent tensions is the fact that the groups involved were on rival sides in the most savage and brutal war in human history.
This is a complex situation which demands some sensitivity, not a narcissistic accomodation of complicated realities into our Manichean fantasies.
In relation to the energy issues, simple self-interest suggests a number of matters that need to be considered.
1. How feasible is it radically to reduce European reliance on Russian energy? Alternatives do have problems — other gas sources are not in particularly stable areas, for example, while a large expansion in nuclear power is not entirely without problems.
2. How far is the availability of energy from Russia purely a matter of market relations, and how far is it affected by the quality of political relationships? This is partly a question about how far we may be moving into a more mercantilist world. Recent comments by, for example, Nikolai Petro and Alexander Rahr have expressed concern about the possibility of Russia moving towards an energy alliance with the expanding eastern economies. Do we need to be worried about this prospect or not?
3. Is there an inherent tension between measures to strengthen energy security in Europe and projects for liberalisation of energy markets.
Perhaps there are indeed no costs for Europeans in lurching into a new Cold War with Russia. But — as was not the case in Iraq — problems should be confronted before we do this, rather than after.
Posted by: David Habakkuk | February 22nd, 2007 at 9:35 am | Report this commentIt’s a pity that the reeling Germans and their Western European cohorts did not reel much when Dick Cheney made his anti-Russian speech in Vilnius in May 2006:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060504-1.html
Robert Gates said one cold war is enough, pity he didn’t say it to Dick Cheney, and doesn’t the present installation of US Missiles in Czech and Poland remind people of the lead up to the Cuba Missile crisis?
Why should the US feel entitled to have its paws around the windpipes of other nations? What is wrong with the Americans who bomb other nations in the name of freedom and democracy and expect others to see their aggressive state terrorism and sponsoring of medieval dictatorships across the energy rich Third World in a good light?
How does the senior British minister reconcile his support for freedom and democracy in places like Ukraine with reports such as the enclosed which makes a good case that the British government is recruiting and training terrorists to heighten ethnic tensions in Iraq and Iran?
http://www.infowars.net/articles/february2007/050207FRU.htm
How can the US and her allies lecture others about Human Rights after standing accused of the death of 650,000 Iraqis and after Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and extraordinary rendition?
Putin’s regime is a blood-soaked tyranny, for sure. That he feels able to make a speech like he made in Munich is testimony to the moral and strategic bankruptcy of the Likudnik/NeoCon-directed Bush-Blair regimes and their dirt poor credibility in the eyes of much of the rest of the world.
P
Posted by: Pacifist | February 22nd, 2007 at 4:48 pm | Report this commentIt is interesting to read the accounts of Putin’s speech in Germany. So far I have yet to find an article which mentions the simple fact that Putin’s criticism of American foreign policy is a mainstream view in Europe and getting to be quite common in the United States itself. In a CNN online poll, of 124,000 participants, 73% agreed with Mr. Putin, that “US foreign policy is fueling a nuclear arms race”. It is, in fact, the center of the position taken by both progressives and “realists” alike on the war in Iraq and the possibility of a war with Iran in the near future.
Probably the stony faces of many of the European leaders present can be explained by the fact that they hear the very same opinions that Putin expressed at the conference from their own families, when they are sitting around their dinner tables at home… certainly they hear them expressed in their parliaments and read them in their most respected opinion journals. By speaking so much common sense in such an important forum, with its attending media coverage, Putin has cut the ground out beneath many European conservatives as they try to re-sell the relationship with the USA to their skeptical voters at the same moment when the “CIA flights” scandal is growing daily more embarrassing.
Putin, by giving these views such a significant sounding board, has done a great service to all who are trying to stop another chapter in the neocon saga from being written in the blood of Iran’s civilian population.
http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/2007/02/putin-hits-nail-on-head.html
Posted by: David Seaton | February 22nd, 2007 at 7:57 pm | Report this commentSince the World War 2 ended ,
Posted by: Observer | February 22nd, 2007 at 8:11 pm | Report this comment- How nany times US state bureaucracy and “hawkish” politicians started all sorts of wars worldwide ?
-How`many times USA has supported all sorts of fundamentalists and despots worldwide especially in Latin America, Africa, Middle East ?
-USA has triggerred “Cuban crisis” by installing nuclear missiles in TURKEY first !!!!
-Now USA has started illegal wars in IRAQ and Afganistan, thinking to launch attacks on Iran.
-Moreover, by instaling missiles in Poland and Chekh republics, USA administration is trying again to bully everobody everywhere.
In addition USA financial, fiscal and business policies advised by selfish so called US advisors have lead to economic disasters in Latin America.
I wonder, why politicians are thinking that the rest of the world is not understanding?
May be because of arrogance and total stupidity ?!
What is wrong if Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia unite in making common economic , internal and foreign policies ?
Posted by: Observer | February 22nd, 2007 at 8:16 pm | Report this commentNobody argues about “cousinship” between UK , New Zeland, Australia, Canada and partly USA …
So why slavic nations are not allowed to establish the same ties as english speaking nations are doing ?!
“But Putin does not believe this for a moment.”
Nor should he.
I cannot understand why anyone–much less Angela Merkel and the rest of the German diplomatic corps–should be “taken aback” by Putin’s statements. He is merely declaring the facts. And the Americans are also being disingenuous with their feigned surprise. Really, they are very easily shaken if hearing Putin speak the truth causes such shockwaves.
Posted by: Zwoman | February 23rd, 2007 at 2:29 am | Report this commenton Ukraine:
Posted by: OM | February 23rd, 2007 at 2:53 am | Report this commentthe most active participant - organizer actually, of so called orange revolution in Ukraine was Freedom House. The director of FH is James Woolsey: former CIA director, former under secretary of the Navy, a member of Pentagons Defence Policy Board and Presidents strategic forces commission. Also, DynaCorp , pravite military company, read “mercenary”.
So, the name ” Freedom House” causes “reverberations” related to George Orwells “Ministry of Truth”.
Why is anyone surprised when Putin says what the western public knows to be true? I know parts of rural and small town Russia quite well. From the Latvian border to Moscow. The people are European. Our Leaders do not treat them as Europeans. Just what is the difference between the people on the west side of Lake Pskov from those on the east side of Lake Pskov? Western governments don’t want to think about that or explain it to their citizens. They prefer to confront though there is little to confront.
Posted by: Peter Stollery | February 23rd, 2007 at 10:01 pm | Report this comment