Things seems to be progressing quietly behind the scenes in Eastern Europe, since the usual trouble makers are busy throwing good money after bad on Wall St... Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
It's still applies- perhaps because they see in Saakasvili an incompetent fool just like the commanders of the light brigade were.
the beatroot: Sikorski with Laughrov
The New Cold war looks like this. Bit of a laugh, innit? (photo)Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov was in town today. The meeting with Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski was keenly anticipated by the media commentariat. Would Sergei the Russian Bear be taken to task by Rad the Eagle? Or was Lavrov going to roast the eagle on a spit? After all, it's Sikorski's signature on the anti-missile shield agreement. ... So tension was high in Warsaw's Foreign Ministry this morning. And then...nothing really happened. ... The only tricky bit came when Sikorski brought up the embarrassing antics of some of Russia's generals. They love to get in the newspapers threatening to nuke Poland from the face of the universe. Which is quite rude, isn't it? But all in all, this was not the hyper aggressive Russia we have seen, on occasion, recently. The historic fear of Russia in Poland is entirely understandable. But having an ahistorical fear of them is not. Russia is in a very new place right now. It has economic power, not military. It will try to hang on to as much territory as it can. It does so because it feels threatened. It's from weakness not strength that Moscow is authoritarian and can bully. And we should always ask ourselves: can the US, UK etc really accuse Moscow of being the bullyboy when they have taken it upon themselves to act like the world's policeman/humanitarian social worker - whether the `client' wants it or not - since the end of the Real Cold War.? Beware the bear with a thorn in its foot. But in the end Russia needs the West as much as the West needs Russia. All talks and disputes should take that as their starting point.
The New Cold war looks like this. Bit of a laugh, innit?
...
So tension was high in Warsaw's Foreign Ministry this morning.
And then...nothing really happened.
The only tricky bit came when Sikorski brought up the embarrassing antics of some of Russia's generals. They love to get in the newspapers threatening to nuke Poland from the face of the universe. Which is quite rude, isn't it?
But all in all, this was not the hyper aggressive Russia we have seen, on occasion, recently.
The historic fear of Russia in Poland is entirely understandable. But having an ahistorical fear of them is not. Russia is in a very new place right now. It has economic power, not military. It will try to hang on to as much territory as it can. It does so because it feels threatened. It's from weakness not strength that Moscow is authoritarian and can bully.
And we should always ask ourselves: can the US, UK etc really accuse Moscow of being the bullyboy when they have taken it upon themselves to act like the world's policeman/humanitarian social worker - whether the `client' wants it or not - since the end of the Real Cold War.?
Beware the bear with a thorn in its foot. But in the end Russia needs the West as much as the West needs Russia. All talks and disputes should take that as their starting point.
I don't think it's deliberate distraction so much as bumbling from one crisis to the next, repeating free market ideology robotically, and - in some of the more extreme cases - secretly believing the Empire never really died.
The case is so obvious that we could conclude that the British are, in this small world of the Georgian crisis, very much isolated by their absolutely intransigent discourse. We don't know the concrete and direct reason of this "policy"
In other words, the British political class is acting on a 150-year-old reflex. A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith
