Nosemonkey's EUtopia

September 11, 2008
by Nosemonkey
4 Comments

The Irish are stupid, apparently

I don’t even have to check the usual eurosceptic sources to know how the Irish government’s research into the reasons for the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty is likely to be interpreted. Because, you see, they’ve found that the reason for the No vote was that the Irish people didn’t know enough about the treaty.

Cue screams of outrage from the eurosceptic hoardes: “You see! They’re going to tell us we don’t know what’s good for us! The people are stupid! They’ll press ahead with it anyway because they can use this to show we can’t be trusted! The elitist bastards!”

Well, perhaps. There are, after all, already rumours circulating of a second referendum being planned for next year – though it’s unlikely to be before the European Parliament elections or the arrival of the new Commission. But despite the torrent of frustrated voices from across the Channel calling for a fresh vote, read between the lines and it’s quite clear that the Irish government itself has made no such plans. Yet. Hell, even the latest suggestions of a fresh vote stem merely from a briefing paper prepared for the French EU presidency – and we all know that Sarkozy’s in favour of forcing the thing through (why else would he deny the people of France a vote on a treaty so heavily based on the constitution. Briefing papers – despite the spin – are not official EU policy.

But the thing is, this new research tells us nothing new. We knew ages ago from exit polls and countless surveys before the vote that one of the major reasons for the Irish No was that the treaty (and the constitution before that) was simply too complex, vague and self-contradictory for its own good. In trying to be everything to all people during the tortuous negotiations between the various EU member states, it ended up having all the usual characteristics of a bad compromise worked out in umpteen languages – wording that could be interpreted pretty much any way you like. Not much good for a legal document – and a disaster for its advocates, as every pressure group with a grudge was able to find something to worry about.

In other words, the reason that the Irish people didn’t understand the Lisbon Treaty is because it was rubbish.

Does this mean it shouldn’t be ratified anyway? Well, that’s up to the Irish government. The EU certainly shouldn’t (and under the present rules can’t) progress without unanimity on the treaty. And if one thing is certain to bolster the anti-treaty vote, it’s a bunch of Johnny Foreigners telling the Irish that they’re stupid. Ireland’s had enough of a bunch of foreigners painting them as idiots and telling them what to do – and look how well that turned out for the foreigners in question…

September 10, 2008
by Nosemonkey
5 Comments

Sorry, you’re just not European enough

Better luck next time, Ukraine.

One of these days the EU powers that be are going to realise that when you’ve got countries torn between a European and non-European identity, to keep on telling them “sorry, you’re not European enough yet” is just going to drive them into the other camp.

How much longer are the likes of Ukraine and Turkey going to put up with these repeated, very public rejections before heading off to the waiting embrace of Moscow or non-secular Islamism?

If I were a westwards-looking Ukrainian, I’d be getting very pissed off about now:

Ukraine will have to make do with an “association agreement” with the EU, a pact that for Balkan countries such as Albania, Macedonia and Serbia represents the first step on the path to membership, but for Ukraine carries no such implications

So Ukraine’s less welcome than tiny Albania and Macedonia? Less welcome than Serbia, a country built on a genocidal civil war and still in dispute with much of the EU over the status of Kosovo?

Yeah, cheers for that. Really encouraging. Nice one.

The promise of future EU membership can be a force for good, inspiring positive shifts towards greater democratic freedoms. But the promise has to be made. Taking a carrot and stick approach is a tried-and-tested method for getting people to do what you want – and that goes for countries too. Yet in the case of Ukraine, the EU’s carrot would appear to be largely imaginary – while at the same time, Ukrainians know that Russia has both stick and carrot, and isn’t afraid to use either.

September 6, 2008
by Nosemonkey
9 Comments

Can I sue Iain Dale?

Being labelled a left-wing blogger in Iain Dale’s latest unscientific guide to the world of British blogging is one thing (though something I was not alone in thinking was somewhat odd – check the comments below that list). Sometimes I do go a bit lefty – just as sometimes I go a bit right-wing (mostly economically, but still). A casual reader could be forgiven for getting the wrong impression.

But I’ve just had a gander at the full version (warning – PDF) – and he’s got me down as a Labour blogger.

I’ve been doing this blogging business for long enough not to take these things too seriously, as – like busses – there’ll be another one along in a minute. (Only 155th best political blog in the UK according to that list? Meh – last month I was named blog of the month by the UK Good Web Guide, whatever that is. Best blog lists are ten a penny.)

But still. Me? A LABOUR blogger? That’s one insult too far.

I am not, nor ever have been, a member of ANY political party. Indeed, I hate the very concept of political parties. At the London elections back in May I voted for four different parties in the end, allocating those votes largely on the basis of the individual politicians concerned. That post, please note, has been (for reasons that escape me) in the “Most Popular Posts” section to the right there for the last couple of months. Anyone confused as to my political leanings could have found out in just a couple of seconds that I am not a party beast.

I rarely get too riled by online insults – but this isn’t just an insult, it’s a slander. A libel. I’ve long prided myself on my lack of party affiliation – to the extent that, on principle, I refused to join the party of the MP I worked for at the House of Commons. Especially in the current climate, with Labour ever more embarrassing in its ineptitude, I am not at all pleased.

September 5, 2008
by Nosemonkey
1 Comment

European Commission: It’s not racist to target a particular ethnic group for police persecution

Good news for fascists today – according to the EU, it’s no longer racist to target a particular ethnic group based on folklore that suggests they’re all criminals.

Up next from Italy and the EU, fresh policies to deal with the threat of witchcraft from little old ladies with pet cats (mostly involving rivers, rocks and bonfires), special breeding programmes to provide more hunchbacks so we can rub their humps for luck to get out of the credit crunch, and a new drive to round up all Jews into ghettoes to prevent them from using their vast wealth and international network of spies and accomplices to secretly rule the world.

El Pais has more (in Spanish – or automatically translated)

September 4, 2008
by Nosemonkey
7 Comments

Ukraine between East and West

Ukraine Ukraine’s Orange Revolution was always painted (in the western media, at least) as a conflict between western-looking Yushchenko and the eastern-looking former Prime Minister Yanukovich, the man whose suspect election to the presidency sparked popular protests and an eventual turnaround back in November 2004. Yushchenko was, it is alleged, the target of an assassination plot backed by Moscow, while Yanukovich was merely backed by Moscow. When the Revolution got its way and Yushchenko came to power, it seemed the West had won.

But it was never going to be that simple, or that easy. After countless disputes between Ukraine’s various political factions over the last four years, another post-Orange Revolution government is nearing collapse thanks to yet another spat between former Orange allies President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko – and all as the aftermath of the Georgia crisis continues to rumble with the US handing Saakashvili a tidy $1 billion in reconstruction money (otherwise known as a fiscal two fingers to Moscow), and Russia announces a review of its global trade relations. Although the EU may account for 31% of Ukraine’s export market, Russia makes up 21% – and after the various spats over gas supplies over the last couple of years, you can be sure that Ukrainians are somewhat worried about just what Moscow may have planned to reassert the influence she lost with the fall of former President Kuchma back in 2004.

And so it would appear that the spread of the Georgia standoff does indeed seem likely to spread to Ukraine.

The thing is, though, that even without the squabbles between the various political leaders, the position of Ukraine was never going to be resolved by a simple election. Did Yanukovich try to steal the election back in 2004? Quite possibly. But that still doesn’t alter the fact that the country’s vote was split almost exactly down the middle.

Of course, it’s easy to label this an East vs West thing, and that’s part of it. But the actual reason is cultural and linguistic. Ukraine’s just like Belgium, in fact. The parallels are painfully evident:

Belgium and Ukraine by politics and language

You see, just as Belgium has a north/south split between Flemish and French speakers, so too it has a north/south political divide. And in Ukraine, there’s a northwest/southeast split between majority Ukrainian speakers and Russian speakers, echoed in political support for the “west-leaning” Yushchenko/Orange Revolution in the northwest and “pro-Russia” Yanukovich in the southeast.

So, why does Ukraine have the borders that she does? They’re a fairly recent creation, after all – with the origins of Ukraine lying in the medieval Kievan Rus’, which stretched north from Kiev through modern Belarus and Poland to the Baltic, not south and east to the Black Sea. It went on to be absorbed into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (covering much the same area – but again missing out the south and east of modern Ukraine, which was part of the Crimean Khanate, before being sucked into the similarly vast Kingdom of Poland via the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Check the maps below (very rough, I know) charting Ukraine’s geographical history up to the 19th century (when it was absorbed by the Russian Empire) – notice something?

Historical geography of Ukraine

Yep – that’s right. The Russian-speaking, Yanukovich-voting part of modern Ukraine was not, historically, part of Ukraine – it’s a later addition tacked on during the Russian Empire. During the chaotic times following the Russian revolution and around the Ukrainian War of Independence of 1919, the northwest that tried to break away as a Ukrainian state (actually, several Ukrainian states, after repeated failures to consolidate their position), while the southeast (briefly) went its own way as the Crimean People’s Republic. It was really only under the Soviets – who took the Tsars’ attempts to crush the Crimean Tatars and put down Ukranian nationalism (especially after the Second World War, where Ukrainian nationalists fought both the Russians and the Germans, depending on who was occupying the area at the time, in a campaign that lasted until 1956) to the usual near-genocidal extremes – that Ukraine’s current borders began to be fixed. In fact, you can even put a precise date on it – 19th February 1954, the day the Crimean Oblast was transferred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

So here’s the question. If northwestern Ukraine is the linguistic, cultural and historical hub of the Ukrainian people, and southwestern Ukraine has only been spliced on within living memory, why persist with the pretense that the current borders of the modern Ukrainian state are actually meaningful? They were created by the Soviet Union as a handy administrative division, not based on any of the usual factors that go into the creation of a coherent state. Artificial borders have, time and again, led to conflict and division – be it via European colonialism in Africa or the carving up of the Middle East after the First World War.

If Ukraine really is torn between east and west, in other words – and it is – and if its artificial makeup keeps leading to political stalemate and unrest – and it does – isn’t the logical thing to do to follow the Belgian example and consider splitting the country down the middle? (This would also, one hopes, have the added benefit of shutting Russia up for a while as she regains part of her old sphere of influence – and enable the EU to focus on the more “European” northwest for development and eventual integration.)

Am I serious about this as a suggestion? It’s about 50/50 at the moment. But the longer Ukraine goes without forming a stable government, the more likely an outcome this will be…

September 3, 2008
by Nosemonkey
2 Comments

The EU, Russia and Georgia: Round and round in circles

So, where are we after the EU’s summit on the Georgia crisis? Exactly where we were before the summit.

A few vague tutting sounds in the general direction of Russia, a bit of hyperbole (Hans-Gert Pottering, who should know better, calling the Georgia crisis the worst threat to security we’ve seen since the end of the Cold War), a few vague attempts to blame the EU’s lack of success on the failure to ratify the Lisbon Treaty (rather than, erm… seeing the failure to ratify the Lisbon Treaty as a symptom of the same one-size-fits-all malaise), and little in the way of concrete proposals for how – or if – the EU’s eastern neighbourhood policy should really shift to prevent such situations happening again. (Yes, there are plans in place to strengthen the EU’s ties to its eastern neighbours – but these are nothing new, having been agreed back in June).

With so many countries pulling in so many different directions, Russia’s ended up with not so much a slap, but a faint tap on the wrist – a squeak, not a bark of disapproval. Again.

But surely something’s been achieved, right?

Well, there’s more vague Russian promises of troop withdrawals (that we’ve heard countless times since the invasion – with the Wall Street Journal’s “Stop! Or we’ll say stop again!” headline pretty much summing it up), which have helped them dodge sanctions again. (Not that sanctions are really a very likely outcome no matter what they do, as far as I can tell, but still…). Meanwhile the vague threat – and as yet it’s only a threat – to suspend talks on any future EU/Russian economic deal has been met with Russian tutting in return, effectively trying to paint the EU as over-reacting to a localised issue, while also firmly pointing out Georgian aggression once again. And yet the Russian line about Western hypocrisy remains unchallenged, the propaganda keeps coming (though at least that bit of propaganda has the decency to be entertaining), the Russian leadership continues to do pretty much as it likes, and the Russian people continue to get ever more behind the Kremlin.

Speaking of which, has anything been said or done to tick off the Georgian leadership for its own over-reaction and attempt to forcibly put down the separatist movements within its borders? Has there been any suggestion of the most sensible, logical course of action – holding an EU/OECD-supervised referendum over the status of the two breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Azkhabia to help formalise their self-rule and to enable their leaderships to work out how their economies might function prior to formal independence? You know, supporting independence movements and the principle of self-determination in much the same way we did at the end of the Cold War? Nope. Not a bit of it. Russian accusations of double-standards and hypocrisy continue to have some foundation.

And meanwhile, various aspiring EU member states (or even just aspiring closer partners) have discovered something rather handy to help their bid to get preferential treatment from the rich Westerners of the EU: play the Russia card.

The one cause for optimism? There were some sensible contributions from MEPs during the debate that followed the European Council meeting – among the predictable calls for a common defence policy and overkill calls for complete Russian economic and political isolation. A rare indication of the subtlety of understanding that can be present in a chamber of 600+ deputies that seems to be lost in a council chamber of a couple of dozen ministers and heads of state. Yes, the national concerns of the individual MEPs are on show, but so are is a surprisingly reasonable attempt to rationalise a situation that makes no sense.

Nonetheless, the one word that could shatter Russia’s whole pretence of acting in the interests of the people of South Ossetia – Chechnya – remains unspoken. Russians can point to the potential breakup of Belgium, the support for Kosovo’s independence and the suppression of Northern Irish and Basque separatist movements all they like, but that’s to ignore the case study on their doorstep. Because this is very much a Caucasus-wide issue – one that has been rumbling since the fall of the Soviet Union (if not before), and one that threatens to spread once more. Already there are worrying signs that the wider region is flaring up. This potential short-term revival of old Caucasian tensions – along the Armenian/Azerbaijani border just as much as among the myriad Russian republics of the region – needs to be kept in check just as much as any revival of Russian militarism.

Elsewhere, this article in the New York Review of Books provides one of the best accounts of the crisis I’ve found so far – though I’ve yet to see anyone satisfactorily explain why anyone would actually want South Ossetia anyway. It’s a bunch of rocks and mountains, with very little in the way of economic or strategic worth. What’s the point of getting het up over something so worthless?

August 29, 2008
by Nosemonkey
6 Comments

The limitations of the EU in the “new Cold War”

One of the major theories behind the formation of the EU – and one of the successes that has always been claimed – is that by intertwining European economies as closely as we can, future conflict will become impossible.

All very well and good – but Russia’s economy is also closely intertwined with that of the EU. Russia is heavily dependent on EU countries for trade, while the EU is heavily dependent on Russia for energy supplies. So, what exactly can the EU – its economy tied up so heavily with Russia – do to stop the Kremlin pursuing whatever course it likes? Not only is there no consensus among EU member states, but also sanctions will certainly be met with retaliation, probably in the form either of raised gas prices or cutting off of supplies altogether.

It’s like an economic version of the Cold War’s Mutually Assured Destruction, if you will. Back in the Cold War, the USA and USSR largely allowed each other to do what they liked within their respective spheres of influence (be it invading Hungary and Czechoslovakia or installing puppet dictators throughout Latin America), because nuclear-powered direct conflict would be too damaging for both parties. Now the EU faces the same situation, albeit economically – the EU lays on sanctions, Russia cuts off energy supplies, both parties suffer. And yet from a Russian perspective, the EU has been interfering in Moscow’s sphere of influence… It’s not been abiding by the old Cold War consensus.

Russia is not an EU member state. But what if a member state DID go rogue? What if another Hitler or Mussolini came to power in an EU member state, and started acting against the EU’s professed principles of democracy and human rights, flouting both EU and international law? What would the EU be prepared to do to stop them? Would there be consensus? What could the EU actually do in any case? With increasingly interdependent economies, how would shutting out one EU member state be any more feasible than the British government in Westminster suddenly trying to shut out Buckinghamshire?

The idea behind economic integration remains rationally sound, for mutual dependence should indeed breed peace – just as did mutually assured destruction. The alternatives should simply be too unpleasant to be worth considering. The one flaw with Mutually Assured Destruction was if someone who was mad broke the standoff. What happens when you’ve got a state that’s decided to start acting irrationally, or that doesn’t seem to care about the consequences of escalation?

August 28, 2008
by Nosemonkey
10 Comments

What does Russia have to gain?

With the limiting/cutting off of the wealthy European markets for her products that any isolation / “new Cold War” would imply, her economy will end up even more screwed than it is already, further isolating the government from the people. Yes, cutting off energy supplies to Europe would, in the short term, cause a major global economic crash and untold suffering on a scale not seen for decades which would, in the short term, also help boost energy prices and allow Russia to get rich quick via other markets. But in the longer term? Europe will find other energy sources and recover – while Russia’s short term gain will end up as long-term loss, as her finite natural resources run low and the world’s wealthiest markets continue to shun her. As The Economist has noted, “America’s GDP is ten times bigger than Russia’s and it spends at least seven times more on defence. Russia’s economy would fall off a cliff if energy prices slumped and its population, racked by ill-health and inequality, is shrinking by up to 800,000 a year.” How can she keep going if markets are denied her?

Yes, the nationalistic boost will increase the government’s popularity in the short-term (just as it did during the early stages of the Chechen wars), but the current government’s already insanely popular and there aren’t any elections for years, so why bother? Anything short of total moral/military victory will make them seem weak in the eyes of a people they’ve stirred up into a populist frenzy. It’ll have precisely the opposite effect.

On top of that, the semi-paranoid claims that Western powers are encircling her to crush her will become a reality. The blind eye that’s been turned to Russia’s shoddy human rights record, corruption and lack of democracy will start to see once more, and the Western world will, no doubt, start to seriously aid opposition groups, potentially destabilising the current lot’s hold on power. Plus, of course, Russia’s own hypocrisy over the independence of Chechnya may start to become an issue – and cunning Western states may well start taking more of an interest in other national subgroups within the Russian Federation, bolstering their independence movements to destabilise the Kremlin. The Russian Federation, lest we forget, is a country built on conquest that has been held together largely through fear and oppression ever since the days of Ivan the Terrible. From Caucasian regions Ingushetia and Dagestan right through to Siberia (actually not a bad idea…), there are countless parts of Russia that could – with the right incentives and support – be persuaded to start heading the way of the Central Asian republics, and sever their ties to Moscow.

Some of these are more likely than others, of course – and none of this is to say that I don’t have a certain amount of sympathy with Russian accusations of Western hypocrisy (I don’t buy it completely by any means, but they have got a case, and they’ve been telling us for long enough…) – but still. Why? If it’s really just simple nationalism, aren’t nationalist supposed to want to do things in the best interest of their country? Isn’t the aim normally to make the mother/fatherland great once again? How does Russia expect to do that if she pisses off all her trade partners? Or are Russian claims of self-sufficiency justified? Are they genuinely planning a period of splendid isolation? Is that why they’re seemingly becoming so keen to tidy up any remaining border disputes?

It’s all very complex, very confusing. And I haven’t yet read one explanation that covers all the bases. (Hell, even this one leaves out tonnes of relevant stuff…) I was hoping to go into all of this in more detail on the radio last night, but for some reason never quite got the chance…

August 27, 2008
by Nosemonkey
14 Comments

Nosemonkey interviewed: On EU blogs and Russia

Believe it or not, from time to time people actually ask me for my opinion on things, rather than me just spouting out unsolicited words into the electronic ether and hoping that someone may spot them and correct my mistakes.

As such, this evening I’ll be doing the talking head thing on the BBC World Service’s World Have Your Say, trying to come up with a coherent theory about Russia’s current plans and how the rest of the world should respond. (Likely argument? Russia’s being childish and throwing a tantrum, and there’s usually two responses to tantrums: smack them or ignore them. Unfortunately, neither option’s really possible in this case.) Any suggestions much appreciated.

Oh, and some content from this place may soon start appearing in syndicated form on the website of a new PBS world news show – about which more details when I have them. (Check me out – I’m a regular media whore…)

Meanwhile, last week the chap behind L’Europe en blogs got in touch to ask my take on all things Euroblog. The write-up can be found here and is, I believe, the first in a series of interviews they’re doing with leading EU bloggers. Below the fold is a longer version of my somewhat pessimistic take on the state of the EU blogosphere – a taster:

the EU continues to work largely unscrutinised by the public – because us bloggers ARE the public, and if we’re not doing it, who the hell is?

Continue Reading →

August 27, 2008
by Nosemonkey
9 Comments

Russia: The urban myth foreign policy approach

It seems that Russia’s new post-Cold War strategy is based on the urban myth that if you’re approached by a group of muggers you should act like a lunatic, as that’ll confuse them and make them go away. How else to explain Medvedev’s “we’re not afraid of a new Cold War” comments?

I mean, Putin saying that the fall of the USSR was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century is one thing, but wanting the Cold War back? An isolated, starving, impoverished Russia relying on slave labour and a culture of fear to maintain its crumbling infrastructure? He’s not afraid of that?

I’m beginning to think that Putin/Medvedev have seriously misread their hand here. After all, you don’t talk about how

“Russia is a state which has to ensure its interests along the whole length of its border. This is absolutely clear.”

just before heading off to a meeting of, erm… states that share borders with you unless you’re either very confident, or you have no clue whatsoever how to conduct international diplomacy. And all they’re doing by being unpredictable and belligerent is showing Europe and the West that we were right all along to think that Russia was an unreliable business partner, and so to look elsewhere for energy sources. Russia’s acting like the shopkeeper who threatens his customers. Yes, we may put up with it for a while due to the inconvenient locations of the other shops – but other shops there are.

More, hopefully, later. There have been some truly bizarre developments over the last few days, and I’m still trying to get my head past the mental image I now have of Russia as that big kid at school who’d go around trying to bully people, but couldn’t actually throw a punch.

August 22, 2008
by Nosemonkey
15 Comments

Russia: History and humiliation

Two interesting – and thematically related – pieces look at past conflicts in relation the the Georgia / Russia spat over the last couple of days have prompted some thoughts along the old comparative history line (always an interesting intellectual exercise, as long as you don’t take it too seriously or literally).

First, over at Fistful, Douglas Muir looks at the Second Balkan War of 1912, and the impact Bulgaria’s failure to win had on that nation’s subsequent history (short version: bitter resentment, paramilitary reprisals, fighting on the losing side in both World Wars, more bitter resentment). Georgia’s failure to reassert her dominance over South Ossetia, Douglas posits, is decidedly comparible to Bulgaria’s failure to retake Macedonia and other “Bulgarian” territories in the Balkans. Or, as Douglas puts it,

“losses of national territory are hard for any nation to accept”.

Then, on BlogActiv, Stanley Crossick looks at the post-Fukuyama return of history and the possibilities of Cold War Mk.II:

“Cold War II may soon be with us – indeed will be with us – if we have still to learn the cost of humiliating the Russian Bear… Vladimir Putin has stated that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the worst geopolitical disaster of the 20th century: he means it.”

Russia was on the losing side in the Cold War – hell, Russia WAS the losing side in the Cold War. Russia is now weak, with a shaky economy that relies largely on the money of her erstwhile enemies. She has lost large chunks of her former territory, and has to see ethnic Russians and Russian speakers scattered throughout the lands of near neighbours where once those lands belonged to her. Meanwhile, her old enemies in NATO are pushing ever closer to her borders, sucking in former allies and making new treaties with countries that used to be Russia’s friends.

For any country, such post-defeat humiliation would be hard to bear, and breed ever more resentment of the victors – both among the politicians and the people. For a country like Russia, with a long macho culture, such humiliation is even more unbearable. But have we learned our lesson? For we have made this mistake before: Continue Reading →

August 22, 2008
by Nosemonkey
3 Comments

Romania: Truly European

Ah… The 2007 accession states of Bulgaria and Romania… What to make of them? At the time I was both optimistic and pessimistic all at once. A year and a half on…?

After Bulgaria being told off last month (for, y’know, little things like being economically backward, corrupt, and ignoring human rights and the rule of law) now EU agricultural funds have been suspended to Romania due to dodgy management.

Oh dear… Doesn’t look like letting them in was such a good idea now, does it?

The thing is, though, unlike Bulgaria’s blatant unsuitability for EU membership, I reckon this simply shows how much Romania’s getting into the spirit of things. The Commission has suspended payments of just 28.3 million euros to Romania – that’s three times less than France was fined back in 2006 for dodgy use of CAP funds. Mismanagement of EU agricultural payments is a long and noble tradition – by following the examples of France, Britain, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece and Ireland, Romania is merely underlining its commitment to European values.

Makes you proud, doesn’t it?

August 20, 2008
by Nosemonkey
1 Comment

Blogs, Georgia and David Miliband

There’s a rather good look at blogland’s attempts to cover strange going ons in faraway lands of which they know little from the chap behind tip-top Central Asia blog Registan, which is well worth reading in full:

“Elite bloggers often portray their analytical and news-gathering skills as equal or (more often) superior to those of professional journalists… But in the case of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Georgia, the blogging world mostly failed to live up to its promises… Days after the fighting began, even normally excellent sources of analysis and insight… were still linking to the same narrow set of news sources —sources that offered little more than thin quotes from government officials. While this isn’t necessarily a knock on, say, Reuters or The New York Times (it takes a little time to get a correspondent on scene), it is a tremendous failure on the part of the blogosphere, noteworthy for precisely how it failed to deliver on its original promise: breaking out of the mainstream media’s tendency toward groupthink.”

It’s hard not to agree with pretty much every word. I’m no Caucasian expert, and wouldn’t call myself a Russia expert either (hell, I’m not sure I’d even count as an EU expert), so these criticisms apply just as much to this place as elsewhere, but still. From skimming the blogs, you’d never get the impression of the complexity and lack of clarity of the situation. You’ll get constant references to the same news sources. The same bland platitudes about sovereignty, territorial integrity, self-determination, Russia’s Cold War mentality and the like – all repeated Chinese Whispers style from some pundit in some paper somewhere, with little secondary thought, criticism or research applied. Hell, some places are still picking up on my pipelines post as if it’s an amazing new discovery that Georgia is a major point of transit for energy resources, rather than something that anyone who knows anything about the region at all has known about for years.

But you know the really worrying thing? It’s when the British Foreign Secretary ends up taking the same approach as the blogs:

“These actions need to be taken in the context of a clear diagnosis of the events of the last two weeks. For me, the fog of war does not obscure the basic points.”

Well, it should – if armed conflict doesn’t make you question your existing policy of containment of one of the belligerents, then what the hell will? The situation has changed from a year ago when Miliband first decided that escalation of the UK’s ongoing post-Litvinenko spat with Russia was the way forward. Russia has moved its troops into a sovereign nation. The Kremlin has gone from vague threats and subversion (via cyber attacks and withholding energy) into physical attacks. This requires new thinking and new approaches – not least because it shows just how ineffective the existing British strategy towards Russia has been.*

Me? I’m just a blogger, not Foreign Secretary – and yet I’m trying to revise my preconceptions of Russia. I’m reading more widely, researching in more depth, trying to work out how this might play out, and what the best options are for both sides. I haven’t got there yet, but I plan to work at it constantly – because the joy of international relations is that they are constantly shifting, affected by myriad factors, many of which are both obscure and obscured. If a week is a long time in politics, a year is an age in international relations. So why is the British government still pursuing the same course with Russia when the rules of the game have shifted once again?

(* Of course, it could also be a sign that the current policy is working fine and that Moscow is beginning to get desperate… But although I’m increasingly firmly in the “Russia is weak and trying to hide it” camp (as is the decidedly more knowledgeable Registan, I was pleased to note), this strikes me as both worrying and wishful thinking.)

August 19, 2008
by Nosemonkey
8 Comments

Europe’s Russia strategy / Russia’s Europe strategy

NATO, the EU, the former Soviet Union and the new Russian Federation, with Europe caught in the middle So, what is it going to be, exactly? A military response isn’t an option, and Moscow knows it – though quite how far they can push before getting shoved back in return we don’t yet know (Georgia may be strategically important, but isn’t yet a member of NATO; the same goes for Ukraine; but what about Estonia, with it’s sizable population of ethnic Russians and history of tensions with its larger neighbour? We’re all meant to fight for EU and NATO member Estonia – but if push did come to shove, would we?) Economic sanctions are unlikely to have much impact when Russia has such a tight grip of the European energy market and can hurt us far more than we can hurt them. We also can’t risk ceasing to trade with Moscow as winter approaches and Russian gas supplies become ever more vital – whereas they can do without European markets, if necessary.

But one thing is clear – if Europe’s strategy remains unclear, Russia’s seems to have failed. If the aim of the Georgia expedition was, as many have assumed, to reintroduce Moscow’s will to the Western periphery of the Russian Federation, then finally pushing Poland into the arms of the Americans was certainly not the desired result. Especially when Ukraine – that other nascent nation with a history of troubles and a sizeable Russian population on the Eurasian border that some have pointed to as “Russia’s next target” swiftly follows suit.

But still, I’m not sure I buy this whole “extending influence” thing. Not only does Russia seem to have hardened the anti-Moscow attitudes of the old Warsaw Pact EU member states (including among the people, many of whom have, in ex-Soviet countries, had a tendency for rosy nostalgia for the days of communism), but also pushed Ukraine further westwards, and potentially gained Georgia the NATO seat she wanted even though Tbilisi’s recent actions show that the country’s really not ready yet.

But that’s not all. Russia’s also singularly failed to maintain control over Chechnya despite years of fighting, and has even found the conflict spreading into neighbouring parts of the Caucasus – as well as to the Russian capital itself. In Georgia, rather than a disciplined and efficient military manoeuvre, we’ve seen poor targeting, poor discipline, and a seeming lack of ability to decide what the hell to do – having pushed in to Georgian territory and taken Gori, the Russians seem largely to have been milling around trying to look macho for the last week or two, while seemingly ignoring presidential orders. This is, it seems, what you get from a conscript army.

So, when we come to look back on this in a few months’ time, what will Moscow have achieved? Well, she may be able to gain a bit more influence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but those two regions hold little of any strategic value (bar Abkhazia’s apparently rather beautiful stretches of Black Sea coastline). Georgia will continue to be the non-Russian route of choice for Central Asian oil and gas to Europe – only now, undoubtedly, with a far stronger western military presence to guard the infrastructure. Georgia’s chances of NATO membership will have been greatly increased, as will those of Ukraine. The significance of energy dependence on Russia will also have become far more apparent to a far wider group of people (the reason we need to develop alternate energy sources is not global warming, folks, it’s Gazprom…) The threat of Russian instability – long largely ignored by many in the West, desperately hoping that Putin was one of us despite his authoritarian ways – will have become clear. But it should also have become clear that Russia’s army really isn’t much of a threat. A few ill-trained teenagers with battered equipment can cause some short-term chaos, certainly – they can maim and kill and loot and burn as well as anyone. But even supported with tanks, I’m not convinced of the threat of the Russian army any more – or of the minds coming up with Russian strategy. It’s still early days, but as NATO plans its longer-term response this whole escapade is beginning to look like it’s backfired on Moscow.

So, what’s the next step? Well, having been slow to act to the initial violence, the best bet for Europe/NATO is probably to sit back and wait to see what the next move from Moscow is going to be, because they’ve probably already started to realise their mistake. For NATO or the EU to suddenly come out with some hasty, highly public punitive measures is likely to spark further escalation as Moscow seeks to save face.

I can’t see too much direct Russian intervention in Ukraine – bar the usual behind-the-scenes funding – as long as Ukraine’s politicians continue their ridiculous infighting (that’s been going on ever since the damp squib that was the Orange Revolution back in November 2004), as a divided Ukraine is very much in Russia’s interests, something that can be exploited while the West sits back and waits for them to resolve their differences. The most likely option is a revival of the old plan to merge Belarus with Russia – a project that’s been on-off, on-off for years now, and which Russia has previously been the reluctant party to – not worth much to Moscow in real terms (Belarus has little to offer economically), but psychologically important, almost completely cutting off the Baltic states, and giving Russia a border only 150 kilometres from Warsaw.

But how do you second-guess Russia? Moscow doesn’t think like governments in the West. At least, we don’t think they do. Because no one really seems to know what Russia’s up to. We can’t even tell who the next head of state is going to be until they tell us, after all. There are countless conspiracy theories about what Russia’s plan is – from shadowy groups of ex-KGB men plotting a global takeover to shadowy groups of ultracapitalist gangsters trying to wring as much money out of everyone as possible – and none of them are entirely convincing.

The old question “cock-up or conspiracy” should always be met with the answer “cock-up” until you’re presented with some very compelling evidence to the contrary. Russia’s Georgia escapade looks rather like it was designed to be a conspiracy, but it’s one they so far appear to have cocked up. A plan designed to show Russia as strong, powerful, and capable of decisive action has, instead, shown her to be incapable and pushed those she was wooing even further into the opposing camp. This Georgia episode has shown that Putin’s old tough guy act is just that. Russia’s prepared to bully those littler than her, but wouldn’t be able to hack it in a real fight. (Not that I’m advocating getting into a real fight with Russia, obviously – in this case, the best response to the bully is probably to pretend to ignore her while sniggering a bit to make sure she knows we didn’t miss her failure… The embarrassment may just be enough to stop her from trying it again – because image does seem to be everything to this lot.)