power play / 2 when most Western nations decided to recognise Kosovo as a state independent of Serbia against the wishes of Russia and even some EU members such as Spain, they gave a hostage to fortune. Russia is now able to say over Crimea we are only doing what you did over Kosovo. The trouble with behaving like this is that international law and the Security Council don’t, like an elastic band, return to their original shape when stretched. So when it came to Crimea, where Russia was arguably in the wrong, many influential countries in the world, such as India, China, South Africa, Brazil and Israel kept silent and did not vote to back the Western condemnation. (Neither did they support Russia.)
Self-defeating to lose Russia Losing Russia through mismanagement of a crisis is not a very clever thing to do. It means that there will be no more nuclear disarmament for as far into the future as one can see. Trade and financial exchange with Russia’s big and growing market will be hit by sanctions. Nationalism in Russia, even among the intelligentsia, is rising fast. (Remember how, after 9/11, 80 percent of Russians supported the US.) Russia and China will become closer. The US and the EU are shooting themselves in the foot. Former president, Richard Nixon, the author of detente, is presumably turning in his grave. He tried to persuade
President Bill Clinton, gung-ho on expanding Nato to Russia’s borders, despite an American promise to go easy. President Barack Obama, after steering well clear of Clinton-type policy, now is in danger of being dragged down by a similar one. Is he downplaying the many ways Russia cooperates with the West? Russia provides transport on its rockets to the International Space Station, which no other nation is capable of doing at the moment. It supplies engines to US space rockets. It cooperates with the West in combating Al Qaeda and the Taliban. It has granted permission for US war materials en route to Afghanistan to use Russian trains. It has given its permission for overflying to Afghanistan. (Russia shares an interest with Nato in Afghanistan since it lost a million men in its own foolish war there.) Russian support is now needed in the next delicate stage of Nato withdrawal. With Syria it persuaded Bashar Al-Assad to give up its chemical weapons and now has moderated its arms shipments. Not least, it is a positive diplomatic force in pushing Iran to prove to the world community that it has no program to build nuclear weapons. Does the West really want to lose Russia? CT
The US and the EU are shooting themselves in the foot. Former president, Richard Nixon, the author of detente, is presumably turning in his grave
Jonathan Power is a columnist and associate at the Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research in Lund Sweden.
June 2014 | ColdType 45