This is more IMPORTANT than Stone: The Editor of the Economist, writes: Edward Lucas in English here (from European Voice) Reasons to feel gloomy about 2014 abound. This year marked the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea, the shooting down of MH17, and the intensification of Russian hybrid warfare against the West, ranging from increasingly dangerous military-aviation stunts to the unleashing of unparalleled propaganda blasts. Inside Russia, the last remnants of independent life were bullied, squeezed and silenced. It was the year when the world as we had known it for decades ceased to exist – but for the most part we did not realise it. True, the West began to respond. The United States and the European Union imposed sanctions and forced the cancellation of South Stream, a Russian gas pipeline that exported corruption and influence even before construction started. NATO created an interim spearhead force which could be deployed in the event of a crisis in the Baltics (let’s hope nothing happens in the next few weeks: it will be ready early next year). True, Russia did not get everything it wanted. It did not create ‘Novorossiya’, linking up occupied eastern Ukraine with Crimea and the Kremlin-backed separatists of Transdnistria. It has not cut Ukraine off from the sea. Ukrainians are broke, but not yet broken: reforms may be starting, albeit 25 years too late, and with dreadfully slim chances of success. The oil price fall has unnerved the Putin regime and its allies. China is not going to save them; instead it is quietly munching away at the Kremlin’s old empire in central Asia. Russians were willing to sacrifice freedom for stability. They may be less willing to sacrifice living standards for demagogy. The question is whether falling popularity matters any more to them than the fading promise of prosperity. But the big story is inaction and ignorance: like homeopaths at a car crash, we stick to what we know, rather than doing what we must. The public, in most countries (Poland and the Baltic states are the exceptions) does not accept that staying safe and free sometimes involves accepting pain, risk and mental stress. Financiers and businessmen are still happy to get their hands dirty in Russia, and howl mightily if obstructed – even though they would be furious if their home countries were run on similar lines. Politicians find it hard to focus on Putin too. Some find his concentrated and decisive rule all too tempting (think Viktor Orbán in Hungary or Robert Fico in Slovakia). On the left, Russia’s anti-Americanism blinds people to the repression, imperialism and ruthless greed of the regime. Oddly, it is much easier for high-minded liberals to blame NATO for breaking promises that it never made than to accept that Russia is waging a colonial war in Ukraine – of a kind that no one would tolerate from an imperial power in Africa. On the right, the Kremlin clock chimes sweetly too. Isn’t the patriotism of the Russian leadership exemplary (never mind that it loots tens of billions of dollars from its people)? Despite the private debauchery at the heights of power there, public religiosity and gay-bashing tickle those in the West who detest their own civilisation’s decadence. The Kremlin’s assault on the rules-based international order is music to the ears of those who find such arrangements a pernicious constraint on their own countries’ sovereignty. The biggest failure is among foreign-policy experts. Some, such as Henry Kissinger and Helmut Schmidt, have huge reputations; others are less distinguished. They hanker for a simple, cynical solution: sacrifice Ukraine’s European aspirations and then wait for Russia to see reason. But homeopathy is just useless. These expert remedies are toxic, and potentially lethal.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 04:24:21 +0000
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