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bne April 2017 CULTURE I 61 & PEOPLE
ARTS
by successive US administrations, but there was an inevitability about the way that the steep decline of Russia in a unipolar world gave rise to a resurgent nationalism
by this most paranoid and petulant of nations, regardless of how the West had reacted to its overtures in the
first flush of excitement in the post-communist era. As Putin once famously declared, “There’s no such thing
as ex-KGB”: given the spooks began taking hold of the country with Putin’s ascendency, the idea of them opting for a modern democracy based on liberty and the rule
of law simply ignores what makes them who they are.
On the Western side, Conradi appears to lay much of
the Western blame on the presidency of George W. and
his “explicit rejection of the pursuit of international
stability, which had been the basis of US policy since the
end of the Second World War... Now Washington preached intervention, while Russia called for maintenance of the status quo and non-interference in sovereign countries. What to Bush seemed like a neat coincidence of morality and national self-interest looked very different from Moscow.”
Given that those countries at the top of the list for democratisation seemed to be those of Russia’s near abroad (Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine had just had ‘coloured’ revolutions), coupled with disappointment over what little it had got out of the new post-Cold War era and the way it was not treated as an equal by America, it is hardly surprising that Russia, fed by its deep-seated paranoia, thought it was next for regime change and so a retreat into its default anti-Westernism was predictable.
The result was the seminal February 2007 Munich Security Conference speech by Vladimir Putin, which many in the audience, which included German Chancellor Angel Merkel and then US defence secretary Robert Gates, felt “sounded remarkably like the declaration of a new Cold War”.
Of course, it didn’t take long for the Russians to revert to type. As Dick Cheney noted after Putin and his entourage had rudely interrupted a commemoration ceremony for
the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in
Poland in 2005 as a calculated snub to Polish President Kwasniewski, “Watching his behaviour that day reminded me why Russia’s leaders are so disliked by their neighbours and why we were right to expand Nato and offer membership to former Soviet client states like Poland and Romania.”
While Bush and Putin continued to have relatively warm personal relations despite the deteriorating geopolitical situation (though not as close as those of Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin), Obama and Putin got off to a frosty start that got chillier from thereon in. “The reset [in US-Russian relations] that Obama attempted after he came to power was aimed at establishing a new partnership with Moscow. But by the end of his second term he was trying to isolate Russia or ignore it, even as Putin ran rings around him, first over Ukraine and then Syria,” writes Conradi.
Same old, same old
Conradi ends with a look at how the West might get its relations back on track with the Kremlin. Ukraine remains a running sore, and might be best sorted by turning it into a neutral country that acts as a ‘bridge’ between East and West, and making sure the western, pro-EU half of Ukraine is a success to act as draw for the eastern, pro-Russian part. His other suggestions, such as encouraging the young to make more personal ties with Russians, sound insignificant and trite.
In the end, both sides must share the blame: the West and Bush for pushing an expansion of Nato well beyond the bounds of what Russia would accept, like into Ukraine and Georgia; Putin for his country’s isolationism built on paranoia and lies, and a desperate desire for respect that “in Russian eyes so often translates into a desire to be feared”. As Merkel told former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in August 2008 as a ceasefire was agreed in the Russo-Georgian war,
“It is rare that all the blame is on one side. In fact, both sides are probably to blame. That is very important to understand.”
However, Conradi’s ultimate conclusion is the right one: “If anyone is responsible for losing Russia, then it is Putin.” It is the current Russian president who has decided that
to stay in power and keep alive his system that has made himself and his acolytes immensely rich, he has to jettison any semblance of a policy of accommodation with the West and turn it into one of confrontation. “He has come to appreciate that waging war, first against Chechnya, and then in Ukraine and Syria can do wonders for his ratings.”
Unfortunately for the optimists, Conradi disses the idea that once Putin departs the stage, the problems will leave with him. “Looking back another quarter of a century from now, it will likely be the pro-Western Russia of
the Yeltsin years that is seen as the aberration and the assertive, self-assured Putin era that is the norm.”
“Who Lost Russia?: How the World Entered a New Cold War,” published by Oneworld Publications (16 February 2017)
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Selected headlines from past month:
· Czech President Zeman: not so much Moscow’s 'trojan horse' as a symptom of Western malaise
· English farmer ploughs a deep furrow in Russia’s biggest irrigation project
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