One more of excellent writings of Edward Lucas (the politics of wishful thinking) misunderstands the nature of the regime in Moscow. Mr. Putin and his friends do not want win-win solutions. They like win-lose ones. They see concessions as signs of weakness, not as displays of trust. Russia is a revisionist power, which sees the geopolitical settlement of 1991 as profoundly unjust – as bad as the treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1917. It wants to reverse its losses. The main obstacle is America. Now it senses weakness in Washington, and is determined to exploit it. Abandoning Ukraine to its fate would therefore not calm Russia’s nerves, but stoke its appetite. Georgia and Moldova – the two small ex-Soviet republics that still wish to pursue European integration – will likely be the next targets of the Kremlin pushback, once the Sochi Olympics are over. Russia has also already made troubling inroads further west. It has pulled off a stunning energy deal with Hungary, offering cheap gas in exchange for a contract to build a new nuclear power plant. Its gas diplomacy has made inroads in Bulgaria, Croatia and Serbia. It is wielding economic clout in the Baltic States and the Czech Republic. It perceives a new willingness in Berlin to do deals with Moscow, over the heads of the countries in between. cepa.org/content/getting-it-right-ukraine-realpolitik-vs-wishful-thinking-1
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 23:38:20 +0000
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