A good source for comment on foreign policy in the former Soviet Union is the website of the Eurasia Heritage Foundation, in my opinion Russia’s best think-tank, and certainly the one with the best English language website.
I saw this rather ominous comment there by Alexander Rahr, Russia expert at the German council on foreign policy and one of the few western Kremlinologists who’s actually a fan of the Putin regime:
“Yesterday I could say that in Europe there were differences in relation to Russia’s actions in South Ossetia. Some countries blamed Georgia for the conflict, others blamed Russia. For example, the French and German settlement plan was strongly supported. They pinned serious hopes on it.
But at present there is a different tendency. The USA has changed the Europeans’ opinion, and the EU and NATO may revise their relations with Russia seriously. Russia may be even excluded from G-8, the Russia-NATO Council may be disbanded, etc.
The Europeans have no political will and desire to be involved in the conflict in the Caucasus. The European politicians will not go beyond the talking stage. That means that the EU is most likely to let NATO play the key role in the settlement of the armed conflict, which would be a serious mistake.
Russia is short of good diplomatic tools to bring its position to Europe. Many Russian diplomats were educated in the Soviet system. They have revised their approaches, and changed a lot. But even now the West would understand only few of them. Europe will not accept the position “if somebody does not understand us, it is not our problems”.
There are quite a few Russians in Europe who have the European mentality. But there are no tools to make Russia’s position clear for the European policy-makers through those Russians.
And, just to get a taste of the nastiness of some Russian foreign policy comment, here is Alexey Arbatov, director of the International Security Centre in Moscow, mouthing off about the ‘public whipping’ of Georgia.
“Theoretically everything is possible, but in practice a world war is unlikely. Some things have changed compared with the First and Second World Wars.
“First, the great powers have developed many common long-term interests. Second, there are nuclear weapons that make victory in war impossible therefore making world wars meaningless. So, such a war is only possible if events escalate out of control. When, for example, a state takes a small step hoping to stop at that but other states retaliate by taking their own steps, the situation can then get out of control.
“Today we are on the brink, not of a new world war, but of a serious complication in relations between Russia and the West. Russia has, at long last, indicated where the “red line” lies: Moscow will not tolerate foreign military-political alliances in the post-Soviet space. Yes, we have surrendered the Baltics (but that was a special case), but Russia will not tolerate anything like that further.
“In general, the public whipping of Georgia is not only connected with South Ossetia, although Georgia provided more than a valid occasion for Russia to launch this action with a clear conscience. There is a background to the issue, namely, Georgia’s bid to join NATO and America’s wish to admit it to NATO. The process has gathered momentum and has provided the background to the conflict.
