#2
The Kremlin Stooge
https://marknesop.wordpress.com
March 12, 2015
Oh Lord, Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
By Mark Chapman

Baby, do you understand me now?
Sometimes I feel a little mad
But don't you know that no one alive can always be an angel
When things go wrong I feel so bad.
I'm just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood
Nina Simone

Michael McFaul wants you to know that he is hurt. The Russian outlook has not been so anti-American (and anti-EU) since before 1990 - perhaps since never (thanks for the graphic, Kirill). The United States of America is hated - hated - in Russia in a way it probably was not even during the cold war. And why? Well, because of Putin, of course. Putin the paranoid nutjob, who believes the United States government is trying to overthrow his government and replace it with some supplicant liberal who will allow America a free hand to dabble and meddle to its heart's content. Which America could not be less interested in doing - that's all in Putin's head. Quoth McFaul; "But the more I listen to him directly and the more I saw the activities of his government - they have a paranoid view about American intentions. They believe that President Obama and the CIA want to overthrow Putin's regime and want to weaken Russia and some would even say, dismember Russia. It's totally crazy. I want to emphasize that. There is no policy of regime change in Russia. Unfortunately, however, I think that is Putin's view." (Thanks for the link, Peter) [http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-03-09/putin-isnt-just-trolling-votes-his-dislike-west-real]

A paranoid view about American intentions. There is no policy of regime change in Russia. Hmmm. Forgive me if I find that a little hard to believe.

Probably because it's...what's the word I'm looking for? Oh, yeah - horseshit.

Michael McFaul is an educated man, and the educated man has a weakness - he can seldom resist being seduced into showing off his worldly education, the payback for those year with his nose in the books instead of going fishing, chasing skirt or hanging out down at the pool hall. Michael McFaul is not made of wood, and when he is asked to give the folks back home in Teaneck, New Jersey or Boring, Oregon or Cranky Corner, Louisiana the benefit of his worldly experience and that fine Oxford schoolin', why, he sings like a canary.

Such as: "And, as before, the current regime must be isolated. The strategy of seeking to change Kremlin behavior through engagement, integration and rhetoric is over for now. No more membership in the Group of 8, accession to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development or missile defense talks. Instead there must be sanctions, including against those people and entities - propagandists, state-owned enterprises, Kremlin-tied bankers - that act as instruments of Mr. Putin's coercive power. Conversely, individuals and companies not connected to the government must be supported, including those seeking to take assets out of Russia or emigrate...Mr. Putin's Russia has no real allies. We must keep it that way. Nurturing Chinese distance from a revisionist Russia is especially important, as is fostering the independence of states in Central Asia and the Caucasus." [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/24/opinion/confronting-putins-russia.html?_r=0]

Even, some would say, dismember Russia. Wasn't that what you just said, above, in tones of "do you believe anyone could think something so crazy?" No sanctions on individuals and companies not connected to the government, including those "seeking to take assets out of Russia, or emigrate". Those must be supported. Meanwhile, "fostering the independence of states in Central Asia and the Caucasus" is "especially important". Who says so? Michael McFaul, in whose innocent mouth butter would not melt, said so, not even a year ago.

The United States, Mr. McFaul will have you know, is just misunderstood. The more it tries to help people - well, certain people, anyway, such as those receptive to American global leadership - the more it is accused of low-down, sneakin', backstabbing regime change. The injustice of it!! Why can't the world just accept that American motives are guileless and straightforward, and that America means Russia no harm?

Gee, I don't know...maybe because of stuff like this: "American Efforts at Promoting Regime Change in the Soviet Union and then Russia: Lessons Learned", by Michael A. McFaul. How 'bout that, Michael? Cat got your tongue? Want to take a look inside? Oh, let's do. [http://fsi.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/CDDRL_Working_Paper43McFaulFIN.pdf]

Well, we're off to a great start. "For much longer and with much greater capacity than Saddam Hussein's regime, the Soviet regime threatened the United States. The destruction of the Soviet regime and the construction of a pro-Western, democratic regime in its place, therefore, was a major objective of America foreign policy. Some presidents pursued this goal more vigorously than others: Nixon cared less, Reagan more. Yet, even during the height of Nixonian realism, Senator Jackson and Congressman Vanik made sure that the human rights of Soviet citizens were not ignored."

Mmmm...interesting. The Jackson-Vanik Amendment - which was actually signed into law by President Ford, after President Nixon was taillights, so that it was never in effect during "the height of Nixonian realism" unless we presume it outlived his presidency and carried on after he was gone - pertained only to Soviet Jews. In that context, "making sure the rights of Soviet citizens were not ignored" is painting with a little bit of a broad brush, it seems to me.

At the time the whole argument - replete as usual with sound and fury - was going on about repealing the Jackson-Vanik Amendment so that Russia could join the WTO and maintain the same trading relationship with the USA it would maintain with other members, it escalated into a bitter partisan battle by groups who did not know the first thing about it, only that the honour of Old Glory was at stake. In fact the amendment was inserted into the Soviet-American Comprehensive Trade Agreement, and basically gutted it unless the Soviet Union allowed free emigration to its Jews. Among that group were many who had received a free superior education at a state school of higher learning, and who wished to take it with them to America or Israel to make a pile of money. The Soviet Union said sure, you can go - just as soon as you pay back the state for your education, which is only free if you are going to use it to benefit the state that gave it to you. Unreasonable? You tell me.

The Soviet Union sent a delegation to the USA, to explain its position to the business community; implementing the amendment, it said, would elevate anti-semitism in the Soviet Union, and the 90% of Soviet Jews who did not want to leave would suffer for American meddling, as the rest of the Soviet Union's citizens perceived American favouritism. And it almost worked. Enter Soviet Jewish activists, like the kreakly of today, the group America has never been able to resist - they're just so smart. And they swayed opinion back the other way, and the amendment passed. And stayed in effect until Obama repealed it in 2012, long after it had outlived its usefulness and just in time for it to be replaced by the Magnitsky Act so the United States could go on treating Russia differently than it treated every other nation on the planet, and have a law that said it could.

For the record, Nixon preferred to take the path of "quiet diplomacy" where the Jackson-Vanik Amendment was concerned, and was satisfied with Moscow's concession that it would not implement the "diploma tax". You could call that "Nixonian realism", if you want, but it sounds like "we got what we asked for - why be jerks?" So more or less everything McFaul tells you there about the Jackson-Vanik Amendment is self-serving blather, bullshit and boilerplate.

As to the "capacity with which the Soviet Union threatened the United States", a study prepared by George Washington University's National Security Archive and released in 2009 revealed that the Pentagon and others deliberately exaggerated the Soviet threat out of all proportion, departing on wild flights of fancy to justify ever-larger defense budgets and ever-more-costly weapons systems; "as recently as 1986, the CIA reported that the per capita income of East Germany was ahead of West Germany and that the national income per capita was higher in the Soviet Union than in Italy. Several years later, the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact collapsed, and former CIA director Stansfield Turner wrote that the "corporate view" at the CIA "missed by a mile." So, less writing and more reading for you, Mr. McFaul, if you don't mind a bit of free advice.

"Although the United States is the most powerful hegemon in recent history and maybe ever, the U.S. government has seemed ineffective, weak, and unable to foster democratic development in Russia. This apparent impotence is especially striking when one remembers the strategic importance of democratic development in this country still armed with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. It was democratic regime change inside the Soviet Union that ended the Cold War and made the United States more secure. It will be autocratic regime change that will once again animate a more confrontational relationship between the United States and Russia. And yet, the United States government has not developed an effective strategy either to foster Russian democracy or to help it survive."

It sure sounds to me like you are advocating regime change there, Mr. McFaul.

"What should come first, founding elections or a constitution? Which is better for Russia, presidentialism or parliamentary system? What should be the strategy for dealing with communists and their NGOs-engagement or destruction?"

Uhhhh...were you planning to ask the Russian government about any of this? Or was it just going to be between you and the excited business and cultural elitny who always thought the running of the country should have fallen to them? The elitny who, not to put too fine a point on it, would throw their shoulders against the great wheel of American global hegemony?

"At times, however, officials representing the U.S. government and representatives from the non-governmental organizations clashed regarding appropriate engagement with Russia's "revolutionaries." These American NGOs vigorously defended their independence from the U.S. government and occasionally engaged in domestic"meddling" inside the U.S.S.R. that contradicted Bush's pledge of noninterference. Most of the time, under the steady stewardship of Ambassador Matlock, these nongovernmental worked closely with local U.S. officials. Matlock himself was an active promoter of engagement with Russia's revolutionaries. He hosted dinners and discussion groups with these anti-Soviet leaders and groups at Spaso House, the ambassador's residence in Moscow, including a luncheon with human rights activists with Ronald Reagan in May 1988. These events gave symbolic but important recognition to these new political leaders."

Certainly must have been inspirational, because Ambassador McFaul did just the same thing as soon as he arrived in Russia in 2012 - he had barely presented his credentials before he was hobnobbing with opposition leaders, many of whom had well-documented ties to the U.S. State Department, including Evgeniya Chirikova (NED-funded "Strategy 31"), Lilia Shevtsova (NED-funded GOLOS) and Lev Ponomaryov (NED-funded Moscow-Helsinki Group). Mr McFaul was incensed at the criticism he received from the Russian government and Russian social media for it - regime change? Perish the thought - this is just a meeting of friends, and meeting with the opposition is routine, harmless. Just keep eye contact and continue talking in a soothing, low voice, and the rubes will fall for it, every time. Given the opinions expressed in the referenced text, can there be any doubt that the objective was to pave the way for revolution?

Michael McFaul is as two-faced as a halibut; when he shakes your hand, check to see if you still have your wristwatch when you get your hand back, and it might not be a bad idea to count your fingers. When he says the government he represents is not interested in regime change in your country, a wise man would inspect all the riot-control equipment and get it laid out so it is ready to hand.

The USA never speaks in a conciliatory fashion when it is winning - ever notice that? It's too busy waving the flag and trumpeting about exceptionalism and feats of can-do. Therefore, when it does speak in a conciliatory fashion, it is possible it has realized it is losing. And it doesn't do losing well. A word to the wise is sufficient.

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 #3
Moskovskiy Komsomolets
March 4, 2015     
US sanctions against Moscow seen as well-considered, long-term policy
Mikhail Rostovskiy, 'Sanctions Are A Sign of Obama's Despair?' Don't Make Yourself and the People Laugh

The most serious attempt in the past year to establish peace is being undertaken in the recent zone of combat operations in the Donets Basin, with the most active participation of Russia. And here is all the "thanks" that the Russian side gets for this from across the ocean. America is to extend its sanctions against Moscow for another year. Is this logical? Unfortunately, it is not simply logical, but very logical. The opposite scenario - a scenario involving the lifting, or at least the partial relaxation, of American sanctions -would have been a non-science fiction story.

"War is the continuation of politics by other means," the famous military theoretician, Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz, once wrote. If you paraphrase and expand this wise idea a little, here is the formula that best of all describes the state of affairs in and around the Donets Basin: A truce is the continuation of war by other means.

Absurd? Yes, if by war we mean the armed clashes of the opposing inter-Ukrainian sides. But the point is that armed operations between the supporters of the people's republics and the supporters of Kyiv in the Donets Basin were always only one component of a wider war - the political war between the West and Russia.

In a book published in 1997, Zbigniew Bzezinski, the author of the American strategy of "luring" the Soviet Union into the Afghan war, described Eurasia as "a great chessboard." Beginning from last year, we have all been able to see and feel what happens when a "game" on such a chessboard begins in real earnest.

Western leaders love to argue that Putin thinks in "the obsolete categories of the struggle for zones of influence." This assessment is undoubtedly partly justified. VVP [Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin] does indeed think in "categories of the struggle for zones of influence." But the other part of the truth is that these categories are by no means obsolete, and Western leaders are know this perfectly well. While denying this in every way in public, they are themselves fighting for the expansion of their sphere of influence in practice - moreover, they are doing this with the aid of illegal holds [metaphor from boxing].

One such hold was America's active support for the coup d'etat in Kyiv. As Pushkin wrote in one of his most mischievous poems: "'Listen to what I tell you: I am a eunuch in body, but a man in spirit.' 'But what are you doing to me?' 'I am turning your body into a soul'" This is the West's policy with regard to Ukraine at the beginning of 2014 - one and the same.

But something happened that, evidently, no one in the West had expected. Neither Putin's Russia, nor the forces opposed to the Maydan inside Ukraine, began to move silently in the direction of, still less to pledge an oath of loyalty to, the new rules of the geopolitical game in Eurasia that America is pushing through. The determined strong-arm actions of the West and the pro-Western regime in Kyiv ran up against a less determined response [possibly, a word has dropped out here and this should read "a no less determined response"]. For the first time since 1991, the former Cold War adversaries grappled with one another in earnest.

Here is the interim result of this confrontation as of the beginning of spring 2015: The stake made by Kyiv with the support of the West on crushing their opponents in the Donets Basin with the aid of armed force has not been realized. Now is not the time to say how and why this happened - the time for this is yet to come. Now is the time to observe the most important thing: However much the forces loyal to the Kyiv regime have exerted themselves, the results of their efforts, time after time, has been military defeat.

This is what led to the signing of the new Minsk agreements last month. But an interim result is called  interim precisely because all the participants in the game are still in the mood to continue it. Not having managed to achieve a military victory, Kyiv and the West, which stands behind it, intend now to seek their desired objective with the aid of a combination of diplomacy, threats, and the prolongation of economic sanctions against the Russian Federation.

The steps undertaken by Barack Obama fit into the framework of this approach entirely. America is putting pressure on Russia itself and is putting pressure on Europe to make the latter toughen up its attitude to Moscow still further. This is not "a gesture of despair on Barack Obama's part," as Mikhail Yemelyanov, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee for Economic Policy, has claimed. It is a well-considered and long-term political line that has its own harmonious internal logic.

What can Russia oppose to this well-considered political line? We must recall at every moment that the war in the Donets Basin certainly does not hit the short-term and medium-term interests of America. But the war strikes the interests of Russia - not to mention the interests of the civilian population of the Donets Basin - straight from the shoulder. We need a truce in Ukraine -and not simply a truce for the sake of a truce. We need the kind of truce that would create the favourable external conditions for meaningful talks on a long-term peaceful settlement of the conflict.

I apologize for such an abundant use of the state bureaucratic lexicon. "Meaningful talks," "a long-term peaceful settlement" - when I read such phrases in the official statements of politicians, I am invariably seized by profound boredom. But it is simply impossible to describe certain phenomena without the use of diplomatic jargon.

As long as Kyiv and the West believed in the possibility of a military solution to the "Donets Basin problem," all the talks with the "rebels" were of a declarative rather than a substantive character - talks for the sake of achieving tactical military goals and a favourable external PR effect. Russia and the Donets Basin need talks that are substantive - talks based on the understanding that the Donets Basin "separatists" do not intend to dissolve into thin air and gallantly sacrifice the results of their military victories.

We and the Donets Basin need talks that will not quickly be replaced by war again. We need talks on the principles of a new civilian life - a life in which the principle of the unity of Ukraine will be combined to one degree of harmony or another with the principle of the autonomy of the Donets Basin. Russia needs guarantees of the continuation of Ukraine's nonaligned status. Russia needs an end to NATO's victorious march towards the East. Russia needs the cessation of the acute phase of its conflict with the West.

Are all these goals realistic? I do not know. Let us wait and see. International politics are not an exact science in which one thing inevitably flows from another. International politics are a sophisticated game in which the victor is not  even the strongest, but the cleverest. I very much hope this "cleverest" protagonist will ultimately prove to be Russia. I very much hope that one day it will be possible to talk about "the gesture of despair on the part of Obama" with regard to Russia without bitter and ironic laughter. I hope so - but I do not believe that all this guaranteed.

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 #4
US puts spokes in Ukrainian settlement's wheel
By Tamara Zamyatin

MOSCOW, March 23. /TASS/. The United States has been putting spokes in the wheel of the Ukrainian conflict's settlement process and the implementation of the Minsk Accords achieved by the Normandy Quartet's leaders on February 12, polled experts have told TASS.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in last Saturday's interview to the Rossiya television news channel said that the Americans pay lip service to the Minsk Accords, while in reality they do a great deal in order to interpret the concluded documents in their own way.

Although the Minsk Accords provide for a dialogue between the authorities in Kiev and the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics over the modalities of holding local elections, the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada) on March 17 unilaterally voted for a corresponding resolution. In that document the territories of the self-proclaimed republics were referred to as "unilaterally occupied" territories. On the same day US Vice-President Joe Biden congratulated Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko upon the Verkhovna Rada's resolution contradicting the Minsk Accords. In a telephone conversation Biden confirmed that the United States was sending equipment and instructors for training Ukraine's national guardsmen. Simultaneously, the commander in chief of NATO's allied forces in Europe, General Philip Breedlove, claimed that the West was obliged to help Ukraine by sending defensive equipment. Against this background last Saturday and Sunday saw more frequent fire attacks against the Donetsk and Lugansk republics' territories by the Ukrainian armed forces.

Sergey Karaganov, a member of the OSCE's Panel of Eminent Persons on European Security, has told TASS that US policies towards Ukraine looked extremely cynical. "Washington is determined to fight the war in Ukraine to the last Ukrainian. At the same time the White House does not care a bit about the future of Ukraine as such, because geopolitical issues are in focus first and foremost," he told TASS in an interview.

"The United States has suffered moral and political defeats in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. Now it is about to impose a similar role on Russia by pulling it into the Ukrainian crisis. The United States' far reaching aim is that of causing the maximum harm to the Russian economy. By accusing Moscow of neo-imperial policies the United States has been trying to pose obstructions in the way of Russia's growing influence in the post-Soviet space," Karaganov said.

"Washington's ultimate objective is to drive a wedge into the EU as deeply as possible and to make Europe still more vulnerable to the United States. This explains why Washington ignores both the letter and spirit of the Minsk Accords, initiated by the leaders of Germany and France," Karaganov said.

Deputy director of the RAS Institute of US and Canada Studies, Pavel Zolotaryov, sees not the slightest chance the White House might suddenly develop a liking for the Minsk Accords. "Firstly, this is so because the United States is not a party to the Minsk process. Secondly, Washington dislikes the Minsk Accords because they are hardly realistic for the people the United States has propelled to power in Kiev. Poroshenko and his team are reluctant to comply with the Minsk Accords, and in this they rely on support from the White House. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has found a very diplomatic way of formulating the issue - Kiev's and Washington's interpretation of the Minsk Accords demonstrate a striking similarity and it remains to be seen who is in the lead. Now it has become very clear that it is Washington who sets the tune," Zolotaryov said.

The president of the National Strategy Institute, Mikhail Remizov, has no doubt that the United States will not confine itself to sending military instructors to Ukraine. Washington will be stepping up its military presence in Ukraine and building up military and technical assistance to Kiev, precisely the way it has been doing in relations with Georgia. Washington's aim is to preserve Ukraine as an apple of discord between Russia and the West, as the zone of Russia's greatest vulnerability. Therefore, as soon as the military-technical balance has changed in Kiev's favor, a resumption of hostilities between the Ukrainian army and the Donetsk and Lugansk militias may follow. This is most likely in April or May," Remizov told TASS.

And the president of the Russian Centre for Geopolitical Problems, Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, recalls that the US National Security Strategy the US Congress approved of last February contains more than a dozen references to Russia as an aggressor posing a threat to the United States. "Also, throughout the post-Soviet period NATO has never carried out outspokenly anti-Russian exercises as intensive as today," Ivashov says. "All these are sure signs Washington is determined to use the crisis in Ukraine to try to drag Russia into a war."

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#5
Newsweek.com
March 23, 2015
Rebels in Ukraine 'Not Russia's Puppets', Says Putin Aide
BY DAMIEN SHARKOV

The Kremlin has limited control over pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, according to Russian president Vladimir Putin's aide Dmitry Peskov. Anti-Kiev armed groups, the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic, currently control large swathes of land in the area.

Speaking to Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet Peskov denied reports made by Ukraine and Kiev's western partners that the Russian-speaking forces in Ukraine's east, which consist of a number of Russian army servicemen, were in fact commanded by Moscow.

"Contrary to what is said by NATO and by European countries, the militants in Donbas are not our puppets," Peskov said. "President Putin influences them, because they respect him, but he can not tell them to lay down their arms."

The clause that separatist forces in Donbas should lay down their arms was in the agreement signed by Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, Putin and representatives of the two rebel groups in Minsk, Belarus last month.

However, fighting did not stop, and the agreed ceasefire began as violence escalated near the railway town of Debaltseve, where separatist rebels mounted an offensive.

According to Peskov, who has been at Putin's side for 15 years, holding Russia responsible for the actions of the rebels in Ukraine's east is part of a wider campaign intended to "demonize Putin and blame him for everything".

"This situation hurts be personally because no matter what we do you will find people who will not listen to us," Peskov added.

Peskov also criticised the toppling of Ukraine's pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych who was deposed over a year ago in the pro-EU movement that came to be known as the Euromaidan revolution. Like other Putin allies, Peskov reiterated the Kremlin party line that Yanukovych had been toppled by a "coup prepared abroad".

"Yanukovych may have been bad, maybe even very bad. However, with absolute certainty, we can say that he was an elected president. Someone decided to remove him from power, and this is totally unacceptable," Peskov said.

There has been mounting evidence, from both within Russia and elsewhere, that Russian servicemen are present and operating in Ukraine. In August last year, the Russian organisation Soldiers' Mothers estimated that around 15,000 Russian soldiers had likely been sent to fight in Ukraine under the guise of being volunteers.

This month NATO estimated there were around 12,000 Russian soldiers in Ukraine, while Kremlin oppositionary Boris Nemtsov who was shot dead in Moscow in February was reportedly compiling a file with evidence for Russia's military presence in Ukraine prior to his death.

 
#6
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
March 23, 2015
Russia needs Ukraine fix as its power hits post-Soviet peak
Ben Aris in Moscow

Russia needs a resolution to the conflict with the West over Ukraine now because its power has probably hit its post-Soviet peak. The US can afford to do nothing, and that is probably its best strategy - but it comes at the possible cost of the destruction of Ukraine.

Those were the conclusions from an extremely interesting blog in The Washington Post this week on March 15 written by Yuval Weber, an assistant professor in the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at the National Research University, Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

The stakes for Russian President Vladimir Putin are extremely high. While Russia has the upper hand at the moment and has very effectively flummoxed the West with its hybrid war, the clock is ticking on Russia. And as the West is clearly not prepared to go to war with Russia to save Ukraine, it doesn't have to. All it needs to do is wait.

Russia is powerful now because it has just come out of a decade-long boom and has money to burn on re-arming with modern weapons it is willing to use. However, the economy is stagnating (GDP was up only 0.6% in 2014) and as Herbert Moos, deputy president and chairman of VTB Bank Management Board, pointed out in a recent interview with bne IntelliNews, with commercial borrowing costs now over 20%, investment in Russian industry is currently moribund. Russia cannot grow again unless reforms restart and it is reconnected to the international capital markets.

On top of the immediate economic problems is the failure to make deep structural reforms, Russia's recent rise in the World Bank's "Doing Business" survey notwithstanding. And finally, the demographic nightmare of the 1990s is about to hit the working population, which will also pull Russia's economy down irrespective of any reform or oil price.

The bottom line is that Russia post-Soviet power is probably at its peak now, and if Putin fails to secure his goals in Ukraine, then this could scupper his grand vision for building a "Greater Europe" after first building his Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and later integrating it with the European Union (EU) with some sort of trade deal.

"The potential loss of Ukraine directly threatens Russia's ability to pursue Eurasian integration, which is central to the country's larger strategic vision of developing a Eurasian bloc (through bolstering the Eurasian Economic Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization) to resist the consequences of U.S. unipolarity and to compete in the multipolar world it expects to emerge," Weber wrote after interviewing many senior Kremlin advisors and policymakers.

Well aware of the pressure, Putin is digging in his heels, which makes this situation all the more dangerous. Not only does he not want to back down, but he can't do so without possibly condemning Russia to becoming nothing more than a raw materials appendage to China, which is on the rise and will overshadow Russia at sometime in the foreseeable future. The creation of a Greater Europe on Russia's terms is Putin's own defence, so he has to make it work.

The other side of this coin is the Russian leader's deep-seated objections to being dictated to by the US, perceived as the self-appointed policeman of the world. Putin has repeatedly said he wants to create a multi-polar version of global management, and currently China is siding with Russia on this point, as it also doesn't like being bossed about by Washington. "In terms set out by our interviewees, Russia seeks a 'grand bargain' that explicitly identifies the role of the United States in the international order and puts limits on U.S. behaviour to make America more predictable in its behaviour and to prevent it from overstepping its own authority," wrote Weber.

Russia has already proposed drawing up a pan-European security deal that looks increasingly likely to figure at the Kremlin's insistence in any resolution to the Ukraine crisis. Some sort of "collective leadership" put forward by Putin would address his complaint about a "new game but no rules" - the theme of his speech at the last Valdai Club meeting where he made explicit many of the ideas echoed and discussed in the Weber blog. But Putin cannot insist on anything if Russia is demoted to a stagnant European economic backwater.

"These terms set out exactly why Russia is motivated to fight over the resolution of Ukraine now rather than later. By Russia's own bloc-oriented view of the future of international relations, the failure to 'get' Ukraine means that the Eurasian bloc has roughly reached its apex," believes Weber.

And the effort to build the EEU was not going well even before Ukraine rejected Russia's invitation to join and hook up with Brussels instead. The other two leaders of the bloc - Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko - have publicly criticised the one-sided nature of the "free trade" deal, while other prospective members are either getting cold feet or have refused to join.

US inaction

Since the Minsk I summit last year to bring peace to Ukraine, Washington has more or less subordinated the work of dealing with the crisis to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. US President Barack Obama is currently resisting Republican pressure to arm Ukraine, and Weber argues that this is actually the best strategy.

"It is very likely that Obama can observe that Russia's bloc-oriented strategy has led to the same apex, and that future decline by Russia's own standards is approaching. Thus, to accommodate Russia in this bargaining framework would not only involve upsetting European allies and the Ukrainians, but would give a lifeline to an adversary by ameliorating the decline," writes Weber.

The US economy is ticking along nicely so it can afford to wait, since it remains unaffected. Time is not on Putin's side. However, doing nothing will also cause prolonged economic pain in Europe, but the EU will survive. The same is not true for Ukraine, which is in desperate straits.

"Obama in a different position relative to formulating strategy regarding a rising challenger like China that needs to be accommodated or challenged because the latter is dissatisfied with the international distribution of benefits. Russia is instead a declining challenger (by its own standards) that offers the United States a third policy course of maintaining the status quo and waiting to negotiate later from a position of greater strength," wrote Weber.

History repeats itself: this long game of waiting for Russia's economic failures to defeat itself is exactly the same strategy that won the Cold War. And like Dwight Eisenhower's failure to intervene in Hungary in 1956, which kicked off the Cold War of attrition, Obama is not intervening in Ukraine.

What could torpedo this plan are the Europeans. Putin said explicitly in his Valdai speech that he is banking on business to come to his rescue - and it is a good bet because Merkel is under extreme pressure by the German business lobby to normalise the situation. The Cold War was an ideological struggle, but Russia has joined the capitalist camp and businesses remain largely apolitical.

At the same time, Russia is not isolated but continues to integrate its economy with those of the other fast growing emerging markets. As Putin said, Russia was already following this policy well before the Ukraine crisis broke out, but it has been catalysed by the fracas.

And finally Russia may actually put some of those badly needed reforms in place. Indeed, its showdown with the West and lower oil prices could be precisely the spur it needs to knuckle down and get the job done. As Putin claims, Russia is a largely self-sufficient country, and it has enough hard currency reserves to buy itself about two years before it goes into obvious decline if nothing changes in the meantime.

But when all is said and done, this is Russia we are talking about. And its constant failure to do anything decisively at home means Putin will probably be able to muddle through this crisis for several more years after the money runs out, and that is in no one's interests.

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 #7
Levada.ru
March 23, 2015
Russian public approval of Crimea annexation remains strong - poll

The Russian public's backing for the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine remains strong, one year on from the takeover, according to an opinion poll published on 23 March.

The research, conducted by the Levada Centre, an independent Russian polling organization [1], showed that most Russians continue to take a positive view of the annexation, which was formalized by Russia on 18 March 2014 amid widespread international condemnation.

Asked for their overall view of the annexation, 81 per cent agreed it was a "major achievement for the Russian state, the positive consequences of which Russians will feel in the future". This was down from 85 per cent a year ago. Six per cent felt it was an "irredeemable error", unchanged from a year ago, while 13 per cent were unsure, up from 9 per cent.

Asked what the annexation signified, 72 per cent of those polled agreed that it showed "Russia is returning to its traditional role as a 'great power' and asserting its interests in the post-Soviet space". Fourteen per cent said the move highlighted "the growing opportunism of the Russian authorities, who are trying to distract the population from genuine social and economic problems, corruption and disenchantment with the authorities in Russia itself". A year ago, those two assertions were endorsed by 79 per cent and 9 per cent respectively.

Asked for their personal feelings about the annexation, 28 per cent said they "felt that justice had triumphed", down from 31 per cent a year ago, 32 per cent "felt pride in their country", down from 34 per cent, 14 per cent felt "joy", down from 19 per cent, 44 per cent "approved", down from 47 per cent, 4 per cent "disapproved", down from 5 per cent, less than 1 per cent felt indignant, down from 1 per cent, 1 per cent felt "shame and despair", up from less than 1 per cent, 3 per cent felt "alarm and fear", unchanged from a year ago, and 12 per cent "felt nothing in particular", up from 7 per cent.

Asked what they felt was driving the Russian government's actions towards Crimea and Ukraine, 55 per cent agreed that it was "a desire to protect Crimea's and Ukraine's ethnic Russian population from having their rights trampled and their security and well-being threatened", down from 62 per cent a year ago, 40 per cent said "a desire to restore historical justice and to hand Russia back its territories", up from 32 per cent, 33 per cent identified "a desire to restore order and to stabilize the situation amid political chaos and anarchy in Ukraine", down from 39 per cent, 4 per cent spoke of "a desire to play on the population's great-power complex, to protect a corrupt regime and to prevent disaffection in society from consolidating", up from 3 per cent, 4 per cent referred to "Russian imperial ambitions, even as far as annexing territories from a neighbouring state", down from 6 per cent, while 4 per cent spoke of "other reasons", down from 18 per cent.

Asked about the annexation's "economic and political consequences for Russia", 19 per cent said those consequences were "exclusively positive", down from 27 per cent a year ago, 50 per cent said they were "more positive than negative", up from 46 per cent, 13 per cent said they were "more negative than positive", up from 10 per cent, 4 per cent said they were "exclusively negative", up from 3 per cent, 5 per cent said there were "no consequences", up from 3 per cent, and 9 per cent were unsure, down from 10 per cent.

Commenting on the findings of its research, the Levada Centre highlighted the increase in the share of Russians who felt that their government had been acting out of "a desire to restore historical justice and to hand Russia back its territories", and noted that "this idea has been actively pedalled in the media and in official discourse".

The polling was carried out during the period 13-16 March 2015, among a representative sample of 1,600 people aged 18 and over and living in 134 towns and villages in 46 of Russia's regions, the centre said. The statistical margin of error is 3.4 per cent, it added.

[1] http://www.levada.ru/23-03-2015/krym-i-rasshirenie-rossiiskikh-granits

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#8
The National Interest
March 19, 2015
Punishing Russia: The Dangers of the 'Mariupol Test'
By Matthew Dal Santo
Matthew Dal Santo is a Danish Research Council postdoctoral fellow at the Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen. This article originally appeared on ASPI's The Strategist,

Frustrated by European reluctance to arm Ukraine, two prominent former U.S. officials-Hans Binnendijk, formerly senior director for defense policy at the U.S. National Security Council, and John Herbst, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006-recently called in a New York Times piece for the imposition of what they have labeled "the Mariupol Test." They argue that if and when the rebels move on the southeastern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, the West must punish Moscow and its minions by giving Kiev the military wherewithal to expel Russian forces from its territory, doubling down on sanctions and, perhaps most seriously of all, "suspending Russia from the Brussels-based Swift financial-messaging system," a measure that, they assert, "could cripple the already reeling Russian economy."

Mariupol lies on the land approaches to the isthmus linking Crimea to the Ukrainian mainland. If the rebels did capture the city, Russia would win an unofficial land route to a piece of real estate that, a year after its annexation, it's still having trouble supplying. According to Binnendijk and Herbst, however, Mariupol would be just the beginning of a longer campaign by the Kremlin to reassemble the tsarist-era Novorossiya "one slender slice at a time," taking Russia's informal border back to where it lay from the end of the eighteenth century to the 1917 revolution: all the way to Odessa and the Russian-sponsored enclave of Transnistria.

If we conclude that the Kremlin's aim is indeed a massive, if informal, increase of Russian power across the upper western arc of the Black Sea that would return Russian influence to the doorstep of the Balkans-then it's possible to indulge the former officials' twitching fingers. But, since dropping Novorossiya into an interview last April, Russian president Vladimir Putin has studiously avoided the term. And he pointedly refused to recognize Novorossiya's Crimea-style referenda and declaration of independence last year.

Instead, what the Russians have repeatedly said they want in Ukraine is regional autonomy for the Donbas, protection of the linguistic and cultural rights of Russian speakers across Ukraine, federalization of the country's presently highly centralized political structure, and official acceptance of Ukraine's formal neutrality, including a permanent commitment by NATO not to invite Kiev into the alliance. As Fiona Hill has recently argued, Putin doesn't want to restore the Russian empire or the Soviet Union: what he wants is the revival of Russia's prestige as a great power, including other powers' respect for the primacy of its political interests in and longstanding historical and cultural ties with Ukraine and other former Soviet republics.

That doesn't mean Mariupol isn't a military objective for the separatists or the Kremlin. Nor can we be sure whether, having secured Mariupol, Russia won't then turn its attention towards Odessa. But the Kremlin's options are constrained by Russia's parlous fiscal and financial situation. That, along with the mounting public discontent provoked by sharp inflation, ought to serve to keep Russia focused on the achievable in the Donbas and to discourage it from enlarging the zone of the conflict.

Any attempt on Mariupol, therefore, would probably have more to do with strengthening Moscow's hand in pursuit of its more "limited" political aims than with spreading a neotsarist dominion across the Black Sea. (Certainly Turkey, Hungary and Slovakia all seem unfazed.) And that points to two things. The first is the relative weakness of Russia's position; notwithstanding the Ukrainian army's lackluster performance, Russia's political aims in Ukraine far exceed its ability to coerce either Kiev or the West into accepting them. The second is each side's mutually divergent views on what the Minsk Agreement means.

In the West, many have interpreted the agreement as implying Russia's capitulation. The Guardian recently quoted the new president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, former prime minister of Poland, as saying that:

The Minsk agreement makes sense only if fully implemented. Partial implementation would be very risky for Ukraine....First, we need full implementation including full control of Ukraine's borders.

The problem is that Minsk ties control of the border to Kiev's prior delivery of constitutional "special status" for Donetsk and Lugansk-something hardline Ukrainian nationalists in the Rada adamantly oppose. For Russia, Minsk is thus a step towards the creation of those conditions-genuine autonomy in the Donbas-which it considers preliminary to achieving the rest of its political goals in Ukraine.

The bad news, then, for those looking forward to a complete Russian backdown is that only old-fashioned diplomacy, however unpalatable, can bring an end to the war. The good news is that the conservatism of Russia's political culture, that has seen it risk economic meltdown for the sake of defending what many in the West consider to be a nineteenth-century vision of its national interests, means that it is also open to the kinds of compromises that lay at the heart of old-style, Concert-of-Europe diplomacy. Not for nothing is the Kremlin celebrating the two-hundredth anniversary this year of the 1815 Congress of Vienna.

The human cost of an attack on Mariupol would be tragic. But Mariupol won't change Russia's fundamental aims; and getting sucked into a proxy war with Moscow over it won't help the West negotiate a lasting political deal with the Kremlin that returns peace and stability to the whole of eastern Ukraine.

The only thing worse than trying to bludgeon Russia into defeat in eastern Ukraine and failing might be bludgeoning it into defeat and succeeding. If Putin did fall, nationalistic Russians would be unlikely to entrust their country to a liberal constructivist leader. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has said that he's willing to try diplomacy with Assad. He should do the same, just as belatedly, with Putin.


 

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 #9
http://gordonhahn.com
March 19, 2015
Were the Nemtsov Murder Suspects 'Tortured'?
by Gordon M. Hahn
Gordon M. Hahn is an Analyst and Advisory Board Member of the Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation, Chicago, Illinois; Senior Researcher, Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group, San Jose, California Analyst/Consultant, Russia Other Points of View - Russia Media Watch; and Senior Researcher and Adjunct Professor, MonTREP, Monterey, California.

U.S. media immediately began reporting that the suspects in the murder of Boris Nemtsov were "tortured" without checking further. Many cited Russian Presidential Council for Human Rights member Andrei Babushkin, who asserted there was torture but could only cite cuts on their ankles and claimed they had been shackled on their ankles (Public Broadcasting System, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/rights-watchdog-says-nemtsov-murder-suspects-likely-tortured/; Reuters, http://news.yahoo.com/suspects-nemtsov-killing-probably-tortured-russian-rights-activist-103237475.html; Voice of America, www.voanews.com/content/nemtsov-murder-suspect-may-have-confessed-under-torture/2675487.html; and The Moscow Times, http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russian-rights-activist-says-nemtsov-murder-suspects-likely-being-tortured/517279.html).

PBS distorted reality when it described the body to which the person claiming that torture occurred belongs as "Council Under the President of the Russian Federation for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights." This wording suggests that the main body involved is called the Russian Federation for the Development of Civil Society and that it might be a private rather than state organ. In fact the body is properly called "Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights under the President of the Russian Federation" and was established by Russian President Vladimir Putin (www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/rights-watchdog-says-nemtsov-murder-suspects-likely-tortured/).

The BBC reported in its headline that "Dadaev was tortured by electric shock," but Babushkin had only stated that there marks on Dadaev's fingers similar to those found when one is subjected to electric shock and that experts would need to review the claim (www.bbc.co.uk/russian/multimedia/2015/03/150310_v_nemtsov_babushkin_onk_dadaev). Not reported by the same Western press organs were the results of an inspection carried out by Moscow's Public Monitoring Commission (ONK) when it visited the defendants. This is odd since its chairman gave a long interview on his prison visit to the anti-Putin, opposition Internet TV channel Dozhd' (rain) and Western journalists largely support the Russian opposition and watch Dozhd' frequently. (http://tvrain.ru/articles/novye_pokazanija_v_dele_nemtsova_zhizn_posle_kapkova_i_skolko_gubernatory_tratjat_na_lososevuju_ikru_itogi_11_marta-383738/).

The commission is charged with monitoring the observation of citizens arrested or otherwise interacting with authorities in Moscow. Such commissions, present in every Russian region, were empowered by reforms implemented during the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev and have the right to visit any detainees or prisoners at any time during working hours without the permission from local or prison authorities.

Thus, the ONK took testimony regarding their treatment since being arrested, which was recorded and sent to Russian law enforcement organs to make a determination on whether the testimony constituted evidence that the suspects' alleged treatment violated their rights. ONK Chairman Anton Tsvetkov, who headed the inspection delegation, summed up what he saw and heard when visiting Dadaev and the Gubashev brothers, Anzor and Shagid, on March 11th in the anti-Putin TV channel Dozhd' (Rain) main news broadcast (http://tvrain.ru/articles/novye_pokazanija_v_dele_nemtsova_zhizn_posle_kapkova_i_skolko_gubernatory_tratjat_na_lososevuju_ikru_itogi_11_marta-383738/).

First, Tsvetkov said that all three detained suspects said the conditions of their detainment since being sent to Moscow after their initial detention in the Ingushetiya are good by every parameter: exercise time, food, etc. Tsvetkov then described the physical condition and the complaints of Dadaev and the Gubashevs about their arrest and detention in the North Caucasus in connection with the Nemtsov murder before arriving in Moscow.

Tsvetkov noted that Anzor Gubashev had bruises on his posterior obtained when he was first physically detained by Ingushetiya police and that in his experience this is not unusual given the typical physical struggle that occurs during initial apprehensions involving cases of grave crimes. He mentions that in one attempted detention regarding the Nemtsov case that one potential detainee threw grenades at police and then detonated one killing himself; this was to say that police need to be quick and perhaps rough in detaining such suspects. He added that when the delegation asked him if he been ill-treated in any way since the initial detainment, Gubashev answered that he had not. In contrast to his brother, Shagid Gubashev said that he had been subjected to physical "pressure" during and after detention, but the delegation and medics found no signs of body damage. Moreover, Shagid claimed that the police had "tortured" his brother Anzor with a baseball bat, suggesting anal penetration, which his brother said was not true and medics found no evidence to support. Shagid also said that one of the police kicked him in the face, but the delegations saw no marks on his face of any kind.

Regarding Dadaev, he said he was subjected to physical pressure but the only marks found on his body were minor cuts on his wrist from the handcuffs and on the right foot. Dadaev's claim that he had been tortured with electric shock was also checked by medics and his extremities showed no signs of burns or other marks connected with such methods. Tsvetkov also defended Babushkin, who he said was honest. Babushkin was summoned and designated a witness in the case by the Investigation Committee after he claimed Dadaev had been tortured.

Thus, it appears that at the worst the detainees were handled a little roughly in the struggle to secure their detention, but no evidence of torture can be inferred from the observations reported by Tsvetkov. Moreover, Dadaev's lawyer, Ivan Gerasimov, stated on March 12th that his clients neither had been tortured nor complained that they had (http://riafan.ru/223456-zashhita-dadaeva-otritsaet-chto-ego-pyitali/ and Itar-Tass). Tsvetkov's and Gerasimov's were not reported in the Western mass media.

It must be added that it is no less unusual for criminals and terrorists to make false claims of torture and mistreatment than it is for Russian law enforcement, particularly that in the North Caucasus, to mistreat detainees. At the same time, it is also true that police and security forces quite often violate political, civil, and human rights in the North Caucasus, which includes the use of torture, abductions, and murder.

NOTE:

Interfax (which also reported the original claim of torture)
March 12, 2015
Nemtsov murder suspect was not tortured - lawyer

A lawyer for one of the men charged with the murder of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov has dismissed suggestions that his client was tortured in order to force him to confess to the crime, the privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 12 March.

Ivan Gerasimov said that his client, Zaur Dadayev, had told him investigators had not subjected him to any "physical or psychological pressure." Gerasimov's remarks came the day after Andrey Babushkin, a member of Russia's presidential human rights council, said he had visited Dadayev in prison and seen wounds on Dadayev's body that suggested he had been tortured.

"My client did not complain of torture and said, including with respect to the investigative measures in which he was involved, that no physical or psychological pressure was exerted on him. During those investigative measures, no breaches were committed by employees of the Russian Investigations Committee," Interfax quoted Gerasimov as saying. He added that Dadayev had "given testimony in the criminal case" and had "actively cooperated with the investigation."

Russian state news agency RIA Novosti quoted Gerasimov as saying: "I didn't see any physical damage, except the marks left by the handcuffs."
Babushkin, however, has stuck to his version of events. "Dadayev told us five times that, had illicit methods not been used to influence him, the statements he made would have been different," he said at a news conference hosted by Interfax on 12 March.

"We found injuries on his legs, in the region of his ankles. He maintained that he was put in shackles. It should be said that shackles have been banned in our country since 1904," Babushkin added.

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 #10
Vox.com
March 23, 2015
We just got a glimpse of how oligarch-funded militias could bring chaos to Ukraine
By Amanda Taub

It's never good news for the rule of law when an oligarch sends armed men in combat fatigues to occupy a state-owned oil company. That's what just happened in Ukraine, where billionaire oligarch Igor Kolomoisky appears to have sent members of his private army last week to temporarily take over the offices of oil company UkrTransNafta in order to protect his financial interests in the company.

The situation may be even more frightening than it sounds.

Kolomoisky funds and directs a large private militia that has been helping the Kiev government fight against the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Militias like his - and there are dozens of them - are a source of deep concern to analysts who believe they could threaten Ukraine's long-term stability.

Are these private armies willing to follow Kiev's orders without question? Or will they go their own way when their own interests are at stake? Kolomoisky's antics at the oil company's offices, in which he appears to have used his private army to protect his personal financial interests, look an awful lot like the latter.

Bands of thugs that became armies

Kolomoisky, an oligarch who is also the governor of Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, is a significant backer of the pro-Kiev private militias fighting in the country's east. He funds the Dnipro Battalion, a private army that, according to the Wall Street Journal, has 2,000 battle-ready fighters and another 20,000 in reserve. Newsweek reported that Kolomoisky has funded other militia groups, as well.

The conflict has empowered pro-Ukraine militias like Kolomoisky's because the Ukrainian military was too weak to fight the separatist insurgency on its own. When Russia annexed Crimea in early 2014, Ukraine had only about 6,000 combat-ready troops. The paramilitary "volunteers" bolstered the fighting forces, funded in part by private donations from wealthy oligarchs. Bands of politically motivated thugs, dating back to before the conflict, grew into more substantial militarized battalions. There are now an estimated 30 "volunteer" militias fighting the separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Kolomoisky's fighters may have helped keep his region out of the hands of the pro-Russian separatists. But in the long run, it could pose a threat to Ukraine's stability.

These militias pose a serious threat to Ukraine's future

Ukraine's oligarchs have a long history of resisting the state. The fact that Kolomoisky has now raised his own militia raises the deeply alarming possibility that he - and others like him - could regularly use these fighters to protect his interests from state interference.

The worrying thing about Kolomoisky's raid on the oil company last week is that it seems to have partially worked: Kolomoisky may not have been able to keep his ally in the chairman's job, but he reportedly said that he and Ukraine's president have reached an agreement to install a temporary chairman for UkrTransNafta who "would not be carrying out any investigations of its finances." Kolomoisky has significant interests in the oil company; now, it seems, he's been able to use his private army to shield his business dealings from legal or financial scrutiny.

While fighting the war against the separatists might be a priority now, at some point the Ukrainian government needs to be able to govern Ukraine. It can't do that if parts of the country are dominated by militias that don't obey any official authority.

Adrian Karatnycky, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, warned during an interview in February that simply by existing, those private armies could be "creating enough of an implicit threat that the government can't move against, say, corrupt schemes." The events in Ukraine last week suggest his concerns were well-placed.

These groups pose a serious threat to Ukrainian civilians, as well. In December, pro-Kiev militias blocked humanitarian aid from reaching rebel-held areas of eastern Ukraine. Amnesty International researcher Denis Krivosheev said the militias were using starvation of civilians as a weapon, and called the tactic a war crime.

Another militia, the Aydar Battalion, has kidnapped and tortured civilians on dozens of occasions, according to Amnesty. Local police told the human rights group they had registered more than 38 criminal cases against Aydar members but lacked the power to take any further action against the fighters - a worrying sign of the militias' power.

As time goes on, the things that made the militias useful for Ukraine will also make them dangerous. Their strength and autonomy in eastern Ukraine, particularly compared with the relatively weak government, could potentially give them tremendous power there. These are the conditions for warlordism - for militias turning their pieces of territory into little fiefdoms that they or their wealthy patrons would be free to govern, or exploit, as they wished.

Inevitably, Ukraine's government will have to take on the militias - which could spark a new conflict

The experts I spoke to agreed that the militias represent a threat to the long-term stability of Ukraine, and ought to be dissolved and incorporated into the regular security forces. But it's not clear whether President Petro Poroshenko's government sees that as a priority - or whether the government is equipped to take them on at all.

Karatnycky, of the Atlantic Council, said the militias had served an important purpose but that it was time for Ukraine to move to a purely professional military. The Brookings Institution's Steven Pifer agreed, saying that any increase in US military assistance to Ukraine should be tied to a commitment to dissolve the volunteer battalions.

Pifer said he is certain Poroshenko would agree, if pressed, that professionalizing the fighting forces is a good idea. But the president may be too focused on winning the conflict now, or on implementing other types of reforms, to take a step that is difficult but in his long-term interests.

It's also not clear that Poroshenko has the political capital to take on the militias anyway - his own interior minister has close ties to one such private army, the Azov Battalion, so would be unlikely to support any policy that would undermine it.

One more crucial unknown factor is whether oligarchs like Kolomoisky would be willing to give up their ties to militias and the power they bring - and how they might respond if the Ukrainian government moved to disperse their groups.

The militias themselves might not go quietly, either. In early February, when Poroshenko was rumored to be considering disbanding the Aydar Battalion, the group marched on Kiev. Its fighters blocked access to the ministry of defense and burned tires outside its gates until Poroshenko backed down. In September 2014, the Guardian's Shaun Walker embedded with the Azov Battalion in Mariupol and found "almost all to be intent on 'bringing the fight to Kiev' when the war in the east is over."

If they get their wish, it could be yet another disaster for a country that recently seems to have had little else.

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 #11
Wall Street Journal
March 24, 2015
Ukraine Government Tries to Rein In Oligarch Ally
Tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky helped stop Russia-backed rebels last year, now skirmishes with Kiev over businesses
By JAMES MARSONand  NICK SHCHETKO

KIEV, Ukraine-When Russia-backed separatists swept across eastern Ukraine last spring, banking and media tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky funded paramilitary units to stop their advance.

Now he is turning his fire on Kiev, which is trying to wrest back control of energy companies that are majority owned by the state but for years have been controlled by Mr. Kolomoisky.

Allies of President Petro Poroshenko say they are fighting to diminish the power of so-called oligarchs, who for years have reaped huge financial gains straddling the line between business and politics in the former Soviet republic, where per capita incomes remain among the lowest in Europe.

But the government faces the risk that confronting a powerful billionaire and ally in the fight against the separatists will destabilize an already-fraught political situation.

On Thursday, when officials moved to oust the head of the state oil transportation firm Ukrtransnafta, Mr. Kolomoisky marched into the headquarters in Kiev with his bodyguards and blocked the appointment of a new one.

On Sunday, men in camouflage converged on the headquarters of Ukrnafta, the national oil producer. The company and Mr. Kolomoisky said they were extra security.

Government security officials said they had received orders from Mr. Poroshenko to disarm the men. The situation was calm around the building in Kiev late Monday.

"None of our governors will have puppet armed forces," Mr. Poroshenko said in a speech at the National Defense Academy on Monday.

Mr. Kolomoisky, who denies any wrongdoing, said he is protecting national security and accused rival tycoons of trying to take control of the companies.

"It's a challenge for the president," said Serhiy Leshchenko, a lawmaker from Mr. Poroshenko's bloc. "It's a demand of Maidan that oligarchs should lose power, and the state has to implement that," he said, referring by Maidan to street protests last year that ousted the pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych.
The attempt to tame the oligarchs has received unusually vocal support from U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, who said in a radio interview Friday that tycoons can't go back to old ways.

After a meeting Friday with Mr. Kolomoisky, the ambassador said: "I think he understands, as do most political leaders today, that the environment has changed and that the law of the jungle, which is what existed under Yanukovych, is a recipe for disaster in Ukraine."

Mr. Pyatt said control of Ukrtransnafta should be decided by the law, "as opposed to muscle."

Mr. Kolomoisky, whose interests include banking and media companies, quickly threw his weight behind the government's fight against militants in the east last spring.

Appointed governor of the industrial Dnipropetrovsk region, he spent millions on a battalion that is widely credited with stemming the separatists' westward march at a time when Ukraine's regular army was lacking men, morale and direction.

He has won fans with his blunt style, but also courted controversy. Asked by a reporter whether he was breaking Ukrainian law by holding passports from two countries, he said he wasn't, as he has three.

This month he said he used to pay $5 million a month in bribes to avoid hindrances to his businesses.

For years, Mr. Kolomoisky has effectively controlled Ukrnafta and Ukrtransnafta, according to officials and lawmakers. This enabled him to push aside competitors and have oil sent to a processing plant that he controls, the officials and lawmakers said.

Mr. Kolomoisky says he shares control of the companies with the state and is trying to keep them operating.

He defended his interventions Thursday and Sunday as protecting strategically important companies from "Russian saboteurs" and countering a corporate raid by rivals.

In recent weeks, Mr. Leshchenko, a former investigative reporter, has spearheaded attempts in parliament to reduce Mr. Kolomoisky's sway.

On Thursday, a law was passed lowering the threshold for a quorum at board meetings of state companies. That would effectively allow the government to oust managers loyal to Mr. Kolomoisky at Ukrnafta, the oil producer.

At the same time, officials dismissed the chief executive of the transport company Ukrtransnafta, saying he had made decisions that favored Mr. Kolomoisky, a charge the CEO denied.

Their attempt to appoint a new one, however, was interrupted by company security guards and Mr. Kolomoisky with his bodyguards, resulting in chaotic scenes of shoving, broken glass and an expletive-laden outburst by the tycoon against a reporter.

On Sunday, men in fatigues, some carrying weapons, swarmed around the headquarters of Ukrnafta, overseeing the construction of a metal cage around the entrance. An armored truck was parked behind a metal gate at the building Monday, as welders put finishing touches to the metal cage. There was no sign of the armed men.

"These are not unknown men but a private security company founded by Ukrnafta...getting ready to meet blockheads like you," he told a pro-Poroshenko lawmaker outside the building Sunday.

On Monday, the head of the Ukrainian Security Service said there were links between the regional administration in Dnipropetrovsk, headed by Mr. Kolomoisky, and criminal groups involved in smuggling and abductions.

Mr. Kolomoisky's deputy shot back that Kiev was giving cover to smugglers and hadn't fulfilled pledges to hand more powers to regional governments.

A national lawmaker, speaking in Dnipropetrovsk, called for a mass protest in the city on Wednesday against what he called an authoritarian turn in Kiev, UNIAN, a private Ukrainian news agency, reported.

In Kiev, lawmaker Mr. Leshchenko, the lawmaker, said the dispute was "a fight between society and oligarchs."

Mr. Poroshenko is also a wealthy tycoon who owns a chocolate firm and television channel. Mr. Leshchenko said he was elected by popular vote and wasn't using his position for financial benefit.

As for tackling Mr. Kolomoisky's influence, he said: "If we don't do it now, it will become harder."

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 #12
Sputnik
March 23, 2015
Ukrainian Parliament May Check Yatsenyuk for Corruption

Last week, former Chairman of the Ukrainian State Financial Inspection Nikolai Gordienko, who was previously dismissed, issued a report in which he accused Yatsenyuk of concealing corruption schemes of the previous government.

MP Sergei Kaplin, a member of the largest faction in the Ukrainian parliament - "Petro Poroshenko Bloc" - suggested creating a special commission in Verkhovna Rada - Ukraine's Parliament - to investigate the activities of the current Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who was accused of concealing corruption schemes.

The relevant draft resolution was registered on Monday. The official text of the document has not yet been released on the website of the Parliament.

Last week, former Chairman of the State Financial Inspection Nikolai Gordienko released a report in which he accused Yatsenyuk of concealing corruption schemes of the previous government. According to Gordienko, it is a matter of billions of dollars.

Gordienko asked the General Prosecutor of Ukraine to investigate the case and suspend Yatsenyuk until the check-up is completed.

Yatsenyuk's party "People's Front" has currently rejected all accusations brought.

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 #13
Fort Russ
March 23, 2015
How to talk like Kolomoisky and the war of the oligarchs
Kristina Rus
[Video here http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/03/how-to-talk-like-kolomoisky-and-war-of.html]

Kolomoisky was approached by reporters from Radio Svoboda on the night of March 19 to March 20, 2015 at UkrTransNafta:

Q. (to the men in uniform): What division is this? Do you have weapons in your bags?

Q. to Kolomoisky: Mr. Kolomoisky, Radio Svoboda, please tell us what is a governor doing here at night?

Kolomoisky: To see you, f$ck. There is no other way to see your face, Radio Svoboda. Why don't you ask how UkrTransNafta was taken over? How the Russian diversants got here? Why don't you ask that? Or you f#cken have to see Kolomoisky? We freed the building of Ukrtransnafta from Russian diversants. And you with your Svoboda are sitting here and waiting, like a chick waiting for her husband. Did you shut up, or do you want to ask about my passports? Or any other questions? Ask about the Russian diversants, why didn't you catch any? Radio Svoboda, you are the same Svoboda, as the one that didn't get in the parliament, Tyagnibok prostitute.

Q.: Did you check the documents? What did they show?

Kolomoisky: The documents showed that there was no voting by the Cabinet of Ministers, no voting from Naftogas, there are no documents. Under the guise of police it was some private security company. Broke in, broke windows, traumatized people, broke an arm. Now they disappeared. A typical attempt of a take over of a state enterprise.

And what I am doing here I will tell you later in court. Do you understand, Svoboda? Why are you so quiet? Do you have any more questions, or did you stuff your tongue in your @ss? Tell me, you are the famous Radio Svoboda that broke apart the Soviet Union, toppled the bolsheviks, propagated OUN-UPA. What are you waiting for - passports, or used condoms? Where is the #sshole Leshenko? Are you going to show this on your TV or your Internet?!

Hello!!! I am going to the President with these papers. And with his security company, which supposedly stormed it. Because everyone says: Demchisin came and said "I have orders from above!" From whom above? Who allowed you to take over a state enterprise, violating the procedure. The PM went to Brussels, Kobalev left, no one is around, you decided to take over a company? Nothing else left to take?  You didn't steal all the enterprises, now you have to take this one? Why are you so quiet? Who did I see there? When I got there, I didn't see anyone. Then came Demchishin, Savchenko and the new one, the belly guy from SBU. I asked him, where did you work, he said - in SBU, Lugansk region. I told him go liberate Lugansk region, why did you come to Transnafta, here everything is fine. And he is in SBU of Lugansk region. He doesn't want to liberate Crimea, he doesn't want to liberate Lugansk region. He came to make money here. Miroshnik. Appointed himself.

Q.: Who do you think is behind this?

Kolomoisky: I don't know. I was told - Kanonenko. One of the leaders of BPP faction (Bloc of Petro Poroshenko). Now I am going to the President's administration, to sort out the papers, who is standing behind this.

Q.: And what is the security company?

Kolomoisky: It's called Kiev Varta of Security, something like that. But they left quick. Young, normal, proper guys without weapons. I asked them, who are you, they said, we are Miroshnik's security. Where is the contract for security? There is no contract.  I told them - you better leave the territory, and they did. Then I asked some people, they said, they were sent by Kanonenko.

Who is Kanonenko? Is he a minister, or director of the parliament, or the new president? I know he did interviews with you, Svoboda,  or Ukrainian Pravda. Ask him what his people are doing here?

I already answered that question. Do you want a personal answer? Put down the camera, let's go around the corner, I will explain it to you. What else are you waiting for? Who else wants a commentary? What, did you wake up?

Q.: What do you want to talk about with the president?

Kolomoisky: I want to ask a question, how in the center of Kiev a strategic take over of a company by Russian diversants is possible? Under his name, under his cover.
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March 21, 2015
Da Dzi:

The conflict of Poroshenko and Kolomoisky around "Ukrtransnafta" began rough...

1) On March 19, the Verkhovna Rada adopted amendments to the law on joint stock companies, which deprived Kolomoisky of control "Ukrnafta".

2) The Chairman of the Board of "Ukrtransnafta" Aleksandr Lazorko, a person of Kolomoisky was suspended.

3) Reaction of the oligarch was quick - Benya Kolomoisky came with a group of gunmen to Ukrtransnafta", blocked the entrance and called the Minister of Energy, Demchishin, "to the floor". What is pretty original - a Governor arrives with gunmen to "press" a state enterprise, and to calm him comes the Minister of Energy.

4) The Minister of Internal Affairs, Arsen Avakov, pointedly ignored the situation.

5) During negotiations Kolomoisky openly hinted that in Kiev there are 2000 of his fighters who will be able to convince everyone to behave correctly and well.

The media, controlled by Kolomoisky, ("TSN", "UNIAN") has released information that National Guard is pulling to Dnepropetrovsk: the soldiers will need to prevent riots in the case Kolomoysky will be fired from his pos of Governor of the region. While the National Guard said that they never heard about this. But direct and unequivocal hint from oligarch Kolomoisky to oligarch Poroshenko was received.

Kolomoisky stated that he made a deal with Poroshenko: "We agreed with the President and Prime Minister that Miroshnik would not perform the checks in Ukrtransnafta. The common position is to involve in this process the big four: Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young and KPMG. And let them check it out. And then at the end to make conclusions."

And about his faithful man Lazorko, who defended the interests of the owner, tycoon Kolomoisky said: "If violations is found, I believe, Lazorko must be rewarded. Because he has kept this oil, because he is a patriot. But the company he will not return, he resents this situation, but we are such a valuable frame find where to place".

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March 21, 2015
Oleg Tsarev

Family fight or a bloody divorce - Kolomoisky vs. Poroshenko

If oil and gas belongs to the people, then why is it so expensive?

Besides greed, dishonesty and incompetence of the organizers of the "orange revolution", a big role in its discreditation played the conflict between Poroshenko and Tymoshenko. Americans perfectly understand it, therefore, repeatedly warned the current Ukrainian elite that they need to bury the internal contradictions. John Kerry talked about this, and the third Maidan was cancelled thanks to his arrival, scheduled on Maidan anniversary.

Nevertheless, the confrontation between Poroshenko and Kolomoisky is ready to erupt into open war.

Kolomoisky may bury another American project the same way it was done by the confrontation of Poroshenko and Tymoshenko. Only now, given the current Ukrainian realities, this war may not be limited to a mudslinging battle, but might turn into an armed confrontation. The parties are ready for this development, that is why today there are so many spetsnaz forces in the center of Kiev, involving territorial battalions Kiev-1 and Kiev-2. It is also known that the internal troops are ready to head to Dnepropetrovsk. Igor Kolomoisky brought his volunteer battalions to combat readiness . Let me remind you, now they include up to fifteen thousand fighters, and a few days ago Kolomoisky gave the order to triple their number.

Control of "Ukrnafta" and "Ukrtransnafta" is extremely important to Kolomoisky, not only because he is used to control these state structures, that he considers them his own, but also because the change of leadership would inevitably lead to questions about the many abuses committed by his team. Discarding questions about Ukrnafta, which was plundered long and seriously, the fraud just at Ukrtransnafta could number two billion dollars. Though the value stolen may be less then a billion dollars, but the damage from pumping water instead of oil through the pipeline for winterizing, which according to experts, led to disrepair, will cost a billion dollars and, perhaps, not one. The purpose of the night's seizure of the office of "Ukrtransnafta" is not only a desire to secure the further possibility of plunder, but also an attempt to cover up the crime. They say overnight several truckloads of documents were taken from the office. Because, as investigators say: "no body, no case". The investigation of economic crimes is extremely complicated in the absence of documents. In order to steal them, deputies who are under the control of Kolomoisky were sent, and personally Igor V. arrived. I don't remember him so publicly under cameras to be involved without sending his vassals, so only a desperate situation would get Kolomoisky to personally participate in this operation - a threat of criminal prosecution, a threat of arrest in criminal case against him and his business assets.

As of yesterday evening, a compromise was found that the head of "Ukrtransnafta" appointed by the President, will assume the responsibilities of, but either there will be no investigation, or  it will be conducted by international audit companies. But either the hope that the foreign auditors do not work quickly, or a third Maidan will occur by the time they are finished, or the militia will liberate Kiev - I don't know. Does it mean that Kolomoisky, Yatsenyuk, and Poroshenko have agreed to plunder the country all together? Only time will show.

Only one thing is obvious. The country is broke. To save their income the oligarchs and representatives of the Ukrainian authorities will be forced to engage in conflicts. The level of confrontation is growing. The United States will have to openly, intervene in the management of Ukraine. And already, the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, not hiding, said that he was involved in resolving the conflict, and the Deputy Sergey Leshchenko said that the order for the change of management of the company came from Washington.

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Latest developments:

Kolomoisky blocked $50 million on Poroshenko accounts in Privat Bank, in response to a letter of reprimand from Poroshenko "for breaking the rules of business ethics".

Poroshenko ordered to disarm the [Kolomoisky] security, guarding Ukrnafta headquarters.

Avakov: "Only state agencies are allowed to carry weapons"

SBU is suspecting Kolomoisky in funding illegal armed groups.

Nalivaichenko: "Illegal crime group funded by the top leadership of Dnepropetrovsk region is connected to a killing of SBU agent"

PS This is spiraling out of control, so more updates will follow soon...

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 #14
The Interpreter
www.interpretermag.com
March 23, 2015
Ukrainians Fear Russia But Don't Trust EU
By Paul Goble

Staunton, March 20 - Since the Maidan, a new Kyiv poll shows, the share of Ukrainians favoring EU integration has risen from 41 percent to 47.2 percent since the Maidan, while the share of those backing integration with Moscow has fallen from 35 percent to 12.3 percent. At the same time, the portion of Ukrainians favoring neutrality has increased from 9 to 27 percent.

These figures are a response to Russia's military actions against Ukraine and to the European Union's failure to do as much as many Ukrainians had hoped, analysts at the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology which conducted the survey, told Tatyana Ivzhenko of Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

In fact, the Kyiv experts said, "Ukrainians are afraid of the actions of Russia and at the same time do not trust European Union."

The only part of the country in which more people favored integration with the Eurasian Union (30 percent) than the EU (20 percent) was in the Donbas, but even there, the former were far from a majority. In the southern regions, support for joining the EU stood at 33 percent, while backing for the Eurasian Union was 12 percent. In western and central Ukraine, majorities of 57 to 75 percent favored the EU while only very few backed the Moscow-led organization.

These figures mean, the newspapers Tatyana Ivzhenko says, that "even after the complete end of military activities, the Donbas could be reintegrated in Ukraine only on its own conditions," which Kyiv has not yet accepted, and that there would be serious debates elsewhere as well because of distrust in the European Union.

Distrust in Europe, the Ukrainian experts say, has been growing over the past year because of the EU's constant statements about the need for Ukraine to do nothing that would anger the Russians and its failure to do more than issue political declarations which showed that the EU was "for peace at any price," even if Ukrainian interests had to be sacrificed.

The attitudes in the Donbas are "dictated by completely different things than in the remainder of Ukraine," the Kyiv experts say. There, people put regional values ahead of state ones, a pattern that is true they suggest even in those parts of the region still under the control of the Ukrainian government.

According to one of the volunteers speaking on conditions of anonymity, "pro-Russian attitudes" are not strong there, "but people nonetheless feel a desire "to separate themselves from Ukraine which has not defended them or saved them from shelling, has not paid them their wages and pensions, and doesn't offer them help." They make the same demands of Russia.

Konstantin Bondarenko, the head of the Institute of Ukrainian Policy, says that "we have lost the Donbas, in the sense that Ukraine has lost the struggle for its people." Even if Kyiv wins militarily, it will create more problems for itself because "the Donbas cannot be subordinated by force alone."

But Sergey Taran, the head of the International Institute of Democracy, disagrees. At the very least, he suggests, it is too early to draw such conclusions.

And he points out the obvious: the Donbas cannot afford to go its own way and needs help from Kyiv or from Moscow. Over time, the Ukrainian government is more likely to provide it, and that could prove decisive.

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#15
Moscow Times
March 24, 2015
Crisis Is Killing Russia's Demographic Recovery
By Mark Adomanis
Mark Adomanis is an MA/MBA candidate at the University of Pennsylvania's Lauder Institute.

Through the first two months of the year, Russian demographic trends have taken a noticeable turn for the worse. In the January-February period, the latest period for which data is currently available, births were down by more than 4 percent while deaths were up by 2 percent.

That's not the end of the world by any stretch of the imagination, but it is the first time in quite a while that the monthly data has been so ugly for so long. 2014 as a whole saw positive changes, but things started to slide downhill in both November and December. For the past four months, then, births have been trending down and deaths have been trending up.

Now, it is conceivable that this is all just a meaningless bit of statistical noise: month to month fluctuations are to be expected in a nation that (excluding Crimea) consists of roughly 143 million people. But given the magnitude and the duration of the recent changes, it seems far more likely that Russia's (rather modest!) demographic recovery of the past decade is coming to a very sudden end.

So what significance, if any, does this hold? Well, one conclusion that stands out is that Rosstat really does not appear to be "juking the stats" in order to please its masters in the Kremlin. I'd be a very rich man if I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say, "Rosstat's data is made-up, it's all an elaborate exercise in PR for the powers that be." Many people think that trusting Russian statistics is just about the dumbest thing that can be done.

Given the ugly reality of Russia's government, it unfortunately isn't ipso facto unreasonable to suggest that perhaps the statisticians are up to something funny. Stranger things, certainly, have happened within the walls of the Kremlin than fudging a few numbers on a spreadsheet. Particularly after the annexation of Crimea, it strains credulity to think that Putin and his close circle of advisers are incapable of telling someone to "fix" the stats so that they look good.

But while the case for Rosstat manipulation might be intuitively plausible, it is not so overwhelmingly obvious that it can be taken on faith. You need to actually show that the numbers should have been X, but Rosstat said that they were Y.

Lots of other nasty governments throughout history have kept reliable books, and there are numerous examples of countries where the presence of high-level corruption within the elite didn't transform all of the official statistics into meaningless forgeries.

Over the past year we've had a great test case to see whether Rosstat is, mostly, a reliable source of information about contemporary Russia or whether it's part of an elaborate political con.

Russian officialdom has, of course, been relentlessly optimistic in its appraisal of the situation. Putin and his increasingly hawkish inner circle dismissed out of hand the idea that Western sanctions would cause any real damage and suggested that any shortages would be quickly and successfully filled in by Russian firms.

However, as sanctions bit into the financial sector, as Russia's "self-sanctions" significantly limited the availability of foreign foodstuffs, and as Western analysts said that the economy would first slow and then start to contract, Rosstat's data has shown pretty much exactly what you would expect.

Inflation in 2014 was much higher than in 2013, economic growth was much lower, unemployment stopped its years-long downward trajectory and real wages started to decline.

Indeed, you could use the latest data from Rosstat - not only the demographic data, but the information about inflation, economic growth, industrial production and real wages - to create an extremely damning indictment of the powers that be and their recent decision-making.

Within a year, they managed to take a country that was experiencing levels of inflation and unemployment that, from a historical perspective, were very low and levels of wealth, health and welfare that, again from a historical perspective, were very high and make everything a lot worse in extremely short order.

You almost have to be impressed at the amount of damage they've been able to inflict in such a short period of time.

The real point, however, is that observations about Russia do not need to reflect any deep, lasting or eternal truth. Russia isn't some museum set piece sitting in a dusty and forgotten corner of the Hermitage. It is a part of a dynamic and rapidly changing world. It affects, and in turn is affected by, the world outside of its borders.

I have often been accused of "defending" Putin because I noted that, over the past decade, the average's Russian's life expectancy was rapidly increasing. Saying this was interpreted by some as tantamount to an endorsement of the government and all of its policies.

But, as a purely factual matter, it was increasing. Likewise, wages were going up and unemployment was going down. These positive changes weren't written in stone, and certainly weren't some inherent part of the "Russian soul." If external conditions changed they could very easily be reversed. Sadly, it appears that this is exactly what has happened.

Maybe at some point in the future Rosstat will become unreliable. Maybe politicians will eventually tire of the pessimistic story its data tells and force it to report an alternate reality. But so far it's proven a very reliable guide to Russia's trajectory.

You might not always like the story that they tell, but numbers and hard data are vital to understand Russia as it is and not as we want it to be.

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 #16
Russia Insider
http://russia-insider.com
March 23, 2015
Russia's Economy Is Holding up Well, but It's the Inflation, Stupid!
There is no economic crisis, but rather a receding financial crisis
By Jon Hellevig

This is an abridged version of a Russia economic update which originally appeared at Awara. The full report can be downloaded here:
http://www.awarablogs.com/jon-hellevig-russia-economic-news-brief/

The main conclusion for the moment is that Russia is not in an economic crisis, while it sure is in a financial crisis, or rather recovering from such.  We have witnessed a sharp devaluation of the ruble, high interest rates and a soaring inflation, which are elements of a financial crisis. But there has not been any wave of bankruptcies, shrinkage of industrial production or ensuing mass unemployment, which would mean an economic crisis or recession.  Industrial production actually grew in 2014 by 1.7% in the year and by an impressive 2.1% in Q4 2014. This year by February there has been only a slight decrease by 0.4%. This compares with the deep crisis in 2008 when industrial production crashed in an immediate shock in just four months by 20%. (October 2008 through January 2009). The result was a near doubling of unemployment from 5.4% in Q2 2008 to 9.4% in Q1 2009. This time around there has been no significant growth in unemployment, the reading for February being 5.8%, which is actually the exactly same level as in February 2014, but up from the historical low point of 5.2% of May 2014.

First quarter GDP expected at minus 1.5- to minus 1%

The Russian Central Bank expected a Q1 GDP decline of minus 2% in a report released March 13th, but only a few days later the deputy chairman of  the CB Ms. Ksenia Yudaeva said in an interview that the bank estimated a GDP decline of only -0.7%. Other domestic and foreign analysts have been far more pessimistic. We have reason to think that the predictions of the CB are the most accurate ones considering their access to the latest real data. Considering this and other factors, we would conclude that a GDP reading on the level of minus 1.5% to minus 1% is expected for Q1.

Predicting the annual GDP is difficult at this point due to so many uncertainties. The main factor is how fast the Central Bank will realize that the key lending rate is way too high above the present inflation rate. Presently the punitively high key interest rate at 14% is suffocating the economy. This is twice as much as the present running rate of inflation. (See below). If the rates are not timely drastically lowered then we could expect an annual GDP at the level of minus 3% or more. With a timely reaction the GDP for 2015 could come in at about zero. Sooner or later the understanding will arrive and therefore by 2016 Russia will return to positive growth.

These predictions are based on the assumption that the oil price will not take a renewed serious hit. Furthermore the prediction assumes that Russia will not be dragged into a shooting war or such a situation would occur which would have to put Russia de facto into a war economy. Unfortunately such scenarios cannot be excluded.

It's the inflation, stupid!

Presently the big problem is inflation, or rather the official misapprehension of inflation.

According to most economists the lending rates must be above the rate of inflation in a healthy economy. This is according to the monetary school, which is not necessarily right. At the very minimum they do not give due consideration to the supply side of the economy, that is, the need to create conditions to increase production, transport infrastructure, commercial space etc., in order to bring down prices by growth of supply and increased competition. In fact, I would think that the latter is Russia's historic problem. Thus it seems to me it that the Russian Government and Central Bank have committed an error in their excessive monetary fight against inflation.

Due to this policy the Central Bank is keeping the key lending interest rate at the excessively high level of 14% (down from peak 17% in December). The Government, in turn, embarked on a sequestration of the budget by erasing 10% of the planned spending in order to fight inflation.
 
The saddest thing is that there seems to be a cardinal misapprehension about the actual level of the inflation. The figure most often published in the press and the one the officials habitually refer to is the cumulated historic inflation year-on-year, that is, the rolling sum of the past 12 months. Another way to express the inflation rate popular among the Russian ministers is the expected inflation for the calendar year. For some purposes these might be interesting, for example, for the purpose of indexation of pensions. But they are completely off the point for the purpose of setting interest rates. Interest rates affect the future, so you should match them with the future predicted inflation, that is, the rate on which inflation is presently running 12 months ahead.

The cumulative inflation for past twelve months has been 16.7% (per mid-March). But now the government expects an annual inflation for the calendar year of 12% (announced in several interviews by key ministers). Thus they are making a prediction of the inflation pace. Then why don't go all the way and predict the future 12 month inflation (instead of only the end of year inflation). In fact, all the elements for the future 12 month inflation (the running inflation rate) are already baked in to the year-end inflation prediction. The Government knows that inflation from beginning of this year up to mid-March was 6.7% and predicts a calendar year inflation of 12%. What they are actually saying is that they expect the inflation for the rest of the 9.5 months to be 5.3%. This means an average 0.56% monthly inflation for the rest of the year, which in turn gives a running inflation rate at 6.7% for the 12 months ahead.

This forecast of the inflation rate inherent in the Government's predictions is what should be the foundation of setting the key lending rate of the Central Bank. Instead the CB is strangling the economy with a rate of 14% which is double the present running inflation rate.

This habit of determining the key interest rates by looking at the past accumulated inflation could be compared with a doctor prescribing medicine to a healthy patient based on his fever readings of the previous week. In other words, the same as steering the economy through the rear view mirror.

The 6.7% predicted future inflation rate might even be too high a figure under today's circumstances. The inflation rate has fallen dramatically during the last few weeks, now running at 0.8% for March. The punitive interest rates of the Central Bank and the Government budget sequestration will further smother the inflation. On top of this there are strong indications that the inflationary spike of the past few months was to a great deal caused by speculative price hikes instead of a real need to raise prices because of higher production costs. Now that the panic bubble has burst and the wholesale prices on some products seem even to be on the decline. On top of this comes the near 15% appreciation of the ruble since end of January, further aiding to keep prices down.

A key factor dampening the inflation is that most of the food is now produced domestically in Russia thanks to the Russian contra-sanction embargo on import of food from the West. If this was not the case, then the inflation would have followed the ruble depreciation in a dead spiral. The Russian domestic prices initially adjusted to the new suddenly increased demand of domestic products but this inflationary factor has now faded away.

Considering these arguments, it would seem to me that the Central Bank should urgently bring down the key lending rate to a level of 10% and further to 8%. It is only a matter of time when this realization will come.

Ruble appreciation would not be welcome

A further appreciation of the ruble would be a most unwelcome event as the weaker ruble has been a boon for domestic production and has largely kept the country's budget intact. The excessively high interest rates are luring speculative money to Russia which only serves to artificially strengthen the ruble and fuel stock market speculation. This will not do anything good for the real economy.

Instead of letting the ruble appreciate the Central Bank must use this window of opportunity to lower the interest rates so as to ensure that Russian corporations, entrepreneurs and domestic investors have access to lending with affordable interest rates.

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 #17
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
March 23, 2015
BOOK REVIEW: "Mr Putin: Operative in the Kremlin" - an updated version
Timothy Ash of ICBC-Standard Bank
Timothy Ash is head of EM Research, ICBC-Standard Bank, London

"Mr Putin: Operative in the Kremlin", new and expanded, by Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy, Brookings Institute Press, Washington, 2015.

This book is sold as a biography, but if you want a standard chronological recap of the life of Vladimir Putin I would suggest that you look elsewhere. But Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy do a really excellent job in trying to piece together elements of Putin's past to try to understand the man -  what makes him tick, his drivers. And given that Putin has been put back centre stage this year by events in Ukraine, and by Russia's new and much more confrontational approach in terms of relations with the near abroad and the West, I think this analysis adds real value and is an essential read for anyone with interests in Russia and the region.

What is clear for me is that events over the past 12-18 months suggest Russia and Ukraine are going to have broader regional and geopolitical impact, and this book really does help in understanding that, and for Western policymakers will help in the construction of countermeasures against a new and much more aggressive and confrontational Russia. The book is in fact an update to an earlier version that now takes account of events in Ukraine with the annexation of Crimea and subsequent Russian intervention in the Donbas region of Ukraine, so does help signal future actions therein.

The authors have a wealth of experience in covering Russia, coming from different disciplines, ie. Soviet/Russian studies/political science and Russian political economy. They both studied Russia through the late Soviet era, perestroika, the Yeltsin era - times which were important in shaping Putin the man and then president. They have also had significant interaction with Putin and his entourage, eg. through the Valdai seminars. They use these contacts and relationships very well to improve the reader's understanding of the character of Putin.

An operator

In this work, Hill/Gaddy present an image of a man who is an archetypical "operative" or spy, whose modus operandi is one of concealment of his own ulterior motives and his tracks. There are in fact few, if any, detailed accounts of his early life as a KGB operative in the GDR in the late 1980s and through the period of perestroika in Russia. But this period appears to have been so instrumental in shaping his current view of the world and vision for Russia and the region.

One particular lynchpin event in his own life, a fracas at a GDR/KGB office in Dresden during the fall of the Berlin Wall, has been re-spun to suggest that Putin cleverly talked down a potentially hostile crowd of demonstrators. Other accounts differed, suggesting a more confrontational approach, but the truth has been blurred by history and by spin. Similarly, the new Kremlin PR machine has built an image of a president for all Russia's people - the environmentalist, the sportsman, the security/ military man and the diplomat. But very few people really know the man, and George W. Bush's quip that he shook Putin's hand and had felt his soul, probably said more about Bush than of Putin himself. Again this was perhaps Putin only revealing to Bush what he wanted Bush to perceive, and that this was useful at the time in delivering on his objectives at the time.

The broad thesis of Hill/Gaddy is that Putin was critically shaped during the period of the collapse of the USSR, and by the chaos and centrifugal forces that emerged in Russia during the Yeltsin era. He viewed this as a real tragedy, and from his perspective it was the erosion of the state apparatus and machine that was at the core of the demise of the Soviet empire built around Moscow. The recreation of a strong state has thus been central to Putin's subsequent vision and long-term strategy for Russia.

Hill/Gaddy do though construct an image of a man who is not particularly ideological, but rather pulls elements from Russian history to suit his vision and drive to recreate a strong and powerful Russian state. They highlight that he is an avid reader of his history, and notable amongst his heroes is Piotr Stolypin, the former Tsarist prime minister and bureaucrat.

Putin is pro-market and indeed has allowed the development of an oligarchic class, but these oligarchs are allowed to operate by the Russian state only as long as they represent Russian state interests. Large, private or indeed state-owned Russian companies that operate internationally help give the Russian state global reach, and deliver on state interests. Where oligarchs have had a different "vision" and shown greater independence from Putin's Kremlin, they have been brought down to size by the use of the very levers of the state. But loyalty is prized and rewarded by Putin -loyalty is returned.

Of note Hill/Gaddy suggest that Putin's vision of Russia is not an ethnically unified one, but he sees Russians as a mix of ethnic groups and religions, sitting under the state umbrella, and resident in the geographical location of Russia - although they do not attempt to define its boundaries, and whether from Putin's perspective this includes currently independent former Soviet states.

Putin is portrayed as a powerful man, managing an image of always being in control, having a strategic vision for Russia, and applying varying tactics to deliver on that vision. The book is by no means sycophantic, and indeed it critically appraises the way he exercises control over those around him, Russia and its foes. The publication is perhaps lacking in terms of an assessment of his potential vulnerabilities. Arguably the ongoing crisis in Ukraine presents the biggest single challenge to Putin's rule, and could well ultimately shape history's judgment of Putin, "Great" or otherwise. And while the Kremlin is currently spinning a version of events around Crimea as being planned/managed by Putin, events on Kyiv's Maidan and Donbas suggest that this is a much more dynamic and unpredictable process with an uncertain outcome.

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 #18
Alternet.org
March 22, 2015
NATO's Creepy New Plan to Infiltrate Twitter and Facebook
NATO has announced that "countering false Russian narratives on social media" is a major priority.
By Adam Johnson
Adam Johnson is a freelance journalist; formerly he was a founder of the hardware startup Brightbox. Follow him on Twitter at @adamjohnsonnyc.

On Sunday, NATO commander General Philip Breedlove said in an interview with the Associated Press that NATO must do more to "counter Russian propaganda online":

"NATO's supreme commander says the West must do more to counter Russia by employing a rapid-reaction approach to internet communications that counteracts Russia's 'false narratives spread on social media.

"Gen. Philip Breedlove said Sunday that Vladimir Putin's Russia has been waging information warfare as part of its actions against Ukraine.

"Breedlove said: We need as a western group of nations or as an alliance to engage in this informational warfare. The way to attack the false narrative is to drag the false narrative into the light and expose it.'"

While details of such a plan remain vague, this mindset is part of a broader trend of social media psychological warfare that has been emerging largely unnoticed over the past five years. The first question that is rarely asked by our media is the most important one: what constitutes a "false narrative," and who decides what constitutes one? Recent attempts by UK authorities to stifle the speech of the Russian-backed, English-language TV station RT show that false narratives are whatever Western governments determine they are.

According to the Guardian, "Russia Today is to be investigated by media regulator Ofcom over anti-western comments in a late-night discussion on Ukraine-its sixth ongoing inquiry into the Kremlin-backed news channel following complaints by viewers."

That Western officials would extend this crackdown on Russian-backed narratives from traditional to social media is not surprising. What is worth noting is that the media routinely downplays or under-reports what such a plan would entail-namely, the use of sockpuppet or fake social media accounts that would be used to counter these so-called false narratives. As the Guardian revealed in 2011, the Defense Department has been developing such technology for some time:

"The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda...

"The Centcom contract stipulates that each fake online persona must have a convincing background, history and supporting details, and that up to 50 US-based controllers should be able to operate false identities from their workstations "without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries".

"The multiple persona contract is thought to have been awarded as part of a programme called Operation Earnest Voice (OEV), which was first developed in Iraq as a psychological warfare weapon against the online presence of al-Qaida supporters and others ranged against coalition forces. Since then, OEV is reported to have expanded into a $200m programme and is thought to have been used against jihadists across Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East."

These sockpuppet accounts, according to the Guardian report and separate revelations by Anonymous, are not your run-of-the-mill spambot accounts. They are not easily spotted, like Twitter accounts with egg avatars and 15 followers. They are formatted like the accounts of real people and are often operated by real military personnel (who run dozens at a time) to give the appearance of total legitimacy. We also know, as NBC reported in October, that the FBI has been using similar technology over the past few years to lure wannabe online jihadists:

"[A review of Federal Court cases by NBC] shows that undercover FBI agents or informants first identified or connected with the suspects via social media in at least four cases, using fake social media identities to engage them and, in Sheikh's case, possibly engaging in "catfishing" by luring him into a personal relationship with a phony online persona. Agents also created a "false-flag" or "honeypot" Facebook page to help snare him."

The actual court transcript describes in further detail the fake "al Nusra" Facebook page and fake "al-Nusra nurse" the FBI set up to lure Mr. Sheikh: As the FBI would testify under cross examination:

Yes. The CHS (Confidential Human Source) had a Facebook page as well set at the direction of the FBI. Similar types of posts, the Islamic extremism point of view are on this Facebook page....

This type of social media infiltration, marked by increasingly sophisticated sockpuppeting software and mood analysis, is quickly becoming the preferred battleground for MISO (formerly known as "PsyOps or "psychological warfare"). While this may sound benign when targeting the evil "terrorists," in an age of global, real-time information sharing, compartmentalizing these types of militarized information campaigns is all but impossible. If NATO is countering "false" Russian narratives" on Twitter by using sockpuppets and other forms of modern psychological warfare, these efforts will undoubtedly bleed over into the average American's social media experience. This fact should creep out even the most committed anti-Putin partisans.

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#19
www.rt.com
March 23, 2015
Anti-Russian propaganda is 'unconvincing', because Western narrative is false
By Neil Clark
Neil Clark is a journalist, writer and broadcaster. His award winning blog can be found at www.neilclark66.blogspot.com. Follow him on Twitter

You really couldn't make it up. Almost 24 million people in the EU are unemployed. The Greek debt crisis has yet to be resolved. An Islamic State terrorist attack in Tunis, just over 100 miles from Italy. The ever-worsening problem of climate change.

And what are the EU elite talking about? How best to counter 'Russia's ongoing disinformation campaigns'. It's good to know they've got their priorities right, isn't it?

At last week's summit in Brussels, EU leaders discussed a range of options- one of which could include the setting up of a new Russian-language TV channel funded by European taxpayers.

A timetable has been laid out: we're told the EU-funded European Endowment for Democracy will present media proposals to a summit in Latvia on May 21-22, and that EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini will finalize the plans by the end of June.

This follows on from Members of the European Parliament passing a resolution in January urging the EU to counter Russian 'propaganda'.

"The EU and its member states have been concerned for some time about Russian propaganda, and about the fact that the counter-argument coming from the EU often seems to be poorly focused and unconvincing," according to the BBC website.

Well, that BBC report is right, because the "counter-argument" which comes from the EU and the US is certainly "unconvincing".

But it's "unconvincing" not because of presentation flaws, or because insufficient money was put into "selling" the message, but because the dominant Western narrative on Russia and the Russian "threat" is false, and anyone with a modicum of intelligence can see that it's false.

That's the basic problem that those seeking to push this narrative have. Setting up a new European TV channel, or giving money to ex-Soviet Republics to set up their own Russian-language channels to fight Russian "propaganda", won't remedy it.

"The Russian threat to the west"? You only have to look at a map of Europe and see how NATO has expanded eastwards since the demise of the Soviet Union to realize who is threatening whom.

"Russia is a dangerous aggressor which needs to be stopped." This is truly risible. By any objective assessment it's the US and its allies who are the dangerous aggressors. Was it Russia which invaded Iraq in 2003, falsely claiming it had WMDs? Or Russia which bombed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for 78 days and nights in 1999? Or Russia which attacked Libya in 2011, helping to destroy a country which had the highest living standards in Africa? Or is it Russia which has killed up to 200 children in Pakistan in drone strikes since 2004?

"Russia is to blame for the Ukraine crisis." Again, one only has to spend a few minutes on this topic to realize that this claim is nonsense too - it was the EU and US who caused the crisis, by sponsoring and supporting a "regime change" against a legitimate, democratically-elected government.

Just imagine if Russia had interfered in the same way in Canada! But the EU and US do it in Ukraine, and somehow Russia is to blame.

"The Russian invasion of Ukraine", again, a load of hogwash. If Russian had invaded Ukraine, we would certainly know about it by now. It's hard to keep up with the number of false reports of "Russian tanks in Ukraine" we've had: here's two more for the collection from February.

"Russia's annexation of Crimea", well, Crimea would still be part of Ukraine today had it not been for the Western-sponsored coup which toppled the legal government of the country. Crimea was only handed to the then Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic by Nikita Khrushchev in 1954 and the majority Russian population of Crimea unsurprisingly voted to return to their motherland after the coup in which far-right anti-Russian extremists played a leading role.

As to the rubbishing of the referendum in which the people of Crimea exercised their democratic rights to rejoin Russia, the best response I read was from the British journalist Peter Hitchens:

"I have spent much of the weekend wheezing with helpless mirth at the efforts of members of my trade to disapprove of two things they've spent their lives applauding - democracy and self-determination. They have to do this because on this occasion they operate in favor of Russia, a country on which we must all (for some reason) look down with cold sneers on our faces."

What we've been fed in the West about the Ukraine conflict is lies, lies and more lies, and we've witnessed, as Hitchens notes, elite hypocrisy on a massive scale. A crisis caused by the EU and the US's regime-change activities in a country bordering Russia is blamed on Russia. Russia, threatened by NATO's eastward expansion, is portrayed as a "threat." Countries that have committed serial aggression against other sovereign states in recent years, leading to massive loss of life, label a country that hasn't taken part in these crimes a "dangerous aggressor." Lies are told and the truth is suppressed on a daily basis.

"The suppression of the truth about Ukraine is one of the most complete news blackouts I can remember," writes veteran, award-winning anti-war journalist John Pilger.

"The biggest Western military build-up in the Caucasus and eastern Europe since World War Two is blacked out. Washington's secret aid to Kiev and its neo-Nazi brigades responsible for war crimes against the population of eastern Ukraine is blacked out. Evidence that contradicts propaganda that Russia was responsible for the shooting down of a Malaysian airliner is blacked out."

It doesn't really matter how much the EU decides to spend on countering "Russian propaganda," if the script they're pushing is so clearly untrue, then they're not going to convince people.

Once again, Europe is following in the footsteps of Washington. In February, Secretary of State Kerry pleaded for more funding to counter news outlets like RT. But RT's budget is less than the budget of the US government media services and indeed the BBC's World Service.

Daniel McAdams, executive director of the Ron Paul Institute, hit the nail on the head when he told RT: "I think the problem the US has is they have an unlimited advertising budget, but the product they're selling is not very attractive overseas. People are tired of US interventionism; they're tired of US exceptionalism; they're tired of the US bombing their country... if you're a Somalian, you don't care about listening to a radio broadcast from the US, you just wish the US would stop bombing you."

The EU will be making a big mistake if they can solve the problem of having "unconvincing" counter-arguments on Russia and Ukraine by throwing euro at it. An old Persian proverb tells us that "the man who speaks the truth is always at ease." When it comes to the current propaganda war against Russia the Western elites are clearly not at ease and it's not hard to work out why.

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 #20
The Unz Review
www.unz.com
March 14, 2015
NATO and the Two Central Conflicts of the Ukraine Crisis
BY KAREL VAN WOLFEREN
Karel van Wolferen is a Dutch journalist and retired professor at the University of Amsterdam. Since 1969, he has published over twenty books on public policy issues, which have been translated into eleven languages and sold over a million copies worldwide. As a foreign correspondent for NRC Handelsblad , one of Holland's leading newspapers, he received the highest Dutch award for journalism, and over the years his articles have appeared in The New York Times , The Washington Post , The New Republic , The National Interest , Le Monde , and numerous other newspapers and magazines.

Where I live (the Netherlands), if you were to call NATO the world's most dangerous institution, a consensus would quickly form to conclude that you must have lost your marbles. Yet, without NATO we would not have a Ukraine crisis, and no speculations about the possibility of war with Russia. Taking nuclear war seriously as a policy option should be listed in psychology handbooks as indicative of complete insanity or lethal ignorance. This has not stopped newspaper editors from speculating about it in their headlines, as they fill in the blanks of what a number top officials on both sides of the Atlantic have recently been half-saying or implying. With no NATO they would not have had occasion or reason to do so. Ukraine's Deputy Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko recently said: "Everybody is afraid of fighting with a nuclear state. We are not anymore". Political insanity can exist independently of NATO, but the least one can say is that it has become a facilitator of that insanity.

It would therefore be a momentous development for what is still called 'the West' if last week's Der Spiegel signals a relevant German awakening. The weekly magazine published a hard hitting article in which the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Breedlove, is accused of undermining Chancellor Merkel's attempts to find a solution to the Ukraine crisis through diplomacy. The military head of NATO, with his exaggerations and untruths about Russian troop movements, spouts "dangerous propaganda" according to officials in Merkel's Chancellery, as quoted by the magazine. In other words, he can no longer be trusted.

Lies coming out of Washington that portray Putin as the grand aggressor are nothing new; for about a year they have formed a constant stream, from the lips of the Vice President, the Secretary of State, and in a milder form from the President himself. As a result the idea of Russian aggression has become close to an article of faith in Northern Europe's mainstream media. But by singling out Breedlove, the German fingerpointing is directed at NATO, and Obama and Co may draw their own conclusions from it.

An assortment of conflicts have gone into the Ukraine crisis, but the two that now appear to have become fundamental to it play themselves out far away from that tragic country. One is centered in Washington where an out-of-his-depth president must decide whether to become realistic or give in further to right-wing forces that want to give the Kiev regime the weapons needed to continue its war in Eastern Ukraine. The second conflict is an incipient one about NATO - meaning European subservience to the United States - begun by Angela Merkel's and Francois Hollande's recently formed Peace Party, of which their mission to the Kremlin, Merkel's joint press conference with Obama and the abovementioned German reporting are early signs.

Until now Obama has given as good as free rein to the liberal hawks and neocons in his own government. The War Party. A prominent member of that group, Victoria Nuland, who played a central role in helping to organize the coup d'état in Kiev last year, is eager to give Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko the means to survive the onslaughts of supernationalists in his own environment and to subdue, finally, the anti-regime troops in South East Ukraine. Nuland works closely with Breedlove, and both have expressed themselves in denigrating terms about European recalcitrance in the face of what they want to accomplish.

Should Obama choose to become realistic, it would require measures to show the world his re-established political control over the State Department, and other institutions where neocons and "responsibility to protect" liberals have nestled. These have been writing America's foreign policy basics since George W. Bush. It would also have to be accompanied by a genuine change of position vis-à-vis Putin. Obama must be aware that if, instead, he chooses to continue siding with the War Party, he runs the risk of demonstrating to all and sundry NATO's impotence as military instrument of 'The West'. The fighting forces of Donetsk and Lubansk wage an existential battle, and have all along been superior to the demoralized and apparently disorganized Kiev military. American intervention could only be effective if the proposed 'lethal weapons' have the capacity to turn the Ukraine war into a theatre of full military escalation, with tactical nuclear weapons an ultimate option.

The newly revealed split in transatlantic purposes may finally decide NATO's future. As an institution that began living a life of its own with purposes and actions entirely different from, and at odds with, the original purposes for which it was created, NATO has had a much more fateful influence on political Europe than is routinely understood. Set up in 1949 to reassure a demoralized and war devastated Europe that it would help prevent a new war, the European member countries normally do not question the official reason that it exists to protect them. But there has not been a single instance since the demise of the Soviet Union to confirm such a function. It has, instead, forced governments to lie to their populations (we are threatened from behind the Hindu Kush and Saddam Hussein can make mushroom clouds), poisoning the air in which reasoned geopolitical discussion ought to have taken place. It has, moreover, created risks from blowback activity as member countries participated in wars that were none of NATO's business.

But NATO's worst consequence is what it has done to Europe's prospects to pull itself out of its current muddledom and become a political entity recognizable as such by the rest of the world. It has prevented the European Union from developing a defense policy, and consequently a foreign policy worthy of the term. Since the demise of its original reason for existence, it has caused Europe to slip ever further into a relationship vis-à-vis the United States best compared to medieval vassalage. That sad fact could hardly have been more blatantly obvious when in 2014 it succumbed to Washington's pressure to join punitive economic sanctions against Putin's Russia, to its own significant economic detriment, and for reasons justified solely by American propaganda.

The ease with which European Union heads of government fell in line behind misguided American efforts in the demonization of Putin reveals an even deeper problem. Since the end of the Cold War NATO has kept European politicians in a kind of geopolitical kindergarten, encouraging a comic book style vision of world affairs scripted in Washington with bad guys threatening the West and its 'values'.

Some of this is of course well-understood in parts of the highest ruling circles of the European Union. Hence the recent suggestion made by EU Commission President Jean Claude Juncker in an interview with Germany's Die Welt newspaper, that Europe requires its own army to amount to anything on the world stage, and also to impress Russia with what Europe stands for. Juncker is well-known as an enthusiast for a federal Europe.

One of the reasons to wake European Union up to the fact that is a political entity, and to encourage its development in the direction of a federal superstructure, is that by projecting its own power it could create a much needed counterbalance to the tragic American extremism in world affairs. It would force a militarist United States to stop legimizing its aggression with references and appeals to putative 'Western values'.

The European Union missed a chance to establish itself squarely on the world stage when Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder did not clarify why they denied George W. Bush a UN Security Council resolution for his invasion of Iraq. They failed to explain to their own public and to the wider world that Europe continues to uphold the UN Charter as the basis of what we have in the way of fledgling international law. Instead, from that moment onward the world saw an open European display of utter subservience to a tragically out-of-control Washington in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The much bandied about 'Western values' do not now include earlier principles connected with international law, desirable world order, sovereignty or diplomacy. Those have been eclipsed by Atlanticism, which is a peculiar European secular faith. It holds that the United States, while perhaps flawed, is still an indispensable savior, and without its leadership there cannot be good world order. Hence we must all do what Washington demands.

Since Atlanticism is worshipped most intensely by NATO, we may think of this institution as the Church of this faith. Its texts are slogans about liberty, 'shared values', human rights and the need to spread democracy. It has of course derived strength from historical experience and also from deserved gratitude. A weak lingering fear that without American supervision European quarrels could turn nasty - an original additional reason for wanting to have it around - may still enter into it as well. But its resilience is probably most of all due to an utter dearth of imagination among the technocrats and ideologically crippled men and women that form majorities among Europe's ruling elites.

"Like no other institution, NATO embodies Atlantic cohesion, something that remains essential for any Western effort to promote a degree of international order. NATO links Europe to the world's most powerful country and uniquely ties the United States to a common procedure of consultation and cooperation. ...European governments, therefore, are crazy not to support NATO. To watch it wither is at best frivolous, at worst dangerous", so said the well-known NATO advocate Christoph Bertram when in 2004 misgivings about George W. Bush were creating European doubts about its value. The crucial point he and other true believers have missed is that already for some time now genuine consultation is no longer part of the deal and, more importantly, that at the center of their faith is a country addicted to enemies.

An enemy that others can agree on offers a simple, rudimentary, way of measuring the goodness, badness and seriousness of fellow citizens. Especially for American politicians being 'tough' on baddies has become an almost indispensable means to demonstrate their political bona fides. When obvious solutions for substantial political problems affecting everyday life are too controversial, politicians tend to take firm stands on matters that brook no disagreement, like crime or familiar enemies. For a long time one of the worst things that could befall an American candidate for high office was to be called "soft on communism". President Lyndon Johnson against his own better judgment did not end the Vietnam War because he anticipated massive political attacks from Republican ranks for having caved in to it. Today Obama's detractors in the Republican Party have the Ukraine crisis as a welcome opportunity to 'prove' their repeated claim that he is a weak president, who cannot stand up to the challenges supposedly thrown down by Vladimir Putin. As a result the 'liberal hawks' in Obama's own administration have a field day in pushing anti-Russian hysteria.

The mandatory enemy has determined much geopolitical reality since the end of the Cold War. Living with one prompts standard behaviour that, in the way of all regular behaviour, itself becomes an institution, which does not simply go away when the enemy vanishes. So after the demise of the Soviet Union there was a sudden desperate need to promote countries to enemy position. Since 2001 the "soft on terrorism" accusation has partially substituted for the political use of the putative communist threat; and before the attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center Towers in Manhattan a fabrication of 'rogue states' or 'failed states' was introduced to keep all manner of Cold War institutions going.

When leading Vietnam War official Robert McNamara testified before Congress that with the Soviet Union gone America's defense budget could be cut in half, the Pentagon and assorted military-related institutions suffered from a collective panic attack. Their answer was a report compiled by Colin Powell, then head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who obligingly created new threats, dictating that in future the United States must be able to fight two wars simultaneously against new enemies. China is held in reserve, radical Islamists are currently serving, and Putin's Russia has now been added as a huge new but still familiar fake monster to join the list. With NATO membership the Europeans get America's enemies as a bonus.

The one genuine threat to NATO, the fact that it is obsolete, has remained mostly hidden. It has been searching for causes that would keep it relevant, hence the involvement of member states in Afghanistan and Iraq and Mali and Libya. Hence its expansion, through absorbing the former Warsaw pact countries; a bureaucracy that increases in size gains new relevance. Ten years after the Berlin Wall came down it sought relevance by changing from a defensive into an offensive alliance, promptly violating the UN Charter, through its war in Kosovo.

To do away with NATO in one fell swoop, desirable as it may be, is obviously not going to work in the immediate future. But it could be allowed gradually to wither away, as it was doing before the Pentagon dragged it into Afghanistan.

A bureaucracy is not easily killed once it becomes redundant. Complicating matters in this case is that behind its appeals to 'common values', the alliance is an outgrowth of the U.S. military-industrial complex, adding to its military procurements, jobs, astronomical profits, and highly remunerated official positions.

But there is something more to NATO than this and all the already mentioned other reasons, something less tangible and hence easily overlooked. Its withering will not make the Atlanticist faith go away. That faith, together with NATO are links to political certainty of a kind. They are an extension of a spiritual handrail that existed throughout the Cold War, one helping to counter radical doubt. The post-World-War-II international order that developed in the shadow of United States-Soviet rivalry came, for all its defects, closer to a relatively stable society of states than anything seen in global relations since the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, and with it we could be certain that we knew what was politically good and bad.

Suddenly that was gone, and we had a post-Cold-War world throwing up massive uncertainties that, as imagined by a generation of concerned Europeans, have eaten into the fabric of moral and political life of the West. One could hardly expect the Cold War generation right away to throw overboard an Atlanticism that had been a political life sustaining faith. Decades later, clinging to that faith and as members of NATO, you get a modicum of certainty along with the American enemies that accompany it.

Listen to why retired French, German, Dutch, British and American top defense officials, in a book prepared for a 2008 NATO conference, advocated a military response not to physical threats but to foreign ideas that question Western supremacy and power. These NATO thinkers spoke explicitly in terms of a "restoration of its certainties" as a condition for the security of the West. China has the temerity to compete with Western interests in Africa, and Iran wants to wipe out Israel. The foreign ideas to be fought are irrational and aimed at defeating Western values. Implicitly claiming a moral monopoly of the use of violence for the United States and NATO, those former NATO generals came out in favor of using nuclear weapons, if need be, to stop other countries from developing weapons of mass destruction. In the words of Germany's former chief of Defense, "we cannot survive ... confronted with people who do not share our values, who unfortunately are in the majority in terms of numbers, and who are extremely hungry for success". The massive Western propaganda of last year, demonizing Putin, from the putsch in Kiev onward, breathes the same spirit.

Neocons and liberal hawks deal in certainties. They have uncovered existential threats to Western values coming from terrorists and islamists. The anomalous fantasy of the 'war on terrorism', which cannot exist and is the biggest lie of the twentyfirst century, nevertheless brings the certainty of valiant defenders of Western values.

But Chancellor Merkel received her political education on the other side of the Iron Curtain. It would appear that her view of the situation has come rather close to that of Putin as expressed in his 2007 Munich Security Conference speech:

"I am convinced that we have reached that decisive moment when we must seriously think about the architecture of global security. And we must proceed by searching for a reasonable balance between the interests of all participants in the international dialogue ... The United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way ... And of course this is extremely dangerous. It results in the fact that no one feels safe. I want to emphasize this - no one feels safe."

Germany's foreign minister, the formidable Frank-Walter Steinmeier visits the United States this week to talk with high officials. Writing in the New York Times of 11 March, he came with what can be read as an appeal to realism and formerly held principles - albeit with a sop to prevailing opinion about Russian aggression.

The potential of a heightened conflict between Washington and a Chancellor Merkel, if she has the courage, the intelligence, and the inclination fully to open her eyes to Europe's interests, lays bare the all-important question whether the United States is still capable of re-engaging in diplomacy. This is something it abandoned after the end of the Cold War, along with the very principle of respecting the sovereignty of countries that do not do its bidding. As of now, the United States simply will not accept sharing the globe with any other power that has significant political influence in its own part of the world.

This particular superpower psychosis is a first in history.

Merkel, and some other top European officials must by now have concluded that there is urgency in the matter, quite aside from avoiding the further provocation of Moscow by arming Poroshenko. Waiting in the wings is Hillary Clinton who, by all relevant commentary and impressions of her past actions and opinions will be an even worse war president than Obama has been, if she makes it to the White House.

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 #21
Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
www.carnegiecouncil.org
March 23, 2015
Russia's Orthodox Soft Power
Bu NICOLAI N. PETRO  
Nicolai N. Petro is professor of politics at the University of Rhode Island. This paper was presented at the Interallied Confederation of Reserve Officers (CIOR) seminar on Russia in Koenigswinter, Germany, February 15-18, 2015. CIOR is one of the independent advisory bodies to the Military Committee of NATO.
[Notes here http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/articles_papers_reports/727]

Abstract

For many analysts the term Russky mir, or Russian World, epitomizes an expansionist and messianic Russian foreign policy, the perverse intersection of the interests of the Russian state and the Russian Orthodox Church.

Little noted is that the term actually means something quite different for each party. For the state it is a tool for expanding Russia's cultural and political influence, while for the Russian Orthodox Church it is a spiritual concept, a reminder that through the baptism of Rus, God consecrated these people to the task of building a Holy Rus.

The close symphonic relationship between the Orthodox Church and state in Russia thus provides Russian foreign policy with a definable moral framework, one that, given its popularity, is likely to continue to shape the country's policies well into the future.
--

"For us the rebirth of Russia is inextricably tied, first of all, with spiritual rebirth . . .and if Russia is the largest Orthodox power [pravoslavnaya dershava], then Greece and Athos are its source." -Vladimir Putin during a state visit to Mount Athos, September 2005.2

Foreign policy is about interests and values. But while Russia's interests are widely debated, her values are often overlooked, or treated simplistically as the antithesis of Western values.

But, as Professor Andrei Tsygankov points out in his book Russia and the West from Alexander to Putin, Russia's relations with the West go through cycles that reflect its notion of honor.3 By honor he means the basic moral principles that are popularly cited within a culture as the reason for its existence, and that inform its purpose when interacting with other nations.

Over the past two centuries, in pursuit of its honor, Russia has cooperated with its European neighbors, when they have acknowledged it as part of the West; responded defensively, when they have excluded Russia; and assertively, when they have been overtly hostile to Russia's sense of honor.

Sometimes a nation's sense of its honor overlaps with present-day interests; but it cannot be reduced to the national interest alone, because political leaders must respond to existential ideals and aspirations that are culturally embedded. A nation's sense of honor, therefore, serves as a baseline for what might be called the long-term national interest.

According to Tsygankov, in Russia's case the long-term national interest revolves around three constants: First, sovereignty or "spiritual freedom;" second, a strong and socially protective state that is capable of defending that sovereignty; and third, cultural loyalty to those who share Russia's sense of honor, wherever they may be.4 All three of these involve, to a greater or lesser extent, the defense of Orthodox Christianity, of the Russian Orthodox Church, and of Orthodox Christians around the world.

Russian President Vladimir Putin succinctly encapsulated Russia's sense of honor during his state visit to Mount Athos in 2005, when he referred to Russia as a pravoslavnaya derzhava, or simply, an Orthodox power.

Putin on the Moral Crisis of the West

Little noted at the time, in retrospect, the phrase seems to presage the turn toward Russian foreign policy assertiveness that Western analysts first noticed in his February 2007 remarks at the Munich Security Conference.5

Since then, Putin has often returned to the dangers posed by American unilateralism, and even challenged the cherished notion of American exceptionalism.6 But, until his speech at the 2013 Valdai Club meeting, he did not explicitly say what values Russia stood for, what its sense of honor demanded. It was at this meeting that Putin first laid out his vision of Russia's mission as an Orthodox power in the 21st century.

Putin began his speech by noting that the world has become a place where decency is in increasingly short supply. Countries must therefore do everything in their power to preserve their own identities and values, for "without spiritual, cultural and national self-definition . . . . one cannot succeed globally."7

Without a doubt, he said, the most important component of a country's success is the intellectual, spiritual, and moral quality of its people. Economic growth and geopolitical influence depend increasingly on whether a country's citizens feel they are one people sharing a common history, common values, and common traditions. All of these, said Putin, contribute to a nation's self-image, to its national ideal. Russia needs to cultivate the best examples from the past and filter them through its rich diversity of cultural, spiritual, and political perspectives. Diversity of perspectives is crucial for Russia because it was born a multinational and multiconfessional state, and remains so today.8

Indeed, pluriculturalism is potentially one of Russia's main contributions to global development. "We have amassed a unique experience of interacting with, mutually enriching, and mutually respecting diverse cultures," he told his audience. "Polyculturalism and polyethnicity are in our consciousness, our spirit, our historical DNA."9

Polyculturalism is also one of the driving factors behind the Eurasian Union, a project initiated by the president of Kazakstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, that Putin has wholeheartedly embraced.

Designed to move Eurasia from the periphery of global development to its center, it can only be successful, Putin says, if each nation retains its historical identity and develops it alongside the identity of the Eurasian region as a whole. Creating a culture of unity in diversity within this region, says Putin, would contribute greatly to both pluralism and stability in world affairs.

But, in a jab at the West, Putin notes that some aspects of pluriculturalism are no longer well received in the West. The values of traditional Christianity that once formed the very basis of Western civilization have come under fire there, and in their place Western leaders are promoting a unipolar and monolithic worldview. This, he says, is "a rejection . . . of the natural diversity of the world granted by God. . . . Without the values of Christianity and other world religions, without the norms of morality and ethics formed over the course of thousands of years, people inevitably lose their human dignity."10

The abandonment of traditional Christian values has led to a moral crisis in the West. Russia, Putin says, intends to counter this trend by defending Christian moral principles both at home and abroad.

Putin's call for greater respect for traditional cultural and religious identities was either missed or ignored in the West. One reason, I suspect, is that it was couched in a language that Western elites no longer use.

For most of the 20th century, Western social science has insisted that modernization would render traditional cultural and religious values irrelevant. The modern alternative, which pioneer political scientists Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba labelled "civic culture," gravitates toward cultural homogeneity and secularism. These qualities lead to political stability and economic progress. The pattern is exemplified by Anglo-American societies which, they conclude, form the optimal model for a modern society.11

Half a century later, with the rise of China and the collapse of the Soviet Union, it no longer seems so obvious that secularism and homogeneity are the only paths to national success. Scholars increasingly speak of multiple paths to modernity, and even a resurgence of religion.12

Another reason why Putin's message was overlooked is that he is calling upon the West to re-connect with its Byzantine heritage, a heritage that it has often dismissed as non-Western. In Putin's mind, reincorporating Eastern Christianity into Western civilization reveals Russia as a vital part of Western civilization, and requires that Russia be part of any discussion of Western values.

Putin's speech in 2013 was an assertive and optimistic statement of Russian values, and the cultural and spiritual reasons why he felt that Russian influence in the world was bound to grow. By 2014, however, the world had changed. A major reason is the conflict within Ukraine, which many in the West define as a conflict over world order stemming from a profound values gap between Russia and the West.

Russia, by contrast, sees itself as defending not only vital strategic interests in Ukraine, but also its core values of honor, such as spiritual freedom, cultural loyalty, and pluralism. It may seem strange to many in the West, but Russia's attitude on the Ukrainian crisis is inflexible precisely because it sees itself as occupying the moral high ground in this dispute.

A key reason why Western moral criticisms of Russian actions have so little traction among Russians is that the Russia Orthodox Church has regained its traditional pre-eminence as the institution that defines the nation's moral vision and sense of honor. Looking beyond Russia's borders, that vision has come to be known as the Russky mir or Russian World.

Russian World or the Communities of Historical Rus?

It is important to distinguish how this term is used by the Russian state from how it is used by the Russian Orthodox Church.

The use of this term as a "community of Orthodox Christians living in unity of faith, traditions and customs," goes back to at least the beginning of the 19th century, but it was re-purposed as a political concept in the early 1990s by Pyotr Shedrovitsky, an influential political consultant interested in the role that cultural symbols could play in politics. He believed that creating a network of mutually reinforcing social structures in the former Soviet states among people who continue to think and speak in Russian-the "Russky mir"-could be politically advantageous to Russia.13 Its practical foreign policy appeal stemmed from the fact that, by claiming to speak on behalf of nearly 300 million Russian speakers, a weakened Russia would instantly become a key regional player, as well as an influential political force within the countries of the former Soviet Union.

This notion resonated within the Yeltsin administration which, in the mid-1990s was already searching for a "Russian Idea" around which to consolidate the nation and promote a new democratic consensus.14 Members of the Institute of Philosophy at the Russian Academy of Sciences were tasked to research this concept, but although it influenced sections of Russia's first foreign policy doctrine in 1996, it ultimately ran out of steam. As those involved in this project later explained to me, there were simply too many disparate "Russian Ideas" to choose from, and no consensus within the presidential administration or the Institute of Philosophy on which version to support.

More than a decade would pass before the term was used by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill. This occurred in 2009 at the Third Assembly of the Russian World, when Patriarch Kirill spoke of how the Russky mir, or Holy Rus as he also called it, should respond to the challenges of globalization.15

The Church, he said, emphasizes the importance of spiritual bonds over the divisions of national borders. It therefore uses the term russky not as a geographical, or ethnic concept, but as a spiritual identity that refers to the cradle civilization of the Eastern Slavs-Kievan Rus.

This common identity was forged when Kievan Rus adopted Christianity from Constantinople in 988. At that moment the Eastern Slavs were consecrated into a single civilization and given the task of constructing Holy Rus. That mission persisted through the Muscovite and Imperial eras. It survived the persecutions of the Soviet era, and continues today in democratic Russia.16 The core of this community today resides in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus (at other times, Kirill has added Moldova and Kazakhstan), but can refer to anyone who shares the Orthodox faith, a reliance on Russian language, a common historical memory, and a common view of social development.17

In June 2007, President Putin established the Russky mir Fund, tasked with support of the Russian language and cultural inheritance throughout the world.18 Much of this effort was clearly aimed at preserving the use of the Russian language in the former Soviet Union, and with it the popularization of Russia's image. But while there is clearly a great deal of overlap between the religious and political uses of this term, let me highlight several important differences.

As used by the state, Russky mir is typically a political or a cultural concept. In both senses it is used by groups working for the Russian government to strengthen the country's domestic stability, restore Russia's status as a world power, and increase her influence in neighboring states. From the state's perspective, the Russian Orthodox Church can be a useful tool for these purposes.

As used by the Church, Russky mir is a religious concept. It is essential for reversing the secularization of society throughout the former Soviet Union, a task Patriarch Kirill has termed the "second Christianization" of Rus.19 The Russian Orthodox Church sees the Russian government, or for that matter, any government within its canonical territory, as tools for this purpose.

Reaction to the patriarch's use of the phrase Russky mir, which was familiar mainly in its Yeltsin-era political context, was mixed, both inside and outside of Russia. It aroused considerable controversy in Ukraine, where the Greek-Catholic church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kievan Patriarchate dismissed it outright. On the other hand, the autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which serves approximately half of all Christians in Ukraine, has been cautiously receptive.

In light of this controversy, Kirill returned to the topic in 2010, to clarify his views of what the Russky mir meant specifically for Ukraine. He reiterated that the baptism of Kievan Rus was an instance of Divine Providence.20 The Russian Orthodox Church has defended the religious and cultural bonds established by this miraculous event for more than a thousand years, and will always continue to do so.21

Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine are all equal successors to the inheritance of Kievan Rus, therefore all three should be coordinating centers in the development of the Russian World. To this end, Patriarch Kirill introduced the idea of "synodal capitals"-historical centers of Russian Orthodoxy which would regularly host meetings of the Holy Synod, the Church's chief decision-making body. One of these capitals is Kiev. It is interesting to note that archpriest Evgeny (Maksimenko), a cleric of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, has called upon the patriarch to take the next logical step and move the seat of the Patriarchate of Rus from Moscow back to Kiev.22

Christianity, says the patriarch, does not seeks to destroy that which is unique in each nation, but rather to motivate local cultures toward greater appreciation of Christianity's transcendent meaning. Long ago, the ideal Orthodox society was the Byzantine Empire.23 Today, in the context of national sovereignty, however, Orthodoxy proposes itself as a spiritual complement to national sovereignty, and a harmonizing resource in a globalizing world.24 Kirill has said that this same principle can be found in the European Union and the Commonwealth of Independent States.25

But while the Church respects state sovereignty, it takes no position on its merits. Nation-states are neither good nor bad, but merely the current framework within which God intends the Church to accomplish the restoration of Holy Rus. It is therefore the Church's duty to make each nation, at least in part, "a carrier of Orthodox civilization."26

Over the course of the past decade, the purely pragmatic, secular version of the Russky mir has slowly yielded to the growing influence of the Church in Russia's political life. Among the many examples, let me highlight just one-President Putin's address in Kiev on the occasion of the 1025th baptism of Rus in 2013.27 This was also Putin's most recent visit to Ukraine.

His remarks at the time reflected every one of the motifs of the Russky mir in its religious context, including: the decisive spiritual and cultural significance of the baptism of Rus; the uniqueness of Orthodox values in the modern world; deference to Kiev's historical significance (before the revolution, he says, it was known as "the second cultural and intellectual capital after St. Petersburg," even ahead of Moscow[!]); and public recognition of Ukraine's right to make any political choice it wishes which, however, "in no way erases our common historical past."28

Conclusions and Prognosis

Having drawn a distinction between the objectives of the Russian state and the Russian Orthodox Church in promoting the Russky mir, it is important to stress that these two institutions are not in conflict, at least not in the near future.29 The classical formulation for Church-State relations in Eastern Orthodox Christianity was and remains symphonia, or harmony between Church and State, not the Protestant Western ideal of separation. The establishment of broadly harmonious and mutually supportive relations between Church and State in Russia, for the first time in more than a century, therefore has significant implications for Russian politics.

The first is that Vladimir Putin's high popularity ratings are neither transient nor personal. They reflect the popularity of his social and political agenda, which are popular precisely because they have the blessing of the Russian Orthodox Church. A few years ago, then president Medvedev referred to the Church as "the largest and most authoritative social institution in contemporary Russia,"30 an assessment reinforced by more recent surveys showing that Patriarch Kirill is more often identified as the "spiritual leader [and] moral mentor" of the entire Russian nation, than he is as the head of a single religious confession.31

The success of the Putin Plan, the Putin Model, or Putinism, is thus simple to explain. This Russian government understands that it derives enormous social capital from its public embrace of the Russian Orthodox Church. So long as Russia remains a broadly representative (not to be confused with liberal) democracy, there is little reason to expect this to change.

Some analysts, however, suggest that this embrace may lead to conflict between the state and other confessions. The potential for such conflict is widely recognized, especially by religious leaders, and led to the creation in 1998 of the Interreligious Council of Russia. Its purpose is two-fold: First, to defuse conflicts among the various religious communities. Second, to present a united religious agenda to politicians. It has been quite successful on both fronts, and its activities now cover not just Russia, but the entire CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States).32

If my assessment of the importance of the religious underpinnings for the current regime's popularity is correct, then it follows that attempts to undermine the unity of the Russky mir will be widely viewed as an attack on core values, not just in Russia but throughout the Russian World. Economic, political, cultural, and other sanctions will intensify this effect and sharply undermine intellectual and emotional sympathies for the West within this community. While this may not be permanent, I suspect that few in the current generation of Russian leaders retain much hope for the possibility of building a lasting partnership with the West.

Moreover, the Russian Orthodox Church will continue to shape Russia's foreign policy agenda in several ways.

First, it will use the influence of the state to advocate for the concerns of Orthodox Christians throughout the world, even if they are not Russian citizens. This is in keeping with the transnational character of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Second, it will promote Christian moral and social values in international fora, either by itself or in conjunction with other religions. Indeed, close ties on these issues have been forged with the Roman Catholic Church, and with Islamic clerics in Egypt and Iran. Where it does not have direct access to these, it will turn to the Russian media, and to popular international outlets like RT and Sputnik to promote this agenda.

Third, wherever Russian state and civic organizations promote Russian culture and language abroad, the Church will also seek to tack on its religious agenda. While the state promotes the national interests of the Russian Federation, the Russian Orthodox Church will promote the larger cultural identity it sees itself as having inherited from Kievan Rus.

For example, the Church sees the conflict in Ukraine as a civil war within the Russian World. From this perspective, it cannot be resolved by splitting up this community, thereby isolating Ukraine from Russia and destroying the unity of the Russky mir, or by permitting the forcible Ukrainianization of the predominantly Orthodox and Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine, which would result in the destruction of the Russky mir within Ukraine. The only permanent solution is for the Ukrainian government to admit the pluricultural nature of Ukrainian society and, in effect, recognize Ukraine as part of the Russky mir. From the Church's perspective, this is the only way to achieve reconciliation among the Ukrainian people and harmony within the Russky mir.

Oddly enough, many moderate Ukrainian nationalists also ascribe to the notion that some sort of symbiotic cultural connection exists between Russia and Ukraine. The typical pro-Maidan Ukrainian intellectual believes that Putin is out to undermine Ukrainian democracy first and foremost because he fears it spreading to Russia. But they predict the inevitable resumption of fraternal ties with Russia, after the freedom-loving, pro-European values of the Maidan succeed in overturning Putin's authoritarian regime in Russia.33 It is hard not to see the similarity between their aspirations for close ties with Russia and those of Patriarch Kirill, only under a completely different set of cultural assumptions.

In conclusion, what impact will the rise of the Russky mir have on Russia's relations with other nations? I anticipate three responses.

In countries where the concept of Holy Rus has no historical context, there will be a tendency to fall back on the Cold War context they are most familiar with, as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did when she warned of efforts to "re-Sovietize the region." "It's going to be called customs union, it will be called Eurasian Union and all of that," she said, "but let's make no mistake about it. We know what the goal is and we are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent it."34

Among Russia's immediate neighbors, the response will be mixed. While there are still many who view the Soviet era with nostalgia, and regard the breakup of the USSR as more harmful than beneficial (by 2:1 margins in Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, and Russia),35 it is not at all clear that the Orthodox Church's conservative social vision has a similarly broad appeal. In Ukraine the term Russky mir has become a rallying cry for both sides during this civil war, and is now so hopelessly politicized that its religious and spiritual content have all but disappeared. The unhappy result, as Nicholas E. Denysenko puts it, is "a religious narrative becoming altered against the will of its authors."36

Even further from Russia, the popularity of the Russky mir will likely depend on whether Russia emerges as a global defender of traditional Christian and conservative values. The values gap that some in the West cite as justification for punishing and containing Russia does exist, but it is not the whole picture. The same values gap exists within the West itself.37 Only recently Russia has realized that, while its conservative agenda distances itself from some Europeans, it brings it closer to others. The list of Putinversteher probably now contains more politicians and opinion leaders on the right end of the European political spectrum, than it does on the left.

In the United States, Evangelical Christian social activists, and even a few noted political commentators, have begun to take note of these shared values.38 Two years ago, former Nixon aide and Republican presidential candidate, Patrick Buchanan, told fellow political conservatives that there is much in Putin's rhetoric that makes him "one of us."

"While much of American and Western media dismiss him as an authoritarian and reactionary, a throwback, Putin may be seeing the future with more clarity than Americans still caught up in a Cold War paradigm. As the decisive struggle in the second half of the 20th century was vertical, East vs. West, the 21st century struggle may be horizontal, with conservatives and traditionalists in every country arrayed against the militant secularism of a multicultural and transnational elite."39

The role of the Russian Orthodox Church in this struggle is crucial, because it calls for the creation of a common framework of Christian European values, in effect a new, pan-European civil religion. The Russian state, meanwhile, is only too happy to support these calls because it is only within the context of a common cultural and religious identity ("shared values") that Russia can become a full-fledged political part of the West. Intentionally or not, therefore, the Russian Orthodox Church and its Russky mir have emerged as the missing spiritual and intellectual component of Russia's soft power.

Someday it may even become like U.S. human rights policy, an awkward, but nevertheless defining aspect of national identity, that the government will apply selectively, but never be able to get rid of entirely.

 [return to Contents] 

 #22
Subject: A Conservative Russia? This Means War!(The Tragedy of American Ideology)
Date:     Mon, 23 Mar 2015
From:     Paul Grenier <psgrenier@gmail.com>

A Conservative Russia? This Means War! (The Tragedy of American Ideology)
By Paul R. Grenier
Paul Grenier is an essayist and translator who writes regularly on political-philosophical issues. After advanced study in Russian affairs, international relations and geography at Columbia University, he worked on contract for the Pentagon, State Department and World Bank as a simultaneous Russian interpreter, and also at the Council on Economic Priorities, where he was a research director. He has written for the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, Ethika Politika, Godspy, and Second Spring, among other places; his translations of Russian philosophy have appeared in the Catholic journal Communio. He is a founding member of the research collaborative and publisher Solidarity Hall. His recent essays include "Uprooting Anna Karenina" and "On Simone Weil and the New Cold War" (Solidarity Hall).

"The curious logicality of all isms, their simple-minded trust in the salvation value of stubborn devotion without regard for specific, varying factors, already harbors the first germs of totalitarian contempt for reality ... "
     -- Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

What started the new Cold War? According to the State Department, it was Russia's illegal violation of Ukraine's sovereign borders. The Kremlin, for its part, insists it was a US-facilitated coup in Ukraine which destroyed the constitutional order there, causing chaos and dangers to Russian security to which Russia had no choice but to respond. According to academic foreign policy realists, the cause was the imminent threat of Ukraine's integration into an ever-expanding military pact dominated by the United States.  According to George Friedman, president of Statfor, the private strategic intelligence firm, the Ukraine crisis itself is more effect than cause: the conflict started in 2013 when the United States decided Russia's increasing power was becoming a threat. And according to Kiev, Putin created the whole crisis, he invented the threat of Ukrainian so-called 'fascism,' and was motivated throughout by a combination of imperial ambition coupled with a fear of democracy.

It is not my present goal to try to adjudicate among the above claims. Despite their obvious differences, they also all share a common trait: none provide any clear direction for how to get out of this mess. It's time to approach the new Cold War from a completely different angle. I begin, very unfashionably, with the dated and 'disproven' thesis of Francis Fukuyama.

When the first Cold War ended, Francis Fukuyama explained, more in sadness than in triumph, that the United States' model of liberal democratic capitalism had won and that this was why 'history', the struggle to find the correct answer to the political question, had ended.  What had won, in fact, was a set of answers to such key questions of political life as the origin and purpose of the state; what it means to be human; what it is that all humans do, or should, strive for.   The classic sources of the specifically American answers to these questions are well known: they are the sources of liberal political thought as such..

Here is another thing well known to the point of being cliché: since 2001, the end of history thesis has been repeatedly challenged by events.  In point of fact, Fukuyama's thesis cannot be challenged by mere events, because he never said that unpleasantness would cease to be part of the human experience. He said that humans were unlikely to come up with a more effective and attractive compromise solution to the key political questions than the rather dull set of answers that make up the liberal, democratic capitalist world.  To those who point out that ISIS has disproven his 'end of history' thesis, Fukuyama could with good reason reply: 'Well, if you find that sort of thing attractive, you may accept my congratulations.'

But I am writing neither to defend nor to attack Fukuyama.   I am simply pointing out that we have yet to move beyond him. And yet - and here is the key point - we do ourselves no favor by ignoring, or demonizing, all answers to the political question that differ in any way from liberal orthodoxy.  There may be in liberalism and democracy and capitalism much that is correct, but there is every reason to suspect that we have not yet discovered the final truth about either human beings or political man.

Fukuyama himself offered his own critique: his skepticism about the human material is what made him set his sights so low.  It is not necessarily a criticism of Fukuyama to point out that there are many in the world today who at least aspire to something besides our world of comfortable autonomy and the possession of rights in the purely Lockean sense.  Among those who so aspire are many in the Slavic world, with its roots in Eastern Orthodox Christianity; or the Chinese sphere, with its Confucian heritage which is just beginning to awaken; and of course the Middle East. And that is just to name the groups the United States has identified as in dire need of a makeover.
    
Diversity and Liberalism

The West, and specifically the United States, has before it a fateful choice: should it seek a 'live and let live' co-existence of the liberal and non-liberal nations of the world, or should it try to make the rest of the world liberal at gunpoint, and in that way prove that history really has finally ended?  Should we make the world safe for diversity, or should we make the world uniform for the safety of the United States? In the Middle East the choice has already been made. It is to be made liberal and democratic at gunpoint. The enormous difficulties this has presented has convinced the American party of war, which appears to be in the majority, that it is time to double down and try harder, not only in the Middle East, but now in the Slavic world as well.

This raises a crucial question about diversity and difference.  What is it that makes a nation itself and not something else? Is it the presence of borders? Is it running one's own elections using one's own manpower?  Clearly, it is neither of these things, nor anything like them.  To be one's own nation, to continue to exist in fact, means exactly to continue to realize over time one's national idea, that is to say, as Ernst Renan put it (Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?, 1882, quoted by Hannah Arendt) "to preserve worthily the undivided inheritance which has been handed down."  That nations frequently borrow cultural content from others is undeniable, and often laudable.  But it is crucially important, as American historian William Appleman Williams once noted, who makes the choice of those borrowings.  Are they adapted freely from the inside, or are they forcefully imposed? The failure to understand this latter distinction is what keeps bringing about The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (also the title of Williams' book).

When nations fully share the American liberal world view, these separate nations become, in a certain sense, no longer fully 'separate.'  This is by no means necessarily a bad thing.  The nations of northern Europe do not suffer for the most part from their close alliance with the United States, including in the cultural sense. But here's the six trillion dollar question:  is the United States willing to countenance the existence, on a permanent basis, of other great powers that do not accept liberal civilizational values as America defines them?  I say other 'great powers' because in the long run only a great power, or a protectorate of a great power, can assure its own continued existence.

The non-liberal status of Russia has been presented recently as a dire threat to the security of both America and the world.  In support of this storyline, the Russian president has been associated with thinkers from Russia's past who are, supposedly, the source of a fanaticism that justifies speaking of Putin and Russia (the two are melded together in the endlessly-repeated 'Putin's Russia') in the same breath as ISIS. But the ideas of this non- or not-entirely-liberal Russia are by no means all dangerous.  To the contrary, they offer a fruitful avenue for rethinking some of our most cherished assumptions about the nature of politics and the nature of the international order.

Then and Now

When communism was abandoned in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it became apparent to thoughtful Russians and outsiders alike that a new concept of the state, a new concept of man, and a new public philosophy would have to be created. It was then, and remains today, an open question whether the new Russian identity would end up being an import from the West, something from the native vault of pre-Communist philosophical thinking, or perhaps a combination of the two.  As might be expected from the country that brought the world Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, when it comes to philosophy, Russia has got a deep bench.

In the months immediately following the February 2014 change of power in Kiev, and the resulting growing tension between Washington and Moscow, three Russian philosophers, only two of them widely known outside of Russia, came to be increasingly associated with the name of Vladimir Putin.  The subsequent interpretation of these philosophers on the pages of several of America's most influential newspapers deserves to be considered in detail.

Maria Snegovaya, a doctoral candidate in political science at Columbia University, initiated the discussion with a March 2, 2014 article in the Washington Post.  Putin's "pro-Soviet worldview," Snegovaya wrote, is poorly understood:

"To get a grasp ... one needs to check what Putin's preferred readings are. Putin's favorites include a bunch of Russian nationalist philosophers of early 20th century - Berdyaev, Solovyev, Ilyin - whom he often quotes in his public speeches. Moreover, recently the Kremlin has specifically assigned Russia's regional governors to read the works by these philosophers during 2014 winter holidays. The main message of these authors is Russia's messianic role in world history, preservation and restoration of Russia's historical borders and Orthodoxy."

Mark Galeotti, writing in Foreign Policy ("Putin's Empire of the Mind," April 21, 2014) also found fault with these same three philosophers. "These three, whom Putin often cites," Galeotti writes, "exemplify and justify [Putin's] belief in Russia's singular place in history. They romanticize the necessity of obedience to the strong ruler - whether managing the boyars or defending the people from cultural corruption - and the role of the Orthodox Church in defending the Russian soul and ideal."

Finally, David Brooks, writing for the New York Times ("Putin Can't Stop," March 3, 2014), likewise expressed alarm about the influence of Solovyov, Berdyaev and Il'in.  "Putin doesn't only quote these guys; he wants others to read them," Brooks wrote. Three main ideas unify Solovyov, Il'in and Berdyaev's work, Brooks wrote:

"The first is Russian exceptionalism: the idea that Russia has its own unique spiritual status and purpose. The second is devotion to the Orthodox faith. The third is belief in autocracy. Mashed together, these philosophers point to a Russia that is a quasi-theocratic nationalist autocracy destined to play a culminating role on the world stage."

Under the influence of these "guys," Brooks continues, "The tiger of quasi-religious nationalism, which Putin has been riding, may now take control. That would make it very hard for Putin to stop in this conflict where rational calculus would tell him to stop."  Brooks concludes that Russia can no longer be considered a "normal" regime and "a Huntingtonian conflict of civilizations with Russia" may be the result.

What are we to make of these analyses, all of them published in authoritative U.S. periodicals?

One thing is certain. These assessments represent an enormous and surprising reversal in the viewpoint of educated opinion in the West, particularly as regards Solovyov and Berdyaev (with Il'in, as already noted, being much less well known).  Up until these articles in March-April of 2014, I do not recall reading a single negative assessment of either of these Russian thinkers, at least not among Western specialists, nor a single one accusing them of being hostile to the West, nor a single one suggesting that they are friendly to Russian chauvinism or nationalism.

Russia's Inheritance

In Russian Thought after Communism, James Scanlan, a leading Western expert on Russian thought, described Vladimir Solovyov (1853 - 1900) as "by common consent the greatest and most influential of all of Russia's philosophical thinkers."   In a recent Cambridge University Press history of Russian philosophy, Randal Poole writes that "Solov'ev is widely regarded as Russia's greatest philosopher." (1) There are, it is true, a handful of dissenters from this nearly unanimous assessment of Solovyov.  The contemporary Russian philosopher Sergei Khoruzhy considers Solovyov a very great philosopher, but a bit too western in orientation to deserve the title of greatest Russian thinker in the narrow sense.

Moreover, even scholars known to be generally hostile to things Russian, such as former Harvard professor Richard Pipes, nonetheless speak respectfully about Solovyov: "The Orthodox Church never found a common language with the educated because its conservative outlook made it pronouncedly anti-intellectual ... One by one it pushed away from itself the country's finest religious minds: the Slavophiles, Vladimir Soloviev, Leo Tolstoy and the laymen gathered in the early 1900s around the Religious Philosophical Society ... (Russia Under the Old Regime, 243.)

In short, Snegovaya's misapprehension of Solovyov could hardly be more thorough.  In what possible sense can Solovyov, who had no inkling of anything Soviet, be considered supportive of Putin's alleged "pro-Soviet world view"?  In point of fact, the writings of this supposedly 'pro-Soviet' philosopher - exactly like those of Berdyaev and Il'in - were banished by Soviet censors.

How can Solovyov be described as a "nationalist," when his magnum opus, The Justification of the Good (the book which Putin is said to have urged his governors to read), states precisely the opposite? It is hard to imagine a more absolute condemnation of national exceptionalism than that contained in Solovyov's definitive work of ethics:

"It must be one or the other. Either we must renounce Christianity and monotheism in general, according to which "there is none good but one, that is, God," and recognize our nation as such to be the highest good that is, put it in the place of God -- or we must admit that a people becomes good not in virtue of the simple fact of its particular nationality, but only in so far as it conforms to and participates in the absolute good."

This same anti-nationalist theme runs through Solovyov's entire corpus.  He argued bitterly against the Slavophile nationalists of his day.  To learn of Solovyov's views on this subject, Snegovaya, who reads Russian, might have consulted the book State, Society, Governance, a scholarly volume of liberal social science co-published in 2013 by Mikhail Khodorkovsky (not known for his fondness for Putin). In this Russian-language compendium of essays by leading Russian liberal theorists, Solovyov is marshaled as an authoritative critic of Russian nationalism, including the nationalism occasionally voiced by Dostoevsky. (2)

Finally, far from being a fanatical proponent of the Russian Orthodox Church, Solovyov harshly criticized the Russian Church, calling it "totally subservient to the secular power and destitute of all inner vitality." As ringing endorsements go, this one sounds decidedly weak. And again, all this is well known. Many, including even such prominent theologians as Urs von Balthasar, believe Solovyov renounced Orthodoxy and became a Catholic, so warmly did Solovyov praise the Catholic Church.

Solovyov, the supposed conservative Orthodox zealot, praised the Catholic Church, among other reasons, for what he saw as it independence from nationalist temptations, and for its readiness to act in the world. "The East [meaning Eastern Orthodoxy] prays; the West [meaning Roman Catholicism] prays and acts: which is right?" asks Solovyov rhetorically in his famous Russia and the Universal Church.  Mixing with the world is good if it is the world that changes, Solovyov continues. Changes in what sense?  In some respects, in the same sense as that advocated by Western progress. What the French Revolution destroyed - treating men as things, chattel or slaves, deserved to be destroyed. But the French Revolution nonetheless did not institute justice, because justice is impossible without the truth, and first of all the truth about man, but the French Revolution "perceived in Man nothing but abstract individuality, a rational being destitute of all positive content."  As a result, the "free sovereign individual," Solovyov continues, "found himself doomed to be the defenseless victim of the absolute State or 'nation.' "

It is impossible to reconcile the Solovyov we find in his actual writings with Snegovaya and Brooks' portrait of a religious chauvinist and Russian nationalist, one with pro-Soviet tendencies to boot.  The reference to messianism, coming from Brooks, also demonstrates a striking lack of self-awareness.  But that particular example of the kettle calling the pot black has already been ably handled by Charles Pierce  ("Our Mr. Brooks and the Messianic Mr. Putin," Esquire, March 4, 2014).

The Philosopher of Freedom

Berdyaev (1874 - 1948) wrote a great deal, and on a number of subjects changed his mind, but in as much as it was Berdyaev's The Philosophy of Inequality which Putin urged his governors read, it makes sense for us to start with that.  Do we find here a repository of 'pro-Soviet' views?  Not even close. Instead, we find an emotionally-charged condemnation of everything the Soviet Union's founders stood for (the book was written immediately after the 1917 Revolution and Berdyaev was full of outrage and grief).  Berdyaev spends much of the book berating the Bolshevik movement for its exaggerated exaltation of a particular political form.  But in truth, Berdyaev insists, political forms are always secondary to the human spirit. Whether a person is kind or vicious, devoted to justice or its opposite, has little to do with whether someone is a monarchist or a democrat, a proponent of private property or a socialist.

Why specifically 'the Philosophy of Inequality'?  Not because the philosopher is indifferent to exploitation and injustice. And still less because he favored tyranny - he was to the contrary a tireless critic of despotism, which is the word he used to describe the Czarist order. Berdyaev never completely abandoned his early interest in Marx, even after his conversion to Christianity around the turn of the century. He was by temperament a person more of the left than of the right, despite a lingering influence of Nietzsche. What concerns Berdyaev is the inequality between what is higher or lower in the realm of spirit and culture.  Berdyaev mostly approves of liberalism and finds in it something aristocratic or at any rate not revolutionary. By contrast, democracy and socialism, precisely because they have pretensions to fill all life with their content, can easily become false religions. At times Berdyaev's philosophy even overlaps with libertarianism, which likewise rejects any abuse of the freedom of the individual person for utilitarian ends.

Berdyaev's religious views are difficult to characterize. He was a Christian, an existentialist and someone who believed in the absolute primacy of freedom, but not necessarily all three of these at once (they are not entirely compatible, but then Berdyaev was not always consistent).  The writings of Dostoevsky were of enormous religious importance to him.

It is easy to misread Berdyaev because of his lack of system, and because he looks at the same concept from sometimes contradictory perspectives.  Take for example Berdyaev's paradoxical understanding of national uniqueness.

Dostoevsky, Berdyaev writes, "is a Russian genius; the Russian national character is stamped on all his creative work, and he reveals to the world the depths of the Russian soul.  But this most Russian of Russians at the same time belongs to all of humanity, he is the most universal of all Russians."  And the same can be said for Goethe and other national geniuses, who likewise are universal not by being more generic, but precisely by being more who they are; in the case of Goethe, by being specifically German. Berdyaev's perspective here is particularly helpful if we want a world made safe for both unity and diversity.  A global civilization that would level all differences is ugly, (3) while a messianism that would exalt one nation over others is evil. (4) Christianity as such, however, is messianic, because it affirms what it considers a universal truth, the truth of Christ.  But this truth has no coercive power.

Until early 2014, the view that Solovyov and Berdyaev represent particularly humane and attractive alternatives for Russia was not, as far as I am aware, doubted by anyone, at least, not by anyone who gave the matter any thought.  In the time of perestroika, when Russian philosophy was finally being rediscovered inside Russia, the likely positive influence of these philosophers was warmly affirmed.  Bill Keller, writing for the New York Times, (5) praised the Soviet magazine Novy Mir for focusing attention on "the more Western-inclined 19th-century Russian thinkers such as Nikolai Nekrasov, Aleksandr Herzen, and the Christian philosophers Vladimir Solovyov and Nikolai Berdyaev [emphasis mine]."  These were the sort of thinkers, Keller emphasized, who would help encourage "a humane alternative to zealous Leninism and the darker Russian nationalism."  By publishing such writers, Keller continued, Novy Mir was demonstrating that it "occupies a key centrist position, attempting to reconcile the Westernizers and the Russian patriots on a common ground of tolerance and democratic ideals."

The 'Liberal Conservative'

The case of Ivan Il'in (1883-1954), whom Putin regularly quotes and whom Putin is known to particularly respect, is more complex. Some of Snegovaya's suspicions in his case are indeed accurate. Il'in has a conservative temperament. It is fair to call him a nationalist, though one concerned with Russia alone, and with no messianic ambitions. As will be seen below, Il'in was not against authoritarianism. Il'in was, however, complex and worthy of much more careful consideration.

The suggestion that Il'in is a source of that famous 'pro-Soviet' stance is easily disposed of.   The Cheka agents who arrested and interrogated Il'in six times between 1918 and 1922 would have been very surprised at such a characterization. (6)  It also does not jive very well with the fact that Il'in, along with Berdyaev and a host of other leading Russian philosophers, was banished from the USSR in 1922 for their anti-Soviet 'agitation'.  Il'in's literary corpus is said to include over 40 books and essays, some of them written in scholarly, technical language, so it is not an easy thing to characterize his worldview, but a good place to start is Il'in's Our Tasks. Not only is this a book which Putin likes to quote, it is also another of the books, along with Solovyov's Justification of the Good and Berdyaev's The Philosophy of Inequality, that Putin urged his governors to read.  The book Our Tasks is a compilation of journalistic essays written by Il'in between 1948 and 1954. Their overriding theme is the need to put an end to Soviet rule, defeat communism and plan for Russia's restoration and recovery from the devastating physical, moral and political woes visited on Russia by the Soviet system.

It is difficult to imagine a more uncompromising condemnation of Soviet ideology and practice than this collection of Il'in's essays. If anything, one might fault him for exaggerating the faults of the Soviet system. It must be remembered, though, that Il'in (who died in in 1954) did not live to see the post-Stalin era, or even to hear of Khrushchev's speech condemning Stalin (in 1956).
And yet Il'in was not only a critic of communism, he was also a critic of Russia's past leaders when they were vicious (as in the case of Ivan IV) or incompetent, as in the case of Nicholas II. Like Berdyaev, Il'in was also, on occasion, bitingly critical of the Russian people, who he felt were politically immature and in need of a crash course in legal awareness.  After the fall of Soviet power, a fall he was sure would eventually take place, he was skeptical in the extreme that the character of the people living in Russia at that point would be capable of wise self-rule, which is why he urged, as a temporary expedient, a transition period of authoritarian government.  Here is how, in Our Tasks, Il'in described the character of the 'Soviet man' that the future Russia would inherit:

"The totalitarian system ... imposes a number of unhealthy tendencies and habits ... among which we may find the following: a willingness to inform on others (and knowingly falsely at that), pretense and lying, loss of the sense of personal dignity and the absence of a well-rooted patriotism, thinking in a slavish manner and by aping the thoughts of others, flattery combined with servility, constant fear.  The fight to overcome these unhealthy habits will not be easy ... It will require time, an honest and courageous self-awareness, a purifying repentance, the acquisition of new habits of independence and self-reliance, and, most importantly of all, a new national system of spiritual and intellectual education." (7)

Il'in was indeed deeply concerned about the danger of Russia's disintegration and indeed was concerned about the defense of its borders, although, of course, not their restoration. To avoid such disintegration, Il'in urged Russians to not repeat what he considered the fatal mistake of the February Revolution - its premature push for full democracy.  In this, as in many other respects, Il'in's policy recommendations overlap with those of Solzhenitsyn, who was profoundly influenced by Il'in.  That Il'in is a major influence on Putin's brand of 'liberal conservatism' was noted already in 2012 by the Canadian scholar Paul Robinson.

Unlike Solovyov and Berdyaev, in the early years of perestroika Ivan Il'in was poorly known both inside and outside of Russia, although Il'in had been quite prominent during the years preceding and following the Russian Revolution, including while he was living in exile.  His fame early in the 20th century stemmed largely from a celebrated academic study of Hegel's writings, a work still lauded both in and outside of Russia as among the best ever produced.

Il'in burst onto the post-Soviet scene in 1991, when essays from Our Tasks were first published, including the prescient "What Does the Dismemberment of Russia Bode for the World?"  In this essay, Il'in wrote that the rest of the world will, in its ignorance of the likely consequences, eagerly underwrite the breakup of Russia and will to this end provide lots of development assistance and ideological encouragement.  As a result, Il'in wrote, "The territory of Russia will boil with endless quarrels, clashes, and civil wars that will constantly escalate into worldwide clashes ..."  To avoid this fate, as mentioned earlier, Il'in urged for Russia a transition period of authoritarian rule. (8)

Although Il'in quite plainly admired the United States and Switzerland for what he saw as their mature democratic self-rule, it is not clear that Il'in was confident that democracy was tailor-made for a nation and culture of the Russian type.  What is absolutely clear, however, is Il'in's fervent devotion to rule of law and legal awareness, something that sets him apart from the Slavophiles whom he in other respects resembles.

Conclusion: A Russia, Liberal and Christian?

There are very important differences between these three thinkers. Nevertheless, all three writers considered freedom essential to human culture and the human spirit, though they differed in emphasis. Undoubtedly, then, the worldview of all three is irreducible to a liberal formula even if their views include important liberal or modern elements.

All three agreed with the liberal world that all humans, regardless of nation, religion, or any other difference, are equally endowed with infinite dignity. But for them it was not a throwaway phrase when they added that this dignity is conferred on humans by God, which means, among other things, that a right to be absolutely secure cannot trump someone else's right not to be tortured.  Il'in's absolute prohibition against torture, or anything even coming close to torture, is excellent and quite timely, and can be found in his On the Resistance to Evil by Force. Solovyov's thoughts on closely related questions can be found in his Three Conversations: War, Progress and the End of History (see also my recent update of Solovyov's Three Conversations).

There has been no space here to attempt more than a brief introduction to these thinkers. But it should already be clear that the tradition we have just described offers, if we would only engage with it, an opportunity: a chance to form a partnership with a Russia that, though different from our present state of mind, shares much of our own past, and perhaps suggests some ways forward as we negotiate an increasingly dangerous world.

As his reading list recommendations strongly suggest, 'Putin's Russia' represents an attempt to reconnect with this tradition, however flawed that attempt may be. Take Putin's famous speech (to the Federal Assembly) in April, 2005. Although Western commentators have ad nauseum berated him for showing his true colors and displaying nostalgia for the Soviet order, in reality, as the entire text and the following excerpt makes clear, he did no such thing:

"'State power,' wrote the great Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin, 'has its own limits defined by the fact that it is authority that reaches people from outside...  State power cannot oversee and dictate the creative states of the soul and mind, the inner states of love, freedom and goodwill. The state cannot demand from its citizens faith, prayer, love, goodness and conviction. It cannot regulate scientific, religious and artistic creation... It should not intervene in moral, family and daily private life, and only when extremely necessary should it impinge on people's economic initiative and creativity.'"

Is it naïve to impute such idealism to Putin? Perhaps. But Putin is not in fact the issue, but Russia. We engage after all a country, not a single person in it, and the tradition we are describing has sufficient roots in the Russia that actually exists that, if we chose to engage with it, there would be the chance for an actual productive conversation, one capable of rebuilding trust and creating an order.

Critics say that Russia recently has become a nation filled with hate. But how are Russian citizens and President Putin himself to interpret the twisting (and what we have seen above is just the tip of the iceberg) of their own words and their most cherished traditions in such an apparently spiteful and even violent way?  Knowledgeable analysts have correctly noted that Russian nationalists such as Alexander Dugin consider the United States to be Russia's implacable enemy. Representatives of this 'Eurasianist' camp are waiting in the wings if Putin falls.  America's efforts at 'regime change' might even succeed at facilitating such a drastic change for the worse. And then, by means of that "curious logicality" of the American ideology, we will once again, with "stubborn devotion without regard for specific, varying factors," have brought about yet another catastrophe.

A Brief Footnote on Ideology

For all the United States' vaunted freedom, it exhibits surprisingly little freedom of maneuver when it comes to its foreign policy.  Far from taking into consideration Russia's vital security needs, to say nothing of Russia's identity, U.S. ideologues have behaved as if both are either non-existent or fundamentally illegitimate.  Such compulsive political behavior is the sure sign of ideological infection.

Brooks, Snegovaya and Galeotti apparently have all made use of the same basic logic when they examined the philosophical sources of Putin's thinking.  That logic went something like this: a) Washington considers Russia a problem, therefore  b) Vladimir Putin is a thug; and therefore c) the 19th century philosopher Vladimir Solovyov dreamed of restoring the Soviet Union to its former Christian glory and might.

Such sloppy thinking would not have happened were these three otherwise intelligent people not (one hopes temporarily) previously incapacitated by ideological blinders.  Unfortunately, the same ideological thinking dominates nearly all of U.S. discourse vis-à-vis Russia, making a political settlement impossible.  After all, if America's political ideal is as nearly perfect as can ever be achieved in this 'fallen world,' then the thing is to carry on and win, thereby bringing the perfect good (that's us!) to everyone.  Why bother seriously familiarizing oneself with a competing system? Clearly Brooks and Co. made no such effort.  It was enough for them to know that Russia's political ideal significantly differs from America's: therefore it is illegitimate, Q.E.D.

That America does not actually live up to its own ideals, as I have written elsewhere, changes nothing for the ideologue. After all, every further increase in America's power brings closer the day when its actions (which are generally realist) and its speech (which is always democratic and idealist) can come into harmony.  Then history can truly and finally come to an end.

And yet, in light of the above review of an important part of the Russian tradition, there is something we are now in a much better position to point out: Russia has also taken the trouble to have ideals.

The author would like to thank Dr. Adrian Walker and Matthew Frank for very useful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft.

Notes

1.  Randall A. Poole, "Vladimir Solovyov's Philosophical Anthropology: Autonomy, Dignity, Perfectibility," in G. Hamburg and R. Poole, ed., A History of Russian Philosophy 1830 - 1930 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 2010), 131.

2.  S. Nikol'sky and M. Khodorkovsky, ed., Gosudrastvo. Obshchestvo. Upravlenie: Sbornik statei (Moskva, Alpina Pablisher: 2013).  In the article by Prof. Sergei Nikolsky, Solovyov is quoted at length precisely as an authoritative critic of Dostoevsky's disrespect for other faiths and nations and specifically for Europe.  For the sake of balance, Nikolsky might have noted that elsewhere, for example in his "Three Speeches in Honor of Dostoevsky," Solovyov praises Dostoevsky in the highest possible terms and specifically denies that his political ideal is nationalist.  It is worth noting that Nikolsky, in this same article, attacks Il'in for his too rosy views of Russian Czarist imperialism. Nikolsky probably has a point here.

3.  N. Berdyaev, Sud'ba Rossii [The Fate of Russia], (Moskva: Eksmo-Press, 2001), 353.

4.  The Fate of Russia, 361.

5.  Bill Keller, "Forum for Solzhenitsyn and other Discontents," The New York Times, Aug. 28, 1989, Section A, p. 7 ( http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/11/reviews/19155.html )

6.  According to Prof. Iu. T. Lisitsa, who has reviewed the records on Il'in from the KGB archives, Il'in "even in the hands of the Cheka, under threat of execution ... remained adamant, precise, and articulate in his opposition to the Bolshevik regime." From Philip Grier,"The Complex Legacy of Ivan Il'in," in James Scanlan, ed., Russian Thought After Communism: The Recovery of a Philosophical Tradition (Armonk, New York, M.E. Sharpe: 1994), 183.

7.  I. A. Il'in, Nashi Zadachi [Our Tasks], sobr. soch. [collected works], vol. 2 (Moskva, Russkaya Kniga: 1993), 23-24.

8.  This point is made emphatically by Philip Grier in his "Complex Legacy of Ivan Il'in." Grier, it should be added, who is the former president of the American Hegel Society, is also the translator of Il'in's two-volume analysis of Hegel published by Northwestern University Press in 2011.

 [return to Contents] 

 #23
Russia in Global Affairs
http://eng.globalaffairs.ru
March 19, 2014
Europe: A Defeat at the Hands of Victory?
Demons of the Past and the Search for a New Concept
By Sergei Karaganov
Sergei Karaganov is Honorary Chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy and Dean of the School of World Economics and World Politics at the National Research University-Higher School of Economics.

Resume: The last twenty-five years have largely been wasted. The world has become a more dangerous place, Europe is about to split up and become weaker or even slide into a large-scale war. Unless Europe works out a new ambitious and unifying idea, the Ukrainian crisis and its demons will continue spreading.

Having won the Cold War (perhaps largely due to the courage of the Russian people who threw off a communist dictatorship and were prepared to take risks), Europe seems to be losing the peace. The region is entering the next stage of international relations disunited and weakened, and poised for a confrontation or maybe even a large-scale war. Wonderful slogans about "a common European home" (Mikhail Gorbachev), "A Europe whole and free" (George H.W. Bush), and the beginning of a "new era of democracy, peace, and unity" (the 1990 Charter of Paris for a New Europe) - all of which looked achievable twenty-five years ago - produce a sad smile today.

All of this is happening amid Islamic radicalization, unprecedented destabilization in the Middle East, unresolved traditional global challenges, an extremely vulnerable international financial system, the emergence of new areas for rivalry between China and the United States, growing de-globalization, and a virtually collapsing system of international relations and law... The massive re-nationalization trend in world politics will inevitably sweep across the European Union - an island of stability - especially amid the systemic slowdown both in Russia and the EU.

The list of challenges continues to grow, while Western Europe and Russia - the strongest country on the continent - are wrangling on the verge of a civilized "divorce." Western Europe can try to tuck its head under the U.S.'s wing again, of course, and Russia could form a de-facto strategic alliance with China, but either option will destroy the hopes for the united Europe everyone wanted to build at the end of the Cold War.

Is there any way for us not to lose the peace? I think so. But we must first understand how things got this way.

There are four reasons: the first is the inability to understand that Russia, on the one hand, and a majority of other countries on the continent, on the other hand, were and are diverging in socio-economic, moral, and psychological terms. We have lived largely in different eras. Second is the inability and reluctance to set a common goal for long-term co-development. Instead, and this is the third point, we have been witnessing the disagreement over the Soviet heritage and attempts to pin Russia down geopolitically, which initially led to war in South Ossetia and then to the conflict in Ukraine. The Cold War never ended de facto and is now reemerging. And the fourth reason is that there has been no serious and systemic dialogue between the two sides for almost twenty-five years. Instead Russia either was lectured to or assured of a common future. Russian President Vladimir Putin's speech in Munich in 2007, initially designed as an invitation to a serious dialogue, met with a hostile reaction. Had the Europeans listened to Putin, many problems would have been avoided, including the current tragedy in Ukraine.

For Russia, relations with Europe are not so much a question of geopolitical orientation or economic ties as identity. Can Russia, plagued by political differences and the departure of a considerable number of European elites from European values as Russia understands them, give up its centuries-old cultural foundations that date back to Byzantium? The odds are actually quite high that it could, especially considering an ascending Asia, which for the first time in history is offering a geopolitical and economic alternative. In fact, current disagreements with the West provide a strong argument in favor of an economic and even political turn towards the East.

The situation is complex for Europe as well. Without an alliance with Russia Europe will lose its five-hundred-year political, economic, and cultural leadership. What would that mean for the self-sentiment of many, if not all, Europeans and their chances to keep their identity?

Russia and Another Europe

Despite the illusory hopes of the early 1990s, Russia and Europe within the EU developed at different speeds and in diverse directions. There were objective reasons for these processes, but European elites almost never assessed or discussed them. And that was their mistake. They failed to see the truth and had no wish to do so. This is why the current crisis came to them like a thunderbolt from a blue sky. Now some are feverishly trying to demonize Putin, while others are blaming "Merkel the betrayer."
Hopes that Russia would choose the "European" path did not come true. But Europe is also changing; it is no longer the Europe that attracted the Russian people after their revolution. Russian impatience, an almost complete lack of real, rather than theoretical, experience of building capitalism, and unfortunate circumstances troubled Russia at the dawn of its new era.

A shock privatization campaign was launched to break the backbone of communism, but the overwhelming majority of Russians condemned it as robbery. The shock therapy reforms produced one of the ugliest forms of oligarchic quasi-capitalism. In fact, many Russians still consider huge amounts of private property as morally illegitimate.

Much worse, while lacking the necessary knowledge and seeking to get everything done as quickly as possible, the Russian reformers failed to grasp (or simply ignored) the main point - property without property rights is a sham. Their successors proclaimed the "dictatorship of law," but did not introduce the right of ownership, because that would have interfered with privatization and the subsequent redistribution of property. Therefore, on top of its moral questionability, ownership had no legal protection. This is the major reason for the current economic slowdown and capital flight. It appears risky to invest or even keep assets in Russia. This is also the root cause of the lack of patriotism among the elites. The authorities are beginning to address this issue now, but they refuse to recognize its root causes. Indeed, as the prime source of systemic corruption, property can only be protected if it is "married" to power.

This is the actual result of Russia's transition. Some in the West applauded it, delighted at the outward signs of Russia's "Europeanization" or hoping to get a chunk of its property or power. However, Russia did not follow the European path which means, above all, the rule of law in both society and the economy.

A strategic mistake was also made in political reforms. Liberal-minded communists and their opponents thought that people did not have enough democracy. And so democracy was created from above by electing parliaments, governors, and mayors. Yet responsible citizens, the key element of human capital in any country, were never cultivated. Work only began recently to build the breeding grounds for civil society, which include the grassroots and municipal levels, and county self-rule.

As a result, "premature" top-tier democracy slowed development. By 1999, Russia had virtually turned into a failed state. If there had been a little Maidan in Moscow, the country would have fallen apart quickly. I always say and will keep saying that of all the explanations for the miracle of Russia's salvation, the one that appears to be most plausible to me is that God forgave Russia for its sin of communism.

External circumstances were not favorable either: former adversaries did not try to finish us off, yet neither did they help (except for the humanitarian aid in 1990-1992 and the 11 billion Deutsch marks Germany provided to pay for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from East Germany). When the West "helped," it did so by offering commercial loans conditioned on reforms, which angered many people. The Russian elite accepted the proposed rules of the "Washington consensus" and failed. As we know now, the success of developing countries generally comes from their refusal to play by these rules.

In Russia, the defense and protection of sovereignty has always been the principal national idea. Yet Russia was looked down upon and sometimes even told (not by Europeans) who should be appointed to the government, with those favored receiving explicit support. The West's approach to Moscow objectively was a mild version of the Versailles policy even though this was never stated openly as a goal, and most politicians in Europe probably did not even suspect that. There were no scoffing, annexations, or contributions, but there was a policy of "victors," who consistently drove the "defeated party" to bay, seeking to control its economic, political, and military interests. However, Russians did not feel defeated and the policy of NATO expansion engendered the Weimar Syndrome. Its first outburst was quashed only by a hard-won victory in the second Chechen war, which made Putin a national leader.     

Europe within the European Union

Let me explain again where we differ conceptually. While Russia was restoring its sovereignty and statehood, the European Union was trying to overcome sovereignty and state nationalism, and to build a supranational community. This divergence became manifest when European countries almost unanimously condemned the Chechen war.

Essentially, the systems of values developed in the opposite direction. Most Russians sought to revive traditional moral standards destroyed during communism and embrace previously banned Christian beliefs. A public demand emerged for state patriotism that was not based on communist messianism, as well as for a new national identity and conservatism as the antithesis of revolutionary ideas that had brought so much suffering and trouble to the country and its people in the 20th century. It was believed that this was the way for Russia not only to regain itself, but also return to the Europe it had left in 1917.  

However, European elites had tired of these values and considered them obsolete or even reactionary. The Old World set itself the goal of doing away with nationalism and even national patriotism, rejected many traditional moral principles, and drifted farther away from Christianity. No one knows whether this trend of the past thirty years will continue or if it will eventually be reversed. Yet Russian and Western European societies are at the opposite ends. Russia's intent to make traditional values its banner meets unconcealed antagonism and raises concerns among the leading, and ruling, European elites, since they know that the majority of people in their countries share these values too.

Having burnt its fingers on top-tier democracy, which had almost brought the country to collapse and which people associated with the chaos, poverty, and humiliation of the 1990s, the Russian elite made an unpleasant, but unavoidable, turn towards "controlled" democracy; that is, a semi-authoritarian regime.

At basically the same time European elites started to advance their own democratic model and experience as the basis of "soft power." From the early 2000s the EU policy has been increasingly dominated by democratic messianism that until then had only been found across the ocean.

Russian and European elites once again found themselves in opposition to each other. There is yet another explanation for this. Most societies and ruling circles in the West have long forgotten their revolutions. But top echelons of power in Russia do not want to see new disastrous upheavals similar to those that occurred in February 1917; or the democratic revolution of 1991, which has not yet ended in horror, but has almost led to the collapse of statehood. (Naturally, there is a minority within the Russian elite who were a majority in the 1990s, who do not share these conservative views and who even long for a new revolution. But society is not on their side, at least for now).

European politicians state repeatedly that the Old World could unite only on the basis of common values. They said so at first in order to get rid of the Russians, who were eager to become part of Europe. But eventually, the orators came to believe their own mantras. Given the ideological opposition described above, there was no question of drawing Russia into the unification process. However, this stance was contrary to the European political tradition where interests often united countries, leaders, and societies. Otherwise Nazi Germany would have won World War II. If one follows this logic, he would come to the conclusion that anti-European forces, such as Islamic radicals or non-European competitors, should gain the upper hand today.  

Discordant systems of priorities were another reason why the "Greater Europe" concept failed. At first, the European Union had more important matters to deal with than Russia. Carried away by euphoria after the end of the Cold War, the EU was too preoccupied with its unbridled drive for enlargement and the creation of the euro. By the beginning of the 2000s, it had become clear that excessive enlargement without a political alliance had adversely affected the union's stability and governability. By mid-decade it was obvious that the European Union had entered a long systemic crisis. The West - both the U.S. as its flagship and the EU - suffered a series of bitter and even humiliating failures.

On the one hand, the crisis distracts Europe from complex external projects, including the Russian one; on the other hand, it makes it unconsciously look for an external impulse for integration or even an external enemy. At one point it was the Soviet Union, a cautious and therefore not very dangerous, yet convenient, opponent. In addition, the countries that joined the EU almost genetically inclined to take revenge for past defeats and humiliations. In 2011-2012 those countries started making an enemy of Russia.

A counter-process was underway in Russia that led nowhere. Its elites did not want to, nor could they, admit previous mistakes and begin a new round of reforms. They sought to justify the deadlock or break it by looking for an external enemy and escalating confrontation in order to silence the dissenters and consolidate society at a minimum, or prod themselves into carrying out rapid modernization. The Russians succeeded in this only once, in the second half of the 20th century.  

As a result, new confrontation is escalating, and, instead of becoming a third pillar for a future world order (along with the U.S. and China), Europe could actually become a problem for it.

EU countries with their problems and Russia with its partly flawed and partly uncompleted transformation will have to embark on extensive reforms in order to survive and preserve their status in a new world. If they worked together and supplemented each other, they could make changes easier and more effectively. Otherwise, they may never start them or may eventually fail. This is yet another argument in support of a new round of the "big European project." It has not succeeded so far, thus endangering both the EU and Russian projects.

Moscow - Brussels

The enthusiasm of the first few post-revolution years (the Russian prime minister even spoke about the advisability of joining the European Union, and the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement was signed in 1994) gradually gave way to growing estrangement, then to mutual irritation. Since the 1990s, the prevailing opinion in the EU has been that Russia should remain a junior partner. However, Russia sought to restore its sovereignty and establish equal relations. Prime Minister and then President Vladimir Putin made quite bold proposals in 1999-2000.

But those proposals, just like many others, were ignored. Russia continued to suggest various forms of union, while EU bureaucrats viewed Russia as just one of Europe's fringe countries. As a result, a new treaty that would have replaced the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement was never signed. Biannual summits, aimed at demonstrating Russia's special status, were losing steam. Moreover, their agendas were filled with secondary issues, such as payments for flights over Siberia, bans on the re-export of meat from Poland, or restrictions on the sale of round timber to Finland. The inability to launch educational exchanges and scientific integration programs became another proof of failure. Thus, skilled professionals are leaving both the EU and Russia.

The rituals of shallow meetings and loud banners have replaced the initial realistic understanding of common interests (one of the worst banners, made in the East Germany-Soviet Union spirit, is the Petersburg Dialogue, on which Berlin has given up not because it is worthless, but because it wanted to irritate Russia). The latest banner is "Partnership for Modernization." Russia's top elite spoke much about it, but did not take any real steps. Russia's European partners used it to mask their desire to continue to treat Russia as a junior partner, to hide their lack of a clear plan of action, and to conceal their intention to support an "agreeable" leader (Dmitry Medvedev). Such actions were futile and are one more cause for mutual irritation.

Russia made its last attempt to build closer and equal relations by inviting the EU not only to establish dialogue with the Customs/Eurasian Union, but also to build it within the European regulatory framework in order to facilitate further integration. But Brussels refused to play along and instead tried to continue expanding its own zone of influence. Eventually the EU agreed, but only after the disaster in Ukraine.

Among the reasons for the failure of Russia-EU relations, the most important is the unwillingness or inability to set a strategic goal. Without it both sides became mired in red tape and petty, albeit sometimes quite fierce, competition. The European Union sought to expand its soft control over territories that Russia considered its zone of interests. Gradually, this transformed into a zero-sum game and led to the Ukrainian crisis, although it was not the main cause.

However, the main problem in Russia-EU relations was elsewhere. EU enlargement was accompanied by NATO expansion. The latter was clearly regarded as a potentially hostile, if not altogether aggressive, organization, especially after the three-month NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia in 1999, which shocked even pro-Western politicians in Russia.

NATO enlargement was considered as treachery and a direct violation of written and unwritten agreements reached when the Soviet Union ceased confrontation, pulled out its troops from the Warsaw Pact countries, and agreed to and even assisted Germany's reunification. Russia swallowed its pride after two rounds of NATO eastward expansion (which was probably a mistake), but it could not reconcile itself with NATO expansion into Ukraine. That would have created a completely unacceptable situation with a 2,000-km unprotected border with an alliance prone to aggression. Russia regarded such moves almost as a reason for a large-scale war. Attempts to draw Kiev into NATO were made in 2007-2008. The desire to see Ukraine in the alliance was stipulated in NATO's Bucharest Declaration of 2008 and has been reaffirmed repeatedly in the last several years.

Against this background, the West's support for the Maidan protests and the overthrow of Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovich triggered a preemptive strike from Russia. It seems that the incorporation of Crimea and the support for the rebels in Donbass were undertaken by Russia to ward off an even bigger catastrophe. The strike targeted the very logic of NATO expansion, but it also impacted empty and competitive, yet quite peaceful, relations with the European Union.  

Berlin  - Moscow

The growing estrangement, if not concealed animosity, between Moscow and Berlin is a major failure of the European policy. At risk is one of the main pillars of peaceful order in Europe - the special friendly relations between the two countries and their people established by German chancellors Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, Helmut Kohl, and Gerhard Schröder, and their Soviet and Russian partners. The other pillar is the European Union, where the fading Berlin-Paris axis still exists, but is becoming increasingly fractured. It remains to be seen how deep these fissures can go if the Russian-German pillar collapses.

While not completely giving up national egoism and occasional involvement in doubtful campaigns like the bombing of Yugoslavia and the operation in Afghanistan, Germany has built a new identity by protecting and advancing its interests using mainly soft economic power. German policy has been so efficient at this that the country has become a leading force in the EU. Germany's political system, created on the ruins of the Third Reich and probably the most effective in the world, has secured the country's development and the loyalty of a majority of its citizens.

Russia, which had to rebuild its statehood and identity, did so in the Bismarckian manner, the old German way that was almost completely opposite to that used in modern Germany. No serious effort has been made to analyze this difference in the two countries' historical experience and development paths.

The Russian elite and society view the confrontation with Germany over Ukraine as either (the simplest view) "the chancellor is hooked" by the U.S. National Security Agency or (a more sophisticated view) as Berlin adapting the Old World to its own needs to save "the German Europe." Another view which has become ever more noticeable in the yellow press and especially in online blogs is that the Germans have decided to create "a fourth Reich" and consider Ukraine an integral part of this plan.

Germany believes that Russian policy in Crimea and Ukraine stems solely from the Putin regime's desire to retain power. So Germany has to restore the status quo ante in order to preserve the peaceful order in Europe as its guarantor. However, Russia, a country with an outlook that goes beyond Europe, holds that the recklessness and lawlessness committed in Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya, and Western support for the suicidal Arab Spring have destroyed the international order, and either its legitimacy should be restored or countries should live by the law of the jungle. Whether current views are fair or not is irrelevant. In the absence of serious dialogue and attempts to sort things out, this is the prevailing reality.

Was this confrontation unavoidable? To some extent it was: the countries and their societies did not come closer, as they had when the Soviet Union was about to do away with the old regime. Instead they moved apart. This confrontation was largely caused by the failure of the elites, which did not want or were unable to understand each other and to set common realistic co-development goals.

At stake now is not only the second pillar of the European peaceful order, but also the historical integration of the two nations. After all, the Russian people forgave the Germans for their horrible crimes during World War II. If the past comes back, it will also come to the rest of Europe, where anti-German sentiment is ever more pronounced, and the continent will morally be thrown back fifty years. Vladimir Putin and Angela Merkel, who already have no special liking for each other, and the Russian and German people are facing a truly historic challenge. They must make sure that history does not repeat itself.  

Prospects for a way out

The sides could of course try to revive the Cold War by strengthening NATO, moving its forward deployed forces towards the Russian border, deploying new Russian missiles, and restoring some elements of systemic confrontation. They could try to arm Ukraine or limit not only economic, but also human contacts between Russia and the West, and further increase, if even possible, the exchange of slander and lies.

What would make this confrontation different from the Cold War is that the current Russian elites remember how the West acted after Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and his allies had decided to end the Cold War in a dignified manner. They no longer have any illusions about politics. Also, despite the crisis, the positions of Russia are stronger than those of the former Soviet Union. It would not be a problem to feed the people now. Russia is confronted not only by the monolithic West together with China as before, but also by a West that has found itself in a completely different historical paradigm. China and the rest of the Non-West, which has gained so much strength recently, sympathize with Russia. And Russia is unlikely to wait for the still strong West to finish it off. So, if the sides do not stop and come to an agreement, the crisis will worsen.  

Ukraine will be strangled or most likely destroyed if it receives military assistance. And then it will be time to see whether Western leaders and people have come to their senses after realizing that the current and previous rulers brought Europe and the world to war. If the policy does not change, things could escalate further. This could also occur because of another "black swan;" that is, an unexpected catastrophe or provocation.

I do not want to think about what Europe will be like after such a clash, even if Russia prevails. All the efforts of Europeans to build a peaceful continent after World War II will have been hopeless, just like the hopes of the early 1990s which are about to turn into ashes. In this kind of situation, well-intended attempts to resolve the Ukrainian crisis without eliminating its root causes will be doomed.

There is a solution, of course.

First, intellectual and political mistakes made over the past twenty-five years should be jointly reviewed in a fair and open manner.

Second, the difference in values should be recognized as legitimate, with the basic cultural principles shared by both sides. Russian and other European societies should be allowed to develop in their own way and at their own pace. Faced with international competition, Europeans outside of Russia will most likely become more realistic or even conservative. Under normal circumstances, Russian society will start building a state ruled by law and eventually its own, mature and full-fledged democracy.
Third, one must understand that confrontation, even under the "best case" scenario without a head-on collision, would cost dearly and distract the EU from the internal modernization crucial for its survival. European society is so strongly opposed to confrontation that it cannot be consolidated by declaring Russia a common enemy.

Russia will face the increased risk of becoming too dependent on China even though that country is only a semi-ally. Many in Russia believe that confrontation will spur internal development. On the contrary, it distracts attention and resources from domestic reforms and the overdue economic turn to Asia through the development of regions east of the Urals.

Fourth, the sides should realize that the opening up of the economic, human, and energy space between the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union from Lisbon or Dublin to Vladivostok will not solve all of their problems, but will boost their development.

This is precisely what Russia offered to do when it proposed to institutionalize the OSCE, join NATO, sign a new European security treaty, create a Union of Europe, promote closer integration between the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union through dialogue and harmonization of legal and regulatory frameworks, and gradually open up the markets. These steps would not run counter to the special relations between the EU and the U.S., nor between Russia and China; that is, if one does not set them against each other intentionally (as some have been doing in fact, which indeed is a shortfall policy).

I understand what should be done, but it should be done together. I would also like to discuss what should not be done.

Arms limitation should not be allowed to become the focal point of relations again, for it would only revive bloc mentality and remilitarize European politics in much the same way as what happened in the late 1980s.

The OSCE as a pan-European organization should not be bypassed. But as an organization that also bears the mark of the Cold War and its own institutional memory, it should not implement reform itself. Its reformation should be carried out within the OSCE, but initiated outside of it. The OSCE is an important practical instrument, an indispensable tool for resolving local conflicts, using tested mechanisms for easing tensions, and stabilizing a situation wherever a confrontation occurs. This is an important enough mission to focus on rather than try to "burden" the OSCE with even more ambitious European governance functions.

The Helsinki process should not be repeated since it could revive bloc diplomacy for years to come, with questionable results. It would be better to ask a team of experts to draft a new treaty, the text of which can then be coordinated and agreed on at the top level.

There is one more point to make. Europe is not the center of the world, nor is it an isolated territory where its destiny is decided. Its current problems are part of a more complex global system where everyone affects everyone else. For this reason it is impossible to view Europe separately from Eurasia or the Middle East. In fact, everything is closely intertwined in the world. Perhaps it would be useful to think about engaging China and other key Central and Eastern Eurasian countries in the discussion, just as the United States and Canada were brought into the European processes before.

A new world architecture should also accommodate countries located between Russia and the EU/NATO, acknowledge some unrecognized states, coordinate the resolution of frozen conflicts, and, just as important, take joint and concerted efforts to keep Ukraine from social and state disintegration and turn it into an area of cooperation rather than struggle.

This may seem illusory at a time when mistrust has reached unprecedented levels and the U.S. is apparently seeking further European divisions. But it is the lack of truly joint work over the past twenty years that largely has precipitated the current crisis.  

When at the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s the architects of European integration and the farsighted Americans who supported them came up with ideas that led to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (and later the European Economic Community and eventually the European Union), most European nations hated each other and all of them hated Germany. But the founding fathers had the courage to put forth breakthrough ideas that brought peace and order to the biggest part of Europe.

The last twenty-five years have largely been wasted. The world has become a more dangerous place, Europe is about to split up and become weaker or even slide into a large-scale war. Europe is not united enough to influence the world. Unless it works out a new ambitious and unifying idea on the way to a distant but palpable and, most importantly, common goal, Europe will inevitably fall apart along old and new dividing lines. The Ukrainian crisis and its demons will continue spreading.

If the leaders of Russia, the rest of Europe, the U.S., and those countries that would like to join them set such goals for themselves, it would be much easier to work in the Minsk, Normandy, or any other format in order to stop or curb the conflict in Ukraine and help it build its future. Unless there is a common goal, I am afraid that the people of Ukraine, who are facing the watershed, and the whole of Europe will be doomed to experience the worst time ever.

There are significant difficulties ahead and many opportunities have been missed, but it is worth trying. Otherwise, both Russians and other Europeans will throw away one more common value - their belief in common sense.

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