The way the (pro-EU) Guardian portrays it, he might well be with his speech as Poland took over the rotating EU presidency* yesterday:

Assuming the rotating presidency of the EU for the first time, Donald Tusk rounded on the leaders of Germany, France, Italy, and Britain over their handling of the sovereign debt crisis in Greece, immigration, EU spending and the budget. He charged them with posing as European champions while pandering to a new form of Euroscepticism for personal political gain, and of using fears about immigration to curb freedom of travel in Europe.

The passionate and optimistic defence of the EU from the Polish leader was completely at odds with the mood in Brussels and other EU capitals, where commitment to the union is being eroded by the rise of populist Brussels-bashing, squabbling leaders, and soaring mistrust between member states. In defiance of the gloomy European zeitgeist, Tusk said: “The European Union is great. It is the best place on Earth to be born and to live your life.”

And you know what? Think about it for half a moment, you’ll see it’s more or less true. Yes – even the “best place on Earth” bit. Greater equality, freedom, cultural and historical variety, opportunity, social support, comfort and safety than pretty much anywhere.

This is very easy to forget amid all the current talk of crisis and default. But it remains the case that the member states of the European Union are pretty much all still more prosperous and have better qualities of life than at all but a very few points in history (and those very few points *all* came within the last decade, during the boom before the bust).

Hell, you couldn’t get a better illustration of this point than to note that yesterday, 1st July, the day Poland took over the presidency, was the 95th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme. One of the bloodiest battles of all time, leaving more than a million dead – with bones and artefacts still rising to the surface almost a century later – and a key reminder of the turmoil of Europe past.

1st July is also, nicely, the anniversary of the entirely peaceful, voluntary 1569 foundation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the largest, most diverse European state of the 16th-17th centuries – ruled by an elective monarchy held in check by a senate and elected parliament. Little-known in Western Europe, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth deserves to be far more widely studied – not least because it arose at a time that the western half of the continent was submersed in a series of bloody religious conflicts that would last the best part of a century, while it was not only democratically progressive, but also religiously tolereant and ethnically diverse.

Poland has shown Europe the way in time of crisis before, in other words. But she has also frequently been a little ahead of her time. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth’s elective head of state and bicameral parliament, not to mention its religious tolerance, would not become the norm in Europe for another three centuries. And then there’s Solidarity – a movement Tusk was a part of (along with current European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek) – which is now regarded by many as the initial rumbling that helped set in motion the collapse of Soviet communism, kicked off several years before similar popular movements came to prominence in the rest of the Warsaw Pact.

Is this broad view of Tusk coming too soon for a European Union currently caught up in introspection and blame-throwing? Is his sense of historical perspective a little too visionary for an EU whose leaders have not only spent most of the last two decades tinkering with details, but who are also currently more concerned with short-term worries? And is the six months of the rotating presidency anywhere near long enough to start pushing through any serious reform?

Time will tell. But it is, at any rate, a welcome and refreshing change to hear what to me sounds like a rational optimism coming from someone with real influence in the EU after months of hand-wringing and *years* of stagnation.

Sod Tony Blair as an elected President of the EU – if he handles the next six months well, perhaps Donald Tusk could be our man?

Update: I’m starting to have strong hopes for the Polish presidency. Now this from Polish Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski:

In more general terms, Rostowski argued, politicians have to “start thinking in terms of common European interest” and show solidarity – a mantra of the Polish EU presidency – amid signs of “growing estrangement” between northern and southern member states.

“The short-sightedness of some opposition parties in some countries regarding common institutions and programmes is breath-taking,” he said. “If we don’t hang together, we all hang separately.”

Update 2:Yet more good stuff from Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski:

it is not enough to be optimistic and positive. We also must be realistic. The EU does face painful decisions in the months and years to come. Poland will not accept that the answer lies in less solidarity, or “less integration”. That is the sure path to disintegration, leaving us all worse off – and with new divisions.

…Too many of Europe’s rules and regulations were designed for very different times.

…Europe will make a strategic mistake if it retreats into unhappy introspection.

…Thirty years ago the Gdansk ship-workers led the way and changed the world, as millions of Poles joined the Solidarity movement to insist on their basic democratic rights and freedoms. The Polish presidency wants to help the EU draw strength from the ambition and patient wisdom of that movement. Poland itself is an EU success story.

* Yes, this one still exists too. Branded as the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, as opposed to the Presidency of the European Council (Herman van Rompuy), Presidency of the European Parliament (Jerzy Buzek), or Presidency of the European Commission (José Manuel Barroso).

I’m on the other side of the world at the moment, with limited web/computer access (writing this on a combination of a mobile phone and a computer with a Japanese keyboard and operating system, so likely to be more typo-ridden and less coherent than I’d like), hence even less from me than usual. But this deserves to be noted:

“Europe is at a crossroads,” Merkel declared to the German parliament in Berlin today. “This is about no more and no less than the future of Europe and about Germany’s future in Europe.”

…In return for leading the rescue attempt, Germany is demanding new rules and penalties for the 16 countries taking part in the single currency.

The 16 could not keep muddling along turning a blind eye to the fudges and fiddling of fiscal miscreants, she argued. Instead, persistent breakers of the euro rules could be “suspended” from the single currency, fiscal sinners would have to forfeit their voting rights in EU councils, and would lose EU subsidies.

If there was no alternative, a country using the euro should be allowed to go insolvent, meaning hundreds of billions in losses for international banks and other creditors. This was seen as a warning to the markets betting on a country’s sovereign debt default, while confident that investors would recoup their money from European and German bailouts.

As a last resort, Wolfgang Schaeuble, the German finance minister, is proposing that a persistent rule-breaker be expelled from the eurozone, though not from the EU. Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for monetary affairs, is to unveil proposals next week for new rules that would give Brussels the power to scrutinise national budgets, withhold EU funds, and impose penalties in the eurozone.

The Germans support and oppose some of Rehn’s measures, but are against vesting the powers in the European Commission. Merkel’s proposals are radical and would require renegotiating the Lisbon Treaty defining how the EU works.

Many have argued that European monetary union was never going to work without far tighter centralised controls. They may now be about to be proved right.

For advocates of the euro (and I remain unconvinced one way or the other, seeing it as nice in theory but problematic in practice, as well as relatively convinced that it was a) introduced too soon, and b) too lax on entry criteria), this is a depressing time, with little space for optimism.

For advocates of the EU, it is almost as tricky to see anything positive here. Yes, this crisis may finally underscore something I’ve been saying for years – not all EU member states are equal, so it’s about time we stopped pretending that they are and start considering how to make a multi-tier EU function effectively. But after the decade-long squabbles that led to the final ratification of the Lisbon Treaty six months ago, I can’t see anyone in Europe being keen to start a fresh round of EU reform talks.

At the same time, we are likely to start to see some big shifts in the attitudes of two of the EU’s most important member states, Britain and Germany.

Britain, because of today’s general election, which may see the eurosceptic Conservative party gain power (and, more to the point, the strongly anti-EU William Hague become UK Foreign Secretary), with a number of explicit promises to scale back Britain’s already unenthusiastic involvement in EU affairs.

Germany, because of the understandable resentment from German taxpayers at having to bail out the rest of the EU combining with frustration at being the single biggest contributor to the EU project while at the same time having the smallest amount of influence (in proportion to both economic might and population).

Plus – an important point, this, as so much of Germany’s foreign policy over the last 60 years has been due to residual feelings of guilt and shame over World War 2 – we are entering the decade in which the last WWII veterans are going to start dying off. There is only so long that Europe’s largest economy was going to allow itself to be bossed around based on a geopolitical version of the sins of the father.

The decision of some parts of the Greek press to explicitly bring up the Nazi occupation of that country as a reason why Germany effectively owed them a bailout has only further underlined a feeling that has understandably been rising in Germany for some time now – “the Second World War had nothing to do with me – I wasn’t even born then, so why the hell should I be punished for what my grandparents’ generation did?”

To (only slightly) oversimplify, for the first 50 years of its existence, the EU has been shaped primarily by France and French intersts (note that it was a former French president, not a former German chancellor, who drew up the EU Constitutionh note that the Treaty of Rome contains many France-only clausesh note that France still receives a disproportionate amount of Common Agricultural Policy funds). Germany has tended to stand dutifully in the background, mostly nodding in (sometimes reluctant) agreement, due to a combination of war guilt and genuine enthusiasm for the ideas of European integration.

Germany has invested more in the EU – both financially and philosophically – than any other member state, yet has hed comparatively little say in how the project has evolved.

With the Greek crisis, this could all be about to change. Germany has long had a moral right to have a greater say in EU affairs – this may be the moment when she starts to assert that right.

I, for one, am hopeful that this could prove very positive indeed. Not in the short-term, perhaps – but in the medium-term this may, with any luck, see the EU reconstituted on more sensible grounds, where weak economies are no longer able to drag down the strong, and where rather than progressing at the pace of the weakest or most reluctant member state, those that are stronger or more enthusiastic for further integration can finally be allowed to truly flourish.

Update: The Centre for European Reform seems to be thinking on similar lines about the Germany-EU relationship… Key quote:

It is hard to see how the EU could make progress on anything – whether it is services market liberalisation or a common energy policy – with a reluctant, grumpy and inward-looking Germany at its heart.

It is time for some damage limitation.

It seems that another ex-Soviet state on the European fringe is on the brink of revolution following the weekend’s elections in Moldova as students storm the Parliament building and face off against riot police and the military.

On Twitter, Moscovici, Kosmopolit and Julien Frisch are providing regular updates (in fact this is already being dubbed “The Twitter Revolution”), while on the blogs Maladets! is doing likewise. Videos of the increasingly violent situation in the capital can be found at Videonews.ro, including these:

In English, Russia Today has this report up on YouTube:

But with both internet and phone networks down in Moldova itself, reliable information is hard to come by. The major Western television news networks are – so far – silent on events in this small, largely ignored country, and so (as so often) Google News is your best source for press reports. It’s all strangely reminiscent of the early stages of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution four and a half years ago, where the attention of the Western press was similarly slow to turn to the East, and information was similarly confused and confusing. All that is certain is that this is already turning nasty – and could yet turn nastier.

Update: Blogging live from Moldova

Update 2 (9:45pm BST): Scraps of Moscow has a fairly comprehensive roundup of news and rumours, including a link to a local English-language news portal with regular updates and several photo galleries and videos.

Update 3 (10:30pm BST): Another good roundup from Julien Frisch, with a bunch of other videos, pics and blog sources.

One of my other reasons for pondering a change in direction here (beyond boredom with party politics in the run up to the summer’s EU elections) is that the other big story in the EU – hell, everywhere – is the ongoing economic crisis. What I know about economics could be written on the back of a postage stamp, so comment is best avoided. (Of course, even the supposed experts have been shown to know precisely tit all about what’s going on with the global economy over the last year, so perhaps economic illiteracy isn’t such a handicap after all?)

However, people who know infinitely more about economics than I do reckon that this weekend could be the economic crunch point for the EU – the moment when the sheer extent of the current crisis becomes insurmountable. The Economist is even suggesting that this weekend’s emergency EU summit could mark the start of the breakup of the Eurozone, and perhaps even of the EU itself. The Guardian’s David Gow has more along similar lines.

That Economist article and leader have been followed up by a couple of posts at Fistful that are well worth a gander – the first containing proposals to get the EU out of this mess, the second looking at the wider, global context.

It’s also worth having a look at this piece at Eurozone Watch from last week (rather heavy-going in places, mind) looking at the theoretical/legal arguments for bailing-out a collapsing Eurozone member, and an overview of the case for relaxing Eurozone entry criteria to provide a way out of the current crisis from Central Europe Activ (with considerably more detail about how this approach might work from Edward Hugh here). And for those who still haven’t had their fill of EU economics, Alphasources has a very useful look at why it has got so urgent to have a unified European response after what seems like months of prevarication.

Nothing changes, it seems. Just like 2008, 2009 promises to bring yet more Russian sabre-rattling and European fears about the continent’s long-term energy security.

Also time to welcome in the Czech EU presidency. With the Czech Republic currently being run by the neoliberal, eurosceptic Civic Democratic Party of President Václav Klaus and Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek – a party that’s already begun to align itself with Declan Ganley’s new anti-Lisbon Treaty Libertas movement – it could prove an interesting six months.

With the EU still stuck in a deadlock until the Irish question is sorted, will Klaus – increasingly a hero of the eurosceptic right EU-wide thanks to his repeated anti-EU pronouncements (even calling for the EU to be scrapped altogether back in 2005) – be able to use his elevated position over the next six months to advance the eurosceptic cause?

Substantive posts soon, honest. I’ve got a real-world deadline for the 5th, though, so need to prioritise.

Better luck next time, Ukraine.

One of these days the EU powers that be are going to realise that when you’ve got countries torn between a European and non-European identity, to keep on telling them “sorry, you’re not European enough yet” is just going to drive them into the other camp.

How much longer are the likes of Ukraine and Turkey going to put up with these repeated, very public rejections before heading off to the waiting embrace of Moscow or non-secular Islamism?

If I were a westwards-looking Ukrainian, I’d be getting very pissed off about now:

Ukraine will have to make do with an “association agreement” with the EU, a pact that for Balkan countries such as Albania, Macedonia and Serbia represents the first step on the path to membership, but for Ukraine carries no such implications

So Ukraine’s less welcome than tiny Albania and Macedonia? Less welcome than Serbia, a country built on a genocidal civil war and still in dispute with much of the EU over the status of Kosovo?

Yeah, cheers for that. Really encouraging. Nice one.

The promise of future EU membership can be a force for good, inspiring positive shifts towards greater democratic freedoms. But the promise has to be made. Taking a carrot and stick approach is a tried-and-tested method for getting people to do what you want – and that goes for countries too. Yet in the case of Ukraine, the EU’s carrot would appear to be largely imaginary – while at the same time, Ukrainians know that Russia has both stick and carrot, and isn’t afraid to use either.

Ukraine’s Orange Revolution was always painted (in the western media, at least) as a conflict between western-looking Yushchenko and the eastern-looking former Prime Minister Yanukovich, the man whose suspect election to the presidency sparked popular protests and an eventual turnaround back in November 2004. Yushchenko was, it is alleged, the target of an assassination plot backed by Moscow, while Yanukovich was merely backed by Moscow. When the Revolution got its way and Yushchenko came to power, it seemed the West had won.

But it was never going to be that simple, or that easy. After countless disputes between Ukraine’s various political factions over the last four years, another post-Orange Revolution government is nearing collapse thanks to yet another spat between former Orange allies President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko – and all as the aftermath of the Georgia crisis continues to rumble with the US handing Saakashvili a tidy $1 billion in reconstruction money (otherwise known as a fiscal two fingers to Moscow), and Russia announces a review of its global trade relations. Although the EU may account for 31% of Ukraine’s export market, Russia makes up 21% – and after the various spats over gas supplies over the last couple of years, you can be sure that Ukrainians are somewhat worried about just what Moscow may have planned to reassert the influence she lost with the fall of former President Kuchma back in 2004.

And so it would appear that the spread of the Georgia standoff does indeed seem likely to spread to Ukraine.

The thing is, though, that even without the squabbles between the various political leaders, the position of Ukraine was never going to be resolved by a simple election. Did Yanukovich try to steal the election back in 2004? Quite possibly. But that still doesn’t alter the fact that the country’s vote was split almost exactly down the middle.

Of course, it’s easy to label this an East vs West thing, and that’s part of it. But the actual reason is cultural and linguistic. Ukraine’s just like Belgium, in fact. The parallels are painfully evident:

You see, just as Belgium has a north/south split between Flemish and French speakers, so too it has a north/south political divide. And in Ukraine, there’s a northwest/southeast split between majority Ukrainian speakers and Russian speakers, echoed in political support for the “west-leaning” Yushchenko/Orange Revolution in the northwest and “pro-Russia” Yanukovich in the southeast.

So, why does Ukraine have the borders that she does? They’re a fairly recent creation, after all – with the origins of Ukraine lying in the medieval Kievan Rus’, which stretched north from Kiev through modern Belarus and Poland to the Baltic, not south and east to the Black Sea. It went on to be absorbed into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (covering much the same area – but again missing out the south and east of modern Ukraine, which was part of the Crimean Khanate, before being sucked into the similarly vast Kingdom of Poland via the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Check the maps below (very rough, I know) charting Ukraine’s geographical history up to the 19th century (when it was absorbed by the Russian Empire) – notice something?

Yep – that’s right. The Russian-speaking, Yanukovich-voting part of modern Ukraine was not, historically, part of Ukraine – it’s a later addition tacked on during the Russian Empire. During the chaotic times following the Russian revolution and around the Ukrainian War of Independence of 1919, the northwest that tried to break away as a Ukrainian state (actually, several Ukrainian states, after repeated failures to consolidate their position), while the southeast (briefly) went its own way as the Crimean People’s Republic. It was really only under the Soviets – who took the Tsars’ attempts to crush the Crimean Tatars and put down Ukranian nationalism (especially after the Second World War, where Ukrainian nationalists fought both the Russians and the Germans, depending on who was occupying the area at the time, in a campaign that lasted until 1956) to the usual near-genocidal extremes – that Ukraine’s current borders began to be fixed. In fact, you can even put a precise date on it – 19th February 1954, the day the Crimean Oblast was transferred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

So here’s the question. If northwestern Ukraine is the linguistic, cultural and historical hub of the Ukrainian people, and southwestern Ukraine has only been spliced on within living memory, why persist with the pretense that the current borders of the modern Ukrainian state are actually meaningful? They were created by the Soviet Union as a handy administrative division, not based on any of the usual factors that go into the creation of a coherent state. Artificial borders have, time and again, led to conflict and division – be it via European colonialism in Africa or the carving up of the Middle East after the First World War.

If Ukraine really is torn between east and west, in other words – and it is – and if its artificial makeup keeps leading to political stalemate and unrest – and it does – isn’t the logical thing to do to follow the Belgian example and consider splitting the country down the middle? (This would also, one hopes, have the added benefit of shutting Russia up for a while as she regains part of her old sphere of influence – and enable the EU to focus on the more “European” northwest for development and eventual integration.)

Am I serious about this as a suggestion? It’s about 50/50 at the moment. But the longer Ukraine goes without forming a stable government, the more likely an outcome this will be…

Ah… The 2007 accession states of Bulgaria and Romania… What to make of them? At the time I was both optimistic and pessimistic all at once. A year and a half on…?

After Bulgaria being told off last month (for, y’know, little things like being economically backward, corrupt, and ignoring human rights and the rule of law) now EU agricultural funds have been suspended to Romania due to dodgy management.

Oh dear… Doesn’t look like letting them in was such a good idea now, does it?

The thing is, though, unlike Bulgaria’s blatant unsuitability for EU membership, I reckon this simply shows how much Romania’s getting into the spirit of things. The Commission has suspended payments of just 28.3 million euros to Romania – that’s three times less than France was fined back in 2006 for dodgy use of CAP funds. Mismanagement of EU agricultural payments is a long and noble tradition – by following the examples of France, Britain, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece and Ireland, Romania is merely underlining its commitment to European values.

Makes you proud, doesn’t it?

So, what is it going to be, exactly? A military response isn’t an option, and Moscow knows it – though quite how far they can push before getting shoved back in return we don’t yet know (Georgia may be strategically important, but isn’t yet a member of NATO; the same goes for Ukraine; but what about Estonia, with it’s sizable population of ethnic Russians and history of tensions with its larger neighbour? We’re all meant to fight for EU and NATO member Estonia – but if push did come to shove, would we?) Economic sanctions are unlikely to have much impact when Russia has such a tight grip of the European energy market and can hurt us far more than we can hurt them. We also can’t risk ceasing to trade with Moscow as winter approaches and Russian gas supplies become ever more vital – whereas they can do without European markets, if necessary.

But one thing is clear – if Europe’s strategy remains unclear, Russia’s seems to have failed. If the aim of the Georgia expedition was, as many have assumed, to reintroduce Moscow’s will to the Western periphery of the Russian Federation, then finally pushing Poland into the arms of the Americans was certainly not the desired result. Especially when Ukraine – that other nascent nation with a history of troubles and a sizeable Russian population on the Eurasian border that some have pointed to as “Russia’s next target” swiftly follows suit.

But still, I’m not sure I buy this whole “extending influence” thing. Not only does Russia seem to have hardened the anti-Moscow attitudes of the old Warsaw Pact EU member states (including among the people, many of whom have, in ex-Soviet countries, had a tendency for rosy nostalgia for the days of communism), but also pushed Ukraine further westwards, and potentially gained Georgia the NATO seat she wanted even though Tbilisi’s recent actions show that the country’s really not ready yet.

But that’s not all. Russia’s also singularly failed to maintain control over Chechnya despite years of fighting, and has even found the conflict spreading into neighbouring parts of the Caucasus – as well as to the Russian capital itself. In Georgia, rather than a disciplined and efficient military manoeuvre, we’ve seen poor targeting, poor discipline, and a seeming lack of ability to decide what the hell to do – having pushed in to Georgian territory and taken Gori, the Russians seem largely to have been milling around trying to look macho for the last week or two, while seemingly ignoring presidential orders. This is, it seems, what you get from a conscript army.

So, when we come to look back on this in a few months’ time, what will Moscow have achieved? Well, she may be able to gain a bit more influence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but those two regions hold little of any strategic value (bar Abkhazia’s apparently rather beautiful stretches of Black Sea coastline). Georgia will continue to be the non-Russian route of choice for Central Asian oil and gas to Europe – only now, undoubtedly, with a far stronger western military presence to guard the infrastructure. Georgia’s chances of NATO membership will have been greatly increased, as will those of Ukraine. The significance of energy dependence on Russia will also have become far more apparent to a far wider group of people (the reason we need to develop alternate energy sources is not global warming, folks, it’s Gazprom…) The threat of Russian instability – long largely ignored by many in the West, desperately hoping that Putin was one of us despite his authoritarian ways – will have become clear. But it should also have become clear that Russia’s army really isn’t much of a threat. A few ill-trained teenagers with battered equipment can cause some short-term chaos, certainly – they can maim and kill and loot and burn as well as anyone. But even supported with tanks, I’m not convinced of the threat of the Russian army any more – or of the minds coming up with Russian strategy. It’s still early days, but as NATO plans its longer-term response this whole escapade is beginning to look like it’s backfired on Moscow.

So, what’s the next step? Well, having been slow to act to the initial violence, the best bet for Europe/NATO is probably to sit back and wait to see what the next move from Moscow is going to be, because they’ve probably already started to realise their mistake. For NATO or the EU to suddenly come out with some hasty, highly public punitive measures is likely to spark further escalation as Moscow seeks to save face.

I can’t see too much direct Russian intervention in Ukraine – bar the usual behind-the-scenes funding – as long as Ukraine’s politicians continue their ridiculous infighting (that’s been going on ever since the damp squib that was the Orange Revolution back in November 2004), as a divided Ukraine is very much in Russia’s interests, something that can be exploited while the West sits back and waits for them to resolve their differences. The most likely option is a revival of the old plan to merge Belarus with Russia – a project that’s been on-off, on-off for years now, and which Russia has previously been the reluctant party to – not worth much to Moscow in real terms (Belarus has little to offer economically), but psychologically important, almost completely cutting off the Baltic states, and giving Russia a border only 150 kilometres from Warsaw.

But how do you second-guess Russia? Moscow doesn’t think like governments in the West. At least, we don’t think they do. Because no one really seems to know what Russia’s up to. We can’t even tell who the next head of state is going to be until they tell us, after all. There are countless conspiracy theories about what Russia’s plan is – from shadowy groups of ex-KGB men plotting a global takeover to shadowy groups of ultracapitalist gangsters trying to wring as much money out of everyone as possible – and none of them are entirely convincing.

The old question “cock-up or conspiracy” should always be met with the answer “cock-up” until you’re presented with some very compelling evidence to the contrary. Russia’s Georgia escapade looks rather like it was designed to be a conspiracy, but it’s one they so far appear to have cocked up. A plan designed to show Russia as strong, powerful, and capable of decisive action has, instead, shown her to be incapable and pushed those she was wooing even further into the opposing camp. This Georgia episode has shown that Putin’s old tough guy act is just that. Russia’s prepared to bully those littler than her, but wouldn’t be able to hack it in a real fight. (Not that I’m advocating getting into a real fight with Russia, obviously – in this case, the best response to the bully is probably to pretend to ignore her while sniggering a bit to make sure she knows we didn’t miss her failure… The embarrassment may just be enough to stop her from trying it again – because image does seem to be everything to this lot.)

Yes, OK. We get it. You guys have a big, powerful army and you aren’t afraid to use it.

That’s meant to discourage eastern European countries – all of whom have less then pleasant memories of armies from Russia invading, looting, raping, pillaging and occupying them for the last several centuries – from looking to NATO for help and signing up to the proposed US missile defence shield how, exactly?

Sure enough, Poland’s now signed up to the American scheme.

But the thing is, by now surely it must be obvious to Moscow that the West is not a military threat? We can’t take down a bunch of beardy religious fanatics with AK-47s – what hope do we have against a million-man army that seems to like to test out its equipment at random every few years to stop it getting rusty? All the West’s managed to do in the last few days (and this goes for the US and NATO as much as the EU) is express mild disapproval while disagreeing on precisely what form the ineffective slap on the wrist should take.

So I’m beginning to think that Russia simply doesn’t care any more. The Georgian escapade was a classic bit of imperialist aggression dressed up as humanitarian intervention, and they’ve completely got away with it. Yes, it looks as though they may well have begun to withdraw from Georgian territory now, but the message to Russia’s neighbours (well, bar China, perhaps) is clear: if we want to, we can fuck you up – there’s nothing you can do about it, and your new buddies in the West aren’t going to be any help either.

Russia’s effectively declared herself rogue – not necessarily hostile rogue, but unpredictable rogue. Riggs to the West’s Murtaugh. She’s not prepared to follow the rules, barely bothers paying lip-service to them, and has an agenda all her own. The thing is, just like poor old Danny Glover as Murtaugh, we’ve really got no choice but to be partners with her, and hope that she mellows with time. Because something we’ve all known for years is becoming increasingly obvious – there’s not a lot we can do to change Russia’s course.

—

A related aside – worth developing further sometime – is the idea that Russia (much like the EU, in fact) is still trying to work out what it is for in a post-Cold War world. The old federation that was the Soviet Union has already splintered. The Russian Federation is similarly vast, similarly packed with diverse peoples and cultures – with 27 officially-recognised languages within its borders. But why?

What purpose does “Russia” serve? Why shouldn’t the Chechens follow the Khazaks, Estonians and Ukrainians to independence? Why shouldn’t the Chuckchis, Yakuts, Buryats, Adyghes, Kalmyks, Chuvash, Karachays, Balkars, Ingush, Khakas, Komi, Udmurts, Nenets, Khants, Tatars, Mari, Mansi or any of the other federalised subgroups?

Just as I’ve long been asking what the EU’s for now that the original idea seems obsolete, Russia has been asking itself the same question. Without the binding ideology of communism for the elites (and fear for those beneath), what has been holding what remains of the Soviet Union together? As the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia begin to thrive as part of the EU, as former Soviet territories like Georgia and Ukraine look to NATO membership and cozy up to the West – not to mention the old Russian Imperial territory of Finland (sitting pretty with the 12th highest GDP per capita in the world), what’s to prevent other parts of the Russian empire deciding that they’ve had enough?

Well, where the EU’s going for aspiration, after the brutally over-the-top actions of the Russian military in Georgia over the last week (and even more so in the Chechen wars – the second of which has technically been running for nearly a decade now), it’s hard not to see a return to federalism by fear. It’s a fine Russian tradition. Indeed, fear and repression are pretty much the only reason the old Russian Empire managed to hold itself together for so many years. Democracy in Russia has not been enough – opposition parties are still so under-supported as to be laughable. Authoritarian-seeming Putin, unafraid to act and act fast – remains Russia’s most popular leader since, erm… Stalin.

And so, it seems, we may be entering a new phase of Russian Imperialism:

“”It is clear that we need the kind of idea for which one will not be sorry to give one’s life. And the building of civil society, of the rule of law, of a prosperous society we find uninteresting. Indeed, we would rather squander everything and end our lives with suicide, than scrupulously count the credit and the debit, invest, corporatize, organize on cooperative lines, and so on. We find that tedious. We would rather try to absorb the enormous spaces of Siberia and the Far East, so that the islands of the Pacific Ocean become indigenously ours, we will fight for centuries with Europe for the Baltic States, and with Turkey for the Dardanelles – that is our way.”

(Original here, for those who can read Estonian…)