Well, that could be one way of diffusing the ongoing EU/CIS standoff over EUropean energy supplies that recently saw death and destruction in Georgia and much of southern/eastern Europe lose gas supplies in the middle of winter. EurActiv reports that “Lawmakers in the European Parliament are considering inviting Russia to join the Union’s Nabucco gas pipeline project, to avoid competition with rival projects sponsored by Moscow in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute.”

The thing is, though, that Nabucco was designed almost exclusively to cut out Russia’s dominant role in European energy transit, as pointed out (with maps) back in August last year, plus July 2008, February 2008, January 2008, July 2007, and doubtless several dozen other posts.

Could giving Russia a share in the pipeline’s running (and, no doubt, profits) be a sensible solution? Well, yes. Sod the new dawn in EU-US relations that so many have been hoping for with the arrival of Barack Obama in the White House – Europe’s most vital extra-European relationship is not with America, but with Russia (counting Russia as outside Europe solely for the purpose of this post). We may have had a few bitchy slanging matches with the US during the Bush years, but the deterioration in European/Russian relations (and yes, I do mean the whole of Europe, not just EU member states) over the same period has been far more damaging for both parties.

With Putin – seemingly still obsessed with macho nationalistic posturing and apparently unable to stomach entering into genuine partnerships with the West – still pulling the strings, it’s likely going to be another few years before a true rapprochement between Europe and Russia can occur (which still seems odd, Putin having grown up in Russia’s most European city, St Petersburg, and having spent several years working for the KGB in Berlin). But appeals to Russian self-interest and self-esteem are certainly going to be the way to break down the barriers – played right, a Nabucco team-up with Russia could give the Kremlin just the kind of ego-boost it seems to run on. Europe on her knees, begging “Oh, won’t you help us, dear Russia? We can’t do it without you! is guaranteed to give plenty of good propaganda value back home, so has a moderate chance of succeeding.

(Warning – lots of short posts likely to follow on various topics as I continue to catch up on what I’ve missed over the last couple of weeks…)

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.

Sounds promising, from Russian human rights organisation (yes, there are such things) Memorial – recently raided by armed police. These guys are still on the frontline of history, while those of use sitting comfortably in Western Europe can, bar the odd credit crisis, often feel as if Fukuyama may have had a point.

In any case, at its most basic the fun of history was always – for me – the competing accounts of what happened, and the sheer inability of pretty much any source to be free of bias. It’s invaluable journalistic training, history – if more journalists did history at university, the quality of the press would be vastly improved. You come, Rashomon-like, to distrust every account, and so hunt for as many different primary sources as possible to get the full picture. Accept one version of history, and you risk ending up like the blind men and the elephant. (Which is why, of course, Holocaust deniers shouldn’t be outlawed. Theirs is an alternate take on history, and can – despite being just about as categorically, demonstrably wrong as it is possible for an historical theory to be – merely by existing prompt new research and new approaches that may be able to cast light on one of the murkiest episodes of human history. Flawed hypotheses need to be disproved, not banned.)

So the new Memorial European history initiative reported by Eurozine strikes me as well worth supporting:

The twentieth century left deep and unhealed wounds in the memory of almost all nations in eastern and central Europe. Often, the memory of one nation contradicts that of another. If these disparities are recognised and understood, the historical awareness of each society is enriched. If not, they can be exploited for political ends.

Some of the specifics given in the article raise some vital issues about the ongoing post-WWII, post-Soviet recovery of Central and Eastern Europe that it’s all too easy to forget in the West – with many more older Eurozine articles well worth another look in the boxout on the right, such as Isolde Charim’s Historical Myths Old and New (very good on the EU’s “foundation myth” and failure to reconcile East and West).

Europe needs to confront its bloody past openly and honestly if it is ever going to move forward as one. Yet so much of our history we fail to understand – or even learn about. Too many historical myths continue largely unchallenged in the national consciousness of every country, from the old one of Magna Carta in the UK to the newer one of the Resistance in France. Yet without an honest, open understanding of our pasts – both individual and collective – how can we possibly hope to build a better future?

Two articles well worth a gander, both trying to work out the “new post-Cold War world order” that increasing numbers are identifying in the wake of the Georgia crisis, and slowly trying to define.

First up, from The Economist, this week’s Charlemagne:

Never has the European Union enjoyed such diplomatic prominence… Seen from Brussels, the Georgian crisis has exposed a tectonic shift in the global balance of power. It is not just that Russia is back. The crisis has also confirmed Europe’s sense of an America in relative decline…

A previous generation of EU leaders, such as Jacques Chirac or Gerhard Schröder, dreamt of a multipolar world, in which several powers would wield clout. Now something like it may have arrived. Yet today’s European leaders are not crowing. Talk to ministers and officials in private, and they admit that the new world order is making them anxious.

Next, a similar take from a more Russian perspective over at Eurozine:

The general mood in Moscow these days is that “Russia is up, America is down, and Europe is out. Russia, previously a Pluto in the Western solar system, has spun out of its orbit, powered by the determination to find its own system.”

…mutual suspicion, misperception, frustration, and paranoia are starting to determine the dynamics of the relationship between Russia and the European Union… In the eyes of the West, Russia has turned from a partner-in-the-making into an adversary-in-the-making. The mixture of mercantilism and messianism that is at the core of the Kremlin’s new foreign policy frightens Europe.

We’re in the midst of a new wave of historical revisionism, another period of reassessment of the shifts in world power following the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is nothing new – Fukuyama’s The End of History was published way back in 1992, and has been repeatedly attacked pretty much from the day it appeared for its claims that Western liberal democracy had triumphed. What does appear to be a new trend, however, is the emphasis on the role the EU may play in this new analysis – largely because its potential is seen as so great, yet its current impact on world events perceived as so minimal.

The one thing that does seem agreed upon is that the hesitancy of the EU is one of its defining characteristics. While Russia and America are reverting to Cold War rhetoric and tit for tat retaliation (“You invade Georgia? We’ll invest vast amounts of money there.” ; “You site missile defence systems in eastern Europe? We’ll point nukes at you.” etc.), the EU is sitting back and prevaricating. Cunning strategy, or just the inevitable consequence of the EU’s ongoing inability to work out its path following the failure of Nice, the constitution and Lisbon?

The US, Russia and the EU are all passing through identity crises – the US finding it’s neither as loved nor as powerful as it once thought, Russia shaking off the embarrassment of defeat through a resurgent sense of national pride, the EU going round and round in circles through indecision and a lack of clear purpose. How they will resolve these, we will have to wait and see. One thing that does seem clear, however, is that our current decade will be written about and analysed for decades to come – the new century bringing not just the US shift of The War Against Terror but also the emergence of Putin in Russia and EU stagnation following the failure of the Treaty of Nice back in 2001, all three developments whose long-term impact has yet to be resolved, yet which could well be immense. We are living in interesting times.

This will bear close analysis, even with the imminent change of regime in Washington. Running, as it does, to nearly 6,000 words, I don’t have the time just now, but will hopefully return to this on the morrow. For now, read for yourselves the statement made by the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs (apparently from the 9th, though it has only just gone online):

Russia’s intensified pressure and provocations against Georgia – combined with a serious Georgian miscalculation – have resulted not only in armed conflict, but in an ongoing Russian attempt to dismember that country.

The causes of this conflict – particularly the dispute between Georgia and its breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia – are complex, and all sides made mistakes and miscalculations. But key facts are clear: Russia sent its army across an internationally recognized boundary, to attempt to change by force the borders of a country with a democratically-elected government and, if possible, overthrow that government – not to relieve humanitarian pressures on Russian citizens, as it claimed.

This is the first time since the breakup of the Soviet Union that Moscow has sent its military across an international frontier in such circumstances, and this is Moscow’s first attempt to change the borders that emerged from the breakup of the Soviet Union. This is a troubling and dangerous act.

Today I will seek to explain how we got here, how we’re responding, and the implications for our relationship with Russia.

Needless to say, any shift in American attitudes towards Moscow will have some significant implications for Europe. What those will be we shall have to wait and see over the coming months – November’s election is getting increasingly crucial for Europe. I’d been intending to avoid commenting on US politics, but perhaps it’s time to look in more detail at what we might expect from McCain and Obama when it comes to Europe – as it seems that their attitudes towards Russia are going to be crucial.

So, where are we after the EU’s summit on the Georgia crisis? Exactly where we were before the summit.

A few vague tutting sounds in the general direction of Russia, a bit of hyperbole (Hans-Gert Pottering, who should know better, calling the Georgia crisis the worst threat to security we’ve seen since the end of the Cold War), a few vague attempts to blame the EU’s lack of success on the failure to ratify the Lisbon Treaty (rather than, erm… seeing the failure to ratify the Lisbon Treaty as a symptom of the same one-size-fits-all malaise), and little in the way of concrete proposals for how – or if – the EU’s eastern neighbourhood policy should really shift to prevent such situations happening again. (Yes, there are plans in place to strengthen the EU’s ties to its eastern neighbours – but these are nothing new, having been agreed back in June).

With so many countries pulling in so many different directions, Russia’s ended up with not so much a slap, but a faint tap on the wrist – a squeak, not a bark of disapproval. Again.

But surely something’s been achieved, right?

Well, there’s more vague Russian promises of troop withdrawals (that we’ve heard countless times since the invasion – with the Wall Street Journal’s “Stop! Or we’ll say stop again!” headline pretty much summing it up), which have helped them dodge sanctions again. (Not that sanctions are really a very likely outcome no matter what they do, as far as I can tell, but still…). Meanwhile the vague threat – and as yet it’s only a threat – to suspend talks on any future EU/Russian economic deal has been met with Russian tutting in return, effectively trying to paint the EU as over-reacting to a localised issue, while also firmly pointing out Georgian aggression once again. And yet the Russian line about Western hypocrisy remains unchallenged, the propaganda keeps coming (though at least that bit of propaganda has the decency to be entertaining), the Russian leadership continues to do pretty much as it likes, and the Russian people continue to get ever more behind the Kremlin.

Speaking of which, has anything been said or done to tick off the Georgian leadership for its own over-reaction and attempt to forcibly put down the separatist movements within its borders? Has there been any suggestion of the most sensible, logical course of action – holding an EU/OECD-supervised referendum over the status of the two breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Azkhabia to help formalise their self-rule and to enable their leaderships to work out how their economies might function prior to formal independence? You know, supporting independence movements and the principle of self-determination in much the same way we did at the end of the Cold War? Nope. Not a bit of it. Russian accusations of double-standards and hypocrisy continue to have some foundation.

And meanwhile, various aspiring EU member states (or even just aspiring closer partners) have discovered something rather handy to help their bid to get preferential treatment from the rich Westerners of the EU: play the Russia card.

The one cause for optimism? There were some sensible contributions from MEPs during the debate that followed the European Council meeting – among the predictable calls for a common defence policy and overkill calls for complete Russian economic and political isolation. A rare indication of the subtlety of understanding that can be present in a chamber of 600+ deputies that seems to be lost in a council chamber of a couple of dozen ministers and heads of state. Yes, the national concerns of the individual MEPs are on show, but so are is a surprisingly reasonable attempt to rationalise a situation that makes no sense.

Nonetheless, the one word that could shatter Russia’s whole pretence of acting in the interests of the people of South Ossetia – Chechnya – remains unspoken. Russians can point to the potential breakup of Belgium, the support for Kosovo’s independence and the suppression of Northern Irish and Basque separatist movements all they like, but that’s to ignore the case study on their doorstep. Because this is very much a Caucasus-wide issue – one that has been rumbling since the fall of the Soviet Union (if not before), and one that threatens to spread once more. Already there are worrying signs that the wider region is flaring up. This potential short-term revival of old Caucasian tensions – along the Armenian/Azerbaijani border just as much as among the myriad Russian republics of the region – needs to be kept in check just as much as any revival of Russian militarism.

Elsewhere, this article in the New York Review of Books provides one of the best accounts of the crisis I’ve found so far – though I’ve yet to see anyone satisfactorily explain why anyone would actually want South Ossetia anyway. It’s a bunch of rocks and mountains, with very little in the way of economic or strategic worth. What’s the point of getting het up over something so worthless?

One of the major theories behind the formation of the EU – and one of the successes that has always been claimed – is that by intertwining European economies as closely as we can, future conflict will become impossible.

All very well and good – but Russia’s economy is also closely intertwined with that of the EU. Russia is heavily dependent on EU countries for trade, while the EU is heavily dependent on Russia for energy supplies. So, what exactly can the EU – its economy tied up so heavily with Russia – do to stop the Kremlin pursuing whatever course it likes? Not only is there no consensus among EU member states, but also sanctions will certainly be met with retaliation, probably in the form either of raised gas prices or cutting off of supplies altogether.

It’s like an economic version of the Cold War’s Mutually Assured Destruction, if you will. Back in the Cold War, the USA and USSR largely allowed each other to do what they liked within their respective spheres of influence (be it invading Hungary and Czechoslovakia or installing puppet dictators throughout Latin America), because nuclear-powered direct conflict would be too damaging for both parties. Now the EU faces the same situation, albeit economically – the EU lays on sanctions, Russia cuts off energy supplies, both parties suffer. And yet from a Russian perspective, the EU has been interfering in Moscow’s sphere of influence… It’s not been abiding by the old Cold War consensus.

Russia is not an EU member state. But what if a member state DID go rogue? What if another Hitler or Mussolini came to power in an EU member state, and started acting against the EU’s professed principles of democracy and human rights, flouting both EU and international law? What would the EU be prepared to do to stop them? Would there be consensus? What could the EU actually do in any case? With increasingly interdependent economies, how would shutting out one EU member state be any more feasible than the British government in Westminster suddenly trying to shut out Buckinghamshire?

The idea behind economic integration remains rationally sound, for mutual dependence should indeed breed peace – just as did mutually assured destruction. The alternatives should simply be too unpleasant to be worth considering. The one flaw with Mutually Assured Destruction was if someone who was mad broke the standoff. What happens when you’ve got a state that’s decided to start acting irrationally, or that doesn’t seem to care about the consequences of escalation?

With the limiting/cutting off of the wealthy European markets for her products that any isolation / “new Cold War” would imply, her economy will end up even more screwed than it is already, further isolating the government from the people. Yes, cutting off energy supplies to Europe would, in the short term, cause a major global economic crash and untold suffering on a scale not seen for decades which would, in the short term, also help boost energy prices and allow Russia to get rich quick via other markets. But in the longer term? Europe will find other energy sources and recover – while Russia’s short term gain will end up as long-term loss, as her finite natural resources run low and the world’s wealthiest markets continue to shun her. As The Economist has noted, “America’s GDP is ten times bigger than Russia’s and it spends at least seven times more on defence. Russia’s economy would fall off a cliff if energy prices slumped and its population, racked by ill-health and inequality, is shrinking by up to 800,000 a year.” How can she keep going if markets are denied her?

Yes, the nationalistic boost will increase the government’s popularity in the short-term (just as it did during the early stages of the Chechen wars), but the current government’s already insanely popular and there aren’t any elections for years, so why bother? Anything short of total moral/military victory will make them seem weak in the eyes of a people they’ve stirred up into a populist frenzy. It’ll have precisely the opposite effect.

On top of that, the semi-paranoid claims that Western powers are encircling her to crush her will become a reality. The blind eye that’s been turned to Russia’s shoddy human rights record, corruption and lack of democracy will start to see once more, and the Western world will, no doubt, start to seriously aid opposition groups, potentially destabilising the current lot’s hold on power. Plus, of course, Russia’s own hypocrisy over the independence of Chechnya may start to become an issue – and cunning Western states may well start taking more of an interest in other national subgroups within the Russian Federation, bolstering their independence movements to destabilise the Kremlin. The Russian Federation, lest we forget, is a country built on conquest that has been held together largely through fear and oppression ever since the days of Ivan the Terrible. From Caucasian regions Ingushetia and Dagestan right through to Siberia (actually not a bad idea…), there are countless parts of Russia that could – with the right incentives and support – be persuaded to start heading the way of the Central Asian republics, and sever their ties to Moscow.

Some of these are more likely than others, of course – and none of this is to say that I don’t have a certain amount of sympathy with Russian accusations of Western hypocrisy (I don’t buy it completely by any means, but they have got a case, and they’ve been telling us for long enough…) – but still. Why? If it’s really just simple nationalism, aren’t nationalist supposed to want to do things in the best interest of their country? Isn’t the aim normally to make the mother/fatherland great once again? How does Russia expect to do that if she pisses off all her trade partners? Or are Russian claims of self-sufficiency justified? Are they genuinely planning a period of splendid isolation? Is that why they’re seemingly becoming so keen to tidy up any remaining border disputes?

It’s all very complex, very confusing. And I haven’t yet read one explanation that covers all the bases. (Hell, even this one leaves out tonnes of relevant stuff…) I was hoping to go into all of this in more detail on the radio last night, but for some reason never quite got the chance…

It seems that Russia’s new post-Cold War strategy is based on the urban myth that if you’re approached by a group of muggers you should act like a lunatic, as that’ll confuse them and make them go away. How else to explain Medvedev’s “we’re not afraid of a new Cold War” comments?

I mean, Putin saying that the fall of the USSR was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century is one thing, but wanting the Cold War back? An isolated, starving, impoverished Russia relying on slave labour and a culture of fear to maintain its crumbling infrastructure? He’s not afraid of that?

I’m beginning to think that Putin/Medvedev have seriously misread their hand here. After all, you don’t talk about how

“Russia is a state which has to ensure its interests along the whole length of its border. This is absolutely clear.”

just before heading off to a meeting of, erm… states that share borders with you unless you’re either very confident, or you have no clue whatsoever how to conduct international diplomacy. And all they’re doing by being unpredictable and belligerent is showing Europe and the West that we were right all along to think that Russia was an unreliable business partner, and so to look elsewhere for energy sources. Russia’s acting like the shopkeeper who threatens his customers. Yes, we may put up with it for a while due to the inconvenient locations of the other shops – but other shops there are.

More, hopefully, later. There have been some truly bizarre developments over the last few days, and I’m still trying to get my head past the mental image I now have of Russia as that big kid at school who’d go around trying to bully people, but couldn’t actually throw a punch.

Two interesting – and thematically related – pieces look at past conflicts in relation the the Georgia / Russia spat over the last couple of days have prompted some thoughts along the old comparative history line (always an interesting intellectual exercise, as long as you don’t take it too seriously or literally).

First, over at Fistful, Douglas Muir looks at the Second Balkan War of 1912, and the impact Bulgaria’s failure to win had on that nation’s subsequent history (short version: bitter resentment, paramilitary reprisals, fighting on the losing side in both World Wars, more bitter resentment). Georgia’s failure to reassert her dominance over South Ossetia, Douglas posits, is decidedly comparible to Bulgaria’s failure to retake Macedonia and other “Bulgarian” territories in the Balkans. Or, as Douglas puts it,

“losses of national territory are hard for any nation to accept”.

Then, on BlogActiv, Stanley Crossick looks at the post-Fukuyama return of history and the possibilities of Cold War Mk.II:

“Cold War II may soon be with us – indeed will be with us – if we have still to learn the cost of humiliating the Russian Bear… Vladimir Putin has stated that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the worst geopolitical disaster of the 20th century: he means it.”

Russia was on the losing side in the Cold War – hell, Russia WAS the losing side in the Cold War. Russia is now weak, with a shaky economy that relies largely on the money of her erstwhile enemies. She has lost large chunks of her former territory, and has to see ethnic Russians and Russian speakers scattered throughout the lands of near neighbours where once those lands belonged to her. Meanwhile, her old enemies in NATO are pushing ever closer to her borders, sucking in former allies and making new treaties with countries that used to be Russia’s friends.

For any country, such post-defeat humiliation would be hard to bear, and breed ever more resentment of the victors – both among the politicians and the people. For a country like Russia, with a long macho culture, such humiliation is even more unbearable. But have we learned our lesson? For we have made this mistake before:

From Harold Nicholson‘s diary, written while he was a junior diplomat at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference (from the Wednesday, 28 May entry):

“The more I read the [German peace treaty], the sicker it makes me… If I were the Germans, I shouldn’t sign for a moment. You see it gives them no hope whatsoever, either now or in the future.”

As the old USSR fell apart during the 90s, the US-backed “shock therapy“, designed to push the country towards neoliberal capitalism and democracy, humiliated and alienated the Russian people just as did the reparations clauses of the Treaty of Versailles the Germans. Resentment grew, especially of the “oligarchs” – prompting first the 1993 constitutional crisis, where Yeltsin sent in the special forces against the Duma, then (arguably) the First Chechen War of 1994-6. The 1998 financial crisis (followed swiftly by the Second Chechen War) was, for many, the final proof that the Western way of doing things had failed. It was, with hindsight, to post-Soviet Russia what the Wall Street Crash was to Weimar Germany – the final catalyst to spark the reaction. With Putin’s 1999 rise, the reforms of the Yeltsin years began to be swept back. He determined not to tolerate Chechnya’s de facto independence any longer, to clamp down on the oligarchs, to reassert state control over companies left, right and centre. Russia had been humiliated and exploited enough.

And yet now, despite the failures of the 1990s, the West is demanding that Russia return to that self-same path of neoliberal reform. We’re still saying the same things that we were in ’89, in ’91, in ’93 and in ’98. And all the while, the influence of the West has been advancing – the expansion of NATO into the old Soviet / Warsaw Pact sphere in 1999 and in particular the 2004 expansion of the EU (and NATO) to include old USSR territories Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – bringing the borders of the EU to within 80 miles of Putin’s home town of St Petersburg. Just as Weimar Germany saw parts of its territory go over to its erstwhile enemies, so has Russia. Hence the desperation to hang on to Chechnya. Hence the sabre-rattling over the US missile defence shield. Hence the ongoing meddling in Ukraine and Georgia.

For the duration of the Soviet Union, Russians were raised to distrust the West, to regard it as decadent and full of corruption. Russia’s experience of rampant neoliberal reform during the 1990s merely confirmed this as the rich got richer and the poor stayed poor.

And still the West persists with pressurising Russia. With the best intentions, no doubt. But democratic reform cannot come about if the people themselves don’t want it. Free markets will only be enthusiastically adopted if the people experience the benefits, rather than just entrepreneurs who swiftly become insanely rich oligarchs through dodgy deals and exploitation.

By trying to impose our will on the defeated side, we will only foster ever greater resentment that the war was lost. Russia is unlikely to breed a Hitler; but the rise of extremist nationalism, the tentative nibbling at the edges of former territories, the economic resentment – all these we have seen before in other times, other places.

The First World War’s bad peace was the primary cause of the Second World War. Let’s try to avoid the Cold War’s bad peace sparking a sequel as well. If we don’t want Russia to get ever more resentful, ever more humiliated, threats and punishments are not going to do the job.