RE: [A-List] Russia: foreign policy opportunism

["Mark Jones" <jones118@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: a-list-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:a-list-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Michael Keaney
> Sent: 24 February 2003 14:50
> To: a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [A-List] Russia: foreign policy opportunism
>
>
> Putin and the growing trans-Atlantic rift
> By Ehsan Ahrari
> Asia Times, February 25 2003
>

I can't do justice to this right now becaus eof lack of time, but the idea
that Putin is 'moreconciliatory' to the US than is France, over Iraq--or
that Putin is more of a realist about Russia's status as a banana--seemes to
me to be wrong. There is huge loathing, hatred and bitterness to/for the USA
not only among the Russian masses, but more importantly, among the political
elites and the s-called oligarchs. There is an intense and widespread desire
for historical revenge, and this is ahred by Putin (despite his seeming
pro-US moves like his unprecedented willingness to admit US troops/bases
into Rusia's Central Asian "backyard"). I've been arguing here for a long
time that cynicism about Russian and French motives was wrong, and I think I
continue to be proven right: the Russians and the French will *not* cut
deals with the US over a Security Council Resolution; there is an adamant
determination in the Russian government to block the US from its proposed
Iraq adventure. This is not just for simple self-interest (argued by those
who point to potential FRrench and Russian losses in their Iraqi oil
investments), and it is not motivated by simple fear of US domination of the
Middle East either, altho that is real enough. And yes, the Russians have
every reason to fear that if/when the US controls Iraqi oil, this will cause
immense damage to the Russian oil industry, its export programs and
investment strategies.

But transcending all such calculations based on fear and self-interest is
the underlying desire for historicla revenge, and a deep determination to
use the opportunity provided by Bush's own somewhat crazed adventurism, to
really do some longterm damage to US global geostrategic ambitions. They are
determined to block the emergence of the super-hegemon, and are prepared to
take the risk that thwarting US aggression against Iraq now may put them in
the camp of losers later. They (and also the Chinese, the Germans and
French) seem to reason that in fact there is less to fear on this score than
the overly-triumphal Anglo-Saxon media allows, because there is a widespread
feeling (and you hear it all the time in conversations with members of the
diplomatic and political Russian elites) that the Bush Administration cannot
achieve its goals; it has already overreached itself, and the US does not
have a deep enough pocket, thick-enough chequebook, poweful enough army, to
make the world accept its own estiamtion of itself as the unrivalled
hyperpower whose military and financial lead is so great that no-one dares
compete. the is ALREADY not true, and the evidence will come in part when
the US again fails to arm-twist or bribe enough smaller states to legitimise
its adventures with a UN fig leaf of approval.

It is a big mistake, a really big mistake, to underestimate the
determination shared by Germany, France, Russian and China to cut the US
definitively down to size. Yes, they can overrun Baghdad in a matter of
days, and provide a great pyrotechnbic show to 'shock and awe'the natives
into seeming submission. But that does not and will not guarantee to
consolidation of strategic victory which the American yearn for. I think
Tony Blair understands perhaps better than anyone just how deep in
Franco-Russian-German-Sino opposition, and that more tha anything explains
Blair's own desperate opportunism, because this is now-or-never; if Bush
cannot win in the next few weeks in Iraq, then the war will never happen,
the US will suffer an unparalleled national humiliation, and the position of
the British in Eruope will suddenly become extremely insecure. There will be
a run on the pound as well as the dollar, britain will have to seek
Franco-German financial/economic bail-outs, and after that Britain will be
forced into the Eurozone as a third-rate supplicant--a euro-banana--tied for
the foreseeable future ot franco-german apron strings, with its cherished
'transatlantic' special relationships all in tatters. The collapse of
American power will also see the emergence (which is actually now happening,
before our eyes) of a true euro-superstate, in which the UK will play a
highly subsidiary role, but of which Russia, controller of the great
Eurasian hinterland, may soon become a strategic guarantor. Truly, a very
big game is in play, and the outlines of the 21st century are becoming
apparent.

I hadn't meant to run on like this and have no time to spell check, sorry.
I'm working on a big article on this theme which I'll post here later.

Mark