The photo chosen to dominate the first page of the weekend edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung speaks volumes. Beneath a blazing headline – “Scharfe Töne zwischen Merkel und Putin (Sharp notes between Merkel and Putin)” – is a satisfied-looking couple. They are about the same height, the woman appears friendly and relatively self-assured, but she looks rather frumpy and certainly does not exude power. The man next to her, however, does. He is dressed in a perfect suit, his legs spread apart in the pose of a colossus, his eyes hidden by mysterious sunglasses, and behind him, in what the Süddeutsche calls “a beloved backdrop”, the Volga River flows down to the sea. We are in Samara, until 1942 the centre of German-Russia where the Volga Germans had their own republic in the Soviet Union. The Russians, represented by Wladimir Putin, are meeting with the European Union and his partner is German Kanzlerin Angela Merkel.
Putin and Merkel speak German together and don’t need an interpreter. In the past they have gotten along much better than any important European leader other than Tony Blair has been able to get along with George Bush. But the constellation of the new Europe, with Russia taking on an increadingly central and potentially threatening role as keeper of the natural resources that Europe so desperately needs, is no longer as comfortable as it was when Putin came to power seven years ago. The alpha male of Europe, with its black-belt leader, has concluded that it has reached the point in its return to economic stability where it can display its teeth and claws for the perusal of its much smaller European neighbours. So far it has been the smallest of them – Georgia, Latvia and especially Estonia – which have gotten the clearest signals that the wolf has left its lair, but Germany, the only other European power that could seriously imagine itself in the alpha male role, learned its lesson sixty years ago and is unlikely to put a male with sunglasses back in power. Tony Blair’s farcical attempt to fill the position by acting as Bush’s lackey in Iraq – Germany. France and Canada said no thanks – only confirmed the world view that the illusion of former power cripples the UK in all its foreign endeavours. The next in line, Nicolas Sarkozy, upon becoming French President said he was going to meditate in a monestary for a few days. He was then caught by the press vacationing on a yacht belonging to a millionaire friend near Malta, as the French suburbs once again erupted in violent protest Cynics are waiting with baited breath for the results of his first meeting with Putin, which will occur in June in Baltic Germany at the annual meeting of the eight leading industrial powers. No one is betting that the French will impress Russia with their latest entry into the Judo ring, where Putin holds that black belt.
Russia
The Return of the Evil Empire?
There were many factors that contributed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, including a nutty economic system made even nuttier by corruption and incompetence among the leadership. But more important to many was the brutality of a regime that allowed very little in the way of what we consider commonplace freedoms. Perhaps chief among these was freedom of the press,
Throughout the Cold War America’s Radio Liberty served as a surrogate Russian radio station, providing news, analysis and cultural programs that – for over forty years – made Radio Liberty the most responsible source available in Russia for both domestic and international news. The Russian Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) suffered a serious blow in 1993 when freshman senator Russell Feingold made a strong effort to close the radios because “the Cold War was overâ€. Feingold lacked any real understanding of international broadcasting and the role it has always played as a tool of foreign policy and a mode of public diplomacy and so the Radios survived in a much-diminished status with a budget reduced by 70% and the Russian broadcast service took much of the hit.
Well yes, the cold War is over but what do we have in its place? A Russia in which journalists critical of the government are routinely murdered, a TV and radio scene in which all the important networks are state-run, and a population more interested in consumer goods than civil liberties.
Over the weekend it was reported that state-run radio in Russia has been handed a new set of rules – 50% of news about Russia must be “positiveâ€, there is to be absolutely no mention of opponents to the government by name, and the United States is to be labeled the “enemyâ€. So we are back to the 70’s and early 80’s with no more “Glasnost†and a powerful former KGB director as president – with the possibility on the horizon of a change in Russian laws that would provide the opportunity for President Putin to continue in office beyond his term.
It is well past time for a renewal of our commitment to an active public diplomacy that includes provision of serious news and analysis to those citizens of Russia (and other countries) that hunger for the truth. Feingold never understood the importance of that effort and did serious damage to our public diplomacy effort.
Ukraine 1 Russia 0
In Canada the only sport that counts is hockey, in the USA it is (increasingly) American football, but in Europe it is beyond a doubt, the other kind of football, actually played with the feet, which Americans call soccer. It is also the only sport taken seriously almost everywhere, although baseball has real strength in Latin America and Japan, and basketball has taken on an increasingly international flair. But there is no doubt that the major international soccer tournaments, along with the Olympics, are the most widely followed sports event, and that world and European soccer championships have an impassioned audience with real political clout in both the positive and negative sense. Thus the awarding of venues for the Olympics, the world soccer championships and the European soccer championships, all of which take place every fourth year, is a major economic, political and prestige event. Some of the decisions of late have been surprising and controversial. Beijing and Vancouver were awarded the next 2 Olympic venues after lengthy and expensive presentations. For China next summer’s Olympics are an event of the utmost political importance and a chance to display its economic, industrial and athletic power to the world. Last summer’s world soccer championship in Germany had the kind of success that China is hoping for. South Africa is the host of the next one, and billions of fans are hoping that the most prospering country in Africa will be able to provide the infrastructure and the splendidly serene month-long atmosphere that characterized the tournament in Germany.
The European soccer championships have traditionally been held in the large European soccer powerhouse countries, that were already equipped with more than adequate venues – Italy, Spain, Germany, the UK. On occasion, smaller soccer countries – the Netherlands and Belgium, for instance – would jointly sponsor the tournament. Since Italy, the reigning world champion, had applied to host the next available games, it was assumed that they were a shoo-in. But it didn’t happen that way. Heavily tarnished by proof of corruption, fixing and hooligan violence in the Italian league, the world champion was rejected by the venue panel, and suddenly a most unlikely joint partnership was named – Poland and Ukraine. The former is in the EU, a member of NATO, a neighbour of Germany, and a functioning, if somewhat erratic, democracy. The latter is not wanted in the EU, nor in NATO, shares a relatively short border with Poland and a very large one with Russia, and its attempts at democracy make operetta plots seem realistic. Its greatest fear is that the eastward expansion of the EU will draw down a new kind of iron curtain at the Ukrainian border and its dependance on its immense eastern neighbour will become overwhelming.
Now it seems that Ukraine had first approached Russia with the idea of a joint hosting proposal and this was summarily, and somehat arrogantly rejected by Moscow, who pointed out that they could do this on their own. Since Ukraine has a better soccer team than Russia in any case, it seems only appropriate that they have won this one in the backrooms of soccer power. Instead of staging an event that would inevitably have suggested to Europe that Russia and Ukraine are natural allies, Russian arrogance has given Ukraine the chance to convince Europe that its natural place in the world is west of the EU curtain, in the same general area, as its co-host, Slavic Poland. The announcement led to a universal cheer in Ukraine, welding together, for the only time in memory, the bitter enemies of eastern and western Ukraine. It also seems very likely that the games themselves will lead to a sense of unityin Ukraine that has been dramatically missing since 1990. An own-goal by Russia may save the day.
Vlad the Great Strides West
There are two kinds of reports coming out of contemporary Russia. One has to do with things like the brutal war in Chechyna, or the corruption and violence that is endemic to Russian life, and particularly dangerous for opposition politicians and muckracking journalists. The other has to do with the breathtaking display of exploding political and economic power that Russia has been able to sustain in the reign of Vladimir Putin. Putin may have taken on the powers of a czar, but by law his reign must end at about the same time as that of George W. Bush. The people of Russia seem to be in no mood to punish the ascetic, all-powerful former KGB agent for his strong-armed approach to maintaining order as they regain much of the confidence in the strength of the world’s largest country that had been lost with the fall of the Soviet Union. In fact it can be argued that Putin is the most popular elected head of state in the world; polls show an approval rating that George Bush can’t imagine, even though there is little chance of an opposition getting a fair shake in an election in Putin’s Russia. Virtually noone can make sense of former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s claim that his pal Putin was “ein lupenreiner Demokrat” – a pure democrat – but the western European leaders, in their private moments, would probably all agree that they prefer to deal with a stable regime in Moscow than with the anarchy that preceded Putin.
With little time left in his reign (and there is much speculation about what the still young ex-chief will do, surely more than Bill Clinton has been able to muster in a similar situation), Putin is using his re-established power base to forge alliances with former enemies who themselves have trouble fathoming the US government. In the last week he has had a private meeting with the Pope in a tentative attempt to bring some conciliation between Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians. This meeting took place without translators as Putin announced that he wished to talk to the Pope in his native German, which Putin speaks very well. (As an aside, wasn’t Condoleeza Rice, as an academic, supposed to be an expert on Russian affairs? Does she use a translator in Moscow? Is there any sign that she has any understanding of Russia?) He then had apparently fruitful meetings with the italian Prime Minister in Rome, signed an accord with the presidents of Greece and Bulgaria in Athens, establishing a pipeline for Russian oil on its way to western Europe that is 51% under Russian control, stopped the building of the Iranian nuclear plant, pending the payment of Iranian debts to Russia, announced that Aeroflot would be spending 4.4 billion dollars to buy 22 Airbusses made in western Europe, while shutting down any negotiations with Boeing, and stated that Russia was considering closing its air space to western European airlines. All in a week’s work, one might say, but it is also all proof that Russia has made clear to western Europe and the US that they no longer have the luxury of putting their heads in the sand when it comes to assessing Russia’s place in world politics.
Snow White, one dwarf, a giant and an oil rush
Up north above the top of Europe, a moment of history is slouching towards some kind of climax. Europe’s last untapped oil and gas fields are being readied for exploitation, and have become a source of irritation between two of Europe’s most unlikely neighbours. Norway and Russia share the most remote of all European borders, east and south of Nordkap, where Europe stops reaching north, and the cold Norwegian settlement of Kirkenes stands on guard at the point where western and eastern European cultures meet most dramatically. The Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre began 2007 with a visit to his most remote outpost as a singal for the importance of Kirkanes in Norway’s future ecoomic developments. For the last couple of decades, Norway has used its oil reserves in the North Sea to guarantee one of the world’s richest societies, and its pension fund is now big enough to buy the island of Manhattan. But the last Norwegian oil field is about to be tapped and soon Norway’s pension fund will have to run on its own. Norway’s main problem, however, is the ecological catastrophe threatening the Barent Sea by the decaying Russian nuclear submarine fleet west of Murmansk, and the general Russian disinterest in the ecology of the Arctic.
Snow White, the first natural gas field in the Barents Sea, is about to be developed by the Norwegians, and after that there are only the potential fields in the disputed waters north of the Russian-Norwegian border and the Shtokman gas field in Russian waters. The Russians so far have refused to co-operate with the Norwegians, who have the most experience in drilling in difficult Arctic waters. They also refused Norwegian aid in saving the crew of their sunken submarine the Karsk.
The Norwegians fear more ecological disasters will spill over into their waters. Norway has made it clear it would like help from the European Union, to which it does not belong, but whose members would certainly prefer to buy their energy from Norway than from Russia. Finally there is Svalbard, the island group that represnts the northernmost inhabited territory in Europe on the main island Spitzbergen. In 1920 Norway was granted territorial rights to the islands, but mineral rights were ceded to all the signers of the treaty, now numbering 40, as the probability of oil and gas reserves has arisen. The treaty was originally aimed at coal deposits, and both Russians and Norwegians have mined there, but it is now unclear whether offshore oil and gas are also covered.
As the ice in Arctic waters begins to melt and both Northwest and Northeast Passages open up, conflicts about Arctic waters are destined to keep growing. Norway and Russia, who have never been particularly friendly, are perhaps predictable, if uneven, rivals in this area, but the main event may play out between traditional friends Canada and the US, as the US government refuses to recognize Canada’s claims to the waters between its Arctic islands.
Russia, Germany, energy
If you live east of Estonia, Poland, Rumania and Bulgaria, a new kind of iron curtain went up on your borders on January 1, 2007. Bulgaria and Rumania joined the European Union, despite many doubts in western Europe about the real state of their economies and of their willingness to fight corruption. Suddenly citizens of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia were the frontuer states on the wrong side of the borderless united Europe. There are many questions about just how united this Europe is, but one thing is sure. If you have a passport from the new states carved out of the Soviet Union (with the exception of the three small Baltic states), you have been excluded from the promised land, and will face daunting bureaucratic hurdles to even enter it temporarily.
But there is something that comes out of Russia, passes through Belarus or Ukraine, and becomes essential when it reaches the European Union – natural gas delivered from Russian wells through Russian-controlled pipelines . It may have seemed easy to naively dismiss Russia as a chaotic paper dragon not so long ago, albeit with nuclear weapons, but Europe is busy learning that it better think twice before putting that in the context of the energy that keeps houses warm in the winter. Last year, Germany was like Siberia for months, and this year Russia has reminded everyone that it controls the switches that determine the price the customer has to pay to keep cozy. Both Belarus and Ukraine thought they had privileged discount positions because of the Slavic brotherhood, but this year they have both learned what the price is for the special deal. And Germany and its smaller neighbours wonder when it might be their turn to discover just what it means to be competely dependant on Russian pricing, good will, and reliability.
Putin’s Russia and Terrorism
Anne Applebaum has published an excellent piece on the deterioration of Russian democracy – and more serious issues – in today’s Slate. Beginning with the recent nuclear murder of Alexander Litvinenko, Applebaum looks backward through other murders of critics of Russian President Putin, considers the enormous corruption of state resources taken by old KGB friends of Putin, and remembers the suspicious bombing of Russian apartment buildings which led to Putin claiming to join the so-called war on terrorism, which gave him carte blanche to wage war on Chechnya. And then there is the matter of the first known act of nuclear terrorism that just might have been committed by our Russian friends.
Rather than repeat here Applebaum’s impressive list of what is wrong with Russia in 2006, I refer you to her piece.