EDITORIAL - NYT
Vladimir Putin Clings to the Past
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Published: November 19, 2013 29 Comments
The former republics of the Soviet Union have been sovereign, independent countries for almost 22 years, free to develop economic and political relations with any foreign nation or trading bloc they choose. That point appears to have eluded President Vladimir Putin of Russia, who is doing everything he can to prevent these countries from developing closer ties with Europe — even threatening to cut off the gas that one country needs to get through the winter.
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“The Cold War should be over for everyone,” Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said this week. Not, it appears, for Mr. Putin.
Next week, six former republics — Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine — are scheduled to meet with leaders of the European Union in Vilnius, Lithuania, to discuss enhanced economic, political and diplomatic ties with the union. In 2004, Lithuania, along with Estonia and Latvia, became the first former Soviet republics to join the union.
To qualify for stronger ties, the six nations will have to demonstrate progress on democratic and judicial reforms required by the European Union. That may prove difficult for some, like Ukraine, which has, so far, refused to allow its imprisoned former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, to travel to Germany for medical treatment.
Europe’s use of trade leverage to encourage democracy is constructive and reasonable. Russia’s attempts to bludgeon former vassals into continued economic dependence are not. The European Union offers something real and attractive. Russia, which wants them to join the customs union it has formed with Belarus and Kazakhstan, offers threats.
In September, a Russian deputy prime minister warned Moldova that it might lose access to gas this winter should it strengthen links with Europe. Then it banned imports of Moldovan wine. Next came threats to expel tens of thousands of Moldovans working in Russia. Yet, far from backing down, Moldovan leaders have continued negotiations with Europe and are now working to reduce the country’s economic dependence on Russia.
Moscow’s bullying has had more success in Armenia, which counts on Russian support in its territorial dispute with Azerbaijan, and has agreed to join the customs union. Even Lithuania, already a member of the union, has been subjected to trade harassment, presumably in retaliation for hosting next week’s Vilnius meeting.
Similarly, Russia has threatened to slow Ukrainian imports with exacting customs inspections, although the main obstacles to stronger Ukrainian ties with the union involve domestic politics. In any case, Ukraine, which is economically robust, is perfectly entitled to choose its own course, as are the other former Soviet republics.
In the waning years of the Soviet Union, its last president, Mikhail Gorbachev, talked optimistically about a post-Cold War Europe stretching undivided from the Atlantic to the Urals. Mr. Putin, however, seems to long for a return to the days when an iron curtain divided the Continent, darkening the horizons of the satellites and Soviet republics to the east — nations that now seek the enjoy more fully the fruits of independence.
Other Relevant Articles:
The Moscow Times - Opinion | August 5, 2013 - Putin's Problem of Irrelevance - By: Steven Pifer
Mr. Putin
29 Comments to NYT Editorial:
And at some point we must ask whether our extending NATO eastward and seeking to bind former Soviet components separately to the West enhances our security and prosperity or theirs, or if it only further antagonizes and pushes Russia away. Shouldn't the ultimate goal of our policy be to bring Russia fully into the West? And are we likely to be able to do so if we keep making moves that, were the equivalent done to us, would be seen as hostile actions? Do we really wish to push Russia even closer to China? Shouldn't our main geopolitical goal be to detach Russia from China? So why should we take actions that make that impossible?
Do your duty!
Let these countries make their ties
And don't you go intrudi!
today we face common humanitarian survival issues that transcend historical insecurity issues that are less relevant today.
russia's greatest security will come from developing the potential of its impoverished people who have great potential with the aid of its vast resources; it will not come by bullying its neighbors. this is true for all countries.
Russia is not clinging to the past. Today, most every country does what it does for energy resources, which is trying to be globally controlled through carbon credits, and if not, countries take on more drastic measures.
Russia uses State controlled oil and gas instead of other countries leveraging Russia’s resources. There is little difference externally between what Russia does and what the American government does. Both Russia and the US uses threats, sanctions, and wars, however while Russia is doing it for their State owned enterprises of oil and gas. America is doing it for corporate greed and power, which economically is destroying the country from within.
An example of this clash is in Syria. Saudi Arabia is backing the rebels in Syria, with covert plans to install their own puppet government in Syria, which will allow the Saudis to control the flow of energy (a gas pipeline) through the region. Saudi Arabia, is putting pressure on the US to support the rebels through threats of cutting off their friendship and oil. Turkey, wants to pipe it from Syria on to Europe. Qatar, the largest source of natural gas in the world wants to pipe the gas from the Persian Gulf to Europe. France, who wants to pay less for gas, is also putting pressure on the US to support the rebels, while Russia wants the Assad regime to block the flow of natural gas out of the Persian Gulf into Europe, thus protecting its own national profits from Gazprom.
Thus, #1, if one wants freedom of choice, then first disband NATO and the missiles pointed Eastward.
The Times must put the issue into global historical context. Has the US allowed Latin America for decades to exercise the same freedom it calls for with respect to former Soviet republics? Just now, new of Princeton meningitis omits the fact that Cuba has vaccines for this specific Type B, which are not allowed here because of the trade embargo.
Thus, #2, if we want diplomatic openness, start at home, US policy, rather than be hypocritical and pretend selflessness.
Finally, Putin in fact is enlarging Russia's diplomatic role, as in his move to bloc US bombing of Syria. I applaud that act. Russia, along with China, Japan, Brazil, and emerging Third World industrializing nations, are defining a NEW multipolar global context, so that the US cannot act unilaterally in its hegemonic posture and aims.
Thus, #3, if the US seeks global comity, let it renounce and desist from intervention and targeted assassination. Then perhaps world opinion, including Putin, will listen.
The same is already forming with India, China and other asian nations and, The U.S., Canada and South America are looking for the same cooperation.
Any EU person may work in any other EU country without extra permits albeit, America does not have that agreement with the EU and it's ridiculous.
Paving the way for economic cooperation should be our goal.
Apparently that was on the agenda already until this phone stuff got in the way.
National behaviors consistent since the 1500s should be viewed with some skepticism, I would suggest. Russia ought to be able to let go of fears based on horsemen riding across the steppe.
Born too late. After the Soviet Union was recognised as a vast Potemkin village with a huge nuclear arsenal and lines for everything including bread.
One of his major goals is to restore as much of the Soviet Union as possible, so far without using the formidable Russian military might.
Let’s hope it will remain this way.
Putin is an ex KGB former communist party leader, who seeks the former greatness of the era or the 1950's, 60's & 70's which proved to be the ultimate failure. It was not Marxism is was a perverted Communism , it was not socialism, it was a military industrial state, without consumer goods, unlike the U.S.
Putin is asking for help in the Olympic security issue regarding terror, It is in all our interests to keep the Olympics safe, but not to prop up Putin, just make that perfectly clear.
Putin will be long gone when the gas runs out, and it will, Russia will one more time will have been left out in the cold, by selfish leaders of little vision, cold, drunk and hungry.
The Editorial Board is quite willing to impose extreme limits on any future Palestinian State, and to an large extent on anybody in reach of Israel, all for the security of Israel despite its power. Well, the Russians feel the same way, for similar reasons.
The Russians live in an open steppe, and have been invaded and slaughtered across it repeatedly for longer than recorded history, including Hitler's atrocities. From that experience, they have some very specific demands on neighbors in order to feel safe, maintained since their wars with neighbors in the 1500's. They have not changed, and they will not change.
If you admit those same type of demands for Israel, if you admit the Monroe Doctrine which kept European powers away from the US for the same reasons, if you admit Britain's concern for the Low Countries across from it from Louis XIV through the world wars, then you must admit the same for Russia.
That is as much freedom as they will ever give their neighbors. There are no other choices on offer, and no other nation with the power to protect itself does any less according to its own circumstances.
Any other nation which aspires to push into that space next to Russia will meet the same things as would any nation that pushed into Gaza or the West Bank, or which pushed into the Western Hemisphere (Cuban Missile Crisis) or which rolled over Belgium (WW1 with Britain).
What is actually under threat is Russia's own sense of regional superiority. Its leaders and many of its citizens are upset by their loss of international prestige and a lack of gratitude by their neighbors for what many Russians consider as economic and military support, but many in the neighboring countries now see as a history of domination.
Without a doubt all major powers are eager to maintain influence in what they see as their spheres of influence. But just because history is full of instances of bullying masquerading as ensuring security and defending one's own legitimate interests does not justify Russia threatening its neighbors for its political and economic choices.
Russia has an equally long and bad history with their neighbors, ask any Ukrainian, Pole, Finn, Armenian or well you get the idea. They had an empire in the past and want another today. The Russians were only invaded a few times from the west before they built the Brest Fortress system. They have been invaded many times from the east, there is nothing like the Brest Fortress on the Eastern side of Russia. Putin would be Tzar by rebuilding the old Russian Empire as did Lenin after the revolution.
The issues between Russia and its 'Near-abroad' nations, in the 21st century, are really about a clash of national ambitions. One side seems to seek imperial advantages (for domestic consumption?) over its neighbors more suited to the 19th century, while the other side (the Near-abroad states) seek no further advantage than increasing economic opportunities for their people.
PS: oh, and "not free to...threaten their neighbor"...Really? Are any of the Near-abroad, or even the EU itself, 'threatening' Russia? Perhaps only in the sense that Russia cannot simply do as it pleases to those nations without comment or even consequences from other nations. It is, after all, no longer the 19th century.