Russia Returns

This reads well:

Imagine what modern Europe would look like now if Poland had the political status of Georgia, lying in some sort of political-moral twilight zone with former Soviet interests linked to the KGB having a far freer time to penetrate into that society and play games with Polish assets.

As does this:

Foreign Secretary David Miliband spells out the UK position on Georgia:

The Georgian crisis is about more than vital issues of humanitarian need and rule of law over rule of force. It raises a fundamental issue of whether, and if so how, Russia can play a full and legitimate part in a rules-based international political system, exercising its rights but respecting those of others...

... Russian mind games on withdrawal do them no credit...

... International law must be obeyed. This goes to the heart of the question of how Russia comes to terms with its past, and how it sees its future; above all, whether it recognises that the old frontiers of the Soviet Union are now history, and whether Russia sees its future as part of a rules-based international system.

That sort of analysis rests on certain ... psychological assumptions.

One of them is that the reply will not be something like this:

The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules.

Do we really look like a country with a plan? We don't have a plan.

The EU has plans, the World Bank has plans. You know what we are, West? We're a dog chasing cars. We wouldn't know what to do if we caught one. 

We just do things. We're a wrench in the gears. We hate plans. Yours, theirs, everyone's.

Schemers trying to control their worlds. We are not a schemer. We show schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are.

So when I say that what happened to Georgia, your girlfriend, wasn't personal, you know I'm telling the truth.

You guys in the West were schemers. You had plans. Look where it got you.

I just did what I do best. I took your Kosovo plan and turned it on itself. Look what I have done to this small country with a few tanks and a couple of bullets.

Nobody panics when the expected people get killed. Nobody panics when things go according to plan, even if the plans are horrifying. If I tell the Western media that tomorrow a gangbanger in Nagorno-Karabakh will get shot or a truckload of soldiers in Chechnya will get blown up, nobody panics.

But when I say one little country will get a small invasion, everyone loses their minds!

Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. We are an agent of chaos.

And you know the thing about chaos, West? It's fair.

Hmm. Doesn't this sound ... familiar?

More on Russia, always a rich seam for foreign policy First Principles.

Thus Max Hastings gives us a striking Russia metaphor:

The Russians yearn for respect, in the same fashion as any inner-city street kid with a knife. They will become willing to play with the west by western rules only if or when they no longer perceive those rules as disadvantaging themselves. Today they cannot compete on the EU's terms, still less those of the US, so they make up their own.

It is unnecessary for the west silently to acquiesce in the Russians' excesses, but it must tread cautiously in the face of their sensitivities.

Maybe the fact that we in the UK tread cautiously in the face of the sensitivities of street kids with knives accounts for this?

More from Max:

America must stop pretending that democracy is, of itself, the answer to all the world's ills ... US policy towards Moscow for almost two decades has been based upon the assumption that since the Russians were losers, their wishes could be ignored or defied on every front. No useful business could result from such a posture.

Blimey.

Democracy may not deal with the world's ills but it makes a good step in that direction. Indeed, the problem in Georgia is that the Russian leadership want to send a profound anti-democratic signal that Might is Right - that what Russia wants or needs is the uber-value in that part of the world. See this latest outburst from the reportedly mild-mannered President Medvedev.

Plus the USA in fact has spent large sums of money in and with Russia on all sorts of common projects, aimed at building a new sense of partnership. The problem is not that the Americans treat the Russians as losers. It is that the Russians behave like losers, unable to make do with their sprawling eleven time zones of territory and hankering after regaining former imperial lands elsewhere.

One recurring theme in Russian and some Western analysis is the deterministic but weird idea that Russia has to behave differently (ie badly) because it is 'surrounded by enemies'.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin once said that the fall of the Soviet Union was a geopolitical disaster. This didn't mean that he wanted to retain the Soviet state; rather, it meant that the disintegration of the Soviet Union had created a situation in which Russian national security was threatened by Western interests.

As an example, consider that during the Cold War, St. Petersburg was about 1,200 miles away from a NATO country. Today it is about 60 miles away from Estonia, a NATO member. The disintegration of the Soviet Union had left Russia surrounded by a group of countries hostile to Russian interests in various degrees and heavily influenced by the United States, Europe and, in some cases, China.

If a country occupies such a vast land mass as Russia does, it necessarily has plenty of neighbours and all sorts of complex questions to deal with. The Russian problem is that it tends to see anything it does not like as 'hostile'. And that attitude extends even to the Bambi-ish spread of EU values and processes into eg Ukraine.

Because, of course, the point is not that 'Russia' has a problem with that. Rather the Russian post-KGB elite have the problem, since the spread of Western democratic values brings with it new transparency and reliance on open rules rather than shadowy power-plays. And that threatens both their biznes interests and their world-view.

Above all, the Western democracy which is sneered at so much in the West brings with it a sense that political behaviour has (and depends on) Limits - limits of law, of convention, of personal self-restraint..

Here is the profound cultural/philosophical difference between Russia and the West.

'The West' sees Limits as a source of strength. 'Russia' sees Limits as a form of weakness.

Max does not seem to get this:

... the west (sic) will find it easier to coexist with this tormented, intransigent, melancholy and oil-rich neighbour when Russia feels comfortable with itself, not when its nose is rubbed in its long history of failure.

This has to be mainly wrong. No serious community policy can be based round the idea that we all wait for the inner city street kid with knife to 'feel comfortable with himself', if his idea of being comfortable is to slash away at smaller kids who disagree with him.

If we are not brave enough to take away his knife and haul him off to therapy, we at least need to limit his room for slashing, and do a lot more to help those he threatens to defend themselves? 

Michael Binyon deploys chess metaphors to describe Russia' s military push into Georgia:

Vladimir Putin lost several pawns on the chessboard - Kosovo, Iraq, Nato membership for the Baltic states, US renunciation of the ABM treaty, US missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic. But he waited.

The trap was set in Georgia. When President Saakashvili blundered into South Ossetia, sending in an army to shell, kill and maim on a vicious scale (against US advice and his promised word), Russia was waiting ...

... Moscow can also counter Georgian PR, the last weapon left to Tbilisi. Human rights? Look at what Georgia has done in South Ossetia (and also in Abkhazia). National sovereignty? Look at the detachment of Kosovo from Serbia. False pretexts? Look at Ronald Reagan's invasion of Grenada to “rescue” US medical students. Western outrage? Look at the confused cacophony.

There are lessons everywhere. To the former Soviet republics - remember your geography. To Nato - do you still want to incorporate Caucasian vendettas into your alliance? To Tbilisi - do you want to keep a President who brought this on you? To Washington - does Russia's voice still count for nothing? Like it or not, it counts for a lot.

Let's dwell on that chess metaphor a while.

Aron Nimzowitsch was a great chess Grandmaster. One of his famous reputed chess aphorisms is "the threat is stronger than the execution".

The sense is that one can wait for some time to play a strong chess move, letting the threat that it might happen create new advantages. However, once the move is played the threat is gone and the move stands on its own merits. And, of course, the move is 'committal' - once played it can not be taken back.

In this case the Russians have been watching the Kosovo precedent and waiting to move.

One possible move was to stand firm on rejecting Kosovo independence. Another was to say that if Kosovo gets what it wants, why should not some others do the same?

The Georgian episode opens the way for Moscow to play the second move, as looks to be happening: "Georgia's territorial integrity is a dead issue".

However, Russia is a UN Security Council Permanent Member so such moves have to be wrapped in some sort of credible international law ribbon.

By parking on unbending opposition to the Kosovo precedent, Russia claimed to rule out ad hoc exceptions to a key precept of international practice in Europe in recent decades, namely that borders can not be changed without general consent.

What exactly is Russia now saying?

That if a country behaves badly enough towards minority territories, those territories can break away?

That any territory can break away if it has a strong supportive neighbour?

Or is there a new realpolitik doctrine emerging, that a new twilight zone category of small pseudo-states might emerge whose 'independence' is recognised by a core of supporters but not the international community as a whole? See also Transdnistria.

These questions have mind-boggling political and diplomatic ramifications rippling on down the decades to come. What looks like a strong move now may (or may not) come to look like a mistake.

For now Russia has all sorts of operational options in Georgia, using the presence of Russian official and unofficial forces on the ground to play for time and create (as we chess-players say) unfathomable complications.

For a famous example of such complications, see Game 14 of the World Championship match between Garry Kasparov and Vishy Anand. At the height of the battle (and the Championship struggle as a whole) with both players short of time, Kasparov on move 27 made a dramatic speculative knight sacrifice throwing the position wide open. He outplayed his opponent in the ensuing dog-fight.

Putin maybe has in mind a famous American example:

I don’t believe in psychology. I believe in good moves.

The commentaries on Georgia pour out.

This one by John Bolton is sharp and good. Try this:

The European Union took the lead in diplomacy, with results approaching Neville Chamberlain’s moment in the spotlight at Munich: a ceasefire that failed to mention Georgia’s territorial integrity, and that all but gave Russia permission to continue its military operations as a “peacekeeping” force anywhere in Georgia. More troubling, over the long term, was that the EU saw its task as being mediator – its favourite role in the world – between Georgia and Russia, rather than an advocate for the victim of aggression.

And this:

The West, collectively, failed in this crisis. Georgia wasted its dime making that famous 3am telephone call to the White House, the one Hillary Clinton referred to in a campaign ad questioning Barack Obama’s fitness for the Presidency.

The point being:

 ... we are facing the much larger issue of how Russia plans to behave in international affairs for decades to come. Whether Mikhail Saakashvili “provoked” the Russians on August 8, or September 8, or whenever, this rape was well-planned and clearly coming, given Georgia’s manifest unwillingness to be “Finlandized” – the Cold War term for effectively losing your foreign-policy independence.

Hence:

 ... we should have a foreign-minister-level meeting of Nato to reverse the spring capitulation at Bucharest, and to decide that Georgia and Ukraine will be Nato’s next members. By drawing the line clearly, we are not provoking Russia, but doing just the opposite: letting them know that aggressive behaviour will result in costs that they will not want to bear, thus stabilising a critical seam between Russia and the West.

 ... Russia did not invade Georgia with diplomats or roubles, but with tanks. This is a security threat, and the proper forum for discussing security threats on the border of a Nato member – yes, Europe, this means Turkey – is Nato.

Saying this may cause angst in Europe’s capitals, but now is the time to find out if Nato can withstand a potential renewed confrontation with Moscow, or whether Europe will cause Nato to wilt. Far better to discover this sooner rather than later, when the stakes may be considerably higher.

What is interesting about Issues is that they do not go away even when we do not want to look at them.

'Europe' (in this case the EU) finds some things Just Too Difficult.

One example. Which countries are in Europe? This simple question is highly unsimple and (worse) uncomfortable, since to answer it clearly opens the prospect of EU membership to those countries who qualify.

Those EU members who (a) do not want much further enlargement and (b) see the EU above all as some sort of balance to the USA do not want to think about bringing any more of the former Soviet republics into the European fold. To do so opens questions about Russia's role which (they think) are best left unopened.

Alas for them the Russian intervention in Georgia does open that question.

So, EU. Are we going to stand nervously inside our fence listening to the cries for help of people looking remarkably like Europeans hammering at the gate as they get savaged by bears?

Here is Nobel Peace Prize Winner Mikhail Gorbachev piously enjoining people in the Caucasus to live together nicely:

The roots of this tragedy lie in the decision of Georgia's separatist leaders in 1991 to abolish South Ossetian autonomy. Each time successive Georgian leaders tried to impose their will by force - both in South Ossetia and in Abkhazia, where the issues of autonomy are similar - it only made the situation worse...

What happened on the night of August 7 is beyond comprehension. The Georgian military attacked the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali with multiple rocket launchers designed to devastate large areas. Russia had to respond. To accuse it of aggression against "small, defenceless Georgia" is not just hypocritical but shows a lack of humanity...

... Georgian armed forces were trained by hundreds of US instructors, and its sophisticated military equipment was bought in a number of countries. This, coupled with the promise of Nato membership, emboldened Georgian leaders.

... Small nations of the Caucasus do have a history of living together. It has been demonstrated that a lasting peace is possible, that tolerance and cooperation can create conditions for normal life and development...

The international community's long-term aim could be to create a sub-regional system of security and cooperation that would make any provocation, and the very possibility of crises such as this one, impossible...

What a superb performance. These Russian communists sure have staying-power.

A couple of the more obvious points:

1)     The roots of this problem are not to be found in 1991, but rather in the preceding decades of Soviet brutalisation of Georgia which continued while said Gorbachev was still in power. Eg this example of the Gorbachev communists tackling the National Question in Georgia in 1989:

At the dawn, the Soviet special task forces attacked the demonstration with sharpened spades and poisonous gases, killing twenty-two demonstrators, mostly women and teens. Some two thousands were left sick for weeks and months, in hospitals and at home, from the toxic gases. The brutality of the Soviet forces against the peaceful demonstrators was recorded on the tape and shocked entire Soviet Union. A number of cases of ethnic hatred by the Soviet soldiers was attested. As witnesses recalled, some soldiers, while battering victims with trenching spades, were yelling "This is what you get for Stalin."

2)     Gorbachev insinuates that Georgia is to blame for the current violence, egged on by the USA. No mention of the dismal Russian record in South Ossetia over the past decade or so.

3)     Most impressively, Gorbachev calls for a "sub-regional system of security and cooperation". That is Communist for "just give us back the Soviet empire and leave us Russians alone and all will be well". The whole problem is that parts of the former Soviet Union and indeed parts of Russia itself do not want to be in Russia's 'sub-regional security system'. Why should they be, when Russia is giving them only insecurity and lumpen corruption?

Gorbachev deservedly crashed from power because he believed in replacing discredited Soviet Imperialism with a fizzy and brightly packaged new product, Soviet Imperialism Lite.

Seems he is still selling it. And that the Guardian is still buying it.

Welcome Instapundit readers.

While we Crawfs have been travelling the Georgia story has moved on, to the point where French President Sarkozy has been helping broker some sort of truce and possible peace plan.

No end of commentaries too, of course, many dwelling on what this episode tells us all about Russia's apparently resurgent power and equivalent 'Western weakness.

Here is the mordant Spengler saying that Putin should be the President of the USA, not Russia.

Or try the hopeless divisions in the EU, as described by the Guardian.

This rapier-like analysis by Victor Davis Hanson nails most of the right wider points:

We talk endlessly about “soft” and “hard” power as if humanitarian jawboning, energized by economic incentives or sanctions, is the antithesis to mindless military power. In truth, there is soft power, hard power, and power-power — the latter being the enormous advantages held by energy rich, oil-exporting states. Take away oil and Saudi Arabia would be the world’s rogue state, with its medieval practice of gender apartheid. Take away oil and Ahmadinejad is analogous to a run-of-the-mill central African thug. Take away oil, and Chavez is one of Ronald Reagan’s proverbial tinhorn dictators.

... When one factors in Russian oil and gas reserves, a pipeline through Georgia, the oil dependency of potential critics of Putin, and the cash garnered by oil exports, then we understand once again that power-power is beginning to trump both its hard and soft alternatives.

When the Soviet Union collapsed a new implicit Deal emerged. It had various elements, some more obvious and robust than others:

• the 'West' would not reorganise its economic and security arrangements developed during the Cold War (primarily EU and NATO) to accommodate a totally new situation.
• Russia was invited to cooperate with the 'West' but effectively from an objectively weak position, and therefore on Western terms albeit with significant Russian involvement (see the pretty good Contact Group period in former Yugoslavia)
• but Russia insisted on and somehow retained the idea that its 'near abroad' (ie the former Soviet Union republics) were more Russia's then the West's.
• The three tiny Baltic republics dashed from the Russian camp and formally joined the Western camp, but while the new 'Commonwealth of Independent States' led by Russia was an institutional flop it achieved its main purpose in Moscow's eyes, ie keeping the other new states involved in a Russian psychological space.
• For some years this seemed like a good enough outcome for the West. Involvement in these deeply Sovietised territories was hard work. Russia was arguably the most democratic state in the CIS and looked to be exporting modest pluralism or at least modernisation to them.
• Latterly we have seen two rival tendencies. The CIS states moving to some sort of open market relationships beyond former Soviet borders and therefore opening up to Western processes (and wealth); in short, having different and rather attractive new options. And Russia gaining a windfall of wealth from soaring energy prices while itself adapting to a strategic transformation.
• This gives Moscow impressive new ways to exert influence across the CIS - buying key assets, 'persuading' CIS leaders that cooperation is in their best interests and so on. Why strap these countries down in close and boring neo-imperial ties with Moscow when it is so much easier to buy or control indirectly the best bits?
• That goes only so far. Moscow has to be especially tough with the (few) parts of the CIS which are still making the greatest formal efforts to join the Western camp. Hence intense Russian efforts in Ukraine while keeping CIS frozen conflicts well chilled, to create local imbalance/uncertainty which Moscow can nudge as and when necessary.
• And, now, Moscow pouncing on Georgian miscalculation to up the ante by overt military intervention.
• This Georgia crisis therefore represents the formal end of the original West/Russia Deal, which was already dead in the water as evidenced in part over Balkan policy in general and Kosovo in particular.
• Russia instead is proclaiming a New Arrangement: that if there are to be Westernising processes in the CIS area they will take place on Russia's terms, and that Russia is ready to use force to defend its self-proclaimed interests.
• Russia could press on and topple the Georgian leadership, and maybe still will.
• But the Russian Mind also will relish the idea of leaving Saakashvili twisting forlornly in the wind, humilated both by having failed to recapture South Ossetia and by having been left standing alone as the USA and all Georgia's European friends watched aghast but did significant nothing to help.
• And the likely Russian tighter grip on South Ossetia also creates a handy pseudo-precedent for Serbia gripping the Serb-controlled territories in northern Kosovo.

Will the West sign up to Russia's New Arrangement for the CIS space? If so, what? And if not, what?

More generally, are we moving to a new, darker and unpredictable international situation?

In which Rules will matter less, Willingness to Prevail a lot more?

Does the objective correlation of forces favour those leaders who in a pre-modern way have a clear sense of what they want - and are ready to take risks to achieve it? Leaders who will think they have the upper hand against other leaders who rely on little more than post-modern flannel and uneasy hopes?

"Our peacekeepers and the units attached to them are currently carrying out an operation to force the Georgian side to [agree to] peace".

Richard Beeston and Edward Lucas both know what they're talking about on Georgia.

Both wonder if Georgian impulsiveness is not going to backfire. Lucas:

It seems Russia is ready to hit back hard, in the hope of squashing the West's pestilential protégé. In short, it looks more and more as though Georgia has fallen in to its enemies' trap. The script went like this: first mount unbearable provocations, then wait for a response, and finally reply with overwhelming military force and diplomatic humiliation.

What do the Russians want? Free Thinker drills down into the comment section of a Russian website to try to find out:

It's strange: this discussion thread is in some ways a model of democratic debate, with a wide range of views expressed.  There's a right-left spectrum of sorts, only its center of gravity of the discussion is in a disturbing place.

Mind you, look at the Comments on my own Indy Open House piece about the rules on memoirs for former diplomats if you want to see some 'disturbing' thoughts:

When is Britain going to cast-off the cord to Washington, and tell the yankee-doodles to go to hell? Sucking-up to tyranical despots because they're Uncle Sam's buddies is not in Britain's interests, and is a gut-wrenching travesty of what British diplomacy is supposed to achieve.

Sigh.

The one thing the disparate CIS frozen conflicts have in common is this. Russia could have worked with its European partners to use its weight and ingenuity to solve these problems on modern creative democratic terms. Instead it has done little other than create morbid little pockets of corruption and instability, essentially for psychological reasons: to show the world and itself than it can not be 'pushed around in its own backyard'.

Hence another failure of 'European diplomacy' in wanting to look away from the hard choice here which Poland and some other former Communist countries correctly insisted was the only real one. Either these European countries are given a fair chance to be free to join the Western democratic mainstream, or they stay in a new sort of virtual Soviet empire.  

Except that once the Russian tanks start moving in, it is not that virtual.

Edward Lucas again:

The fighting should be a deafening wake-up call to the West. Our fatal mistake was made at the Nato summit in Bucharest in April, when Georgia's attempt to get a clear path to membership of the alliance was rebuffed. Mr Saakashvili warned us then that Russia would take advantage of any display of Western weakness or indecision. And it has.

I swung by the FCO the other day to have a chat about Bosnia.

The snappy desk officer dealing with this problem now is 24 or thereabouts.

Let's say she is 24. She was born in the year I was British Olympic Attache at the Sarajevo Winter Olympic Games. She was 7 when the Soviet Union broke up, 11 when the Dayton Peace Accords were signed, 14 when NATO bombed Serbia.

Hence her formative years have seen the 'frozen conflicts' here and there in the former Soviet Union as part of normal life. Abkhazia, S Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Transdnistria - all mysterious places in a geopolitical limbo where nothing much happens, or can or even should happen.

But ice melts.

Suddenly out of thin air (or so it seems) Georgia - a country hitherto pushing for NATO membership - is battling with Russian forces on its own territory in a struggle to control a few tens of thousands of Ossetians who do not want to be part of Georgia.

Various people warned that if 'the West' pushed ahead with Kosovo independence, Russia would move to change the rules in one or more of these frozen conflicts.

Kosovo course is (for Moscow) a sort of reverse S Ossetia. In Kosovo the Western parts of the international community are leaning hard on Serbia to drop its claims, and would react sharply against any attempt by Serbia to recapture Kosovo by force.

In Georgia the Western sympathies lie with the existing state, and it is Russia helping the tiny South Ossetian community stay separate. Russia plans to get round this conundrum by blaming the violence on Georgian fascism or somesuch, while NB opening a new form of external self-defence doctrine said to aimed at protecting Russian citizens alleged to be at risk beyond Russia's borders in other former Soviet republics. A doctrine with all sorts of ingenious political and other deployment options... 

This FT editorial gets it mainly right:

Mr Putin (and Dmitry Medvedev, his anointed successor) seem to want to prove two things: that Georgia is far too unstable to join Nato, and that they alone can determine the future of the former Soviet space.

But not quite:

They are right that neither the US alone, nor the Nato allies, would dream of intervening in a military confrontation. But Georgia is only unstable because of Russian policies. Encouraging secessionists sends a terrible signal to others inside Russia, especially in the rebellious north Caucasus. Moscow’s policy may be macho, but in the long run it will be utterly self-defeating.

Really?

How long is long?

And is Moscow sending a signal that 'encourages Caucasus secessionists'?

Or is it sending a signal that it means to keep a tight political and/or psychological grip on as much of the former Soviet Union as it can grasp - and that US/NATO had better back off?

Imagine a nice piece of land where under the law anyone can walk freely. Someone brings on to it a few big snapping dogs and lets them roam there.

The law has not changed - but if nothing happens to get the dogs removed or contained, the inclination of many people in fact to go for a stroll may well diminish.

If that situation becomes the norm, the owner of the dogs may feel that that land is now his for all effective purposes.

And he did not even have to buy it.

Memo to the Bosnia Desk: The North Caucasus area is like the Balkans but without the sense of ethnic harmony and self-restraint which has always prevailed in much of former Yugoslavia. Read Robert Kagan.

One version is here.

Some speeches are good for what they say. Others for how they make people feel.

This speech said more or less nothing, but reads nicely now and no doubt sounded good on the day. Or maybe not?

This paragraph caught my eye:

This is the moment when every nation in Europe must have the chance to choose its own tomorrow free from the shadows of yesterday. In this century, we need a strong European Union that deepens the security and prosperity of this continent, while extending a hand abroad. In this century - in this city of all cities - we must reject the Cold War mind-set of the past, and resolve to work with Russia when we can, to stand up for our values when we must, and to seek a partnership that extends across this entire continent.

Hmm: every nation in Europe must have the chance to choose its own tomorrow free from the shadows of yesterday.

Feeble drafting. But what might it mean?

Some sort of dig at Russia, telling it to stop messing in the former Soviet Union? A plug for Chechnya?

A clarion-call to those who want to leave the EU, so that those who stay in it can forge a stronger/closer Union?

Support for the break-up of the UK (or Belgium, or Spain, or Bosnia)?

Even Bland Nothing sends a signal of sorts.

Back to Craig Murray's Murder in Samarkand - off with his family to Tashkent (Chapter 3).

Uzbekistan was one of the fifteen Soviet republics to become independent in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. Craig offers a few paragraphs on the history of 'Uzbek independence', without saying anything about what makes Uzbeks a distinct community in that complicated part of the world. He has one excellent line about the ruling elite there:

... But they left the USSR in order to keep the Soviet system, not to destroy it.

Craig complains that "short-sighted US Republicans" have confused Uzbek leader Karimov with the pro-democracy heroes of Central Europe (Walesa, Havel). 

Cliche Alert (1): US Republicans = Bad.

Hmm. Short-sighted US Democrats made the same mistake.

Arriving in the middle of the night the Murray family are met by Embassy colleagues Karen Moran and her partner Chris Hurst. Karen is one of few women featuring in the book (another is Mrs Murray) without a vivid description.

The Murrays drive into Tashkent, proud to see the Ambassadorial flag flying on the Embassy car. A minor diplomatic solecism? Usually this is not appropriate until a new Ambassador has presented credentials.

The next day he explores for the first time the poorly laid-out Embassy offices and gives the staff an opening pep talk:

I wanted the embassy to make a positive difference to Uzbekistan ... to influence the policy of the government of Uzbekistan, the policy back in London and the policy of international institutions, in such a way that the lives of people in Uzbekistan would be discernibly better for our work.

This (to me) strikes an odd note. Is Craig's Main Effort as a British Ambassador to improve the lives of people in Uzbekistan, or the lives of people in the UK? Is not his job to implement London policy, not 'influence' it for the benefit of Uzbeks?

That aside, Craig gets off to what reads like a strong start, visiting local British businesses in their offices (not done by his predecessors) and resolving to do a lot more driving round the country to see for himself what is happening (Note: in principle a sound plan, but time-consuming and tiring - how will the small underpowered Embassy shop run itself during these prolonged absences?)

The Murrays are invited to Uzbekistan Independence Day celebrations, a sprawling noisy affair. They are told to be ready in their seats at 1730, but the show does not start until the President arrives at 1930.

Craig is 'livid' at being kept waiting. The next day he sends a formal diplomatic note to the Uzbekistan Foreign Ministry pointing out their 'gross discourtesy' in expecting Ambassadors to be seated some two hours before the event started. He copies this missive to all other Embassies in Tashkent:

This caused a sensation ... Diplomats in general being wimpish, none of my colleagues had ever raised a whimper before. For exhibiting the remotest trace of a backbone, I was viewed as fantastically daring and backslapped by the entire diplomatic community.

Cliche Alert (2): Wimpish diplomats.

Another oddity. In formal protocol/professional terms, putting in a Note of the sort Craig describes and copying it round the Diplomatic Corps is completely out of order when he has not yet presented his credentials.

You might say that the vile Uzbekistan regime do not merit much if anything by way of protocol niceties. And you might well be right.

Yet ... is this Wise?

Your job as Ambassador is not to win cheap points with your diplomatic colleagues, wimpish or otherwise. Your job is to advance British interests, which means (in a place like this) carefully taking stock and seeing how best to work the local system, odious as it might be, to the UK's overall advantage.

I would have done it differently, writing a personal letter to the Head of Uzbekistan Protocol (cc the Foreign Minister's and President's respective offices), expressing my private disappointment at the protocol arrangements at the fascinating and spectacular Independence Day events, and suggesting that improvements could be made which I was sure other Ambassadorial colleagues would value.

That sort of deft letter catches their attention at a high level, but does not cause too much open embarrassment/annoyance.

The problem with Craig's much more public, 'in their face' protest is that it achieves Impact, but perhaps at too high a cost.

The tough Uzbeks will be impressed by the fact that a new, forceful British Ambassador has hit town. But what conclusion will they draw?

That he needs to be taken seriously, as a sign that the Brits are changing their whole approach towards Uzbekistan? Or rather that he is a patronising, showy-off lightweight?

Professional Judgement Rating: 6/10.  Lively positive new engagement with UK business community and energetic 'new broom' sense with Embassy staff. But to get best results needs to watch his dealings with local officials (even when his concerns are justified) and not give the impression that he seeks the limelight at the expense of being effective.

Chapter two of Craig Murray's book describes his pre-posting briefing rounds.

He heads for Eastern Department, effectively his 'line management' people. He finds it hard work:

The atmosphere in the department seemed to be unpleasant - heavy, pompous and serious. A pall of misery appeared to have settled.

I have a soft spot for Eastern Department, as I was there when it received the name.

Back in the mists of time (to be precise 1640) our Foreign Policy organised itself to deal with different parts of the world in endearingly simple ways. One Department of of State was Northern Department, covering great swathes of the globe north of the equator. The other was Southern Department, covering points south.

Northern Department eventually became the Foreign Office but an FO department with that historic name continued to operate until well after the Second World War, when a reorganisation created 'Soviet Department'. Good riddance. Northern Department had dealt ingeniously with UK/Soviet policy in part by having various Marxists working in its ranks.

I was posted to Soviet Department as Deputy Head of Department in mid-1991 on returning from South Africa. I inherited a vast old 'partners desk' which had an electric switch by one's knee - once upon a time the occupant of the desk could switch on a red light to alert others in the room that he was on the telephone to the Soviet Embassy, hence they should stop talking lest Secrets be Revealed. Cool.

Anyway, after the Soviet Union collapsed in late 1991 we had to rename the department. It could not be 'Russia Department' as too many other countries were to be covered by it. Restoring the name Northern Department might provoke, hem, adverse media comment.

So Eastern Department it was, and is. I hope that that desk is still there.

Craig describes his various conversations there with two FCO colleagues whom I happen to know, mainly on Tashkent Embassy resources/management issues. Craig notes that he inherits a small and mainly junior UK-based team: only four FCO officers plus a Defence Attache.

There is a hint of a Problem with one of the FCO team. Craig (reasonably) expresses concern at the absence of a more senior political officer, but is more than confident that he will cope:

I was professionally very capable myself of a high volume of wide-ranging output.

Thereafter Craig meets some senior business people from British firms investing in Uzbekistan, feasts on yummy Uzbek plov with the Uzbek Ambassador in London, and has a pre-posting audience with Princess Anne and Prince Andrew (Note: trite moan about having to wear 'fancy dress' for the occasion).

Craig's final pre-posting calls are on FCO Minister Mike O'Brien ("all haircut and presentation") and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw who says:

"Whenever you get to ... wherever it is you're going ... tell them I'm thinking about them."

That was the extent of my instructions.

Putting to one side Craig's attempt (not it must be said totally unsuccessful) to portray his London interlocutors as largely uninterested in Uzbekistan, I find his account of these calls a bit strange.

Pre-posting Ambassadors are expected to work up their own pre-posting briefing round lists. Craig also had plenty of time in the margins of his months of Russian language training to see people.

So where are the calls on eg the FCO Human Rights and EU teams, HM Treasury, DTI, SIS, MOD, Cabinet Office, No 10 and so on? What about British human rights groups concerned about Uzbekistan? Uzbek dissident groups in London? Leading journalists and academics who cover the region? Did he pursue with FCO personnel people the question of the apparent poor performance of one of his future team?

Maybe he met some or all of these people and decided not to mention it in the book.

One way or the other, a key part of a new Ambassador's role is to ascertain 'what is out there' in the UK in respect of the country and issues with which s/he will be dealing, and to spot potential allies and friends.

No evidence is presented by Craig that he did this. The impression he gives us is of meeting only a few cynical busy people who treat Uzbekistan as a far away country of which they know little, and care even less. Their problem, not his!

So to say dismissively that Jack Straw's off-hand remark was "the extent of his instructions" is disobliging, if not untrue.

His detailed 'instructions' would have come from his many meetings round Whitehall.

If he had them.

Professional Judgement Rating: 5/10. Useful and blunt (if a touch dismissive) account as far as it goes of various significant briefing meetings, but no evidence presented that he did a full and comprehensive networking job.

Round at the Bruges Group last night to hear a thought-provoking Very Big Picture talk.

The argument went like this:

• not too long ago when Communism ended in Europe there were books about the triumph of democracy, the 'end of history' and so on
• now the emphasis is on Islamic fundamentalism. This is a physical danger but less obviously an ideological danger - Al Qaeda-ism is in bad human and intellectual shape (not a model for anyone) and the Iraq Surge is succeeding, with positive ripples elsewhere
• however, we also now we see Russia reappearing and China emerging, both with obvious and unabashed authoritarian instincts
• one advantage they seem to possess is a Confident Identity, and a sort of legitimacy with their own people flowing from that (Note: quite how true is that, I wonder?)
• so a global ideological clash is back with us, between Democracy and Authoritarianism (Note: indeed - see that recent UNSC Zimbabwe vote)
• in this the EU has a unique but not necessarily benevolent role as a sort of 'post-democratic society', an area where power and decision-making are seeping from electable/accountable people to non-elected and non-accountable people (Brussels institutions, European Court)
• some in the USA do not mind this and quite like the idea of a Strong Europe, since otherwise Europeans (even the Brits) add very little 'extra' these days
• "the EU likes to lecture potential new member states on democracy, but the EU is so undemocratic that it could not join itself" - see eg the open bullying of Ireland quickly to have another referendum and this time get the Right Answer
• if Obama wins there will be those who try to push the USA in a more 'European' direction, but strong democratic instincts/arrangements will stop that going too far ...

Hmm.

There is a serious question here as to where the EU stands on Democracy. The EU Project lumbers on, Liberal but not Democratic, knowing that key aspects of the project were put to referenda they would be rejected and not just in the UK.

Here in the UK the Labour Party promised us all a referendum, then broke the promise and ratified the Lisbon Treaty. The Conservatives would not have done this, but look unwilling to force the deeper issue wide open if they come to power. 

On the other hand, the fact that Poland and the likes of Estonia are now in the EU means that a much sterner EU eye has to be kept on Russian post-Soviet pronouncements and power-building.

In short, the Bruges Group speaker was right.

We are back into a global Grand Battle of Ideas.

The current British problem is that with the Labour Government in such a demoralised position and the economy wobbling, we now have nothing especially coherent to say - or much credibility when we mumble it. 

The fantastic hopelessness of Craig Murray's Uzbek local staff colleague as described in the previous posting (she did not know whether guests were coming to the Ambassador's key dinner party, so she just guessed!) made me recall an episode back in Sarajevo.

I was down to meet a senior Russian colleague (and a friend from my earlier time in Moscow) from the High Representative's office for dinner on a Monday. I had been Zagreb for the preceding weekend to visit my family who were living there as Sarajevo was deemed too unsafe for young children. But the military plane bringing me back could not fly, so I had to cancel the dinner as I could not get to Sarajevo in time.

I telephoned the Embassy and asked my Bosnian colleague to get on to the Russian's office and let him know with my apologies that I could not make dinner. When I finally returned to Sarajevo I checked with her that she had done this. "Yes."

A couple of weeks later I was contacted by my Russian friend: "I have been waiting for your apology. I came to your flat for dinner, and then to the Embassy, where I found that you were not in Sarajevo. I am surprised and disappointed at your behaviour."

Whaaaaat?

It turned out:

(a) that she had not called the Russian's office to cancel the dinner

(b) that she had lied to my face when she said that she had done so

(c) that she knew that he had come to the Embassy looking for me and had not told me on my return, thereby leaving me in an even worse position vis-a-vis my colleague.

I called her in and gave her the Mother of All Final Warnings.

She usually worked hard and well, but if she could not operate to sensible honest professional standards, she would have to leave the Embassy. She now should leave the office, go home, and come back when she had considerd whether she was up to the job.

She departed, returning in due course. But she never recovered her earlier bounce.

Some tendon in the strong relationship between us had been cut; it never properly healed.

Then I wrote a grovelling letter of apology to my Russian friend, and we finally got round to having that dinner.

He of course graciously forgave me for this British Embassy protocol fiasco.

And moved on to much greater things.

An elegant analysis of some of the existential 'national' questions for Moscow's policy-makers.

How to play up Russian-ness while making non-Russian citizens of the Russian Federation feel welcome? Thus:

“it is impossible to demand from a Chechen that he recognize himself as a citizen of the empire and at the same time not to give him the possibility peacefully and without persecution from the cops to live in Moscow.” For this kind of nationalism, Moscow should be “just as much a capital for the Chechen as it is for the Russian.”

Noble sentiments.

But no easier to make work even in benign democratic environments. How many Scots see London as well as Edinburgh as their capital?

Serving as HM Ambassador in Belgrade from 2001-2003 I had the task of advising London on how best to handle the aspirations of demands in Montenegro for independence from Serbia.

At the time European capitals were just getting over the NATO bombing campaign aimed at ending Milosevic's appalling rule over Kosovo. So further Balkanization of the Balkans did not seem like a good idea, especially when opinion in Montenegro itself was pretty evenly divided.

Then Foreign Secretary Robin Cook took the view that such issues should not be decided on a wafer-thin minority. He also thought, looking at the Bosnia disaster, that it made no sense to support Montenegrin independence if the largest single 'ethnic' community in Montenegro (ie Serbs) were opposed to it.

Plus opinion had moved against Montenegro's ambitious leader Milo Djukanovic. He had brushed aside personal appeals from US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that he take part in the 2000 elections in the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to help bring Milosevic down. I stood in the FCO main courtyard listening to her in Washington remonstrate with him in Podgorica via the cell-phone of a US diplomat listening in on the animated conversation.

Djukanovic miscalculated. He thought that as Milosevic was bound to win by hook or by crook he would stand vindicated by boycotting the phoney election.

But Milosevic crashed. Leaving Djukanovic with the problem of remaining credible in Western eyes while standing aloof of FRY processes.

Djukanovic had his eye set on independence for Montenegro. He put his head down and decided not to cooperate on Western terms.

This did not work out as he hoped. He eventually in 2002 was compelled to agree to a new loose formation called 'Serbia and Montenegro', seen at the time as a major success for 'EU Foreign Policy'.

But nothing really worked properly in SAM. The Montengrins stalled, playing for time. Serbia's post-Djindjic leadership were unable to project any coherent policy, torn between fear of being seen as 'interfering' and unable to do much to help Montenegro's Serbs or to appeal to non-Serb Montenegrins.

My name during my posting in Belgrade was of course mud in Montenegro pro-independence circles, as I loyally pursued HMG's and EU/US policy of working to keep Serbia and Montenegro together.

All manner of banal communistic tricks were used against me when I visited Podgorica. Blatant telephone and conversation tapping. Grotesque personal attacks against me in the official and non-official pro-Djukanovic media.

I reported one especially lively piece to London in July 2002 in a telegram entitled 'Slimed!'. In it I recorded that I had been publicly denounced in Podgorica as a tool of MI5 and MI6, a Serbian nationalist with a love of "oriental cuisine, grilled meat, monasteryism and Smederevo wine". The article said that had Montenegro already achieved independence, I would have been PNG'd: "Note: as good an argument for independence as I have seen".

Anyway, I left Belgrade in mid-2003. The EU policy I was instructed to pursue steadily lost its way. The Patten (ie monied) part of the EU's external effort did not throw its weight wholeheartedly behind the Solana achievement. So much for European foreign policy

And lo, in 2006 Montenegro finally achieved its independence.

If Montenegro is now independent of Serbia it is not obviously independent of Russia, which has hit upon the happy idea of just buying goodly chunks of it.

Life goes on.

There I was in a Brussels restaurant last week when in walks Milo Djukanovic with a sizeable pack of Balkan security types, little plastic curly things sprouting from all available ears.

We greeted each other warmly. I congratulated him on Montenegro's independence and we exchanged visiting cards.

As ever, I praise fine technique.

Djukanovic knew what he wanted. And he got it.

A text-book example of a tiny, highly focused and sustained ambition defeating far larger but uncertain and disorganised opponents.

Montenegro has not followed the line of most EU countries and recognised its neighbour Kosovo as an independent state.

Why not?

Because doing so is "not high on its list of priorities":

Everyone understands our positive distanced and considered views on Kosovo independence.

Odd, that.

Positive? Hard to say - depends on one's point of view.

Considered? No doubt.

But distanced?

Is not taking a view on the legal status of an adjacent territory about the highest priority in any country's foreign policy?

Why is Montenegro now being so coy, after supporting Kosovo's aspirations to escape Belgrade rule to help its own plans for independence?

It has an Albanian minority of its own to think about. And it has a lot of Russian money and influence sloshing about its coastline.

A lot.

Those Russians with Moscow's support might think that the Montenegrins were being a tad ... ungrateful by moving to recognise Kosovo?

So down the Podgorica priority list that one goes.

This is a sharp account of one serious Russian view on Russian energy issues:

Mr Chubais has spent the past 10 years masterminding the break-up of UES, the Russian electricity monopoly, which will cease to exist next week after selling off its generators in the biggest liberalisation of Vladimir Putin’s presidency. His insistence that Europe is misreading Gazprom is striking as he is a frequent critic of the gas monopoly.

He warned Europe’s actions were part of a broader international tendency in oil and gas towards increasing state intervention and closing domestic markets – which he warned were a “dead end” and posed big risks “for the world and for Russia”. A return to protectionism was “madness”.

He's right of course in that. But Europe's problem is that these energy issues are not symmetrical.

Russia has energy on a vast scale. Europe does not.

In Europe the use of major energy contracts as a political policy tool is ruled out. That is not obviously the case in Russia.

So, battle is joined. How does Europe import Russian energy on a huge scale while exporting greater transparency/due process back up the supply chain into Russia? Does Russia use its energy predominance craftily to export its political worldview as well?

See eg the reluctance in many parts of the EU (not only ultra-cautious Poland) to allow Russian interests to buy key energy assets, for fear that those assets will not be managed in a purely commercial way for purely commercial purposes.

Not surprising, given the way Russia under current management weighs in to rewrite former contracts and grab better terms when it feels like it.

But Mr Chubais has a point here:

Mr Chubais insisted ending subsidised gas supplies to former Soviet states was about “stopping handing out money for free”. “Why the hell should we supply gas to Ukraine” for discount prices, he asked. “And meanwhile, forgive me, these scoundrels are stealing gas…

I wrote about this problem back in 1996 while at the Embassy in Moscow. I said that the West hypocritically nagged post-communist Russia to behave in a market way, but then complained about Russian 'bullying' when Russia pressed eg Ukraine and Serbia to move towards paying market-prices for energy and stop 'diverting' gas supplies improperly.

That said, for a long time it suited Russia to leave other former Soviet republics and parts of the Balkans hooked on cheap energy as a way of keeping them within the Russian 'sphere of influence'.

Maybe we are finally emerging from that period to a tougher game, based on world prices with 'influence' won or lost via different means?

Were/are all the horrors across former Yugoslavia driven by 'age-old ethnic hatreds'?

Or was/is it all more about gangs of criminals wanting to steal TV sets?

Misha Glenny, brilliant Balkan analyst, has the answer.

Buy the analysis here.

If you have been beaten up by someone for nearly fifty years, does that 'cloud your judgment' about the beater?

But however clear-eyed Lithuania's decison-makers claim to be about today's Russia, many seem myopic about their own country's past. Anger over 48 years of Soviet occupation clouds their judgment about the Communists' recent role.

Still, the scale of the monstrosities which went on under the Nazis in Lithuania and elsewhere in Europe - and the complicity of local people in complying with Nazi plans - is indeed a question.

The 70th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact next year should give these Twin Vampire issues a much-needed airing.

You may well be wondering how many countries have formally recognised the independence of Kosova (or Kosovo as HMG call it).

Here is what looks like a pretty comprehensive list.

Thus as of the end of May 2008 Kosovo's independence has been recognised by (only?) 42 out of 192 UN member states. But those states comprise 69.48% of global GDP!

China, India, Russia, Nigeria and Brazil have not recognised Kosovo's independence, so as well as a heavy majority of the world's states a heavy majority of the globe's population as represented by their governments are (as of now) either sitting on the fence or siding with the Serb view.

Which explains the heavy manoeuvring by some countries at the United Nations to block the EU from taking the lead role in Kosovo. 

The EU plans to move into and build up an independent new state. Many UN members insist that Kosovo's status is at best unclear, and want the existing UK presence there (UNMIK) to remain as a strong symbol of that point of view. 

A messy compromise may be emerging? But it is not a pretty sight.

Following my post about Russia's dire demographic trends along comes this sad story about suicides in the Russian armed forces.

All armies have these problems and do their best to play down the problem. The British Army in Bosnia had a significant number of suicides. One theory had it that better communications with friends and family back home made it more likely that bad news (eg break-up of relationship) would arrive with much more 'immediacy' and cause greater depression among the troops on the ground than might have happened before email and cheap telephone calls.

Plus, alas, shorter rifles made it easier...

That said, the Soviet Army had a richly deserved reputation for brutality against its own people.

I recall a Queen's Messenger telling me how he had seen a Soviet troop train at the station in Outer Mongolia. The troops were being transported in cattle trucks, poorly equipped. When a VIP arrived at the station a screaming officer had beaten at the soldiers with a stick to get them to lie down and not be seen, so shameful was their condition.

Traditions take a long time to change.

Update: the BBC quickly follows this story with one about US military suicides. Balance!

What is the significance of these stories anyway?

Someone must know how these suicide rates compare with the 'normal' suicide rates of young people across the USA. The US army is Big as is the Russian army - how many suicides might be expected 'on average' in each country among a civilian population of that size and age/gender profile? 

A report by Russian experts under UNDP auspices makes grim reading on Russia's demographic problems.

Basically, Russia has a uniquely dire set of trends combining to reduce fertility rates and increase mortality rates, leading to a notably shrinking - and ageing -population:

• demographic ripples from the massive loss of men in WW2
• low respect for human life
• absurdly cheap cigarettes and alcohol
• high abortion rates
• high traffic accident and murder and suicide rates (especially among younger men)
• popular hostility to immigration from elsewhere in the former Soviet Union
• surging AIDS/HIV numbers (1000 reported cases in 1997, over 400,000 cases in 2007)
• bad urban pollution
• and many others

It is fashionable in some quarters to blame these phenomena on allegedly capitalist 'shock therapy' following the collapse of the Soviet Union. But this careful analysis shows that the various effects arising from those changes (high unemployment, more cars, more 'marginalisation') have merely accentuated earlier trends which developed because of negative communist-era policies and attitudes.

The overall - and staggering - result? 

Russia is one of the few countries in the world where life expectancy has decreased in comparison to 1960s levels.

Not enough babies being born, too many unnecessary deaths (especially among younger men), 'social' illnesses killing off millions of people each year.

The authors propose various measures aimed at changing policies and attitudes but seemingly do not hold out much hope that a significant difference can be made.

Above all there seem to be simply too few young men and women around in Russia now to have children on the scale needed to change birth rates for the better, even if those young people were minded to have families and children on a notably higher scale than now.

Thus Russia appears to be on track to have something like 'only' 100 million people in forty years' time.

Not that Europe has anything to be smug about:

Unfortunately, the assumption of family duties by the state allows people to free ride on the fertility of others—which they seem to be trying to do in massive numbers.  As we've mentioned before, a society where everyone tries to free ride on everyone else is headed for disaster.  Europe's safety nets, or at least the pension systems, may contain the seeds of their own destruction.

Fascinating to see how Cause and Effect relentlessly work their way down the decades.

Back in February I wrote about Communism and Nazism as the two vampires, asking which was worse.

Ayn Rand back in 1946 through the words of Ellsworth Toohey, uber-collectivist, explains it all in a brilliant passage:

Remember the Roman Emperor who said he wished humanity had a single neck so he could cut it? People have laughed at him for centuries. But we'll have the last laugh. We've accomplished what he couldn't accomplish. We've taught men to unite. This makes one neck ready for one leash.

We found the magic word. Collectivism.

Look at Europe, you fool. Can't you see past the guff and recognize the essence?

One country is dedicated to the proposition that man has no rights, that the collective is all. The individual held as evil, the mass — as God. No motive and no virtue permitted — except that of service to the proletariat. That's one version.

Here's another. A country dedicated to the proposition that man has no rights, that the State is all. The individual held as evil, the race — as God. No motive and no virtue permitted — except that of service to the race.

Am I raving or is this the cold reality of two continents already? Watch the pincer movement. If you're sick of one version, we push you into the other. We get you coming and going. We've closed the doors. We've fixed the coin. Heads — collectivism, and tails — collectivism.

Fight the doctrine which slaughters the individual. Give up your soul to a council — or give it up to a leader. But give it up, give it up, give it up.

My technique, Peter. Offer poison as food and poison as antidote. Go fancy on the trimmings, but hang on to the main objective. Give the fools a choice, let them have their fun — but don't forget the only purpose you have to accomplish.

Kill the individual. Kill man's soul.

The rest will