Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 19 – Writing on the
Rubaltic portal directed at Russian speakers in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania,
Aleksandr Nosovich argues that the resumption of the work of the NATO-Russia
Council is emblematic of the emergence of “a new, post-Ukrainian reality in
world politics,” one that he says the Baltic countries have failed to pay
attention to.
The Russian commentator concedes
that “a year or two ago, it appeared that the entire course of world politics
was leading to the transformation of Russia into an outcast state: the end of
Russia-EU dialogue, the European Parliament’s rejection partnership with
Russia, the suspension of the Russia-NATO Council, and the exclusion of Russia
from the G-8.”
But now, he says, things are moving
in reverse: “bilateral contacts between Russia and leading Russian countries
are no less active and much more productive than was the case before the Ukrainian
crisis, the Russia-NATO Council is renewing its work; and the next stop is the
renewal of EU-level contacts” (rubaltic.ru/article/politika-i-obshchestvo/190416-postukraina/).
And thus, analysts and politicians
are justified in speaking about the rise of “a new, post-Ukraine reality,” even
though that is a reality that many in Baltic capitals neither recognize nor
accept, preferring instead to believe that there is a “black and white” choice between
containment of Russia and betrayal of other countries to Moscow.
“The primitive consciousness of the professional
Russophobe from ‘the new Europe’ is incapable,” Nosovich says, “of conceiving
the complex and contradictory reality in which Russia, the US, and leading
European countries, while not being allies and in fact between opponents and
competitors nonetheless engage in dialogue and seek results on the most
important international questions.”
This shouldn’t surprise anyone
because it is nothing new, the Russian commentator says. During World War II,
he suggests, “the anti-Hitler coalition also consisted of countries whom it was
impossible to say were in agreement” on many things. They cooperated against
Hitler, and they continued their competition on almost everything else.
“Similar processes are taking place
in the relations of Russia and the West today,” he insists. The two sides can agree on some things even
as they continue to compete on others.
There is no need, as the Baltic leaders seem to think, that everyone must
choose between total confrontation and total accord.
Evidence of this, he says, is that the
US and Russia despite their conflicts on many issues have been able to work
together on Syria and the EU and Russia, despite disagreements on Ukraine, are
not interested in the renewal of military action there or elsewhere on the
post-Soviet space.
Moreover, Nosovich says, “it has
become obvious for Western Europe that it has much more important concerns than
‘containing the imperial ambitions of Russia.’ [Given] the migration crisis …
the crisis of statehood in Syria, Iraq, and North Africa, and terrorist attacks
in the main cities of Europe, Ukraine inevitably will become a secondary issue.”
Some may be tempted to dismiss
Nosovich’s words as nothing more than Russian wishful thinking and yet another
effort by Moscow analysts to denounce Baltic leaders, but there are three
reasons why that would be a mistake:
·
First,
his words about the NATO-Russia Council show how much Moscow will pocket
anything moving in its direction and then use it to push even further, in this
case on the EU.
·
Second,
Nosovich’s recollection of the anti-Hitler coalition shows how central World
War II remains in Russian geopolitical thinking as a model for international
relationships of all types.
·
And
third, his argument, directed in first instance against the Baltic countries,
shows how much Moscow has invested in continuing to divide Europe between the “old”
and the “new,” believing that it can win points in the old by denouncing the
new.
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