Paul
Goble
Staunton, November 14 – Less than 24
hours have elapsed from the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris, and many
questions about it remain unanswered, but commentators in many countries, including
the post-Soviet states, are already calling it “the French 911,” thus drawing
parallels with the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon.
This analogy with the September 11
attacks suggests three important lessons that event has offered. First, there
will be a diversion of attention from current conflicts to the one between civilization
and barbarism, with widespread agreement that security issues must trump all
others until that battle is somehow over.
Second, as a result, there will be
created both within countries and among countries new classes of winners and
losers, with unexpected alliances being formed and policies changed, all of
which will appear to mark a permanent sea change in the domestic politics and
world order that existed before yesterday.
And third, both of these changes
will attenuate with time, some very quickly and others more slowly, with old
divisions again both within and among these countries and the world re-emerging
sometimes in heightened form precisely because these divisions will have been
submerged and ignored for a time.
Below is a list of the some of the
most obvious specific lessons each of these three more general ones provide for
Eurasia:
New Priorities and
New Alliances
1.
Vladimir
Putin will certainly take the lead in insisting that the world must focus all
its energies on fighting terrorism and thus overcome divisions on “lesser”
issues like the Russian invasion of Ukraine and use of force more generally.
Indeed, the Kremlin leader will insist in the coming days that his approach
based on the use of force is more promising than any other.
2.
Authoritarian
regimes, including Putin’s, will argue that the terrorist threat is so great
that they are justified in taking “unprecedented” measures to combat it and
that other countries should accept that instead of criticizing them for
violations of human rights and other thuggish behavior.
3.
These
two things in turn will divide current alliances in Eurasia and the West,
leading to the formation of new alliances based predicated on “a new war on
terror.” These alliances will cut across
existing ones, weakening some of them to the benefit of some but not to that of
all.
New Winners and
New Losers
1.
Ukraine
will obviously be the big loser in the short term because this terrorist attack
and “a new war on terrorism” that is likely to follow will ensure that there
will be less attention devoted to Russian aggression there and Ukraine’s
problems and less willingness to oppose the new “ally” in this war, the Russian
Federation.
2.
When
there is a terrorist attack, many will rally to the banner of those who insist
that the only way to combat it is to use massive force. Putin’s use of force at
home and abroad and that of other authoritarian regimes in Eurasia and
elsewhere will thus gain them support.
3.
Because
many are blaming France’s traditional policy of tolerance and the influx of
Muslim migrants as having created the conditions for this terrorist outrage,
there will be a further swing in public opinion against migration and for a
tighter and more nativist approach in many countries. That will lead to
increased border controls, more xenophobia, and fewer jobs for those coming
in. In the case of the post-Soviet
space, that will leave those countries which rely on transfer payments from
their gastarbeiters in Russia – Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in
particular – in a far worse position.
The Attenuation of
Each over Time
1.
Each
of these developments will look like a permanent change to many, but history
suggests that all the problems that these countries have now have somehow been
submerged in a common struggle will more or less quickly reemerge. The
Ukrainian crisis will not disappear but rather reemerge with new force but in
possibly new forms as Moscow, Kyiv and the West jockey for positions.
2.
The
reliance on force alone, always the first choice of officials and populations in
response to such attacks, will quickly backfire. Countries without democratic
forms of governance will face more radical challenges at home. Indeed, their
very reliance on force will make them into seedbeds of radicalism. Ultimately,
an ideological challenge is defeated only by another more attractive
ideology. And it is going to be hard to
find and even harder to maintain common ground between authoritarian regimes
and democratic ones, however much short-term perspective and “realist”
arguments suggest otherwise.
3.
Moreover
and most disturbing, this “French 911” is unlikely to be the last in the
current age of terrorism; and future terrorist incidents including quite
possibly in Eurasia are likely to lead to further rearrangements of the
international system.
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