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      Making Sense of Vladimir Putin’s Long Game

      by

      On November 21, Bloomberg reported that US intelligence had shared Russian plans for a potential invasion of Ukraine with its NATO allies. Estimates indicated about 100,000 soldiers in around 100 battalion tactical groups were deployed on the Ukrainian border. Since then, this troop buildup has continued with “tanks, artillery, armoured units, drones, [and] electronic warfare systems” poised on Ukraine’s border.

      Reports indicate that Moscow has called up tens of thousands of reservists, the first time since the end of the Cold War over 30 years ago. They could secure territory that regular troops capture. Moscow already has a blueprint to follow. In 2014, Russian troops took over Crimea. This time, they could gobble up significant territory in Eastern Ukraine.  As with the Crimea, Russia claims that Ukraine is historically and culturally an integral part of Russia 

      The Response to Russia’s Brinkmanship Over Ukraine

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      In response to this threat, US President Joe Biden has warned Russian President Vladimir Putin of “severe consequences.” for any aggression. Though Biden has ruled out putting American troops on the ground, the US president has promised Putin “economic consequences like [he has] never seen.”  Almost simultaneously, the foreign ministers of the G-7 group of the world’s seven most powerful economies warned Russia of “massive consequences and severe cost” if Russia were to invade Ukraine. 

      Biden has continued to ratchet up his threats of severe countermeasures. On 19 December, influential columnist David Ignatius wrote that “a knowledgeable official” revealed US plans to arm future Ukrainian “insurgents” with advanced weaponry should Moscow invade. The official mentioned that “the CIA and other key agencies, [have] been studying how insurgencies were organized against the Soviets in Afghanistan and Russian-backed forces in Syria — and also against the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan.” If Putin invades Ukraine, the Biden administration wants “to make it hurt.”

      Even as Biden has been warning Putin, on the other side of the Eurasian landmass 7,500 kilometers to the east, Moscow and Beijing have been romancing one another, in a straightforward diplomatic counterbalance to the US and NATO. In October, China and Russia conducted a joint naval exercise that set alarm bells ringing in many international capitals. A joint Russian-Chinese flotilla of 10 warships sailed through the Tsugaru Strait that separates the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido. This flotilla headed down Japan’s eastern coast and then back toward China through the Osumi Strait north of the southern Japanese island of Kyushu.

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      This joint naval exercise is significant. For the first time a Russian-Chinese flotilla passed through the strait, in what was likely a countermove to heightened naval activity by the rejuvenated “Quad” alliance that includes India, Japan, Australia and the US. The flotilla’s circumnavigation of Japan’s main island of Honshu was clearly intended to threaten Tokyo and send a signal to Washington.

      What is going on?

      Russian Resentment

      Over the years, both authors have spoken to and interacted with numerous Russians in intelligence, defense and diplomatic circles. One theme repeatedly crops up: The US and the West treated Russia imperiously and dismissively after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Most of our Russian interlocutors have believed that the US has long sought to weaken, even destroy, Russia, and interpret almost every US action and statement as pieces of a long term, coherent plan to undermine Russia and the government of Vladimir Putin.

      Dangerously, even seasoned diplomats and intelligence officers tend to ascribe a strategic coherence and hostility to rival states, when the rival states in fact almost always have competing and contradictory power centers, mutually incompatible objectives, and struggle to pursue a sustained and coherent policy. Accurate or not, the Russians have tended to view their American rival as strategically competent, and malevolent.  

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      As per this narrative, the US first cajoled the new Russia to commit samoubiystvo — suicide. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the US funded a project by Harvard economists to reform the Russian economy. In the memorable words of Janine Fedel, neophyte reformers enabled “the Harvard boys [to] do Russia,” causing the misappropriation of Western aid and the plunder of Russian wealth. Till date, Boris Fyodorov, Anatoly Chubais and Yegor Gaidar remain hated names in Russia. Economist Jeffrey Sachs, then a  high-flying 38-year-old who arrived in Moscow to transform the Russian economy, evokes similar sentiments.

      With the zeal of a Cold War free market missionary, Sachs advocated that Russia implement “shock therapy.” Sachs took the view that shock therapy would work even in societies where there was “no collective memory of free markets or history of evenhanded rules of contract law and property rights.” In those heady days, Sachs was regarded as the slayer of hyperinflation, and the savior of the Bolivian and the Polish economies. He envisaged “an industrial comeback” in Russia “worthy of postwar Japan.” At that time, Russian industrial exports were around $5 billion and Sachs predicted they would “reach $50 billion by the turn of the century.”

      Today, it is easy to conclude that Sachs suffered from hubris. Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz has been damning in his critique of Sachs’s shock therapy. For Stiglitz, the key point is that privatizing an economy before establishing a functioning legal and juridical system inevitably leads to overwhelming corruption and concentration of wealth; in other words, to a thug’s kleptocracy.

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      Many US officials foresaw this danger at the time, and even as Sachs was pushing for total and immediate privatization of the entire Russian economy, the US government was trying to foster the establishment in post-Soviet Russia of the rule of law, the establishment of private property and the regulatory and legal regime required to avoid corruption, abuse, and excessive concentration of wealth. In particular, American officials were working to prevent the de facto theft of the state’s assets, capital and natural resources. One of the authors knows this first hand, having worked on this very issue. 

      Sachs, however, “succeeded,” and this now infamous privatization led to asset stripping, massive impoverishment and runaway inflation, averaging 204.91% in 1995.  Even as price rises made it impossible to pay for goods, Russia’s annual per capita income cratered, dropping over 50% in nine years, from $3,440 to $1,710.  The result of Sach’s policy was that the Russian economy foundered, poverty soared and life expectancy sank. Sachs’s recommendations brought, as Stiglitz stingingly put it, “Gucci bags, Mercedes, the fruits of capitalism to a few,” and misery and humiliation to 148 million Russians.  

      This economic catastrophe tore apart Russia’s social fabric and the legitimacy of Russia’s nascent post-Communist democracy. Contrary to a common Russian belief, the US did not seek to destroy Russia, but to help it succeed in its transformation into a successful, democratic market economy. However, the view among many Russian officials is that Sachs was implementing a longstanding strategic plan by the US to destroy Russia as a functioning power. Tragically, this American-induced calamity became Russia’s grim reality for a dismal decade.

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      One of the authors still remembers a protracted, boozy conversation with a former Russian psychological operations (PSYOP) officer. This gentleman had served in Chechnya and was convinced that Sachs plotted the destruction of the Russian economy. This former PSYOP officer’s thinking is most revealing. In his view, the US sent Sachs to ruin Russia’s economy. Then, at a time when Russia was weak, NATO gobbled up the nations of Eastern Europe that until 1991 were Soviet satellites and constituted Russia’s “near abroad” security cordon. The PSYOP officer also argued that the US never dealt with Russia in good faith. In 2001, Putin offered the US complete support after the attacks of September 11. In Russian eyes, the US responded to Russian loyalty with treachery. On December 13, then US President George W. Bush announced that the US would pull out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an act that still infuriates Moscow. 

      The other author, when serving as a US official, heard the same zero-sum game viewpoints from his Russian counterparts. How, they demanded, could NATO expansion be anything but an aggressive anti-Russian act? They took any of the author’s counter-arguments as proof of America’s disingenuous duplicity and as confirmation of their convictions.

      Putin Distills Russian Resentment

      Putin expresses Russian resentment and suspicion best. In a lengthy article published on July 12, he argues “that Russians and Ukrainians were one people – a single whole.” He blames both Russian mistakes and outside forces for undermining that unity. In Putin’s words, “Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians are all descendants of Ancient Rus.” Language, economic ties and the Orthodox faith bind them together.

      Unsurprisingly, Putin evokes a particularly Russo-centric version of history in making his claim. He refers to the 17th century war of liberation of the Russian Orthodox people from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which he blames for “social and religious oppression” of Russians. The Russian president also blames outsiders like the Poles and the Austro-Hungarians for “the idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians.” In Putin’s telling, this “idea” has no historical basis or much popular support.

      When Vladimir Lenin forged the Soviet Union in 1922, he gave constituent republics the right to secede, which was incorporated into the 1924 constitution. Putin blames this for the “parade of sovereignties” that caused the collapse of the Soviet Union. He argues that “modern Ukraine is entirely the product of the Soviet era.” Putin further argues that Nikita Khrushchev transferred Crimea from Russia to Ukraine “in gross violation of legal norms that were in force at the time.”

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      In his article, Putin takes the view that the borders between Soviet republics were never state borders. Communists ran a highly centralized government from Moscow. With the sudden disintegration of the USSR, “people found themselves abroad overnight, taken away, this time indeed, from their historical motherland.” Notably, Putin blames the West for using “the old groundwork of the Polish-Austrian ideologists to create an ‘anti-Moscow Russia’.” He accuses the new Ukrainian elites of hobnobbing with neo-Nazis, attacking the Russian language and unleashing an anti-Russia project.

      Putin’s aggrieved and self-justifying version of history, however, grossly misrepresents the past.  A little perspective: It is true that many Ukrainians initially welcomed the Nazi invaders as liberators in 1941. They wanted relief from the oppressive and exploitative mass-murdering communist regime of Joseph Stalin, whom Putin has been rehabilitating as a Russian icon. Unfortunately for the Ukrainians, Adolf Hitler’s Nazis proved to be as murderous and imperial as the Soviet Union. Longsuffering Ukrainians were quickly and hideously disabused of the notion that the Nazis themselves offered Untermenschen Slavs anything but enslavement and death. In the end, the Nazis massacred 3 million Ukrainians, a lower number than the 3.9 million killed by the Soviets. In his self-serving version of history, Putin omits such awkward facts.

      Third Rome: Will Russia Save Europe From Itself?

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      Biden and his European allies are understandably worried by this amalgam of Soviet and pre-World War I pan-Slavic and imperial Russian historiography. On December 7, Biden and Putin spoke for about two hours to defuse rising tensions over Ukraine. Putin “demanded legal guarantees that NATO would not expand eastward toward Russia’s borders or deploy offensive weapons systems in Ukraine.” Biden “reiterated his support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and called for de-escalation and a return to diplomacy.” Two days later, Putin used harsher language. He accused Ukraine of Russophobia and discriminating against Russian speakers in the country. He argued that Ukrainian action in the eastern Donbas region “certainly looks like genocide.” On December 23, Putin articulated Russian resentments in a four-hour press conference even as US officials announced possibilities of talks in January.

      On December 17, Moscow “demanded strict limits on the activities of the US-led NATO military alliance in countries in Eastern Europe.” Moscow wants no troop or weapon deployment in areas where they could be a threat to Russia. If Washington accepts this demand, NATO would no longer play a role in the three Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia or, for that matter, in highly vulnerable Poland. Russia also wants a guarantee that Ukraine and Georgia would never join NATO.

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      Putin has long called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century” and argued that “the epidemic of collapse has spilled over to Russia itself.” He has repeatedly pointed out that 25 million Russians became foreigners in their own homes. From Lithuania to Tajikistan, Putin sees Russians as an oppressed minority instead of full citizens of a once mighty nation.

      But nowhere is this more galling than Ukraine, home to the historic Kingdom of Rus. His consistent objective as Russian leader has been to restore Russia to its historic greatness and global power. In his mind, the best defence for Russia is now offence.

      Ideas Animating Putin

      It is important and instructive to remember that Putin was a KGB officer for years. He was inspired by Max Otto von Stierlitz, the Soviet James Bond who infiltrated the German high command in World War II. Like Stierlitz, Putin served in Germany too and was posted in Dresden in 1989. Thousands of Germans took to the streets, the Berlin Wall fell and “Moscow [was] silent.”

      The collapse of the German Democratic Republic and the Soviet Union turned Putin’s life upside down. Recently, he mentioned moonlighting as a taxi driver during those days to make ends meet and, like many older Russians, is haunted by those memories. The collapse of Soviet theology allowed Putin and all Russians to return to their history, culture, Slavic ethnicity, and Orthodox religion as the essence of the Russian nation and greatness. Over 70 years of Communist internationalist ideology dissipated in an instant, and has left virtually no trace on Russian culture.  

      Instantaneously, Putin and millions of Russians have reverted to Russian nationalism for identity and pride. At its core, this nationalism is Orthodox, Slavic and autocratic. The Russian Orthodox Church, persecuted during the Soviet era, has made a spectacular comeback. Putin has been filmed dipping into the freezing waters of a cross-shaped pool to observe an Orthodox Christian ritual that marks the feast of Epiphany on more than one occasion. Cossacks, the glamorized sword arm of Tsarist Russia, are also back in fashion. 

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      Putin has brought back the idea of a collective Russian identity, in which Western individualism and cosmopolitanism are decadent Western infections. The strength and stability of the state takes precedence over human rights. In this “new” (old) Russia, respect for the ruler is sacrosanct and Putin is a father figure for a powerful strong nation that can once again project its power. After the humiliating years of a weak Mikhail Gorbachev and a drunk Boris Yeltsin, Russians see Putin as a leader who has restored dignity to a great nation and people.

      A 2016 tour de force analysis by Charles Clover explains how the Russian leader has found inspiration in the ideas of the late historian Lev Gumilev. This son of Soviet dissidents Nikolai Gumilev and Anna Akhmatova spent many years in the Siberian Gulag. Gumilev developed a fascination for “the irrational in history” as he watched his fellow prisoners “die of exhaustion and hypothermia.” Just as Italian Renaissance thinker Niccolò Machiavelli coined the idea of virtù, as a character of moral excellence devoted to the state, and Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun of asabiyya, the tribal solidarity of desert nomads, Gumilev came up with the idea of passionarnost, a human capacity for suffering.

      In his 2012 annual address to the Russian federal assembly, Putin noted that the world was becoming more unequal and competition for resources more intense. New economic, geopolitical and ethnic conflicts were likely. As per Putin, victory and defeat would “depend not only on the economic potential, but primarily on the will of each nation” and the inner energy that Gumilev termed passionarity.

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      Clover explains how Gumilev came up with the idea of Eurasianism, “the germ of a new Russian nationalism.” This idea seeks inspiration not from the westward-looking Peter the Great or Catherine the Great but from the nomads who swept out of the steppes to destroy everything before them. Gumilev took the view that European social theories like the Enlightenment and communism had led Russia to ruin. Instead, Russians were heirs to the Huns, the Turks and the Mongols, the conquering peoples who united the Eurasian steppes and the forests under “a single conquering imperial banner.” In Gumilev’s view, the Russians “were the latest incarnation of this timeless continental unity.” Putin seems to be deeply influenced by Gumilev’s ideas.

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      In this regard, one author recalls a memorable evening spent with a Russian counterpart nearly 30 years ago, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The discussion turned around what Russians believed in and the author asked in some frustration:  Are you European or Asian? Implicit in the question was the assumption that the Russians must choose between the two, and would surely finally embrace the westernizing approach of Peter the Great.  “Of course we are neither,” the Russian replied quite accurately, “and both.” 

      Putin also adheres to the views of Ivan Ilyin, an influential pan-Slavic Russian nationalist and fascist who exalted the Russian soul and who was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1922. He took the view that the 1917 October Revolution was the worst catastrophe in Russian history. As an exile, Ilyin first lived in Germany and then in Switzerland, where he died in 1954. His work strongly influenced mystical Russian nationalists like Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. Putin was personally involved in bringing back Ilyin’s remains to Russia and consecrated his grave in 2009. Noted historian Timothy Snyder has called Ilyin “Putin’s philosopher of Russian fascism” because he saw individuals as cells in the body of society, freedom as knowing one’s place in society, democracy as a ritual, the leader as a hero and facts as of no value whatsoever. Ilyin saw Russian nationalism as the only truth in the world and imagined “that his nation could redeem the world.”

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      Gumilev and Ilyin are the modern Russian muses, and Putin the renascent tsar of the Eurasianist “neither European nor Asian” Russian culture and nation. But Putin’s Russian Eurasianism is the Russian strain of a widespread phenomenon called Traditionalism. It is a reaction to and rejection of the cosmopolitan, international, modernizing forces of Western liberalism and capitalism. Ironically, Traditionalism’s believers consist of a heterodox melange of French Catholic royalists, Muslim intellectuals, left-wing anti-materialists, social conservatives and nationalists brought together by their profound malaise at the culturally destructive and personally alienating forces of the technological and material developments of the industrial and modern era and, in their view, of the nihilism and imperialism of cosmopolitan Western liberalism.

      The philosophical roots of Traditionalism and Russia’s “Eurasianism” version reach back to one of the fathers of Fascism, an Italian philosopher named Baron Giulio Evola. Evola’s thought became the basis for Fascism in Italy, National Socialism in Germany, and — after World War II and the spread of democracy and the success of market economies — for the far-right across Europe, and the ascendancy of anti-Western Muslim extremism in Islamic societies.    

      One of the authors first encountered Traditionalism personally in the mid-1980s when he was assigned to follow and understand the neo-fascistic movements in Western Europe then called the “euro-right.” The “nation,” the “people,” and “tradition” became the roots of personal meaning for the euro-right in the progressively mutable world of capitalism, materialism, individualism, and democracy. The very successes of the Western economic and political model were the basis of the Euro-right’s indictment of liberal democracy and the Western Alliance.  

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      The author recalls sitting in a café in Paris and through the cigarette smoke listening in some astonishment and progressive alarm as the right-wing French political figure across the table confidently denounced American liberal decadence (that was no surprise), evoked the fascistic and conservatively Catholic ideas of the French politician Charles Maurras (again, no surprise)… and then spoke warmly of the concordance of the rejection of democracy, capitalism, and the West by Islam, Italian Fascism, and Russian Orthodoxy. The author has followed the Traditionalist movement in the 40 years since that cafe conversation and watched it wax in direct proportion to the speed and scale of social and political change caused by globalization and the end of the Cold War.

      Evola’s movement and the French politician from the cafe morphed into today’s “Rassemblement national” (RN) party (formerly the National Front) in France and to the other ascendant far-right parties in Europe today. These new Traditionalists consistently identify with Putin’s Russia, because both exalt the “nation” and reject “rootless” materialism. The Russian “Eurasian” manifestation believes “liberal” democracy would lead to the ruin of Russian civilization and to Russia’s domination by a nihilistic West. Under Putin, Russia’s intelligence services have also insinuated Eurasianist, Traditionalist ideas into populist and right-wing parties throughout the West.

      Putin clearly derives his worldview and policies from this coherent Traditionalist, Eurasian rejection of and hostility to the West. In his words, “The liberal idea [has] outlived its purpose….[Western views on gender, culture and power] must not be allowed to overshadow the culture, traditions and traditional family values of millions of people making up the core population.” For Putin, Eurasianists, and far-rightists across Europe, the postwar globalized, capitalist, democratic liberal world order, and US-led Western alliances are wantonly destroying faith, culture and, for Putin, the Russian soul and nation.     

      Could There Be War With Russia?

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      While Evola, Gumilev and Ilyin might be patron saints of Traditionalism, Eurasianism and Russian nationalism, the strident nationalist Aleksandr Dugin is the evangelist of Putin’s new (old) Russia. In 1997, he published “Foundations of Geopolitics,” a work that has deeply influenced the thinking of Russia’s military, secret services and political leadership. Ferociously opposed to US hegemony, Dugin advocates Russian Eurasianism as a response to Anglo-Saxon Atlanticism. Dugin’s views derive directly from the Eurasian and Traditionalist focus on the supposedly inevitable geopolitical clash of cultures, pitting Orthodox and continental Russia against the atheistic and cosmopolitan West. Instead of direct conflict, however, Dugin “advocates a sophisticated, asymmetric program of subversion, destabilization, and disinformation spearheaded by the Russian special services, supported by a tough, hard-headed use of Russia’s gas, oil, and natural resource riches to pressure and bully other countries into bending to Russia’s will.”

      Putinism’s Strangely Unreal World

      Even as others provide ideas, Vladislav Surkov, a brilliant Putin aide puts them into operation. On a spring day in 2013, Surkov claimed to be “the author, or one of the authors, of the new Russian system.” In the words of Peter Pomerantsev, “Surkov [consciously and explicitly] has directed Russian society like one great reality show.” Through puppet political parties, fake social media accounts and manipulation of truth, in the press, on television and on the internet, this modern master of propaganda has blurred truth and falsehood, reasoning that, as the public becomes less able to discern the truth, the state can shape reality to discredit its opponents and to consolidate its power. Even as Russia maintains the illusion of democracy, political challengers find every path forward thwarted, by murder if need be, and one man rules.

      For ordinary Russians, Surkov has conjured up the specter of a deadly enemy and authored a new chapter of Putinism in Russian history. Putin “is the president of ‘stability,’ the antithesis to the era of ‘confusion and twilight’ in the 1990s.” Anyone who opposes Putin, by definition, is disloyal to Russia. Unlike Stalin’s iron-fisted oppression, Putinism “climbs inside all ideologies and movements, exploiting and rendering them absurd.” In Surkov’s Putinist Russia, “everything is PR” and only fools believe in anything. Putin, through Surkov’s cynical wizardry, reigns by turning Russia into a real-world combination of George Orwell’s 1984 and the Keanu Reeves starring The Matrix.  It is the dystopian triumph of the nihilism and solipsism of jaded postmodernists, literally weaponized by the State: Truth no longer exists, but it does not matter, because one can feel good through delusional self-regard and meaningless pageantry.  And Surkov, the Russian intelligence services and, above them both, Putin control the images, shape the public’s consciousness, and wield the real-world power.      

      Yet even Surkov seems to have some beliefs. In conversations with journalists, he reveals a “sharp nationalist edge.” Surkov claims that Putin did not abolish democracy. Instead, the Russian leader just “married it with the monarchical archetype of Russian governance.” Surkov claims, “this archetype is working. It is not going anywhere . . . It has enough freedom and enough order.”

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      If Surkov had confined his dark arts to Russia, he would not be one of the seminal figures of the 21st century. But he has deployed his skills to advance Russia’s national interests abroad, specifically by interfering in elections in other countries. The most famous examples are the Brexit referendum and the US presidential election of 2016. There is strong evidence to suggest that Russia interfered not only in these two elections but in many others. There have been spin doctors galore in the past, from Edward Bernays who invented PR in the US to Dominic Cummings who coined “Take Back Control” for the pro-Brexit campaign. Yet Surkov has taken propaganda to another level. He has created what documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis has termed “HyperNormalisation,” a strangely unreal world of total inauthenticity.

      The Cold War Never Quite Ended

      In the heady days after the end of the Cold War, the likes of Francis Fukuyama heralded the “unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism.” In an iconic article, he called it the end of history and celebrated “the triumph of the West, of the Western idea.” Fukuyama’s celebrations were premature. For 15 years, from Gorbachev’s assumption of power in 1985 to the departure from office of Yeltsin on December 31, 1999, the Western-oriented views and aspirations of Peter the Great’s Russia dominated.  But as one author’s Russian interlocutor from years ago pointed out, Russia is neither West nor East — it is both.  And so after the catastrophe of shock therapy and the expansion of NATO, Russian resentment returned in the form of Eurasianist Putin.

      The Russian president has always sought to restore Russia’s greatness and reestablish hegemony over its “near abroad” — states in Central and Eastern Europe that the Soviet Union once forced into the Warsaw Pact. Of course, while making Russia great again, Putin seeks to solidify and perennialize his power, and, along the way, to enrich himself. He has always rejected the normative unipolar international order created and dominated by the US that, in Putin’s eyes, institutionalized American imperialism and hegemony. In the past decade, the Russian president has modernized his military, eliminated any potential rival at home, and embarked on a series of aggressive foreign moves that are changing the balance of power in Europe and the Middle East. Notably, he has constantly argued that “the unipolar model is not only unacceptable but also impossible in today’s world.”

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      Putin realizes that, to prevail, Russia must leverage its strengths against the more powerful economies of the US and Europe, and he has been fortunate that many Western leaders have neither realized the scope of nor the power in the asymmetric warfare tactics of Dugin and Surkov. In contrast, Putin is very aware that the US GDP is 14 times larger than Russia’s, where oil and gas comprise close to 40% of the GDP.  Hence, he engages in a different “battle space” and, in so doing, has restored much of the influence Russia lost when the Soviet Union imploded in 1991. Putin’s military and intelligence services have reasserted Russian predominance all along the “near abroad” states and former Soviet republics. Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus and the Baltics have all felt the sting of Russian operations, and have had to temper their pro-Western positions and accommodate Russian demands. 

      Bolstered by success, Russian confidence and aggression has been growing. In 2014, Russia invaded and (re)annexed Crimea. In 2015, Putin sent the Russian military into Syria. Since 2019, he has used “private sector” mercenaries, who act under the guidance of the Russian intelligence services, in Libya. By intervening in Syria and Libya, Putin has made Russia a key power broker in the Middle East for the first time since 1972. Russian mercenaries are also active in Mozambique, Sudan and the Central African Republic. As if this was not enough, Putin has actively sought to destabilize his greatest rivals, the UK and the US. Russia has conducted a series of intelligence operations to influence the attitudes of the British and American public, with an overall goal of delegitimizing and paralyzing the UK and US governments. 

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      Even as Putin has ratcheted up pressure on Ukraine, he has also ostentatiously deepened relations with China, the other bugbear of the West. Russia’s new China play is a classic example of the balance of power and “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” approach to geopolitics. The cruise of the Russo-Sino fleet around Japan’s main island is a clear signal by Moscow and Beijing that they will support each other against the West. Putin has also worked assiduously to bolster relations with India, a nascent global power that has reservations about recent US decisions such as pulling out of Afghanistan and entering into a nuclear submarine deal with Australia and the UK. As a former Soviet ally, India also has strong elements hostile to a strategic entente with the US. 

      Should Western powers implement tougher sanctions on Moscow, an allied China and neutral India are likely to stay close trading partners, attenuating Russia’s economic hardship. Relations with the two Asian giants also boost morale at home by demonstrating that a Putin-led Russia is a global power and Moscow will not bend to the imperial and arrogant US.

      Uncertain Times in a World Without American Hegemony

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      As a nimble judoka, Putin is also using gas diplomacy to pressure the West. On December 15, Putin and his new best-friend-forever, Chinese President Xi Jinping, had a highly-publicized conversation about the Power of Siberia-2 project, a mega pipeline through Mongolia that would deliver up to 50 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to China every year. Beijing has long feared that the US Navy could block the Straits of Malacca, choking China’s energy supplies. Power of Siberia-2 serves both Russian and Chinese interests, weakening future leverage for both Europe and the US.

      To pressure Europe, Russia is planning to sell gas not only to China but also to other growing Asian economies, while always holding the implicit threat over Western Europe of restricting gas shipments, just as it has done before in its “gas wars” with Ukraine. Putin’s “gas pivot” is making Europe nervous because Russia remains Europe’s main gas supplier. On December 20, The Moscow Times reported that Russia had cut gas supplies to Europe even as temperatures dropped, a clear example of “gas-politik.” Gas prices have surged as a result, leading to added inflationary pressures in European economies. 

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      Russia is using gas diplomacy not only to cause economic pain to Europe but also to divide its opponents. For years, Russian companies have been building the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline to Germany, bypassing Ukraine to deprive the country of gas transit revenue and to leave Kyiv in no position to completely block Russian gas supplies to Europe. Berlin favored Nord Stream 2 because Germany is boosting natural gas imports to transition away from coal and nuclear energy, and the pipeline would double the supply of cheap natural gas from Russia. 

      However, Nord Stream 2 has caused a rift within NATO with allies like Poland and the US opposing Germany’s decision to go ahead with this pipeline project. Recently, the German economics minister has called the pipeline a “geopolitical mistake” and warned Russia that an invasion of Ukraine would lead to a suspension of this controversial project. Yet both Berlin and Moscow know that such a cancellation would depress the German and West European economies. The pipeline, even unfinished, gives Putin good sway over Germany and Europe.

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      Putin is also exploiting the refugee and migration crisis in Europe and the Middle East to pressure the West. Imitating Turkey’s use of Syrian refugees to pressure the EU, the Russian leader has massed thousands of migrants in Belarus, a country now firmly under Russia’s thumb. These migrants have been trying to enter Poland, a member of the EU. Polish police have used tear gas and water cannons to deter migrants from crossing the Belarusian-Polish border, under the keenly watchful eyes of the media. Images of such police action have portrayed Europe as uncaring and inhuman, damaging its reputation, causing internal European divisions, and diverting attention from Russia and Belarus, and especially from Russia’s threatening moves on Ukraine’s border.

      What Will Putin Do Next?

      Fundamentally, Putin is a cold and calculating practitioner of realpolitik. He wants to keep the pot boiling but not spilling over. He wants to avoid war if he can.  So, Putin will keep seizing the initiative, creating strategic dilemmas for the US, NATO and the West on multiple fronts.  He calculates that the West is decadent and unwilling to fight, despite the series of diplomatic and economic sanctions Western states have imposed in response to his actions, especially after his invasion of Crimea.  

      Now, Putin is focused on Ukraine, the “heart of Rus.” In his pan-Russian nationalist worldview, Ukraine is Russian land. Even so, the authors believe it unlikely, on balance, that Putin will invade. But he is likely to extract de facto changes to the status quo in Eastern Ukraine. He is also seeking to destabilize Ukraine’s government and to stop the West from bringing Ukraine within the western fold. He calculates, probably correctly, that the West does not view the Donbas or Luhansk regions of Ukraine, or the fates of ethnic Russians in Ukraine as worth a war between the world’s great powers. Biden did all but make this explicit in his announcement that the prospect of sending US troops to Ukraine was “not on the table.”

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      But Putin’s aggressive actions in Ukraine are merely parts of his larger worldview and strategy.  He has consistently pursued a sphere-of-influence international order, in part to bring the US down a notch, but in line with deeply held beliefs concerning existential Russian security needs in Russia’s “near abroad.” His Eurasianist worldview is coherent, resonates with traditional Russian Orthodox pan-Slavic ideology, and makes it possible for Russians to see themselves as heroes in the drama of world history. Whatever happens to Ukraine, Putin will always seek to reorder Europe and international relations to Russia’s advantage, to weaken his decadent US and European rivals, and to oppose the cosmopolitan, liberal West.

      The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in UK Politics

      France to start legal action against UK on fishing licences in ‘very first days of January’

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      France will start legal action against the UK over the post-Brexit fishing row within weeks, a French minister has said. Clement Beaune, the secretary of state for European affairs, said on Thursday the case will go before a special tribunal in the “very first days of January”. It comes days after France said it would seek European Union legal action against the UK over the months-long dispute centred around the number of fishing licences granted after Brexit. Mr Beaune said last week Paris would ask the European Commission to initiate judicial proceedings “for licences we are entitled to get”. He told French media on Thursday litigation will kick off in early January. When asked on public TV station France 2 how this would work with the UK no longer being in the EU, he said there was the post-Brexit agreement. “If there are breaches of the agreement, it can lead to sanctions from a tribunal that we jointly established,” Mr Beaune said. “It will be this tribunal that we will refer to in the first days of January.”Last week, the European Affairs minister said France had obtained 93 per cent of the requested licenses to fish in UK waters. But the country still wanted just over 70 more to be granted. French fishermen staged blockades at the Port of Calais and Channel Tunnel last month as they claimed they had been “humiliated” over post-Brexit licences. Downing Street has been approached for comment. More

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      in World Politics

      When the Green Deal Is a No Deal

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      Let’s start with a tricky question. Is the European Union’s Green New Deal a path toward the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050, as European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen sees it? Or do you agree with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s view of the deal as a “utopian fantasy”? Whatever interpretation you are leaning toward, the question itself reveals the current polarization across Europe.

      Why Does the Radical Right Oppose European Integration?

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      As in many other situations when an urgent EU response is needed, like when human rights violations are happening right on the bloc’s borders and shores, the roots of this political polarization are an intended result of populist anti-EU rhetoric spearheaded by the likes of Orban and other illiberal leaders. Nevertheless, the supposed dividing line between “old” and “new” EU member states on the perception of the green transformation is a by-product of failing Europeanization, something Orban and his consorts cannot be blamed for exclusively.

      Fear of Falling Behind

      Card players know the expression “new deal” as the reshuffling of a deck of cards that squares the players’ chances of victory. The Green New Deal, introduced in December 2019 by the European Commission, however, will not reset economic and social inequalities either globally or within the European Union itself. In the case of Hungary, for instance, among its nearly 10 million inhabitants, “income inequality has increased over the past decade and inequalities in access to public services remain high,” according to the 2020 country report by the European Commission.

      Cohesion reports show that although previous policies have made significant contributions, economic and social disparities between member states persist. That’s why the European Commission installed the Just Transition Mechanism and the Just Transition Fund alongside other measures such as the Social Economy Action Plan to compensate possible losers of the transition with funding and social inclusion measures.

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      Experts point out the open questions regarding exactly how much public money will flow to the east. A big part of the transition is to be lifted by private investments. Heated debates on green taxation and investments are partly fueled by fears of “falling further behind the West.”

      Concerns like this engender a general mistrust toward EU policies in the eastern European region. While the current framing of the Green New Deal focuses on the promise of a growth strategy with winners only, recipients in the east traditionally have doubts. Looking back to the 20th century, Europe has had plenty of experience with transitional processes, but lessons learned from various approaches vary tremendously across the continent.

      Bad Memories

      The Czech Republic, for example, is often presented as a transition success story. Yet a more differentiated view shows that the country is still struggling with the destructive effects of an unfinished transition. More than three decades after the change of regime, the political elite is dominated by businesspersons who gained economic power in the 1990s and have established a clientelist system characterized by a cascade of corruption scandals. Still facing a “wage curtain” vis-à-vis the West, the voters’ frustration with such legacies spelled defeat for Prime Minister Andrej Babis’ party in this year’s parliamentary election.

      The new government in Prague is trying to distance itself from previous paths and promotes a transition toward a green economy, emphasizing sanctions against polluters. The rhetoric, however, shows that the government’s commitment to change has its limits when prosperity is at risk. “The Green Deal represents a huge opportunity for Europe to invest in sustainable development, renewable energy and the circular economy. We will support any such measures which will not economically affect the living standards of the population of the Czech Republic,” Petr Hladík, deputy-mayor of Brno, stated recently.

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      Hungary has undergone several economic transitions after World War II. During the 1960s, a centrally-planned economy became more open. Then the so-called “goulash communism” paved the way toward a market economy, which was realized after the fall of the communist regime in 1989.

      The economic transition has brought market integration and foreign investments, but also, 17 years after Hungary’s EU accession, welfare levels have not reached those of the original member countries. In the years after 1989, Hungarians experienced high unemployment, social insecurity and a general decline in productivity that has often been seen as the material shock of the transition process.

      In the country’s collective memory, the transition has strong connotations with the rise in social inequality or, as Herman Hoen put it, the reforms that encompassed “welfare gains for some at the expense of others.” Negative experiences from transition periods, therefore, fuel the mistrust and general pessimism toward narratives of change and progress.

      When it comes to environmental awareness that forms the basis for climate action, we must understand that both Marxist and capitalist ideologies have been strongly shaped by a worldview that sees nature as an obstacle to economic growth. Environmentalists in countries like Hungary, former Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria had successfully channeled a broad critique of the system by raising environmental concerns. But soon after the initial democratic transition, attention shifted toward economic priorities.

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      Some argue that the transitions of 1989-90 in Eastern Europe have ended with the accession to the EU in 2004 but, facing a democratic backlash, clientelism and attempts at state capture today, it seems more appropriate to describe it as an incomplete transition. Particularly, civil society and social movements offer insights into the non-linearity of democratic consolidation processes.

      Although post-communist countries have very different transition processes and experiences, some suffering more, others less, they still share common struggles with social injustice and corruption as well as bad memories of the era of transformation.

      Disillusionment

      As a result of this disillusionment, many post-communist countries experienced a massive exodus to the West. According to Ivan Krastev, “With social inequality rising and social mobility stagnating in many countries in the world, it is easier to cross national borders than class barriers.” Many of those who stayed have become supporters of Orban and other populists who claim to be treated as second-class members of the EU and call out alleged double standards. Blaming Brussels for high energy prices, for example, falls on fertile ground.

      In addition, growing disparities in fundamental values and migration practices fuel fears over further disintegration of the EU along an increasing east-west divide. If we look at the perception of climate action in Europe, this divide can be detected here too. In fact, although all member states agreed on the Green New Deal, it has many stumbling blocks in its path.

      A study by the European Council on Foreign Relations shows that “Europeans are divided over a range of climate issues, including the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), the role of nuclear energy in Europe’s future energy mix, bridging technologies with which to facilitate the transition to net zero, and the socio-economic consequences of closing down carbon-intensive industries.” The study also reveals that alliances along this fault line do not align in two diametrically opposed camps. This enables varying alliance-building measures and avoids stagnation when it comes to major decisions ahead.

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      According to a Eurobarometer survey from 2019, the awareness for necessary actions against climate change is increasing in all member states. When it comes to the question of whether climate change is one of the most serious problems, countries like Bulgaria, Romania and Lithuania are at the other end of the scale. Socio-demographic data show a clear correlation between awareness and the financial stability of respondents. Those with fewer financial difficulties are most likely to consider climate change as the most serious problem.

      In the case of Hungary, there is a true clash of perceptions with the European Commission. But Viktor Orban is facing an election in early 2022 that might lead to a change in the power balance. In the end, the benefits from the financial resources of the Green New Deal might speak in its favor.

      Bedtime Stories of Growth

      “This transition will either be working for all and be just, or it will not work at all,” said Von der Leyen after the College of Commissioners had agreed on the European Green Deal. According to the Commission’s Just Transition Mechanism, the most vulnerable regions and sectors should receive compensation for disadvantages. When facing informed criticism of gender-blind environmental policies, studies on energy poverty in former communist countries, the concept of “black ecologies” as well as the colonial legacy and the continuing global injustice of the Anthropocene, we must admit that it is impossible for today’s policies — and politicians — to predict who will make up tomorrow’s vulnerable groups.

      There is no doubt that Europe needs inclusive and smart policies, but regulations alone will not be enough. All green transformation mechanisms must be accompanied by multi-dimensional democratic reform. This means, first of all, the establishment of transnational agoras for grassroots participation in environmental policymaking. There needs to be a strong and broad democratic foundation as policy can only succeed once the trust in institutions is restored. Political culture and path dependencies are powerful and often underestimated barriers of change that can hardly be addressed by policy alone and require strong local civil societies.

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      Speaking of trust, the European Commission’s current narrative of a “new growth strategy” carries the risk of creating a false promise of a “transition without losers” while not being able to think ahead to identify all obstacles. Even if serious endeavors can alleviate most of the social costs of the transition, the measures will fail if structural reforms of the social welfare systems and education are being neglected.

      Coping with the climate emergency uncovers the EU’s biggest weakness, namely its various divisions. Cohesion policies need to be more inclusive to guarantee effectiveness. While many actors within the bloc and on its margins have already joined the new gold rush for renewables, the scramble for the enormous EU funds brings severe risks of corruption and exploitation of natural resources in countries with weak economies and democracies, like the Jadar project in Serbia clearly demonstrates.

      Universal Change of Perspective

      Nationalistic and ethnic biases have led to dysfunctions and hampered cooperation among civil society actors before and after 1989. Donatella Della Porta and Manuela Cainai’s demands for a “Europeanization from below” should not be caught up in the dynamics of a green transition. We have a historic chance for environmental concerns to be expressed on all levels of society, and the ears of EU institutions are wide open.

      With the liberal opposition in Hungary joining forces against illiberal politicians in power, civil society’s ability to compromise and cooperate will decide its success. If it takes its role as watchdog and mediator between society and state seriously, it will need to develop trustworthy narratives of transition.

      From a global perspective, the current story is built on risky grounds. The old growth strategy cannot be simply supplanted by a new one. If the Green New Deal means an agreement where, in the end, power and money stay concentrated in the global north while resources and advantages of the EU’s margins — such as the western Balkans — are exploited, the outcome of the transition will be a total disintegration of the EU accompanied by severe social upheavals. 

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      For many people then, the Green New Deal will not be a deal at all. The main responsibility for decarbonization lies with the global north. In this sense, the EU’s framing of climate action must be aligned with an honest inconvenient truth that it is not a trade deal with winners only but a unilateral sacrifice of privileges and a total change of perspective for the sake of all humanity.

      As Mariana Mazzucato recently stated in Nature Sustainability, “What is needed now is to move beyond the static debate about growth or no growth and instead focus on fundamentally redirecting development towards achieving the goal of a more inclusive and sustainable planet. We need to pivot from a reactive market-failure-fixing approach towards a proactive market-shaping one.”

      It is crucial that the Green New Deal is not just seen as a top-down policy bundle or a golden pot of money from Brussels, but a chance to reduce inequalities and to create a “good jobs economy.” The EU’s climate policies are indeed paving the way for decarbonization, but divisions within the bloc will always remain and might even further increase once the motor of growth revs up. The fight against climate change and injustice will then once again be led by civil society and proactive citizens, who need to follow a shared vision and hold politicians and corporations accountable for their actions.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in US Politics

      Rahm Emanuel leads confirmed Biden nominees in late-night logjam break

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      Rahm Emanuel leads confirmed Biden nominees in late-night logjam breakEx-Obama chief of staff will go to Japan after deal for vote on Russia pipeline sanctions ends Republican Senate resistance The former Obama White House chief of staff and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel was among more than 30 ambassadors and other Biden nominees confirmed by the Senate early on Saturday. Trump condemned by Anti-Defamation League chief for antisemitic tropesRead moreThe Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, broke a Republican-stoked logjam by agreeing to schedule a vote on sanctions on the company behind the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany.With many senators anxious to go home for the holidays, Schumer threatened to keep the Senate in for as long as it took to break a logjam on a number of diplomatic and national security nominees.Emanuel was confirmed to serve as ambassador to Japan by a vote of 48-21. Nominees to be ambassadors to Spain, Vietnam and Somalia were among those confirmed by voice vote after an agreement was reached to vote on Nord Stream 2 sanctions before 14 January.The confirmation process has proved to be frustrating for new administrations regardless of party. While gridlock isn’t new, the struggle is getting worse.Democrats have voiced concerns about holds Republican senators placed on nominees in order to raise objections about foreign policy matters that had little to do with the nominees in question. Holds do not block confirmation but they do require the Senate to undertake hours of debate.Positions requiring confirmation can go unfilled for months even when the nominations are approved in committee with the support of both parties.Biden officials acknowledge the president will end his year with significantly more vacancies than recent predecessors and that the slowdown of ambassadorial and other national security picks has had an impact on relations overseas.Ted Cruz, of Texas, held up dozens of nominees at state and treasury, over objections to the waiving of sanctions targeting the Nord Stream AG firm overseeing the pipeline project. The administration said it opposed the project but viewed it is a fait accompli. It also said trying to stop it would harm relations with Germany.Critics on the both sides of the aisle have raised concerns that the pipeline will threaten European energy security by increasing reliance on Russian gas and allowing Russia to exert political pressure on vulnerable nations, particularly Ukraine.Earlier in the week, Schumer demanded that Cruz lift all of his holds on nominees at the two departments as well as the US Agency for International Development, as part of any agreement on a Nord Stream 2 sanctions. Cruz said he was willing to lift holds on 16. The two sides traded offers on Friday.“I think there ought to be a reasonable middle ground solution,” Cruz said.“Let’s face it. There is little to celebrate when it comes to nominations in the Senate,“ said Senator Bob Menendez, chairman of the foreign relations committee.The New Jersey Democrat blamed Republicans for “straining the system to the breaking point” and depriving Biden of a full national security team, “leaving our nation weakened”.“Something’s going to happen in one of these places and we will not be there to ultimately have someone to promote our interests and to protect ourselves,” he said.Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, said some of the gridlock stemmed back to four years ago when Democrats, under Schumer, tried to stop many of Donald Trump’s nominees being confirmed in a timely manner.“Senator Schumer doesn’t have anything close to clean hands here,” Blunt said.Emanuel, also a former member of the House, was backed for the post in Tokyo at a time when Washington is looking to Asian allies to help push back against China.Detractors said they would not back him because of the shooting when he was mayor of Chicago of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who died when a police officer, Jason Van Dyke, fired multiple times.Emanuel’s handling of the case was criticized, especially as video was not released for more than a year. Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder and jailed. Four officers were fired.Biden nominated Emanuel in August. At his confirmation hearing in October, Emanuel said he thought about McDonald every day and that, as mayor, he was responsible and accountable.Eight Republicans voted with a majority of Democrats to confirm Emanuel. Three Democrats voted no: Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.TopicsBiden administrationUS foreign policyUS national securityRahm EmanuelUS politicsAsia PacificJapannewsReuse this content More

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      in World Politics

      The Value of EU Citizenship in a Post-Brexit World

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      In the 1980s, I was born having freedom of movement across Europe, when Britain was part of the European Economic Community. The concept of EU citizenship was formally established in 1993, as part of the creation of the European Union itself, under the Maastricht Treaty.

      Polexit: Is Poland on the Way Out of the EU?

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      Freedom of movement in Europe was always something I took for granted. I saw Europe as part of our heritage, despite the grumblings of euroskeptics and sly articles in the British press about the perils of straight bananas and the metric system. 

      I traveled a lot in my youth, but travel was never really the issue. Citizens of many countries from outside the EU can stay in the Schengen zone for up to 90 days without a visa. It wasn’t until 2009 that the benefits of being an EU citizen became obvious to me. 

      Free to Work and Study in Europe 

      I signed up for a master’s degree in Brussels, Belgium. The beauty of this was, as an EU citizen, the entire degree cost me only €500 ($560). It was taught in English and full of students from all over the world.

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      There was no paperwork to deal with, no need to prove income, no need to apply for any student visas. Education in Belgium was as open to me as education in my country of origin. And that would have been the same for education in any country in the EU. 

      I stayed in Belgium for two years. During that time, I could work freely without any authorization. I taught English at the European Parliament. I also did a number of freelance jobs on the side. But I could have worked anywhere, from behind a bar, to the top levels of the European institutions. 

      As an EU citizen, I had the right to live and work in Belgium, just as I did with any other country in the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA). No sponsorship needed, no work visa, no permission of any kind. 

      I often traveled back and forth between London and Brussels. The Eurostar was, and still is, the best mode of transport. It takes you directly from the center of one capital into the center of the other. With an EU passport, going through immigration was quick and simple. In contrast, passport holders from outside the EU had to wait in a separate queue, all herded together. 

      I didn’t use my EU freedom of movement rights again for 10 years. But that would be for the final time, as a big change was coming. 

      The Vote That Changed Everything

      In 2016, a majority of British voters decided the UK should leave the European Union. Millions of British citizens would soon lose their EU rights. People with Irish or other European relatives were desperately applying for second passports.

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      The next few years were chaotic, full of political turmoil and tribalism. The Brexit referendum had split the country down the middle, and things would never be the same again.

      After the vote, there was a rapidly closing window of opportunity to move to the EU. I knew that was the only option for me. So, in the early weeks of 2020, I moved to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. Time was running out by then, with the Brexit transition period in full swing. Within months, UK citizens would be officially relegated to third-country national status. 

      There was no time to waste in securing residency in Portugal. As an EU citizen, it was easy. I landed in Lisbon, took my passport and showed up at the nearest municipal office. Thirty minutes and €15 later, I had a five-year temporary residency document for Portugal. 

      Portugal’s citizenship timeline is five years. All being well, that document will allow me to regain my EU rights sometime in 2025, this time as a proud citizen of Portugal — the country I chose.  

      The EU project is far from perfect. Like any large-scale collaboration of humans, it’s fraught with issues. Yes, there’s corruption. Yes, there’s waste and inefficiency. Despite that, the EU is an ambitious project that emerged out of the devastation of the Second World War. The resulting economic cooperation has kept Europe peaceful ever since. In that sense, it’s doing exactly what it was designed to do.

      Citizen of Another Somewhere

      I don’t like nationalism. It’s too easily misused. And I can’t be proud of something that I didn’t achieve: the coincidence of being born on a certain piece of land. Does that mindset make me a “citizen of nowhere”? If so, that’s good. Thanks for the compliment, Theresa. 

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      As the late John le Carre once said, “If you want to make me a citizen of nowhere, I will become a citizen of another somewhere.” An Englishman all his life, le Carre died an Irish citizen, so disappointed was he at the fallout from Brexit. He was fortunate to have that Irish heritage. Not everyone does. And those that don’t have become second-class citizens in Europe.

      National pride is artificially constructed to hold the nation-state together. It plays on our natural inclinations toward tribalism, which is merely an evolutionary hangover. Benedict Anderson’s classic book, “Imagined Communities,” explains these ideas better than I ever could.

      Perhaps the EU is an “imagined community” too. But countries working together, no matter how flawed the process, is the only route we have to improving the world. It’s a project I’m determined to be part of. And if I can’t do so as a British citizen, then I’ll happily do so as a Portuguese. 

      *[Samantha North is the founder of Digital Émigré, an EU citizenship consultancy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Could There Be War With Russia?

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      First, let’s be clear: Russia already invaded Ukraine. At the end of February 2014, Russian soldiers without insignia seized key facilities in Crimea and then helped secessionists in eastern Ukraine some weeks later. Crimea is now under Russian control and a civil war continues to flare up over the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east.

      Second, the United States has repeatedly provoked Russia by pushing the boundaries of NATO ever eastward. Virtually all of Eastern Europe is part of the military alliance, and so are parts of the former Soviet Union such as the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Ukraine is in a halfway house called “NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partners” and it has contributed to NATO-led missions.

      The Response to Russia’s Brinkmanship Over Ukraine

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      A majority of Ukrainians — those not living in Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk — support NATO membership, according to a November 2021 poll. Such poll results are no surprise given that membership would provide Ukraine with the additional insurance of NATO’s collective defense clause. Of all the countries considering membership in NATO, Ukraine is the one that most threatens Russia’s national interests in what it calls the “near abroad.”

      That’s some of the necessary context to the recent news that Russia has been massing around 100,000 soldiers along its border with Ukraine, coupled with medium-range surface-to-air missiles. Russia argues that such maneuvers are purely precautionary. Ukraine and its supporters think otherwise.

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      The United States has rallied its allies to warn Russian President Vladimir Putin not to invade Ukraine. It has promised to levy additional economic sanctions against Moscow as well as send more US troops to Eastern Europe to add to the several thousand American soldiers in Poland as well as those stationed at four US military bases in Bulgaria, a military facility on Romania’s Black Sea coast and elsewhere. The Biden administration has been clear, however, that it wouldn’t send US soldiers to Ukraine to confront Russian invaders.

      Putin, meanwhile, has demanded that Ukraine’s membership in NATO be taken off the table. He has also called for an immediate security dialogue with the United States and has been strategizing with China’s Xi Jinping on how to coordinate their policies.

      The transfer of troops to the Ukrainian border may simply be a test of the West’s resolve, an effort to strengthen Putin’s hand in negotiations with both Kyiv and Washington, a way of rallying domestic support at a time of political and economic challenges or all of the above. Given enormous pushback from the Ukrainian army among other negative consequences of a military intervention, a full-scale invasion of Ukraine is not likely in the cards. Putin prefers short wars, not potential quagmires, and working through proxies wherever possible.

      A hot war with Russia is the last thing the Biden administration wants right now. Nor is an actual détente with Moscow on the horizon. But could Putin’s aggressive move raise the profile of US-Russia relations in such a way as to lay the foundation for a cold peace?

      Fatal Indigestion?

      The civil war in Ukraine does not often make it into the headlines these days. Ceasefires have come and gone. Fighting along the Line of Contact that separates the Ukrainian army from secessionist forces breaks out sporadically. Since the beginning of the year, 55 Ukrainian soldiers have died and, through the end of September, so have 18 civilians, including four children. Many residents of the border towns have fled the fighting, but millions who remain require humanitarian assistance.

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      For the Russian government, this low-level conflict serves to emphasize its main message: that Ukraine is not really a sovereign country. Moscow claims that its seizure of Crimea was at the behest of citizens there who voted for annexation in a referendum. It argues that the breakaway provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk are simply exercising their right of self-determination in a political climate that discriminates against Russian speakers. Such fissures in the territory of Ukraine, according to this logic, suggest that the government in Kyiv doesn’t have complete control over its borders and has thus failed at one of the principal tests of a nation-state.

      For Ukraine, the issue is complicated by the presence of a large number of Russian-language speakers, some of whom feel more affinity for Moscow than Kyiv. A 2019 law that established Ukrainian as the country’s primary language has not helped matters. Anyone who violates the law, for instance, by engaging customers in Russian in interactions in stores, can be subjected to a fine. So far, however, the government hasn’t imposed any penalties. That’s not exactly a surprise given that the current president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who objected to the law when he was running for office, is more comfortable speaking Russian in public.

      Despite its domestic challenges and the recent history of Russian military incursions, Ukraine is very much a country. It is a member of the United Nations. Only a handful of states — Somalia, Palau — have neglected to extend it diplomatic recognition. There is no strategic ambiguity about Ukraine’s place in the international order as compared to, say, Taiwan.

      Not even Putin, despite his paeans to “one Russia,” realistically contemplates trying to absorb a largely resistant country into a larger pan-Slavic federation with Russia and Belarus. After all, Moscow has had its challenges with the much smaller task of integrating little Crimea into the Russian Federation. Upgrading the peninsula’s infrastructure and connecting it to the Russian mainland has cost tens of billions of dollars even as the sanctions imposed by the West have cost Russian corporations more than $100 billion. A water crisis in Crimea — because Ukraine blocked the flow from the Dnieper River into the North Crimean Canal — has offset the infrastructure upgrades Moscow has sponsored, leading to speculation last year that Russian would invade its neighbor simply to restart the flow of water.

      Invading Ukraine to resolve problems raised by the earlier invasion of Crimea would turn Vladimir Putin into the woman who swallowed a fly (and then swallowed a spider to catch the fly, then a bird to catch the spider and so on). Such a strategy promises larger and more diverse meals followed by the inevitable case of fatal indigestion.

      An Improbable Peace?

      So far, the Biden administration has offered a mix of threats and reassurances in the face of a possible Russian invasion. New sanctions and the dispatch of additional troops to Eastern Europe have been balanced by the refusal of the administration at this point to consider any direct involvement in Ukraine to counter Russian forces. Biden communicated this strategy not only in speeches, but in a two-hour telephone call with Putin last week. It was, by all accounts, a diplomatic conversation, with no bridge-burning and no Donald Trump-like fawning.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Biden and Putin may meet in early 2022. If that sounds like deja vu, you’re right. After Russia mobilized troops on Ukraine’s border last April, a Biden–Putin summit took place in mid-June in Geneva. Long ago, North Korea discovered that missile launches were an effective way of getting Washington’s attention. Russia can no longer count on Trump’s affection for authoritarian leaders to secure summits, so it has now adopted the North Korean approach.

      The important thing is that Putin and Biden are talking and that the respective diplomatic establishments are engaging with one another. The problem is that both leaders face domestic pressure to take a more aggressive stance. In the United States, bipartisan efforts are afoot to send Ukraine more powerful armaments and escalate the threats against Moscow. In the Russian Duma, far-right nationalists like Vladimir Zhirinovsky and putatively left-wing leaders like Communist Party head Gennady Zyuganov have at one point or another called for the outright annexation of Ukraine’s Donbass region. Also, the approval ratings of both Putin and Biden have been dropping over the last year, which provides them with less maneuvering room at home.

      To resolve once and for all the territorial issues involving Ukraine, the latter has to be sitting at the table. The civil war, although still claiming lives, is thankfully at a low ebb. But it’s important to push through the implementation of the 2014 Minsk accords, which committed Ukraine to offer special status to Donetsk and Luhansk that would provide them greater autonomy within Ukrainian borders. Ukraine can bring such a compromise to the table by pushing stalled constitutional amendments through the parliament.

      Crimea is a different problem. Even if Ukraine has international law on its side, it cannot easily roll back Russian integration of the peninsula. As the Brookings Institution’s Steven Pifer points out, success might be the best form of revenge for Ukraine. If the country manages to get its economic act together — a difficult but not impossible task — it will present itself as a better option for Crimeans than being Moscow’s charity case. Queue a second referendum in which Crimea returns to Ukraine by popular demand.

      The question of NATO membership should be treated with a measure of strategic ambiguity. The US government won’t categorically rule out Ukrainian membership, but it also can deliberately slow down the process to a virtual standstill. Russia has legitimate concerns about NATO troops massed on its border. Putin’s demand that the alliance not engage in a military build-up in countries bordering Russia is worthwhile even outside of its value as a bargaining chip.

      Another major thorn in US-Russia relations is Washington’s opposition to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany. Obviously, it should be up to Germany where it gets its energy, and surely Russia is no worse than some of the places the US has imported oil from in the past (like Saudi Arabia). But the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is yesterday’s problem. The pipeline will soon become a huge stranded asset, a piece of infrastructure that will send unacceptable amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and will be made redundant by the falling price of renewable energy. The European Union, additionally, is considering a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism that will only add to the cost of imported natural gas, stranding that particular asset even earlier than expected.

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      Everyone talks about the United States and China working together to battle climate change. The same spirit of cooperation should animate US-Russia relations. The Russian government has been a little bit more forthcoming of late on setting decarbonization goals, but it has a long way to go, according to the analysis of these three Russian environmental activists.

      Imagine Washington and Moscow working together to wean themselves off of their mutual dependency on fossil fuels. Let’s call it a “green détente” that includes regular “carbon control” summits designed to reduce mutual emissions, much as arms control confabs have aimed to cut back on nuclear armaments.

      Of course, there are plenty of other issues that can and will come up in talks between the two superpowers: denuclearization, cyberwarfare, the Iran nuclear agreement, the future of Afghanistan, UN reform. Sure, everyone is talking about avoiding worst-case scenarios right now. The conflict over Ukraine and the conflict inside Ukraine are reminders that the United States and Russia, despite powerful countervailing pressures, can indeed go to war to the detriment of the whole world. Perhaps Putin and Biden, despite the authoritarian tendencies of the former and the status-quo fecklessness of the latter, can act like real leaders and work together to resolve mutual problems that go well beyond the current impasse in Ukraine.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The Response to Russia’s Brinkmanship Over Ukraine

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      The Russian military buildup along Ukrainian borders conducted over the last few months — similar to an escalation by Russia in April — has led to new direct talks between US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The biggest fear in the West is whether Russia intends to invade Ukraine. The Russian leadership has claimed that its more than 100,000 troops deployed along Ukrainian borders are on Russian territory, are conducting routine training and should not worry anyone. 

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      In stark contrast, Russia perceives the potential deployment of NATO troops close to its borders as a major security threat. This reveals that Russia understands very well the signals it is sending by amassing an unprecedented-in-size military strike group to Ukraine’s frontiers. There is solid evidence that Russia is engaging in a bold brinkmanship game over Ukraine, using the logic of threat to create strategic ambiguity about a potential military invasion. Its goal is to force Western concessions on Ukraine, in particular, and to obtain a strategic carte blanche in the post-Soviet area more generally.   

      The Logic of Threats

      Following a videoconference on December 7 between Biden and Putin, the Russian leadership sent a number of signals that created more clarity about the Kremlin’s intentions. Their form was accurately reflected in a few analyzes published by the Russia-based Carnegie Moscow Center. One Russian analyst argued that, unless Putin’s demand for guarantees that Ukraine will never join NATO is accepted, the United States would see a military defeat of Ukraine, which would be “an especially humiliating re-run of recent events in Afghanistan.” Another Russian expert hinted that, unless the US ensures that Ukraine implements the Russian version of the Minsk agreements, it may risk a war in Ukraine.

      The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, confirmed that the West should accept these two conditions if it wants to avoid Europe returning to “the nightmare scenario of a military confrontation.” Following the teleconference, the deputy foreign minister, Sergey Ryabkov, reiterated the idea, stating that if NATO refuses Russia’s right to veto the alliance’s further expansion to the East, it will risk “serious consequences” and would lead to “its own weakened security.”

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      These are the most direct and bold threats that the Kremlin has issued against the West since the collapse of the Soviet Union. There are strong signals that this brinkmanship over Ukraine is a strategic calculation, triggered by the Kremlin’s perception that both the European Union and the United States are irresolute. 

      For instance, in his November 18 address to foreign policy officials, Putin observed that Russia has managed to create a feeling of tension in the West. He went on to recommend that this state of tension “should be maintained for as long as possible” and exploited to demand “serious, long-term guarantees” to prevent NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. 

      Following Putin’s videoconference with Biden, the Russian foreign ministry published its concrete demands for talks on a new European security order. Among these demands, Russia requested that NATO withdraw its 2008 Bucharest summit “open doors” pledge for Ukraine and Georgia.

      Assessing the Risk of War

      Why is Russia so bold to directly threaten war and confront the West with an ultimatum: either accept a war in Europe or give up the post-Soviet area? The Kremlin has concluded that there is little appetite in the West to confront Russia on Ukraine, beyond economic sanctions. 

      Russia’s leadership has also come to believe that the West is extremely risk-averse and not ready to call the Kremlin’s bluff. The brazenness of the threats, the reference to NATO’s “humiliation” in Afghanistan and interviews with Russian and foreign experts confirming the strategic timidity of the West — all of this speak to that. For instance, in an interview with Harvard’s Timothy Colton in the Russian newspaper Izvestia during the recent “Valday Club” conference, the reporters emphasized the idea that Ukraine is not important to the US. In an interview with the former US ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, the journalists of the Echo Moskvy radio station pointed out that “we sell the Americans their own fears.”

      Under the current conditions, the risk of a massive conventional Russian invasion of Ukraine is very small. Russia is not yet ready for a total break up with the West, similar to the one the USSR had, which would be very likely if it attacked Ukraine. Therefore, the question of whether Russia is going to attack Ukraine is not helpful for strategic planning. Instead, for a more effective engagement of Russia, the EU and the US should ask: What actions, short of giving up Ukraine’s sovereignty, should be taken to decrease the risk of war?

      Responding to Russia’s Threats

      There are three strategic objectives that the European Union and the United States should pursue and strengthen. They all stem from an effective crisis diplomacy rationale. First, it is necessary to signal a strong resolve to impose high costs on Russia where it is vulnerable. Second, it is necessary to make these signals credible. Third, it has to engage in intensive diplomacy to show that Russia’s demands are not linked to its actual security concerns. 

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      The biggest vulnerability of Russia is the high military costs of an invasion. Providing defense equipment to Ukraine, deploying instructors and even small military units for joint exercises with Ukrainian troops in the vicinity of the line of contact in Donbas and near Crimea — on a rotational basis — would serve as a passive obstruction to potential Russian attacks. These are the most effective deterrence tools, which would greatly strengthen the credibility of the resolve of the EU and the US from Russia’s outlook. 

      Finally, the EU and the US should confront Russia’s manipulation of the “indivisible security” concept, which is a major element of its international propaganda campaign. To counter Russia’s legalistic approach and hidden agenda, they should suggest and discuss alternative proposals, such as the pact of non-aggression or parity of forces in the border areas. The West should not ignore that its response to Russia’s threat of war is likely to affect how other international actors — China, for example — view its resolve in responding to comparable challenges in other regions.

      *[This article was originally published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), which advises the German government and Bundestag on all questions related to foreign and security policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Complicated Puzzle

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      On Friday, December 10, the parliament of the Republic of Srpska, one of the constitutive entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, adopted a Declaration on Constitutional Principles that states that the legislation imposed by the high representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina should be considered unconstitutional since the required procedure was not followed. The parliament also adopted conclusions by which it withdraws the formerly given consent to delegate some of Republic of Srpska’s authority to the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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      The same conclusions also require the government to propose adequate legislation within six months, which would enable normal functioning in view of the transfer of authority and competencies, formerly given to the federal level, back to the Republic of Srpska. The opposition parties criticized this move as a risky one, which can potentially bring more harm than good.

      Postwar Design

      This news provoked outrage in the centers of Western political power as well as in many mainstream Western media. The European Union and the governments of the US, UK, Germany and France have condemned these conclusions, calling for the respect of the Bosnian state institutions and the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the war in the former Yugoslav Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and established the state in its postwar design.

      This may seem a somewhat paradoxical situation given that the Western governments that criticize the leadership of the Republic of Srpska affirm the Dayton Accords, while the leadership in Banja Luka and especially Milorad Dodik — the Serb member of the collective presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, by far the strongest political figure in the Republic of Srpska — likewise express their unreserved support Dayton. Dodik has repeatedly claimed that the only way for Bosnia and Herzegovina to continue to exist as a state is the return to the Dayton Agreement and stick to all its articles.

      The problem, however, is not simply a formal one. It is deeply political. The current crisis was triggered by the former high representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Valentin Inzko, who outlawed the denial of the Srebrenica massacre as well as any questioning of the qualification of this crime as genocide.

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      This was the last straw that broke the camel’s back, as it were, leading the leaders of the Bosnian Serbs immediately to declare that if this legislation — perceived as anti-Serb — is not annulled, they would take steps toward protecting Bosnian Serbs and their entity from illegitimate and oppressive measures coming from the Office of the High Representative. The high representative is best described as the foreign governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina — acting, in reality, as an exponent of the most influential Western governments — with enormous powers and no democratic legitimacy. 

      The Dayton Agreement may have put an end to the war back in 1995, but it created a state which, in one sense, was stillborn. The Bosnian–Herzegovinian Serbs obtained the Republic of Srpska, with which they have primarily identified ever since. Bosnian–Herzegovinian Croats, as the third major ethnic/national community in Bosnia and Herzegovina — although much smaller than the Muslim/Bosniak and Serb ethnic/national groups — ended up without their own entity within the newly established Bosnia and Herzegovina.

      Instead, they were included into the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina as the other constitutive part of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in addition to the Republic of Srpska. This is what is still provoking dissatisfaction among many Bosnian Croats and the reason why many, if not the majority of them, perceive Croatia, not Bosnia and Herzegovina, as their “home” country.

      Small Yugoslavia

      This means that only among Bosnian Muslims/Bosniaks one can find an overwhelming commitment to Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this political dynamic lies the reason why many Bosnian Muslim/Bosniak politicians advocate for a unitary state — and the eventual dissolution of the Republic of Srpska by taking away its key competencies — and for the abandoning of any ethnic/national principles in the election of political representatives under the pretext that this is in accordance with liberal-democratic principles.

      However, this is precisely what is perceived as a threat among many Bosnian Serbs and Croats, since the Muslim/Bosniak ethnic group is the largest one, which means that in practice it would be able to impose its will unto the other two major ethnicities and the institutions that were initially designed to prevent such discrimination.

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      This means that the “small Yugoslavia,” as Bosnia and Herzegovina used to be called because of its diverse religious and ethnic landscape reminiscent of Yugoslavia as a whole, is facing similar problems that former (big) Yugoslavia failed to resolve. The position of Muslims/Bosniaks (and their leadership) in Bosnia and Herzegovina can be seen in parallel to the position of Serbs in Yugoslavia.

      As the Serbs were the biggest ethnic group present in significant numbers in most Yugoslav republics, the overwhelming majority of Serbs were in support of Yugoslavia as a state. This, however, was perceived by many other ethnic communities as potential oppressiveness. The Serbs thus ended up being the only ones trying to save Yugoslavia from dissolution.

      Similarly, Muslims/Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina, being the biggest ethnic/national community, perceive Bosnia and Herzegovina as their country and are trying to centralize and preserve it at all costs, even though this is perceived as oppression by the members of other ethnicities. For many Bosnian Serbs, the survival of Bosnia and Herzegovina is also a question of principle. They often posit the question that if former Yugoslavia could collapse and new states be established from its constitutive parts, why can’t the same happen in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

      Here we come to another major piece of the complicated Bosnian puzzle: the international factor. It was the Western governments — and primarily the US — under whose auspices postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina was created, with its highly inefficient structures and with the Office of the High Representative who, over time, obtained pharaonic powers. Naturally, the governments of the countries that have sponsored this arrangement are unwilling to admit that the whole experiment was a tremendous failure and that their interventions have actively prevented the development of democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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      In addition, Bosnia and Herzegovina, just as the Balkans as a whole, is also the terrain for bigger games and powerplay between the US-led alliance (which, in reality, is much less coherent than it is claimed), Russia and Turkey. Western politicians and the media are trying to explain the situation to the Western audience by blaming the local politicians, especially the Bosnian Serb leadership, as pro-Russian. What they are selling to their citizens is the story that everything will be fine as soon as the old politicians go and new ones, loyal to the West, take over.

      However, blaming everything on corrupt and irresponsible political elites will not resolve the structural problems that are, to a large extent, created by generous Western support. Yes, political elites — and not only in the Balkans — tend to be corrupt, irresponsible and ready to exploit people’s misery and nationalistic sentiments to their own advantage. This is, however, only one dimension to the complex story that tends to be grossly oversimplified in the mainstream Western media. The real problems are deeper, and the policies of influential Western governments are still only adding fuel to the fire.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More