There have been some encouraging shifts in both US and UK foreign policy under both Obama and the Coalition, which have generally improved the international standing of both countries since the Bush/Blair era. However this trend for improvement has been reversed over the Syria issue. Here the fault lies not so much in the hostility to Assad or the backing of the insurgents, although a less partisan approach would be better. The biggest problem is the natural instinct of both the State Department and the Foreign Office to be antagonistic to Russia and China.
Both in my book (2010 A Blueprint For Change) and on this Blog, I have continuously argued for a more engaged policy with these two great world powers, which recognises that the foundation of the relationship should be common interests rather than individual differences. Neither power played any role in the decisions to launch the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. What both see as a consequence of those Anglo American led initiatives is a military quagmire, a foreign policy shambles and broken countries rent by never ending violence. Today’s news is a further eighty plus killed in Iraqi bombings.
Russia and China muttered and abstained over Libya, which looks a better project, though it could still unravel. When it came to Syria they dug in and said no. They did so with good reason. Syria may have been governed by a despotic minority of long standing, but it was relatively prosperous and stable. Even the Israelis could cope with Assad. Better the devil you know and all that. If the uprising had produced a clear leader or leaders, with a defined programme or aim, whose identity could be established beyond all doubt and whose strategic goals could be supported without anxiety, it could be argued that the Russia/Chinese position was that of the spoiler.
But none of that is so. It is far from clear who all the people in the insurgency are, what they stand for, whether they could agree on anything when and if Assad goes. Nobody knows whether they could deliver a benign Syria rebuild to the family of nations, or whether the outcome will be the endless violence of a broken state on the style of Iraq, which also looks on the cards for Afghanistan. The Russians and Chinese, of which Russia is the driver, say peace by reconciliation from within is better and more likely to work than regime change driven by arms and influence from without. There is nothing daft or obdurate about that; it may be wrong, or yet it may even be a better way.
There can be no good outcome without Russia and China participating. For this reason the public hectoring by Hague and Clinton of their position over Syria is neither appropriate nor constructive. It prolongs the violence and the suffering. It is immature and incompetent, because sooner or later a deal will have to be struck and most fools know that you cannot expect to persuade people of the wisdom of your argument if you first throw mud in their faces. This blog agrees with this view, expressed a good deal more elegantly by Zbigniew Brzezinski. Formerly President Jimmy Carter’s national Security Adviser, he remains a formidable world authority on strategic thinking.
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Slovakia criticizes Nord Stream and accuses that this project has a political background (especially in Russia). For the Slovak government, building such a gas pipeline means that the risk of energy blackmail increases, because after building such a pipeline Russia would gain the ability to treat Slovakia and other mid-eastern European countries in a different way to Germany, the Netherlands and the rest of the EU.
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