This Blog has been consistently critical ( and in my book 2010 A Blueprint For Change) of the post cold war approach of the West to Russia, especially the UK and US. Essentially the new world order created by the collapse of the Soviet Union called for a fresh approach to foreign policy, based not upon confrontation and challenge, but on consensus and cooperation. This required a big intellectual leap in the State Department and in its European sub office, better known as the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Unfortunately the idea of adversarial diplomacy with goodies, who did only good, and baddies who did only bad, was too ingrained in the psyche. Rivalry as between football supporters was all that was understood in the programme. Thus the great opportunity was lost.
What should have happened was that Russia and its satellites should have become members of both the EU and NATO, bringing security and economic opportunity all round. Instead Russia was treated with such disdain that it fell hardly short of shunning, and both the EU and NATO, having said they would do no such thing, advanced their boundaries steadily eastwards, growing ever closer to Mother Russia. They claimed to be friends, and at a certain level they were, but because she felt rejected, Russia could never bring herself to trust these new friends unconditionally, nor to feel on equal terms.
Moving forward to the present day, Russia has regained her self confidence and is embarked upon economic regeneration project that remains in the very early stages of realizing its full potential. This new self confidence stems in part to the catastrophic failures of western foreign policy in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria and in part to the problems with the Euro and the rumblings among the populations of the western end of the EU about the bureaucratic and intrusive nature of EU governance. Britain is the most disaffected but the contagion appears to be spreading to France. Bombshells are forecast for both countries in the EU elections later this month.
Into this unstable firmament suddenly Ukraine, about which few Europeans ever thought and a surprising number of Americans had never heard, splashes down. Because Russia is once again cast by the West as little better than an enemy, the situation, instead of being calmed with simple common sense, is inflamed by wild rhetoric and accusations, based not on the facts but on which side is making them. Thus the Ukraine sinks ever lower to the point where mayhem and destruction take over.
It is not too late to stop this, but it very nearly is. The West should pause and think and remind itself that without Russia’s support of it, Napoleon, the Kaiser and Hitler would all have won their wars.
Hitlers First Lady: Did Churchill encourage Hitler to attack Stalin to ease the threat to Britain? This book will give you the answer