…I’d rather

compose

romances for you -

more profit in it

and more charm.

–V.V Mayakovsky

I am sick of this whole Georgia thing.

I’ve had enough of politics, international relations, diplomatic intrigue!

I hate how news has to be about events.

Who cares about events?

When was the last time an event even happened to you or anyone you know?

I don’t know about you, but nothing ever happens to me. Does that make me a dull boy? I mean, aren’t all events, with a capital E, imaginary, anyway?

So from now on, I’m just going to put up links to interesting events stories and and as long a description/summation as I can stomach before vomiting over the keyboard.

For example:

1. Starting this week, The Economist is debating the West’s response to renewed Russian assertiveness for two-weeks as part of an ongoing, Oxford-style Online Debate Series. The proposition is, “This house believes the West must be bolder in its response to a newly assertive Russia.”

It involves Dmitry Trenin and Marshall Goldman, a professor I greatly respect for his honest and indignant account of privatisation in his book The Piratisation of Russia. The debate promises to be lively and intriguing!

As of now, 53% to 47% disagree that the west should be bolder! Go fellow travellers!!

2. In today’s Moscow Times, Harvard’s Joseph Nye pens a clear-headed analysis contrasting Chinese soft power during the Olympics with Russia’s hard power in Georgia.

Without jumping to conclusions or offering reflexive condemnation of Russia’s fisticuffs, Nye observes that the most effective foreign policy strategy artfully weaves soft and hard power.

3. A lot has been written about Russia’s stock market plunge. Especially flimsy, not to mention disingenuous, were the shyster-economist Anders Aslund’s attempts to link the recent economic troubles to the war in Georgia.

There are myriad reasons not to respect Aslund; this article adds yet another drop to his overflowing chalice of intellectual dishonesty and increasing irrelevance.

Here is the sensational way his article begins:

Aug. 8 stands out as a fateful day for Russia. It marks Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s greatest strategic blunder. In one blow, he wiped out half a trillion dollars of stock market value, stalled all domestic reforms and isolated Russia from the outside world.

Anders is himself clearly aware of the improbability that a Russian person could ever accomplish that much in a single day before succombing to drink, fatigue or the oppresive weight of the human predicament, because he never re-visits this bizarre claim.

When he finally gets down to a bullet point list of reasons for Russia’s economic ills, the Georgia war doesn’t get a single mention; its inclusion in the lead paragraph was purely for cheap titillation.

Incidentally, the points themselves were mostly sensible and apolitical, and reveal a half-decent, if supply-side, economist groaning from underneath all that reactionary, Russophobic trash-talk.

In a measured and grown up article about the credit crisis, the FT’s Charles Clover and Catherine Belton note Medvedev’s unprecedented injection of $10 bn into the banking system:

“The market hasn’t reacted to Medvedev’s comments. However, [it] should,” said Roland Nash, head of research at Renaissance Capital, the investment bank.

He said the president’s comments may signal fresh investor-friendly policies, but were chiefly a “charm offensive”. He added: “This is the first time in history that the Kremlin has reached out to the investor community. It is fairly unprecedented.”

4. Some have been making hysterical noises about Russia’s military exercises with Venezuela. Instead, might I suggest listening to the Pentagon itself:

“We exercise all around the globe and have joint exercises with countries all over the world. So do many other nations,” said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.

STOP!!! I CAN’T HOLD IT ANYMORE… BAAAAARF!

I’ll leave you with a nice short story:

An Encounter

by Daniil Kharms

On one occasion a man went off to work and on the way he met another man who, having bought a loaf of Polish bread, was going his way home.

And that’s just about all there is to it.

 

Dans le monde réellement renversé, le vrai est un moment du faux

(In a world which really is topsy-turvy, the true is a moment of the false)

-Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle

Every so often comes an event so bizarre that it provides a lucid glimpse into the dark inner workings of everyday life, usually obscured by their very banality.

In art, the Russian formalist Shklovsky pronounced such a technique ostranenie, or ‘making strange’; Brecht called it Verfremdungseffekt - the ‘distancing effect’.

Of course, in modern Russia’s looking glass world, truth is stranger than literary theory.

Thus it was that on August 29 , in front of a live audience on Russian state TV, a trashy talk show called The Phenomenon (Fenomen) laid bare the device.

The premise of the programme was simple enough. Alexander, a TV magician badly impersonating Hercule Poirot, accompanied by fugitive spoon-bending fraudster Geller, uses audience interaction to ‘compose’ a murder mystery, on live TV, that he had already written and placed in a safe.

He picks three members of the audience, each of whom contributes a word as he attempts to ‘psychically manipulate’ their replies so that they match his narrative. Each of the said words is written down on a blackboard by another audience member.

The magician calls on a young woman and asks her for her favourite kitchen utensil; she says, ‘knife’.

(Man on stage writes K-N-I-F-E on blackboard)

He then asks a football hooligan-looking man which place he’d most like to travel to; man replies, “Munich”.

(M-U-N-I-C-H)

Finally, he prompts a third member of the audience to name a celebrity who was not in the room. After some initial hesitation, the man cries, “Putin!”

What followed could have been an exquisite corpse composition written by Dario Fo, Brecht and Daniil Kharms:

The man on the stage hesitates. Nervous laughter buzzes through the hall. “Alexander, should I write it?” asks the man, shaking his quavering marker over the board.

“Write it: Pu-tin” replies the presenter.

P-U-T-I-N is obediently inscribed, thus completing the cryptic trilogy of

KNIFE

MUNICH

PUTIN

on the blackboard.

Immediately, the hitherto unseen presenter of the show, clearly agitated, jumps on stage to announce:

“Right, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to replace that name. I’ve been informed that it needs to be changed. Try again”. And exits.

From off stage, he continues:

“It’s just not appropriate”

The magician begins to mumble something to the effect of, “I think that” when he is interrupted by the voice of the presenter : “I think that the management…”. Before he could finish, magician interjects: “I was thinking only of the first name! [to man at blackboard]: Why don’t you write just the first name. Erase it, please”.

Blackboard man: Give me something to erase it with!

He looks around the board, in bewilderment, for an eraser.

He can’t find one.

Magician: Just write below the name that’s there.

B-M: Of that same person?

M: Yes.

Disembodied voice of presenter: Let’s…uh, could you please erase the surname. Everyone here is getting nervous. Let’s just erase it and start again.

He comes back on stage, even more briskly.

B-M: there’s nothing to erase it with!

Presenter: Can we get the assistants to help erase this, please?

A girl enters, attempts to vigorously rub out the word “PUTIN”.

Presenter: [to audience] “You see, live broadcasts are never without unexpected moments!”

Girl can’t get the name to go away.

Presenter: Just add it underneath, then! [storms off].

Magician: Can we write the first name?

Presenter [off stage]: Yes, of course, of course. Write just the name, not the surname.

[B-M is seen scrawling V-L-A-D-I-M-I-R underneath “Putin”.

Presenter: Excellent.

Magician: Now I can ask the audience to sit down. Knife, Munich…Vladimir. A strange set, but I think nothing extraordinary.

After this, audience correctly guesses the time of the ‘crime’ (6:30) to finish the narrative. Magician opens safe with manuscript to reveal that his original plot does indeed involve a stabbing committed by a Vladimir in Munich at 6:30. Uri Geller compliments Magician.

Fin.

I first read about this incident in an article by Oleg Kozyrev in Grani.ru, an independent newspaper.

In his Swiftian piece, Kozyrev focuses on the absurdist image of a girl frantically and ultimately unsuccessfully rubbing out Putin’s name in front of a national audience.

Viewers “were expecting light entertainment”, he writes. “Instead, the prime minister’s name had to be rubbed out in front of millions of their countrymen, who were doubtless thinking: what happened in Munich, anyway?

“And why are they rubbing Putin?

“That was the day I began to respect Uri Geller. Say what you will, but the whole country saw these people bend over. Just because of one name. From the mention of just one name, they bent like no aluminium spoon ever could.

“I don’t believe that the state of the country has anything to do with it. It was just a Phenomenon”.

Of course, we know exactly what happened in Munich, exactly 73 years and 11 months before the show aired.

Moreover, despite the apparent consternation of Magician, Presenter and audience, Russia’s current media climate makes the spontaneity of what transpired on stage inconceivable.

There is no way that the show would have remained on the air for even a second longer had the management really been nervous about its proceedings. No one at home would have batted an eyelid; after all, Russian TV brims with technical difficulties.

Which leads inevitably to ask: why did it occur?

Who had written the script, and who was its real intended audience?

Why did state television consider it necessary to show the words “Knife”, “Munich” and “Putin, Vladimir” together on a blackboard for minutes of airtime, the memory of which would be reinforced further by the manufactured commotion/controversy?

The possibilities are tantalising.

1. We have a strong visual of a young girl trying unsuccessfully to erase Vladimir Putin’s name.

Was this a message to the young Medvedev? ie. “if you’re getting any ideas, drop them right now! You couldn’t rub me out, even if you tried”.

2. We have a TV presenter publicly censoring his own show, saying that Putin’s name is inappropriate and that ‘management’ are ‘getting nervous’, without any attempt to hide it.

Was this a staged show of force to the media, and the public, that the state emphatically reserves the right to control what is shown on TV?

Was it an FYI to journalists that Putin’s name is now officially out of bounds?

3. We have an undeniable reference to Hitler’s night of the long knives, the ruthless and surprise purge, on June 30th 1934, of the SA storm troopers led by Ernst Rohm.

Was it yet another signal to the West that Russia is prepared to attack Poland and the Czech Republic over the US missile defence shield?

Was it a threat to Nashi, the crypto-paramilitary youth organisation headed by Vasili Yakemenko? (That seems unlikely, as Nashi are already looking like a spent force, and Yakemenko harbours little ambition).

Was it another ’subtle’ piece of advice for Medvedev, whose personal proximity to Putin strongly parallels that of Rohm to Hitler, to remember his place?

Was it, like the Night of the Long Knives, an announcement of the return of extra-judicial killings at the highest level?

A premonition of a ruthless cabinet purge, or even Putin’s return to the presidency?

Only Uri Geller knows for certain.

In his hysterical editorial in today’s Guardian, Edward Lucas calls Russia “deeply corrupt and lawless”.

Unfortunately, exactly the opposite is true: Russia is so saturated with laws and its legal system so harsh that “more than one in 10 of the country’s citizens have been convicted of crimes over the past 15 years“, reports the Moscow Times, quoting a retired Supreme Court judge.

Maybe it’s true what all those cold warriors said about never trusting a Russian: after all, there’s a 10% chance that he’s a felon!

Moreover, contrary to the view that Russia is heading in “the wrong direction” and moving away from the West, the country is actually on track to match America, at least in terms of police efficiency:

In the US, more than 30% of the population are estimated to have a criminal record.

Forget great power rivalry and Eastern European geopolitics: the new cold war competition is unfolding in exactly this sphere.

While the US continues to “incarcerate more people than any other nation, far ahead of more populous China with 1.5 million people behind bars…and [remains] the leader in inmates per capita (750 per 100,000 people)”, Russia is not far behind and rapidly closing the gap (628 per 100,000).

We will bury you yet!

Whatever one thinks of his foppish red socks or penchant for Prime Ministerial underwear, famous Iraq whistleblower Sir Christopher Meyer is a sound chap when it comes to foreign policy.

So when the UK’s former ambassador to the US writes that “a return to 1815 is the way forward for Europe: the Congress of Vienna divided the continent into spheres of influence[and] similar rules are needed for the 21st century”, we should listen.

His provocative essay, published in the Times, argues that globalisation and the end of the cold war have actually strengthened nationalism around the world:

It is useless to say that nationalism and ethnic tribalism have no place in the international relations of the 21st century. If anything the spread of Western-style democracy has amplified their appeal and resonance.

He issues a stinging rebuke to the now fashionable conception of the national interest, and spheres of interest, as anachronistic. Speaking of Russia and Iran, Meyer states:

You don’t have to like or approve of these regimes. But not to understand their histories is not to understand the mainspring of their external policies - in Russia’s case its determination to rebuild its greatness, dismantled, as millions of Russians see it, by Mikhail Gorbachev and his Georgian Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, aided and abetted by the West.

I would bet a sackful of roubles that Russian foreign policy would not be one jot different if it were a fully functioning democracy of the kind that we appear keen to spread around the globe.

This last passage is so important because it pierces the misguided notion of ideological primacy in international relations so peddled by the Bush and Blair administrations. Whether a regime is democratic or not ultimately bears little relation to its definition of geopolitical self-interest.

Sir Chris calls on “Russia and the West…to draw up rules of the road for the 21st century” similar ot the Congress of Vienna in 1815.

Something similar is needed today, based again on spheres of influence. Nato must renounce the provocative folly of being open to Georgian or, worse, Ukrainian membership. This strikes at the heart of the Russian national interest and offers no enhanced security to either Tbilisi or Kiev. As for Russia, it must be made unambiguously clear where any revanchist lunge westwards would provoke a military response by Nato.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

In a refreshing turn of events, Vladimir Putin has reportedly saved the lives of several journalists during a trip to a Siberian conservation area for the endangered Amur tiger (in accordance with the Lomonosov-Lavoisier Law of Conservation of Media, an opposition website owner in secessionist Ingushetia was ordered killed shortly afterwards).

When a tiger escaped from a trap and ran in the direction of the press pack, Putin is said to have shot it with a tranquiliser gun. Then, in a clear signal to Nato and Georgia, the Prime Minister stripped down to his camouflage underwear and proceeded to tear out and eat its still beating heart.




Well, not exactly; but he might as well have done, judging by the British headlines:

“Putin shoots a tiger as Europe grapples with Russian aggression” screams the Guardian, and then asks: “Was it an openly hostile signal of power play to the west? Or just another incarnation of Putin’s oft-demonstrated masculinity?”

“Vladimir Putin ’shoots’ tiger, dismisses EU leaders”, declares the Times, adding that “the Russian Prime Minister – shown in new macho-style pictures apparently tranquilising a tiger – said that any attempts at severing relations would be hampered by the self-interest of European nations”.

In fact, histrionics aside, this has been a big week for Russian diplomacy: President Medvedev spelt out the 5 principles of his new foreign policy vision. The following is the BBC’s Paul Reynolds’s fine summary; his article is also worth reading for its good commentary.

1. International law

“Russia recognises the primacy of the basic principles of international law, which define relations between civilised nations. It is in the framework of these principles, of this concept of international law, that we will develop our relations with other states.”

2. Multi-polar world

“The world should be multi-polar. Unipolarity is unacceptable, domination is impermissible. We cannot accept a world order in which all decisions are taken by one country, even such a serious and authoritative country as the United States of America. This kind of world is unstable and fraught with conflict.”

3. No isolation

“Russia does not want confrontation with any country; Russia has no intention of isolating itself. We will develop, as far as possible, friendly relations both with Europe and with the United State of America, as well as with other countries of the world.”

4. Protect citizens

“Our unquestionable priority is to protect the life and dignity of our citizens, wherever they are. We will also proceed from this in pursuing our foreign policy. We will also protect the interest of our business community abroad. And it should be clear to everyone that if someone makes aggressive forays, he will get a response.”

5. Spheres of influence

“Russia, just like other countries in the world, has regions where it has its privileged interests. In these regions, there are countries with which we have traditionally had friendly cordial relations, historically special relations. We will work very attentively in these regions and develop these friendly relations with these states, with our close neighbours.”

Asked if these “priority regions” were those that bordered on Russia he replied: “Certainly the regions bordering [on Russia], but not only them.”

And he stated: “As regards the future, it depends not just on us. It also depends on our friends, our partners in the international community. They have a choice.”

Of course, these postulates are nothing new. The principles of Multipolarity and the idea of Russia’s Monroe Doctrine in the so-called Near Abroad (the former Soviet republics) were first advanced about a decade ago by Yevgueny Primakov. At the time, around the allied bombing of Yugoslavia, Russia made a lot of bluster regarding Nato encroachment, but couldn’t deliver. The difference is that now Russia appears for the first time able to put its tanks where its mouth is.

After his heady nights of rough and tumble in the Caucusus, Putin has left Medvedev holding the baby.

That is the argument of at least one Russian commentator, writing in the popular mainstream web newspaper Gazeta ru.

Vladimir Milov believes that Putin has avoided any public spotlight since his high profile control over the war in its first days; getting praise for the successfully fighting off the Georgians but leaving Medvedev the harrowing task of cleaning up the ensuing mess.

“Putin, realising that his ‘blitzkrieg’ in Georgia had failed, decided to detach himself from the operation and retreat into the shadows. When the West understood that deposing Saakashvili may be Russia’s ultimate goal, it created a 24 hour human shield around Tbilisi consisting of high profile officials. This made any ‘march on Tbilisi’ unrealistic. As there was no longer any reason to continue the war, Putin tasked Medvedev with sorting out the highly unpleasant political fall-out from the crisis and facing up to the international community.

If that is indeed what happened, then the relationship between Medvedev and Putin must have suffered an inevitable crack: a dual-presidency is only possible in a time of calm. During a crisis, all bets are off.

Putin’s desire to take control of the situation without accepting any of the responsibility could turn him into a serious enemy in Medvedev’s eyes. It is possible that the relationship between the two men could change much sooner than they had both anticipated.

It’s hard not to take this rather chilling prognosis seriously. After all, Putin’s own accession followed very similar lines. But if Medvedev is in fact out to bury his mentor, could we expect the same sort of radical policy U-turn that Putin engineered after he took over from Yeltsin?

It’s unlikely. Contrary to the common yet simplistic and misleading interpretation, there is not really any clear palace struggle between the siloviki (Putin’s strong men and KGB veterans) and the liberals (the Westernisers and pro-marketers, like Medvedev).

In a probing article from several months ago, Mark Ames wisely reminds us that Putin is as much a liberal as Medvedev, or Nemtsov for that matter:

Just as Georgia’s leader Mikhail Saakashvili is a liberal, even though he sent his shock troops wilding on opposition protestors, exiled his political opponents and shut down the opposition media. All of this talk of “liberals” on the ascendant or on the decline in the Putin Era is nonsense. Liberals are the Putin Era. And so are the siloviki, who still constitute the same 70-percent of the Russian elite today as they did last week, before their supposed decline. The reason they’re in power isn’t because of some deep ideological desire to create a neo-Fascist state, but rather, because that’s who Putin grew up with, and Putin rules a country steeped in clan culture.

If this sounds too much like a scene out of Boris Godunov, it’s worth remembering that such situations are not unique to Russia at all, or even to ‘authoritarian states’. Who can seriously argue that there was any real ideological difference between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, or between David Miliband and Brown today?




(What really infuriated the Russian in me most about those English leadership squabbles was how often the word ‘coup’ was thrown about. As in, oooh! X is plotting a coup against Y! These effete, decadent morons not only manage to have coups over nothing, but ones in which no one dies, and no government buildings are bombed! Call that a coup? Now THIS is a coup!)

So, to get a sense of Russia’s current squalid, bloodless succession crisis devoid of any Orientalist gloss, think of the difference between Putin’s silovikism and Medvedev’s liberalism as that between Brown’s Old Labour and Miliband’s New Labour. And who says Russia isn’t becoming more like the West?

C’est la politique qui prime!

Russia’s recognition of Ossetia and Abkhazia baffled me. On this blog, I have frequently tried to show alternative, Russian perspectives on matters that seem otherwise to be common sense, above debate, to Western audiences. But I just cannot see any benefits this move will bring. On the contrary, by uniting the traditionally friendly OSCE, pragmatic EU and hostile NATO in opposition, it threatens to increase Russia’s international isolation, and heighten the very encirclement that Putin had so anxiously tried to roll back with his Caucasian gambit.

In an interview with Russia Today, Medvedev raised the stakes further still:

“We are not afraid of anything, including the possibility of a new cold war. But of course, we don’t desire it”.

Not one other country has recognised the breakaway republics.

Indeed, while “it would be an exaggeration to say that Russia finds itself in international isolation, writes the Russian political scientist Fyodor Lukyanov, “Russia has clearly found itself in a vacuum. No one has supported Moscow’s actions, although for various reasons”.

In his illuminating and clear-headed essay for Radio Liberty, Lukyanov goes on to state that:

“Russia has demonstrated that it is able and willing to use force outside its borders in order to defend its national interests. This leaves neighboring countries faced with the question of how to ensure their own security…And Russia has to answer an equally important question: What are the criteria for determining those genuinely essential national interests in the name of which it is justified to use military force?

Very important questions, which should have been answered BEFORE any shots were fired. Yet perhaps Lukyanov’s most important observation is that Russia and the US appear to have “incompatible strategic horizons”.

Russia is a global power with regional ambitions. That is, it is ready to exchange its opportunities in distant regions like Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East in exchange for its interests in the regions that border it — Europe and Eurasia. That is, Moscow has a clear hierarchy of its priorities.

The United States is a superpower with global ambitions. A global leader does not have secondary interests. It isn’t possible to sacrifice anything or make trades because if something starts to totter in one place, it could trigger a domino effect. Therefore, everyone else must be pushed back as much as possible. As a result, no constructive dialogue is possible.

Whether or not one endorses the rather bleak conclusion, it is undeniable that a new relationship must be negotiated between Russia and the US-led West.

All my friends have been asking me: why does Russia just not seem to care what other countries think of it? Surely there could have been more conciliatory, diplomatic things that Medvedev could have said etc? The truth is, I’m not sure how useful that would have been. George HW Bush famously said that the USA does not apologise to anyone. It is very doubtful that ‘politeness’ achieves anything in relations with other countries, whose ties are based on shared interests, not good vibrations. But it could cost you domestically. Just think of how Obama’s foreign trip was interpreted by the right wing press as ‘pandering to France’ and ‘apologising for America’. Leaders have every incentive to sound tough, and the tougher, the better. Does anyone really believe that if Medvedev had been more balanced and understanding that Bush and NATO would have changed their Caucasus policy in his favour?

In fact, that is precisely what Gorbachev did in the late 1980s, and the near-universal perception in Russia is that the West royally took advantage of that to beat Russia while it was down. Gorbachev made a very big deal of sharing Western values, of transcending the old politics of division, of believing in universal human rights and individual free choice. And the West loved him back. But did all that Gorbymania stop America and West Germany from wresting concession after concession from the spluttering USSR? Nothing personal, just business!

So now it’s no more Mr Nice Guy, goes the thinking, because Russia’s learnt the hard way exactly where they finish.

The latest edition of Private Eye, the finest satirical/investigative journal in the English language, is all about Russia & Georgia, with an Olympic flavour:

Let’s have a look, shall we?

And the party-political angle:

Western retaliation against Russia for its actions in Georgia will do it more good than harm, according to the academic and actvist Boris Kagarlitsky.

As Russian troops finally begin to withdraw from Georgia, the US and Nato are pondering the best punishment for its earlier invasion.

The respected International Crisis group suggested that “the West should deliver a firm message to Russia that if it does not respect the ceasefire deal and cooperate in implementing the international peacekeeping mission, it will be met with a serious response, including suspension of its Moscow’s World Trade Organisation application”.

Even Barack Obama is now calling to review the Russian WTO application.

But Kagarlitsky astutely notes that:

what Washington thinks is punishment for Moscow may in fact turn out to be a blessing. For example, the United States believes that blocking Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization is one way to retaliate. But for Russia’s domestic industries — particularly when there is a global economic downturn — entry into WTO would be a death sentence. Therefore, if this sentence will be postponed, the Kremlin can only thank the United States and Georgia.

As if that wasn’t enough, the other sanctions considered would reduce corruption, improve civil society, and even protect the environment!

Washington and London are threatening to investigate the bank accounts of senior Russian officials that are held abroad. It’s surprising that this wasn’t done earlier. Russians can only benefit if the United States leads a new fight against money laundering, particularly when it involves top officials from the Russian government. Moreover, NATO is threatening to suspend joint military exercises with Russia. That means Russia will save a nice amount of money and fuel. Finally, in light of the increased tension, liberal opposition groups in Moscow will receive more active help from the West. This is also beneficial because new financing will mean the creation of new media outlets, new nongovernmental organizations and new jobs.