Putin and the Rise of Russia | Michael Stuermer

The difficulty is that the nations of Europe all seem too feeble to insist. Instead, they scramble to sign up for oil and gas supplies and allow companies like Gazprom and Rosneft to exert undue influence among the markets and politicians of the West. Germany is one of the greatest culprits. It has allowed Russia’s Baltic pipeline to the West to bypass Poland and the Baltic States and permitted its former Chancellor to take the Russian rouble. Meanwhile, the rest of us have colluded with Germany in relegating the Nabucco pipeline, which would not touch Russian territory, to the back burner. How ill it behoves us to complain about energy blackmail by the Russians. It only encourages them to behave badly and to redouble their efforts in post-Soviet adventurism. In the medium term, they will pay the price by remaining a secret-policeman state, instead of building a free and prosperous society and honouring the great traditions of a leading European culture.

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Herbert Thornton

January 12th, 2009 8:02pm

Much of the Islamic world, led and brainwashed by mad and evil clerics, is becoming an aggressive force that harbours such mindless hatred of the west and of Israel in particular, that the current Islamic Jihad is hastening ever faster towards turning into a jihad that will actually use nuclear weapons.

In this situation, the U.S. State Department's strange efforts (accurately described by Bill Corr’s well justified criticism of them) to give as much offence as possible to Russian sensibilities, and the fact that so much of the British Media seem to be of like mind to the State Department, is very worrying indeed.

If ever the U.S. and Britain had a natural ally to help defend civilisation from nuclear attack by Islamic fanatics, that natural ally is Russia. So, for that matter, are China and India.

It is to be hoped that we will see President Obama – if not the BBC and other British media – abandon this irrational attitude towards Russia, and instead make every effort to enter alliances with it and with the other Great Powers – not just for their common benefit, but for their common preservation.

Bill Corr

January 8th, 2009 2:10pm

Mea Culpa!

Camp Bondsteel is an immense American military base in Kosova, not a case.

Look for Camp Bondsteel on the internet and be surprised.

The Americans have negotiated the use of air bases in Bulgaria, too. Probably as a sort of insurance in case a future Greek - or Turkish - government cuts up rough and proves less than willing to jump obediently when Uncle Sam orders.

January 8th, 2009 12:46pm

Robert Salisbury's review of Michael Stuermer's book surprisingly omits a few glaring facts and the very obvious conclusions to be drawn from those facts:

For somewhat more than the last decade-and-a-half the ablest brains of the U.S. State Department have applied themselves to the task of humiliating and infuriating the Russians in every way open to them.

Why were the former Warsaw Pact nations and the three Baltic States welcomed into NATO with such indecent haste? Why did the Americans insist on establishing foothold bases in the Central Asian republics and - of course - humiliating the Christian Serbs to the advantage of the duplicitous Albanians? [And why, for that matter, is there an immense U.S. case in Kosova, Camp Bondsteel? It's almost unheard-of even by well-informed Westerners but it's there all right. Check it out on the 'net!]

American-funded NGOs prompted and financed "pro-Western" and "pro-democratic" upheavals in Ukraine and Georgia. Disappointingly for the adept and cunning dollar-funded string-pullers, they were thwarted in Belarus.

If I were a Russki, whether Left, Right, Centre or anything else, I'd have been driven hopping mad by a fraction of these deliberate provocations. No wonder Russian warships are in the Caribbean again!