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Sunday 12 October 2008

The Cold War is back

The new arms race is deadly because Russia is so fragile

Fraser Nelson says that Putin’s bellicose strategy — spending his oil millions on a deadly new arsenal — is more dangerous than the actions of his Cold War predecessors because Russia is so vulnerable to economic and social collapse

Whatever his intentions, it is now clear that democracy and liberalism have long been dumped from Russia’s priorities. Security, order and centralisation of power are Putin’s key objectives, and the oil revenues have brought wealth which earlier attempts at economic diversification and general entry to Western free markets did not. The old KGB ways are returning — a recent study of the 1,016 most senior officials showed a quarter were ex-KGB. Among Mr Putin’s inner circle, this figure rises to three quarters. These are Soviet-era men, with Soviet-era approach to the toleration of dissent.

The murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the ex-Russian spy poisoned in London last November, is just the most spectacular example of what goes on all the time in a Russia where broadcasters are now controlled by the Kremlin or Mr Putin’s allies. A number of independent, critical journalist critics have been found dead in suspicious circumstances. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former head of Yukos Oil, remains in jail after a show trial. The West protests strongly, but Mr Putin makes it equally clear he could not care less. He has a legacy to think of, too.

Slowly, the West is beginning to realise what is happening. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor and current President of the European Union, has been strikingly robust in criticising Mr Putin — a stance which won her many fans among the new EU members. Yet Tony Blair was deeply reluctant to accept that things were so bad. He invested much personal time with Mr Putin and visited Moscow during the last presidential election to lend his support.

This is an area where the Conservative party is well ahead of the government. Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, has for months been raising the alarm about Russia and delivered a speech on the subject in Washington on Tuesday. The Tories already regard their defence policy as being intrinsically linked to energy policy, a view which Mr Blair came around to very belatedly in his final months in No. 10. Gordon Brown’s views on Russia, in common with much of his foreign policy, remain a mystery.

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