Some thoughts on Russia
Source:Editor's Blog
Some thoughts on Russia
I spent some of the darkest cold war years in the Foreign Service in Eastern Europe, so remember well the brinkmanship that followed the construction of the Berlin wall. We felt in those days that nuclear war could be detonated by any small incident. Now the alarmingly enigmatic Mr Putin is rattling his sabres again in response to the Americans’ intention to site missile ‘defences’ in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Here we go again. Don’t you despair of politicians? The US as always is flat footed; Russia dangerously volatile. Why am I not as worried as I was in the 1960s? In brief the answer is international trade. Since the end of the frightful Warsaw Pact entrepreneurship has been released in Russia and its former subject states, and east-west partnerships and joint ventures have exerted a constant liberalising influence. Russia’s political leaders may see its oil and gas as a weapon for economic domination, but to its business leaders these resources are something they can bargain with to boost economic growth.
It might be naïve to hope that the Kremlin and the White House might ever be marginalised by idealistic, motivated and energetic entrepreneurs and global capital marketers. It’s a lot less naïve than the hope that governments, western or eastern, will create security in Europe.
|