[Russian leaders are doing their best to reclaim their positions of authority in their former satellites, without offering anything in return. Attempts to establish some sort of “Warsaw Pact II,” without the actual tanks to back-up the power play, will fail. There is little to no loyalty to socialism in the former socialist empire, so ideological appeals will not work. Why should free governments look to Moscow’s cheap imitations of “democracy” and capitalism when they can find the genuine articles in the West? It seems pretty clear that Russia will have to make an example of someone, in order to reintroduce its military might into the equation in such a way that all of the former slave states fall in line with Putin’s dictates. In this chess match between Neo-Soviet expectations and their own economic reality, Putin and Medvedev will have to keep the military operation as small as possible. A replay of the Georgian conflict will probably seem like the easiest choice, but other alternatives are possible because of American/Russian agreements on Afghanistan, which have made possible the large-scale movement of Soviet troops near Afghanistan. It looks like a coin toss between Kyrgyzstan, which is now seeing a Russian build-up in the south, and Tajikistan, which has reportedly accepted Russian help hunting for the recently escaped militants.]
SOS-camp
Ukraine is experiencing an actual coup d’etat, and Belarus – the aggravation of relations with Russia. In Russia itself, the Sunday performance anti-BelarusianPresident (?) Medvedev paid much less attention than the fate of Yuri Luzhkov. But Western Europe is not up to the East. There’s now their anxiety. But it is the Europeans still backfire. And here’s why. Tandemokraticheskaya Russia had a fight with everyone, including Lukashenko. The Russian ruling elite had high hopes for Yanukovych, but what seems she did not know. Ideally, she sees the relationship with Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, the other closest neighbors, if not such as the first part of the USSR, at least those that were in the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries. Focused on Western values and norms of politics, headed the neighboring countries for tandemocracy unacceptable. Whether business Lukashenko, who built the ideology of his regime on the basis of special Belarusian identity – not European, as the opposition, and the Russophile. Yanukovych has no ideology at all. He and his party patsanskie representation of the state and the complete lack of understanding of national development and public interest. But it is full of Lukashenko received it failed, and the same will be from Yanukovych. And the reason is very simple. Socio-political structure of the Warsaw Pact tank was socialism. The only source of reserves and the guarantor of the communist regimes in these countries was the Soviet Union and its military presence. Even a clever rascal Ceausescu, all strove to show independence, could not resist, when it became clear that Moscow does not intend to interfere in the affairs of the satellite countries. The Kremlin did not understand that politicians in the former Soviet republics, even if they are focused on Moscow and enjoyed her support, relations with Russia are not as critical as the relationship with its own population. The source of their power inside the country, as it was in 1945 at the Marshal Tito and the 1949-th of Chairman Mao. But one soon fell out with Stalin, and the other for a long time the Soviet Union led by the nose and enjoyed his attention. Just as the problems of the former Warsaw Pact countries and posttitovskoy Yugoslavia solve, Europeans and Americans without much active participation of Russia and the inevitable consequence of the authoritarian regimes in Ukraine and Belarus will be requests for assistance addressed to Western Europe and the United States, and not to Russia . Because only Russia can not guarantee the national sovereignty. And ask for help can be present rulers, who were not going and do not intend to share power with Moscow. To offer Russia in exchange for nothing.
Moscow is Alienating More than Minsk, Russian Analysts Say |
 Paul Goble
Staunton, October 5 – The war of words between Dmitry Medvedev and Alyaksandr Lukashenka is more than just the product of tensions between Moscow and Minsk, Russian analysts say. Instead, it is part of a broader and growing alienation between the Russian Federation and the former Soviet republics, one that has its roots in clashing visions of the future. But both because of the West’s hostility to Lukashenka and his regime, one usually labeled “the last dictatorship in Europe,” and because of the West’s desire to curry favor with Moscow in pursuit of one or another goal, this general trend, widely noted by commentators in the region, has been largely ignored, let alone exploited, by Europe or the United States. The clearest expression of this argument can be found in a commentary on Grani.ru yesterday. In it, Dmitry Shusharin, a regular writer for that portal, points out that the exchange of angry words between Medvedev and Lukashenka is part Moscow’s current propensity to be angry with all leaders of the post-Soviet states (grani.ru/blogs/free/entries/182276.html). Russia’s “tandemocracy,” he says,m had placed “great hopes” on new Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, but exactly what these would in fact look like is something that Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, along with the rest of the Russian powers that be, clearly “did not themselves know” at least in any specific detail. “In an ideal outcome,” the Russian leaders “see relations with Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia and the other nearby neighbors if not as they were before in the USSR then as like those which the Soviet Union had with the countries of the Warsaw Pact,” a vision that they and others should have understood was not going to be realized. For Medvedev and Putin, the orientation of the leaders of these states “toward Western values and norms of politics” is completely “unacceptable,” Shusharin says. That is why they placed such hopes on Lukashenka, whose ideology is a Russophile form of Belarusian identity, and on Yanukovich who “does not have any ideology” at all. But now the Moscow leaders have been rejected by the first, and soon, they are likely to be rejected by the second as well, the commentator continues, an outcome Medvedev and Putin would have anticipated if they had remembered the real basis of the Warsaw Pact rather than the idealized version of it in which they apparently believe. That military organization, led by Moscow, “was tank socialism” — that is, Shusharin continues, “the single source, reserve and guarantee of the communist regimes in these countries was the Soviet Union and its military presence.” When that disappeared so too did the Warsaw Pact. But even before the events of the late 1980s, Shusharin points out, those leaders who had alternative sources of power like Yugoslavia’s Tito and China’s Mao Zedong could act independently. The only difference was that the first broke with Moscow early on while the second “for a long time led the Soviet Union by the nose and used its assistance.” Those experiences, Shusharin suggests, should serve as a lesson to Moscow but Russian leaders have not assimilated them. Moscow doesn’t understand that “for the politicians in the former Soviet republics — even if they are oriented toward Moscow and make use of its support — relations with Russia are not as critical as relations with their own populations,” “the source of their power within [their] countries.” Just as Western Europe and the United States dealt with the problems of the former Warsaw Pact countries and post-Tito Yugoslavia “without the particularly active participation of Russia, Shusharin says, so now “the authoritarian regimes in Ukraine and Belarus” will eventually ask for help from “Western Europe and the US, not Russia.” The reason that is so, he argues, is that Russia “does not guarantee [their] national sovereignty.” Instead, its leaders act as if the former Soviet republics are not full-fledged independent countries but rather something less than that, places where Russia must enjoy greater deference and influence than any of them want to offer. The current leaders of these countries “do not intend to divide power with Moscow,” and they are very much aware that is what the Russian powers that be want. Consequently, sooner than many may expect, they will turn to Western countries, something that “again will be something completely unexpected” for the latter. |
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