We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately
Europe and Russia are in a codependent relationship. West European powers in Brussels are playing the role of a codependent spouse, denying injuries to the children and believing that somehow they can manipulate things toward a positive outcome while ignoring outright attacks on Members of the EU family. Russia plays the role of the abusive partner in this very real drama.
Imagine if Russian interests (whether government or mafia based) shut down the computer systems of the UK or U.S. government, and all the banks and financial firms in London or New York, cutting them off from the financial world. Imagine further that the cyber attacks were extended to the emergency services, aiming to cripple the police and ambulance services. At the same time, imagine that Russia blockaded a major pipeline supplying oil to Germany, and imposed a boycott on agricultural exports from France. And imagine if the car of a Swedish Ambassador was attacked by supporters of President Putin. Indeed, all this is happening to EU and NATO Members at the moment. Only the names have been changed. Except the Swedish ambassador. That really did happen. The other victims are new Members of the European Union. They are Poles, Estonians, and Lithuanians. The EU is being tested on the foreign policy front. It is being tested and it is failing miserably. This proves the case for a stronger European executive (president, foreign minister, etc) for, to quote Benjamin Franklin “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Maybe the Eurocrats in Brussels also need a refresher in history. Quite simply, Russia wants to neuter the East Europeans again. Germany has -- one hopes unwittingly -- again been a party to this process, with its complicity in Russia’s effort to isolate them politically and economically. Witness evolving German energy policy in the region. As West Europeans seem to have a short historical memory, I will provide a quick historical recap here.
To understand Russia’s diplomatic trouble with Central and Eastern Europe, one has to look at it through the lens of history -- the history of Russia's past imperial adventures in the Baltics. The closest parallel I can think of is Japan’s continued problems with China, Taiwan, Korea, and much of Southeast Asia. Japan was a brutal imperial power, slaughtering hundreds of thousand of civilians as it aimed to subjugate populations and build an East Asian empire. Yet it still has not faced up to its role as an aggressor. It teaches in schools that it was a victim in World War II, it still denies well-documented war crimes, and suffers from repeated gaffes by political leaders with a penchant to cause riots in Seoul and Beijing. Similarly, Russia’s view of its own 20th Century history is at odds with the memories of many countries that Russia stepped on during the 20th Century as it chased imperial ambitions. Russia was both victim and aggressor in World War II. Yet it only remembers half of this experience. Judging by Japan’s experience, Russia’s problems with the European Union may run for decades unless its view of its own history is revised. Russia is acting like post-Imperial Japan, quick to remember its role as victim but with no sense of guilt about its own aggression.
The European preliminaries that led to World War II included the Soviet Russian absorption of the Baltic States, with the complicity of Nazi Germany. Indeed Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia started as allies. On the basis of a non-aggression pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), they divided up Central and Eastern Europe into spheres of influence, and the East Europeans emerged from the hellish consequences of this German-Russian gamesmanship only in the 1990s. This mirrored an earlier absorption of Poland by the Austro-Hungarian, German, and Russian Empires in the 18th Century. In the 20th Century repeat of this carving up of Central Europe, both Germany and Russia were brutal imperial masters. After the war, Germany took responsibility for its actions, and has served admirably at the center of the European Experiment (the EC/EU) since. Russia, on the other hand, still resents losing territory it had seized when it worked in concert with Nazi Germany to divide Europe. After the war Soviet Russia was allowed to keep the parts of Poland it occupied in 1939, annexing them to the Soviet Union. (They are now part of Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania). Indeed Stalin moved all borders West at the end of the war. This historical episode colors the conflicting views on current Russian claims that they should be viewed as liberators by Estonia. The Estonians (and the Baltics in general) remember that independence was first lost when the Soviet Russians made a deal with the Nazis and then invaded. Similarly, Poland remembers that it was the Russians who massacred tens of thousands of Poles in the Katyn forest. (Gorbachev finally admitted to the massacre only in 1989.) The Russian Army also halted its advance on Warsaw to allow the Wehrmacht time to finish killing off the Polish Home Army (55,000 Polish defenders died during the delay) so that they could install a Communist government – waiting 66 days for before they moved back into Warsaw – an occupation that really only ended in the 1990s. The Poles also remember that they were left behind the Iron Curtain when the war ended.
So what should Europe do? In theory, the EU represents a deliberate, collective break from a past colored by centuries of European civil war. To be an effective brake on repeated history, it needs to stand together to fight collective tendencies to repeat history. This means the EU15 (and Germany in particular) need to overcome their collective penchant to engage in appeasement, selling out Central and Eastern Europeans to outside bullies. The cyber attack is state sanctioned (if not sponsored) terrorism. If these were UK banks that were being targeted, or French or German trade sanctions, Brussels would be up in arms. If all EU citizens have equal rights, a higher profile protection of its Eastern Members is called for. Russia needs help fighting its own historical deamons. The EU is acting as an enabler. Turning off electronic bank transfers across the Russian border might catch Russia’s attention. Withdrawing all European Union ambassadors, collectively, for consultation, also seems appropriate. Holding joint summits seems inappropriate to me. It is like giving your abusive spouse more money for his next round of binge drinking. If this continues, eventually it will be German and British Banks, Austrian and Italian energy, and demands of a more military and territorial nature.
Further reading
(1) NATO experts investigate 'well-organised' cyber attacks on Estonia.
(2) the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
(3) Tough love vs. Enabling of an Abusive Family Member
(4) Moscow had a hand in Estonia riots, cyber-attacks: experts
(5) Druzhba: The not-so-friendly Russian oil pipeline
(6) Estonia calls for EU help on Russia embassy siege
(7) EU protests over Russian attacks on ambassadors
(8) ‘E-stonia’ Accuses Russia of Computer Attacks
(9) Russian response in meat row "insufficient", EU says.
(10)Enabling and Codependency.
Imagine if Russian interests (whether government or mafia based) shut down the computer systems of the UK or U.S. government, and all the banks and financial firms in London or New York, cutting them off from the financial world. Imagine further that the cyber attacks were extended to the emergency services, aiming to cripple the police and ambulance services. At the same time, imagine that Russia blockaded a major pipeline supplying oil to Germany, and imposed a boycott on agricultural exports from France. And imagine if the car of a Swedish Ambassador was attacked by supporters of President Putin. Indeed, all this is happening to EU and NATO Members at the moment. Only the names have been changed. Except the Swedish ambassador. That really did happen. The other victims are new Members of the European Union. They are Poles, Estonians, and Lithuanians. The EU is being tested on the foreign policy front. It is being tested and it is failing miserably. This proves the case for a stronger European executive (president, foreign minister, etc) for, to quote Benjamin Franklin “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Maybe the Eurocrats in Brussels also need a refresher in history. Quite simply, Russia wants to neuter the East Europeans again. Germany has -- one hopes unwittingly -- again been a party to this process, with its complicity in Russia’s effort to isolate them politically and economically. Witness evolving German energy policy in the region. As West Europeans seem to have a short historical memory, I will provide a quick historical recap here.
To understand Russia’s diplomatic trouble with Central and Eastern Europe, one has to look at it through the lens of history -- the history of Russia's past imperial adventures in the Baltics. The closest parallel I can think of is Japan’s continued problems with China, Taiwan, Korea, and much of Southeast Asia. Japan was a brutal imperial power, slaughtering hundreds of thousand of civilians as it aimed to subjugate populations and build an East Asian empire. Yet it still has not faced up to its role as an aggressor. It teaches in schools that it was a victim in World War II, it still denies well-documented war crimes, and suffers from repeated gaffes by political leaders with a penchant to cause riots in Seoul and Beijing. Similarly, Russia’s view of its own 20th Century history is at odds with the memories of many countries that Russia stepped on during the 20th Century as it chased imperial ambitions. Russia was both victim and aggressor in World War II. Yet it only remembers half of this experience. Judging by Japan’s experience, Russia’s problems with the European Union may run for decades unless its view of its own history is revised. Russia is acting like post-Imperial Japan, quick to remember its role as victim but with no sense of guilt about its own aggression.
The European preliminaries that led to World War II included the Soviet Russian absorption of the Baltic States, with the complicity of Nazi Germany. Indeed Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia started as allies. On the basis of a non-aggression pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), they divided up Central and Eastern Europe into spheres of influence, and the East Europeans emerged from the hellish consequences of this German-Russian gamesmanship only in the 1990s. This mirrored an earlier absorption of Poland by the Austro-Hungarian, German, and Russian Empires in the 18th Century. In the 20th Century repeat of this carving up of Central Europe, both Germany and Russia were brutal imperial masters. After the war, Germany took responsibility for its actions, and has served admirably at the center of the European Experiment (the EC/EU) since. Russia, on the other hand, still resents losing territory it had seized when it worked in concert with Nazi Germany to divide Europe. After the war Soviet Russia was allowed to keep the parts of Poland it occupied in 1939, annexing them to the Soviet Union. (They are now part of Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania). Indeed Stalin moved all borders West at the end of the war. This historical episode colors the conflicting views on current Russian claims that they should be viewed as liberators by Estonia. The Estonians (and the Baltics in general) remember that independence was first lost when the Soviet Russians made a deal with the Nazis and then invaded. Similarly, Poland remembers that it was the Russians who massacred tens of thousands of Poles in the Katyn forest. (Gorbachev finally admitted to the massacre only in 1989.) The Russian Army also halted its advance on Warsaw to allow the Wehrmacht time to finish killing off the Polish Home Army (55,000 Polish defenders died during the delay) so that they could install a Communist government – waiting 66 days for before they moved back into Warsaw – an occupation that really only ended in the 1990s. The Poles also remember that they were left behind the Iron Curtain when the war ended.
So what should Europe do? In theory, the EU represents a deliberate, collective break from a past colored by centuries of European civil war. To be an effective brake on repeated history, it needs to stand together to fight collective tendencies to repeat history. This means the EU15 (and Germany in particular) need to overcome their collective penchant to engage in appeasement, selling out Central and Eastern Europeans to outside bullies. The cyber attack is state sanctioned (if not sponsored) terrorism. If these were UK banks that were being targeted, or French or German trade sanctions, Brussels would be up in arms. If all EU citizens have equal rights, a higher profile protection of its Eastern Members is called for. Russia needs help fighting its own historical deamons. The EU is acting as an enabler. Turning off electronic bank transfers across the Russian border might catch Russia’s attention. Withdrawing all European Union ambassadors, collectively, for consultation, also seems appropriate. Holding joint summits seems inappropriate to me. It is like giving your abusive spouse more money for his next round of binge drinking. If this continues, eventually it will be German and British Banks, Austrian and Italian energy, and demands of a more military and territorial nature.
Further reading
(1) NATO experts investigate 'well-organised' cyber attacks on Estonia.
(2) the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
(3) Tough love vs. Enabling of an Abusive Family Member
(4) Moscow had a hand in Estonia riots, cyber-attacks: experts
(5) Druzhba: The not-so-friendly Russian oil pipeline
(6) Estonia calls for EU help on Russia embassy siege
(7) EU protests over Russian attacks on ambassadors
(8) ‘E-stonia’ Accuses Russia of Computer Attacks
(9) Russian response in meat row "insufficient", EU says.
(10)Enabling and Codependency.
Labels: Baltics, cyber attack, Estonia, European constitution, European Union, NATO, Russia
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