UK’s Miliband Seeking Anti-Russian Coalition

Britain’s foreign secretary, David Miliband, is making the rounds trying to put together an anti-Russia coalition to deal with the mess in Georgia. Speaking in Kiev, he said, “The Russian president says he is not afraid of a new cold war. We don’t want one. He has a big responsibility not to start one. We need to raise the costs to Russia for disregarding its responsibility. We need to re-examine the nature, depth and breadth of relations” between the West and Russia. Actually, he’s got the right problem and the wrong solution.

A more muscular and aggressive Russia is in no one’s interests except for the siloviki, that is, the security apparatchiks led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. In order for Russia to be a more benign entity, it must feel itself both secure and respected. In the last 15 years, it has not felt secure, and it surely hasn’t been respected. The encirclement of Russia by NATO, as the Russians see it, is a grave threat.

Rather than going to Kiev to pursue an anti-Russian coalition, Mr. Miliband should have gone to Moscow to talk to Russia’s leaders face-to-face. American Secretary of State neoCondoleezza Rice made the same mistake in going to Tbilisi as the Georgian crisis worsened. She should have been at the Kremlin. They needn’t go there to say nice things, but they need to have it out with the Russian leadership directly – not via the BBC and CNN.

Many of the ways Mr. Miliband wants to “raise the costs” are self-defeating and foolish. Keeping Russia out of the World Trade Organization means nothing to a country that is sitting on $600 billion of foreign currency reserves and countless barrels of crude oil. Kicking Russia out of the G-8 is pointless largely because the G-8 is a pointless talking shop. Moreover, all of these approaches suggest that the West wants Russia, to borrow a phrase from the ever vulgar Lyndon Johnson, outside the tent pissing in, when in fact, it would be better to have Russia inside pissing out.

Expanding NATO further eastward would make sense only if Russia were considered a potential member. Treated correctly, Russia could be a valuable counterweight to Arab and Persian oil states. Nor can the West forget that Russia still possesses 10,000 nuclear warheads that need securing. Talk of anti-Russian coalitions only serves to make the Kremlin jumpier and to justify its authoritarian approach to domestic and international problems. This journal is under no illusion that the current Russian leadership have more in common with Tony Soprano than with Pericles of Athens, but too much is at stake not to try moving the Russians onto the side of the West. It might not work, but is a new Cold War a desirable outcome? In the next cabinet reshuffle, Prime Minister Gordon Brown might want to find Mr. Miliband a different job – say Minister of Sport, something he can handle.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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