Russia and the Sphere of Influence - Back from its Shallow Grave

One of the axioms of the brave new world that emerged as the Berlin Wall fell was supposedly the end of power politics, at least among industrialized nations. No more of the old, tainted notion of spheres of influence. Instead there would be endless opportunities for cooperation. Win-win was the slogan of the 1990s. Well, one place where win-win was a hard sell was in Moscow. Win-lose was a well-established concept in that part of the world, and what need was there for anything to replace it?

So we discover, belatedly, that the Russians do not consider themselves bound by broadly agreed international rules and that they will certainly not abide by Western rules of conduct, whether in diplomacy or in military procedure short of war. Actually, the Kosovo War in 1999 had already demonstrated this, but by most observers it was set aside as exceptional. Now we see it is not. This split over basic rules of conduct is the procedural side of the Western conflict with Russia. It is evident in the lack of progress in the post-Crimean talks between Foreign Ministers Lavrov and Kerry.

Then there is the substantive side. Consider the Russian preference for spheres of influence.

In 1997, anticipating and seeking to preempt a Finnish and Swedish move to join NATO, Russia made an under-the-table proposal to make the Baltic Sea region into a "non-bloc zone", encapsulating even the three Baltic states. The states in the area were to promise they would abstain from joining alliances. A flurry of low-key "preventive" diplomacy followed, led by Finland and Sweden, to put the proposal aside. And fortunately, the world never heard of that non-bloc zone again.

Until now, that is. On March 17, the day after the tainted Crimean referendum, the Russian Federation set forth a proposal for the future of Ukraine, covering both its internal affairs and its foreign relations. On the latter, it was said, “'[Ukraine’s] sovereignty, territorial integrity and neutral military-political status will be guaranteed by Russia, the EU and the US, supported by a UN Security Council resolution'. The document appeared to make clear that Russia’s main 'red line' was future Nato membership for Ukraine..." (Financial Times, March 17, 2014) We see the same underlying fear here, on the part of Russia, as that which triggered their invasion of Georgia in 2008. Any proposed guaranteed neutrality for Ukraine must be up to Ukrainians themselves to consider, not for others to discuss over their heads.

Am I not too hasty in saying the assumptions of post-cold war east west relations are no longer valid?

One way to examine that is to object to this degree of generalization, and point out that the circumstances preceding the Crimea annexation were special. Ukraine had descended into a chaos in the streets of Kiev and other cities, lasting for months, and barely ending when the Ukrainian president Yanukovich fled to Russia. That led the Russian speaking majority population of Crimea to call for a transfer of their region to Russia, to which Russia for historical and other reasons could not but respond positively. Moreover, the historical loss of former Russian-controlled territory here and elsewhere was an accident; the dissolution of the Soviet Union was “... the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century”, according to Mr. Putin, and so we should have understanding for their loss and support the return of what is rightfully theirs. By some accounts, not just old Soviet but also old Russian imperial territory. Such as Ukraine, of course, but also Moldova, Georgia, Finland and the Baltic states.

Not everyone is ready to believe that Putin's ambitions are this great. On the other hand, nor is everybody ready to accept the argument about the worthiness of Russian imperial restoration.

The other answer on East-West relations is that Russia will take, by stealth or by force, what they want and cannot get by diplomacy. This fits a recognizable pattern. Pristina Airport in 1999 was a perfect example of the Russian mode of operation. They did it for their friends, the Serbs, of course. They were crystal clear about who their friends were; others were treated like enemies, even in a negotiated partnership operation under UN auspices. The Georgian invasion in 2008 was another example.

NATO must now resume its prior, more vigilant attitude and its better prepared military posture towards Russia. Good that NATO has just selected as its new Secretary General Mr. Jens Stoltenberg, the former Prime Minister of Norway, this country being the only original NATO member with a direct border to Russia and a healthy sceptical attitude to that eastern neighbour ever since 1991. A revised military posture does not mean itching for a shooting war, but being better prepared in posturing and holding. There is a lot of chess in this, and the Russians love that game.

The Russian behavior pattern is to a considerable extent opportunistic. They are robbers by opportunity. If you have something you want to keep, you have to hold it securely, and with strength.

Given what we now know, I question the wisdom of the Ottowa Convention on land mines. Passive means of defense, adequately protected, are workable. Finland and the Baltic states would be in a much better position with land mines on their border with Russia.

Some would put all their trust in the Americans. Look how President Obama is being hounded for his pusillanimous stance over Ukraine. I doubt there was anything much he could have done, short of going to war. Posturing without readiness to fight is only dangerous. I'm afraid US backup of NATO allies via the article V guarantee is less firm than often believed. Let us not get to the point of testing it.

Finally, of course, there is the EU's dependency on Russian natural gas. The EU was warned so many times. (Check out the writings of Vladimir Socor.) But, apparently, they thought, how convenient to have it all from one source. My lament is merely, why are we Europeans endowed with such geopolitical brilliance at the Parliamentary level?

Am I alarmist on Russia? Of course. Just as I've been a couple of times before. In 1980 over Afghanistan. In 1992 over Soviet fragmentation. My Norwegian colleagues shook their heads. Some will again.

EU Immigration Policy: Look Who's Coming to Dinner

Asylum seekers are crowding Europe's borders in escalating and unprecedented numbers. Conflict in Syria and turbulence in  North Africa are the main immediate driving forces, but as we shall see, there are broader forces at work. Vast numbers of people require help. Can Europe provide for them all? Are those arriving also those most in need of help? What should Europeans sacrifice to accommodate the arrivals? Sweden's pensioners have now seen one of their two hot meals per day taken away from them as part of the effort to handle the cost of the influx of immigrants. A banal example, perhaps, but also a stark illustration. 

World poverty is supposedly declining. I find it hard to believe, given the increasing waves of atrocious events that take place in the world around us every day. Though I am not a religious person, I see endless self-gratification - in high places and low, endless greed, and endless grasping for power. So what's new? Check Gregoire de Tours or the decline of the Roman Republic. The most obvious news is that I am getting old, and the world is changing very fast.

The world changes in myriad ways, of course, but the changes need to be recognized above all in their grand - global - patterns. The adage used to be “think globally, act locally” - and maybe it still is. But my first point is that the message from the local level these days is getting garbled – locally. Global thinking is messed up by cultural barriers, increasingly impenetrable. Local action can only have global effects if it can be repeated all around the globe. Now we have to recognize that the “globally thinking” Egyptians who started the Egyptian revolution were only a small minority. The rest of their compatriots are not looking for global values, but for their own parochial ones to be installed. The same is true of the “creationists” of the United States, to take another example, showing how widespread the regression of basic knowledge actually is by now.

Moreover, the West is slowly realizing that its values, enshrined in great declarations of the United Nations (in particular, Human Rights, the Rights of Children, the Rights of Women), are not only being ignored, but actively opposed. Local action has a better foundation if locally anchored. Parochialism wins out. And the parochial is all over the news.

Current affairs used to be about understanding the general through the particular, the news. Of course, we can still make sense of our own local world and what is happening there. But the larger condition the human race is in can less than before be grasped by our paying attention to events of the day, or what happens in particular places. If we want to gain some deeper level of understanding we must therefore try to grasp things on a grander scale, the way we do when we link the ravages of the weather to climate change (with the disaster of the Philippines, November 2013 fresh in our minds as the most compelling current example). Curiously, we are quick to see the connection when it comes to nature, but less so when it has to do with people.

This is my second point. Runaway self-gratification – acts which have become legion and to most of us utterly abhorrent (mass rapes, violent mass demonstrations with killings, religious massacres), needs to be recognized as linked to broader underlying causes: rapid population growth, poverty, illiteracy, information flooding stripped of context. Some of these violent events are said to be justified as a form of retribution for acts of oppression, but the determined vanguard action of masked individuals in many of them shows how easy it is for vandals with a different agenda to take over and redirect a protest. Organized crime infiltrates and profits from these events wherever possible.

Since the 1980s, there has not been much talk about world population growth as a problem. Nevertheless, it is predominantly the effects of this overarching problem we are living with today. It may be too close to us to recognize, but the chief underlying causes that I can see of our present chaotic world is the combined population growth and economic stagnation in parts of the developing world.* Notable also, as a motivating force, is the wide dissemination of electronic images globally, beyond any context understandable to the majority of people exposed to them. Images are captivating and disturbing beyond anything that texts alone can do. Here I believe globalization is a curse as much as it is a blessing.

No wonder a better life in the West – conveyed in electronic images - is seen as THE dream for them to realize. No wonder kind individuals in the West want to help them share that better life; it is "their right". No wonder thousands and thousands of migrants are knocking on Europe's doors, thousands more every year. Unrealistic politicians from all over the EU push well-intentioned immigration policies that are bound to crash against hard realities, just as overloaded migrants' boats founder at the northern shores of the Mediterranean. The available resources are way short.

The profiteering of “helpers” along the way keeps the migrants business at a healthy rate of growth. Organizers of rickety truck transports across the Sahara get richer by the day. Middlemen on the southern Mediterranean shores, peddling rides in boats that should long since have been condemned, see their little fortunes grow. At the end of the line, in Sweden, smart private “consultants” are on hand to help the new arrivals find their way in the jungle of welfare benefits and rules. And believe it or not: the consultants' fees are paid by the generous Swedish government (source: Swedish TV, November 15, 2013).

The migrant clients of this long line of scavengers are not the poorest; they are people who have been able to save up or otherwise mobilize the sizable funds needed to make that long transit to the promised EU-land. Their poorer sisters and brothers have no chance of making the trip.

And the EU and its member states keep pushing their policy of increased immigration. Critics, like myself, are accused of racism and xenophobia.

The solution to the developing world's woes is not to bring all their inhabitants into the Western world. It is certainly not to help their middle class before helping the poorest. The solution is not either to continue the flow of development aid that in Africa has kept corrupt regimes in power – or competing violently for power – since the 1960s.

The solution must be something akin to what Robert Cooper hinted at about a decade ago (http://www.demos.co.uk/files/postmodernstate.pdf?1240939425) when he described the world as divided between a pre-modern, a modern and a postmodern part. The pre-modern world is a collection of failed states. To save them, and us all, one approach he could see was a “new imperialism”, whereby the postmodern Western world conquers the world of warlords and misery. However, he regarded it as unlikely to come about, since bringing order where there is chaos is not very profitable these days.


Robert Cooper is by many regarded as too controversial to touch. Check his analysis. I find it even more convincing today than when I first saw it, since the trends I have described are much more compelling now, and the dangers to the EU of staying on course with immigration without integration are steadily increasing.


Improvement of life in the countries of the migrants' origin is the only way those who need help the most can receive it, and the scavenging industry can be brought to a halt. Those efforts can only be successful if they are handled and fully controlled by the EU member states who bear the cost. The recipient states are unlikely to accept this unless their payoff is considerable (more corruption?). The EU and its member states are unlikely to be so venturesome. We need a recognized EU “immigration crisis” on a much greater scale than the current moderate unpleasantness before even a debate of the requirements for change can get started.

I have little illusion that we shall ever get there.

*Text changed from previous reference to "population explosion", see comments below.