Where's my Stolichnaya?

Oh no! Russia, that bad old, Cold War-honed, newly-resurgent superpower, willing to bully its immediate and distant neighbours with its control of vital energy supplies and natural resources, is on the move again! Just look at what they did to Georgia this past August, and what they have just done to Ukraine! Watch out, because the Russians, growling and mean bears wearing human faces and swilling vodka straight from the bottle, will pounce on us and rip our heads off...

Yeah, yeah, yeah -- whatever. Christian Caryl is a journalist that I much admire, ever since I came across his reportage in the wake of the October 2002 Moscow theatre crisis, and the ensuing catastrophe that followed in its aftermath. He has written another fine piece, in the form of a book review, dispelling the tale that Russia and the "West" are on the verge of a "new Cold War."

I get embarrassed when I watch some American TV programs, which always fall into the trap of portraying not only Russians, but most Central/East Europeans as corrupt, degenerate and bumbling idiots that can easily be tricked or seduced by alcohol or wads of well-used cash...American dollars, no less.

It is very true that in the West, another term I am sometimes wary of using but nothing else comes to mind, there is a lingering Cold War mentality regarding the bestial nature of the "East," and the last American administration was particularly keen on nurturing it. Bush's would-be successor, John McCain, upheld all this, as with his comments about Vladimir Putin's eyes and the three letters of "K-G-B" appearing.

Heck, when I told people I was moving to Montenegro, many eyed me with fear, as if I was going to live with machine gun bullets ricocheting off my roof, or that I would become a gangster. Long story short, those popular stereotypes are alive and well, mainly coming from people that would probably be hard pressed to know specifics about Russia -- let alone point out Montenegro on a map.

Caryl does concede, however, that Russia's internal problems -- demographic, identity-related mostly -- is a real threat, and not in the least for the Russians themselves. He argues, as does the subject of his review, that Russia's post-Soviet, post-Yeltsin sense of grievance trickles into the way it conducts its politics: "It is precisely Russia's intense, revisionist nationalism, born out of the perceived humiliations of the Yeltsin period, that represents a threat not only to its own neighbors but also to Russia itself."

So many of the seemingly-old issues confronting Russia in the 1990s, like organized crime, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, crumbling Soviet-era military and nuclear facilities, and the vulnerability of Russia's reliance mainly on its natural resources that fluctuate according to world market values, are still at issue. But that we are poised for a new confrontation with Russia? That's stretching things way too far. The real threat comes from ourselves, but also, he seems to imply, from Russia's own self-neglect, especially regarding problems that remain unchanged. Unfortunately, only the Russians can fix these.

Caryl calls for a united NATO bloc, certainly, in being firm and consistent in its relations with Russia. He also calls for greater accountability and security, particularly with energy companies based in the West, which are all too often just front companies used to launder money that originated from sketchy and corrupt sources.

But he also points out that consistency and even-handedness on the part of international groupings, like NATO, the Group of Eight, and the Parliamentary Assembly of Europe, is essential. It might also be prudent to be a little more careful and strategic where the matter of NATO membership to places like Ukraine and Georgia are concerned.

Now that the European Union relies, give or take, on Russian energy supplies (30%, by last count, of the EU's stuff comes from Russia), and that there really is no clearly-defined East-West paradigm shaping the way countries on both sides of the Atlantic conduct their foreign policies, it becomes all the harder to fix our households.

As a starter, though, perhaps the respect Russia so clearly wants and demands might not be a far-off request to grant? Besides, Russia's political elite do not lack intelligence, and know that they stand, in the long run, to be on the dirty end of the stick if they allow themselves to become international pariahs, with investors and prestige turning a blind eye to them. After all, in this world of capitalism, the free market, and the power of international finance, it is pin-stripe-suited CEOs and Chairpersons that have more power than tanks, missiles and nuclear arsenals.

The Cold War really has departed forever.

Facts speak for themselves

I sincerely hope that there are flaws in this poll's methodology. If not, then they say much for the political forms of deliberate self-harm that appear to have become more endemic in Serbia, particularly where the recent past is concerned. "Two-thirds of Serbs would not turn in fugitive genocide suspect Ratko Mladic, whose arrest is necessary for Serbia's further progress towards the European Union, according to a poll released on Friday [23 January]..."

"Belgrade-based Strategic Marketing said only 14 percent of people answered 'yes' when asked whether they would provide information leading to the capture of the wartime Bosnian Serb commander, whose arrest comes with a multi-million reward. Sixty-five percent responded 'no.'"

The report later quotes an official working for this particular marketing company, who explains that, "In a choice between a hero and a villain, it is hard to expect from people a straight 'yes' when asked whether they would turn him in...The authorities still have not managed to explain to the people the gravity of the crimes he was charged with."

Contrast that to this recent development in my current home country of Montenegro: in May-June 1992, Montenegrin police arrested and deported a large number of Bosniaks living in the country, and had them deported back to Bosnia-Herzegovina. These deportees disappeared shortly thereafter, and only a small number of bodies have been found since then. Others, apparently, were killed on Montenegrin soil: an ignoble legacy that parallels the role of Montenegrin auxiliaries in the shelling of the Croatian city of Dubrovnik, also in 1992.

But now, contra Serbia above, the Montenegrin authorities have admitted and confronted this dark legacy, at least partly. "Following a government session on December 25, 2008, Miras Radovic, [Montenegrin] Minister of Justice, announced that court settlements had been agreed for 42 cases concerning people deported in May 1992 worth 4.13 million euros."

The aforementioned compensation agreements should rightly serve as a role model for Montenegro's neighbours, which have yet to even begin confronting the recent past, and the dark id of shared responsibility for heinous crimes that they all hold. But, it appears, some are more interested in myths and legend rather than in solid realities that tell a very different story.

Post-New Year's hangovers, post-Soviet style

Political hangovers are constants, and in the post-coloured revolution spheres of the former Soviet Union, one can argue that they are especially searing and dizzying. With yet another gas crisis currently underway, and with EU-Russia relations at an all-time low following the summer's events in Georgia, this reality has now trickled into the question of eventual NATO and EU membership for these states.

Not that the question of membership has ever been dead-certain, of course. The fact that these countries are located in such proximity to Russia, and by their special post-Soviet legacies that could take many, many decades to resolve and/or reconcile, serious observers have been loathe to say something like this could happen anytime soon.

Ukraine, or so this report identifies, is a special disappointment, not only because of its close proximity -- and sometimes epicentre position -- to the current gas row now underway, but because the two titans of the Orange Revolution, Yushchenko and Tymoshenko (one called the "gas princess" by some of her critics), spend more time fighting amongst themselves rather than battling the ubiquity of red tape and corruption that remains a constant in Ukraine.

I have also read elsewhere that the EU is on the verge of launching a lawsuit against Russia and Ukraine over the halting of gas deliveries; it is the second time in the span of days that reassurances have been met with contrary conduct. Here in Montenegro, my current home, the effects are negligible, but just north-east of me, in Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and beyond, there is a cold snap underway, and people are actually questioning their ability to heat their homes and businesses in light of the shortages that could well ensue soon.

Not the ideal way to usher in the New Year, that's for sure; but, given the track records set in the events of recent years, perhaps it should have been expected. I hope that a future post of mine will not start to argue that all the optimism and hope of Georgia and Ukraine's coloured revolutions was in vain. Boze moj.