London: The disintegration of empires always makes the earth tremble as it is battered by tumbling geopolitical masonry. Think how long Europe took to regain the civilised standards it lost with the fall of Rome. Consider the Austro-Hungarian and Turkish empires: above all, the British one. Our imperial exhaustion led us to abandon Palestine and Pakistan, those two Ps which no princess’ mattress can suppress: those two possible catalysts for a nuclear war which could destroy mankind.
By comparison, the end of the Russian empire has been surprisingly pacific. No insoluble problems have emerged, and no strategic quarrel with the West. There are diplomatic difficulties, but if we cannot resolve them without threats, posturing and insecurity, we will be guilty of contemptible ineptitude. We must start by considering different versions of history. The Russians believe that they broke Hitler after appalling sufferings and sacrifices, none of which were fully aided by or appreciated in the West. They also believe that they renounced their empire, virtually accepting their defeat in the Cold War — while the West promptly set out to continue that war by extending the frontiers of Nato in order to humiliate Russia.
We needed an aphorism, and a conclusion. The aphorism was Churchill’s: in victory, magnanimity. The conclusion was more complex. Russia was on a new trajectory. Where it would lead, no one knew, least of all the Russians. It might therefore seem sensible to scrap our concepts and retain our weapons systems.
A succession of Western statesmen should have gone to Moscow to praise holy Russia, eternal Russia, heroic Russia: to give thanks for the cultural and spiritual reunion of Europe. The vast moral and artistic resources of the Russian people were once again part of the common heritage of mankind. Let the glory of renewed Russia shine forth as a light unto the nations.
From the outset, Mr Putin was never an attractive human being. But he was a Russian patriot — nothing wrong with that — who wanted things to work: better than the alternative. He knew that the old Soviet system had not worked and had heard talk of free markets and democracy, which gave better results. That is when we ought to have been encouraging him.
We were too slow, and he was always a ditherer, easily alarmed by the threat of chaos. He was also seduced, by power, populism and plunder. The worst aspects of his character have now taken command.
So how should we respond? Cautiously. When the plane was shot down, there was a certain amount of anxious chatter about an Archduke moment. But we are not going to start the Third World War in eastern Ukraine. There is a lot of talk about sanctions. There is even the fantasy that if the oligarchs were hit, so that their wives could no longer shop in Harrods, they would turn on Putin, in the way that the German generals might have turned on Hitler. Forget it; this is no longer the Rhineland. This is more like the Anschluss. Putin is impregnably popular.
That has one positive point. As he has nothing to fear from democracy, he has no reason to suppress it. Russia’s crablike moves towards modernisation and progress could survive Putin. As for sanctions, they have a long history of futility. In Russia, they might succeed in degrading the economy, so that it remained wholly dependent on natural resources.
That is in no one’s interests. Russia has enough natural resources to pay a lot of bills and wages while deteriorating into truculence. The alter-native is an increasingly sophisticated Russia, which could enhance both domestic stability and world gross domestic product. Sanctions encourage backwardness. Russia is already backward enough.
Can we do anything at all? Yes. Consider Bismarck, the greatest of foreign ministers. What would he have done? Called a Congress. Let us say the Congress of Prague, to convene in the early new year. That would give everyone the excuse to calm down and give their rhetoric a cold shower. It might also free attention to the real threat facing the world. The Ukraine is a sideshow. Gaza is worrying.
By arrangement with the Spectator
