Oleb hea ja kopeerib siis artikli kommentaaridesse ka või varustab maksumüürivaba lingiga… Teenib alla keskmise. Mina tänan.
Those in charge of our policy towards Russia over the past 30 years should bear some responsibility for its disastrous outcomes: tens of thousands of people dead and maimed, millions of shattered lives, and the prospect of a global famine this autumn. Conversely the east Europeans who for three decades have been dismissed as hysterical doom-mongers are wholly vindicated, though as Kaja Kallas, Estonia’s prime minister, notes, it is impolite to say “I told you so”.
I met Kallas last weekend in Tallinn at a regional security conference fizzing with outrage at Russia’s invasion. On my return I headed to Oxford where Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, Nato’s secretary-general from 1999 to 2003, was giving a lecture at St Antony’s College on the future of European security.
The contrast was stark, and not only because Kallas is 44 and Robertson 76. Estonians ardently want Ukraine to win: donations amount to a third of their entire defence budget, the highest figure in Nato. They also want the alliance to make serious plans to defend its eastern front rather than relying on the current tripwire forces. These are existential questions. Ukrainians can retreat across a vast country; Estonians have their backs to the sea. Seen from outside, the slice of Ukraine occupied by Russia may look like a smudge on the map, but it is much larger than Estonia’s entire territory. The looting, destruction, deportation, torture, rape and murder being experienced by Ukrainians awaken painful, vivid recollections: this is what happened in living memory under the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states and eastern Poland. Kallas’s mother was deported to Siberia aged only six months.
Estonians, like their Latvian and Lithuanian neighbours, are not afraid: they are used to living in Russia’s shadow. But they do worry about the squishiness of some western leaders.
The event in Oxford exemplified the divide. Robertson forthrightly condemned Russia for attacking Ukraine. But he counselled against overreaction. Defending Ukraine should not mean attacking Russia: it will still be there after the war ends and we should start thinking now about how we will deal with it. He quoted Basil Liddell Hart, the strategy savant of interwar Britain: “Inflict the least possible permanent injury, for the enemy of today is the customer of the morrow and the ally of the future.”
Robertson’s particular point was the need to offer a way ahead for young, professional Russians, the colleagues he remembered fondly during his post-Nato stint working for an oil company, then part-owned by well-connected tycoons and partly by Britain’s BP. This new generation must “rescue the country before it is too late”, he averred. They needed an “idea, a narrative that articulates where a civilised and constructive Russia will fit in to the future global setup”, a notion that he encapsulated as “Make Russia Great Again”.
Trumpian flourishes aside, Robertson’s experience is not to be sniffed at. As Nato’s top official he had nine meetings with his Russian counterpart and is under no illusions about him. “The man in the Kremlin has a remarkably thin skin and we should avoid provoking him into even more reckless violence against the Ukrainians. I have seen him in meetings, in what were good times, display an emotional side which surfaced from the cool, controlled approach he took to most matters,” Robertson said. “Today, closeted away from the virus and from the real world, that emotionalism has been boiled up with a partial view of history and a messianic obsession with Russian greatness. It has produced a dangerous mindset.”
But seen from Estonia, pandering to Putin is more dangerous than provoking him. Also missing from Robertson’s optimistic, forward-looking approach is any contrition, or even a recognition that Nato leaders and their counterparts in national governments might have got something wrong. Estonians reckon Russia’s descent into aggression abroad and repression at home cannot be blamed only on Putin’s personal neuroses. It stems from deep-seated Russian attitudes to history and geography that are all too often overlooked in the West.
The Robertson analysis is also overly centred on Russia (in fact: on Moscow). Norman Davies, Britain’s foremost historian of eastern Europe, was in the audience at St Antony’s. He noted sharply that Russia’s past “greatness” invariably came at the expense of other countries, notably Ukraine. Why would any future manifestation of greatness be different? Post-Soviet Russia dumped the Communist one-party system and the planned economy. It did not dump its imperial mindset. Putin’s reign has entrenched that failure. Uprooting it will require an enormous shift, probably even greater than Germany’s post-war efforts to overcome its Nazi past.
More realistic is to assume that post-war Russia, whether defeated or victorious, will be extremely difficult to deal with. Young people (and indeed most Russians) are unlikely to be yearning to build bridges with the West. Our best bet will be to try to contain the problem, not to indulge in wishful thinking.
The insights and expertise of allies such as Estonia should be central to that. They know their giant eastern neighbour far better than we do. They were right when we were wrong. Nato will be looking for a new secretary-general next year. It has never had a female leader, nor one from eastern Europe. I think Kallas would be an admirable successor to Lord Robertson.
Tbh Jürgen Ligi oleks ka hea valik aga seda prolly ei juhtuks
[removed]
Täitsa Eurone mõte – Jüri Luik on sihtinud end sinna ja oleks Venemaale vägagi ebameeldiv kasulik vastane, sest oli Meri kõrval Vene vägede väljaviimise leppe sõlmimisega Jeltsini ajal. On olnud kaitseminister ja ei võta bullshiti kelleltki. On juba süsteemis sees ja omaks võrgustikku koheselt.
Muidu ei võtaks seda asja tõsiselt, aga tänasel päeval lääne euro poliitikud noh veidi sinisilmsed tundunud.
Samas mingi britt põhikohal ja eestlane asendaja oleks ilmselt optimaalne kompromiss, et ei hakataks üle tõmbelema.
6 comments
Oleb hea ja kopeerib siis artikli kommentaaridesse ka või varustab maksumüürivaba lingiga… Teenib alla keskmise. Mina tänan.
Those in charge of our policy towards Russia over the past 30 years should bear some responsibility for its disastrous outcomes: tens of thousands of people dead and maimed, millions of shattered lives, and the prospect of a global famine this autumn. Conversely the east Europeans who for three decades have been dismissed as hysterical doom-mongers are wholly vindicated, though as Kaja Kallas, Estonia’s prime minister, notes, it is impolite to say “I told you so”.
I met Kallas last weekend in Tallinn at a regional security conference fizzing with outrage at Russia’s invasion. On my return I headed to Oxford where Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, Nato’s secretary-general from 1999 to 2003, was giving a lecture at St Antony’s College on the future of European security.
The contrast was stark, and not only because Kallas is 44 and Robertson 76. Estonians ardently want Ukraine to win: donations amount to a third of their entire defence budget, the highest figure in Nato. They also want the alliance to make serious plans to defend its eastern front rather than relying on the current tripwire forces. These are existential questions. Ukrainians can retreat across a vast country; Estonians have their backs to the sea. Seen from outside, the slice of Ukraine occupied by Russia may look like a smudge on the map, but it is much larger than Estonia’s entire territory. The looting, destruction, deportation, torture, rape and murder being experienced by Ukrainians awaken painful, vivid recollections: this is what happened in living memory under the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states and eastern Poland. Kallas’s mother was deported to Siberia aged only six months.
Estonians, like their Latvian and Lithuanian neighbours, are not afraid: they are used to living in Russia’s shadow. But they do worry about the squishiness of some western leaders.
The event in Oxford exemplified the divide. Robertson forthrightly condemned Russia for attacking Ukraine. But he counselled against overreaction. Defending Ukraine should not mean attacking Russia: it will still be there after the war ends and we should start thinking now about how we will deal with it. He quoted Basil Liddell Hart, the strategy savant of interwar Britain: “Inflict the least possible permanent injury, for the enemy of today is the customer of the morrow and the ally of the future.”
Robertson’s particular point was the need to offer a way ahead for young, professional Russians, the colleagues he remembered fondly during his post-Nato stint working for an oil company, then part-owned by well-connected tycoons and partly by Britain’s BP. This new generation must “rescue the country before it is too late”, he averred. They needed an “idea, a narrative that articulates where a civilised and constructive Russia will fit in to the future global setup”, a notion that he encapsulated as “Make Russia Great Again”.
Trumpian flourishes aside, Robertson’s experience is not to be sniffed at. As Nato’s top official he had nine meetings with his Russian counterpart and is under no illusions about him. “The man in the Kremlin has a remarkably thin skin and we should avoid provoking him into even more reckless violence against the Ukrainians. I have seen him in meetings, in what were good times, display an emotional side which surfaced from the cool, controlled approach he took to most matters,” Robertson said. “Today, closeted away from the virus and from the real world, that emotionalism has been boiled up with a partial view of history and a messianic obsession with Russian greatness. It has produced a dangerous mindset.”
But seen from Estonia, pandering to Putin is more dangerous than provoking him. Also missing from Robertson’s optimistic, forward-looking approach is any contrition, or even a recognition that Nato leaders and their counterparts in national governments might have got something wrong. Estonians reckon Russia’s descent into aggression abroad and repression at home cannot be blamed only on Putin’s personal neuroses. It stems from deep-seated Russian attitudes to history and geography that are all too often overlooked in the West.
The Robertson analysis is also overly centred on Russia (in fact: on Moscow). Norman Davies, Britain’s foremost historian of eastern Europe, was in the audience at St Antony’s. He noted sharply that Russia’s past “greatness” invariably came at the expense of other countries, notably Ukraine. Why would any future manifestation of greatness be different? Post-Soviet Russia dumped the Communist one-party system and the planned economy. It did not dump its imperial mindset. Putin’s reign has entrenched that failure. Uprooting it will require an enormous shift, probably even greater than Germany’s post-war efforts to overcome its Nazi past.
More realistic is to assume that post-war Russia, whether defeated or victorious, will be extremely difficult to deal with. Young people (and indeed most Russians) are unlikely to be yearning to build bridges with the West. Our best bet will be to try to contain the problem, not to indulge in wishful thinking.
The insights and expertise of allies such as Estonia should be central to that. They know their giant eastern neighbour far better than we do. They were right when we were wrong. Nato will be looking for a new secretary-general next year. It has never had a female leader, nor one from eastern Europe. I think Kallas would be an admirable successor to Lord Robertson.
Tbh Jürgen Ligi oleks ka hea valik aga seda prolly ei juhtuks
[removed]
Täitsa Eurone mõte – Jüri Luik on sihtinud end sinna ja oleks Venemaale vägagi ebameeldiv kasulik vastane, sest oli Meri kõrval Vene vägede väljaviimise leppe sõlmimisega Jeltsini ajal. On olnud kaitseminister ja ei võta bullshiti kelleltki. On juba süsteemis sees ja omaks võrgustikku koheselt.
Muidu ei võtaks seda asja tõsiselt, aga tänasel päeval lääne euro poliitikud noh veidi sinisilmsed tundunud.
Samas mingi britt põhikohal ja eestlane asendaja oleks ilmselt optimaalne kompromiss, et ei hakataks üle tõmbelema.
https://nato.mfa.ee/et/o-eesti-alaline-esindaja-nato-juures/
All hail the king, NATO‘s next chief coming to Estonia.