Russia's residual neighborhood watch scheme in what was once the Soviet Union's tightly policed backyard took another knock last week when Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Moldova joined forces in a new "union of democratic states."
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who has been a thorn in Moscow's side since Tbilisi's 2003 "rose revolution," said the grouping would "not act as a counter-balance or a reproach to anyone."
But then he offered a reproach anyway. Friendship based on independence and freedom, he said, was very different from belonging to "an alliance like the Warsaw Pact or an empire like the Soviet Union."
ILLUSTRATION: MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
The timing was probably not coincidental.
MOSCOW MEETING
Along with a host of world leaders, US President George W. Bush will be in Moscow on May 9 to mark the 60th anniversary of Nazi Germany's defeat.
Bush, who backed Ukraine's pro-democracy "orange revolution" last year, will also visit Georgia, where the US launched a US$50 million military training program on the weekend and where it has become Saakashvili's principal ally.
It is no accident, either, that the US leader will visit Latvia which, like Lithuania and Estonia, escaped Moscow's clutches in the 1990s and joined NATO and the EU. They are now viewed as role models by several post-Soviet states.
Last week's fleeting Kremlin visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was meant to smooth the way for Bush's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
UNDIPLOMATIC REMARKS?
But Rice's comments on regional issues, coupled with the latest machinations of Moscow's unforgiving former satellites, exacerbated Russian geopolitical paranoia.
Denouncing the Belarus government of President Alexander Lukashenko as Europe's last dictatorship, Rice said it was "time for a change."
She hinted that forthcoming elections there could be the next target for the US "soft power" pro-democracy pressure tactics perfected in Serbia in 2000.
Unfortunately for Putin, benighted Belarus is just about the only Russian neighbor that still follows an unequivocal pro-Moscow line. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Rice to mind her own business.
Russia's once unchallenged influence in central Asia is also slipping. The US has established military bases in the area since the Sept. 11 attacks. And, as recent upheavals in Kyrgyzstan suggest, regime change can be catching.
RUSSIAN PARANOIA
In this atmosphere, the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States' summit scheduled for Moscow on May 8, which includes Ukraine and Georgia, could prove a schismatic and even terminal meeting.
In a country historically fearful of encirclement and fragmentation, these accelerating neighborhood trends are seen by many Russians as externally threatening and domestically destabilizing.
In his Cold Peace: Russia's New Imperialism, Janusz Bugajski said that Moscow's neighborhood botch stems from internal weakness as much as foreign policy bungling.
Russia "gained an empire before it became a state or a coherent nation," he wrote.
Contrary to its vital interests and despite reduced capabilities, Russia continued to brandish regional ambitions like "phantom limbs," Bugajski argued.
But while the result has been repeated humiliations, rising hardline nationalism and falling confidence in an increasingly dictatorial Putin, Russia's leader retains several trump cards.
PARTNERSHIP NEEDS
Rice admitted the US needed a "strategic partnership" on nuclear proliferation, the Balkans and the Middle East and terrorism.
And then there are Russia's vast energy resources, on which the West increasingly relies.
As at their Bratislava tete-a-tete in February, Bush can be expected to balance "freedom's cause" with pragmatic calculations when he meets Putin.
According to Anatol Lieven, an analyst, "Putin may be an uncomfortable partner but the West is unlikely to get a better one."
Washington hopes the democratic revolutions in the "post-Soviet sphere" will ultimately spread to Russia itself.
But it knows such a transformation runs the risk of a disastrous, post-Putin relapse into unrestrained authoritarianism and an anti-Western siege mentality.
President William Lai (賴清德) attended a dinner held by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) when representatives from the group visited Taiwan in October. In a speech at the event, Lai highlighted similarities in the geopolitical challenges faced by Israel and Taiwan, saying that the two countries “stand on the front line against authoritarianism.” Lai noted how Taiwan had “immediately condemned” the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas and had provided humanitarian aid. Lai was heavily criticized from some quarters for standing with AIPAC and Israel. On Nov. 4, the Taipei Times published an opinion article (“Speak out on the
Most Hong Kongers ignored the elections for its Legislative Council (LegCo) in 2021 and did so once again on Sunday. Unlike in 2021, moderate democrats who pledged their allegiance to Beijing were absent from the ballots this year. The electoral system overhaul is apparent revenge by Beijing for the democracy movement. On Sunday, the Hong Kong “patriots-only” election of the LegCo had a record-low turnout in the five geographical constituencies, with only 1.3 million people casting their ballots on the only seats that most Hong Kongers are eligible to vote for. Blank and invalid votes were up 50 percent from the previous
More than a week after Hondurans voted, the country still does not know who will be its next president. The Honduran National Electoral Council has not declared a winner, and the transmission of results has experienced repeated malfunctions that interrupted updates for almost 24 hours at times. The delay has become the second-longest post-electoral silence since the election of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez of the National Party in 2017, which was tainted by accusations of fraud. Once again, this has raised concerns among observers, civil society groups and the international community. The preliminary results remain close, but both
News about expanding security cooperation between Israel and Taiwan, including the visits of Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) in September and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) this month, as well as growing ties in areas such as missile defense and cybersecurity, should not be viewed as isolated events. The emphasis on missile defense, including Taiwan’s newly introduced T-Dome project, is simply the most visible sign of a deeper trend that has been taking shape quietly over the past two to three years. Taipei is seeking to expand security and defense cooperation with Israel, something officials
RSS