Word: russia
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...also doing fine. Ukraine and the Baltics, after all, were once part of the Soviet Union, and the others were satrapies until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Never mind that all of them, with the exception of Ukraine, are now firmly embedded in E.U. and NATO; for Russia they are either the "near abroad" or what the tsars used to call Russia's "sphere of influence...
...wonderful propaganda weapon that turns Germany and others against the U.S. and the East Europeans. Remember that the rule is "Don't rile the Bear," and so whenever the Bear growls, he is sure to find a receptive audience west of Warsaw and Prague. You would have thought Russia's march through Georgia and its quasi-annexation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia would have instilled a healthy sense of ursophobia in Berlin and points west. You might also think that Russian pressure tactics against the newer members of the E.U. and NATO would sharpen doubts about Moscow's pledges...
...peacefully in the "common house" of Eurasia, especially after two hot world wars and one cold one, is of course a perfectly rational desire. But a desire is not a strategy, and that is where Europe sells itself short. The E.U. has a population around three times larger than Russia's. Its GDP dwarfs Russia's by a factor of 12. And the 27 members of the E.U. heavily outspend Moscow on defense...
...other side, Russia remains true to the quip of former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt about the Soviet Union: "An Upper Volta with nukes." OK, today it is not just rockets. The Kremlin's power also flows (more effectively, in fact) from those pipelines that have hooked Europe on Russian oil and gas. But for all of its fabulous riches in the ground, Russia remains a kind of Third World country, an extraction economy whose welfare and clout fluctuate with the price of oil. Today, oil fetches less than one-half of what it did when Russia, flush with cash...
...stronger than it thinks, and Russia is weaker than it pretends. Note to Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy: Use your leverage not to rile Russia, but to recruit it into the community of responsible powers. Tell President Medvedev that the new economic partnership agreement comes with a good-conduct pledge - like not invading neighbors or threatening them with missiles...