PSPS

NATO membership brings with it unyielding civilian control of the military. Far greater transparency in everything, including budgets and procurement. No more GRU-style military secret police subverting and spying on their own political processes. Reasonable good faith attempts to work together to look back into history to cast full light on possible past abuses (Katyn). No more bombastic obnoxious military rhetoric shaping public life.

Not all this is perfect or implemented overnight or at all. But much of it is. That compounds up over time into a powerful package, with deep policy and moral implications for the way society as a whole is run.

It represents a sense of respecting Limits on Power, the far opposite of what these countries experienced under Soviet rule.

This is why Polish democrats were so keen to get Poland into NATO, in the face of energetic former communist objections. The Poles opted for Democracy against Communism. And good grief, how right they were to do so.

More brilliant insights here.

This analysis explains why Poland and the USA have signed the Missile Defence deal. It is about state of the art military hardware, but (no less importantly) about demonstrating that Poland is not part of Post-Soviet Psychological Space (PSPS). Well done Kaczynski/Tusk. 

PSPS is a fascinating phenomenon. It has no trace of the universalist Marxist claims which gave some spurious legitimacy to the USSR’s positions in the Cold war. Rather it is all about Russia and Russians, not offering much to non-Russians.

A new doctrine is being articulated by the current Moscow leadership. Namely that Russia reserves the right to intervene as it sees fit to ‘defend’ its citizens anywhere, but especially in the former Soviet space.

Sounds scary. But is it going to be deliverable in practice?

The self-serving Russian attempt to rewrite the rules of international order in Georgia is starting to look like an embarrassing blunder, as even many Bambi-like European countries who normally would want to keep their heads down are obliged to stare aghast at Russia’s self-absorbed violence spilling beyond its borders.

Plus, of course, anti-Americans in European capitals and indeed in the USA are reeling. Russian lunges into the territory of small neighbours really can’t be blamed on President Bush or American imperialism.  And US leadership with some energetic help from the British government is knocking NATO into a somewhat better position. (Note: US voters still like the idea of US leadership.)

In due course Ukraine will move from Awkward to Very Difficult. A large European country where many people speak Russian and feel Russian, but many more want to turn their backs firmly on Soviet attitudes and practices as championed these days by Moscow. The EU hitherto has tried to avoid being ‘confrontational’ over Ukraine. That position is unlikely to be tenable in the no-so long term.

Elsewhere in the rather less European parts of the CIS, even the leaders who choose subservience to Moscow over substantive pluralism must be wondering what their future holds. Pretending to taking orders at interminable CIS banquets is one thing – being invaded is another.

The basic problem for the Russian leadership is that by defining Russia’s interests in such banal psychological/political terms, they give too many people a reason to want not to be in it.

At least everything is uncharacteristically clear.