I previously linked to Christopher Hitchens and Michael Totten analysing why the Kosovo case is quite different from the cases of either S Ossetia or Abkhazia, rendering spurious/dishonest Russia’s recognition of the latter two as new states. Here for good measure is former US Ambassador to Zagreb and Belgrade, my friend Bill […]
Brian Barder describes a failed attempt to pull together a letter to The Times from a group of British ex-Excellencies about ‘the profoundly mistaken policies of the British and American governments’ towards Russia/Georgia: … some of those who had occupied key positions in the area during their diplomatic careers, and […]
Christopher Hitchens back in February tried to build the case that Kosovo was never ‘internationally recognised as part of Serbia’: [After WW1] legal instruments agreed between [Yugoslavia and the no-less-new state concept calling itself republican Turkey] recognized Belgrade’s sovereignty over Kosovo, but solely in the sense that they recognized Belgrade as […]
The Guardian today: Russia to leave Georgia after EU deal How utterly shamefully absurdly useless these people are. The ensuing article: In a press conference yesterday afternoon, after four hours of talks, Medvedev made clear that Russia’s withdrawal of forces depended on Georgia signing a "non-aggression pact" with South Ossetia and […]
If you want to read online the FT’s distinguished Lex column, you have to pay for it. But at least Lex shares with us for free a nifty graph on the rouble’s fortunes up to and following the Kremlin’s Georgia intervention: Russia’s 1998 financial crisis, after which one foreign banker observed he […]
This piece at the excellent Knowledge Problem neatly looks at differences between Chinese and Russian oil reserve management styles: There are few assets more specific than an oil well. If you invest wisely today to maximize the present value of the well’s future output, that does you no good if […]
Far from accepting the defeatist idea of different and inevitably rival ‘spheres of influence’ in Europe, the EU should use its one true serious advantage vis-a-vis Russia, namely far greater wealth and a far better example. Andrew Wilson captures it well: The most effective way of dealing with a newly-assertive […]
This posting on Russia/Kosovo/Georgia prompted a pointed comment from reader Will: Your article seems to be another in a series of lame attempts to minimize Russia’s responsibility for her actions in GA with a critique of the West’s Kosovo policies. Am I wrong on this? One point in which you […]
The Times has two noteworthy pieces on Georgia and its ramifications today. Bronwen Maddox weighs in on the EU’s defiant chihuahua-like stance: … even though the EU should rightly settle for the lowest common denominator on such important questions of its own identity, the proposals were weak beyond parody. “The Union […]
Jaded as you must be by my extensive offerings on the Kosovo/Georgia/Russia saga, you might care to look at the related (and vigorous) thoughts of three other former FCO Ambassadorial colleagues: Sir Ivor Roberts: How can the West talk of the need to maintain an independent state’s territorial integrity and to refuse […]
