From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 11/27/2006 5:47 AM
27 November 2006
No Moscow encore for the Iron Curtain
John Thornhill

A ROGUE Russian spy is killed in mysterious circumstances in London. Some of the Russian president’s leading domestic opponents are exiled, imprisoned or murdered. The Kremlin, in the grip of a steely former KGB colonel, destabilises unfriendly neighbouring countries, temporarily severing gas supplies to Ukraine and bullying Georgia. Is this the start of a new Cold War? A useful point of departure is Winston Churchill’s famous speech in 1946 at Fulton, Missouri, which was widely seen as signalling the start of the real Cold War. The world has changed almost beyond imagination in the intervening 60 years; but some truths that Churchill spoke that day remain as valid as ever.

Speaking freely, having been voted out of office the year before, Churchill warned the world of the “expansive and proselytising tendencies” of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin.

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent,” he told his audience, including his host, US President Harry Truman.

“Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of central and eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and are all subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow,” he said.

Churchill went on to warn that the Soviet threat was not confined to Europe but was global thanks to the spread of communist fifth columns working in “complete unity and absolute obedience” to directions from the Kremlin.

Strong communist parties threatened to undermine western European countries, such as Italy and France, and exploit the turmoil in the Far East, particularly in China.

The west must unite and strengthen “the sinews of peace”.

His speech helped spur western governments into forming the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) in 1949, which deterred the Soviet threat until the Soviet Union collapsed.

Modern-day Russia, however thuggish and brutal it may seem on occasion, bears scant resemblance to the Stalinist totalitarian regime of the 1940s. First and foremost, Russia has lost its empire after the people of central and eastern Europe — and even the Soviet Union’s own republics — liberated themselves from Moscow’s yoke.

Almost all the capitals mentioned by Churchill now proudly fly the European Union (EU) flag.

Nato will this week hold a summit in Riga, the capital of Latvia, which was forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union at the time that Churchill spoke.

Second, militant communist ideology is dead. Russia may be growing worryingly nationalistic. But that nationalism is not exportable and holds no appeal for non-Russians in the way that communism once did.

The communist economic model — which was once thought capable of burying capitalism — has proved defunct.

Moreover, Russia has long ago ceased to be totalitarian. In some senses the Russians, too, liberated themselves in 1991 when the Soviet Union fell apart.

Russians today can travel freely overseas; access the internet; buy their own property wherever they want (including Chelsea football club); and list their companies on foreign stock markets.

But if the historical circumstances have changed almost beyond recognition, the advice Churchill gave Truman about how to deal with Russia remains just as relevant today.

First, Churchill acknowledged that the Russians were a great people who should shape their own destiny and play a role in the world. The west should always extend the hand of friendship to Russians to the extent it was welcomed, he said.

However, the former British leader was realistic enough to know that appeasement of an aggressive power would only invite further intimidation.

“From what I have seen of our Russian friends and allies during the war, I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than weakness,” he said.

“The safety of the world requires a new unity in Europe,” Churchill warned, “from which no nation should be permanently outcast.”

How should Europe respond today to a resurgent Russia?

As Churchill recommended, the west should remain open to the Russian people. Western European countries should, if anything, ease visa restrictions for Russian visitors and encourage young Russians to study abroad. EU countries should encourage mutually beneficial business, financial and cultural ties wherever possible.

However, Europe must remain united in the face of any intimidation and not allow the Kremlin to play one country off against another.

EU countries should reduce their dependence on Russian energy supplies if Moscow is going to regard them as a political tool.

They should continue to denounce human rights abuses in Chechnya — and elsewhere — as being incompatible with the standards of the international organisations to which Russia belongs. And Britain should be firm in prosecuting whoever is responsible for Alexander Litvinenko’s death, no matter where the investigation leads.

This is not a return of the Cold War; but it may prove to be an increasingly hot peace. Financial Times

‖Thornhill is the Financial Times’ European edition editor.

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A327271