A prominent French political scientist, Françoise Thom, professor of history at the Sorbonne University, warned of the danger coming from Russia that became even more aggressive today. Instead of taking advantage of crisis and to destroy Russia as a single country, the naive West wishes to have business with Moscow and does not realize that flirt and appeasement of this criminal country bring disaster to humanity in the future.
Françoise Thom writes:
"Politicians and statesmen should differ between short-term interests and challenges of the future. The economic and financial crisis in which we have plunged seems to have greatly reduced the ability of our leaders for long-term thinking and evaluation of the consequences of their decisions.
The French decision to sell this year a Mistral class helicopter carrier to Russia is a striking example of it. Is it wise to arm a country that intervenes into internal affairs of neighboring Georgia and does not conceal its intentions to restore, willingly or by force, its hegemony over the whole territory of the former Soviet Union?
It seems that France is ready to pardon the Kremlin Russian future aggressions based on a massive military reform that Russia started in September 2009.
The reasoning of our leaders and many Western decision-makers goes approximately this way:
Russia was strongly weakened by the economic crisis. Demographic and other problems make the situation even more difficult for Russia. So why not to offer the Kremlin apparently profitable military deals? In addition, the industrial Western Europe and Russia with its raw materials markets could very well compliment each other.
And they assure us that Russia, strongly hit by the crisis, is now not so dangerous as before, so we could promote the development of a "strategic partnership" with it.
However, we are not to forget the behavior of the Kremlin people that worry about the Russian internal problems only so much as they are dangerous for their power. Their grip of power is very strong, and the Putin's regime is so stable that oil prices could fall further without influencing it.
On the other hand, the crisis offers Russia's leaders ideal opportunities to achieve their great ambitions in foreign policy. It could lead to the destabilization of the U.S. and many post-Soviet countries, to weaking of pro-Western elites there, and these elites can't be called numerous.
The Russian leaders are not much worried about the imperfection of their internal system created by Putin but, amazingly, they are unanimous in their neo-imperialistic goals of "finnlandization" of Western Europe. At the same time as the Russian government says they postponed a census of the Russian population because of a lack of money, Putin allocated 15 billion roubles for the erection of military bases in Abkhazia.
Historical precedents teach us to be cautious. In February 1945, Western leaders conceded in Yalta to Stalin's demands because they were sure that Russia weakened by the war would be busy restoring its economy, that it would need Western money and technology, so Russia could be more compliant. It was a mistake, and Stalin got half of Europe under his rule.
Do modern Russian leaders differ in their behavior from the Tzar or former Communist bosses? In no way! As before, they put their own power and prosperity prior to the prosperity of their citizens.
So we are to be very cautious in selling Russia offensive weapons. A lack of foresight could lead to future crises.
Mistral vessels will certainly increase the efficiency and maneuvering ability of the Russian fleet.
"If we had a vessel like Mistral during the conflict with Georgia, the Russian Black-Sea fleet
could accomplish its tasks in 40 minutes instead of 26 hour we needed ", the commander of the Russian Navy, Vladimir Vysotsky, recently said.
And finally, we are to remember that Moscow uses it "gas and oil instrument" to scare and pacify Europe. So we are not to take risks arming Russia and awakening a goast of Russian military danger that appeared on our continent even without our help", writes the wise French analyst.
Department of Monitoring,
Kavkaz Center
