TIMESONLINE: For most of the week she had seemed to be presiding over yet another fiasco for American foreign policy, yet Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, looked surprisingly chirpy as she toasted Polish officials at the signing of a new defence deal in Warsaw on Thursday.
Her hosts provided a bottle of Georgian wine for a dinner with Radoslaw Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, and Rice leapt at the opportunity to express solidarity with the victims of Russian aggression in the Caucasus.
Despite widespread criticism of America’s failure to curb Moscow’s advance and its apparent lack of options for a punitive response, Washington appeared quietly confident that Russia’s short-term gains in Georgia would turn into a long-term diplomatic headache for Moscow, which the US may be able to turn to its advantage.
“I don’t think this is a new cold war,” Rice declared after signing an agreement to deploy part of America’s long-range missile shield on Polish soil. “It’s a difficult time but I think we shouldn’t overstate the depth of the difficulties.”
Her confidence was based in part on the continuing refusal of Russia’s former communist neighbours to be cowed by the Georgian conflict - Poland, Ukraine and Georgia have all shown readiness to continue cooperating with the West - and partly on the US State Department’s assessment that long-term Russian economic interests will force Moscow to negotiate eventually.
Yet several US analysts warned that Moscow still holds the upper hand in any future diplomatic showdown. There may be no return to cold war-era nuclear threats of what used to be known as MAD - mutually assured destruction - but East-West relations seem certain to stay in cold storage for a time.
“The events of the past two weeks have been a disaster for US foreign policy,” declared Daniel Benjamin, a foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “Russia’s invasion of its neighbour is a clear demonstration that the US-led effort to integrate postSoviet Russia into the West has failed.” Moscow Ups the Ante in Poker Game with West >>> By Tony Allen-Mills, New York | August 24, 2008
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Dust Jacket Hardcover, direct from the publishers (US) >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback, direct from the publishers (US) >>>
the West, Mosco
