While Western Europe’s appetite for oil and natural gas is not as profligate as that of the United States, it is still considerable. As a result, the western industrialized democracies are, to an uncomfortable extent, often constrained by wishes of the world’s two energy superpowers, Saudi Arabia and Russia.
Could a more energy self-sufficient Europe and the US have prevented the Russian invasion of Georgia? Perhaps not. But it would have allowed for at least a more vigorous response.
Take Georgia’s great and good friend President Bush. Once again, he is made to look the hollow man, promoting liberty and independence elsewhere, as is the American tradition, but refusing — or failing — to provide muscle when needed.
Republican presidential hopeful John McCain was operating within that same petulant tradition when he declared that “We are all Georgians.” Noble words, for sure. But, in the current context, they are ultimately meaningless.
As we noted this past week, the Beijing Olympics mark the symbolic formalization of modern China’s emergence as an international superpower. There is nothing symbolic about Russia’s war on Georgia. Taken together, these events are a sobering reminder that the world is a dangerous place, and that whether the US likes it or not, we will have to increasingly take into account the Russian and Chinese views of the world. The issue that is top on this agenda is Iran, and whether it will be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. Both China and Russia claim to be against Iranian nukes, but their policies in this regard are not convincing.
Closer to home for the US and Russia is a rekindling of warm relations with a post-Castro Cuba. America’s idiotic policy of continuing to isolate Cuba against all common sense makes this a potential likelihood. And with the Kremlin chafing at the idea that a newly expanded NATO will place missiles — intended to defend against possible attacks from Iran, but possibly for use against Russia, as well — on the Russian border, the idea of a future crisis with Cuba and Russia does not seem all that far-fetched.
The irony of all of this is that Reagan Republicans used to boast the US won the Cold War by bankrupting the Russians. Now, it is the US that is facing not bankruptcy but certainly severe economic challenges at home that affect our international interests. Russia will be a big part of that problem.
