No longer will Russia be directed by the West, writes El-Sayed Amin Shalabi* To many, the Russian-Western conflict over Georgia came as no surprise. Throughout Tsarist and Soviet times, Russians have eyed the West with suspicion. Often, proponents of Westernisation were accused of betraying Russian traditions, as happened when Peter the Great experimented with modernisation back in the 17th century. Fast forward to 1991, when the Soviet Union was replaced with the Russian Federation, and many in the West thought that the new Russian leaders would take their cue from the West. Their expectations were soon dashed, partly because things in Russia didn't turn out as expected. Russia's economic reform programme didn't go as well as many had hoped. And the country's democratisation failed to match the Western pattern. But Russians were eager to stay on good terms with the West. From 1992 to 1994, Andrei Kozyrev, foreign minister under Boris Yeltsin, solicited economic assistance from Western nations, while pursuing policies that were designed to please the country's new benefactors. Concurring with Pushkin's conclusion that hatred of the West is but a manifestation of a deeper resentment of human evolution, Kozyrev pushed on to remove all vestiges of the Cold War. Eager to persuade the West that Russia was a trustworthy partner, he agreed to a major reduction in Russian nuclear weapons, signed SALT II, and refrained from using vetoes to block certain UN Security Council resolutions. During the Bosnian crisis, Moscow even voted for sanctions against its former allies, the Serbs. That's how far the Russians wanted to please the West, but then the domestic backlash started. Near the end of 1993, Russian opposition started accusing the government of selling out to the West, turning its back on Russia's old friends, and squandering the country's international prestige -- all for the crumbs of Western financial aid. The fact that the Russian economy suffered from the economic sanctions against countries such as Iraq, Libya and Serbia strengthened the hand of the opposition. The critics seemed to have a point. Russian economic reforms were stumbling, living standards were eroding, and crime was on the rise. With Yeltsin's government catching flak on more than one front, Kozyrev had to think of something. Soon, he started contradicting Russia's Western allies, arguing that partnership with the West must not come at the expense of Russia's national interests. He even told his European interlocutors that "aggressive nationalists" might take over unless he stood tough. When he was finally replaced in 1996, a dyed-in-the-wool nationalist, Yevgeny Primakov, took his place. Since Vladimir Putin took power in 2000, his main aim was to restore Russia's international prestige and reverse the humiliating course the country had taken throughout the 1990s. Russia may be a member of the G8 group and a partner of sorts with NATO and the EU, but it wasn't going to be told what to do -- or not anymore. As NATO and the EU made inroads into East Europe and the Baltic republics, Putin found it harder to keep his cool. To him, Western support of the "orange revolutions" in Ukraine and Georgia was unacceptable, a reminder even of the Cold War. When the Georgian government sent its troops into South Ossetia, Putin and his handpicked successor, Dmitri Medvedev, saw their chance. They lashed out militarily against Georgia, then recognised the independence of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia. When the West protested, the Russians refused to back down. Moscow's gamble has worked so far. Western politicians, including French Prime Minister Bernard Kouchner, ruled out sanctions against Russia. The fact that 25 per cent of Europe's needs of oil and gas come from Russia and that Europe has extensive investment in that country must have something to do with Europe's self-restraint. Even the US has refrained from escalating the crisis, no doubt mindful that the supply lines for its troops in Afghanistan went through Russia and that it needs Russian titanium for its aviation industry. Putin and Medvedev, having ruled out a resurgence of the Cold War, have promised to continue supplying Europe with oil and gas and do their bit in the war on terror. But the honeymoon between the West and Russia is over. Moscow has made it clear that it will continue to cooperate with the West, but on its own terms now. * The writer is executive director of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Relations.
