Is Putin Bent on Reshaping the World Order? by James G Neuger
4:05 PM EST February 8, 2015
(Bloomberg) -- As Russian President Vladimir Putin tightens his hold on eastern Ukraine, speculation has shifted to the next front in his confrontation with the U.S. and its European allies.
Intimidation of the Baltic states, pressure on the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, warmer ties with Greece as a way of dividing the European Union -- all are potential options for the former KGB agent bent on recasting the world order.
“We see the emergence of dividing lines” in a “very polarized environment,” Lamberto Zannier, an Italian diplomat who runs the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said in an interview Sunday at the Munich Security Conference.
As diplomats huddle to find enough common ground to end the killing in Ukraine, the world’s foreign-policy elite in Munich evoked the need to contain Putin much like the trans-Atlantic democracies wore down the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Unlike during the Cold War, though, Russia doesn’t have a worldwide network of allies and proxies. Its economy is smaller than Italy’s; per-capita economic output is smaller than in Cyprus. Meantime, sanctions, slumping oil prices and the ruble’s biggest rout since the 1998 debt default are sending the economy toward recession.
What has confounded European and U.S. officials is Putin’s ability to turn economic hardship to his advantage.
Putin enjoys approval ratings of 85 percent and has evoked his country’s stand against the Nazis during World War II as an example for modern Russia to follow. For Putin, this struggle is about overturning the post-1989 order that left the U.S. as the world’s unchallenged power.
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U.S. hegemony is a “pseudo-occupation, but we won’t put up with it,” Putin said in Saturday in Sochi.
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Russia’s energy diplomacy has kept countries like Hungary on its side in the EU’s debate on sanctions. The Kremlin has also reached out to Greece, a NATO member whose new government has expressed its unease with EU restrictions on trade and investment with Russia.
As a result, Russia is unlikely to be cut out of world commerce as Iran has been. European sanctions require unanimity among the 28 governments, often leading to policies full of loopholes.
Belgium, for example, has rebuffed calls to bar Russia from the global SWIFT banking-transaction system. An EU summit on Feb. 12 may put those divisions on display.
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