Sleeping with the enemy

While the world was rejoicing for Barack Obama, Russia had to listen to the first state-of-the-nation address by President Dmitry Medvedev, who had been in office for five months. Hopefully, the Cold War belongs to the past but relations between the two former superpowers could not be much colder. The Russians put the blame squarely on President George W. Bush.

Mr Bush kept dreaming about a missile defence shield in Poland, supposedly to protect Europe from Iranian missiles. The Russians could see through this excuse as Iran lacked the military capacity, and a reason, to attack Europe.

This phantom shield has taken a life of its own.

In his speech, President Medvedev threatened to retaliate by placing short-range Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, on Europe's doorstep.

President Bush, and the Western press, never really trusted Vladimir Putin, Mr Medvedev's predecessor.

They believe Mr Putin still runs the show, even if today he officially occupies the inferior post of Prime Minister. Mr Bush realised that the collapse of the Soviet system had deprived Russia of much of its global power.

While crusading for democracy, from Afghanistan to Cuba, President Bush missed no opportunity to rub salt into Russia's wounds.

He openly courted Georgia and the Ukraine and pushed them on the path towards membership of the EU and Nato.

This in the hope that their new status would serve to checkmate Russia. Boosted by America's moral backing, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili last August was quick to attack Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia. It did not take long for Russia to react with extreme violence, launching a full scale invasion of the region.

The present financial and economic crisis has shown how vulnerable Russia's economic structures have become to developments in the Western economies.

Once again, the Russians have put all the blame on the incompetency of the Bush Administration and the arrogance and greed of American capitalism.

Mr Medvedev's speech was timed so as to send a clear message to the incoming US President: Russia may no longer be a superpower but neither is America.

President Medvedev also proposed that, as from the next election, the Presidential term be extended from four to six years while that of the state Duma (Parliament) be extended from four to five years.(Since then these proposals have already been approved by the Duma and are now awaiting ratification.) Some analysts insist that these reforms are meant to pave the way for Mr Putin's comeback to the Kremlin. Domestically, the Putin/Medvedev tandem is consolidating its power base. Internationally it is seeking to position itself as the "anti-Obama".

Another leader who is strongly vying to play the role of prima donna on the global stage is Nicolas Sarkozy. He has been claiming all the credit for brokering the truce between Russia and Georgia and for bringing peace to the Caucasus. He has come out strongly on the need to "remake the world financial system".

Earlier this month Mr Sarkozy, the incumbent of the EU Presidency, hosted the EU-Russia summit in Nice so as to warm up bilateral relations and foster rapprochement. Relations had been strained ever since Russia invaded Georgia. At the time, the EU decided to suspend talks on the renewal of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement of 1997 and made it a pre-condition that talks would only resume once Russian forces leave South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The EU has now conveniently ignored the fact that this pre-condition has not been met and it decided to defreeze the partnership negotiations. On this, President Sarkozy had the blessing of both Germany and Italy. Britain is too absorbed by its economic woes and is in no position to make a stand. Only the Poles have openly objected to Mr Sarkozy's manoeuvring, with the impotent Baltic states just looking on. President Sarkozy seems keen to remind the world that Europe's foreign policy is in no way dictated by Washington.

Perhaps more than ever before, the Europeans and the Russians are now realising that, even if there is no love lost between them, they desperately need each other. The EU accounts for half of Russia's trade and is its number one investor. Russia is the EU's biggest energy supplier providing 42 per cent of its gas, 34 per cent of its oil and 25 per cent of its coal requirements. Even though the EU Commission has just announced plans to reduce this energy dependency on Russia, in the short-term the EU has no real options.

The EU tries to play down these economic considerations insisting that it is important not to isolate Russia so as not to push it further towards authoritarian nationalism.

Mr Obama is already being pushed to make a stand on Russia. The Russians are saying that they hope that he is more flexible and trustworthy than Mr Bush. In the meantime, the EU is flirting with Russia and expressing support to Mr Medvedev's proposal for a "new Euro-Atlantic security architecture" that would set limits on military build-ups on European soil. Mr Obama must be taking notes. He will soon find out that realpolitik is also about sleeping with the enemy.