Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Why is Russia hosting a G8 conference?

Russia is not a democratic industrialised liberal power.

by StFerdIII

I was pretty good in math during school so I assume that a meeting that is supposed to be between the eight largest democratic industrialized nation states should have eight members. Apparently this math is incorrect. Eight nations actually means nine. The logic of the G8 is that the democratic nations must be complemented by adding in a non-democratic; authoritarian and KGB controlled Russia; which blares anti-American and anti-Western nonsense from every media loudspeaker in the land. Apparently this is dramatic international progress and helps foster an understanding between a resurgent Russia and an expansionary West. This argument of course makes no sense.

For some reason Russia is viewed by the post-modern elite as a ‘friend’. The Russians are deemed to be allies in the war against terror, partners in energy, and a bulwark against Chinese expansionism. Yet none of these is true. The real picture of Russia is thus: an oil rich state that uses oil to achieve political objectives; an ally of the Arab and Islamic world including Iran; partners in energy production with China; a mafia state that is highly corrupt; a country with a GDP the same size as Holland’s; a non-democratic non transparent illiberal entity that is not allied to any interests of the West. In short Russia, as it has always been, is not the ally of the West but view itself as a competitor and international power arbiter.

So why then do the Russians host a G8 conference ?

The answer might lie in oil but this is not an obvious reason to invite an illiberal criminal state to a G8 confab. Canada has more oil reserves than Russia; and vast tracts of oil lay undeveloped along European and US coastlines thanks to eco-fascist regulatory nonsense that precludes drilling. Russia uses oil exports to make political statements and to force eastern European nations like the Ukraine into a more pro-Russian policy alignment. In any event the Russians need Western monies to modernize their oil industry and create a better infrastructure for refining and exportation. The relationship on oil is bi-lateral and Russia will have to cooperate with the West on this issue. I am not sure the G8 confab is the place to discuss such strategy.

Another answer as to why Russia might be invited to the G8 is the war on terror. But again this is not a good rationale. Russia is fighting Islamic and jihadic extremists in Chechnya with many of the Muslim fighters being Arab. So at face value they are a partner of sorts in this war. As Islam expands demographically across Eur-Asia the Russians will be a key redoubt of Europeanism and civilization. Yet outside Chechnya the Russians are not doing much. They are not happy with US deployments in Central Asia and Afghanistan, nor are they much concerned with supported Israel against an endless Arab jihad. Russia has always supported Islam and the Arab bloc – in part due to its own large Muslim population of some 20 millions – but also to pose as a counter power to the US in the vital Middle East and Central Asian regions. Russian self interest and concerns for power dictate that it will be in the near term a very luke warm partner in the war on terror.

Then we have the internal misalignment of Russia from the G8. Russia has no interest in Western institutions or development. Putin was Yeltsin’s chosen, non-democratically elected successor mostly due to the fact that Putin and his gang gave the Yeltsin family, which stole somewhere around U$5 billion, amnesty from any and all investigations and prosecutions. Now Putin and his ex-KGB gang have firmly arrested any semblance of democratic reform. Russia is now a one party state with a media completely controlled by the Kremlin. It is not hard to imagine what propagandist nonsense blares forth from the Kremlin controlled media.

The criminality of the Russian state is embedded in the attacks on its own people. In 1999 on the threshold of the Yeltsin transfer of power to Putin the government was in serious trouble. Yeltsin had 2 % approval ratings and criminality was running amok while people literally were dying thanks to state neglect and the rape of resources. The Chechens in 1996 had won semi autonomy for a Muslim statelet, but as with most Muslims knew little of how to build a proper functioning state. Though a failure Chechnya was relatively quite in 1999 until the ruling Russian elite precipitated the 2nd Chechen war which has killed about 100.000 civilians and about 30.000 young Russian soldiers.

A state that will starve its own people; deny energy to its population; withhold supplies from its hospitals and wantonly kill innocents to foment a war is the kind of regime that the long suffering Russian people are only too familiar with. It is not a state that should be invited to the G8. The list of state atrocities against Russian innocents is endless – the war in Chechnya itself is a case study of Russian military corruption and misdeeds. Yet the West spends nary a moment truly analyzing a geo-politically important country. Cheney in his recent criticism of Russia has its right. A state that uses energy supplies to further its foreign policy preferences for a greater Russian empire; openly supports Islam against Israel; murders innocents in Moscow and beyond; and allows criminal mafia to controls its politics, business and resource wealth is just another example of failed Russian fascism and orientalism. It is not an ally and it is not a democracy in the making.