East and South

The cause of the threat is many sided, but Europe is a two way relationship. Firstly Europe has Russian origins and Russia has an interest in its security relationship. The other side is the relations between Europe and the United States, this changes the function of the former in eastern approaches to the United States. Russia is therefore not a friend of Europe and the recent events in Syria reinforce this idea. Europe has an affinity for Russia, but is constantly rebuffed. The relationship is broken by European distrust and Europe plays its superiority against this joker in the pack. The effect is to distance Russian society from European elites. Secondly Russia is becoming divided in its approach to the Third World, and these signals undermine the antipathy between Russia and Europe's intellectual approach.

The price is its criticism of Russia to American audiences, the conflict between Russian homelands and their European neighbours and the diplomacy which has been hostile for about one hundred years. The method is to create barriers which the Russians overcome. The aims a sort of chess in which no-one actually can win, the game starts again after the interval and a game is what it is. The ending a kind of Russian ballet, in which the ballerina is in tears but the show carries on. The price is therefore nuanced and the relationship suffers in generational phases.

The cause has no conclusion, it is a question and there never is an answer. The reason is therefore power politics and the direction neither left nor right, a sort of neutral in a rusted gearbox. The European relationship overrides the social framework in this way, and like all politics is ultimately flawed because of this. The combination of factors is seen in the issues, the Falklands nationalism lie in a Cold War silence that people felt was suffocating them. The politician needed a victory with the background of the Cold War. The war in Afghanistan can be seen in the British approach to warlords. Like the isolation it gave continental Europe in the 1960s, Afghanistan was not let in and the French were allowed to participate and not partake in the planning process, at least in the Westminster sense. This Cold War was like the other one, and the light of day didn't find it for over ten years.

The cause of Europe's isolation takes angles as well. It is a crisis, but one which has been squashed because of a lack of answers. Can we make peace, not should we find the allies a new member. The difficulties of letting them in, this is not, but a lack of reception which has clear causes and consequences. This kind of power play is destructive, because Russia takes it seriously and the west feels the consequences. The playwright would say change the ending, the people cut one scene and the politicians lose a character in the plot. The division occupies intellectual minds, the ending unnerves Russian planners. Until recently the occupiers were undermining foreign forces, facing historical changes and threatening wars in Africa.

The threat of Europe is everywhere, because of its power apparently or its reach in history. I argue peace is worth it or at least the end of the Cold War. American participation is unlikely to be effective and ideological confrontation destructive. We need to shorten the game and take the queen, checkmate is not a Russia solution. The future lies in the social and the politics is upset by short battles. We are not passing a law, the game is military in character. The short approach is to define the goal and find a solution to our concern. It will achieve nothing if we play that game. Approach is not the end of the couplet, it is the beginning of the next conflict and not an answer.