Georgia on our mind

The Russia-Georgia war has immense implications for the transatlantic relationships and it challenges liberals and progressives on both sides of the ocean to shape their own response to this new arc of insecurity in a region that is strategic both for the European Union and the United States.
Although they have reaffirmed their unity within NATO the US and Europe seem again to have taken different tacks along the lines of Robert Kagan’s Mars and Venus theorem: “tough Washington” threatens, while “soft Brussels” coddles Moscow.
It is of course not as simple as that. In the U.S. the condemnation of Moscow has undoubtedly been stronger and it has come as the logical expression of increasing hostility towards the new Kremlin rulers. The smiles and jokes of the Clinton-Yeltsin times are bygones. However although some European leaders might be tempted to try to appease Putin, most are aware of - and concerned with- the dangerous tendencies that Russia’s actions in Georgia reflect. They are one more example of a ruthless foreign policy that strives to restore Moscow’s international raw power.

How will liberal progressives on both sides of the Atlantic react to this new Cold War? Reactions differ widely on the way Russia should be “handled”. Deep splits are appearing within the left as they did during the “old” Cold War.
On the one side The Nation magazine has reprinted an essay published in 2006 by New York University Stephen Cohen titled “The New American Cold War” that not only describes the replay of the American-Soviet discourse of the 1970s and early 1980s but also pins a large part of the blame on the Clinton and Bush administrations.
On the other side, in an op-ed published on August 11 in the Daily Telegraph British Labour MP Denis MacShane, former minister for Europe under Tony Blair, calls on Europeans and US allies to “unite to resist Russian aggression”. (http://www.denismacshane.com/)

A common transatlantic policy is indeed essential but it should be premised on ideas and principles that promote liberal views. Atlantic progressives have to elaborate their own policies and avoid the double trap of “negativism” and “me-tooism”. They cannot just list the positions of their conservative adversaries in Washington and say “no” against each one of them. They cannot either try to “look like conservatives” and pretend to be as tough but with “with more heart and more brain”.
It is time to go back to the times in the 30s and the 40s when liberals progressives had to battle on their right and on their left to fight at the same time for freedom, social justice and a secure and decent international order. It is time to read anew Arthur Schlesinger’s essay The Vital Center.
Russia is certainly a threat to European and US interests. The control exercised by the Kremlin on vital energy supplies revives the spectre of Finlandization and there are in Europe some sectors, among the left in particular, that are ready to embrace Russia at the expense of Atlantic links.
But Russia’s authoritarianism is also a threat to “liberalism” and progressivism. And it should be made clear that liberals and progressives are the best placed to counter this new threat. May I suggest that a more open US administration, committed to international cooperation and sober foreign policies, would be one of the best antidotes to this temptation of appeasement.