PRESIDENT’S AMOUR A SENS UNIQUE
Victor Krestianinov
WPS
July 25, 2011
Russia
ANALYSIS OF THE RUSSIAN-FRENCH RELATIONS; Analysis of the
Russian-French relations. Russia seems to be outmaneuvered or plain
tricked at every turn.
Foreign relations is definitely a sphere handled by heads of states and
by them alone. Dmitry Medvedev is no exception. Medvedev emphasized
on more than one occasion that no meddling with what he considered
his sole prerogative would be tolerated. The president never misses
a chance to make it plain that foreign affairs is where he feels
at home. That he is entirely uninhibited, that he tries to make
relations with his foreign opposite numbers informal and develop
friendly relationships with them.
Medvedev has particular fondness for the president of France even
though he is friends with Nicolas Sarkozy against all political rules.
The Golden Rule of politics states that “there are no friends or
enemies in politics, only interests”. The French follow this rule
faithfully, by the way. Regrettably, but it took a whole series of
foreign political fiascoes for Medvedev and his closest associates
to finally acknowledge it.
Lost game in Deauville
NATO leaders who had started the war in Libya quite openly asked
Moscow to talk to Libyan leader Gaddafi and persuade him to step down.
Medvedev agreed.
Giving his consent to it in Deauville, Medvedev should have realized
that Gaddafi was to smart not to understand what awaited him in
retirement. That was why Gaddafi would not even met with Mikhail
Margelov, presidential special representative, whose forthcoming
mission in Tripoli was widely publicized.
Russia’s colossal losses in Libya, NATO air-raids, and countless
casualties in this country turned out to be what Russian ex-ambassador
in Tripoli had said would happen. Russia lost a good deal of profits
and, even more significantly, Russia lost face in the Arab world for
years to come – if not forever. The Arab world had always had respect
for Russia seeing in it a guarantor of stability in the region. Kirsan
Ilyumzhinov repeated Gaddafi’s arguments in an interview with TV
Channel I and made it plain that Russia had been tricked again.
When a friend turns out to be anything but
France itself is rocked by one scandal after another. Two French
lawyers intend to file a lawsuit against Sarkozy with the European
Court of Human Rights. To be more exact, Sarkozy is to be charged
with crimes against humanity. The lawsuit is to be filed in the
name of 30 Libyan families who call themselves victims of NATO
air-raids. The lawyers made a statement in their name claiming that
the NATO operation launched to protect non-combatants in the first
place was killing them nowadays. The impression is that the amount
of lawsuits like that will increase before long.
The operation in Libya that the French president expected would
boost his low rating is doing just the opposite. Sarkozy’s trial is
unlikely to improve the image of his Russian colleague. Trust the
media to start looking for everyone who never even tried to prevent
bombardments of Libya.
Mistral saga
Friendship between the presidents of Russia and France already resulted
in some erratic developments in the bilateral military-technical
cooperation. What Russia needs Mistrals for remains unclear even
now. Not even hard collective thinking on the part of Defense
Ministry’s analysts produced a convincing explanation justifying the
purchase. If Russia really needed helicopter-carriers, it could also
discuss the matter with the Koreans, Spaniards, and Germans. All of
them could supply the ships – and at a cheaper price.
For some reason, however, Moscow decided to save the shipyards on
the Atlantic coast of France instead.
DCNS issued an official statements to the effect that the Mistral
contract would ensure upwards of 1,000 new jobs for the French. Russia
did not say anything like that. Which probably means that the Russian
military-industrial complex will emulate participation in the project
rather than actually participate in it.
Of course, the opportunity to lay hands on SENIT-9 is a serious
argument. Unfortunately, Russia at its current level will need 5-7
years to master the system while the rest of the world will keep making
progress beyond it. Moreover, SENIT-9 is not as advanced a system as
promoters of the contract like to pretend. It is a simplified version
of SENIT-8, a system designed for the French aircraft-carrier Charles
de Gaulle in the 1990s. We can only hope that our bureaucrats will
opt for KA family helicopters and not for Eurocopters to be carried by
the Mistrals. (Unfortunately, it is whispered already that hangars of
the French helicopter-carrier are too small for Russian helicopters.)
In a word, the hideously expensive French surface combatants the
Russian Navy expects in 2014 and 2015 might become a constant headache
for Russian admirals.
In Boris Yeltsin’s days, the Duma screamed bloody murder over
considerably less questionable (and expensive) projects. Not any more.
Kazan fiasco
Back to Deauville. Presidents of Russia, United States, and France
(Medvedev, Barack Obama, and Sarkozy) made a joint statement on
Karabakh conflict resolution there. The document in question appealed
to the involved parties to take steps to promote resolution, etc.
Existence of profound discord between Baku and Yerevan was signalled by
the no-nonsense tone of the statements presidents of Azerbaijani and
Armenia made on the eve of the conference in Kazan. Ilham Aliyev for
one announced that Baku was going to suggest nothing at all in return
for the withdrawal of the Armenian troops from the territories around
Nagorno-Karabakh “because Karabakh has always been Azerbaijani.” Serj
Sargsjan in his turn formulated a number of demands all but calculated
to be turned down by Azerbaijan.
Why then organize a conference that had practically no chance of
being successful? Was the meeting organized because France had been
making countless compliments to Armenia? And because the Kremlin once
against decided to help Sarkozy and therefore repeat the joint South
Ossetian experiment everyone had forgotten?
And by the way, the Kremlin vetoed the subject immediately. TV reports
from Kazan were removed from the broadcasting schedule. Newspapers
played mum’s the word. Well, what could they say when the results
were exceptionally frustrating?
The recent meeting with President of South Africa Jacob Zuma in Moscow
became another fiasco. It had been Zuma who rallied African leaders
into a joint boycott of Libya and its leader. On the other hand, the
African states that would not join the boycott said that they would
not acknowledge the Hague Tribunal resolution condemning Gaddafi as
a criminal. What it all left Russia in need not be said.
… Opening the heart before his Western counterparts, Medvedev
discovered to his dismayed amazement that he was tricked and deceived
again and again. This is the only term that might be applied to the
decision of the Alliance to station its latest ballistic missile
defense systems near the Russian borders. And no amount of shoulder
patting helped Medvedev persuade Obama and Sarkozy that this was not
how friends were supposed to behave.
Dmitry Anatolievich, stop being amazed and remember the Golden Rule.
Or read your Karamzin or Soloviov.
It stands to reason to assume that the incumbent president of Russia
will be remembered as author of the “enigmatic” foreign policy of
the Russian Federation in the early 21st century.