Tales
of the New Cold War: Escalation
Stephen
F. Cohen @NYU @Princeton eastwestaccord.com
"...The
symbolism, then, comes from the synchronization of the expulsions—it
is that fact, more than the difficulty of losing this or that
diplomat abroad, that will register in Moscow. It was not entirely
obvious that the United Kingdom would be able to successfully
negotiate a coördinated policy response with a body, the European
Union, that it is in the process of leaving; nor that the Trump
Administration, marked by its capriciousness and penchant for
isolationism, led by a President with a demonstrated affinity for
Putin, could be persuaded to join in. The fact that U.S. and European
officials were able to pull off this small feat of multilateral
diplomacy suggests the notion of Western security coöperation may
yet have some steam left in it. In calling the expulsions a
“provocative gesture of solidarity,” the Russian Foreign Ministry
was perhaps accidentally a bit too honest in revealing what Moscow
finds most troubling in the move.
But
it is also telling that, although many E.U. governments moved to
expel Russian diplomats from their territory, almost half did
not—exactly the sort of intra-E.U. split that the Kremlin has been
hoping for and trying to foster for years. Last week, Alexis Tsipras,
the Prime Minister of Greece—which is not expelling any
diplomats—gave a squishy position on the Skripal poisoning,
offering his country’s “solidarity” with the United Kingdom,
but remained noncommittal on countermeasures, saying, “We need to
investigate.” On Monday, the center-right Austrian government, led
by a party with long-standing ties to Russia, also declined to join
the expulsions. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has said that the nation
wants to serve as a “bridge-builder between East and West.” These
policy differences are a thread on which the Kremlin will continue to
pull, and now it knows exactly where the seams are...."
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