Brown's stand on Russia is a welcome correction
Tony Blair was one of many Western leaders duped by President Putin, writes James Forsyth, but the new British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary must stand their ground when a British citizen is killed on British soil and a foreign government refuses to hand over the suspected killer for trial, then the British government must act. It was imperative that David Miliband demonstrated to the Russian government that their failure to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, the suspected killer of Alexander Litvinenko, would have consequences. If Miliband had confined himself to the usual diplomatic mutterings, as his critics think he should, he would have been effectively declaring open season on British citizens; inviting KGB alumni to knock off any turbulent priests who've settled in London.
Litvinenko's murder late last year was designed to send the message that critics of the Russian security state were not safe anywhere. It was vital that an equally clear message was sent that London will not be turned into a venue for the settling of these scores, especially as there appear to have been assissination attempts in London on Kremlin critics as recently as last month. The expulsion of four Russian diplomats begins to do just that.
The Putin government will undoubtedly escalate this crisis — within days it had threatened to kick out 80 British diplomats and end security co-operation — convinced that bully-boy tactics will prevail. The new Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary must hold their nerve. Over the last few years, Russia has feasted on Western weakness and division. For Britain to back down now would be to encourage Russia to push the boundaries of acceptable conduct still further.
One of the most serious mistakes that George W. Bush and Tony Blair made was their belief that Vladimir Putin was a man they could do business with. Both came to regret the decision.
Blair met the Russian president five times during Putin's first year in office, and travelled to Russia shortly before the 2000 elections effectively to endorse him. Putin returned the favour by making Britain his first port of call after his triumph at the polls. In these early meetings, Chechnya and human rights were mentioned, but in a ritualistic fashion. Blair did not want anything to intrude on his belief that Putin was a moderniser.
Bush went even further than Blair; declaring after his first meeting with Putin in 2001 that he had 'looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul'. The friendship was consummated with an invitation to President Bush's ranch.
When Putin was the first leader to call Bush on 9/11 and pledge solidarity with the United States, the Bush and Blair strategy seemed smart. As Putin acquiesced in US military operations in Russia's treasured near abroad, it did appear that relations had been de-iced. But Putin was just waiting his chance. He is now the only global leader who can claim that he is an unequivocal victor from the global war on terror.
Underpinning this restoration of Russian power is its vast energy resources: Russia is second only to Saudi Arabia in oil production and has 26.3 per cent of the world's proven gas reserves. Putin has moved to bring these assets fully under state control through a programme of harassment of private companies and expropriation of their properties.
With oil at over $78 a barrel — about $60 higher than it was when the Soviet Union was officially dissolved on Christmas Day, 1991 — and predicted to reach the $90 mark this summer, Russia is flush with funds. As Fraser Nelson noted in last week's Spectator, this money has not been spent on schools and hospitals but guns and ammo with the defence budget increasing sixfold since 2001. At the same time, Russia has gone from being a partly free country, according to the respected non-governmental organisation Freedom House, to being what even the Kremlin now talks of as a 'managed democracy'. Sadly, this situation will not improve when Putin retires in 2008. Instead, things will get worse under his probable successor, Sergei Ivanov, the hawkish former defence minister whom Putin recently promoted to be Deputy Prime Minister.
A new crop of Western leaders must now grasp the challenge that Russia presents. Angela Merkel has already shown herself to have a far better understanding of the threat that it poses than her predecessor Gerhard Schroder, who disgracefully retired on to the board of a Gazprom subsidiary after striking a pipeline deal with Russia specifically designed to cut out Germany's eastern neighbours. Merkel's decision to reverse her opposition to nuclear power shows a welcome appreciation of the dangers of relying on Russian energy. Yet Putin still believes that he can pick off Western leaders one by one as illustrated by his decision to cut the French firm Total into the development of the Shtokman gas field, which is believed to hold enough gas by itself to meet all Europe's gas needs for three years. Nicolas Sarkozy, who has placed human rights at the centre of his foreign policy, must show that this prize will not cause him to bite his tongue about the closing down of civil society in Russia.
Equally, the West must cease giving Russia a veto over its own security. Those who argue that the only legitimate way to act internationally is through the UN Security Council are empowering Russia. Putin has brilliantly — and cynically — used the fact that he has a veto over any actions that can be taken against Iran or Syria to persuade the West to turn a blind eye to his misdemeanours.
To be sure, there are legitimate questions to be asked about the activities of some of the Russian diaspora in London. But when the Russian state acquiesces, either before or after the fact, in an assassination on British soil it makes its critics' case far more eloquently than they can. It is no defence to say that it is unconstitutional for Russia to extradite one of its citizens. This case goes far deeper than that: Moscow is ignoring not just the charges against Lugovoi himself but the fact that polonium-210 ended up in the hands of a supposedly private individual.
Already the realists are arguing that Miliband and Brown have needlessly created a foreign policy crisis when they already have their hands full with Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. But if Britain had just let this incident slide by, it would have fundamentally betrayed the compact between citizen and the state — what justification is there for the state if it will not even protect you from assassination by agents of a foreign power? — while also encouraging through its weakness further such attacks.
After all the hints and coded signals, it is encouraging that the first Brownite correction of Blairite foreign policy is not scuttle in Iraq, or a new tone with Washington, but a hardening of the UK's approach towards Russia. Brown's and Miliband's preparedness to take a stand with the Kremlin over Lugovoi is an encouraging sign that they are steeled for the challenge that Russia will pose them in the years ahead.
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