It’s a perilous moment in the internal & external development of Russia.
Few understand Russia & Germany better than Ernst-Jörg von Studnitz (below with Mikhail Gorbachev).
In a recent article he says Nordstream 2 & old thinking must go. A 🧵/1.
Published originally in German (below) in the Redoute Papers series, Ambassador von Studnitz’s article is presented in English, in this short🧵. Each page accompanied by a one-tweet summary/ commentary by me. It carries sharp messages for German & other western policy-makers. /2.
Drawing on deep historical understanding & over half a century’s experience dealing with Russia, including as German ambassador in Moscow 1995 - 2002, Dr von Studnitz examines the Germany-Russia context facing a new Chancellor in Berlin this September. Old approaches are out. /3.
None of the four approaches used over 100 years helps: Rapallo (post WW1), Ostpolitik (1970s & 80s), Helsinki (1970s onwards), Two Plus Four (1990 onwards). The last of these was a bitter defeat, a catastrophe, in President Putin’s eyes. We must wake up to current realities. /4.
Germany is constitutionally committed to a united & peaceful Europe. That goes beyond the EU. And beyond economic interests. Important though both are. Massive German economic engagement has failed in the policy objective of helping usher in a modern, European Russia. /5.
Democratic forces in Russia have proved too weak. Ambassador von Studnitz sets out how, since the Georgia invasion of 2008, at least, Russia has been in the hands of a revanchist, territorially expansive power elite whose goals are incompatible with European peace & security. /6.
Complaints about NATO’s eastward expansion are intended to deflect blame for European division from Russia to the West. Yet no one can doubt both the right & good reason for central & eastern European countries to join the western alliance. 1956 & 1968 remain in vivid memory. /7.
Germany’s economic interests can’t be allowed to trump politic essentials. Nordstream 2 serves the former & contradicts the latter. It must go. Russia depends on advanced European industry. It has no realistic China alternative. Russia’s future is in Europe. So, what next? /8.
Political robustness, framing social & economic engagement, with patience, perseverance, consistency & western unity are the essentials.
No German “Alleingang” - close alignment with the US & EU partners. No splits.
Many small steps, over many years.
If it isn’t too late. /9.
Final notes.
The original text represents Ambassador von Studnitz’s views. Errors or omissions in the translation or the Twitter 🧵 are mine.
Photo credit: German-Russian Forum.
Paper credit: Redoute Papers, Bonn.
Full disclosure: Dr von Studnitz is my father-in-law. /10. End
Correction to tweet 8: “politic” should read “political”.
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Margaret Thatcher gave the impartial, professional Civil Service a big shove down the slippery slope of politicisation & cronyism, decades ago. Previously, Harold Wilson had given it a modest kick. But it was her 1985 assault which set the stage for the current crisis.
Via Robert Armstrong, the then head of the Civil Service, she insisted the Crown was indistinguishable from the government of the day. So, service to the former was to be understood as service to the latter & vice versa. /2.
The actual “Armstrong Memorandum” (subsequently updated) was & is a deal more sophisticated than that. And, at one level, it’s a non-point. Ministers are set above civil servants. No one denies it. But, of course, it wasn’t meaningless. Far from it. The intent was clear. /3.
Claiming what you’ve messed up can’t have been you & it’s someone else’s business to clean up may (sometimes) be amusing or even charming in a three year old. Not a in national government, or .../2.
... among major media outlets & millions of adult voters;
(b) the fact two of the UK’s primary constituent parts (“home nations”) voted Remain, along with many of the UK’s main cities, including London, is highly significant. Because it’s one of the principal factors .../3.
It’s a pity to see Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, someone who often has insight to offer, shredding his credibility in @Telegraph with near hysterical claims of a Brexit miracle.
One can only imagine the ... input received from on high which persuaded him to write it.
It’s notable that Mr Evans-Pritchard’s positive predictions for relatively higher UK than EU growth depend on the UK vaccination effort being more effective, sooner than the EU’s. And on large numbers of Hong Kong migrants settling in the UK. /2.
The former remains to be seen. There’s a lot of excitable betting on the UK hare beating the EU tortoise. Let’s wait a short while to find out. (Germany vaccinated 740,000 people yesterday).
The latter is, of course, every Brexit voter’s dream. /3.
It’s truly painful to watch James Dyson delivering a hodgepodge of pure nonsense about the benefits of Brexit. He founded & leads a successful business. Yet every “fact” is wrong.
All he has left is emotion.
He must know it.
What does it tell us that he says it anyway? A 🧵/1.
He may believe “independence of spirit” & personal determination explain his success. He has both, in quantities which set him apart from most people. Yet even if it were the reason (spoiler: it isn’t), compared to the UK his business is tiny, simple & profoundly different. /2.
Sir James’s personal qualities helped him through key challenges, as the individual central to Dyson Ltd. /3.
Don’t you just love the bemused response to groups angry at the border in the Irish Sea & the lies told about it?
“But they voted for it” & “suck it up, you wanted hard Brexit, dumbos” miss the point.
There is one. Bear with me./1.
Stoking violence is completely irresponsible. Those doing it must stop.
But it mightn’t be a bad idea if the rest of the UK - not least supporters of the lunatic, hard Brexit of which we’re experiencing the early, predictably awful throes - understood what’s really going on./2.
People in NI, of whatever political, cultural or other persuasion, aren’t stupid.
They’re like everyone else: products of circumstance & their own ability to respond. /3.
Brexiters & their backers have minimal capacity to bring about EU apocalypse.
Yet Brexit’s failure, as a supposed strategic project for boosting the UK’s geopolitical & economic position, is guaranteed & starkly visible if the EU continues. /2.
Which explains much of the prevalent, increasingly shrill, emotionally needy anti-EU rhetoric. And curious features of Brexit which appear consciously to price in abject failure. /3.