More Proof That Politics Is Not For The Simple Minded

Today's Guardian carries an interesting article which demonstrates just how complex international politics has become at a time when the cold war is long forgotten and the world is driven by issues of globalised investment, trading blocks and energy interdependency.

A naive observer could conclude that, in the Kremlin's "threats" to Ukraine yesterday, Putin was behaving like Khrushchev. The image that comes to mind is Putin (stripped to the waist with his six-pack clearly visible) banging his fist on the table like Ambassador Alexi de Sadesky in Dr. Strangelove and demonstrating Slavic neighbourliness by threatening to re-target its nukes at Ukraine if it dares to participate in US plans for a missile defence shield. But, of course, Putin's statement was nothing more than a classic piece of posturing aimed at strengthening Russia's hand in negotiations with EU states.

The clue, of course, comes in the timing, with the "nuclear threat" to Ukraine coming less than 24 hours after Putin agreed a deal with Yushchenko to reschedule $1.5bn of debt repayment on Gazprom oil supplies. Had Russia maintained its previous insistence on immediate repayment, oil prices would have soared across Europe as supplies amounting to one quarter of Europe's entire oil consumption were threatened. Yesterday's manoeuvrings were the outcome of frantic negotiations in London and Brussels, with Russia eventually agreeing to payment deferral in exchange for... well, even I'm not privy to the quid pro quo. One thing's for certain, though. Champagne corks have popped and anyone who thinks that Russia is threatening Ukraine militarily in 2008 as a result of the Orange Republic's unilateral nuclear disarmament in 1996 has been watching just one too many Stanley Kubrick films.