Hello all–I am currently blogging from a cafe in central London near my school for the semester, King’s College London.  Hopefully I’ll be able to bring a more international perspective to some of the BRIC events.

The biggest news to come out of the BRIC countries this past week is Russia’s attempt to reassert its influence over Ukraine.  I’ll be interested to see the continued play of this drama from my position in the EU, as they struggle to deal with the fluctuation of energy supplies.

This is yet another sign of the emerging conflict between Russia and the West over the territories formerly of complete Russian influence.  The pattern of behavior has established several principles of action: Russia will do anything within its power to retrench against Western influence, no matter how costly to its own infrastructure.

The cost to Russia is immense.  Gas prices are far too low to support their budgetary needs, and the strictly oligarchical system cannot survive for too exceedingly long on such a shaky basis.  Yet Russia has shown that its foreign policy goals and gaining prominence on the world stage take a primary place.  Even with these low energy prices, Russia is willing to stop energy supplies to the Ukraine for political reasons–a hard hit to them, but apparently worth it for the ancillary benefits.

The West, then, cannot rely on Russia to draw back in the near term.  At the same time, nobody would prefer Cold War v. 2.0.  Pat Buchanan had a reasonable editorial printed in the New York Times (also found here) that proposed a multi-pronged response: delay implementation of the missile shield until Iran actually has missiles to defend against and it has been fully tested, invite Medvedev to Camp David to talk diplomacy and improving relations, should allow Georgia and Abkhazia’s separatist regions to determine for themselves what country to ally with, and, finally, should stall Ukraine and Georgia’s admission into NATO.  For the last point, NATO’s position that all members must automatically defend each other would be setting an automatic tripwire for a large war.

These seem like a reasonable drawdown policy given the current situation.  Russia has proven a continued dedication to being taken seriously, so it must be treated accordingly.  Still, though the West cannot plan on Russia backing down, it can begin to think about Russia collapsing: continued low energy prices combined with an increasingly dissatisfied population is a recipe for failure.

In the meantime, reason should prevail.