The New York Review - November 20, 2014 Issue
Europe is facing a challenge from Russia to its very existence.
Neither the European leaders nor their citizens are fully aware of this
challenge or know how best to deal with it. I attribute this mainly to
the fact that the European Union in general and the eurozone in
particular lost their way after the financial crisis of 2008.
The
fiscal rules that currently prevail in Europe have aroused a lot of
popular resentment. Anti-Europe parties captured nearly 30 percent of
the seats in the latest elections for the European Parliament but they
had no realistic alternative to the EU to point to until recently. Now
Russia is presenting an alternative that poses a fundamental challenge
to the values and principles on which the European Union was originally
founded. It is based on the use of force that manifests itself in
repression at home and aggression abroad, as opposed to the rule of law.
What is shocking is that Vladimir Putin’s Russia has proved to be in
some ways superior to the European Union—more flexible and constantly
springing surprises. That has given it a tactical advantage, at least in
the near term.
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