New Labour, Russia and the Litvinenko case
Posted on Thursday 19 July, 2007
Filed Under International
At certain stages in the 1990s, many informed commentators canvassed the prospect of Russia returning to dictatorship. And they weren’t talking about a reversion to Stalinism, either.
The usual model advanced was late seventies Chile without the sunshine: an authoritarian government, perhaps headed up by a military strongman, overseeing an ultra free market economy.
What we got in the end was Chile Lite, in the form of a so-called managed democracy, under the aegis of a man sometimes punningly dubbed ‘Putinochet’.
Russia today hardly has the look of a prosperous liberal democracy in the making about it. But it probably isn’t going to become a fascist dictatorship or a geopolitical aggressor, either.
The country has even been allotted a role in the globalised economy, namely that of an energy powerhouse – the world’s second-largest producer of oil after Saudi Arabia, and the biggest exporter of natural gas.
British companies participating in the goldrush, most notably the two UK oil majors, have been somewhat arbitrarily treated by the Russian authorities of late. But they are still up for a share of the spoils.
Not only does the west need Russian oil and gas, it also badly needs to keep the Kremlin onside politically. As a re-emerging great power, its acquiescence is a prerequisite both for the independence of Kosovo and some sort of settlement to the tensions over Iran.
Nevertheless, if Andrei Lugovoi does indeed have a case to answer over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, London has every right to demand his extradition, and to apply political pressure to bring that extradition about.
Hence the expulsion of four Russian diplomats from Britain earlier this week, and Moscow’s tit-for-tat reciprocation today. So far, so seventies spy novel.
But following this gesture – and that is pretty much all it is – it’s not clear how much more room for manoeuvre foreign secretary David Miliband has left to him. A government that can find excuses for complicity in the corruption of the House of Saud for the benefit of BAE is unlikely suddenly to be overcome with scruples if that is going to hurt BP and Shell.
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