Strongman, The

the president of Poland, recalled later in an interview: ‘I had tears in my eyes, to tell you the truth. It was one of those touching moments that showed that the Second World War was really over. We were starting a new era. This feeling ... I sensed it through my skin, a shiver through my body. The Second World War was finally over in Prague, in the palace that was previously used for communist meetings, where Václav Havel, now president, was host.’ 9
    Everyone present felt the same. Except, perhaps, the Russian delegation, which had turned up for a brief, pro forma session of the NATO–Russia Council the next morning. The foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, recalled how he tried to explain to his Western partners that by ensuring their own ‘security’ the new NATO members were making Russia feel less secure: ‘What was the real interest of those states in joining NATO? Yes, there was a political interest, but where was the threat coming from? One should first formulate real threats and then think in what way one can minimise or confront those threats.’ And he added: ‘In reality this does not add to anyone’s security, neither to NATO countries nor to Russia. It adds an element of distrust. You want to think about your own security, but you don’t want to think about the security of Russia.’ 10
    The Americans had an answer to such complaints. This is Nick Burns:
    You know, by expanding NATO, we were also calling Russia’s bluff. The Russians had been saying, since the fall of the Soviet Union in December 1991, that they were different, that they also believed that Europe should be a place where people should be free to decide their own futures without fear of external domination. By inviting those seven countries into NATO in November 2002, we were saying: if you choose freedom in a future democracy, we can help to guarantee that and to sustain it. The fact that many Russians subsequently said that this was a treacherous move by NATO, that this was an indication of bad faith by NATO, I think tells you everything you need to know about those Russian leaders – that they didn’t believe in the promise of democracy.
    The Russians don’t, in the modern world, in the post-Soviet world, in the post-1991 world, the Russians don’t have a right to decide other people’s futures. They don’t have a right to impose their empire on other peoples in what they call their near abroad. And if we had the strength, as we did, to see that other peoples could be free and democratic, it was certainly the right thing to do to help them achieve that freedom. 11
    The ability of the Russians and Americans to talk at cross purposes was astounding. The Russians could not understand why their own behaviour at home meant that their neighbours continued to fear them. The Americans and their allies could not see that the Russians were upset by being cast in the role of potential aggressor. NATO’s two summits in 2002 were hailed as ending the Cold War. In fact they helped to blow on its embers and start a new one. Seen from Moscow, the old Iron Curtain, running through the centre of Europe, was being replaced with a new one, much closer to home.
    Putin’s tongue lets him down again
    In his state-of-the-nation speech in the spring, President Putin spoke as if he was already where he wanted to be – accepted as a respected voice on the world stage, and virtually claiming joint leadership of the war on terror. ‘Russia is today one of the most reliable guarantors of international stability,’ he said. It was ‘precisely Russia’s principled position’ that had allowed a durable anti-terrorist coalition to be created. By joint efforts, he said, ‘we’ liquidated the most dangerous centre of international terrorism in Afghanistan.
    He then went on to talk of Russia’s ‘numerous concrete steps towards integration with Europe’ and his goal of forming a ‘single economic space’ with the European Union.
    Fine words, but as so often with Vladimir Putin, he then blew it. On a trip to Brussels for a summit meeting with EU leaders in November 2002, he lapsed into the kind of language that labelled him not as a world statesman but as a bar-room thug. At a press conference a French journalist asked him a direct but not particularly offensive question about Chechnya: why was Russia using anti-personnel mines and shells that were killing hundreds of people? And did the president not think that by trying to wipe out terrorism