Today's post will cover some of the same topics as the previous one, which is to say:
1. Georgia
2. Pakistan
3. Free time stuff
4. Reading
I've just been listening to the One O'clock news and it sounds as if being in a quandary over Georgia and Russia puts you in good company along with all the NATO foreign ministers.
It looks as if NATO's support for Georgia is not going to go beyond humanitarian aid and symbolic visits by statesmen. If the Russian Black Sea fleet is blockading the port of Poti, what would happen if a ship of the Royal Navy or the US Navy tried to pay a friendly visit?
the short to medium term future looks like a partial Russian withdrawal to Abkhazia and South Ossetia but with no one being left in any doubt that they could move right back again if provoked. NATO is no more likely to tell the Russians to get out of Georgia altogether than it was to tell them to withdraw from Prague in 1968 or Budapest in 1956. There are two conclusions to draw from this:
Firstly, once all the damage has been repaired and people have been rehoused, Georgia will be in a happier situation than the old eastern bloc was during the cold war. It's situation will be more like that of Finland in those years than, say, East Germany.
Secondly, western strategy is going to have to be one of playing a long game with the Russians(as in the Cold War). It's going to be a matter of 'doing business' with the Russians and, hopefully, more of shared point of view emerging between them and us. Admittedly, with the Russians harassing bodies like the British Council that are supposed to foster this kind of understanding, the outlook doesn't look promising for the time being. The fact that so many Russians believe that Stalin was their greatest leader is a reminder of the depth of the differences between Russians and other Europeans.
Having said that, the leaders of western Europe do need to send some signals to the Russians. The most important would be a long term commitment to not being dependent upon Russian oil and gas. The Russians know that they don't have any other assets with as much potency; they would soon realise where the rest of the continent was heading even if it takes decades to reduce dependency on Russian energy supplies.
Also, the leading continental European countries seem to be giving more and more credibility to the idea that there is no threat that they would stand up to.
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Having said that, President Sarkozy was a lot more active and visible than any UK politicians were over the crisis in Georgia. At first, I thought that I must just be missing the news bulletins where Gordon Brown or David Miliband were being interviewed but it looks as if the relationship between the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary had become too sensitive to allow too much of a spotlight to fall on it during the crisis.
David Cameron made hay out of this situation by sounding so robust on the subject of Georgia and Russia (and actually turning up in Tbilisi). Having been waiting for someone British to say something about Georgia for a while, Cameron's intervention sounded encouraging at first but I'm not sure if there's a fully fledged policy behind it.
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All the comment on the resignation of President Musharraf makes it clear that the coalition government's own record will be under much greater scrutiny now that they can't blame the President for what happens. Obviously, they are in an uncomfortable situation with all sorts of problems that they may well not be up to fixing and they may seek to make Musharraf into a scapegoat by putting him on trial. In fact, he might make a better scape goat if he wasn't tried because without a trial there would be no danger of him morphing into a martyr.
None of the newspaper stories seemed to say anything about the new President but(according to Wikipedia) Muhammad Soomro was an internationally respected banker who is responsible for introducing micro credit to Pakistan. He's a supporter of Musharraf so there's little likelihood of him keeping his job beyond the election for the president by Pakistan' electoral college. And it's his birthday today.
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I had a great new walk on Friday afternoon. This was mainly on the eastern side of Thorncombe Street. This is the last high ground before the Bramley, Shamley, Shalford 'gap' so it's about as far east as I tend to go for walks. However the views farther eastwards and southwards are great. There's a good mix of woods and fields, too, including some bare hill-tops (without which there would be no views, of course). It was also a good walk for Blackberries.
On Sunday, we drove down to Portchester Castle and had a look around. I was taken there years ago and, although, it's very impressive, I think it may be better off season when you might catch more Roman/Norman atmosphere. Presumably, if you pay to climb to the top of the keep, you also get more information about the site but there almost no information if you're just wandering around within the Roman walls. Apparently, the Roman town was built in the 200s (3rd century) and the castle was where Edward lll and Henry V embarked en route to invade France.
The part I like most is the path around the outside, particularly on the seaward side. If you blank out all the development on the opposite sides of Portsmouth Harbour, you can just imagine imagine a Roman soldier (or henry V) down there.
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I've been reading Philip Kerr's 'The One from the Other', 'pure Chandler' as the blurb on the cover proclaims, but set in the aftermath of World War ll. The hero purports to be the sort who would sit light to the historical or humanitarian significance of anything he'd seen or done but the book actually goes on and on about the holocaust and war criminals. There's no denying it's a well paced good read.
