...is for Russia to maintain an aggressive foreign policy. Joschka Fisher points out this paradox of Russia's attempts to rollback NATO (which was not an issue of concern whatsoever in years past) actually backfiring, and making the defensive alliance seem more important and relevant than in the past.
A few months ago, the Russian government came up with a proposal to negotiate a new European order within the framework of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The Kremlin considers the agreements from the 1990s unjust, based as they were on its weakness at the time, and it wants to revise them. Moscow's main strategic objective is the weakening or even rollback of NATO on the grounds that it is essentially an anti-Russian military alliance and the re-establishment of its East European and Central Asian zones of influence.
But Putin is making a big mistake here, because all these aims are unacceptable for the West, and the Kremlin still doesn't seem to understand that the best and most effective guarantee of NATO's existence was, is and will continue to be an aggressive Russian foreign policy.
In the former mother country of Marxism-Leninism, the leaders still don't seem to understand dialectics. After all, if the Kremlin really wanted to achieve a change in the country's post-Soviet status quo, it should, first and foremost, pursue a policy vis-a-vis its neighbors that reduces rather than increases fears.
Yeah but then this Green Party weirdo goes on to say that we should put Russia IN NATO and make sure we don't provoke it. What that means to Russians is quite simply that they can have Ukraine and Georgia.
When will the Europeans ever learn?
It is an interesting point, though. You routinely hear Russians wailing to high heaven about insensitive NATO "provocation," but when do you hear them asking themselves what provocative behavior they themselves may be engaged in?
Never.