Opinion: domesticating Russia – beyondbrics - Blogs - FT.com

Opinion: domesticating Russia – beyondbrics - Blogs - FT.com:



"

Of course, it all goes back to Peter the Great at the turn of the eighteenth century. On the one hand, the Russian Tsar worked in the Dutch shipyards incognito to import modern boatbuilding techniques to his empire. On the other, he systematically seized the estates of unhelpful nobles in a manner which suggested that western European notions of property rights had yet to sink in.



Russia’s traditional simultaneous fascination with and repulsion towards foreign ideas and institutions, the latter generally winning out at times of stress, is reflected in the difficulties the EU and US have encountered in trying to shift Moscow’s behaviour in Ukraine.



Washington and the European capitals have been casting about for economic tools to force Moscow to withdraw its support for the rebels in Donetsk, a challenge enormously intensified by the downing of Flight MH17. Yet Russia subscribes to few international norms of economic behaviour or institutional engagement which can be used to this end, and its status as a petrostate has given it the freedom to do so."



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