Last month, the speaker of the Russian parliament solemnly instructed his foreign affairs committee to launch a historical investigation: was West Germany’s ”˜annexation’ of East Germany really legal? Should it be condemned? Ought it to be reversed? Last week, the Russian foreign minister, speaking at a security conference in Munich, hinted that he might have similar doubts. ”˜Germany’s reunification was conducted without any referendum,’ he declared, ominously.
At this, the normally staid audience burst out laughing. The Germans in the room found the Russian statements particularly hilarious. Undo German unification? Why, that would require undoing the whole post-Cold War settlement!
Which is indeed a very amusing notion ”” unless you think that this is exactly what the Russian speaker, the Russian foreign minister, and indeed the Russian President, a man who once called the collapse of the Soviet Union ”˜the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century’, are in fact trying to achieve.
Read it all.
(Spectator) Anne Applebaum–How Vladimir Putin is waging war on the West ”“ and winning
Last month, the speaker of the Russian parliament solemnly instructed his foreign affairs committee to launch a historical investigation: was West Germany’s ”˜annexation’ of East Germany really legal? Should it be condemned? Ought it to be reversed? Last week, the Russian foreign minister, speaking at a security conference in Munich, hinted that he might have similar doubts. ”˜Germany’s reunification was conducted without any referendum,’ he declared, ominously.
At this, the normally staid audience burst out laughing. The Germans in the room found the Russian statements particularly hilarious. Undo German unification? Why, that would require undoing the whole post-Cold War settlement!
Which is indeed a very amusing notion ”” unless you think that this is exactly what the Russian speaker, the Russian foreign minister, and indeed the Russian President, a man who once called the collapse of the Soviet Union ”˜the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century’, are in fact trying to achieve.
Read it all.