Foreign Affairs Review Spring Issue, 2014. Russia Special

The Foreign Affairs Review
www.foreignaffairsreview.co.uk
Issue 2
Spring / Summer 2014
FAR
THE
FOREIGN AFFAIRS REVIEW
RussiaBACK IN THE
USSR? p18
over 11 pages
Putin’s Russia
Reasserts Itself
FOREIGN POLICY, SOCHI AND
THE OLYMPICS, PUSSY RIOT
AND HUMAN RIGHTS
A Congolese Warlord is
Brought to Justice
Why the West Can’t Ignore
China’s Navy
How Russia’s History Fuels its
Foreign Policy
Pussy Riot and the Growth of Anarcho-Populism
Venezuela’s Democracy on the Brink
FEATURING:
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

This magazine will be my last as a St Andrews student. Throughout my time as Chief Editor
of the Regulus and later as Publishing Editor at this publication I have always sought to give
students here a voice, and I have been continually surprised and delighted at the level of in-
sight and originality put forth by my peers. St Andrews may seem politically isolated at times,
but we make up for it in writing and consuming a frankly astonishing amount of opinion on
international affairs.
I owe a tremendous debt to the scores of interested students who willingly give up their time
to write, edit, and design this non-profit magazine. In particular I must thank Martin Lyle,
who sacrificed holiday time to finish this edition. Thanks to my team of editors—Liliane,
Tamar, Michael and Hannah. Thank you to J. P. Caroll, for running the excellent DC Bureau.
More broadly, I am grateful for my Chief Editor Radim Dragomaca’s advice and constant vig-
ilance. Radim, I don’t know how you do it all. I also owe my friend Ben Shaps for bringing me
in to the magazine business in the first place and getting me started at The Regulus. This issue
of The Review wouldn’t be here today without the contributions of Ben Shaps, Kurt Jose and
Deborah Marber to St Andrews’ first political magazine.
Finally, thanks to all of the writers, especially the ones who have been with me for several
years. It’s a strange parasitic relationship that the editor shares with his writers, and I’m grate-
ful that you all have put up with me as I have pestered you for articles month after month.
This issue belongs to you. I will leave this university with a piece of paper declaring me fit
for work but the most rewarding aspect of my time here has undoubtedly been in creating a
forum for the expression of political opinion. It is my firm conviction that a healthy democ-
racy requires an informed and active public, and my dear hope is that, in some small way, the
Foreign Affairs Review has succeeded in this respect.
Editor’s note
BY: Nic Carter, Publishing Editor
WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO
Radim Dragomaca, Editor-In-Chief of the Review, TarletonWatkins, Director of Sponsorship, QiTian, the
Foreign Affairs Society President.
And a specialThanks to all our writers.
Publishing Editor
Nic Carter
Associate Editors
Liliane Stadler, Michael Cotterill, Hannah-Mei Andrews,Tamar Ziff
DC Bureau Editor
J. P. Carroll
Design and Cover
Martin Lyle
Editorial Board
THE FOREIGN AFFAIRS REVIEW - ST ANDREWS
www.foreignaffairsreview.co.uk - www.standrewsfas.co.uk
The views expressed herein represent only their respective authors.All images remain the full property of their owners, fully
credited on our website.The Foreign Affairs Review is a part of the Foreign Affairs Society, a non-profit entity affiliated to the
St Andrews Students’Association, a registered charity

Contents
Issue n.2 - Spring 2014
The publication of the second issue of the For-
eign Affairs Review marks a milestone. Not just
a milestone for the magazine, coming now to the
end of its second year, and the end of its first year
publishing in print, but also for its staff. This edi-
torial is more than just an introduction. It is also a
conclusion and a farewell. I founded this magazine
two years ago with Michael Telfer. Since that time,
editors and writers have come and gone, Michael
left the magazine to lead the History Society Jour-
nal, and when the FAR starts its third year in Sep-
tember 2014, only one of the original editors will
be left – Tarleton Watkins.
It is the end of an era, and the beginning of a new one. In the last
two years, we took a student society webpage with a few dozen
articles and a few thousand views and turned it into the largest
publication at St Andrews. We’ve been fortunate to have a dedicated
and talented staff of over a 100 people in the past two years, have
published over 500 articles and have reached an audience of over
30,000 people around the world. We’ve expanded into audio and
interviews, opened a DC Bureau, and with the help of the Regulus
Magazine, which was absorbed by the Foreign Affairs Review in
September 2013, we began publishing this print edition, now on its
second issue.
The FAR is no longer a fledgling publication looking to find its
identity, build its team, and establish itself in the media landscape
of St Andrews. It is a project of worth, which reaches a wide audi-
ence and contributes to the student experience of hundreds in St
Andrews. This is my last editorial as Editor-in-Chief, and I want to
thank the incredible team that has made all this possible in the last
two years, and it is with great pride and great hope for the future of
the Foreign Affairs Review that I pass the torch.
BY : Radim Dragomaca, Editor-in-Chief of the Review
CONTENTS
4 The foreign affairs review

PRINT ISSUE NUMBER 2
The foreign affairs review 5
Contents p18
EUROPEAMERICASWORLDDCBUREAUFEATURES
Switzerland’s Immigration Laws:
What Does the Future Hold?
#LaSalida - Crisis in Venezuela
Habeas Corpus From Lincoln to
Bush
Why we Cannot Just Ignore
Chinese Sea-Power
Interview with Charles Bird: The
“Longest-Surviving Resident”
The Great War, its Aftermath,
and its Relevance Today
Journalism and Justice: Hai-
ti’s Jean Dominique
American Empire: Decline and
Fall?
Crisis and Crossroads: Cam-
bodia in Transition
Freedom House and Neglected
Instruments of Democratisation
Releasing US Immigration
Reform from the Immigrant
Detention Quota
The ICC Prosecutes a War-
lord in the DRC
Terrorism and International
Law
p10
p 29
p 34
p 38
p 6
p13
p 30
p 36
p 40
p 16
p 32
p 42
p 8
RUSSIA

In an interview conducted by the Foreign Affairs Review, Charles Bird,
a Teaching Fellow at the St Andrews Centre for the Study of Terrorism and
Political Violence (CSTPV), shares some of his insights into the study and
practice of international relations over the course of his career.
Who were some of the
high-profile decision-makers
you have met in your time as a
diplomat?
In the United Kingdom, Margaret
Thatcher, Tony Blair, Jack Straw; then
government ministers, politicians,
and senior business people such as
Richard Branson I also saw represent-
atives from the oil and gas industries,
many Members of Parliament (some
on a more or less daily basis). I’ve also
met a number of Foreign Secretaries,
including David Miliband.
I have strong views concerning pol-
iticians. I do not have a particularly
high opinion of some of the decisions
they have made in the past or of the
way they were seduced by vanity, by
misinterpretations or misunderstand-
ings of events.
The legacy of Iraq is one example. It is
an issue that the Iraqi people, most of
all, have to deal with on a daily basis
owing to the numbers of women,
children and innocent civilians killed.
I myself still think about my respon-
sibility for the part that I played. I
wonder how those in positions of
government can rest easy at night.
What should prospective deci-
sion-makers be prepared to do
over the course of their career?
Students who are considering a career
in diplomacy should bear the follow-
ing in mind: have realistic expecta-
tions and don’t see it as a career for
life.
That being said, do not be afraid to
speak your mind. One of the dangers
of an organization such as the For-
eign Office is that it breeds tradition.
However much an organization
encourages its people to speak out
and approach problems with a critical
mind, it does demand conformity if
you want to rise through the ranks,
Intentionally or not, this process can
stifle people’s ability to think critical-
ly. What it can boil down to is com-
petition for promotion on the basis of
conformity.
Another thing is that senior officials
can be seduced by their proximity to
power, or what they perceive as pow-
er. They tend to make decisions based
not on the national interest of the
UK, but on what could increase their
chances of preferment. We often take
decisions on the safe side, when we
should be prepared to stick our necks
out and disagree with the consensus.
Make moral decisions. I always hoped
that my involvement in difficult
situations could make a difference for
the better.
What is the purpose of diplo-
macy today?
It is the same as it has always been:
to sort out intractable problems, to
avoid confrontation, violence and the
loss of face.
How do academia and di-
plomacy differ? How do they
enhance each other?
Both have much to learn from each
other, but academia works within a
longer timeframe. In diplomacy, you
often have to distil a huge amount
of information very compactly and
synthesize it in order to make a quick
decision. For instance, in the Syrian
crisis, a diplomat needs to know the
situation on the ground. Who are the
individuals and groups in a position
to change the course of events and
understand the methods and means
to bring about change? They don’t
necessarily need to know the specific
affiliation of different tribal members
-hose interests are more academic.
That being said, academics get things
right pretty often, because they can
test their analysis and their conclu-
sions.
However, they often do not have a
realistic understanding of how their
recommendations can be implement-
ed. Take the situation in Afghanistan.
It is easy for academics to say that the
UK should do this, the USA that and
the Pakistanis something else. It is far
INTERVIEW
BY : Liliane Stadler
Charles Bird : The Longest-Surviving Resident
FEATURES

harder for diplomats to turn that into
a reality.
How well do academics pre-
pare future diplomats?
Diplomacy is not necessarily about
knowledge, but about a skill set. For
example, some doctors are only suit-
ed for pathology, because they should
never be let near a living patient.
There are some people who may be
brilliantly clever, but who are totally
unsuited to diplomacy. In academ-
ia, it is less important to have good
inter-personal skills.
What was your most memora-
ble experience as a diplomat?
I’ll describe three particularly memo-
rable occasions.
The first was during my time in Iraq,
which lasted about six months – both
during the war-fighting phase and
later - I was involved with setting
up a civilian administration in the
area under UK control. It’s an ex-
traordinary experience, being faced
with trying to find people to run a
city like Basra within twenty-four
hours of capture, knowing that every
civil servant, every doctor, teacher,
engineer, oil worker, gas worker,
electrician, has disappeared because
Saddam told them that we were going
to execute them. I remember walking
into a building where we asked Iraqis
interested in working for us to meet
after the capture of Basra. We were
the first of the occupying forces to
come into close contact with the local
population, trying to find engineers
or medics who were prepared to run
a city on an interim basis. I found out
I was the only Arabic-speaker, which
made things interesting.
The second occurred when I met Slo-
bodan Milošević, who was extremely
manipulative and clever. During
the Yugoslav wars, a number of EU
diplomats were charged with voicing
objections to his practices. Milosevic
knew this, so what he would do is, he
would stand diagonally across from
you at the other end of the room
when you came in. He would then
greet you with his hand outstretched.
It is a natural reaction for most
people to stretch out their hand in
response and perhaps even to smile.
At the same time, in the other corner
of the room, Milosevic had arranged
for the press to film and photograph
the entire scene, so that all EU con-
stituents would see would be smiling,
hand-shaking diplomats, who had
initially promised to scold Milošević
for his actions.
I spent nearly a year at the Hyatt Ho-
tel in Belgrade. It was cheaper than
renting a house – the hotel had to
charge at the official rate of exchange,
while private landlords demanded US
Dollars or Deutsche Mark. Anyway,
a well-known sanctions-breaker
moved into the suite next to mine.
For his own protection, his guards
were permanently stationed in the
lobby of the hotel. One night, as I
was asleep, the sanctions-breaker
opened the door and was shot three
times with a silencer. I slept through
the whole thing. The next morn-
ing, as I was leaving, the desk clerk
greeted me, saying, “Congratulations
Mr. Bird, you are now officially our
longest-surviving resident!” People in
these situations often have an amaz-
ing sense of humor.
Actually, I’ll give you one more story.
One of the things we struggle to find
as humans is a sense of normalcy
in the midst of chaos. During the
Kosovo crisis, I used to go to no-
man’s land at night to bring refugees
to the border region of Macedonia.
One night, I was standing with a
whole load of refugees: women whose
husbands had been shot, women who
had been raped, the old and infirm,
and the injured – a scene of chaos
and of utter human misery. Sudden-
ly, my mobile phone rang. It was my
son, who had no idea where I was or
what I was doing. He had called to
ask about whether I had heard the
news about the test (cricket) match,
and gave me a one-on-one account
of the day’s play! It was a wonderful
moment of calm and connection with
another world, away from what I was
seeing around me – I cried.
Who are the people who have im-
pressed you the most over the course
of your career?
The people who have impressed me
most over the course of my career are
not politicians or high-profile people.
Instead, I have huge admiration for
the people who are often regarded
as unimportant. I respect colleagues,
who put their lives at risk and their
personal lives under immense strain
because they are committed to what
they are doing. I admire the individ-
uals who have to suffer the conse-
quences of political decisions. I have
huge respect for soldiers, who are
asked to do difficult and dangerous
jobs without necessarily understand-
ing or agreeing with the policies that
guide their assignments.
I am most impressed by the ordinary
people who can see through national
and international disagreements and
discover basic humanity in all of us. I
have witnessed kindness and under-
standing from ordinary people in
countries with whom we were at war
or in a state of diplomatic deep-freeze
(meaning we were not talking).
It’s easy to be dumbstruck by meeting
the “heroes and villains” you reg-
ularly see on the news. But equally

‘Ethical’ foreign policy has been in vogue for some time. A ‘foreign policy
based on values’, as our man in Whitehall puts it, has made considerable in-
roads into the popular political consciousness and vocabulary. Yet to con-
sider some of the major challenges to international relations today is to trace
a fault line between hard-headed realism and the kind of global moralism
which raises the suspicions of even the most trusting spectators. It is some-
thing of a non-choice: do we prefer a ruthlessly ambitious power unafraid to
be the cudgel-player in the china shop (to twist Hume’s famous phrase), or
do we carry on pretending that the soft-speaker doesn’t have a big stick? Ei-
ther way, the suspicion lingers that value-laden language forms a superficial
gloss to the substantive reality of international transactions.
It would hardly be an original argu-
ment to suggest that international
ethics seem to be stuck in a rut. That,
in any case, sounds alarmingly close
to a concession that those realists
whose critique of liberal internation-
alism is invariably accompanied by
a condescending reproach for even
beginning to think that systems of
personal obligation could be tran-
scribed to the global sphere, should
have the last word. The challenges we
face in several avenues of global af-
fairs, however, beg a fresh approach.
For example, where might we be-
gin to shift the discourse on our re-
sponse to transnational terrorism?
In 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed
memorable are the people who suffer
the consequences of the actions and
decisions of politicians. I have spent a
lot of time in conflict zones, meeting
people who have suffered physical,
emotional and psychological damage
and loss beyond imagination. Their
courage never ceases to amaze me.
Here we are in Britain, upset about
flood damage. We would fall apart if
we had to experience what people in
conflict and post-conflict situations
have to endure.
I will never forget the words of a sol-
dier outside of Basra. As we stopped
for a cup of tea, there was a skirmish
outside the city. He was about to
go and put his life on the line and
he asked me, with a cheerful grin,
“Excuse me, sir. Can you tell me what
we’re doing here?”
Charles Bird, OBE, is a Teaching
Fellow at the Centre for the Study
of Terrorism and Political Violence
(CSTPV), University of St Andrews.
Between 1986 and 2010 he was a
member of HM Diplomatic Service
specializing in the Middle East,
conflict, post-conflict, terrorism
and counter-terrorism issues. Post-
ings included to the UAE (1988–92)
with involvement in Desert Storm,
Belgrade (1992–93) during the war
in former Yugoslavia, Macedonia
(1999) for the Kosovo crisis, Greece
and Nigeria. During tours in the UK
his jobs included Deputy Head of
Middle East Department, Head of
South Asia Department, and leading
a project that resulted in the forma-
tion of the interdepartmental (FCO,
MoD, DfID) Stabilization Unit, which
co-ordinates the UK Government’s
post conflict reconstruction work
in, amongst other places, Iraq and
Afghanistan. In 2003 he was second-
ed to the military and was on the staff
of the General Officer Commanding
First (UK) Armored Division in Iraq,
both during and for several months
after the invasion. Between 2004 and
2008 he was on secondment to the
MoD working on issues related to
counter-terrorism.
FEATURES
TERRORISM
BY : Taylor Carey
Terrorism and International Law: Building a
Trustworthy Programme

by US soldiers inside Pakistan. The
raid was secret, and expedient, com-
pleted in 38 minutes. Osama’s assassi-
nation meant, according to President
Obama, that ‘justice has been done’.
Yet, for those avowedly clinging to an
ethical framework for global politics,
such a move presents certain tensions.
Bin Laden was guilty – by his own
gloating admission – of grotesque
acts of mass-murder, beyond even of
the casualties of 9/11. However, “jus-
tice” has an essentially communica-
tive component. We are convinced of
it when we see it and thus our con-
cern for a just foreign policy ought
to be rooted in the extent to which
it lends itself to public scrutiny.
In the domestic sphere, this is all fairly
uncontentious. Accountability is the
sine qua non of a democratic polit-
ical order. The values of democracy
maintain self-criticism as the foun-
dation for an equitable political set-
tlement. Moral programmes are fre-
quently diverse, but converge to the
extent that, through proximity, they
must argue for their permissibility
and perspective. The role of the state
is to act as a guarantor of freedom
of argument, discourse and debate.
More specifically, the state provides
a guarantee that, in those areas of
public life where the good of any one
community threatens to impinge on
the good of another, might need not
equal right. What the state ensures
is scrutiny, the possibility of genu-
ine public debate, and accountability.
These are the values that we claim to
bring to our foreign policies. Yet, the
guarantee of fair argument, which
states provide their constituent com-
munities, does not exist in a glob-
al context, where states constitute
those interested parties themselves.
At this stage, returning to a focus on
transnational terrorism will prevent a
panegyric on the desirability of com-
prehensive global governance; but
perhaps the natural fluidity of such an
argument suggests something of the
difficulty of detaching a supposedly
ethical programme for global engage-
ment from the foundational principles
with which we shape our own commu-
nities. The killing of Osama bin Laden
is problematic, because it suggests an
arbitrary suspension of ethical norms
and international law. The argument
from the Obama administration was
that the operation constituted wartime
self-defence. That sounds convinc-
ing only if self-defence is understood
liberally, to say the least. What haunts
this episode is its isolation from pro-
cedural politics – triggers were pulled
before arguments settled. Granted, a
host of practicalities would have made
the detainment and trial of bin Laden
a gargantuan struggle. Granted, too,
that al-Qaeda kingpins don’t regular-
ly hand themselves over to due pro-
cess. Still, the biting question remains:
can we ever trust a foreign policy that
treats law as so easily dispensable?
Trust is at the heart of the West’s dif-
ficulties in the ‘War on Terror’. The
inescapable reality is that a large pro-
portion of the world’s Muslim com-
munities feel that Western powers
besieges their identity and threatens
their cultural inheritance. What be-
gan as unanimous solidarity behind a
wounded icon of liberty and freedom
– the World Trade Center – rapidly
decayed into begrudging support, at
most, for an American project. Here,
we feel the true consequences of treat-
ing international law as no more than
an occasionally convenient tool. If
the arguments advanced about the
nature of the state as a guarantor of
freedom of speech are correct, then
we ought to be able to extend them
to critically evaluate the failings of in-
ternational cooperation with regard
to issues of collective responsibility.
Transnational terrorism poses a
challenge to the basic security of the
political order, demanding a collec-
tive response. These threats to the
underpinnings of democratic lib-
erty demand consensus and con-
versation over unilateral zeal. Di-
plomacy is today often seen as little
more than a veil for vested nation-
al interest – not least when the ‘big
stick’ of which Theodore Roosevelt
spoke is hidden behind one’s back.
What would an ethical foreign pol-
icy look like? The theologian and
philosopher Herbert McCabe once
quipped that ethics is ‘just about do-
ing what you want’. International
law and governance does not mean
rigid imperative imposed from on
high; rather, it exists to provide the
space for argument, accountabili-
ty, debate and demonstration which
any notion of justice presupposes.
Our prospects for meeting the de-
mands of the most pressing global
challenges, from terrorism to climate
change, are fatally damaged by the
absence of trust in the global sphere.
Yet for all the lack of a reliable and
trustworthy discursive framework, for
all the presumption of vested interest
around every corner, our language
about ethical engagement in the in-
ternational sphere points us towards
a solution. A foreign policy based
on democratic values is exactly what
we ought to be engaging in. Until we
do, contrary to Mr Obama’s asser-
tion, justice will not have been done.

EUROPE

The referendum, which passed by a margin of only 0.36%The referendum, which passed by a margin of only 0.36%
above the required 50%, is in direct violation of the agreeabove the required 50%, is in direct violation of the agree-
ment made between Switzerland and the EU to allow freement made between Switzerland and the EU to allow free
movement of people between borders.
Implications for SwitzerlandImplications for Switzerland
The Swiss People’s Party has been instrumental in creatingThe Swiss People’s Party has been instrumental in creating
fear and hysteria over the prospect of ‘mass immigration’.fear and hysteria over the prospect of ‘mass immigration’.
The party has spearheaded other campaigns along similarThe party has spearheaded other campaigns along similar
right-wing ideals in the past, for example a 2009 ban onright-wing ideals in the past, for example a 2009 ban on
the construction of minarets, which prompted concernsthe construction of minarets, which prompted concerns
of Islamophobia in the country. This referendum has beenof Islamophobia in the country. This referendum has been
a great victory for the party, which seeks to create a morea great victory for the party, which seeks to create a more
inward-looking Switzerland.
Proponents of the new cap on immigration believe thatProponents of the new cap on immigration believe that
free movement has created pressure on housing, health,free movement has created pressure on housing, health,
education and public transport. They also lament thateducation and public transport. They also lament that
foreign workers drive salaries down for Swiss nationals.foreign workers drive salaries down for Swiss nationals.
Further, they fear the discrepancy between the SwissFurther, they fear the discrepancy between the Swiss
unemployment rate of 3 per cent, and the EU average of 7unemployment rate of 3 per cent, and the EU average of 7
percent, distressed that continued free movement mightpercent, distressed that continued free movement might
raise the number of unemployed people in Switzerlandraise the number of unemployed people in Switzerland
and affect economic prosperity. As a result of the referenand affect economic prosperity. As a result of the referen-
dum, especially in areas of high unemployment, employdum, especially in areas of high unemployment, employ-
ers will have to prove that they are looking for Swiss staffers will have to prove that they are looking for Swiss staff
before opening the pool out to foreign applicants.before opening the pool out to foreign applicants.
Immigrants make up around 60 per cent of workers in theImmigrants make up around 60 per cent of workers in the
pharmaceutical, construction and farming industry. Atpharmaceutical, construction and farming industry. At
the Basel university hospital, over 50 percent of doctorsthe Basel university hospital, over 50 percent of doctors
do not hold a Swiss passport. These industries would bedo not hold a Swiss passport. These industries would be
negatively impacted by the results of the referendum, asnegatively impacted by the results of the referendum, as
many would lose their competitive edge with highly qualimany would lose their competitive edge with highly qualimany would lose their competitive edge with highly quali-
fied foreign employees.fied foreign employees.fied foreign employees.
There are many significant backlashes resulting from theThere are many significant backlashes resulting from theThere are many significant backlashes resulting from the
referendum, for example on study and research programs.referendum, for example on study and research programs.referendum, for example on study and research programs.
Erasmus+, a European education exchange program thatErasmus+, a European education exchange program thatErasmus+, a European education exchange program that
was recently allocated more funding and opened up towas recently allocated more funding and opened up towas recently allocated more funding and opened up to
allow the participation of Swiss students, is one of manyallow the participation of Swiss students, is one of manyallow the participation of Swiss students, is one of many
programs that is in jeopardy if the EU chooses to close offprograms that is in jeopardy if the EU chooses to close offprograms that is in jeopardy if the EU chooses to close off
Swiss membership. Between 2011 and 2012, over 2,600Swiss membership. Between 2011 and 2012, over 2,600Swiss membership. Between 2011 and 2012, over 2,600
Swiss students took part in the Erasmus program. SwissSwiss students took part in the Erasmus program. SwissSwiss students took part in the Erasmus program. Swiss
universities that participate in the program stand to loseuniversities that participate in the program stand to loseuniversities that participate in the program stand to lose
funding from research grants. The Federal Institute offunding from research grants. The Federal Institute offunding from research grants. The Federal Institute of
Technology in Zurich, for example, could lose almost 100Technology in Zurich, for example, could lose almost 100Technology in Zurich, for example, could lose almost 100
million francs in funding. On top of this, the referendummillion francs in funding. On top of this, the referendummillion francs in funding. On top of this, the referendum
sends a clear message to foreign students who are alreadysends a clear message to foreign students who are alreadysends a clear message to foreign students who are already
in Switzerland, that they are not welcome. Naturally, thisin Switzerland, that they are not welcome. Naturally, thisin Switzerland, that they are not welcome. Naturally, this
also greatly affects the plans of many students who wouldalso greatly affects the plans of many students who wouldalso greatly affects the plans of many students who would
like to stay in the country after graduation.like to stay in the country after graduation.like to stay in the country after graduation.
As a shock tactic to demonstrate the concrete results ofAs a shock tactic to demonstrate the concrete results ofAs a shock tactic to demonstrate the concrete results of
the referendum, a German TV program released a phothe referendum, a German TV program released a phothe referendum, a German TV program released a pho-
to-shopped image of the Swiss football team, removingto-shopped image of the Swiss football team, removingto-shopped image of the Swiss football team, removing
players with multicultural backgrounds from the photo,players with multicultural backgrounds from the photo,players with multicultural backgrounds from the photo,
leaving only three players. Metaphorically, what thisleaving only three players. Metaphorically, what thisleaving only three players. Metaphorically, what this
demonstrates is that the booming Swiss economy is greatdemonstrates is that the booming Swiss economy is greatdemonstrates is that the booming Swiss economy is great-
ly supported by immigrants, many of whom are extremelyly supported by immigrants, many of whom are extremelyly supported by immigrants, many of whom are extremely
well qualified.well qualified.well qualified.
Relationship with the EURelationship with the EURelationship with the EU
Switzerland is famously not a member of the nowSwitzerland is famously not a member of the nowSwitzerland is famously not a member of the now
28-member European Union, choosing instead to benefit28-member European Union, choosing instead to benefit28-member European Union, choosing instead to benefit
from the EU’s single market through a series of over onefrom the EU’s single market through a series of over onefrom the EU’s single market through a series of over one
In the early hours of the 17th of February, anIn the early hours of the 17th of February, anIn the early hours of the 17th of February, anIn the early hours of the 17th of February, an Ethiopian Airlines flight un-
expectedly landed at Geneva airportGeneva airport. The hijacker on board only had one. The hijacker on board only had one. The hijacker on board only had one
demand: asylum in Switzerlandasylum in Switzerland. When the news broke, it seemed that. When the news broke, it seemed that. When the news broke, it seemed that
the most puzzling element of the hijacker’s decision was his destination ofthe most puzzling element of the hijacker’s decision was his destination ofthe most puzzling element of the hijacker’s decision was his destination ofthe most puzzling element of the hijacker’s decision was his destination of
choice. Why, of all European countries, would he choose Switzerland at thischoice. Why, of all European countries, would he choose Switzerland at thischoice. Why, of all European countries, would he choose Switzerland at thischoice. Why, of all European countries, would he choose Switzerland at this
time? Less than two weeks earlier, the small Alpine country narrowly passedtime? Less than two weeks earlier, the small Alpine country narrowly passedtime? Less than two weeks earlier, the small Alpine country narrowly passedtime? Less than two weeks earlier, the small Alpine country narrowly passed
a referendum vote to create strictera referendum vote to create stricter quotas for immigrationquotas for immigrationquotas for immigration from European
Union (EU) countries, a decision that is bound to have far-reaching implicaUnion (EU) countries, a decision that is bound to have far-reaching implicaUnion (EU) countries, a decision that is bound to have far-reaching implicaUnion (EU) countries, a decision that is bound to have far-reaching implica-
tions on the country’stions on the country’s relationship with the EUrelationship with the EUrelationship with the EU.
BY :BY : Alexis McGivernAlexis McGivernAlexis McGivern
Switzerland’s Immigration laws:Switzerland’s Immigration laws:Switzerland’s Immigration laws:Switzerland’s Immigration laws:
What Does the Future Hold?What Does the Future Hold?What Does the Future Hold?What Does the Future Hold?

hundred bilateral treaties that link goods, services, people
and capital between the two markets. In 2013, trade with
the EU amounted to over 110 billion Swiss francs, making
it the country’s biggest trading partner. Over 1.2 million
EU citizens currently live in Switzerland, and 450,000
Swiss citizens live and work in the EU.
The relationship between the two has been afflicted in the
past by conflicting ideas about tax evasion, particular with
regards to multi-national corporations and citizens of
neighboring countries with secret Swiss bank accounts.
The decision to place quotas on the number of immi-
grants arriving in Switzerland is a far cry from the Swit-
zerland that seemed to be opening up its borders only six
years ago, when it first signed the Schengen Agreement
in order to eliminate internal borders within the region
and make travel hassle-free for EU and Swiss citizens. At
the same time, Switzerland accepted the related Dublin
Convention, designed to simplify the application process
for asylum seekers. However, at the time of ratification of
the Schengen Agreement, many citizens already expressed
fears over the potential influx of cheap labour from sur-
rounding EU countries.
How Should the EU React?
The EU’s reaction to the referendum not only has implica-
tions for the future of their relationship with Switzerland,
their fourth largest trading partner, but also affects how
similar right-wing movements across Europe choose to
move forward with their agendas. Nigel Farage, the leader
of the UK’s Independence Party, stated that the result of
the referendum was “wonderful news”, and he praised
Switzerland for “[standing] up to the bullying and threats
of the unelected bureaucrats of Brussels.”
Many other European right-wing parties, like the Progress
Party of Norway or the Party for Freedom in the Nether-
lands, are promoting the idea that the European Union
ideals present a threat to national freedom and prosperity.
Most concerning is the direct impact this may have on
the 2017 referendum regarding David Cameron’s policy
to renegotiate Britain’s membership of the EU. British
Eurosceptics could look to Switzerland as an example of
a successful move away from the European Union. The
EU has struggled to make immigration policy uniform
across the EU, with many countries viewing it as a nation-
al foreign policy decision, rather than subject to common
agreements across the union.
Now it is up to the EU to decide how to treat the results of
this referendum. Some EU commissioners have favoured
making it clear that “cherry-picking with the EU is not a
sustainable strategy”, as Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Ger-
many’s foreign minister, made clear in his warnings to
the Swiss government. However, if they choose to come
down too hard on the country, they may push others into
distancing themselves from the union.
Referendums are the first stage of any policy change
within the Swiss government. As of now, the Swiss federal
government has three years to create the matching legis-
lation to set quotas for immigrants depending on annual
economic needs. The bilateral agreements with the EU
that allow the Swiss access onto the single market come
with a ‘guillotine clause’, meaning that the compromise of
one part of the agreement will put all others in jeopardy.
Swiss Political System
The vote was largely divided along the ‘Rösti curtain’, a po-
litical split between French-speaking and German-speak-
ing cantons in Switzerland. The French-speaking cantons
overwhelmingly voted ‘no’ to imposing quotas on im-
migrants, the German-speaking cantons were divided,
and the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino voted ‘yes’ to
curbing the amount of immigrants allowed in Switzer-
land. The voting was also disproportionate across a rural
and urban divide, with fewer city-dwellers voting for the
initiative than those in rural regions.
The Swiss political system operates through referenda,
which are at the core of its unique democratic function-
ing. All Swiss citizens are eligible to vote on policies at
the cantonal and national levels several times a year. This
form of direct democracy is essential to the Swiss political
system, as it stimulates discussion on important issues
that affect citizens. There are many long-term implications
of this vote; therefore, though the result of this referen-
dum is fearful and upsetting, it represents the will of the
Swiss people, which is ultimately the most important part
of any functioning democracy.
Alexis McGivern is a third year International Relations
student who has a keen interest in environmental issues’
impact on the political sphere.Alexis has Canadian and Irish
citizenships and grew up in Geneva, Switzerland. She cites
this multiculturalism as the cause of her interest in the work of
international and non-governmental organizations in coor-
dinating political action. She also has an interest in interna-
tional trade, development and aid, energy studies, corporate
responsibility and marine conservation.
EUROPE

D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover opens with a stark and powerful
truth: “Ours is an essentially tragic age… the cataclysm has happened, we are
amongst the ruins.” It perfectly captures the despair and incredulity that em-
bodied the views of so many people who continued to suffer from the scars
of World War One. The war was to cast a shadow over global proceeding for
decades to come. Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary in 1914, was
more accurate than he had anticipated when he remarked that “the lights are
going out all over Europe and I doubt we will see them go on again in our
lifetime.”
Indeed, the disastrous aftermath of
the Great War induced a paralysis in
international relations and inadvert-
ently planted the seeds of destruction
that would lead to the unfolding
of a Second World War. This year’s
centenary commemoration provides
a poignant opportunity to gaze back
at the war and its aftermath, and try
to educe a nugget of wisdom from the
lessons of history.
The First World War remains so
significant because it fundamentally
altered the way that war was waged
and perceived. After 1918, war could
no longer be conceived of as a chiv-
alrous pursuit, fought on distant bat-
tlefields, for the glory of the Empire.
Yet in 1914, without the benefit of
hindsight, the cream of English youth
followed their blind patriotism to
fight for ‘King and Country’. Patriotic
verses, such as the St Crispin’s Day
Speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V,
were successfully invoked to invigor-
ate ‘heroism in the abstract’. In Vera
Brittain’s immortalising classic, ‘A
Testament of Youth’, even the schol-
arly and progressive Roland Leighton
declared in conversation that he saw
war as “ennobling and very beautiful,
something whose elemental reality
raises it above the reach of all cold
theorising.” This is a fine example of
the nauseating jingoism that captured
the imagination of an entire gener-
ation. Those who failed to volunteer
immediately were met with posters
designed to intimidate men into
‘doing their bit’ for their country. One
particularly effective poster, with a
charming homely scene in the back-
ground, depicted a young girl sat on
her father’s knee asking, ‘Daddy, what
did you do in the great war?’
Yet this eruption of nationalistic
fervour was soon dampened by the
bitterness of reality. The slow decay
of time ushered in a deadly realism
tinged with grievous loss, profound
suffering and abject misery. For the
first time, the home front was ines-
capably drawn into the abyss of war,
with rationing and conscription im-
posed on all citizens. Another mod-
ern first was the threat of death by
bombing. It seemed that even civil-
ians were no longer safe. In total, the
war claimed 9 million British souls,
an astronomical figure, with the bulk
of a generation being decimated and
left to rot in the fields of Flanders. For
anyone in search of an illuminating
glimpse of the squalor these soldiers
endured, priority status must be
given to the majestic war memoirs
and poetry of literary titans such as
Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sas-
soon. Through gazing at these deeply
personal and heartfelt accounts, the
natural questions crops up: why on
earth did such horrors have to be
endured in the first place?
One substantive answer to this lies
in the psyche of contemporaneous
military leaders, whose visions were
blinkered by a domineering strategy,
known as the ‘cult of the offensive’.
This strategy held that victory could
only be won by launching all-out
strategies of conquest. Germany’s
Schlieffen Plan is the best embod-
iment of the prevailing idea that
“attack is the best form of defence.”
Yet, this seemingly unanimous
endorsement of an outdated set of
political and military ideals meant
that military leaders failed to recog-
nise the many advantages of pursuing
defensive strategies, and failed to rec-
ognise the obstacles that aggressive
tactics would be forced to confront.
Indeed, British and French leaders
WORLD WAR ONE
BY : Michael Cotterill
Look Back in Anger! The Great War, its After-
math, and its Relevance Today

were so convinced that superior
morale would overcome the superior
defensive firepower hurtling from the
German trenches, that troops were
ordered to climb out into ‘No Man’s
Land’ for what they knew would be
almost certain death. Failure to follow
this gruesome command would result
in execution for cowardice. After four
years of fighting, Germany sued for
peace after suffering near defeat. The
long-lasting legacy of the war is an-
nually recalled in a collective manner
through the wearing of poppies as an
enduring symbol of remembrance for
the fallen.
In terms of the war’s repercussions,
it is not an embellishment to say that
the Treaty of Versailles was one of the
most heinous political flops in histo-
ry. It humiliated Germany through
the parching of national pride, the
stripping of territorial assets, the
infliction of torturously high repa-
rations, and the expurgation of her
military forces. Regrettably, leaders
in Britain and France heeded the
opinions of their newly enfranchised
democratic populaces, who espoused
retributive rhetoric such as ‘Hang the
Kaiser’ and ‘Make Germany Pay’, and
imposed punitive treaties upon the
now subjugated and defeated nations.
Winston Churchill once declared, “In
War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance,
In Victory: Magnanimity, In Peace:
Goodwill.” Contrary to the noble
ideals of Churchill’s statesmanlike
remark, there was a fatal absence
of goodwill and magnanimity in
the peace negotiations of Versailles
and elsewhere. Indeed, the extreme
vindictiveness of Versailles ushered in
an age of uncertainty; thus providing
extraordinarily amenable condi-
tions which facilitated the growth of
totalitarian ideologies and dictatorial
regimes. Unequivocally, the actions of
Britain and her allies in the aftermath
of World War I are at least partially
responsible for Hitler’s ascendancy.
From 1917 onwards and through-
out the inter-war years, a blizzard of
change swept through the European
continent. Vast autocratic empires
crumbled into dust, ancient mon-
archies were
toppled, the air
became tinged
with revolution-
ary fervour, and
Europe became
polarised by the
ideological ex-
tremes of fascism
and communism.
This was an epoch
that required
strong hegemonic
leadership in order
to cultivate the
nascent democra-
cies, guard them
from undesirable
political extremes,
and lead them
to fruition and
prosperity. Un-
fortunately, the
initial optimism of
Wilson’s idealism
ended in colossal
disappointment.
Without military
backing and the
threat of force, the League of Nation’s
potential to be a force for good was
curtailed.
In this period, the League desperately
needed a liberal hegemon to carry
forward the flame of Wilsonian liber-
alism, and ensure that democracy was
upheld in lands still unaccustomed to
its practices. Yet, not a single nation
had the stomach to grab the reins of
leadership. Former hegemons sunk
into a stupor of depression, and the
Wall Street Crash led to the exacerba-
tion of defence-spending parsimony.
France and the United States retreat-
ed into a shell of reclusive isolation-
ism, and Britain followed tradition
by refocusing its gaze on imperial
matters.
The inability of the stronger League of
Nations powers to uphold collective
security and peaceable international
norms stimulated apathetic attitudes
towards the growth of totalitarian-
ism. Britain, along with many other
countries, was immersed in the grip
of a pacifist dream. Forward-thinking
and progressive intellectuals began
to garner prestige as their cosmo-
politan ideas gained currency. E. M.
Forster captured the spirit of the age
by remarking: “If I had to choose
between betraying my country and
betraying my friend, I hope I should
have the guts to betray my country.”
The infamous 1933 Oxford Union
Debate similarly epitomised this shift
in values, when it declared that ‘This
House will not fight for King and
Country.’ This ambivalence towards
constructively interacting with the
international community, engaging in
tough decision-making, and culti-
vating long-term national strategies
meant that the democratic powers
were woefully unprepared to deal
with the unprecedented threats posed
by belligerent fascist regimes deter-
mined to wage war at any cost.
The prevailing lesson that can be
learned from the First World War and
its dire aftermath is that complacen-
cy can act as the enemy of common
sense. When faced with the alarming
and unprecedented challenges of the
EUROPE

twenty-first century, it simply will
not do to idly sweep these problems
under the carpet of inertia. Nor-
man Angell’s 1909 classic The Great
Illusion sensibly propounded the idea
that Europe’s increasingly globalised
economies were integrated to such an
extraordinary extent that war would
be unthinkable. Even though this was
a widely accepted truth, the world
nevertheless found itself at war in
1914.
One thread of similarity that unites
us with our forebears a century ago is
the troubling resurgence of national-
ism as a political force, especially in
the BRIC nations. Nationalism is a
scourge of humanity, and represents
a malignant and mutated offshoot
of the more benign patriotism.
Throughout the world, nationalism
is being whipped up at a truly alarm-
ing rate. In China, the all-powerful
state is energetically cultivating a
growing Japanophobia. In India,
Narendra Modi (a Hindu nationalist
who resolutely refuses to apologise
for a pogrom inflicted on Muslims
in the regional state he controls, and
who, if elected to power, would have
his finger on the nuclear button in a
potential conflict with neighbouring
Pakistan) might get elected next year.
Moreover, Putin is pursuing a strate-
gy of nationalistically flexing Russia’s
military muscles, most recently over
the political debacle in Ukraine.
Perhaps above all else, the First World
War teaches us that nothing is so
fragile as the illusion of civilisation.
Merely assuming reason will prevail is
not enough. The single biggest threat
to global security is an isolationist
America. Presently, and in contra-
diction to his supposedly progressive
values, Barack Obama appears to
be pulling back from regions of the
world where an American presence is
most required. Obama’s rather lethar-
gic attitude towards foreign affairs has
meant that he has not applied enough
effort to building bridges of dialogue
with the Middle East, and conse-
quently a groundswell of suspicion
lingers between the United States and
the Arab countries. The US President
has similarly adopted an unasham-
edly laissez-faire attitude towards the
tragic turmoil engulfing Syria.
Problematically, Obama has done lit-
tle to warmly assimilate the emerging
BRIC giants into playing a strong and
constructive role in the development
of a more equitable international
framework. The BRICs will be less
likely to pursue quests for aggressive
hegemony if they can engage in pro-
ductive dialogue with the West, and
more particularly the United States.
Alas, after six years in office, Oba-
ma’s lack of appetite for engaging in
foreign affairs is unlikely to change.
Let us ardently hope, that if Hillary
Clinton becomes President in 2016,
the United States will rise up to the
challenge of playing a fruitful role as
the world’s foremost hegemon.
The US thrives
as a nation
when it un-
dertakes an
internationalist
view of global
events. Winston
Churchill once
declared: “The
era of procras-
tination, of
half-measures,
of soothing,
and baffling
expedients, of
delays is com-
ing to its close.
In its place we
are entering
a period of
consequences.”
America needs
to be roused
from its deep
sleep of complacency, and remember
that the mantle of the free world still
lies in the palm of its hand. Domestic
pressures are no excuse for shunning
the problems facing the internation-
al community. The world needs a
benign policeman, equipped with the
harmonious qualities of democratic
values, progressive liberalism, and a
reservoir of goodwill. We look back
to history to gain a greater sense of
who we are, and where we are going.
Looking back to World War One and
its aftermath, we should appreciate
that the rise of nationalism, bellig-
erent moves towards hegemony, and
indifference by the West, all raise
cause for concern.

The world is less free than it was eight years ago. To be more specific, 2013
was the eighth consecutive year in which both civil liberties and political
rights suffered a decline. At least, this is the provocative statement kick-start-
ing the analysis of the data presented in the annual report of the Ameri-
can-based think tank Freedom House, Freedom in the World.
In the 2014 Freedom in the World
publication, the data collected sug-
gests that several countries that used
to be ‘Free’ are now ‘Partly Free’ or in-
deed ‘Not Free’. Rhetoric aside, fewer
countries now meet Freedom House’s
criteria for pluralism, participation,
greater transparency and openness
in the electoral process and rights
of association and organisation. It
is also sceptical about improvement
in the Middle East and North Africa
(MENA) region, particularly as a
result of the counterrevolution and
extremism in states that experienced
the effects of the Arab Spring, and
singles out Eurasia for particular
criticism. Eurasia is condemned for
having the lowest regional political
rights scores. For example, Azerbai-
jan’s score for political participation
is just three, while Australia scores
fifteen.
Not only does Freedom House sug-
gest continued resistance to democ-
ratisation (and the liberal values now
bound up with democracy itself), it
claims that democracies are expe-
riencing a “crisis of confidence”. It
claims that self-absorption, most like-
ly brought on by domestic economic
issues, has reduced the attention paid
to the promotion of democracy and
human rights. The annual report
subsequently calls for democracies
to renew their efforts at promoting
political rights and civil liberties in
other countries. Specifically, it claims
that the United States needs to step
in and take the lead once more. This
American-centric approach ignores
the growing importance of the Eu-
ropean Union as an actor in world
politics.
It is hardly surprising that a Washing-
ton, D.C.-based think tank depend-
ent upon US funding focuses on US
policy-makers, but America is not
the only international actor capable
of setting the agenda on civil and po-
litical rights. While its support is still
important, it is not the only force for
democracy promotion in the world
today. The world has changed since
the 1970s, and the EU now plays a
vital role in democracy promotion,
and could play an even greater one.
While the term ‘democracy pro-
motion’ may evoke uncomfortable
memories of the George W. Bush
administration and Operation Iraqi
Freedom, regime change imposed
from the outside is an exception to
the norm. Democratically motivated
aid has been the staple of efforts to
increase civil liberties and political
rights across the globe while encour-
aging local ownership. The EU has
played an increasing role in this form
of democracy assistance, particularly
through the funds allocated by the
EUROPE
FREEDOM HOUSE
BY : Hugh Oberlander
A False Crisis of Confidence? Freedom House
and Neglected Instruments of Democratisation

European Instrument for Democracy
and Human Rights (EIDHR) founded
in 2006. Initiatives like the EIDHR,
under the auspices of EuropeAid,
have had a significant impact, and
cannot be considered a mere ‘ally’ of
American efforts.
Among the key objectives of the
EIDHR are “Enhancing respect for
human rights and fundamental free-
doms in countries and regions where
they are most at risk” and “Strength-
ening the role of civil society in pro-
moting human rights and democratic
reform”. For example, the EU is the
largest foreign donor in Azerbaijan
and in February 2012 it announced
that EIDHR funding would go
towards sixteen new projects in the
country, focusing on a more in-
dependent media and civil rights
activities (a key component of free
societies). In stepping up its efforts to
strengthen civil society in Azerbaijan
as early as 2012, the EU is already one
step ahead of Freedom House.
The EIDHR also takes part in elec-
toral observation and the training
of electoral observers in order to
prevent violations of political rights.
It has taken part in missions in Mali,
Honduras, Nepal, and Kenya among
others. These are all countries that
Freedom House has registered as
becoming freer in its report. While
the reasons for these gains are mani-
fold, the involvement of groups such
as EIDHR is likely beneficial to the
consolidation of democratic rights
and practices.
Between 2007 and 2013 the EIDHR
had an assistance budget of €1.104
billion and while this funding period
overlaps with the eight year decline in
freedoms alleged to exist in Freedom
in the World, the EIDHR itself may
provide an answer to the perceived
‘crisis of confidence’. As the EIDHR
notes in one of its strategy papers,
budgets have increased but so too
have expectations and demands on
initiatives related to democracy and
human rights. Indeed, the demand
for improved results often ignores the
complexities of democratisation.
Thomas Carothers, the current
vice-president of the Carnegie En-
dowment for International Peace, has
noted that democracy takes a long
time to become consolidated, and is a
chaotic, non-linear process. Not only
does this partly explain the fluctua-
tion of civil and political liberties in
several states reported by Freedom
House, it also suggests that think
tanks like Freedom House are being
too hasty in pinning a large portion
of responsibility for the ‘decline’ in
world freedom on
a lessening interest
in democratisa-
tion and human
rights promotion
among democra-
cies. The assertion
that there has
been a ‘crisis of
confidence’ is only
partly true. The
EU has remained
continually en-
gaged in low-key
democratisation
efforts supporting
civil society with
EIDHR grants and
projects.
American ef-
forts to promote
democracy may be
suffering a particular crisis, wheth-
er it results from the damage to US
legitimacy caused by the George
W. Bush administration or a more
general over-reliance on promoting
civil society. Freedom House should
not so readily discount the continued
efforts of European democracies. Not
only can it aid civil society. The EU
has more power than ever before to
supplement initiatives by EIDHR and
other agencies by encouraging dem-
ocratic reform through the economic
and diplomatic channels.
While the rhetoric of Freedom House
should be welcomed for drawing
attention to the ongoing difficul-
ties faced in fostering political and
human rights, it is overly pessimistic
in many areas. American leadership
is no longer essential, and while
increased American participation
would be beneficial, the EU can hold
its own. It will be interesting to see
how the EU continues to tackle the
challenges facing the promotion of
democracy and human rights both
near and far from its borders. With
this in mind, the outlook for world
freedom in the absence of strong
American leadership may not be as
bleak as Freedom in the World makes
out.

RUSSIA
MOSCOWPUSSYRIOTHUMANRIGHTSSOCHI
Foreign Policy of Tomorrow.
Putin’s Games and Fanfare:
Sochi Symbolic
Pussy Riot and the Growth of
Anarcho-Populism in the Inter-
national Political System
Two Tiers of Judgment for
Russian Human Rights
Violations
p 20
pp 23
p 25
p 27

As the world’s eyes turn increasingly to an aggres-
sive and resurgent Russian Federation, the FAR
brings you 11 pages of analysis on different aspects
of Russian foreign and domestic policy. While the
situation in Ukraine changes day by day, and any
coverage of it here would be hopelessly out of date
by the time the magazine reaches you, we’d be re-
miss not to comment.
It is striking to see troop mobilisations, naval
blockades and trenches being dug on European
soil in the 21st century. Shattered is the illusion of
a European farewell to arms. Though in the West
we can tell ourselves that this conflict is only pos-
sible on our periphery, the Eurasian heartland will
always be a part of Europe, and its fate looms large
for the Euro-Atlantic alliance and the future of East-
West relations. In December 1991, it was the Soviet
Union that bade a farewell to its military might and
forty year long Cold War against the West. Two
months later, the leaders of Europe, gathered in
Maastricht, signed into being the European Union.
As one bloc fell and another rose, confrontation
that was so dreaded for so long seemed consigned
to history. But now, with Russian troops seizing ter-
ritory in Europe-proper, Putin has resurrected the
ghosts of 1956 and 1968. What is the price of peace
in Europe, and what is the price we’re willing to pay
to defend it?
Welcome to the FAR’s special issue on Russia. The decision to cover this vast
country, its dynamic foreign policy, controversial domestic policy, and often
larger than life president was made before the seizure of Crimea. In the year
and particularly months leading to this dramatic development, there was a
sense of momentum for Putin’s Russia: Putin’s diplomatic intervention on As-
sad’s behalf in Syria which staved off an American military intervention, the
crackdown on gay rights and dissidents that garnered so much attention in
the West, the spectacular but polarising Sochi Olympics, and then of course
Ukraine’s pivot to the East, with everything that followed.
Editor-in-Chief
- Russia special -
A few words from the
RADIM DRAGOMACA

Empire in Eastern Europe
Vladimir Putin often proves a somewhat incongruous
character to popular perceptions of him. While he fits the
profile of the perennial Russian strongman (or, in the case
of Catherine the Great, woman) leader, Putin often proves
a hypocrite, at least in terms of public rhetoric. Nowhere
is this more clear than in his own perception of Russia
and its surrounding neighbours. In 2005, he remarked,
“First and foremost it is worth acknowledging that the
demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical
catastrophe of the century.” Nevertheless, just a year later,
President Putin addressed Western perceptions of his
state’s foreign policy by remarking, “I see that not every-
one in the West has understood that the Soviet Union
has disappeared from the political map of the world and
that a new country has emerged with new humanist and
ideological principles at the foundation of its existence.”
Since the days of the USSR, Russia has evidently democ-
ratised and extensively embraced capitalism. Yet many,
including this analyst, would argue that although Russia
has transformed ideologically, many of its immediate and
long-term foreign policy goals are aimed at preserving the
power of old Russia; the mirage of a state and a leader that
can muscle its way through relations in the international
system.
Prior to 1991 Russia had never known itself as a singu-
lar entity. Since the days of the 9th century Kievan Rus,
Russia has known itself as the centre of a vast and consist-
ent empire, albeit under a variety of monikers. The fall of
communism brought the largest loss of territory in mod-
ern history for Russia, perhaps with the exception of the
short-lived concessions under the 1918 Treaty of Brest-Li-
tovsk. It is perhaps understandable then, although cer-
tainly not excusable, that Russia continues to attempt to
economically and militarily dominate the Eastern Euro-
pean region. Many such as Kremlinologist Lilia Shevtso-
va see Russia’s attempt at a Eurasian Union as a sign of
economic imperialist expansion in order to create a “mi-
rage of a post-Soviet archipelago in which authoritarian
leaders use each other to preserve their power. While this
view has some problems regarding anachronism and an
unhelpful return to a Cold War mentality, it is not difficult
to believe that Putin’s Russia is eager to keep resource-rich
states on side for its own benefit. Should states such as
Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus “go west,” Russia would
suffer greatly in the economic sense.
At the time of writing, Russian troops have taken the
parliament building in Crimea, as well as 12 border
guard posts between Ukraine and Russia. Putin has taken
effective control of the region and suggested a referendum
that will likely go ahead mid-March. The recent Ukrainian
turmoil that was sparked in November 2013 has, arguably,
BY : Ellen Macpherson
Bearing the Weight of the Past:
Foreign Policy of Tomorrow
Despite its diminished status in the post-Cold War era, Russia still main-
tains that it is a global force to be reckoned with. Militarily and econom-
ically, perhaps Russia is no longer able to play a round of honest poker
with the United States. Nonetheless, President Putin and long-standing
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have done an admirable job at bluffing
their way through diplomatic negotiations and coercing people into
believing that Russia is as great a power as it has ever been. This article
looks at Putin’s Russia and where its interests lie.
RUSSIA

been one of the biggest tests to Putin’s future aspirations
in the region.
Yet Putin must act carefully. His vehement global rhetoric
on non-intervention has been well documented, particu-
larly in terms of the frustration it has caused the United
States and international humanitarian missions. If he were
to intervene in the Crimea, it would risk jeopardising
decades of proclamations that withhold a state’s right to
sovereignty above all else. Presumably, Russia has learned
hard lessons about international credibility after its war
against, and subsequent occupation of, South Ossetia and
Georgia during 2008. If there is one thing Russia cannot
afford to give up, it is the credibility it has gained from
critics of international intervention in recognised conflict
zones. From this rhetoric, Putin and his veteran Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov have gained valuable respect in
the Middle East and Africa - regions that are of critical
strategic importance to Russia in its wider foreign policy
objectives towards the United States.
The Middle East
Yet it’s clearly not just in the regional sphere that Russia
is exerting its influence. 2013 was an extremely success-
ful year for Putin in the United Nations. His success in
accidental diplomacy led to the brokering of a chemical
weapons deal in Syria and Putin’s resistance to United
States sanctions on Iran in P5 meetings has secured pos-
itive Russian-Iranian relations. Many in the international
system have seen Russia pick up where the United States
has left off in the Middle East, securing spaces harbouring
anti-United States sentiment and bolstering military and
economic ties.
In December, Russia quietly secured a lucrative $2 billion
weapons deal with Egypt (at that time under the leader-
ship of General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, offering MiG-29 in-
terceptor jets, helicopters and air defence systems. “Today
Russia is coming back to many regions it lost in the 90s.
I’m talking about the African continent and the Middle
East,” declared Mikhail Margelov, the Russian Federa-
tion Council Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, in a
speech in London. He went on to say, “Russia was quite
explicit about its interests in those regions even before
the Arab Spring.” Through the Arab Spring, Russia has
maintained its business relations with a swath of changing
leaders in the region. Russia’s willingness to overlook any
moral misdemeanours is undoubtedly a reason why the
leaders of the Arab Spring states are much more agreeable
in doing business with Moscow rather than Washington.
And yet it is not just in economic terms that Russian and
Middle Eastern diplomats are negotiating. Putin has been
stamping Russia’s presence on all possible fronts. Mos-
cow-run oil giant Lukoil has won a number of large oil
contracts in the Middle East, most notably in Iraq, Saudi
Arabia and Egypt. More recently, Russia has signed a
$4 billion arms deal with Iraq. Crucially, Putin has been
increasingly involved in peace processes, holding talks
with Hamas and travelling to Israel in 2012, well before
United States President Barack Obama made the trip.
Individually, these developments may be of little notice,
but it is indisputable that Putin is the bearer of a power in
the Middle East that the United States is unlikely to get its
hands on ever again if it continues to sanction and punish
Middle Eastern states on standards of democratisation.
The Chechnyan terrorist threat in Russia has posed very
few obstacles to Putin’s deals in the Middle East itself.
While originally aligning himself with the United States
on the ‘War on Terror,’ Putin has since realised that it
is far more lucrative to stay quiet on terrorist and rebel
movements in the Middle East itself, perhaps realising
that one day Russia may have to, at least temporarily,
cooperate on a business level with individuals Putin might
view as a threat to security in his own state. This mentality
does, however, also link in with Putin’s wider anti-inter-
ventionist ideology regarding the primacy of sovereignty.
What works at home - the brutal military suppression
of separatist movements - may not work abroad. In this,
Putin has learned a valuable lesson from the United States
failure in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Goals of Foreign Policy with the
United States
“The Comrade Wolf knows whom to eat, as the saying
goes,” noted Vladimir Putin in his May 2006 annual ad-
dress to the Federal Assembly, “It knows whom to eat and
is not about to listen to anyone, it seems.” Many western
commentators have argued, and would still argue, that
Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy objectives in both his own
region and in the Middle East are simply a part of a bigger
policy objective linked to a ‘new Cold War’ mentality. It’s
not hard to see why this would be the case. Russia has
been notorious in the past decade for using its United
Nations veto power to oppose the United States on issues
of intervention. Putin’s often anti-US rhetoric has been
a feature of his presidency thus far, making him popular
with those who would like to see the United States’ status
of world hegemony crumble.
This analyst however, believes the situation slightly more
complex. There is one simple guiding statement that
can explain all of Russia’s foreign policy goals. As Putin
remarked to a particularly critical journalist in Moscow
in 2012, “Our country must not be humiliated.” Russia
fears, above all, being forgotten and being laughed at,
particularly by its oldest and most formidable opponent,
the United States. One only has to look at Putin’s ener-
gy policies in Eastern Europe. His constant dictatorial
economic bullying of states such as Ukraine shows a great
amount of fear - fear that the United States’ advances in
shale gas production will demote Russian energy giants to
the periphery of global energy commerce. Putin himself
is so popular in Russia purely because he is so reviled
elsewhere. Western media commentary of Sochi’s fail-
ures was met with mockery and contempt in Sochi. “I’m
very offended that the closer we get to the opening of
the Olympics, the more hysteria around Russia becomes
inflamed in the Western media,” wrote Vladimir Yakunin,
President of Russian Railways, the builder of much vital
infrastructure for the Sochi Games.
Putin’s coldness, and often outright hostility, towards
the United States is not because of some obsessive loy-
alty to a Cold War mentality. It is a response to the fear
of being sidelined and internationally humiliated. If the
West were to show respect, or at the very least, under-
standing towards Putin’s Russia, we would undoubtedly
see a sweeping change in relations. As Putin remarked in
a 2013 interview with Russia Today, “It’s not by chance
that Russia and the United States forge an alliance in the
most critical moments of modern history. That was the
case in WWI and WWII even if there was fierce con-
frontation, our countries united against a common threat
which means there’s something that unites us. There must
be some fundamental interest which bring us together.
That’s something we need to focus on first. We need to be
aware of out difference but focus on a positive agenda that
can improve our cooperation.” Cooperation between the
United States and Russia is indeed becoming vital in the
international system. International institutions have suf-
fered from extravagantly angry language from both sides.
As abhorrent as Russia’s economic and military bullying
in Eastern Europe has been, as draconian as Putin’s an-
ti-homosexuality laws are, as corrupt as the Kremin might
seem, the United States and Russia must find common
ground. The United States should indeed be speaking out
about human rights abuses in Russia, but for both sides to
continue with opposing each other for little reason other
than what is essentially a diplomatic gun show is helpful
to no one. Unfortunately, unless the United States and the
West in general is willing to concede at least understand-
ing to Russia, little will change and Putin’s Russia will
remain the stubborn wedge in the cog of the international
system.
Ellen Macpherson is a second year student pursuing a joint de-
gree in International Relations and Modern History. Her par-
ticular interests lie in security and development studies, the role
of nuclear weapons in the international system, and studies of
social movements for change.Although definitely not limited to
the one area, Russia is of particular interest to her studies. She
has written much about its post- communist development, its
role in the international system and its path towards democracy.
RUSSIA

For Putin, Sochi was far more than a
friendly international sporting event.
It was an unparalleled opportunity
to reassert Russia at the forefront of
the international community. De-
termined to project the “new face
of Russia” that had overcome the
slump of Soviet decline and was
now a promising land of growth and
achievement, Putin championed
Sochi as an exhibition of the very best
of Russia. The Sochi Games would be
first and foremost a publicity stunt on
the grandest scale, all extravagances
worth the enormous costs in ex-
change for the prestige Russia would
gain from playing host.
From the night of the Opening Cere-
mony, the event was permeated with
political tension dating back to Cold
War; a technical malfunction left the
fifth Olympic ring, historically the
ring corresponding to the Americas,
from blossoming into its snowflake
configuration, sparking speculations
as to whether the failure was perhaps
intentional. Sochi was monumentally
symbolic for the change that has led
up to it.
The last time the Olympics were held
in Russia was in Moscow in 1980,
when more than 60 countries, led
by the United States, boycotted the
games in response to the Soviet Un-
ion’s invasion of Afghanistan. Leading
up to the Sochi Games, tensions over
Russia’s anti-gay rights stance, the
fear of Islamist terrorist threats and
the violent unrest in neighbouring
Ukraine had Russia in the politi-
cal spotlight and some, especially
the LGBT community, voiced calls
for another boycott. Although the
resulting tensions never escalated to
the point of a boycott, many heads of
state announced ahead of time that
they would not make an appearance
at the Sochi Games. This included
British Prime Minister David Cam-
eron and American President Barack
Obama. The absence of the latter was
mostly a result of the disagreements
between Russia and the United States
over events in Syria and the affair of
Edward Snowden.
With regards to the running of the
games, to Putin’s credit, many of the
fears voiced in international media
coverage never manifested them-
selves. The Russians certainly handled
security well with its “Ring of Steel”
successfully preventing any terrorist
attempts to infiltrate the Games. Once
the sporting events commenced,
focus was on the athletes and many of
Russia’s human rights issues faded to
the background though embarrassing
blips emerged over unfinished hotel
rooms and bathroom facilities of two
toilets side by side with no partition.
However, although he pulled off
the Winter Games successfully, the
question of whether Putin has truly
opened the doors of Russia is still
unclear. Sochi, formally a single road
town is now home to massive venues
to be turned into exhibition centres;
including the host of one of the 2018
World Cup games and the 2014 Rus-
sian Grand Prix. However, once these
events pass, will there be any need for
a massive shopping centre, new rail-
ways and an amusement park without
an international audience flooding
in? Sochi’s population will not be suf-
ficiently large or affluent to maintain
the facilities on its own – so was this
$50 billion a frivolous waste if Putin
failed to truly rejuvenate Russia in the
eyes of the world?
Despite its superficial success, the
Sochi Olympics are a microcosm of
old-world Russian extravagance and
plutocracy at the absurd neglect of
the masses. One village, a mere 10
minutes from Sochi, Akhshtyr, re-
mains cut off from both the new road
leading to mountain resort Krasnaya
Polyana, where the skiing and snow-
boarding events were held, as well as
the newly constructed $8.7 billion
railway. A village covered in dust and
grime since Olympic construction
began, Akhshtyr has not had fresh
water since 2008, since its wells were
destroyed by new waste dump site
to serve Sochi’s development. The
village is now entirely dependent on
water deliveries from the authorities.
Hence, many promises of improved
infrastructure for the region have
gone unfulfilled, reminiscent of Sovi-
et times.
Some estimate that insufficient over-
On February 23, the most expensive Olympics in history came to a close in
Sochi. Russia emerged triumphant, with 13 gold medals and highest overall
medal count of 33, an extra feather for Putin to place in his cap. Yet the So-
chi games have been controversial from the start. The final cost of the games
runs at $51 billion, eclipsing the $40 billion spent on Beijing and the $7 billion
spent on the previous Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
SOCHI
BY : Elizabeth Mastoris
Putin’s Games and Fanfare: Sochi Symbolic

sight has led to excessive and avoid-
able costs: a ski jump at the Rosa
Khutor resort in Krasnaya Polyana
was originally slotted a $40 million
budget, yet when Putin visited the
jump last year the cost had soared to
$265 million. Furthermore, a mem-
ber of the International Olympic
Committee along with Russia’s oppo-
sition party allege that about a third
of Sochi’s funds were stolen.
Those reaping the benefits of these
Olympics are almost exclusively from
among Putin’s tight inner circle. The
Rotenberg brothers, Putin’s child-
hood friends who once joined him in
his boyhood marital arts instruction,
were awarded 21 Olympic contracts
worth $7.4 billion – a staggering
amount worth more than the pre-
vious Vancouver Winter Games but
only a fraction of the final enormous
total. Though the Russian economy
has certainly evolved from Soviet
times, the state remains the single
largest employer and state owned
industries dominate the economic
landscape and as such received a bulk
of the Olympic contracts. Private
businesses still struggle to succeed
as some speculate nearly half of
Russia’s economy is made up of state
controlled companies run by Putin’s
inner circle.
Though Putin strove to present Russia
as a modern great power at Sochi, the
state clearly represses modernisation.
Between 35% and 40% of Russians
are dependent on the state with a
quarter employed in the public sector.
While the rest of the world began to
ease out of the recession, economic
growth stagnated to less than 1.5%
and prompted Putin’s admission of
internal institutional flaws in the
Russian system.
Despite how far it has come since
the Soviet era, Putin failed to tru-
ly catapult a “new Russia” onto the
international scene. Sochi showed
that irresponsible excess, cronyism,
underground crime, corruption,
oppression, and vanity still persist.
Russia remains uncomfortably stuck
between its Soviet roots and modern-
isation, as the state remains highly
centralised and power and wealth are
concentrated in the hands of a few.
While Putin may not have built a
bridge between Russia and the West
with the Sochi Games, he may have
improved his slipping image at home.
Leading the medal count and having
produced an impressive spectacle,
Russian pride was at its peak – stories
of corruption and scandal were trivial
matters in juxtaposition to worrying
about the glory of Russia’s athletes,
yet Putin’s dream of a vindicated Rus-
sia has seemed to fall short of its goals
to those watching from afar.
RUSSIA

In the case of the latter, this was to
lead to the prosecution and eventual
imprisonment of two members of
the group. More recently, Pussy Riot
made an appearance at the Winter
Olympic Games in Sochi where they
were violently subdued by Cossacks.
Since its inception, Pussy Riot’s
methodology has been fairly con-
stant, following the same formula.
This has usually involved its members
dressing up in distinctive, brightly
coloured clothing and face masks
and performing politically motivated
songs with incendiary lyrics in public
locations. These are then filmed and
posted to YouTube where they have a
cult following and attract worldwide
attention. Songs have included ‘Putin
Zassal’, or ‘Putin has pissed himself’
and ‘Mother of God, Drive Putin
Away’. As with all punk, central to
these songs is a salient anti-authority,
anarchic element. Their first song,
‘Release the Cobble Stones’ called
upon the Russian public to protest
against an illegitimate parliamentary
election process by using cobble-
stones as missiles in street clashes.
The video was filmed on the Moscow
metro and was accompanied by a
blog post that stated simply: “Your
ballots will be used as toilet paper by
the Presidential Administration”.
However, this anarchic element goes
beyond the simple anti-establishment
drive seen in punk music. It repre-
sents a concerted political message,
a call to arms for a wider society to
overthrow a fundamentally illegit-
imate societal structure. This tran-
scends the usual parochial and gener-
ationally bounded audience. Through
their use of social media Pussy Riot
has attempted to mobilise a usually
politically apathetic or apolitical so-
cial strata through extra-institutional
and non-conventional means – in
keeping with what political scientist/
sociologist Alvin So conceptualised
as a ‘post-modern mode of political
organisation’.
This broadening and mainstreaming
of previously small-scale anarchic
principles and methodology ties into
wider developments globally. The
post-2008 international political sys-
tem, in which the austerity has been
the predominant economic trend, has
witnessed the growth of a wide vari-
ety of grassroots organisations and
movements with principles of active
resistance and counter-hegemonic
struggle at their heart. King’s College
lecturer Dr Paolo Gerbaudo labels
Ever since Pussy Riot’s formation in 2011, it has been a proverbi-
al thorn in Putin’s side, a source of protest in a country where open
government criticism is relatively rare – a nod as much to the current
administration’s authoritarian leanings as Russia’s Soviet autocratic
heritage. Originally beginning with small-scale protests on the Mos-
cow metro, the feminist punk political collective gradually rose in
international prominence following performances in Moscow’s Red
Square followed by the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.
‘There’s going to be a revolution. It’s going to happen…’
Russell Brand
PUSSY RIOT
BY : Jonathan Bertulis-Fernandes
Pussy Riot and the Growth of Anarcho-pop-
ulism in the International Political System

this development as ‘anarcho-pop-
ulism’, representing the ‘uncanny
marriage between anarchism and
progressive populism’ in current pro-
test movements globally.
This incorporates movements such
as the indignados in Spain and
the student protests and the anti
tax-avoidance movement in the UK
such as UK Uncut. Interestingly,
it also includes the global Occupy
movement, an international protest
movement against social and eco-
nomic inequality. This movement led
to the development of grassroots-led
protests all over the world, which
saw the forceful occupation of public
spaces in major cities in an attempt
to assert the collective power of an
otherwise un-heard majority.
In his now famous Newsnight in-
terview with Jeremy Paxman since
viewed some ten million times
online, Russell Brand characterised
the growth of this mode of political
organisation as one bound up with a
struggle against an inherently disar-
ticulated political system separating
the governing from the governed.
Linked to this, Loïc Wacquant argues
for the development of a ‘centaur
state’ within the recently emerged
neoliberal Leviathan. That is, a state
with a small liberal head, but an
authoritarian body – a state struc-
tured so as to systemically privilege
a small powerful elite. This builds on
the central Marxian dialectic exist-
ing between the capitalists and the
proletariat, the superstructure and
the infrastructure. The processes of
neoliberalism and market-expansion
have led to the development of a state
and societal structure, which has
been fundamentally reengineered to
systemically, and systematically ben-
efit this small minority at the expense
of the majority. In a contemporary
reworking of this Marxist principle
and the notion of the centaur state,
anthropologist David Graeber has
argued for the notion of the 99% and
the 1%. This principle has been cen-
tral to the Occupy Movement, with
the movement pushing for a radical
rebalancing of the state apparatus
and societal structures to redress this
perceived power imbalance.
The rise of transnational anar-
cho-populist movements also hints
at the rise of a global capitalist
structure and the creation of a truly
post-national global elite. Marxist
Anthropologist Eric Wolf argued that
revolutions and socio-politico unrest
originate from a societal ‘incoher-
ence’, which serves to exploit vari-
ous social strata for the benefit of a
hegemonic power. With the creation
of an international capitalist system
governed by the neoliberal doctrine
of market expansion and de-regula-
tion, this societal incoherence thus
becomes transnational. And are we
therefore seeing the development
of an international anarchic revolu-
tionary movement, a global common
mode of political organisation predi-
cated on transnational millenariasm?
The ultimate efficacy of anarcho-pop-
ulism as a mode of political organisa-
tion remains to be seen. However, the
mainstreaming of previously mar-
ginalised and extreme methodology
and concepts shows a clear evolution
in political organisation amongst
Generation Y. The creation of a truly
transnational social movement shows
the increased integration into a global
capitalist structure and hints at a wid-
er post-nationalist trajectory of the
international political system.
RUSSIA

The bill passed unanimously in the
lower house of the Duma, 436 votes
in favor of an established neo-con-
servatism that the American Right
can only dream about. The move
drew hefty and immediate criticism
from commentators at home and
abroad, with many angling for a boy-
cott of the impending Sochi Olympics
and decrying Putin for his blatant
violation of human rights.
Anti-gay sentiment is arguably mere-
ly another attribute of the religious,
semi-tsarist traditionalism that has
surged in Russia throughout Vladimir
Putin’s fourteen-year stronghold on
the Russian government. Ranked the
most powerful person in the world
by Forbes in 2013, Putin’s ascent to
head of state in 1999 (following Boris
Yeltsin’s impromptu resignation) and
subsequent electoral success ushered
in a social regression to 19th-century
values and an emphasis on pre-Rev-
olutionary religious mores. These
are keenly felt in Putin’s rhetoric and
resulting domestic policy decisions,
which serve both to consolidate the
legitimacy of his ‘tandemocracy’ with
Dmitri Medvedev – oft referred to
as ‘Putin’s puppet’– and to engineer
society in accordance with an arcane,
preconceived notion of Russia. In his
state of the Union in 2013, Putin un-
derscored the need to represent “the
will of the majority of the people” by
enforcing a staunch conservatism
that protects against other countries’
“[odd] equivalence of good and
evil.” He alluded to the controversial
legislation passed against homosexual
advocacy, claiming that Russia must
oppose “so-called tolerance – gender-
less and infertile.”
These statements, as well as govern-
ment promotion of homophobia
implied by the law, caused a backlash
from Western political leaders, public
icons, corporations, and citizens.
Massive rallies were held in cities
around the globe, from Asuncion to
Durban, Melbourne to Jerusalem:
people called for Olympic sponsors
and organisers to denounce the
“discriminatory laws” and fight for
the basic human and civil rights of
all peoples. By itself, this response
is laudable – a testament to modern
society’s global consciousness and
active moral compass.
Russia has a very long track record of
human rights violations, extending
back to its Soviet days. The fall of the
USSR ostensibly initiated a more tol-
erant and democratic time – its very
dissolution was tied to Mikhail Gor-
bachev’s ‘glasnost’, or a new allowance
for free speech and protests in the late
1980’s. Under Yeltsin, new civil free-
doms were indeed introduced and
maintained, though he engineered
privilege of the executive above
the legislative or judicial branches,
maintaining the Russian tradition
of authoritative government. In an
attempt to ameliorate Russia’s reputa-
tion on human rights, in 1993 Yeltsin
established a commission specifically
designed to oversee Russia’s com-
pliance with human rights norms,
to be headed by Soviet-era dissident
Sergei Kovalev. However, the com-
mission was established by presiden-
tial decree, which presented a legal
conundrum: if Kovalev’s power was
legitimated by Yeltsin, he would not
The global community has been kept well abreast of the struggle of Russian
homosexuals to achieve recognition from a government that denies them
basic civil rights. Media outlets have leapt to report on the manifold protests
and demonstrations of indignation over the treatment of the LGBT commu-
nity in Russia. Citizens of many western states, regardless of sexual orienta-
tion, have banded together to denounce the Russian government, who last
year passed a law banning so-called “gay propaganda,” (i.e. gay rights advo-
cacy.)
HUMAN RIGHTS
BY : Tamar Ziff
Complex Sympathy: Two Tiers of Judgment
for Russian Human Rights Violations

be able to criticise the latter’s actions,
problematising the effectiveness of his
role. During his tenure as head of the
Presidential Commission for Human
Rights, Kovalev witnessed the neglect
or violation of a variety of human
freedoms, especially in the conduct
of Russian soldiers in Chechnya. In
1996, the United Nations Commis-
sion on Human Rights issued a report
expressing “concern for the lives and
physical integrity of the civilian pop-
ulation of Chechnya, as well as that
of members of the [Russian] armed
forces who had laid down their arms
or had been placed hors de combat”
resulting from “excessive and dispro-
portionate use of force by Russian
forces.” Two years of war ended in a
tense but amenable peace, bringing
about de facto independence for the
Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and
auguring the hope that the 100,000
Chechen deaths – most of which were
civilian – would be enough to buy
peace. However, the power vacuum
created in 1996 would catalyze the
flourishing of various terrorist groups
who engaged in illicit operations in
order to survive within Chechnya’s
unraveling social infrastructure and
“rock-bottom” economy.
In 1999, Russia staged another
invasion into Chechnya, with the
aim of establishing order and reining
in terrorist activity. Russian forces
administered heavy-handed violence
to the region, beginning an intense
campaign of airstrikes that demol-
ished Chechen cities and forced
tens of thousands to flee from their
homes. Though initially viewed as
a domestic policy issue by Western
nations, increasing brutality on the
part of the Russian military prompted
reports from groups such as Human
Rights Watch on the myriad abuses
committed by Russian troops. HRW
also mentioned the worrying “lack of
strong Western response” to the dire
human rights situation in Chechnya,
highlighting the protracted apathy of
Western leaders – and their constit-
uents – toward crimes against the
Chechen people.
The absence of visible Western in-
dignation over the past and present
abuses against Chechens – as well as
human rights activists and reporters
seeking to raise awareness of their
plight – is unpalatable, if unsurpris-
ing. Chechnya still sees the restriction
of free media and the persecution of
journalists and human right activ-
ists seeking to raise awareness of the
abuses perpetrated by the puppet
regime headed by Ramzan Kadyrov,
who was personally appointed to
power by Vladimir Putin.
Besides the odd verbal castigation or
stern statement, however, the West’s
reaction has been tepid at best.
Why, then, is there such a disparity
between the Western reaction to
Russian abuses in Chechnya and its
response to anti-gay legislation? The
answer is multifaceted, grounded
in the West’s limited moral space
for sympathies abroad, the complex
amalgam of factors inherent in the
Chechen identity, and the current
popularity of the global gay rights
movement. First, the citizens of West-
ern nations have a circumscribed
amount of available empathy for for-
eign crises: with the myriad human
rights violations occurring in all parts
of the globe, industrialised nations
cannot feasibly address all, or even
most, of them. When one region is
witnessing a series of abuses on mul-
tiple fronts, the West has to budget
its sympathies and focus on the most
relatable one, the clearly delineated
conflict.
In effectively condoning homo-
phobia, if not overtly prohibiting
it – though some, including Russian
Orthodox church leader, Vsevolod
Chaplin, have suggested the re-crim-
inalisation of homosexuality – Rus-
sia is the clear antagonist. Russian
discrimination against gay people is a
black-and-white issue: the West can-
not do anything but condemn it, lest
it also be accused of tacitly support-
ing bigotry. As a group, gay people in
Russia are exclusively victims – they
have done no wrong, and are being
unjustly persecuted due to govern-
ment emphasis on neo-conservatism.
Meanwhile, the Chechen crisis is a
convoluted one, and does not present
an equivalent pathos to the Western
audience. Though they have also
been victim to undue Russian force,
Chechen extremist factions have
committed egregious infractions of
both domestic and human rights law,
utilising torture and concertedly tar-
geting civilians in their violent quest
for recognition and independence.
The Chechen situation – that of an
entire region blighted and character-
ised by a single, vicious group within
it – raises parallels to a post-9/11
Afghanistan, when the actions of a
terrorist group were seen as justifi-
cation for invasion of a nation-state.
Some in the West see the Chechens,
like Afghanis, through the ‘Muslim
terrorist’ trope, a narrative that, con-
sidering manifold Western involve-
ment in the Middle East, invokes a
certain war-weariness and distaste
that precludes extended sympathies.
Endorsement of the Chechens, even
from a supposedly humanitarian
angle, can furthermore be reasona-
bly viewed as an affront to Russian
sovereignty. Despite the tension
brought about by the Snowden affair,
the United States cannot be seen to
support threats to Russian territorial
integrity. Far easier, and less contro-
versial, would be to target Russia’s
attack on homosexuals, which in light
of a global trend toward legal equality
can justifiably be criticised as arcane
and irrational.
The inability of Western nations to
truly empathise with, and attempt
to ameliorate, the situation of the
Chechens is understandable, but not
acceptable. The current lambasting
of Russian domestic policy over its
treatment of gay individuals only
serves to underscore the need for
more attention to Russia’s perhaps
more horrific human rights viola-
tions, against people that exist at a
greater psychological distance from
the West. Distance, however, provides
a weak rationale for indifference.
RUSSIA // DC BUREAU
28 The foreign affairs revieW

The statement above is one of many.
It survives, uneasily, past the barri-
cades, the banging pots and bulleted
echoes of that unceasing sound of
protest, past the watchful eyes and
wishful masses. It is posted on Twitter
under #LaSalida – perhaps one of the
only social media outlets for demon-
stration left unobstructed by govern-
ment authorities, aimed at demand-
ing President Maduro’s salida, or
immediate departure from office.
Since February 12, nation-wide
marches by anti-government masses
and student protestors have erupt-
ed into violent confrontations with
police and criminal gangs known as
colectivos. Yet the only broadcaster
that carried live feed from the streets
of Caracas, NTN24, was an interna-
tional channel highly censored by the
Maduro administration.
“In a climate in which the media are
discouraged by the Maduro adminis-
tration from covering social protests,
social media such as Twitter, Youtube
and related platforms are one of the
few ways in which protestors can
communicate with each other,” says
Harold Trinkunas, senior fellow and
director of the Latin America Ini-
tiative at the Brookings Institution.
“They provide information to the
broader global community about
what is happening in Venezuela.”
In the absence of live coverage of
protests, social media sites such as
Twitter and Facebook are document-
ing the discord in its full rawness, to
historicise an account of the unjust
and the harmed.
Protestors are stripped of basic police
protection, blocked on one end by
the Guardia Nacional, and the other
by the more dangerous colectivos
and the intelligence service, Servicio
Bolivariano de Inteligencia Nacional
(SEBIN), who continue to employ
firearms against civilians. Out of uni-
form, in secrecy, and without formal
command, these entities perform
hideous human rights abuses.
The Maduro administration has
intensified its present policies in light
of the protestors it regards as “right-
wing conspirators and participants in
a coup d’etat.” Its heightened attempts
to censor the media caused the dis-
mantling of NTN24’s signal and the
fining of local broadcasts that pre-
sented scenes of violence. President
Maduro himself has already revoked
press credentials from numerous
CNN reporters.
“I would place President Maduro’s
decision to revoke the press creden-
tials for certain CNN journalists in
a larger context of growing official
control of the Venezuelan media,”
says Trinkunas.
President Maduro remains eager to
block Twitter from supplying access
to anti-government information,
while newsprint suffers from the can-
celations or shortening of their print
editions due to administrative threats.
“Newspapers have continued to pro-
vide some coverage, although these
are slowly dwindling in both number
and depth of coverage due to a short-
age of newsprint,” says Trinkunas.
RCTV, a powerful private television
station, was removed from cable
television offerings in 2010 for its
criticisms of Maduro. Then came the
purchasing of the once protest-cover-
ing Globovisión by a pro-government
corporation in 2013.
“The government controls a large
number of radio, television and
newspaper media outlets, and others
have been purchased by private
sector allies of the government,” adds
Trinkunas. “These generally follow a
pro-Maduro editorial line.”
Their next target is the web.
Because internet providers grant
public access to websites on the black
market bolivar exchange rate, they are
obliged to screen news reports in or-
der to keep access to the very foreign
exchange that sustains them. News,
then, is concentrated in the hands of
government businesses. And for that,
it will only become harder to dig out
the truth of its broadcasts, for Vene-
zuelans and for the rest of the world.
“Remaining independent radio and
TV broadcasters have engaged in
self-censorship regarding the popular
protests going on in Venezuela for
fear of fines and loss of access to gov-
“No somos ni de Izquierda ni de Derecha, somos los de Abajo y Vamos a
por los de Arriba”/We are neither Left nor Right, we are the Underdogs
and We go for the Top.
VENEZUELA
BY : AriannaTalaie
#La Salida

Foreign Affairs Review Spring Issue, 2014. Russia Special

Foreign Affairs Review Spring Issue, 2014. Russia Special

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