The Georgian crisis has exposed a shift in the global balance of power.

In Europe it has diffused the sense of an American decline. Something like a multipolar world, dreamed by the previous generation of EU leaders, such as Jacques Chirac or Gerhard Schröder, may have arrived.

The EU has been slow to act because the new world order is making it anxious.

• The EU mission to Russia is negligible

• the deal reached on September 8th ignored some serious problems like

• the withdrawal of extra Russian troops from South Ossetia and Abkhazia (because the loss of these enclaves seems to be done),

• or the ceasefire monitors and the return of refugees.

Russians don’t show great respect for the Europeans; they consider EU an insignificant club

• their troops might not withdraw to pre-conflict positions after all and

• Russian officials refused to display the EU flag at the press conference, wanting only French and Russian flags

By the way Mr Sarkozy’s weight as a negotiator derives from a mandate, agreed by 27 EU heads of government, to demand that Russia pull back its troops.

The definition of the new order

Moreover EU foreign ministers defined the new order “apolar world”(a phrase coined by Niall Ferguson, a British historian) in which America remains an undisputed superpower, but no single country can now control the world. Europeans had imagined the new world would be a paradise of dialogue and compromise in which assertive nation-states challenge the idea of an open global system, governed by international rules, common values and multilateral organisations, but that was naive.

Maybe this one can be considered a neo-polar world, in which old alliances and rivalries are changing. Mr Chirac dreamt a European pole in opposition to American “hegemony” but even the crisis in Georgia has not shocked the EU so to assume a common position on Russia.

The pro Russia camp, reckons Russia is unreasonably being held responsible for a war that was started by American-backed Georgians. On the contrary,

The Anti Russia camp: Britain, Sweden and newer EU members from the ex-communist block condemn Russia as well as Georgia.

Naming the stand-off between Russia and the West

The Cold war was an era of rivalry, both military and ideological, between two global superpowers.

However defining the beginning and end of the old cold war is difficult.

Maybe it started with Lenin,

Stalin

when the Iron Curtain was erected in Europe at the end of the second world war.

with the Berlin airlift of 1948

it ended with the Helsinki Accords of 1973,

with Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika.

Now Russia

• seems to flirt with Venezuela and Iran, and
• refuses to vote for sanctions against Zimbabwe at the UN

But the West’s disagreement with Russia is just a regional conflict because Russia is too weak for global struggle. The Soviet Union could pretend to be a superpower but Russia cannot.

In alliance with China, it might perhaps be able to form a serious anti-western alliance.

Even in nuclear arms, Russia is no match for the West. As far as conventional weapons go, any adversary bigger than Georgia would present problems.

And the clear ideological division seems missing too.Russia has no messianic ideology that attracts fervent believers all over the world. Westerners who sympathise with the modern Kremlin are a rum mixture of amoral financiers, America-haters and anti-capitalists. Finally, Russia is integrated into the West in business, financial and cultural terms to an extent that would have been inconceivable in Soviet days. Millions of Russians travel abroad. Russia is an open society where people can live their lives as they like. That’s why a “new cold war” seems to be absurd. The current era of confrontation with Russia is new and different .

But there are similarities wuth the cold war. The main theatre is the same; the countries of eastern and central Europe. Now they are struggling not be affected by Russian economic influence or military occupation.

The ideological struggle between capitalism and communism has been replaced by a clash of values. Russia reckoons that a free press and an opposition that can win elections are not necessary parts of a modern economy.

European Role

Whether the neo-polar world remains a scary place, nobody knows if Europeans will keep supporting the Euro-Atlantic pole. Indeed foreign policy, led by France, asserts a stronger alliance with America. Since the EU needs its own defence capability if it wants to be taken seriously, a French plan for a push on European defence, in support to NATO, will be presented in October. But there’s no consensus for an ambitious defence project in Europe.