Does it matter very much that Alex Salmond has
chosen to appear on Russia Today (RT)? No. I sometimes glance at this site. It
has a perspective, but then again so does the BBC, CNN and the New York Times.
RT has a Russian perspective. It’s not a perspective we often have access to in
the Western media, so in that sense RT can be useful. I find some of its
reporting and opinion pieces to be very biased, but others are no worse than
what we get in British newspapers or television. But then every story on every
website has to be evaluated critically. The important point to remember is that
RT is funded by the Russian Government and it has a goal. This goal is to
further the interests and foreign policy objectives of Russia.
Does this make RT illegitimate? No. The BBC World Service
likewise has a goal. Do you think that we fund radio programmes in obscure
languages out of the goodness of our hearts? In Britain too I find that the BBC
has a perspective that it relentlessly pushes. It is most often very fair and
balanced in its coverage of politics, but at the heart of it all is political
correctness. Most people, perhaps nearly everyone who works for the BBC
believes in this or at least won’t question it. I doubt it would be possible to
get a job if during an interview someone expressed doubts about aspects of
feminism, gay marriage or climate change. So while it is possible to describe
much of the coverage on RT as propaganda, so to it is equally possible to
describe the BBC.
But why would Alex Salmond choose to appear on RT?
It may be chance. He may simply have received an offer from the Russians. He
lost his job earlier this summer and has the right to work where he pleases. But
it might be worth reflecting for a moment on what he is doing.
During the Soviet Union various Labour politicians
and Trade Union leaders made trips to see how socialism was working out. Many
of them went to see a collective farm and reported back on how wonderfully it
all was working out and how progressive and efficient it all seemed. When
travelling around the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the 1930s they
noticed no famine, nor in other parts of the Soviet Union did they notice any
repression. This continued right up until the end of the Soviet Union. Various
Labour politicians and trade union leaders supported Soviet foreign policy goals,
such as nuclear disarmament and in return were given money by the Soviet state.
The Soviet Union was Britain’s enemy all through the
Cold War. The greatest threat to our existence came from Moscow. We also, of
course, were a threat to them. But let’s be clear. There is a word for siding
with the enemy during wartime.
I think the West has made a terrible mess of
relations with Russia since 1991. We have pushed the EU and NATO right up to
Russia’s border and crossed Russian strategic red lines. There was a chance
back in the early 1990s to include Russia in NATO and give it some sort of EU
membership. We could have had a relationship of cooperation and friendship, but
chose instead to continue the Cold War rivalry. No doubt the Russians were to
blame also.
The Yeltsin years were humiliating. Russians may have been treated with some friendship,
the Americans even sent aid, but they were also treated as if they were all
useless, second rate drunks. The
financial crisis of 1998 showed that democracy and free market economics could
lead to poverty. In order to avoid
further descent they turned, or rather returned to the familiar pattern of
leadership. Putin has brought Russia back to being something close to a great
power again. But in doing so he has come into conflict with the West. He has
become our enemy.
The final straw for the Russians was Ukraine. Just
as the Americans would not allow missiles to be sited in Cuba, the Russians
could not allow Ukraine to join the West. They fought to stop this and they
won. But in return the Americans deliberately set out to wreck the Russian
economy and achieved that goal. The rouble fell like a stone in 2014 and
sanctions had an effect on the living standards of ordinary Russians. But at
the same time Russian foreign policy was succeeding. Their intervention in
Syria while brutal was the key to defeating ISIS. Russian intelligence actually
understood what was going on because they had been in Syria for decades and
spoke the language, knew the history and understood the differences between the
people there. The CIA as usual understood nothing.
So not only is Putin an enemy, he is a dangerous
enemy. His intelligence services are rather good and his military forces are
superior to anything we can put in place. If Russia wanted to annex the Baltic
States, it could do so almost instantly and there would be nothing we could do
to stop them except drop nuclear weapons on Moscow.
The Russians didn’t take kindly to having their
economy wrecked. Moreover they didn’t take kindly to how the West once more
made a mess of the Middle East by first encouraging revolt in Libya and by
means of that example enabling chaos in Syria. They were right of course. It is
for this reason that the Russians are out for revenge.
Naturally Alex Salmond understands none of these
things. He is bumptious, fanatical about Scottish independence, but not very
bright. Putin like every other leader in history has made mistakes, but he is
conducting foreign policy in a very clever way. Russian interests are being
advanced, Russian power is being increased. Above all he is attempting to weaken
the West.
One way in which the Russians are attempting to
weaken the West is by encouraging secession movements abroad. The Russians have
a rather paradoxical attitude to secession. It’s fine when it’s in Russia’s strategic
interest, but otherwise it is forbidden. Thus Crimea is allowed to secede from
Ukraine, but any attempt by Chechnya to secede from Russia will be crushed by
force. Because Russia will crush by force any secession movement at home, it
feels free to encourage, for example, the Catalans in their attempt to secede
from Spain.
Spain, of course, is not exactly an important military
power anymore and hasn’t really been since it lost its fleet in 1588. Britain
on the other hand is rather more serious. We have nuclear weapons and we still
have reasonable armed forces, despite David Cameron’s attempt to all but disband
them.
Long term Mr Putin is trying to weaken the West and
weaken NATO. What better way to do this than see Britain’s armed forces
neutralised. If that happened in conjunction with renewed American isolationism,
then NATO would cease to be a serious force. It would be left with the Germans
and the French. At that point a dash from Smolensk to the Baltic coast in order
to get back the Baltic States looks feasible.
So it isn’t accidental that the Russians would want
Mr Salmond on their television screens. Mr Putin is happy to stir up trouble in
Spain. He will give money, he will use the IT skills at his disposal to help
the Catalan secessionists. It will be difficult to prove anything. Were the
Russians really involved in the US Presidential Election? Did they interfere
with the French presidential election? Who can say? But whatever they are doing
they are doing it for a reason. They want to increase Russian power by
destabilising the West.
Is Russia our enemy? Yes. I wish it wasn’t, but
Russia is acting towards the West in general like a hostile power. I believe we
should make peace with the Russians. Make a deal over Ukraine. But until that
happens we are in the midst of a new Cold War. What is more Mr Putin has
electronic means that were unavailable to his Soviet predecessors.
So the Russians will give Mr Salmond a platform to
preach secession. If he was a leader of a Russian Republic they would kill him
for doing so. But that’s OK he is only trying to harm Britain. If he could only
succeed in breaking up Britain Russia would have one less enemy to worry about.
Mr Salmond will probably do little harm. I can’t
imagine many people wishing to watch his programme. But let us be clear, by
taking Russian money and using it to peddle propaganda that the Russians are
sympathetic too, he is acting in a rather ignoble tradition.
For long term strategic reasons the Russians would
love to see the UK broken up. Russia is acting as a hostile power and is a
strategic threat to our allies in Eastern Europe. Anyone who does not recognise
this threat is simply uninformed. In any future elections the Russians are
liable to take the side of those who hate Britain. They may try to interfere in
our democracy too. Perhaps they already have. We must be clear about this. We
look back on those who took Soviet money or who failed to see the awfulness of
the Soviet Union as naïve, deluded fools or worse. Taking Mr Putin’s money is no
better.
