Syria, U.S.A, France: a football is a game of two halves

The two last weeks look like a geopolitical spiral to anybody following the situation about Syria. On one day France and the U.S.A were ready to get rid of the Syrian regime, to punish it. On the following day, the fleets were already sailing to the Middle East. War was imminent.

Then, Russia offered to open negotiations aiming at dismantling the Syrian chemical stockpiles. Tri-lateral negotiations took place from 12th to 14th September, reaching an agreement avoiding the bombing of the Syrian governmental facilities, command posts and units.

This high-speed diplomatic flurry seems quite blurring: the Syrian regime was to be punished, everybody was waiting for the shelling of Damascus by U.S warships and French aircraft, and all of a sudden, all those threats became apparently nothing but a damp squib.

An explanation seems to be necessary.

Latvia & Lithuania concern on French arms sales to Russia

In Euobserver.com of 25^th February 2010, A. Rettman wrote on Latvian and Lithuanian call for tighter EU rules on arms sales (click here). He says that both countries were thinking to the French sale of RoRo ships to Russia. Those sales have apparently raised some concern in their countries.

Although their have of course the right to express such a way to their Ally, there is some contradiction, or they tried to support awkwardly Georgian government. Anybody looking at a map of Baltic Sea would easily understand that Russia does not need and will never need an amphibious force to invade those countries. Secondly do they trust or not the US protection and the NATO. If they do: no need to protest; if they don’t: no need of NATO.

In fact they simply felt like Georgia: at the mercy of the former suzerain, and this fear should be respected, because of the extend by which they suffered during those scores of Soviet domination.

However one should compare only what is to be compared:

-Kaliningrad is internationally recognized as a Russian territory, what the harbour of Sebastopol is not.

-Baltic States have no region, which wants to cut links off. In contrary to Georgia, they did not attack anybody.

-Baltic countries belong to both the NATO and EU. Georgia not.

-Baltic countries are fully democratic states, what Georgia could not fully implement yet.

Therefore, although all of those four States belong to those former small Soviet republics, their respective situations cannot be compared at all.