Упрощенная HTML-версия
Author : A. Kramarenko
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
THE ELEVENTH OF JANUARY of this year was
the 100th anniversary of the death of the Russian
Empire's last ambassador to the United Kingdom,
Count Alexander Benckendorff, who is buried inside
the Westminster Cathedral in London, the main
Catholic church of England and Wales. This anniver-
sary was, in a sense, a reminder of a mission that
Benckendorff had in London, where he arrived in
1903, but was unable to fulfill.
When the threat of a pan-European war loomed large and all principal European nations were
tirelessly building military and political alliances, a critical question occupied the minds of those
involved in that race - what position Britain would take in that emerging geopolitical setup.
It was German aggressions that helped the British clarify their strategic thinking and made them
realize that Britain needed peace in Europe as much as France and Russia did. It seems that even
one repetition of the mistake it made during the Franco-Prussian war would be too costly for
Britain regardless of any circumstances - class prejudice, ideological considerations, or anything
else. There have been plenty of facts in history proving that geopolitics gains the upper hand
over all other factors. It is no surprise therefore that today, at a time of forthcoming Brexit and
Donald Trump's "global revolution," Western observers and historians, including British historian
Niall Ferguson, still see that old geopolitical imprint on present-day European affairs.
It is more obvious today than ever before that the geostrategic legacy of the Cold War, including
institutions such as NATO and the European Union, is an increasingly serious obstacle to the
development of a clear collective security system in Europe
A fiasco of the euro zone and the European Union in general would result in a new form of in-
compatibility of Germany with the rest of Europe, this time economic incompatibility.
The Euro-Atlantic space has to deal with problems that the essentially new global competitive
environment confronts it with. But more importantly, each country in it has to keep its living
standards up and think of its future. Artificial trade barriers and economic dividing lines in Eu-
rope can't help any longer - they become a power that generates its own logic. For example, the
use of the EU's Eastern Partnership for geopolitical ends led to the Ukrainian crisis and has
proven that a policy that runs against economic logic is a road to nowhere. This means that
Euro-Atlantic political unity is unachievable without the creation of a common economic space
for the entire region based on World Trade Organization norms and principles.
http://interaffairs.ru
Alexander Benckendorff's Unaccomplished Mission and Its Les-
sons