Hold a high-level meeting with Kazakhstan, address Russian fears of encirclement forthrightly, and insist up on the right of Russia’s neighbors to act in their own interests.

As we’ve noted before, Russian fears of encirclement are often sincere, with deep historical roots. That said, it’s never moved beyond the pre-modern strategy of insisting that its immediate neighbors be compliant vassals. Consequently, the Russians tend to react like an affronted suzerain, furious that its vassal seems faithless, consorting with a rival. This is not a worldview that respects the sovereignty of its neighbors. Remember, up until 1991—’91!—Russia had a cordon of puppet states from Mongolia to Poland, with the vast steppes of Central Asia insulating them from the south. Her policy of imposing constraints on an otherwise free state on its borders gave the world the term “Finlandization.”

It is entirely consistent with Russian history and outlook to assume that the Czechs, Poles, etc., should be Finlandized (hence their fury over their participation in NATO and U.S. missile defense)—and so much more the ‘Stans of Central Asia, whose independence is widely viewed in Russia as a sort of historical joke.

That said, as gradually as Russia’s mindset will shift—if it ever does—it does no one any favors for the U.S. or Europe to humor this outlook which is vastly out of touch with contemporary reality and which constitutes a on-going threat to world peace. Consequently, the kind of diplomacy Secretary Rice (an old Russia hand) is here engaging in serves two purposes: first to bolster American ties with a country which could one day rival a Persian Gulf state in energy output. Second, while it’s bound to irritate Russia, it’s at a low enough level of irritation that the Russians could become used to it, and it’s soothed to a degree by Rice and FM Tazhin’s assertions that neither state wishes to interfere with Kazakhstani-Russian relations. The most anti-Western Russians won’t believe it, but the longer it’s obviously true, the more the anti-Western position erodes.

Много успехов, Госсекретарь Райс!

Confucius, Œc. Vol.

Don’t ask impertinent questions like that jackass Adept Lu.