Mind the Neighbors
Those who interpret all moves on the international stage in terms of states’ eternal jockeying for power and prestige will never lack for evidence. But countries’ desire to stop mass murder in their neighborhood, or to enforce regional norms, has its own force.
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PRINCETON – The conventional wisdom last week on whether Syria would comply with former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s ceasefire plan was that it was up to Russia. We were reverting to Cold War politics, in which the West was unwilling to use force and Russia was willing to keep arming and supporting its client. Thus, Russia held the trump card: the choice of how much pressure it was willing to put on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to comply with the plan.