Приведу любопытный ответ на форуме CNN от английского дипломата, долго работавшего в Москве.
jon livesey - Friday, 11/24/00, 7:06:25pm (#709 of 725)
"What dear posters think about Russia and her role in EU economy, politics, culture now and in nearest future?"
Europe has traditionally had a fear of Russia. Sometimes it's a fear of Russian
military strength, sometimes of Russian revolutionary ardour. In fact, if you look
at some of the most hideous events in the history of Continental Europe in this
century, they have usually been justified or excused by fear of Russia. Hitler got
his start through fear of a Communist revolution in Weimar Germany, Franco
fought against Soviet supported Socialists, and even Pius XII excused ignoring the holocaust by saying that the Russians were a greater threat to Christian Europe than Hitler was.
Such fears never disappear. They only change shape to adjust to changed
circumstances. Today the fear is that Europe could get sucked into the great
swamp of the Russian economy by trying to help Russia recover. So what the EU is trying to do is to nibble away at the edges, and help Russia's close neighbours
instead. Now that Russia is struggling to stay afloat, the EU is expanding its
influence into those areas of Eastern Europe where Russian weakness has left a
power vacuum. The amateurs who run the EU actually seem to think it's clever to
jump in and try to grab influence in Eastern Europe and the Balkans while Russia is diverted elsewhere. It could even work for a couple of decades, but I suspect that eventually Russia will pull itself together, and then there will be a settling of accounts concerning the EU's usurpation of countries that Russia traditionally considered its buffer states - in fact, even long before the Revolution.
This partly explains the current level of concern in the UK over this laughable "European Army". If the EU creates a lot of resentment by grabbing influence during a period of Russian weakness, but also gratuitously weakens NATO and alienates the Americans, and trusts its own defence to a cobbled-together rag-tag army, then eventually we could have real problems in twenty years time.
