This is the Cold Peace. Russia and the West have neither become true friends nor real enemies under the reign of Vladimir Putin.
Unimaginable back in the early 1980s — today you can pay for a visa, the borders are open, entire classes of lawyers, bankers, businessmen are trading [together].
Nor is there any interest in Europe in clamping down on the money of the Russian establishment — which mostly finds its home in EU tax havens, London property and mysterious shell-companies protected by the best European lawyers and PR agents. Thinking back to the economic blockades of the Cold War — this is not how the Western elites behave to an enemy.
But Russia is not a friend either. It remains un-integrated and uninvited into Euro-Atlantic institutions. The Putin years have seen the return of clearly defined proxy wars — first the Russian attempt to defeat NATO expansion in Georgia and Ukraine in 2008, and from 2011 the attempt to block Western designs on removing the Assad regime in Syria.
full story:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/07/05/f-ben-judah-putin-west.html
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