We are getting dangerously "retro." The former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski have suggested that the "Finlandization" of Ukraine might be a way out of the current crisis. We remember that Finland under President Kekkonen's term (1956/ 1982) underwent a process by which the powerful Soviet neighbor was able to strongly exercise its influence on Helsinki's decision making. The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe was supposed to bring some normality to such asymmetric situations. The first "basket" guaranteed, inter alia, the territorial integrity of states and was enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act in 1975. The Bucharest Declaration further confirmed the status quo of European borders and was intended to promote cooperation in the fields of science, technology and culture.
All this being said, the fine letters are more important than the draft. The Geneva meeting was surreal. The free-lancers, Malta, Romania, Switzerland, Finland and France, made life impossible for all. Under the baton of Ambassador Dubinin, the Soviet "bloc" tried to avoid false notes while the West veered as usual between anti-American spite and resignation. The more personal stories were as interesting as the Grand Drama (see my essay TRACES). My fellow countryman, the Prince de Ligne said about the Vienna Congress that "it does not walk, but it dances." Mutatis mutandis, in a dour mode, the same aphorism could apply to the interminable Geneva talks.
Nevertheless, the Final Act was approved and welcomed as the beginning of a new era.
It even worked for awhile and made the Perestroika possible. In its shadow, the lobby of the still occupied Baltic States woke up to a new dawn and most observers saw in the Helsinki act the post mortem of a despotic hypertrophy state.
All this looks like some Panglossian projection today. It is absurd to attribute to Putin the high marks he does not deserve while it is equally advisable to notice his extraordinary cunning. It is also disturbing to notice how some of the best and brightest political minds in the West seem to suffer from memory loss. Suddenly they unfreeze "Finlandization" as a viable alternative for Ukraine, while the West did all it could to get rid of this fatal bacteria. This creates a dangerous precedent. Borders are no longer "off limits," self-determination gets manipulated, and thugs get a free ride. The Maidan is also betrayed by the same individuals who found nothing better than to give cookies instead of ideas. Some strains of thought are perverse since they fail to put pressure on Russia, which knows too well the value of silence. In the diplomatic void so created, the echo coming from a premature commentary can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It should not be excluded that the endgame will not be different from the analysis of the two US diplomatic "oracles", but to wish for it per se might signal a lack of acumen, which will not go unnoticed and could be a haunting precedent for the future.
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