David Miliband says Russia had blasted well better not do what it just did:
“The Russian president says he is not afraid of a new cold war. We don’t want one. He has a big responsibility not to start one.”
An optimistic idea, that other people are morally bound to carry out your political will, and one not likely to succeed. You will know this if you’ve ever been on a playground:
Bully: I shove you in pile of snow now.
Miliband: No, don’t do that. You have a big responsibility not to do that.
*shove*
Compare:
“Stalin says he is not afraid of trouble with the western powers. We don’t want trouble. He has a big responsibility to co-operate with us.”
When you’re in the game of realpolitik, the concept of responsibility is useful only for propaganda. International law is also now a joke, which I always thought was one of the worst things about the Iraq war. If Iraq and (the independence of) Kosovo were special cases, why not Abkhazia and Ossetia? Why exactly do western leaders expect Russia to care about what they say? Most likely they don’t, and everything they’re saying is just for show.
