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The New Cold War: Revolutions, Rigged Elections and Pipeline Politics in the Former Soviet Union

by Mark MacKinnon

The dissolution of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 was followed not by a sudden flowering of democracy, but by the seizure of political and economic power by former Communist apparatchiks. Opposition to the new regimes by students, journalists, and intellectuals was supported by Western governments and NGOs, several of which were funded by billionaire George Soros. Some dissident movements (notably Ukraine’s Orange Revolutionaries) toppled oppressive rulers, despite widespread intimidation and electoral fraud.

In his alternately alarming and inspiring account of these developments, Mark MacKinnon, The Globe and Mail’s former Moscow correspondent, shows his admiration for the courage and dedication of those who struggled, often at great personal risk, for more open societies.

MacKinnon has a bleaker view of recent events in Russia, where Vladimir Putin rode a surge of nationalism to the presidency in 1999. Under Putin’s “managed democracy,” Russia has been governed by an increasingly repressive and centralized state apparatus that suffocates genuine opposition while maintaining a facade of democratic processes.

The New Cold War argues that for the past several years, the West (led by the U.S.) has been locked in a new Cold War with Russia. Russia’s main advantage in that conflict, apart from its still-formidable military power, is control over the oil and gas exports that are essential to the economies of Ukraine and other Eastern European nations. The Americans have tried to weaken their rival’s dominance by assisting in the construction of new pipelines over non-Russian territory. As MacKinnon points out, this means that the U.S., despite the Bush administration’s pro-democracy rhetoric, supports authoritarian governments in the former Soviet republics that are important to American oil interests (such as Azerbaijan) or that host U.S. air bases (Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan).

MacKinnon has a good grasp of the complexities of his subject, and it helps that the book includes a list of the key players, as well as ample source notes and a comprehensive index. My only significant reservation about the book is that it is almost too timely – events are moving so rapidly that it could soon become “yesterday’s news.”

 

Reviewer: Robert W. Wilson

Publisher: Random House Canada

DETAILS

Price: $34.95

Page Count: 316 pp

Format: Cloth

ISBN: 978-0-679-31446-2

Released: April

Issue Date: 2007-7

Categories: Children and YA Non-fiction, History