The European Council on Foreign Relations published this analysis of EU-Russia relations just before last year’s Russian elections. I found it very informative on how Russia has managed to crash out of the BRIC category (the other three being the rising economies of Brazil, India and China) to the point where the Putin machine has become exhausted, unable to deliver due to rampant corruption and a captive, stagnant economy, with the glory days of the 2008 military victory over Georgia forgotten and the far east being surrendered economically to Chinese domination. It is a compelling picture of a state in crisis and although the authors did not predict the remarkable outcome of the elections, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone who had read the booklet.
The authors are on less sure ground in proposing how the EU should react. The good news is that there is less divergence among member states than was the case a few years ago; now that the Poles less hostile to Russia and the Germans less complacent, they have converged around a pragmatic yet mildly principled centre of gravity. The ECFR trio propose some fairly sensible measures to crystallize this convergence, including anti-bribery measures, sanctions against the murderers of Sergei Magnitsky, but also a drastic easing of the visa regime for Russians visiting the EU.
Unfortunately it is not at all clear where the leadership for taking these sensible measures might come from. EU external policies are in crisis, with twelve out of twenty-seven foreign ministers demanding that the beleaguered Baroness Ashton up her game. This year’s EU presidencies are held by small countries whose governments are both deep in domestic crisis, and one of which is anyway notoriously pro-Russian. In any case EU leaders will be fully occupied with the new eurozone treaty for the next few months, whether or not they intend to sign it. So this is a set of good ideas which sadly have nobody caable of implementing them.
I watch these with two or three boys — always the 11 and 9 year old, and the 7 year old comes in and out. That surely affects how I see them.
But anyway: I would ding “The Unquiet Dead” on a couple of points. The Gelth were pretty ridiculous, Dickens’ tactic against them was pure handwavium bafflegab (turning up the gas draws them out… because why?) and it dragged badly in the middle; I understood the purpose of the long conversation between Rose and Gwyneth, but it was just too, well, long.
“Dalek!”, on the other hand, was the stuff. The boys saw the first season of Eleven before Nine, and had been underwhelmed with the Daleks in “Victory of the Daleks”. /This/ Dalek, though, was badass.
Note that the Americans are an arrogant, horrible billionaire and a bunch of dumb, trigger-happy goons who get killed because they’re too stupid to take the Doctor’s advice. On the other hand, American movies love to portray Brits as slimy, amoral criminal masterminds, so I suppose fair is fair.
Am I correct to think that the Doctor picking up a bigass gun was a big deal? He’s supposed to be philosophically against them, right? So I guess that just drives the point home that the Doctor hates Daleks A LOT.
Finally, did anyone notice that these two episodes are in conversation with each other? In “The Unquiet Dead”, the Doctor pities the aliens, tries to help them, and ends up unleashing a menace to humanity. In “Dalek!”, Rose pities the alien and ends up unleashing a menace to humanity. Both involve aliens who are bound to a particular place and want to get out into the world. Both have clueless third parties who are largely interested in the aliens for profit (or avoiding loss), and who go from being antagonists, to allies, to dead or mindwiped (and dropped outside a city named S_____). Both involve the death of innocent bystanders, and both have the main plot resolve with a big explosion and the death of the alien(s). (Okay, those last two are probably common to a lot of Who eps. Still.)
Doug M.