In immediate response to the Russia-Georgia war, it has been popular to say that we are witnessing the 'return' of history. This was the title of a post by Stanley Crossick, crossposted on the Atlantic Review. There have been many who have heralded the return of history, some even more or less directly after Francis Fukuyama wrote his seminal essay 'The End of History?'. Most recently, Bob Kagan has written a book called 'The Return of History and the End of Dreams', which stems from the essay 'End of Dreams, Return of History'.

Francis Fukuyama answers some of the critics in his Washington Post column 'They Can Only Go So Far'. One interesting point Fukuyama makes is that we can't paint all forms of autocracy with one brush, that there are important differences between various forms of authoritarianism. He also argues that none of the current forms have an idea:

The facile historical analogies to earlier eras have two problems: They presuppose a cartoonish view of international politics during these previous periods, and they imply that "authoritarian government" constitutes a clearly defined type of regime -- one that's aggressive abroad, abusive at home and inevitably dangerous to world order. In fact, today's authoritarian governments have little in common, save their lack of democratic institutions.

The thing to say about 'The End of History' is that people generally misunderstand it. Fukuyama himself says so, and Blake Hounshell nods in agreement on Foreig Policy's Passport blog. It's unclear to me whether the idea is misunderstood by the many who have debated it in writing. Bob Kagan certainly gets the point.

Over on the Global Guerillas blog, John Robb suggests that the countries currently feeling threatened by Russia should change their strategies:

This shift towards economics and networks also means that small states on Russia's periphery now have a defensive trump card. They can inflict damage on Russia that far exceeds the potential economic benefits Russia receives. Any one of these nations could easily inflict tens of billions in damage to Russia's energy industry (which pays for much of the Russian government). IF these nations came together in a defensive alliance, its possible that Russian energy production could be halved and inflict damage that's counted in the trillions.

Left to the side of this is that Russia is often a big trading partner of these countries, and that any damage done to the Russian economy - and gas pipes in particular - would damage these countries as much, or more. In some ways, this is a MAD strategy.

Moreover, Russia's current actions in Georgia don't appear to have their basis in economic interests, after all, they did not take the pipelines out. And the Russian stock market did not exactly benefit. This is not to say that Russia can't be deterred by further economic disincentives. But plans to damage critical infrastructure could be learned of by the Russians. They have spies. And it could lead to a broad array of Russian counteraction, the least of which would be the expulsion of many nationals, something Russia had already done with the Georgians.

The German Marshall Fund released its 2008 transatlantic trends poll yesterday, which shows a thaw in transatlantic relations. From the press release:

“Based on common values and shared interests, the survey shows that Americans and Europeans want closer relations,” said Craig Kennedy, president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “Whether it’s the result of world events, a new U.S. administration on the horizon, or insecurity on several fronts, a new American president will have the opportunity to not only improve the United States’ standing in the world, but perhaps also to ask more of European leaders.”

However, despite perceived common values and a general interest in the same topics, Europeans generally feel that Europe should act more independently, although the number of Europeans who want closer relations with the US is increasing. Interestingly, though, few Europeans think that Europe should take a 'go it alone' course, with the majority favouring partnership with the US in addressing threats. This could be taken to mean that Europeans want Europe to be more assertive in such a partnership, or simply that the general population hasn't thought this through and exhibits a well-known but surprisingly extreme differential response to differently phrased questions (31% want closer relations, 67% want to address international threats in partnership).