11.09.01 / 08.08.08

On the anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, President Dmitry Medvedev drew a direct comparison between 9/11 and the recent war in Georgia/South Ossetia.

"The world has changed and it occurred to me that 8 August 2008 has become for Russia as 11 September 2001 for the United States. This is an accurate comparison corresponding to Russian realities. Humankind has drawn lessons from 11 September tragedy and other tragic events. I would like the world to draw lessons also from these events [in South Ossetia]."

This is one of many Western-Russian comparisons the Kremlin tag-team has been drawing recently. Commenting on the poor diplomatic relationship between the UK and Russia, Vladimir Putin indicated why he thought they were unlikely to improve.

"Why do you allow UK territory to be used [as] a launching pad to fight Russia? Imagine if we gave sanctuary to armed members of the IRA - that's why its not possible to build normal relations with Britain."

Relationships between countries are very much like relationships between people. Each country has it's own specific culture, like each person their own unique personality. Some people's personalities are immediately compatible, due to similarities in taste or attitude, and as a result people become friends. Some people have shared similar experiences or have shared a particular experience, and are drawn together as a result. It is in this way that relationships between people take shape and in a similar manner, so to do relationships between cultures, peoples, and states.

These comparative statements provoke a gut reaction that is difficult to ignore; a rejection of the comparison, the very suggestion showing an unsympathetic attitude and a strong feeling that it is based on a gross misunderstanding of fact. But taking action based on this feeling is deeply wrong.

For decades Russia and the West have understood each other as opposites. 'Democratic capitalist USA' and 'authoritarian communist Russia' - content in themselves, at ease with their polar opposite, and so settled in their relationship. The West and Russia were best understood, as was their relationship, by comparisons. This framework is now obsolete.

Russia is attempting to build a relationship built on similarities and should be implored for doing so. As I have indicated before, I am of the firm belief that a strong Russia can also be a benign Russia. But in their zealous drive for equal friendship, they find a largely sceptical Western audience.

For the West, it is difficult to ignore the rife political violence, the sham democracy, the transparently cynical foreign policy and capitalist gangsterism which has come to define Putin's eight years in office. With no real break from the Putin-era, Medvedev rests on a cursed thrown. And so recent history looms large and relatively recent historical precedent, as irritating as Russia may find it, is quite hard for the West to ignore.

Let us remember, Russia is not the only state to be defined by terrible acts and riddled with hypocrisy. Their old adversary the United States lectures on human rights and liberal democracy while propping up oil-rich Gulf states and running a shameful PoW camp in Cuba. And who, they say, is Britain to tell us of Empire.

How then will these individuals replenish their relationship? Unfortunately, I have no answer only that time will tell.