Edward Lucas Weblog

The Economist's Central and Eastern Europe correspondent and columnist Edward Lucas now has a blog. Among the first posts is one on sanctions. It's headed "Sanctions work a treat for dictatorships." But, with an ironic twist that's characteristic of this down-to-earth political observer, it begins: "Sanctions are a wonderful subsitute for real politics." Read the whole thing.

From the post's conclusion:

Nobody's talking about sanctions against Russia, yet, but Vladimir Putin's idea of democracy is not much different from Lukashenko's (roughly: sit down, shut up, give me money). And they need the same approach.

The big strength of Western societies is that we are open. That's what we should use in the struggle against autocracy, in Minsk, Moscow and beyond: by demonstrating our openness, to trade, people and ideas.