Do you remember the White Queen from Alice in Wonderland teaching herself to believe six impossible things before breakfast? Think of that as the closest you’ll get to the logic of European and American policymakers today. At least that’s my impression after reading Ron Asmus’s new book, A Little War that Shook the World. The book offers a sharp, controversial, and powerfully argued analysis both of the events and decisions that led to the Russo-Georgian war, and of the way it ended. It has already provoke heated debates in Europe and the US, drawing both ardent supporters and angry critics.

In the week of the Icelandic ash I found myself stuck in St. Petersburg. Being a volcano exile in Russia proved to be an enlightening experience—my local Russian contacts were friendly, but little capable of dealing with the extraordinary situation. And no wonder—their transportation system was pure hell. When I figured out that I could fly from St. Petersburg to Sofia via Moscow, I was shocked to learn that in the era of electronic air-ticketing it was impossible to get my Moscow-Sofia ticket at the airport in St. Petersburg—I had to purchase it at the Sheremetjevo airport in Moscow, with the risk of missing the only connection that could bring me home.

What was even more surprising was that Russians themselves were not scandalized by the unfriendliness and inefficiency of their transportation system. They seemed rather used to it. Here came my enlightenment—it struck me that if we can understand why Russians were not outraged, why they do nothing to change the existing rules of transportation, which make them waste their time in senseless queues, we can gain insight into the sources of the stability of Putin’s regime.

Today, both Russia and Poland are colored by tragedy. At the end of March, a terrorist bombing in the Moscow metro killed 39 innocent people and injured many more. At the beginning of April—the first Sunday after Easter—a plane crash killed the cream of the Polish political elite: President Lech Kaczynski, the chief of the general staff, senior members of the government, members of Parliament, generals, intellectuals. The president’s delegation was travelling to Katyn, where, 70 years ago, Stalin massacred more than 20,000 of Poland’s best and brightest officers, professors, and doctors in an attempt to break the Polish nation. The plane crash in Smolensk is one of those events that is best reported by poets, not by journalists.

The difference in the public response to the two tragedies, however, stands as a strong narrative on the state of the two nations: The reaction of the Russians showed that Russia is a society shaped by mistrust and lack of solidarity; the reaction in Poland was the triumph of national unity.

The critique of Obama always has been that he is soft. He smiles to the Russians, bows to the Japanese, agrees with the Chinese, and even wants to talk to the Iranians. Many Republicans started asking themselves: Is something wrong with the President, does he know that international politics is not a global cocktail party? And suddenly Obama “toughened.” He played tough in winning his health care reform, and then he played tough against Israel after the humiliation of Vice President Joe Biden’s response to the Israeli government’s housing development in East Jerusalem. Obama’s exercise of toughness was in the best tradition of “know your place” politics that Republicans are so fond of. Here is how the correspondent of the Daily Telegraph described Obama’s exercise of “tough love” for Israeli government.

The second Russia-Georgia war that President Saakashvili lost lasted only 30 minutes and allegedly took only two victims (both died of heart attacks). What was destroyed this time was not Georgia’s infrastructure, but the political credibility of its government.

“Europe is too thickly planted with kingdoms to be long at peace,” wrote Thomas Paine some two centuries ago. Since then, many things have changed but not America’s skepticism about Europe. Speaking at the National Defense University some weeks ago, Secretary Gates expressed his fear that “demilitarization of Europe—where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks going with it—has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st.” In short, Europe is planted with too many pacifist democracies to be long enough at war. What does all this mean for the future of NATO?

Let’s face it, if Greece were a Central European country, the Greek crisis would never have happened. First, Germany and France were never going to allow a country known for its poor economic performance, bad political manners and genius for creative accounting to join the single currency union. Secondly, if by luck or negligence the Greece of Central Europe had ended up in the euro zone, Brussels was going to thoroughly scrutinize Athens’s finances. But Greece is not a Central European country. While the European Commission was crusading against corruption in the Yalta Club countries, the Club Med countries enjoyed the privilege of being treated as good Europeans without actually being good Europeans. Imagine that Bulgaria’s or Romanian’s prime minister controls 80 percent of the national media and is in the habit of spending his holidays entertaining prostitutes. Or imagine that the Hungarian prime minister—contrary to all advice coming from Brussels—declares that he will not freeze public sector wages, despite the severe economic crisis. It is difficult even to imagine the outcry that would follow.

What is wrong with meritocracy? Why is the modern meritocratic elite trusted less than the old establishment? Why, as we have made our institutions more meritocratic, has their public standing plummeted? David Brooks asked all these uneasy questions in a recent column in The New York Times, and offered some answers: Our idea of meritocracy is based on a narrow definition of talent; people are less connected to the leadership class today than yesterday; the elite’s solidarity is weaker; the time horizon of the elites has shortened; and society has become dangerously transparent. Some of Brooks’ arguments can come as a surprise to his fellow commentators.

Small wars and small coalition partners: This is really what should worry NATO. Small wars are difficult to win; small coalition partners are difficult to ignore. On Saturday, as coalition forces were fighting their way in a make-it-or-break-it offensive in the Taliban stronghold of Marja, the Dutch government was carrying on a make-it-or-break-it fight of its own. In terms of the latter, however, they opted to break it—the government collapsed after a final effort to keep Dutch troops in Afghanistan failed miserably. Bad timing, to say the least. But the “fall of The Hague” could be worse. Disregarding the appeals of NATO’s secretary general, the leadership of the Labor Party, the smaller partner in the governing coalition in the Netherlands, made it clear that Dutch troops should return home by the end of the year. The new reality in Europe is that a call from NATO headquarters in Brussels is not enough to change a country’s politics.

The Orange Revolution has faded away in Ukraine. Democracy survived, but it is a democracy without much hope. You want to get a feeling what is going on in the country and why anger and apathy are shaping Ukraine’s public life? Then stop reading the semi-intelligent op-eds and think tanks’ briefs that flooded Western media last week and focus on the story of Vladimir Boyko published in The Wall Street Journal.

Winston Churchill famously observed that the Kremlin’s political struggles are like a fight among bulldogs under a carpet: Outsiders hear plenty of growling, but have few clues who is winning until the fight is over. Unfortunately, not much has changed in Russian politics since this observation was made. American political scientist Stephen Holmes recently noted that we had a better idea of the role of Stalin’s show trials than we do of the elections’ role in the current Russian political system.

It seems that the bulldogs are moving beneath the carpet yet again. After a provocative report was published last week by the Institute for Contemporary Development (a liberal think tank with ties to President Medvedev), the question remains how to interpret, decipher, and decode the political noise coming from Moscow today. Is something happening there, or is it just noise?

This Sunday, February 7, Ukrainians will go to the polling stations to vote on the second round of their presidential elections. The outcome of the elections is unpredictable. Many Ukrainians regard the very choice they have to make as a depressing one. The most radical bloggers leave you with the feeling that choosing between Y (Yanukovic) and Y (Yulia) is like choosing between bird flu and swine flu. He is regarded brutal, she is considered tricky. He is the symbol of everything the Orange Revolution contested, she is the symbol of the betrayed promises of the Orange Revolution; and both of them are believed to be corrupt. No surprise that Western media are obsessed with the who-lost-Ukraine question. In a sad, intelligent, but unfortunately deeply flawed piece published last week, Newsweek’s Owen Matthews tells us 'How Europe Lost Ukraine'. The argument is simple and straight: The EU’s inaction and unwillingness to open the membership perspective for Ukraine brought the country on the edge of collapse and made democracy appear a sham in the eyes of its own citizens.

Is the West in decline? Honestly speaking, I do not know. But what I find totally fascinating are the different ways that the United States, the European Union, and Japan discuss and react to the very prospect of decline.

Late last year I was in Tokyo for a conference, "What Does Japan Think?", organized by The German Marshall Fund of the United States. It was remarkable to me because it was one of those rare conferences where you remember what was said by others, rather than what you told them. I was mesmerized by my encounter with those who represented the attitude of "a retired great power." Japan is not about denying the relative decline of its influence and power, it is about falling in love with it. Japan does not want to run the world, it wants to be left alone. Even the dream for a seat on the UN Security Council is dead. Japan does not want to be in the Security Council; it prefers to rest, preferably on the golf course.