Marcel H. Van Herpen, who heads up the Cicero Foundation, has released a new paper entitled “Russia, Georgia and the European Union: The Creeping Finlandization of Europe.”  As one can observe from the opening allegory in the paper about Europe’s soft post-invasion response to Russia’s military actions in Georgia, Van Herpen intends to pull no punches in his condemnation of European sycophancy:

It is as if suddenly a wolf had broken into a henhouse and the chickens run in all directions in a desperate sauve qui peut. After the first shock the chickens start to accuse each other: whose fault was it that the wolf came in? And they come up with different reasons. Maybe we spoke too loud, or the wolf has been humiliated. Maybe we provoked the wolf or did not treat him with the necessary respect. Thereupon they decide not to provoke him, to treat him gently and with more respect than ever. The wolf, however, knows very well why he came: he simply had hunger…

The paper, written in what even I would call an angry tone, calls European leaders to task for having put their trust into the Russian explanations for war, and subsequently debunks some of the common myths.  Much of what is argued in this short report was also discussed in much greater (even excruciating) detail at a recent conference at the Hudson Institute featuring Andrei Illarionov and Svante Cornell (watch the video of the event here).

Is this just a minor backlash to Russia owning the news cycle last month, or will it be an all out blowback?