Welcome to Bear World

You thought that Bear Stearns and bear markets would be enough ursines to be getting on with, but no – welcome back to the Russian Bear, grinding its tanks across the Caucasus and scaring the shit out of everyone.

It’s like a blast of fresh air, straight from Siberia. The Russians have finally worked out that they don’t really like McDonald's, Levi’s, free elections, independent media, private enterprise or balsamic vinegar. They’ve given it 17 years, but enough’s enough, and they’re right – we know what we expect from our Russians, and it isn’t effete western rubbish like this.

Like it or not our view of the Russians is still defined by the Cold War – we want them inscrutable and brooding, scrunching around in their snow wearing boots, fur hats and greatcoats. We want them silent, sullen and morose, patrolling their borders and gulags, intercepting radio traffic, bugging hotel rooms, springing tender-traps, rounding up spies, and generally murdering people.

And it’s reassuring to note that they’ve lost little of their style. Liquidating a dissident in London is one of the set moves in this game so, rather than simply shoot Alexander Litvinenko two years ago, the poor man ended up dying on live TV poisoned by polonium-210. Nine out of 10 for artistic merit. And additional bonus points for having the prime suspect elected to the Russian parliament.

These guys are getting back into world class form, but what of the UK? Sadly, our response to the troubles in Georgia has conformed to the tenets of British Lite Culture. It’s true that strafing the Kremlin would probably be going too far, but wallowing in high dudgeon and squeaking with righteous pique isn’t going anywhere. Our Foreign Secretary is rushing around being pompous and building coalitions, and I fully expect ministers to start criticising the Russian military manoeuvres on the basis of their carbon footprint.

Somewhere deep in the Lubyanka a thick-set man with a crew-cut and plastic shoes turns to a henchman: “What has happened to the British? Where are their gunboats, their devious diplomats, their moles? Have they forgotten how to gloat, to infiltrate, to retaliate? Have they no wrath, no shame?”

As it happens, shamefully, we don’t. But by and large we’ve chosen to live in the present, despite the fundamentalist wings of both major political parties and the Anglican Church. Retro-politics is for folks who can’t hack it in the 21st century, but the Russians should remember who won last time. However, will they work this out before things get worse?

The answer to this involves woods and of course bears.