Worldview: Russia

Repression in Chechnya (25 Nov 06): Recently, several Russian journalists critical of Putin have been murdered. This seems hardly a coincidence. Certainly, if Putin is behind it, then we must reevaluate our relationship with him. However, a country's intelligence service can operate in a murky way, where the leader doesn't quite know what is happening but wakes up to find certain people conveniently eliminated. One could argue that he is still responsible, but perhaps the intelligence service is a beast he dare not grab by the horns. Let us remember that Putin is a product of the KGB.

I don't want to exonerate Putin; I just shudder at the thought of a new Cold War, on top of our problems with Islam. All we would need then is for China to make a move towards Taiwan, which it would be more likely to do if we are embroiled with both Islam and Russia. Realism requires us to recognize the limits of American power.

Now one dissident journalist, Alexander Petrov, indicates that Putin is primarily angry at journalists who disclose the brutal tactics in Chechnya:

The government seems most determined to hit those groups that expose Russia's most festering problem: Chechnya, home to widespread torture, forced disappearances, and other such grave human-rights abuses. Nowadays, torturers — mostly security forces under the effective command of Chechnya's prime minister — don't even bother to wear masks, so utterly convinced are they that they will never be held accountable. They run a network of secret detention centers whose existence the Russian government denies. No wonder last month the Kremlin refused to give a United Nations monitor unlimited access to all detention facilities.

This raises the whole question of how to deal with terrorists. I have been quite conflicted on this difficult issue, and I can't help having some sympathy, or at least understanding, for Putin. I may seem relatively 'liberal' on how the Bush administration has dealt with terrorism, but we must examine the specifics: Iraq has indeed turned out to be a futile quagmire, as I expected, and my domestic security concerns, such as over the NSA wiretapping, have more to do with process (checks and balances) that with any disagreement over the need to catch terrorists. It is simply a right-wing canard that those who care about civil liberties or who are reluctant to fight ill-conceived wars are weak on defense. Liberals have failed miserably at defending themselves in the war of words.

At the same time, we must realize how odious the terrorists are. They actually exploit our liberties to cause mayhem. We all remember the horror at Beslan, when terrorists murdered children, or at the Moscow opera house, when the whole audience was taken hostage. It is perfectly natural to want to crush the terrorists, and I still think this is Putin's primary motivation. This is quite different than, say, any revived lust for empire, or any evil desire to be cruel for its own sake. Yet does not every tyrant claim that he is defending the nation, with which he is conveniently identified, at least in his own mind? And on my Iraq page, I have even argued that many countries in the Middle East are not ready for democracy and require a relatively decent strongman, or perhaps any srongman. Terrorism and anarchy are closer to Russia and to Putin than they are to us. That is why Putin is so popular with Russians, a democratic fact that cannot simply be ignored.

How violent should a government be with terrorists? Why not kill them all? Why not torture them to get information? Even a rather liberal legal expert such as Alan Dershowitz can argue that there may be ticking time-bomb cases where some degree of torture is necessary. Others argue that torture simply contradicts human rights and basic decency, and it delivers dubious information anyway. But then, what is torture? Is cracking down hard the same as torture? What about when the Israelis take out Hamas leaders? Call that 'assassination' if you please. Why not? I am all in favor of search warrants and so forth in the US, but we have relative peace. What if the situation were far more chaotic? Our security does not give us license to be self-righteous; we must also inquire how we would behave under far more stressful circumstances. Enough terrorism could destroy a government that refuses to fight back except in a totally honorable way.

As a westerner, my main concern is with Putin's attempt to suppress the truth. If he is going to fight the Chechyan terrorists with an iron fist, why not be candid about it? Well, we have seen that the American public loses its stomach for a war when is sees enough bloodshed on TV. Depending on how the news is manipulated, any side can be made to look good or bad. Al-Jazeera shows only the injuries to Muslims, while suppressing the suicide bombings of Jews which trigger the Israeli counterattacks. Yet Al-Jazeera's propaganda has been effective in turning much of the world against Israel. Thus, Israel now announces its attacks of the homes of terrorists, so the Arabs can get out of the way. Instead, they form human shields, and the Israelis call off their attacks, for fear of bad publicity. In this way, terrorists can ruthlessly manipulate the media to get a powerful asymmetric advantage over a stronger opponent whose hands are tied by decency. Putin is no fool and realizes this. Perhaps we should give him the benefit of the doubt. In general, I think that a strong and secure country like the US can fight terrorists while maintaining all our freedoms, but I am not prepared to apply this rule so piously to Russia.

I still haven't made up my mind about Putin and Russia. It is a difficult and important question, and I don't know that much about it. The press is rather more obsessed with Iraq. We don't want to get off on the wrong footing with a nation that by geography alone is bound to become a major power again some day. I am also reminded of how easily the Indian army is accused of 'brutality' in Kashmir, yet I feel quite certain that the Indian army is as decent as any and is only doing what it must to fight the vicious terrorists.

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Putin Quotes

04 Jun 06: Wikipedia has an article on Putin, which contains a collection of interesting quotes. Let us give the Russian leader a chance to defend himself in his own words:

In response to those who called Putin to enter talks with Chechen separatists after Beslan school hostage crisis, on September, 2004:

"Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace? You find it possible to set some limitations in your dealings with these bastards, so why should we talk to people who are child-killers? No one has a moral right to tell us to talk to childkillers."

When a reporter asked why he invited Hamas to the Kremlin for talks, Putin answered:

"Burning bridges - especially in politics - is the easiest, but not the most effective thing to do. This is why we don't rush to declare an organization to be terrorist, and try to work with everyone in this explosive region."

In response to criticism from US journalist Mike Wallace that his plan to end the direct election of governors and simply appoint them ran counter to the spirit of democracy, Putin replied:

"The principle of appointing regional leaders is not a sign of a lack of democracy. For instance, India is called the largest world democracy. But their governors have always been appointed by the central government and nobody disputes that India is a democracy."
"In the United States, you first elect the electors and then they vote for the presidential candidates. In Russia, the president is elected through the direct vote of the whole population. That might be even more democratic. And you have other problems in your elections. Four years ago your presidential election was decided by the court. The judicial system was brought into it. But we're not going to poke our noses into your democratic system because that's up to the American people."

From Putin's Annual Address to the Federal Assembly, 2005:

"I will recall once more Russia's most recent history.
"Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and compatriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself.
"Individual savings were depreciated, and old ideals destroyed. Many institutions were disbanded or reformed carelessly. Terrorist intervention and the Khasavyurt capitulation that followed damaged the country's integrity. Oligarchic groups - possessing absolute control over information channels - served exclusively their own corporate interests. Mass poverty began to be seen as the norm. And all this was happening against the backdrop of a dramatic economic downturn, unstable finances, and the paralysis of the social sphere.
"Many thought or seemed to think at the time that our young democracy was not a continuation of Russian statehood, but its ultimate collapse, the prolonged agony of the Soviet system.
"But they were mistaken.
"That was precisely the period when the significant developments took place in Russia. Our society was generating not only the energy of self-preservation, but also the will for a new and free life. In those difficult years, the people of Russia had to both uphold their state sovereignty and make an unerring choice in selecting a new vector of development in the thousand years of their history. They had to accomplish the most difficult task: how to safeguard their own values, not to squander undeniable achievements, and confirm the viability of Russian democracy. We had to find our own path in order to build a democratic, free and just society and state."

From Putin's Annual Address to the Federal Assembly on May 10, 2006, in which an emphasis was laid on economy and solving problems of demography (see the article of CSM) and defense:

" 'In the working out of a great national program which seeks the primary good of the greater number, it is true that the toes of some people are being stepped on and are going to be stepped on. But these toes belong to the comparative few who seek to retain or to gain position or riches or both by some short cut which is harmful to the greater good.' These are fine words and it is a pity that it was not I who thought them up. It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the President of the United States of America, in 1934.
"When the need arose to counter a large-scale attack by international terrorists in the North Caucasus in 1999, the problems in the armed forces became painfully evident. {..} In order to effectively repel the terrorists we needed to put together a group of at least 65,000 men, but the combat ready units in the entire army came to only 55,000 men, and they were scattered throughout the entire country. Our armed forces came to a total of 1,400,000 men but there was no one to fight. In the end boys who had never seen combat before were sent in to fight. I will never forget this. Our task today is to make sure that this never happens again.

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Dead Journalists

08 Oct 06: I have tried to give the benefit of the doubt to Putin, since I would hate to see bad relations resume between the US and Russia. I have acknowledged that he has very tough problems to deal with, which may require a bit of an iron fist, at least for a while. Moreover, I have noted that most Russians like Putin and don't like us, which somewhat neutralizes the issue of disappearing democracy. To be sure, we have not treated Russia with respect lately, and we could even be accused of having worsened its catastrophic problems right after the fall of the USSR, with our insistence on cold-turkey capitalism.

However, a journalist and critic of Putin was shot recently, and it looks very suspicious. A woman too, if the PC crowd doesn't mind me pointing that out. And, as the story tells us, this is not the first Russian journalist or critic of the government to meet this fate in recent years. Very worrisome! Freedom of speech is sacred to me, and once that goes, then the regime is certifiably tyrannical.

Michelle Malkin: Who killed Anna Politkovskaya?

Putin has vowed to track the killers down. A successful conviction would go a long way towards allaying suspicions. The next article says that Politkovskaya's murder is 'the 13th contract-style murder of a Russian journalist since Mr. Putin came to power in 2000, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists'.

Ethan S. Burger (CSM): The price of Russia's 'dictatorship of law'

Telegraph: Leading Putin critic poisoned in London

SkyNews: Polonium 210 found in body of dead Putin critic

BBC: Russia police 'regularly torture'

Alexander Petrov (IHT): EU must reign in Putin

David Satter (WSJ): Who Killed Litvinenko? Try asking Vladimir Putin.

Max Hastings: Corruption and violence have triumphed in Putin's Russia

Pat Buchanan (Human Events): Is Putin Being Set Up?

60 Minutes: Poisoned Spy Planned To Blackmail Wealthy Businessman

The Observer: Who's killing Putin's enemies?

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Missiles and Tensions

Introduction (5 Jun 07): The Bush administration wants to place missiles in Poland and a radar in Czechia, to protect Europe against possible future long-range missiles from Iran and North Korea. President Putin of Russia is upset to have new missiles so close to his doorstep, especially without any discussion. The US administration has blandly told him not to worry, since the missiles aren't aimed at him, and are not enough to pose a threat to Russia's missiles forces. Meanwhile, the usual hawkish pundits are stirring up all kinds of alarming reports about Russia, as they are with China.

Does anybody remember the Cuban missile crisis? How did we react? Yet we (i.e. the Republicans and neocons) have the nerve to tell Putin, in such a patronizing way, that there is no problem (and he should basically just shut up). We argue that our proposed missiles are few in number, but so were the ones in Cuba. Putin argues that they could be the start of something bigger, and indeed, every US military program seems to keep growing, as do our tentacles around the world. Our bloated defense budget is larger than the combined defense budgets of the next fourteen countries, during a time when the Cold War should be over and our only threats are from gangs of criminals. And lately we have treated Russia with disrespect and belligerence.

Serious experts have deemed it unlikely that any missile defense would work. And if one does, should it not be placed much closer to our shores? Or at least in Western Europe? And could we not show a bit of respect by discussing the issue with Putin first? And perhaps allowing Russian monitors or other safeguards? The very fact that NATO has been extended right up to Russia's neck is provocative.

But is it just the so-called neocons? We already know that the Democrats are spineless, but why are the European governments so seemingly pliable? We must distinguish between the Western nations of Europe, which have become annoyed with US hegemony and aggression, and the Eastern nations, which still remember the Soviet yoke and are divided in how to respond. Yet even in Czechia, half the public seems concerned about being turned into sitting ducks. The Poles are more adamantly anti-Russian and pro-US, due in part to the influence of Catholic conservatism.

A final comment: One might reasonably argue that the Russians are overreacting, as we may have in Cuba, but this time we definitely started it. The larger issue is that we have been 'baiting' Putin, as ex-cold warrior Pat Buchanan puts it. We recklessly and arrogantly extended NATO right up to Russia's throat, and we seem to be picking fights, as we are with China, Iran and so many other places. We have arrogated to ourselves the role of Masters of the World. Other nations with pride and self-respect are understandably annoyed.

Q&A: US MISSILE DEFENSE
BBC, 4 Jun 07

Why are the Russians angry?
They say that the plan to develop the system into Eastern Europe threatens their own missiles, which, they say, could eventually be destroyed on launch. This, they claim, would undermine the doctrine of deterrence. They argue that the current plans might be small, but could be the start of something bigger.

What might the Russians do in response?
President Putin has threatened to take counter-measures, such as choosing 'new targets', as he put it, in Europe.
[. . .]

Why does the US say the Russians should not be worried?
The US argues that the 10 interceptors in Poland and the radar in the Czech Republic could not possibly do any harm to any Russian ballistic missile.
'You're not going to counter the hundreds of Russian ICBMs and the thousands of warheads that are represented by that fleet with 10 interceptors in a field in Europe', says Gen Henry Obering, head of the US Missile Defense Agency. In addition, he says, the radar would be too small to track Russian missiles effectively.

Does Iran have a missile capable of reaching Europe or the US?
The US think-tank, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, says: 'Iran currently possesses the capability to employ ballistic missiles and/or long-range artillery rockets against its regional neighbours, Israel, and US forces deployed in the region.
'Given favourable conditions, Iran is currently on track to be able to extend its ballistic missile capabilities to include Southern Europe, North Africa and South Asia by 2005-2010 and possibly the continental United States by 2015.'

What international agreements cover these moves?
None. The US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001.

In another BBC article: Mr Putin said neither Iran nor North Korea had the weapons that the system was intended to shoot down. 'We are being told the anti-missile defence system is targeted against something that does not exist. Doesn't it seem funny to you?' he asked.

DOES PUTIN NOT HAVE A POINT?
Pat Buchanan, 13 Feb 07

What did we do to antagonize Russia?
When the Cold War ended, we seized upon our 'unipolar moment' as the lone superpower to seek geopolitical advantage at Russia's expense.
First, though the Red Army had picked up and gone home from Eastern Europe voluntarily, and Moscow felt it had an understanding we would not move NATO eastward, we exploited our moment. Not only did we bring Poland into NATO, we brought in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, and virtually the whole Warsaw Pact, planting NATO right on Mother Russia's front porch. Now, there is a scheme afoot to bring in Ukraine and Georgia in the Caucasus, the birthplace of Stalin.
Second, America backed a pipeline to deliver Caspian Sea oil from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey, to bypass Russia.
Third, though Putin gave us a green light to use bases in the old Soviet republics for the liberation of Afghanistan, we now seem hellbent on making those bases in Central Asia permanent.
Fourth, though Bush sold missile defense as directed at rogue states like North Korea, we now learn we are going to put anti-missile systems into Eastern Europe. And against whom are they directed?
Fifth, through the National Endowment for Democracy, its GOP and Democratic auxiliaries, and tax-exempt think tanks, foundations and 'human rights' institutes such as Freedom House, headed by ex-CIA director James Woolsey, we have been fomenting regime change in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet republics and Russia herself.
U.S.-backed revolutions have succeeded in Serbia, Ukraine and Georgia, but failed in Belarus. Moscow has now legislated restrictions on the foreign agencies that it sees, not without justification, as subversive of pro-Moscow regimes.
Sixth, America conducted 78 days of bombing of Serbia for the crime of fighting to hold on to her rebellious province, Kosovo, and for refusing to grant NATO marching rights through her territory to take over that province. Mother Russia has always had a maternal interest in the Orthodox states of the Balkans.
These are Putin's grievances. Does he not have a small point?

TO RUSSIA, WITH HATE
Justin Raimondo, 18 Apr 07

The campaign to demonize Russia, and target Putin in particular, is motivated by the Russian president's angular stance against American hegemony, expressed forcefully in a speech to the Munich conference of European nations in February. Russia has opposed U.S. attempts to further destabilize the Middle East, selling defensive weapons to Syria and trying to mediate between the Iranians and the UN Security Council over the nuclear issue. Putin, in short, has failed to know — or keep — his place: this alone puts him in the cross hair of the War Party.
As the U.S. seeks to encircle Russia with a string of 'color revolutions' from Ukraine to Georgia to the wilds of Central Asia, a geopolitical game is being played out, one that involves an increasing risk of violent conflict. The volatile mix of ethnic, religious, and political feuds that make life dangerous in the former Soviet republics is a veritable sandbox for the American regime-changers to play in, and the amount of trouble they can cause is considerable. The War Party's relentless campaign to further humiliate an empire already humbled and shattered is playing with fire — nuclear fire, to be exact. The Cold War was a bad idea to begin with; its revival is an even worse one.

BBC: Putin warning over US missile row

BBC: Nato condemns Putin missile vow

5 Jun 07: Last night on the NewsHour, we heard from an Aaron Friedberg, who served as Vice President Cheney's deputy assistant for national security affairs from 2003 to 2005, and who is now a professor of politics and international affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. He typifies the arrogance of the Bush administration. Asked about Putin's legitimate concerns about new missiles at his doorstep, he simple smears Putin with all kinds of unsubstantiated bad intentions:

RAY SUAREZ: Professor Friedberg, President Putin trying to generate a debate?
AARON FRIEDBERG, Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University: Well, I'd go a little bit further than that. I think he's trying to drive a wedge between the United States and its European allies, and possibly to encourage divisions and disagreements among the NATO countries, in particular between the so-called new European countries of the former Soviet empire and the Western European powers. So, yes, he's trying to encourage debate, but I think his purpose is a strategic one to encourage divisions and tensions.
RAY SUAREZ: Professor, let's talk a little bit about the timing. Secretary of State Rice, in talks with her Russian counterpart, publicly tried to smooth things over in advance of the G-8 meeting. Yet the Russian president seems determined to make this an issue which will get a lot of play at that upcoming meeting.
AARON FRIEDBERG: Yes, and I think that's a large part of the reason for his recent statements. This is something that has not come as a surprise. The decisions were made several months ago and publicly announced.
So Mr. Putin is trying to take advantage of the timing of the G-8 summit to draw more attention to this issue and I think, also, to make himself, in a sense, the center of attention and to try to encourage the other states that will be participating in the summit to make efforts to placate him and be more accommodating to his wishes and demands.
[. . .]
RAY SUAREZ: Well, Professor, does this latest sparring over a missile defense program — is it worsened by the fact that Russia and the United States were already fighting about plenty of other things, about the Ukraine, about Georgia, about other events involving Eastern European former Warsaw Pact countries?
AARON FRIEDBERG: Yes, I think it has to be seen in that larger context. For the last several years under President Putin, Russia has been pursuing a more aggressive, assertive policy, fueled in part by the increase in oil prices, which has boosted their economy and their confidence. And that's led to a series of disagreements and frictions, with the Russians trying to push back against what they see as the encroachments of the West, and particularly the United States, around their frontier. So this is part of something bigger that's been going on for quite a while.

Considering how we went ballistic over a few missiles in Cuba, and still bully that tiny country, it is simply bad faith to ignore Putin's concerns and divert the conversation with fabricated innuendo about Putin's devious intentions. What we can say for sure is that we are being disrespectful to Putin. I hope the Europeans have the backbone to prevent another Cold War from starting. As for the 'more aggressive' Russian foreign policy, perhaps that only means that Putin refuses to roll over to American imperial commands, now that Russia is back on its feet. He may have embargoed oil to Europe, or otherwise used the supply of oil to exert pressure, but what about our sanctions for ten years against Iraq which produced untold thousands of infant deaths through starvation? Russia can sell its oil to whomever it pleases. And our baiting has done nothing to ease tensions. As Pat Buchanan says, we are now committed to fighting World War III to defend even tiny Estonia. Is that not a bit ridiculous? Not to mention hostile towards Russia? It is like placing tripwires around Russia's feet everywhere we can. It is not for nothing that Putin is so popular with his own people.

HOW THE WEST LOST RUSSIA
Pat Buchanan, 5 Jun 07

How did they [baby boomers Clinton and Bush II] do it?
When the Red Army went home from Eastern Europe, the United States, in violation of an understanding with Moscow, began to move NATO east. We have since brought into our military alliance six former members of the Warsaw Pact and three former provinces of the Soviet Union: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
Anti-Russia hawks are now pushing to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. If they succeed, we could be dragged into future confrontations with a nuclear-armed Russia about who has sovereignty over the Crimea and whether South Ossetia should be part of Georgia.

Are these vital U.S. interests worth risking a war? Why are we moving a U.S.-led military alliance into the front yard and onto the side porch of a country with thousands of nuclear weapons? Would we accept any commensurate Chinese or Russian move in the Caribbean?
After Moscow gave us a green light to use the former Soviet republics of Central Asia to base U.S. forces for the Afghan war, the United States has sought permanent bases there. Russia and China have now united to throw us out of their back yard.
America colluded with Azerbaijan and Georgia to build a Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhan pipeline to transmit Caspian Sea oil across the Caucasus to the Black Sea and Turkey, cutting Russia out of the action.
In 1999, the United States bombed Serbia 78 days to punish her for fighting to hold her cradle province of Kosovo, which Muslim Albanians were tearing away. Orthodox Russia had long seen herself as protectress of the Balkan Slavs. That Clinton ignored Russia in launching this unprovoked war on Serbia was seen in Moscow as proof that Russian concerns had become irrelevant in Washington.
After helping dump over the government in Belgrade, our Neocomintern — the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House and other fronts — interfered in Ukraine and Georgia, helping oust pro-Moscow regimes and install pro-American ones. Since then, NED has been run out of Belarus and its subsidiaries are about to get the boot from Moscow.

Can we blame the Russians for being angry? How would we react to left-wing NGOs in Washington, flush with Moscow oil money, aiding elements hostile to the Bush administration?
The United States has been constantly hectoring Russia on backsliding from democracy. But compared to Beijing, Moscow is Montpelier, Vt. And why, if the Cold War is over, are Russia's political arrangements any of our business?

If we don't like the way Putin treats Mikhail Khorokovsky, Boris Berezovksy and the other 'oligarchs' who robbed Russia blind in the 1990s, maybe Putin doesn't like how we treated Martha Stewart.
Harry Truman is often blamed for having started the Cold War. He didn't. Stalin did. But Clinton, George W. and the neocons have a strong claim to having started the second. A first order of business of the next president should be to repair the damage this crowd has done — and to get out of Russia's face.

BEAR BAITING
Pat Buchanan, 4 Jun 07

Query: what is the U.S military doing in the birthplace of Joe Stalin? What is the vital interest in Georgia that has us training its military? To fight whom?
Can we not understand the rage of the Russians at what we have been up to?
We brought six former Warsaw Pact nations into NATO: East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria. Then we brought in three Soviet republics: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. Now NATO expansionists want to bring in Ukraine and Georgia.

NRC Handlesblad: Putin's Power Doesn't Match His Rhetoric

Financial Times (Deutschland): A Matter of Wounded Russian Pride

Financial Times: Russia has lost all sense of proportion

Financial Times: Putin calls US bluff with base offer

David Warren: Getting the Cold War Back Again

WHAT's WITH PUTIN?
Alan Bock, 9 June 07

Then he [Putin] chose to be generous and statesmanlike on the surface, acting like the wise elder brother offering his foolish and inexperienced younger sibling a way out of the conundrum he had made for himself. I could have made you eat crow or look even more foolish on the world stage, was the hardly subliminal message, but I have chosen to take the high road, to rescue you from your bumbling ineptitude — while setting the stage for the kind of anti-missile system I want rather than the version you prefer.
None of this obviates the fact that Russia, after a brief flirtation with a more open society, has become increasingly less democratic and more centralized. In the long run, a centralized economy and society is less stable than a more decentralized, market-oriented society. State management of the Russian economy is likely to degenerate into gross mismanagement over time. And sooner or later oil prices will decline or alternatives will be developed. Russia's demographic problems — declining birth rates and life expectancy — remain. Allocating too much money to military spending runs the risk of killing the golden goose of the civilian economy.
So Russia might not have the stuff the be a Great Power over the long pull. But for now Russia is back as a major player on the world stage.

Arnaud de Borchgrave: Putin's State of Mind

HOW TO AVOID A NEW COLD WAR
Zbigniew Brzezinski, 7 June 07

There are many reasons for the chill but none greater than the regrettable wars both nations have launched: Russia's in Chechnya and the U.S.'s in Iraq. The wars have damaged prospects for what seemed attainable a decade and a half ago: Russia and the U.S. genuinely engaged in collaboration based on shared common values, spanning the old cold war dividing lines and thereby enhancing global security and expanding the transatlantic community.
The war in Chechnya reversed the ambiguous trend toward democracy in Russia. Mercilessly waged by Putin with extraordinary brutality, it not only crushed a small nation long victimized by Russian and then Soviet imperialism but also led to political repression and greater authoritarianism inside Russia and fueled chauvinism among Russia's people. Putin exploited his success in stabilizing the chaotic post-Soviet society by restoring central control over political life. The war in Chechnya became his personal crusade, a testimonial to the restoration of Kremlin clout.
Since the beginning of that war, a new elite — the siloviki from the FSB (the renamed KGB) and the subservient new economic oligarchs — has come to dominate policymaking under Putin's control. This new elite embraces a strident nationalism as a substitute for communist ideology while engaging in thinly veiled acts of violence against political dissenters. Putin almost sneeringly dismissed the murder of a leading Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, who exposed crimes against the Chechens. Similarly, troubling British evidence of Russian involvement in the London murder of an outspoken FSB defector produced little more than official Russian ridicule. All the while, Russia's mass media are facing ever growing political restrictions.
It doubtless has not escaped the Kremlin's attention that the West, including the U.S., has remained largely silent. . . . The apparent American indifference should not be attributed just to a moral failure on the part of U.S. policymakers. Russia has gained impunity in part because of the effects of America's disastrous war in Iraq on U.S. foreign policy. Consider the fallout: Guantanamo has discredited America's long-standing international legitimacy; false claims of Iraqi WMD have destroyed U.S. credibility; continuing chaos and violence in Iraq have diminished respect for U.S. power. America, as a result, has come to need Russia's support on matters such as North Korea and Iran to a far greater extent than it would if not for Iraq.

COMMENTS (9 Jun 07): Is the Chechen war entirely comparable to the Iraq blunder? I might seem like a hypocrite if I were to say otherwise. However, there is a difference: Chechnya is in Russia's backyard, if not part of Russia. (During the collapse of the Soviet Union, Chechnya was divided on whether to stay part of the Russian Federation.) We must take into account that there are many vulnerable Russians in Chechnya, and that the Chechnians have perpetrated terrorist atrocities in Russia proper — as Al Qaeda did to the US, and Iraq did not. And although Brzezinski gives fair blame to the US for its fiasco in Iraq, he seems perhaps a bit disingenuous in fulminating against Russian brutality in Chechnya, when our Iraq war has killed 650,000 Iraqi citizens, all for nothing. Finally, one must remember that Putin is very popular in Russia, which Brzezinski attributes to whipped-up nationalism. Are we innocent of that phenomenon? At what point does one become 'undemocratic' when one dismisses the sentiments of a majority? Can we dismiss the Hamas elections, with the argument that the Palestinians are a 'terrorist people', a view advanced by David Horowitz and probably by some others associated with, say, Commentary magazine?

That said, it does seem like Putin is throwing a bit of a tantrum, in order to get respect and stick it to Bush. On the other hand, the curiously helpful offer of alternative missile sites suggests no deep hostility but rather that Putin is indeed playing a bit of a power game, in order to get respect. Well, why not? Look at how we throw our weight around. And we can hardly blame him for using his oil 'weapon', as we have not hesitated to impose sanctions that have killed thousands. I fervently hope that Russia resumes the path to democracy, but that will surely not happen if we antagonize her unnecessarily. Let us have a least some sympathy for her recent humiliations, rather than indulging in vulgar triumphalism. Besides, what happens inside a country is not really our business, except in the most extreme cases. We should limit our concerns to resisting aggression on the international scene. I just spoke about Chechnya, and as for the tension with Georgia, Pat Buchanan reminds us that we have been arming those on Russia's doorstep who are fighting Russia, which would surely infuriate us if the situation were reversed. We should not behave so provocatively over a minor issue of no immediate concern to us.

Justin Raimondo: Why they're after Putin

Georgie Anne Geyer: Opponents change place in new Cold War

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Other Articles

2005

Vladimir Shlapentokh: Two Simple & Wrong Pictures of Putin's Russia

2006

Ian Bremmer (WPJ): Who's in Charge in the Kremlin?

Jamie Glazov (FPM): Iraq, WMDs and Troubling Russian Revelations

Yuri Mamchur (FPM): Putin's License To Kill

Jonathan Steele (Guardian): The West's New Russophobia

Paul Starobin (National Journal): Putin's Russia

Dmitri Trenin (Foreign Affairs): Russia Leaves the West

Fred Hiatt (WaPo): The Democracy Backlash

Stephen Cohen (The Nation): The New American Cold War

Bruce Jackson (Policy Review): Russia and the West Square Off

ABC News: Gorbachev: 'Americans Have a Severe Disease'

Hugh Fitzgerald (Jihad Watch): Who lost Russia?

Masha Lipman (WaPo): Putin's 'Sovereign Democracy'

Patrick Buchanan: How About Showing Russia Some Respect

Guardian: Putin plan to shut out US oil giants

Anatol Lieven: Rumblings in the Caucasus

Richard Holbrooke (WP): Putin Tries to Depose a Neighbor

Guardian: $20bn Shell gas project seized by Russia

Stephen Cohen: Soviet Breakup Ended Russia's March to Democracy

2007

Andrei Illarionov: Freedom vs. Non-Freedom: A View from Russia

BBC: Putin attacks 'very dangerous' US

John O'Sullivan (Chicago ST): Putin speech stokes worry for Europe, U.S

Ed Koch: A Strong Alliance with Russia is in Our Best Interest

DOES PUTIN NOT HAVE A POINT?
Pat Buchanan, 13 Feb 07

What did we do to antagonize Russia?
When the Cold War ended, we seized upon our 'unipolar moment' as the lone superpower to seek geopolitical advantage at Russia's expense.
First, though the Red Army had picked up and gone home from Eastern Europe voluntarily, and Moscow felt it had an understanding we would not move NATO eastward, we exploited our moment. Not only did we bring Poland into NATO, we brought in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, and virtually the whole Warsaw Pact, planting NATO right on Mother Russia's front porch. Now, there is a scheme afoot to bring in Ukraine and Georgia in the Caucasus, the birthplace of Stalin.
Second, America backed a pipeline to deliver Caspian Sea oil from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey, to bypass Russia.
Third, though Putin gave us a green light to use bases in the old Soviet republics for the liberation of Afghanistan, we now seem hellbent on making those bases in Central Asia permanent.
Fourth, though Bush sold missile defense as directed at rogue states like North Korea, we now learn we are going to put anti-missile systems into Eastern Europe. And against whom are they directed?
Fifth, through the National Endowment for Democracy, its GOP and Democratic auxiliaries, and tax-exempt think tanks, foundations and 'human rights' institutes such as Freedom House, headed by ex-CIA director James Woolsey, we have been fomenting regime change in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet republics and Russia herself.
U.S.-backed revolutions have succeeded in Serbia, Ukraine and Georgia, but failed in Belarus. Moscow has now legislated restrictions on the foreign agencies that it sees, not without justification, as subversive of pro-Moscow regimes.
Sixth, America conducted 78 days of bombing of Serbia for the crime of fighting to hold on to her rebellious province, Kosovo, and for refusing to grant NATO marching rights through her territory to take over that province. Mother Russia has always had a maternal interest in the Orthodox states of the Balkans.
These are Putin's grievances. Does he not have a small point?

PUTIN'S MOMENT TO SEIZE
David Ignatius, WP, 14 Feb 07

I was in the audience in Munich when Putin made his speech, and the tone seemed to me more one of resentment than belligerence. He was proud, prickly, defiant — a leader with all the Russian chips on his shoulder. You could hear his inner voice: We let you dismantle the Berlin Wall. We folded the Warsaw Pact. We dissolved the Soviet Union — all on your promises that you wouldn't take advantage of our weakness. And what did we get? Nothing! You surrounded us with NATO weapons.
Putin's comments may be jarring to Americans, but they express a bitterness that's widespread here. His generation of Russians grew up in a country that claimed the status of 'superpower', and they don't like being taken for granted. Putin, an ex-KGB officer with a black belt in judo, has been pugnacious in standing up for his country's interests, and Russians seem to like that. In the latest opinion polls, his popularity is well above 70 percent.
[. . .]
To explain the Putin phenomenon, the Kremlin's chief ideologue, Vladislav Surkov, recently compared him to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, another president who brought his country back from economic disaster and restored its pride. Like FDR, Putin is using 'presidential power to the maximum degree for the sake of overcoming the crisis', Surkov said.
[. . .]
In Red Square, the somber stones of Lenin's tomb are a reminder of Soviet power. But across the way, in what used to be the drab GUM department store, are glittering displays of the latest fashions from Vuitton and Dior.
What hasn't changed is Russia's neurotic relationship with the West. Russian friends tell me the country feels unloved and unappreciated — a political doormat that Western powers think they can walk on, at will. That's the frustration that surfaced in Putin's speech in Munich.
By Russian standards, this is something of a golden age. Putin recently touted some of the country's achievements: Russian average incomes increased 10 percent in 2006 over the previous year; the economy grew by about 6.7 percent; inflation was in single digits for the first time in many years. Russia's currency reserves rose to $303 billion, the third largest in the world, and its 'stabilization fund' of energy profits was nearly $100 billion. All this in a nation that in 1998, on the eve of Putin's presidency, was essentially bankrupt.
The new Russia has a moment of opportunity. America, far from the 'unipolar' superpower Putin describes, is weakened by the Iraq War and is badly in need of allies. If Putin is wise, he can play a pivotal role in resolving the Iranian nuclear crisis — and thereby restoring some of Russia's lost diplomatic clout. Or he can keep complaining that nobody appreciates his country — meanwhile letting his old rival struggle awhile longer in the Iraq quagmire.

William Pfaff: Russia's deep animosity

Kommersant: Russian democracy 'last thing' US cares about

FT: Moscow 'could attack US missile system'

Richard Holbrooke: Russia's Test In Kosovo

Charley Reese: Forget Israel, Befriend Russia

Vladimir Putin: Russia is Europe's natural ally

Anatol Lieven: To Russia with Realism

BBC: Moscow's suburb for billionaires

Dimitri Simes: Protests in Russia: The Real Story

Justin Raimondo: The Legacy of Boris Yeltsin

Pat Buchanan: Dying for...Estonia?

Alan Bock: Tragic Russia

BBC: US to ignore Russia missile fears

Novosti: Rice should prepare for tough questions in Moscow

BBC: EU-Russian talks end in acrimony

Guardian: Putin uncompromising on US plan for missile shield

Mark Ames: Hysterical media hype flimsy cyber war vs Estonia

Patrick Buchanan: The West lost Russia

John O'Sullivan: Bush has chance to set wise policy on Russia

Fred Kaplan: Is Russia Our Enemy?

Georgie Anne Geyer: History is everything for Russia

Newsweek: Putin's Dark Descent

Ivan Eland: Payback for NATO Expansion

Jamey Gambrell (NYRB): Putin Strikes Again

FRAMING THE RUSSIANS
Justin Raimondo, Antiwar, 20 Jul 07

Litvinenko regularly accused Putin of launching terrorist attacks on his own people and trying to cover it up by attributing it to those lovable Chechens. Not very believable. Litvinenko was an employee of exiled Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky — whose ill-gotten empire included a Russian syndicate of car-dealerships that had more than a nodding acquaintance with the Chechen Mafia — but was being slowly cut out of the money pipeline.
This is quite simply nonsense. Litvinenko's wild conspiracy theories have about as much credibility as the 9/11 Truthers who insist 'Bush did it!' Before his spectacular demise, no one in Russia had ever heard of him. When he was alive and churning out his pro-Chechen, anti-Putin screeds, his audience was almost exclusively Western, except for his Chechen fan club. He represented no threat to Putin, or the continued dominance by Putin's followers of the Russian political scene, and his demise did not benefit the Russians in any way: and yet the British government has openly accused the Russians of being behind a plot to kill Litvinenko.
No evidence is offered to support this contention: no facts are laid on the table, no indictment has been issued, and no one is saying for sure how they know the Russians did it. Moscow was merely presented with a demand for the extradition of Lugovoi. The Russians refused, just as everyone expected, and the Brits responded by expelling the four diplomats. A reciprocal expulsion of British diplomats soon followed — and the new cold war is on.
[. . .]
As usual, it's all about money. The Russians are locking British Petroleum out of the lucrative Siberian oil fields, and London is outraged. Add to this the rise of London as the world headquarters for shady Russian millionaires-in-exile — bidding up the prices of London real estate, and no doubt greasing the palms of the politicians — and we have all the ingredients of a new crusade by the West — to 'liberate' some oil from its oppressive masters.
[. . .]
The real danger emanating from Russia isn't revanchist expansionism, or the bogeyman of neo-Stalinism: Putin is no more Stalin than Bush is Hitler, and Russia, with its shrinking population and shaky economic base, is not about to reclaim Eastern Europe. The Russians merely want to regain the security guaranteed by the agreement between Mikhail Gorbachev and George Herbert Walker Bush that allowed the West to station troops in the former East Germany — on the condition that NATO didn't expand into Eastern Europe.
The West broke its word, and the past few years have seen the abandonment of the arms control measures pioneered by Ronald Reagan, Gorbachev, and Bush I, with the West gathering at the very gates of Moscow, threatening to fund another 'velvet revolution' aimed at overthrowing the Russian regime just as Western-backed movements did in Georgia, Ukraine, and elsewhere in the formerly Soviet 'near abroad'.
[. . .]
Is the West really intent on recreating the image of Russia as a looming threat? If so, one can only wonder at the enormity of such folly, especially when we face a real threat in the form of an Islamic insurgency against the US, its allies, and its interests worldwide. The Russians are threatening to suspend cooperation with Western intelligence agencies in the fight against terrorism — and little wonder, when the West is now accusing the Russians of nuclear terrorism on British soil. It won't be long, now, before Russia is officially declared a sponsor of terrorism, and subjected to economic and political sanctions — and even targeted for 'regime change'.

Dilip Hiro (Guardian): Putin's popularity

London Times: It's the West that's starting this new Cold War

Breitbart: 10 Held in Killing of Russian Journalist

Pat Buchanan: Who Restarted the Cold War?

Pat Buchanan: Blowback From Moscow

Justin Raimondo: Is Russia Democratic?

Leon Aron: Putin's Cold War

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Worldview: Russia

by A Concerned Citizen

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