The graphic was from an article about Solzhenitsyn going off on the US "encircling" or "surrounding" Russia.
It reminded me of a more primitive version of the "Russia is encircled by the US" graphic that Siberian Light posted earlier this year, which became so heavily viewed that it crashed the blog.
What's amazing to me is the amount of hubris which underlies such paranoia. Trust me, concerned Russians, encircling your country is the last thing - or close to it - on the US military's list of priorities. Can anyone who looks at how overcommitted our armed forces are really think we are somehow pursuing the additional clandestine goal of "encircling" Russia? A country which, to be honest, was a fairly low priority in US foreign policy circles for most of the years during which this "encirclement" was supposedly taking place? I guess if you're sitting in Moscow, it seems like it's all about Russia. But this just isn't the case.
Yes, there are still some unreconstructed Cold Warriors in Washington; however, when the Russian government publicly overestimates the degree to which the US "threatens" Russia it only plays into their hands by allowing them to justifiably point to increasing anti-Americanism in Russia.
*From Black Sabbath's classic, "Paranoid."
8 comments:
I think you're sort of missing the point, maybe. Regardless of whether encircling Russia is the US's goal, that is what it is factically doing. This is obviously a concern for the Russian military, whose job it is, like their US counterparts, to assume a worst-case scenario.
Chris, I don't think I missed the point at all. If generals want to come up with a contingency plan for something that's never going to happen, I understand that's their job. However, I don't understand why this "encirclement" is the subject of so much public consternation by people like Solzhenitsyn and by some Russian leaders.
I'm no military strategist, but I don't think the fuss is about an actual threat to Russia's territory (which is what the graphic suggests). Is the fear that "The West" will undertake a land invasion of Russia? Never gonna happen in this day and age. A sustained air campaign? Russia has its nuclear deterrent. And anyway, I don't think NATO or America's ability to strike Russia by air has changed that much since the Cold War, though like I say, I don't know the details on things like the ranges of carrier-based aircraft.
There are two real reasons, in my opinion, for Russian pundits and leaders to fuss about this, neither of which holds any water with me. The first is that NATO expansion and a US presence in Central Asia may put a damper on Russia's ability to act in the former Soviet republics, which Russia seems to think should still be its playground. The second is a partial return to the official view of the West as a potentially dangerous external enemy which existed during the Soviet era. Creating siege mentality was a large part of the USSR's domestic propaganda. I don't throw around the term "neo-Soviet" lightly, but I do think that some individuals and organizations in service or support of the Russian government are following this well-trodden path.
Regarding the "missile shield" (which so far is just a white elephant / suck on US tax dollars), Russia has enough missiles to get plenty through any shield that we might possibly be able to put up in the near future.
The West* IS a potentially dangerous external (potential) enemy. It's been trying to limit Russian influence constantly for decades, during the USSR and after at. This is not a fantasy dreamed up by Solzhenitsyn. Not to react to it would be incredibly irresponsible.
*Using the term in a loose sense. I really don't like the word.
"Again, that may not have been the plan at the outset, but I guarantee you that sometime in the future, some general is going to point out to some president that we can nuke some country with greatly reduced fear of retaliation. That is part of what generals are paid to do."
Right. The concern is not what the US intends today -- the concern is to what use it might put its potential in 10, 20, 30 years.
Chris, I'm no fan of using "the West" as shorthand either, but that seems to be how a lot of people see the world. I like to think of Russia as part of "the West," or at least potentially so, but that's a subject for another post (or for a few books).
Your point is well taken about the long-term concern. Leaving aside the possibility that the US won't be in a position to pose as much of a "threat" in 30, 20, or even 10 years, I guess what bothers me is how this perceived long-term potential threat is aggregated in officials' public statements with statements about the West's alleged goal in the '90s of "dismembering Russia" and US political involvement in the former Soviet space in order to create a sense of fear of and alienation from "the West" (if I may), not to mention the exaggeration of the "threat" posed by missile radars in E Eur (i.e., official statements for public consumption that these are "offensive" weapons) when the two things (missile shield and democracy promotion) would seem to have little in common.
And I may be misremembering, or it may have been a fake offer, but didn't we offer Russia the chance to be involved in our missile shield work some years ago (not with the ground radars, but with the actual satellites and stuff)?
It's been trying to limit Russian influence constantly for decades, during the USSR and after at. This is not a fantasy dreamed up by Solzhenitsyn. Not to react to it would be incredibly irresponsible.
I guess I'm not sure that "limit[ing] Russian influence" adds up to a threat to Russia's vital national interests. And the graphic that was the impetus for this post certainly doesn't suggest a mere limitation on Russian influence - it seems to suggest that a multi-front attack on Russian territory is a real possibility. What the West was trying to do during the Soviet era was prevent Soviet expansion, which is a bit different from posing a threat to domestic interests.
The only way placing checks on Russia's influence outside of its borders can be viewed as a "threat" to Russia is if you view Russia as an empire in the sense that its raison d'etre is to expand and influence countries outside of its borders, rather than to create a normal life for the people within those borders.
A country's ability to influence countries outside its borders can have an effect on its ability to create a normal life for the people inside its borders. Especially when other parties are trying to manipulate those countries against you.
Whatever "normal" means. Russians are already considerably better off than most of the world's population.
I do not believe that "the West" has a grand plan to dismember Russia. But considering "Western" actions post-1989 or so, it is not irrational for people in Russia to infer that one exists. NATO expansion, check. Rerouting pipelines around Russia, check. Support of governments hostile to Russia, check. Support (mostly verbal) for Ichkeria, check.
A country's ability to influence countries outside its borders can have an effect on its ability to create a normal life for the people inside its borders.
True, hegemony over your neighbors can help at the margins, but does Russia really need to be able to control the course of political events in Ukraine or pipelines through Georgia to ensure its prosperity? Isn't Russia already the state equivalent of an "independently wealthy" trust-fund kid?
Especially when other parties are trying to manipulate those countries against you.
Although there were certainly a lot of mutual overtures between "the West" (or various parts thereof) and many of the CEE nations, do you really think that former Soviet republics or satellite states, which in some cases had their statehood snuffed out by the USSR, had to be "manipulated" into a position that is wary of Russia? And if those countries pursue their own interests (such as European integration), why does that have to be seen as "against" Russia? Must it always be a zero-sum game?
Whatever "normal" means.
Sorry, I should have been clearer - how about "work to improve the lives of its citizens and create a political system that will have lasting stability beyond the political career of one man"? There has been a lot of improvement for many in Russia in recent years, but I question how much can be attributed to the gov't and how much to the rise in oil prices; relatedly, I question how sustainable the good times are.
Russians are already considerably better off than most of the world's population.
Of course Russians live better than the bottom few billion, but then that was already true before Putin came to power. And don't you think there will come a time when "u nas ne khuzhe (Afriki i Indii)" will cease to be a rallying cry?
I do not believe that "the West" has a grand plan to dismember Russia. But considering "Western" actions post-1989 or so, it is not irrational for people in Russia to infer that one exists. NATO expansion, check. Rerouting pipelines around Russia, check. Support of governments hostile to Russia, check. Support (mostly verbal) for Ichkeria, check.
I am right there with you on NATO expansion, which I think was disastrous for US-Russian relations because it short-sightedly ignored apparent tacit agreements with Russia without properly stroking the Russian gov't and getting them on board. Paying more attention to our relationship with e.g. Estonia or even a bigger country like Poland than to our relationship with Russia was very misguided.
On pipelines, though, I think that point continues to suggest that you see some form of empire or hegemony is an inherent part of Russia's identity. What exactly does Russia lose by having pipelines routed around it? I don't think money is the main thing (though I don't know much about transit fees) - isn't it more an issue of power and control over lands and resources that are no longer within Russia's borders? Russia lost its imperial power and control over its "near abroad," and I can understand its desire to get that control back, but that doesn't mean I have to agree that the desire is legitimate, or that anything which thwarts said desire is done solely or principally in an attempt to weaken Russia.
What are these "governments hostile to Russia" that have been supported by the US? I think it's fallacious and too Russocentric (by which I mean, in this context, employing a worldview that sees all actions of "the West" in the former Soviet space through the prism of their impact on Russia and not allowing for the possibility that these actions may be motivated by things which have nothing to do with Russia whatsoever) to focus on hostility to Russia, when "the West"'s actions may have been motivated by affinity for these governments which existed independently of their stance on Russia.
Regarding "Ichkeria," I think you're forgetting an important decade called the '90s, during which Bill Clinton backed Yeltsin's first war in Chechnya to the hilt and compared him to Abe Lincoln in the process. Or do you think the Saudis were backing the Chechen separatists at the behest of the US? And it's important to note that the relatively few NGOs which did support the Chechen separatists were not tools of Western governments (with perhaps one exception), although I know this is a distinction which people in the Russian government find difficult to make.
All of that said, I do think NATO expansion was the most important thing on your list, and I do agree with you that it shouldn't have been done, shouldn't have been done so quickly, or shouldn't have been done without Russian consent. It was a classic example of the US being technically within its legal rights but overstepping the bounds of good sense. I still don't think that the major goal was to "encircle Russia"; rather, those goals were to please the smaller CEE states (and their lobbies in the US) and show them that "the West" was welcoming them with open arms; and only secondarily, IMO, to lock in the gains of the Cold War against a potentially resurgent Russia (and I bet that to the Estonians it doesn't look like such a bad idea from today's vantage point - though it's a different question whether the NATO really wants to be responsible for being the Balts' krysha in their razborki with Russia).
Post a Comment