Has the new Cold War already begun?
It seems that, for the Russians, it already has. In the West, we see the Russians as the aggressors: intervening militarily in Georgia and Ukraine, constantly testing the security defences of other European nations, and backing a president who seems to want to isolate his country more and more from international norms.
Of course, the Russians see it totally different as this article in today’s “Guardian” newspaper makes clear:
“Rather than disbanding our cold war defence arrangement, Nato, we reinvented it as an alliance that could be construed only as being arrayed against Russia. We kept expanding it ever eastward, closer to Russia’s borders.”
Whichever interpretation we endorse, it is essential that we maintain a dialogue and seek to understand the intentions of the other side. Susan Richards makes the telling point:
“In America and Britain, government support for research on old Soviet bloc countries was slashed. The State Department and Foreign Office disbanded research units that kept politicians informed. Embassies focused on opening up commercial opportunities. Meanwhile, the press, facing its own economic crisis, also cut back on foreign correspondents. The west simply stopped thinking seriously, and in depth, about Russia and its neighbours.”
May 14th, 2015 at 1:56 pm
Roger,
It’s a very painful topic. There are two equally important points I have to make, please bear with me through #1:
1. Even though the amount of (self)destruction done to Russia during the Cold War was probably comparable to that done to Germany in WWII, neither did Russia acknowledge its defeat, nor did the West come up with a rescue and reconstruction plan like they did for Germany and Japan (this argument became a sort of commonplace for modern Russian liberals, but I have to repeat it). Instead, well in tradition of imperial games of 19th century, both sides looked at it as tactical development. Nothing changed in the mindsets of Brits, Russians and Americans as far as foreign policy is concerned. We are all aggressors.
There was a long period of time when Russians were very receptive to Western values in the nineties, but it was largely undermined by the NATO expansion to the East, active work on alienation of our former allies even within the borders of the former Soviet Union (I wish the State Department had no money for THAT). Finally it was killed off by the NATO Kosovo aggression even before anyone knew Putin’s name.
So, historically speaking, we should probably blame the Clinton administration for what is happening today.
2. Things in Russia are bad. It’s not uncommon for governments to start external conflicts when they fail in domestic economics. Putin gradually dismantled whatever free economy developed during Yeltsin and built a culture of “loyalty”, cowardice and corruption. 2014 was the year of exodus of small and medium business from Russia. At the same time, the vast majority of economically passive population gladly accepts the official propaganda thanks to #1. State-managed enterprises are becoming less and less efficient by the day due to incompetent management and corruption, state institutions produce nazi-like laws and throw political activists in jail, but common folks are happy to blame Obama for that (seriously).
What will happen next? I think Russia’s possession of nuclear arms will prevent any major war, but Russia doesn’t have neither the military power, nor guts for a regional external aggression. Ukraine would have been an easy prey, but they didn’t get even that. They will just keep isolating themselves economically and getting into money-losing deals like the gas contract with China, until the standards of living degrade to the late USSR level. This is how Russian Empire and the USSR ended, and so will Putin’s Russia. I cannot predict how long it will take, so I will stay out of there for now.