The tireless trackers of the public pulse at the Pew Research Center have issued a report on public opinion twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet dominated East Bloc. The results in no way perturb the reader's equanimity--provided the reader has a grip on the realities of human perception and belief.
A close parsing of the Pew work shows that, as usual, people are far from consistent in their views. Double--or even triplethink exists to a degree which would surprise even George Orwell. It is, for example, possible to perceive or believe that life was better under Communism and, at the same time, that life is better with a multi-party democratic system.
While that set of opinions may reflect a finely nuanced view which distinguishes between Communism as an economic system and democracy as a political one, giving that much credit to the interviewees is not completely justified. It is undercut by the simultaneous perception or belief that life is satisfactory and that life was better under Communism.
The Geek is not necessarily given to taking polls at face value even when conducted by a highly experienced and quite reputable bunch such as exists at Pew. Journalistic treatments of contemporary public attitudes are usually not even as reliable indicators as the use-with-extreme-caution polling data.
An excellent example of journalistic superficiality is found in today's LA Times. To the credit of the reporter, at least a couple of the person-in-the-street quotes point at the dynamic working in Russia. Twenty and more years ago Russia was the centrality of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a very powerful player in the world. Thus Russia and Russians had something of which to be proud, something that made up (at least in part) for the lackings of life under the commissars.
Another factor which is clearly at work in the views and perceptions of Eastern Europeans, former Soviets, and the Russians is that the centralized authoritarian systems gave a palpable sense of stability and order to life. This is not an inconsiderable feature of the ancien regime.
In the same poll the Pew folks compared (or more accurately, contrasted) the stance of Americans, Western Europeans, Eastern Europeans, and Russians on the matter of the degree to which personal ability and effort as against outside and uncontrollable forces provided for success in life. While sixty-eight percent of Americans gave priority to the personal over the outside forces, only in one other country was a majority (fifty-five percent) prepared to do the same. The country was, of course, the UK.
In all the other countries, both East and West, the minority held the view exalting the personal over the whims of external forces. The minority ranged from the significant, forty-seven percent in France to the definitely minor league, East Germany at thirty percent. The take away is that socialism qua socialism rather than the nature of the government--autocratic versus democratic--conditions opinion to either accept or reject the role played in success by individual effort, ability, and initiative.
In the good old days before the Wall fell the nature of society and polity alike assured that the individual mattered very little if at all. Subsequently, the continuation of socialism throughout the old WarPact and Western Europe has done nothing to raise the sense of personal possibility over that of passive acceptance of what the government had or has to give.
To zero in on the single most critical feature both of the Pew poll and the real world of the Russians is that over half of the population considers it a great misfortune that the Soviet Union no longer exists. This tracks well with a question asked during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Back then about half the Russians believed it was "natural" that they have an empire.
It is this great well of nationalist sentiment which Vladimir Putin has tapped and continues to use so well to both gain and maintain power. He understands perfectly the underlying, historically driven Russian insecurity. He also understands well the deep and again historically driven Russian need for a stable economic, social, and political system.
It is not that the Russians want to be told what they must and must not do, but rather that Russians are long experienced with stable systems which provide both the context and impetus to do what the individual Russian has always done so well--evade the dicta, the laws, the requirements, to the advantage and benefit of the individual.
Russians have a strong sense of individualism. It is not perceived nor expressed in ways akin to those of the Americans. Still, it is real. It thrives best in a strongly centralized system where fiats are the order of the day and skills of escaping, evading, and exploiting the always extant potentials can be used to the fullest.
In a very real sense it was under Stalin, even during the great tsunami of fear created by the Purges and the Gulag, that the Russian form of individualism flourished. The same can be said accurately of the neo-Stalinist days during the Seventies and early Eighties.
Those were the days, comrade! Plenty of room to live on the black. Lots of boodle just waiting to be taken. And, best of all, we were citizens (sort of) of a highly respected, even justly feared country. Opportunity and pride--what a deal!
The Geek must confess that he, like the Russians, misses the Cold War. Not for the same reasons, of course.
Life in the foreign policy and national security world was a lot easier back then. You knew who the Bad Guys were. They and us stood in a state of dynamic tension. The international system was dangerous. But the very danger implied by the nuclear standoff made for stability.
The men in the Kremlin were rational actors. Stalin and his successors were Nineteenth Century style imperialists as well as insecure nationalists. This assured that their calculations were generally conservative, cautious, careful.
Under the nuclear umbrella held by two hands, one from the Kremlin and the other from inside the Beltway, the world was safe for war. Proxy contests and interventionary operations were conducted in a way which decoupled their existence from the potential of vertical escalation. The building of the Berlin Wall was the symbolic ending of the struggle for Europe and after that there was little real cause for anxiety that the Big Button would be pushed.
The only time the American finger hovered over the Big Button was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was the conservative and ever so nationalistic Kremlin which ended the crisis and gave the overly muscular and underly rational Kennedy administration a way out with the cloak of victory.
Throughout it all the Soviets and the Yankees had a set of coinciding national interests with that of keeping the nuclear option as far to the background as possible. Rhetoric might fly--but not the missiles. Blood might be spilled, but not in the homelands. Threats might exist, but they were known and could be countered effectively and at low risk.
Had Islamist jihadism arisen during the Cold War to a level which might compromise the stability of the international system, the coinciding national and strategic interests would have been such that the two "antagonists" could and would have developed a means to end the terror and its accompanying potential for instability. The Kremlin and the White House both understood and obeyed the same laws of conduct so that instability and its attendant risks of inadvertent resort to vertical escalation might be avoided.
The dunderheaded anti-Communist crusaders who morphed into neo-conservatives at the end of the Cold War did their best to kick Russia and the Russians in the years of turbulent change which followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. By doing such the Bush/Cheney crew destroyed the working relationship which had developed during the Cold War. Worse, the net effect of the policies, words, and actions of both the Clinton and Bush/Cheney administrations boosted anti-US sentiment in Russia so that reconstituting the old relationship became more and more difficult as time flowed by.
The Obama administration's often vaunted attempts to push the "reset" button through placation and appeasement have been both fruitless and probably counterproductive. Being human the Russian leaders have not been and will not be impressed by anything other than the combination of strength, well delineated policy, and firm resolve in the application of policy.
This does not imply the necessity of rattling one's saber or engaging in hyperbolic rhetoric. It does mean treating Russia as we treated the Soviet Union. With the appearance and reality of an anxiety tinged respect.
Should Russia continue to develop its increasingly warm relation with China, the result would be most injuring to the US. One of the usually underrated features of the Cold War was the long running sore of the Sino-Soviet split. The last thing the White House should want today is for the two old rivals, even bitter enemies, to link diplomatic, military, and economic arms in a tight embrace.
Neither is it in the better interests of the US for the former Warsaw Pact members to be pulled any deeper into the Kremlin's gravity well than they have been to date. The same may be said regarding many of the Western European nations. The diplomatic center of gravity has been moved ever eastward. Whether by design or sheer absentmindedness as seems more likely, the Obama administration has done nothing to reverse the slow tectonic shift from Washington to Moscow.
This implies the need for Uncle Sam to puff out his chest. Maybe even pound it a bit. It is time to re-invoke the ethos and dynamic of the Cold War. Nothing major, but enough to convince the Russians at all levels of government and society that once again the Russian nation is respected, even feared a bit.
If the Nice Young Man From Chicago were to crank up a new, improved, and diminished Cold War he might be so pleased with the result that he would join Ivan and the Geek as they raise yet one more glass of vodka. As they toast the Cold War---
"To the good old days, tovarisch, when enemies could be friends."
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