Those Were The Good Old Days, Comrade

The more things change, the more people long for the "good old days." The truth of the good old days does not seem to matter--at least to the Russians and a sizable swath of folks in the former Warsaw Pact states or the Soviet "Inner Empire."

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."

Watch It, Comrade, Your Paranoia Is Showing

Vitaly Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the UN, has accused the Obama administration of "Cold War thinking" in discounting the Russian influence on the decision to cancel the land-based ABM system in Central Europe. It wasn't enough for the Kremlin to receive a present from the current US administration. No. They want the credit for the decision as well.

The position taken by Ambassador Churkin, if it represents the present state of play in the Kremlin, is indicative one more time of Russia's endemic sense of inferiority and concomitant paranoia which has so longed plagued its relations not only with the US but the West generally. It may be that the Obama administration did, in part, consider the potential impact of the ABM decision upon Russia. If that was true, it would ill-behoove the administration to admit it publicly given the controversy surrounding the move--particularly the unfounded charges of surrendering to the Russians coming from the Right.

Churkin has a strange understanding of the nature of international relations given his stance that "true partners do not apologize for taking their partner's position into account." Considering that Mr Churkin is not a newbie in the game of nations, he must know that the folks of the Obama administration, like any government, including his own, must give more weight to internal opinion than the ego-stroking desires of other governments.

When the US elicits the cooperation of Russia--or any other country--on a matter of importance to both, the assumption is that the countries have coinciding national interests. It is on the sole basis of coinciding national interest that mutual efforts, collective efforts, can be achieved. With respect to North Korea and Iran, the underlying assumption is that the Kremlin no more than the US sees the expansion of the Nuclear Club as being in the national interest.

So far Russia has been a significant non-participant in the campaign to halt the nuclear weapons development efforts in either the mullahocracy or the Hermit Kingdom of the North. There might have been some hopes among the members of the Obama foreign policy crew who are less inclined to a realpolitik view of life that cashiering the Bush/Cheney era ABM project would result in increased Russian cooperation on Iran and North Korea.

But, it is quite unlikely that this aspiration, pious in nature, governed the move. After all, by ditching the Central European system without proper diplomatic preparation of the local soil, the US has created credibility problems of a major and unpredictable sort in the capitals of the former Warsaw Pact states and ex-Soviet satrapies. To create this sort of unnecessary complication in a critical area of the world on the hope that Russia would fall in line with the US on the Iranian and North Korean nuclear questions is nearly inconceivable--even for the Obama-Clinton duo.

Churkin comments that no one in Russia speaks of "appeasing" the US while there is much talk in the US of having "appeased" Russia with the cancellation. Assuming that Mr Churkin understands English as well as he speaks it, he should understand perfectly well that the accusations of "appeasement" do not come from members of the Obama administration but rather from the opposition. He should understand as well that the target of the accusation is not Russia but President Obama and his people.

Overall, the proper appreciation of Ambassador Churkin's remarks, which run in parallel with some coming out of Moscow over the past few days, is that this public stance is a preliminary for yet another round of Russian diplomats using their favorite Cold War word, "Nyet!" It is a piece of preparation for the utterly predictable position of Russia following the failure of the upcoming conversations between Iran and the P5+1.

Russia is not going to collaborate in the sanctions against Iran. That is a given. The Kremlin does not (the Geek believes correctly) that the sanctions past, present, or proposed have been and will continue to be unproductive at the least. There is no reason from the Kremlin's perspective to attenuate its minimal influence in Tehran or its (quite pious) hopes that the road to peace in the North Caucasus runs through the Iranian capital by joining in the ineffectual sanction regime.

Churkin and the others who have been invoking the specter of the Cold War in the past few days are simply laying the foundation for not providing a "quo" for the American "quid." The irony here is that by laying on the irrelevant rhetoric as thick as a Moscow snowfall, the Russians are reinforcing the credibility of the stance taken by SecDef Gates and President Obama: That the Russians or considerations of Russian sensibilities do not dictate the American defense posture.

Reality, fortunately, remains unaltered by rhetoric--Cold War or otherwise. When the Russians perceive that a national interest of theirs coincides with one of the US, they will cooperate. Even during the most oratorically polluted days of the Cold War, the Russians have shown themselves to be both pragmatic and cautious and quite willing to acknowledge that from time to time their interests coincide with ours.

That day may not be far in the future regarding Iran. There are increasing hints coming out of the still far from transparent Country of the Bear that Iran is a growing threat and not simply a figment of American imagination. Parsing the fragments of contradictory public information leads one to the preliminary estimate that the Kremlin is finally having doubts concerning its capacity to influence, let alone limit, Iran's progress on both nuclear weapons and delivery system development.

This estimate is reinforced by public statements that the proposed American maritime ABM system is "not a threat" to Russia. Another straw in the winds from the Kremlin is found in the new talk of a joint US-Russian defense system directed against Iranian missiles.

As Churkin's revival of talk about "Cold War talk" indicates, there are no easy roads to collaboration between the US and Russia. That's nothing new. All that matters when the cows come home is that from time to time the Kremlin recognizes that it does have national interests which coincide with those of the US. And, acts on that recognition.

So it goes in the never ending Game of Nations.

Mr Obama--It May Not Be A Cold War, But--

The reality of US-Russian relations in recent years has been one of at least a "Chilly War." Much of the responsibility may be given to the Bush/Cheney administration with its alternating stances of hectoring and ignoring the Kremlin. But, even more belongs to the Russians, particularly Vladimir Putin.

Vladimir The Bare Chested has repeatedly played the nationalist card with both supreme skill and a very heavy hand. It was the nationalist card which brought him to prominence and has kept him there as the latest incarnation of the "Good Czar." Mr Putin well understands the fundamental nature of the Russian collective mind. Its feelings of chronic inferiority vis a vis the West. Its need to believe that Russia is great, powerful, and respected.

Putin knows the heart, mind, and soul of Russia as can be seen by the carefully staged and posed political photos taken a couple of months ago. His skill as a Russian politician can also be seen concretely in the strongly nationalistic posture taken over the past several years with respect to what the Russians have consistently referred to as the "near abroad."

It was this focus on Russia's privileges and special interests in the "near abroad" which resulted in the ongoing contretemps concerning the missile defense system proposed by the US for installation in Poland and the Czech Republic. While the Russians continually maintained that the limited ABM system constituted a clear threat to its security by eroding its strategic missile capacity and thus its deterrent effect, no one really, really believed this either in the Kremlin or in Washington. The ABM system was credibly directed against Iran, and the Kremlin darn well knew that.

To Putin and Company the value--and the threat--of the proposed system was its status as an emblem of US involvement in and protection of elements of the "near abroad." The implementation of the system meant to the Russians that their special position in relation to both the countries of the former Warsaw Pact and the new nations carved out of the carcass of the old Soviet Union such as the Ukraine and Georgia was being eroded, perhaps fatally.

The decision by the Obama administration to replace the land based missiles and fire control radars with ship borne and mobile systems may well be fully justifiable on sound technological grounds. The replacement of the Bush era concept by the new one may be the better military choice at least in the near- to mid-term. Certainly SecDef Gates, who is not noted for his capacity to play the role of political tool, thinks so.

Outside of purely military and technological considerations, it may be argued that the Obama administration's decision is not the best. It may, for example, be asserted that the seeming genuflection to the desires and fears of the Kremlin will result in the Russians becoming even more assertive regarding their presumed "rights" in the "near abroad." The apparent capitulation by the Obama administration may serve to erode the pro-Western orientation of the shaky governments of the Ukraine and Georgia. It might undercut the confidence in the US and the EU in the Baltic States, which are inconveniently close to the ambitious Bear.

On the other hand it might be asserted, as it has been by Obama supporters such as Nancy Pelosi, that this gesture will result in greater Russian cooperation as regards Iran. This is a comforting notion with a reality akin to whistling in the graveyard at midnight on Halloween.

Today, in the immediate wake of the Obama administration's abandonment of the ABM system, the Russian ForMin reversed the hint given yesterday by President Medvedev. The Foreign Minister stated categorically that any new, tougher sanctions would prevent a solution to the Iranian question evolving through diplomatic engagement. Once again the Russian leadership is giving the impression of a right and left hand disconnect. The dichotomous statements of president and foreign minister also implies a Putin-Medvedev split, the seriousness of which cannot be judged but might well be growing given Vladimir's hints at running for president again in 2012.

Russia wants and needs to be treated as a Great Power. From the perspective of the Kremlin--and most Russians on the street--their country has the prerequisites of Great Power status including rich reserves of oil, an army in the first steps of long overdue modernization, and, of course, a nuclear capacity of sizable nature. To a Great Power of a continental nature as Russia always has been, and particularly a continental power without natural borders, the control of adjacent territory as a glacis against invasion has always been paramount.

Russia's history demands a glacis. It is a continental power. It does not have natural feature defined borders. It has a long record of having been invaded. From the Russian perspective, these realities coupled with its Great Power status give full justification for its demands of special "rights" in the "near abroad."

The US is and always has been a maritime power. Our experience has been one of force projection by sea. Our borders have, in the main, been secured by the combination of sea and fleet. Thus we are rather bemused, uncomprehending even, when faced by the Russian demands and the fears behind them. It is a difference in historical experience which assures that now in the "Chilly War" as back in the Cold War the two governments have talked past each other most of the time.

What makes the effect of the Obama administration policy change on the Central European based ABM system on Russia difficult to assess at the moment is the instability within Russia itself. Russia's leadership is caught in a very real conundrum.

On the one hand it is very, very hard to represent Russia as a genuine Great Power when it is faced with a festering and rapidly recrudescent insurgency in the North Caucasus. On the other hand it is the existence of the insurgency and the Kremlin's fumbling attempts to counter it which demand an assertion of external power for purposes of regime maintenance.

The North Caucasus insurgency makes the Russian Bear both more temperamental and touchy in its external assertions. When coupled with the ongoing and severe economic conditions in Russia, which have been exacerbated by the fall in global oil consumption and thus prices, the temptation to the men in the Kremlin to become more extreme in their foreign affairs will be very hard to resist.

Given the way in which past American administrations have been unable to properly couple the internal and external affairs of the Russian government, it seems likely that the Obama administration's recent decision has likewise been blind to the dilemma facing Russia. To the Kremlin's need to show potency in the face of the insurgency one way or another and thus meet the Russian collective need to believe in their country as a great one, a world leader, feared and respected around the world.

Every decision made in the Kremlin is powerfully conditioned by the Russian history as a continental power without clear natural borders of long existence and with a record of having been invaded repeatedly. It is also conditioned by the long standing Russian feeling of general inferiority to the West. Similarly, decisions in the Kremlin of late have been influenced to a great extent by the insurgency in the North Caucasus and the potential for the expansion of this instability to other parts of Russia--a far from homogeneous nation.

Any decision made by the US which has an effect on its relations with Russia must take these intangible but very real factors into account. If not, the effects are likely to be both negative and non-linear.

It seems that the decision to strike the Bush plan of a land-based ABM system did not consider the implications of the Russian way of thinking, of the Kremlin's unique calculus. As a result the outcome is probably going to be far less positive than President Obama, SecDef Gates, and the others might wish.

As the Chinese toast runs: "May you live in interesting times." Once more we do.