Long before Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, the stage was set for Russia’s current confrontation with the west by the failure to achieve a transformed and inclusive peace order after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
« click for more info »
« click for more info »
Two incompatible narratives came into conflict after the Eastern Bloc began to crumble in 1989. For the west, nothing needed to change. The Atlantic community had effectively won the cold war, demonstrating the superiority of the western order, and thus all that was required was for Russia to join the expanded western community. The door was indeed opened, but the terms were not right. Boris Yeltsin made this clear, in an incoherent and contradictory manner. Putin ultimately made the same point, rather more forcefully. The west invited Russia to join an expanded Atlantic community, but Russia sought to join a transformed west and a reconfigured Europe, goals that remain active to this day.For Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, the end of the cold war represented a moment when Moscow could work with the western powers to create a new political community as equal founding members. The historical west, with Nato and the European Union at its core, would, in the Russian idea, become a greater west, with Russia a founding member of a new political community. This was accompanied by various Gaullist ideas to establish some sort of pan-continental greater Europe, stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok.
But the Atlantic powers, fearing that Russia was trying to drive a wedge between its two wings in Europe and America, rejected these ideas. In practice, Russian and western views were not so far apart. What was required was some sort of reconciliatory framework, and it is this intangible but essential ingredient that has been missing in the post-cold war years.
Instead, the end of the cold war reinforced one side at the expense of the other, and without a transformation of world order. This means that in structural terms the cold war never really ended.
○ Merkel: Germany to heavily increase Bundeswehr budget | DW – Oct. 16, 2016
○ Germany rejects US pressure for Nato spending rise | BBC News – Apr. 1, 2017 |
How true, a statement by Clint Watts of George Washington University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at the Senate Intelligence Hearing this week …
Russian deception influenced election due to Trump’s support, senators hear
Urging a response to Russian interference in the election, Watts said the US approach to Russia was provocatively ambiguous.
“I’m not sure what our policy or stance is with regards to Russia at this point in the United States. I think that’s the number one thing we’ve got to figure out, because that will shape how they interface with us,” he told senators.
You raise an important issue. Unfortunately, some conflate antagonism with Russia after the fall of the Berlin Wall with acceptance of Russian right wing practices today – although I was a huge critic of the policies then, I’m not supportive of some of Putin’s actions today. And I’m even less supportive of some far more right wing policies in SSRs and eastern Europe today, though most Putin critics seem to praise or at least turn a blind eye towards such policies.
I assume you refer to the Hungarian autocracy and the moves in Poland toward a similar system….
Hungary and POland are the most extreme cases recently, but there are lots more. Several countries in the Baltics and elsewhere have rules that discriminate against citizens of Russian origin; some like Latvia keep people of Russian origin stateless through language rules (in a country where 1/3 of people speak Russian). Many SSRs are led by autocrats that are way more dictatorial than Putin. And the political choice in quite a few countries is between Nazis, corrupt pro-European politicians, and Russian stooges.
The issue in the Baltics derives from the legacy of colonizing those territories with ethnic Russians after the annexations of 1945.
Um, if Vladivostok, which I think means “guardian of the east”, is in Europe, then this is a map that I’m unfamiliar with.
I saw Gorbachev’s smiling face in one of those photos. Gorbachev was hardly a Stalin-like dictator able to impose his will. Recall the final Soviet collapse was triggered by a coup d’etat against Goebachev.
You state that Putin wanted Russia to join a “reconfigured” Europe. What does that mean? Putin obviously was uninterested in anything along the lines of functioning democratic institutions–instead he set about destroying any nascent democratic institutions, such as a free press. He openly yearned for re-establishment of the USSR. So what was the reconfigured Europe he sought?
He did? I’m familiar with the original quote, taken from a speech last decade. But I’m not sure it wasn’t presented to the public in the west mostly out of context.
Why would he rationally want a return of the old USSR? Mostly it was a very costly maintenance and security matter for the Kremlin for many years; a PR problem too. Especially given that Putin made his remarks last decade, when Russia was still digging out of its economic crisis left by Yeltsin, it seems all the more implausible that he would have desired a return to the old days.
Interesting side note: Gorbachev in recent months has indicated it’s possible in the coming years there could be a newly-configured Greater Russia, though not quite the old USSR, involving a number of former Soviet states.
Gorby, by the bye, has mostly been a firm supporter of Putin, especially as to Vlad’s FP; he has however been more critical of some recent DP by Putin.
It’s in Russia’s geopolitical and economic interests to see a Europe less the eager, slobbering lapdog of the US and more aligned, in a more balanced way at least, with its closer neighbor Russia.
Imo, I think we’re beginning to see a trend in that direction. Certainly it appears the old days of Europe playing the weak poodle to the US’s mighty master are on their way out, as leaders there receive fewer political brownie points from the public for espousing allegiance to the US, whose FP ventures the Euro public increasingly is becoming skeptical of if not hostile to.
I have no opinion about Gorbachev really. Whether he supports Putin or not isn’t relevant here.
Putin has long been trying to disown his statement of nostalgia for the good old Soviet days. I have no idea whether he’s sincere. Some would argue his actions in Georgia and Ukraine belie his more recent disavowal of wanting to restore the USSR.
I’ll decline comment about slobbering lapdogs. There’s suspicion of Russian meddling in European elections; to the extent those suspicions are confirmed, Putin isn’t going to charm anyone.
I’m not a big fan of powerful nations jerking around their neighbors. That goes for the US, too.
I’ve seen some of those reports. “Suspicion”, unsubstantiated allegation, etc. Now Putin is supposed to be surreptitiously arranging for Marine Le Pen to be victorious in France.
Sure, you betcha.
As with all the major charges made in the past year against Putin in the US re election manipulation via DNC hacking and all the rest, the consistent pattern, the undeniable theme, is that no actual verifiable evidence is offered. None to date. Nada. And yet all the US and much western MSM reports the charges as accepted fact. And they report almost always in breathless, crisis tones. Almost always with no dissenting voices allowed. One-sided reporting to a fare-thee-well.
Is anyone on your side in this (would-be) debate even a little bit suspicious about the one-sided nature of this Russiagate reporting?
Um, this is plowing the same ground for the zillionth time. I don’t know whether those charges are correct; that’s why I used the word “suspicion”. You might acknowledge that your standard of proof requires intelligence agencies to compromise their sources and methods.
“Gaullist ideas to establish some sort of pan-continental greater Europe”????? Since when was Charles de Gaulle ever interested in that idea? He was a French nationalist. Sure, he supported the common market–it was a mechanism for keeping Germany in check. But what drove him was maintaining France’s prerogatives and influence in the former colonies.