Ralph Peters warned us back in 1997 that we face an age of constant conflict which will last decades. The Islamacist threat is one element of that conflict, but it's not the only one we face.
Today's Wall Street Journal has an op-ed by Alexei Bayer decrying what he sees as Washington's failure over the last decade (and the failure of both Kerry and Bush today) to identify and respond to the threat that Putin's Russia presents.
The implosion of Russian after the fall of the Soviet Union has been slow, corrupt and deadly. It is exacerbated by a demographic collapse and striking fall in life expectancy, especially west of the Urals, and may in the future be made even more problematic by Chinese demographic trends which will result in a large number of young Chinese males with no chance of marrying (and possibly no chance to own property or a similar stake in society) in their own country. The economic trends in Russia are soft (but not, according to this article in Foreign Affairs, disastrous), as well.
In other words, Russia is teetering at the edge of what Barnett [corrected spelling: RKB] calls the Gap, but has not fallen into it. Putin, determined not to allow that to happen, determined to restore Russian power and influence, appears to be consolidating autocratic power -- and it would be a serious mistake to ignore that, even as we seek ways to build the effective economic, political and cultural ties that might bind Russia to the globalized Core.
It is in this context that we should read Bayer's WSJ article today:
While American solicitude for dissidents was humanitarian, it was underpinned by a long-standing strategy. It was based on the assumption that Soviet citizens -- like most normal people around the globe -- naturally wanted democracy. All America had to do was encourage the basic instincts of the Soviet population, and eventually the bad guys would be kicked out.This is exactly what happened in 1991. The Soviet Union imploded, and Russia rejected communism and embraced democracy. Not only was America's Cold War strategy vindicated, but Americans felt justified in expecting gratitude and emulation.
Instead, Russia proceeded to build an opaque, crony-dominated klepto-economy; controlled by corrupt bureaucrats and off limits to foreign investors. Russia's commitment to democracy also proved tenuous, as many Russians blamed democratic reforms for their economic woes and pined away for the law and order of the Communist regime. In other words, while one aspect of Washington's policy toward the Soviet Union succeeded spectacularly -- i.e., communism collapsed -- the policy failed in another, very important way. Unlike Germany and Japan after World War II, America's Cold War foe did not emerge from its defeat as either democratic or friendly.
When Russia's stance became painfully clear in the late 1990s, there were several proactive ways in which the West in general and the U.S. in particular could have reacted. True, Russia probably would have found its path to democracy and the market economy tortuous, no matter what. Even so, but high-level engagement should have been maintained and Russia's democratic forces, however imperfect, should have been supported. Instead, the Clinton administration adopted an astonishing response to this obvious new challenge: It decided to remove Russia completely from America's radar screen.
Which is where it remains today. Indeed, if you follow the 2004 presidential election campaign in the United States, you will be hard pressed to know that Russia has not yet disappeared from the face of the earth. The first presidential debate, covering foreign policy, addressed Russia only at the tail end of the 90-minute session. President George W. Bush used his two-minute response time to praise Russian President Vladimir Putin as a strong ally in the war on terror, and gently caution his Russian counterpart against an undemocratic course. Senator John Kerry quickly veered toward the subject of North Korea -- but not before calling the KGB's Lubyanka Square headquarters "Treblinka Square." Anyone can make a mistake, but it goes to show how little thought the two candidates have given Russia.
Bayer is scathing in his analysis of the reason for what he sees as a failure to take Russia seriously:
The problem is that over the past decade, U.S. foreign policy has undergone two major changes. First, after the end of the Cold War, foreign policy elites in Washington have been mislead by their own claims and have come to believe that the U.S. is now the world's only military superpower, holding an overwhelming advantage over any potential rival. This is patent nonsense. The Pentagon budget may be larger than the sum total of what the rest of the world spends on defense, but Russia can still incinerate all of the U.S. in about 15 minutes -- hardly a condition for world domination by Washington.The second, more recent misapprehension has emerged since 9/11. The terrorist threat, for all the dangers Osama bin Laden's network presents, remains essentially a policing problem, albeit a fairly tough one. Even though bin Laden is still alive, good policing over the past three years has prevented any new attacks on U.S. soil. In a worst-case scenario, if al Qaeda gets its hands on a nuclear device, it will certainly not hesitate to use it against the closest city. But the truth is that we have lived with a similar threat for a least four decades -- coming not from an ideological movement, but from some free-lancing maniac, against whom there could be no deterrence. In any case, while hunting and killing terrorists will remain an important task of intelligence agencies in civilized countries, the world's leading power making a War on Terror the basis for its foreign policy is the height of foolishness.
The situation in Russia illustrates this point. Over the past month, Russia's government has used the tragic events at a public school in Beslan, North Ossetia, as a pretext for promoting a reactionary political agenda. The country has veered decisively toward autocracy, repression and unpredictability. President Putin, who had previously undermined political opposition and repressed independent media, has now announced a number of measures, some clearly violating Russia's Constitution, to mobilize Russian society for battle against external enemies.
It may surprise many in the West (but perhaps not those familiar with historical Russian attitudes to outsiders) to know whom Russians blame for terror:
As to fighting terrorism, the Russian president and his advisers have clearly indicated that they view the West as the driving force behind the terrorist threat to Russia. After Beslan, Mr. Putin specifically declared: "Some want to tear juicy pieces from us, while others are assisting them. They are assisting them believing that Russia, as one of the greatest nuclear powers, still presents a threat to them.You don't have to think hard to figure out who those "others" are. The problem is that with Mr. Putin's deliberate turn-away from democracy, Russia indeed does present a long-term threat to the world.
Putin feels threatened by US influence and presence in the 'Stans, Georgia and other states on Russia's southern flank. The problem is that Russia is no longer able to control those areas and the resulting vacuum is extremely dangerous to us. Hence our presence there.
But Russia is quite capable of stirring up great difficulties, even if she cannot lead in the way she did several decades ago. And that is a major concern for us all. Still, I suspect that Bartlett is correct when he says the only effective approach to the Core/Gap division is multi-pronged: military intervention (or its threat) when needed, but longer term, integration into a network of countries with effective economic, cultural and other ties.
UPDATE: re-reading this, I think I might have overstated things when I said Russia is teetering at the edge of the Gap today. However, it would not be hard to imagine that if certain trends continued, she might do so in the near future.
MORE UPDATE: Via WOC's Laughing Wolf and Stan of Logic&Sanity, more details about Beslan.
Just as we used the jihadis to fight the Evil Empire, now we use the Russians to fight the Evil Jihadis. Maybe a little less Continental Realism is called for?
It's Barnett, not Bartlett.
Direct democracy is hurting Russia more than it's helping right now. We may not like the rough way Putin handles the press and his political opponents, but ultimately he is administering badly-needed medecine to a country that's still struggling to recover from all the damage done by the Soviets and Yeltsin. As long as he keeps liberalizing Russia's markets, enforcing a strong rule of law, and combatting terrorism, this is the best we can hope for. Wagging a finger at Putin and making noises about democracy doesn't accomplish anything but to get the Russians' backs up. That is not what we need right now.
The cold war is over. We won it. Putin knows this. Russia is now trying to integrate itself into the global economy, and as such they're now a potentially significant ally. Treating them as a potential threat is the worst possible thing we could do right now (ditto for China). As much as I roll my eyes at Kerry's babbling about multilateralism, we have to realize that if we're going to win this global war then we will need the help of the other major powers. This primarily means Russia, China, and India (with Europe tagging along whenever it decides it wants to). All three of those countries have a vested interest in bringing stability to the Gap, all of them have huge standing armies, and all of them aren't squeamish about casualties (unlike some other allies we could mention).
No matter what happens, US forces are eventually going to end up sharing the Gap with Russian and Chinese ones. Whether it's as allies or as opponents is up to us.
Thanks for the spelling correction, Matt. I kept writing "Beyer" rather than "Bayer" this AM too. Must not have had enough caffeine yet today.
I think Bayer is wrongly emphasizing the threat that Russia poses without also noting the potential and desireability of ties and cooperation. but I also think it's naive to assume that all is hunkydory about Putin's recent moves.
For instance, it's not clear he is continuing to liberalize markets in Russia. I tend to agree that his approach is more-or-less probably needed there, but I worry a lot about the trend.
China is a very different situation IMO, with both good and bad potentials.
Ralph Peters warned us in 1992 that we going to go to war with Japan.
Russia is more likely to fall into the Gap piecemeal rather than in one swell foop. The mishandling of Russia has been bi-partisan. Part of the problem is that we're supporting individuals (Yeltsin, not Putin) rather than institutions. Well, it's certainly easier to do.
klaatu, you're absolutely right about Peters' error (16 yrs in our future).
It probably won't be Japan that links up with the Islamacists. It looks as if North Korea is claiming dibs on that role instead.
"While American solicitude for dissidents was humanitarian, it was underpinned by a long-standing strategy. It was based on the assumption that Soviet citizens -- like most normal people around the globe -- naturally wanted democracy. All America had to do was encourage the basic instincts of the Soviet population, and eventually the bad guys would be kicked out. This is exactly what happened in 1991. The Soviet Union imploded, and Russia rejected communism and embraced democracy. Not only was America's Cold War strategy vindicated, but Americans felt justified in expecting gratitude and emulation."
A number of misconceptions here.Matt M,
" As long as he keeps liberalizing Russia's markets, enforcing a strong rule of law, and combatting terrorism, this is the best we can hope for."
"As long as" sounds a bit ironic here. For he's liberalizing the markets in a very uncertain way (capital flees the country by tens of billions a year); "a strong rule of law" is a goddamn joke -- and I don't mean that he tries but fails: he deliberately moves in the opposite direction rather; and combatting terrorism is almost a joke too (how is he doing that? By making speeches? By effectively removing last traces of popular politics? By unleashing a nazi style, yet ineffective assault in Chechnya? By orchestrating "elections" there? In ten years they can't catch Basayev: why? Some think it's because B actually works for him...)
"still struggling to recover from all the damage done by the Soviets and Yeltsin"
Make it Yeltsin. He's nowhere close to even reaching the level of the last years of the USSR, forget fixing the "damage" supposedly inflicted by it.
Ralph Peters warned us back in 1997 that we face an age of constant conflict which will last decades.
When haven't human beings faced an age of constant conflict? :)
It is exacerbated by a demographic collapse...
Which should likely spawn immigration.
klaatu,
Is that where Clancy got his idea for one of his more awful books, or vice versa? :)
When haven't human beings faced an age of constant conflict? :)
Well ... there's conflict and then there's conflict.
Peters makes it clear he expects (as I do) conflicts that will extend for several decades and will include at least intermittent and probably multiple simultaneous military actions involving the US as a protagonist (and not just as part of, say, a UN peacekeeping force in the conflicts of others).
Such conflicts will tend to be amorphous, with unclear start/end points, shifting participants and the common thread of intermittent but common violence and death. Other elements (already) include major attacks on the information infrastructure that underpin global financial systems and the likelihood that some terror groups of various persuasions will seek to create major casualties among civilians.
Klaatu wrote (4:59pm),
Ralph Peters warned us in 1992 that we going to go to war with Japan. So I guess we should disregard what Peters writes about today...
Um, snark aside, try reading the book, "The War in 2020," first. As the title hints, it's fiction. Speculative science fiction. Published at a time of post-Berlin-Wall triumphalism--remember Francis Fukuyama?--Peters wrote a story about a messy, gritty world where History didn't End, and where whiz-bang weaponry didn't alter human nature or eliminate conflicts between nations. Beyond the plot's dated (?) concerns with Japanese and Islamic militarism, the book holds up well as a cautionary tale.
We should all fare so well with our lesser literary efforts.
Bayer is an asprin.
Which should likely spawn immigration
I agree, as does Barnett. However, immigration is not frictionless and many societies find it much harder to leave family and home than Americans do. So it won't necessarily happen smoothly, automatically or without resentments of the sort we see among some Muslim immigrants in Europe, for instance.
From today's RFE/RL Newsline:
U.S. OFFICIAL SIGNALS CONCERN OVER RUSSIAN NUCLEAR AND FOREIGN POLICIES... Visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker told a Moscow news conference on 6 October that the United States and Europe are concerned by some aspects of Russian nuclear policy with respect to outstanding commitments, local and international media reported the next day. Rademaker said the number of Russian tactical nuclear missiles deployed in European Russia and their targeting worries the European public. Washington is also concerned that Russian companies might have aided a purported Iranian attempt to acquire strategic, long-range missiles, Rademaker added. He then reportedly said the West is troubled over Moscow's failure to abide by a 1999 commitment laid out in the so-called Istanbul Agreement whereby Russia was to have withdrawn fully its troops from Moldova and negotiated a similar pullout from Georgia. "I must say, it's inexplicable to me why we don't see more progress," Interfax quoted Rademaker as saying. VY
...DRAWING QUICK RETORTS FROM RUSSIAN COUNTERPARTS. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Yakovenko shrugged off the U.S. criticism over nuclear issues and said on 7 October that as far as Europe is concerned, "the word 'commitment' in this context [of nuclear missiles] is incorrect," Interfax reported 7 October. In a separate statement the same day, Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Alekseev said Russia "will continue to cooperate with Iran on the peaceful use of nuclear energy," Interfax and other media reported. Washington has opposed the roughly $800 million in Russian participation in the continuing construction of a nuclear power plant at Bushehr in southern Iran. "It doesn't matter if there is pressure or not, but what does matter is that we will comply with all legal commitments in cooperation with Iran," Alekseev said. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is scheduled to visit Tehran on 10-11 October and is expected to discuss bilateral nuclear cooperation, "Izvestiya"
reported on 7 October. VY
Someone here, if I remember it right, knows Russian (Joe? Joel?) -- here's a few interesting (re: gratitude and emulation) articles. Beginning with "Bush for Russia: predictably bad" (Alexander Dugin)
Here's his (Dugin's) home page; scroll down to his photo, and check out "Articles", "Speeches", and "Interviews" -- a lot of stuff very relevant to this topic. This
asshole is far from an odd-ball blowhard, he's rather one of the intellectual "voice of the elite", so to speak (not the only one, check out the whole site), what he says is representative of the current propaganda (thought not of Putin speeches.)
Here is a couple of samples (the titles alone are very telling):
"The System of the US World Dominance is Being Constructed at the Cost of Russia".
"With What Will We Respond to the Americans?" ("... US military bases get closer and closer to Russia...")
"Alexander Dugin Demands Dictatorship for Russia"
"Georgia is an American Pawn"
"Russia is a Beating Boy for the US"
"The US Brought Saakishvili to Power in Order to Intensify Conflict with Russia"
"Atlantic Nazism"
And so on and so forth.
Robin Burk,
No demographic change is frictionless, even if it is caused completely by a population having more babies and less deaths. My point is that I find the doom and gloom about demographic changes around the world for the next fifty years to be entirely too pessimistic.
You stopped one inference short: Millions of restless and single Chinese males + decining Russian population = China annexing thinly populated Siberia. Hence Sinoberia.
Re: impact of demographic changes, I am not sure we face "doom and gloom". I do, however, think that the current massive unbalance between demographic trends in various places in the world will present significant challenges and strain a lot of current global systems and relationships.
The ultimate outcome may be perfectly fine, but as we already see in western Europe, getting there will be a bumpy ride.
Re: the Eurasianism of Dugin, he fits into a niche that has reappeared regularly in Russian thought since the days of Peter the Great. A certain strain in Russian thought has always opposed the sea powers to the land powers of the Eurasian inner continent. Note also the connection of Dugin first to Nazi thought and now to the more extreme positions among Communists who are out of power. (Or are they, with Putin's recent moves? That's one of the questions we face.)
I'm reminded of a map my husband saw in the USSR when he travelled there as a college student with his parents. The map was drawn such that Russia was at the very center of the image -- ringed by enemies. That image predates the Russian Revolution and goes deep to Russian culture.
To believe that there is an inherent nexus of interests between Paris, Berlin and Moscow, and inherent enmity with the US, is to be governed by geopolitical assumptions that perhaps do not hold so well in the computer age. Contrast this approach to the way in which Japan, with far fewer resources and little military power, built itself into one of the G7.
You stopped one inference short: Millions of restless and single Chinese males + decining Russian population = China annexing thinly populated Siberia.
The most rapidly growing population segment in Russia (at least east of the Urals) are the ethnic Chinese. Historic Chinese empires did not extend much past the Tarim Basin and Manchuria, as traditional modes of communication and governance could not hold together long over larger distances and across inhospitable terrain. But with modern technologies, demographic pressures (and vacuums) and a reassertive sense of national pride, it's not inconceivable to imagine that section of the world dominated by China, if not owned outright.
And that could represent a major shift in geopolitics indeed.
Warum,
Thanks for the interesting site. This guy writes with all the charm of a Soviet hack, but he does have some interesing stuff to say.
See also the story on the incipient AIDS epidemic in Russia in the current issue of The New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?041011fa_fact1
Oscar: "This guy writes with all the charm of a Soviet hack"
Precisely :-) The Voice of Controlled Democracy: fresh and inspiring.
Robin:
Dugin, he fits into a niche that has reappeared regularly in Russian thought since the days of Peter the Great. A certain strain in Russian thought
I wouldn't call it a strain in Russian thought. It's not philosophy: it's fraud, propaganda, agitprop; an ideological mix of czarist pretense, kgb'ified popery, and stalinist bureaucracy. Btw, this bearded faux Berdiaev is a KGB general's son. They're all Orthodox Christians now, have you noticed? -- they've seen the Light (in about '91; though I suspect their CPSU membership cards are still in their back pockets, under the sutana.)
Russia is rapidly moving towards a criminalized clerico-bureaurocratic fascism, a sort of cynical Czardom with nukes.
Is there any way we can access that Ralph Peter's essay on the Age of Constant Conflict. That link seems to lead to an "access denied." I would love to read that.
The link is good. Try again.
Alexi Bayer is a damgerous rightits