History plods on, despite our pride in having achieved "modernity", so that everything can now stop and rest at our state of perfection. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Russia, where the past weighs heavily, affecting attitudes and policy in substantial contrast to interests and current conditions. Russia has been an imperial power for centuries, gradually beating most of its neighbors into submission and incorporating them into a multi-ethnic but hardly socially equal empire. This process was capped by the Great Patriotic War, aka World War 2, which ended with the USSR in control of new territories inside Europe, and others inside Japan, and with ideological friends in many other lands. It was not a happy empire, but it was a huge one, and the Russians were and remain proud of its achievement.
Then everything fell apart, and since the end of the Cold War, Russia has been trying to get it back. That would be a brief synopsis of Stent's book, which goes in very professional fashion through Russia's history, current relations, conflicts, and friendships all over the world. On the whole, Russia has over the last couple of decades managed its relations quite well, leveraging what little strength it has (lots of oil and gas, a ruthless attitude towards politics near and far, and a prodigious ability to suffer) into substantial strides back to relevance on the world stage.
But what should the West think and do about it? We came in for a great deal of criticism for our cavalier attitude during the breakup of the USSR. We advocated "shock therapy", and boy were they shocked! Without effective state control or cultural traditions of capitalism, what was a rotten system of communism turned into a laissez-faire wild west of rampant economic and political corruption. State control has now been re-asserted, but the patterns that formed in those days, which frankly reflect a long history of "informal" political relations throughout the region, persist to this day, despite verying formalities of democracy and rule of law. There remains a fundamental misunderstanding (and mistrust) of what political and economic liberalism means and how the West has gotten to its dominant position, despite centuries of study, copying, inferiority complexes, and deep economic and political relations. Russia remains instinctively authoritarian, not only due to the cleverness of Vladimir Putin, but apparently as a general cultural default. Maybe this did not have to be, maybe there was an opening in the early days of Yeltsin's rule, but our thoughtless and disastrous prescriptions at the time helped sow a bitter harvest. Now Russia equates democracy with weakness, and has decided to demonstrate that principle by deploying its most expert propaganda into our free media spaces.
It is generally realized now that China, in contrast, did things correctly, becoming a booming capitalist state while keeping absolute political control. That is how an properly authoritarian state manages things, (as previously modeled by various Asian tigers, particularly Singapore), and is now a model for Russia among many others. Unlike the Russian breakdown, China's ability to change its spots from communism to capitalism raises deep questions of whether liberalism and democracy are the best system, not only in human rights terms, but in their ability to manage capitalism. For it is clear, from both the Russian debacle and from the Chinese success, that capitalism is not self-perpetuating or self-managing. It relies inextricably on a strong state and legal system that sets rules by which competition among oligarchs, firms, workers, and other actors remains on the economic level, not on the military, political, or criminal levels. Democracy can be responsive to these issues, but we are, in the US, currently in the grip of a very destructive ideology that denigrates the state, is restoring corruption at all levels, and appears heedless of the future in economic, political, and planetary terms. The outcomes of this ideology became frighteningly apparent in our chaotic occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, yet the lesson may still not have been learned.
But getting back to Russia ... The nations of the former USSR have developed in almost linear relation to how closely they are positioned to Europe, geographically and culturally. The Baltic states turned relatively easily and completely to the European model. The middle area of Romania and Bulgaria, among others, have turned more slowly, but are also firmly in the pro-Europe camp. But those bordering Russia, like Belarus out east to Kazakstan, remain authoritarian and mired in "informal relations". Ukraine has tried to buck this trend and is deeply divided. Partly this is due to the large number of expatriate Russians living in these areas. But in any case, each has its own nationalism, and no one wants to re-unite with Russia to remake the old empire. Recent news stories show that even Belarus, Russia's most reliable and sycophantic ally, draws a line.
"Ultimately, Russia, China, and the states of Central Asia share fundamental ideas of what stability in the region looks like and how to maintain it. They are a group of authoritarian states dedicated to maintaining themselves in power and ensuring no Islamist or color revolutions threaten their rule. Whereas they view with great suspicion any Western attempts to open up their societies, Central Asian elites welcome Russian and Chinese support of the status quo."
So Russia is determined to have a club that few want to join. The ex-Soviet republics may share many cultural, political, and economic patterns, and cooperate to some extent in organizations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, but Russia's dreams of expansion and re-integration are generally rebuffed. It has turned to invasions like the takeover of Crimea, South Ossetia, and the creeping war in Eastern Ukraine, treating its neighbors like piñatas to be whacked at will and bullied with fossil fuel subsidies and threats. It is reminiscent of the spoiler role Pakistan maintains in its region, fomenting unrest in Afghanistan lest that country ever have peace and positive economic development.
And then Russia demands that we all respect its "sphere of influence", as though we were still in Victorian times, playing some sort of great game on a map of the world, and heading in to World War 1. But this supposed sphere is entirely composed of unwilling and oppressed neighbors- not quite as badly treated as in Soviet times, but uniformly uninterested in recreating those glory days. Russia has no intrinsic or deserved "rights" in this respect, despite its vaunting desires- we need to keep offering self-determination and choice to its neighbors, as we do to all other countries around the world. Russia is armed to the teeth, and really needs no defensive buffer of this kind, nor is its cultural influence so positive that its bullying should be regarded as a family matter. Quite the opposite.
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| NATO countries of Europe, in blue. |
Which brings us to NATO. We did not think through its fate very carefully when the cold war ended. NATO stood during the cold war as a defense against the USSR, pure and simple, plus a way to keep Germany pacified and integrated in Europe. When the USSR collapsed (foremost because its captive nationalities and "republics" wanted out), and the Warsaw pact dissolved, we half-heartedly offered coordination to Russia. But never really thought through what our military posture should be towards this new friend, or offered a comprehensive and durable peace. We were, however, eager to integrate as many of the newly ex-Soviet states as wanted to join, such as Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, the Baltic states, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, not to mention various members of the former Yugoslavia. That makes it look like a rather offensive affair, from Russia's perspective. And then Ukraine wanted to join as well. Integrating all these countries into a modern mutual defence organization was certainly positive for them, as one more element of their cultural headlong run away from Russia and communism.
But what is it really defending? One gets the distinct sense that, like in the post-WW2 era, NATO's purpose has become keeping the principal adversary of the latest war at bay. But whereas Germany was integrated into NATO, subject to continued occupation, though of a relatively friendly sort, now the enemy, i.e. Russia, is outside, and is not being killed with kindness, but rather being provoked by encirclement. All this is relatively obvious and not terribly objectionable now, now that Russia has become increasingly anti-Western, but that did not have to be the outcome. (Though Stent is dubious- she maintains that Russia's historical attitude strongly re-asserted itself after the breakup, and it would be chimerical to think that Russia would ever align fully with the West, such as joining NATO and allowing extensive occupation / collaboration by foreign forces- see the quote below) We drifted into it by inertia- by lazy thinking in our foreign policy and military establishments, not to say simple gloating. Would Russia have responded more positively if we had given them a better deal? Only if we had matched it with more effective economic reconstruction assistance as well. But neither of these things happened, and attitudes in Russia quickly hardened and became, understandably, rather bitter. Nevertheless, this does not justify an undeserved sphere of influence or renascent empire on Russia's part. Does Britain demand a sphere over France? Does Germany over Denmark? No. Did we invade Cuba when it turned to communism? Well, sort of and half-heartedly(!)
"As Putin consolidated his rule, it became clear to much of the world that a main reason for Russian's rejection of Western-style economic and political programs was because they are Russians, not because they were communists. Seventy years ago, George Kennan understood that communist ideology reinforced and exacerbated, but did not contradict, the characteristics of traditional tsarist rule. Communism had been superimposed on centuries of Russian autocracy and personalistic rule, and had, if anything, strengthened those traditions. The ideology was a means to consolidate the Bolsheviks' rule, mobilize society, and, with great pain, drag Russian peasants into modernity. ... The minority who supported Gorbachev and Yeltsin and believed that Russia should become more like the West both politically and economically, were outnumbered from the outset."
Reading this book reinforces that it is the US and the West in general that is the revolutionary agent afoot in the world. We are the ones fomenting color revolutions. We are the ones planting thoughts of human rights, rule of law, justice, and prosperity around the world. We think that all this is obvious, progressive, and unexceptional, but democracies are still the minority, and the other countries, notably including Russia and China, have developed a countervailing authoritarian bloc who studiously refrain from criticizing each other's miserable internal politics, and complain ceaselessly about those who do.
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| Democracy Index, with darker green denoting greater democracy. Note how China rates slightly higher than Russia, due to its better governance and more functional political culture, despite lacking any electoral process. |
Are we right to do so? The issue of self-determination is perhaps the thorniest area where this ideology hits the real world- not everyone can or should have their own country. The USSR broke up over the failure of the center to, in the face of countless failures, justify holding on to its huge empire, and has now turned into 15 successor states, most with an ethnic character. Several of those successor states have experienced civil wars and separatist movements of their own. The fact is that few large countries have ever become large by voluntary means. Given generally peaceful conditions, most peoples with any kind of distinct culture want their own country, as is being expressed in such places as Catalonia, Scotland, Quebec, Kurdistan, and even 150 years ago in our own Confederate South. As Stent acidly points out, separatism is Russia's (and China's) bête noir, leading to its brutal repression of Chechnya, among many other places ... until it comes to Ukraine and Georgia, where Russia uses separatism in the most cynical way.
"Russia will push to jettison the post-Cold War, liberal, rules-based international order driven by the US and Europe in favor of a post-West order. For Russia, this order would resemble the nineteenth-century concert of powers, with China, Russia, and the United States dividing the worlds into spheres of influence."
But there was one place that had a "velvet divorce". Slovakia and the Czech Republic parted ways without bloodshed, because they were oriented to the European model, and negotiated their differences. As a foreign policy stance, we should not encourage separatism generally, but should always support peaceful resolutions and reasonable accommodations. One might add in passing that, if one holds an election to validate a minority breaking away, referendums of this sort should have a high bar, such as 75% , rather than the typical 50%. At any rate, this episode illustrates a key point- that the Western model is good, and tends to lead to peaceful and durable outcomes, because it is not repressive and takes people's interests and rights seriously. Repression can keep the peace for a while, but durable, prosperous peace (and good governance) is best kept with respect, moderation, and truthful communication.
So the order of preference, from all these historical lessons, is as follows. The worst government is none, representing chaos and unleashing the worst forms of power- criminal and informal military. The next best is authoritarian, which can range from brutally repressive, like Stalinist Russia, to repressive and even quite functional, if not benevolent, like China, Turkey, and Russia today. And the best is liberal (and functional!) democracy, which respects its citizens while maintaining a strong state. Unfortunately, democracies are difficult to run, have various inefficiencies, and are perpetually at risk of turning to authoritarianism, particularly when new technologies of propaganda arise that can hypnotize and misinform the populace, as happened during the fascist era, and is happening again today.
Does this mean that we should agitate for democracy everywhere and all the time? Yes, in short, it does. We can and must work with all governments as they exist, to manage what interests we have in common. But we should never mistake our instrumental relations with countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China for true friendship and ideological compatibility. We need to keep our eyes on the interests of people across the world now and into the future, which are uniformly best served by freedom and democracy, with strong and effective states founded on the active participation and decisive decision-making by their citizens. Authoritarianism can be an effective form of government, and sometimes a stepping stone to better conditions. But it is not a desirable end-point, and nor is its correlate, a spheres-of-influence world. And who knows? Maybe one of the democracies that we encourage will someday be in a position to save us in turn.
- One view of Russia's tangles with the West.
- Russia's "productive" role in Syria.
- What are the prospects for democracy in poor countries? Dim, but possible.
- Will Russia save the world?
- The toxic legacy of gerrymandering. And of Citizens United.
- Our tax law becomes even more corrupted.
- War has been declared.
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