Washington’s attempt to “isolate
Putin’s Russia” has failed and had the opposite effect.
NOVEMBER 21, 2018
Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies
and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually)
weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now
in their fifth year, are at TheNation.com.)
On the fifth anniversary of the onset
of the Ukrainian crisis, in November 2013, and of Washington “punishing” Russia
by attempting to “isolate” it in world affairs—a policy first declared by
President Barack Obama in 2014 and continued ever since, primarily through
economic sanctions—Cohen discusses the following points:
1. During the preceding Cold War with
the Soviet Union, no attempt was made to “isolate” Russia abroad; instead, the
goal was to “contain” it within its “bloc” of Eastern European nations and
compete with it in what was called the “Third World.”
2. The notion of “isolating” a
country of Russia’s size, Eurasian location, resources, and long history as a
great power is vainglorious folly. It reflects the paucity and poverty of
foreign thinking in Washington in recent decades, not the least in the US
Congress and mainstream media.
3. Consider the actual results.
Russia is hardly isolated. Since 2014, Moscow has arguably been the most active
diplomatic capital of all great powers today. It has forged expanding military,
political, or economic partnerships with, for example, China, Iran, Turkey,
Syria, Saudi Arabia, India, and several other East Asian nations, even, despite
EU sanctions, with several European governments. Still more, Moscow is the
architect and prime convener of three important peace negotiations under way
today: those involving Syria, Serbia-Kosovo, and even Afghanistan. Put
differently, can any other national leaders in the 21st century match the
diplomatic records of Russian President Vladimir Putin or of his foreign
minister, Sergei Lavrov? Certainly not former US presidents George W. Bush or
Obama or soon-to-depart German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Nor any British or
French leader.
4. Much is made of Putin’s
purportedly malign “nationalism” in this regard. But this is an uninformed or
hypocritical explanation. Consider French President Emmanuel Macron, who
recently reproached Trump for his declared nationalism. The same Macron who has
sought to suggest (rather implausibly) that he is a second coming of Charles de
Gaulle, who himself was a great and professed nationalist leader of the 20th
century, from his resistance to the Nazi occupation and founding of the Fifth
Republic to his refusal to put the French military under NATO command.
Nationalism, that is, by whatever name, has long been a major political force
in most countries, whether in liberal enlightened or reactionary right-wing
forms. Russia and the United States are not exceptions.
5. Putin’s success in restoring
Russia’s role in world affairs is usually ascribed to his “aggressive”
policies, but it is better understood as a realization of what is characterized
in Moscow as the “philosophy of Russian foreign policy” since Putin became
leader in 2000. It has three professed tenets. The first goal of foreign policy
is to protect Russia’s “sovereignty,” which is said to have been lost in the
disastrous post-Soviet 1990s. The second is a kind of Russia-first nationalism
or patriotism: to enhance the well-being of the citizens of the Russian
Federation. The third is ecumenical: to partner with any government that wants
to partner with Russia. This “philosophy” is, of course, non- or un-Soviet,
which was heavily ideological, at least in its professed ideology and goals.
6. Considering Washington’s inability
to “isolate Russia,” considering Russia’s diplomatic successes in recent years,
and considering the bitter fruits of US militarized and regime-change foreign
policies (which long predate President Trump), perhaps it’s time for Washington
to learn from Moscow rather than demand that Moscow conform to Washington’s
thinking about—and behavior in—world affairs. If not, Washington is more likely
to continue to isolate itself.
Stephen F. Cohen is a professor
emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York
University and Princeton University and a contributing editor
of The Nation.
No comments:
Post a Comment