Written by an acquaintance of mine, BTW. I think he's a little premature in his diagnosis as I don't think there is a new cold war on the horizon, but his general outline of US elite psychology I think is quite good.
September 10, 2006 The psychological underpinnings of the new cold war
By Vlad Sobell
As the presidential succession approaches, Putin’s era surely must be seen as a triumphant restoration of Russia’s integrity and arrival on the global stage. His orderly departure, in line with the constitution, will buttress domestic stability.
Unfortunately, Russia’s success in overcoming internal instability is fuelling external tensions with the West, chiefly the United States. This is not only because the emerging Russian “energy superpower” upsets the global balance of power; another, equally important reason is the implicit challenge to prevailing orthodoxy by the spontaneously democratising Russia and China.
Accepting Russia and China as equal partners in the democratic project would distort the West’s “moral compass”, thus undermining its cohesion in the “war on terror”. Thus “appeasement” of both former totalitarian powers is inadmissible.
These psychological factors will continue to fuel a new cold war, this time against the Russo-Chinese “Authoritarian International”, in perceived alliance with the “Axis of Evil”.
Fortunately, these tensions will unlikely grow as costly and risky as the real Cold War, as in reality we are witnessing a conflict between orthodox and emerging democracies, and not a confrontation between two irreconcilable political and value systems.
The dire predictions about Putin have failed to materialise
While the Putin era has seen a dramatic improvement in Russia’s fortunes, his regime has also been accused of engineering a restoration of authoritarianism and directing Russia on the wrong path. Although the regime’s clampdown on the chaos of the 1990’s necessitated a measure of “controlled democracy”, it could also be argued that the Kremlin’s centralisation was a dysfunctional way of going about Russia’s post-communist modernisation.
As the end of Putin’s presidency looms on the horizon, it is demonstrable that such fears were unfounded and analysts’ assumptions underlying them misconceived. Far from collapsing, the Russian economy is going from strength to strength, repeatedly confounding expectations of a structurally driven slowdown. While strong international prices of energy undoubtedly have boosted the build-up of foreign reserves (as well as the Stabilisation Fund to which windfall proceeds from high energy prices are channelled), and helped to maintain fiscal surpluses, Russia’s economic turnaround cannot be attributed to this factor alone. Had thoroughly wrongheaded policies been pursued, no amount of external windfall would be able to save the economy from stagnation; on the contrary, the increased corruption and aversion to structural reforms fuelled by the windfall would arguably have made the economic malaise worse. The decisive factor behind Russia’s turnaround has been the political stability and credible macroeconomic policies engineered by the regime.
Given this advance, Russia’s coming leadership succession (with presidential elections due in early 2008) is, of course, a worrying prospect.
The possibility now looms that these gains could be frittered away as the country slides back into instability. Indeed, there are many reasons why things could go wrong. For example, a less politically adroit and/or weak president may fail to balance the various factions in the regime, causing its implosion as struggle breaks out over the control of economic resources. On the other hand, it is conceivable that a strong successor adopts too confrontational a stance, thus fuelling destabilising moves against him within the regime.
Danger might also come from the post-Putin regime’s (premature) mismanagement of the dismantling of “controlled democracy”, which might again unleash the destabilising, disintegrative forces evident in the 1990’s. The example of so called “colour revolutions” in the former Soviet Union, which supposedly produced such “genuine democracy” has hardly been reassuring.
On the economic front, excessive spending, for example by drawing on the Stabilisation Fund, could compromise the government’s anti-inflation strategy, thus setting back the improving macroeconomic climate. Last but not the least, some analysts have been concerned over the regime’s evident “statisation” drive, expanding the state’s monitoring of key sectors and “strategic” industries, with the risk of creating sub-optimal managerial structures at the core of the economy. Should the new regime grow more insular, such trends might take the upper hand.
While certainly real, these concerns should not be exaggerated. A look at the “forest” rather than individual “trees” in Russia’s transition suggests that the country has accomplished a fundamental transformation from a communist-era wasteland to a thriving market economy and an “energy superpower” on the international stage.
This transformation has been driven not by whims, or wisdom, of one man and his associates, but by the logic of the market forces; the regime’s job has been merely to assist these trends, rather than stand in their way. Freed from the shackles of the communist system and overcoming the (inevitable) chaos of the early years, the economy has responded by recovering and re-integrating into the global system on a new market-based footing. The ensuing environment is increasingly driven by its own dynamics, and, hence, is less exposed to political instability and regime mismanagement.
Furthermore, Putin’s regime itself is far from being an isolated coterie of the president’s ex-KGB associates, as it is often depicted. Over the years it has evolved into a cohesive class of officials, politicians and business leaders unified by the vision of Russia’s re-emergence as a great power. This is a durable entity well equipped to safely outlive its creator. Far from posing a risk, the President’s orderly withdrawal, as stipulated by the constitution, will likely further enhance the system’s stability and predictability.
Tensions with the US now loom as the most serious risk
Given these comforting conclusions, the risks to Russia’s stability now appear to be generated mainly by exogenous, rather then endogenous factors. Paradoxically, it is Russia’s growing internal stability and confidence, which fuels potentially destabilising external tensions.
Unlike the other East European transition countries (but very much like the emerging China), Russia’s successful transition cannot help but generate shifts within the global economic and political order, which other powers may find challenging, if not threatening. This is especially so if Russia’s role as the global energy superpower is misinterpreted as the return of the evil Soviet empire, determined to use its “energy weapon” where Soviet tanks and nuclear missiles failed.
However, the situation is much more complex.
Apart from upsetting the global balance of power Russia cannot help but undermine the prevailing order by implicitly challenging its “ideological orthodoxy”. In this respect, Russia has arguably been even more “subversive” than in its geopolitical (geoeconomic) impact: casting doubt on the established order’s “religion” is invariably more menacing and insidious than a tangible geopolitical threat.
The orthodoxy states that modern democracy was incubated predominantly in the Anglo-Saxon culture and, following the defeat of totalitarian empires in the 20th century, it was spread by the victorious powers throughout Western Europe and Japan. Likewise, after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, democracy was exported into the former Soviet bloc, the Baltic republics and initially also to Yeltsin’s Russia.
The notion that democracy could evolve gradually from the soil of the nations afflicted by totalitarianism, without being seeded or imposed from outside goes completely against the grain of this narrative. The consequences of such thinking are potentially profound.
Not only does it challenge the prerogative of the dominant democratic powers in practice the US to judge what is and what is not democratic; it also undermines the claim that (in the Second World War) powers such as Germany and Japan were not merely defeated, but also democratised, with their populations being liberated. Suppose, however, that their dictatorial regimes refrained from imperial expansion, thus avoiding a military confrontation with the democratic Alliance. Would they not, given sufficient time, eventually liberate themselves spontaneously by their own efforts, as the totalitarian disease ran its course? Since, unlike natural science, history cannot repeat its “experiments”, we shall never know the answer.
However, the experience of Russia (and, perhaps even more important, China) shows that such an outcome is possible. When totalitarian dysfunction had exhausted these civilisations’ economic and human potential, and when the terror effect of early totalitarianism lost is vigour, corrective impulses to overcome the disease began to generate and propagate endogenously. Today, a generation later, their progress towards democracy and fully functioning market economy is well advanced and irreversible.
Thus Russia’s experience demonstrates not only that endogenous (non-Western) democratisation is possible, but moreover that it is more successful than the imported version, because it is in complete harmony with its cultural environment.
The failure of the Western-supervised Yeltsin regime to place the economy on a sustainable stable footing, amidst political chaos and disintegrative trends, de facto amounts to the proof that the “import method” had failed. On the other hand, the “nationalisation” of the transition process by the Putin regime has yielded a resounding success.
Unfortunately, the disturbance caused by Russia’s democratic evolution goes even deeper. Apart from implicitly undermining the “official” historical narrative of the events of the 20th century, the Russian experience if accepted as the development of genuine democracy would upset the orthodoxy’s “moral compass”.
Since Soviet democratisation was initiated by the leadership of the Communist Party itself ie. by the inner sanctum of the Evil Empire the sanctioning of this development as leading to genuine democracy would be disorienting: it would no longer be possible to unambiguously determine what is “good” (democratic) and what is “evil” (anti-democratic).
This challenge is readily observable in the concrete case of Putin’s Russia: how could a regime created by former KGB colonel conceivably be interpreted as “good” and leading to genuine democracy? Since, as the orthodoxy implicitly maintains, the evil communist system was operated by evil persons, in pursuit of evil designs, Putin’s “democracy” cannot help but be a scam.
As the events of 9/11 have drawn the US and its allies into yet another epic conflict this time in the “war on terror” against the “axis of evil” Washington has embraced the spread of democracy in the alien soil of the Middle East as the surest strategy for eradicating the terrorist menace. New confrontation, this time with Iran, looms after the regime changes and “democratic transformation” in Afghanistan and Iraq. In this context, the suggestion that it might have been possible (and wiser!) to promote internal change in these countries gradually and by subtle (non-military) methods would be perceived as unacceptable appeasement. (The condemnation of the appeasement of Hitler’s Germany is one of the orthodoxy’s main canons, while the Cold War defeat of the Soviet Union is held to be directly attributable to President Reagan’s refusal to appease it).
Actually, the persistence of such thought rigidities is surprising. Unlike its totalitarian opponent, the “democratic ideology” is, or, rather, should be, an open system, naturally able to question and revise even its most dearly held beliefs. It should in theory be able to regularly review and reset its moral compass and allow for the possibility of things turning out in ways initially deemed impossible: communism can mutate into genuine democracy; a former KGB officers can preside over such processes; dictatorships and rogue states might change from within, without the need for external intervention.
Unfortunately, such resetting and adjustment still seems to be a long way off.
A new cold war with the Authoritarian International?
While the deepening tensions between the US and Russia can to a large extent be explained by standard analysis of great power clash of geopolitical interests, it seems that their bitterness as well as the intensity of invective levelled at Putin’s Russia by leading US pundits and politicians can be properly explained only by reference to the above “psychological” considerations.
Since Washington’s war on the axis of evil necessitates a clear and simple contrast between good and evil, and since good must surely reside predominantly with the US and its allies, franchising it to powers not explicitly allied with the US (not to mention its geopolitical rivals) would be problematic. It might risk a weakening of resolve and allied cohesion.
Accepting that powers such as Russia or China may be as “good” as the West (US) might render the moral compass useless, thus undermining the campaign’s legitimacy.
Russia and China have also been the weightiest advocates of the multi-polar global model, which by definition rejects the US dominance. This view also implies that no single power holds a monopoly on good and/or evil and that no single power has the authority to dispense marks for good or bad behaviour; such processes take place strictly on the multilateral soil of the United Nations. This stance too goes directly against the grain of the US determination to change the world in its democratic image.
Thus, unfortunately, we are facing a prolonged new cold war between the orthodox democracies led by the US and the emerging democracies of Russia and China, which insist on their sovereignty.
Officially, this will be labelled as Western opposition to the new (actual or potential) Russo-Chinese “authoritarian alliance”, with the latter being depicted almost as a natural ally of the “axis of evil”. Such insinuations have, of course, already been made, for example in the context of Russo-Chinese “appeasement” of Iran (and North Korea); and it does not help that Iran also gained observer status in Russia- and China-led Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, while US request of observer status has been rejected.
Fortunately, however, the new conflict will unlikely be as bitter, costly and dangerous as the real Cold War. While the latter was driven by fundamentally irreconcilable ideologies and social systems, the new cold war is largely due to the democratic ideology’s failure to modernise. While Russia and China have been transforming, the West has mostly stood still.
http://www.russiaprofile.org/cdi/2006/9/10/4365.wbp
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