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Jewish World Review May 11, 2005 / 2 Iyar, 5765 Bush is finally trading ‘soul peering’ for open-eyed assessment By Robert Robb
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin are engaged in an odd
historical disputation.
It began with Putin's State of the Nation address in late April, in which
he declared that "the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical
disaster of the century."
In the speech, he focused on the consequences for Russia and Russians: the
deterioration of domestic stability and a period of economic chaos and
decline; millions of Russians finding themselves adrift in the newly freed
satellites.
But the phrase "geopolitical," and Putin's failure to place the problems
caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union within the context of the
greater good that has come from it, suggested that Putin might be making a
broader point — that he was actually asserting that it would have been
better, for Russia and the world, if the Soviet Union had not fallen.
Bush rejoined in a speech in Latvia last week on his way to Moscow to
commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, using language
to describe the former Soviet Union not heard since Ronald Reagan's evil
empire days.
But Bush went significantly beyond denouncing the former Soviet Union,
suggesting that the United States was almost as complicit in determining
the fate of Eastern Europe and the Balkans. "The agreement at Yalta," Bush
asserted, "followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated,
the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable."
This is a gross distortion of the historical record. In fact, the Yalta
agreement — reached between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin in 1945 —
explicitly committed the allies to establishing free, democratic
governments in liberated countries. In his war memoirs, Churchill said that
Stalin indicated that elections could be held in Poland within a month.
As George Kennan, the recently deceased diplomatic and historian, concluded
in his book, Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin, the United States
and Britain did not agree to Soviet domination in Eastern Europe and the
Balkans. That resulted from the military conditions on the ground and
Soviet intent and duplicity.
The outcome was predictable, as Kennan points out. But changing the course
of events would have required opening the Western assault earlier than
particularly Britain thought prudent or confronting Stalin after the defeat
of the Nazis was more certain. At the time, Russia had 12 million troops
mobilized, while the United States had just 4 million in Europe with Japan
left to defeat. The British had just a million soldiers in the field.
Interestingly, on the same day Bush was speaking in Latvia, Putin published
an address to the French people in which he also conflated Munich and
Molotov-Ribbentrop, suggesting that both indicated an unwillingness to
confront Nazism. But the former was a naïve wish for peace, while the
latter was a cynical division of the spoils of conquest.
It's hard to know what to make of this historical disputation between Bush,
an admittedly indifferent student, and Putin, who apparently still at least
partially views history through a KGB prism.
Churchill famously described Russia as a "riddle wrapped in mystery inside
an enigma." The same could be said of Putin today.
His State of the Nation speech was a strong testimony for building the
infrastructure of what Michael Novak has called democratic capitalism:
multiparty democracy, free markets, and an uncorrupt government impartially
applying the rules.
Yet, under Putin, Russia seems to be retreating rather than advancing on
these measures. Putin would argue that a strong hand is necessary to
overcome the corrupting influence and effect of oligarchic capitalism that
emerged under his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. But doubts remain about
whether he is accumulating power just to ultimately relinquish it.
While the focus is currently on the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and
Iran, Russia remains the spot on the globe that represents the most
potential danger.
Russia currently has approximately 5,000 strategic nuclear weapons and many
more tactical ones. It's in a demographic freefall, with one of the most
rapidly declining populations and life expectancies in the world. Its
economy is propped up by oil revenues, but is not attracting the investment
or entrepreneurial activity needed for a stable footing. Its future
direction is a significant cause for worry.
Bush once claimed to have looked into Putin's eyes and seen his soul.
Perhaps it is at least mildly encouraging that, in addition to his eyes,
Bush is now looking at the historical record and what Putin actually does
and says.
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JWR contributor Robert Robb is a columnist for The Arizona Republic. Comment by clicking here.
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