New mindset in Moscow - Is The World Moving Towards Cold War Mark II?

Sumer Kaul
The Statesman, 8 September

By all accounts, Putin’s Russia has broken out of its post-USSR down-and-out mould and raised its fists again. It has signaled, in more ways than one, that it has had enough of Bush America’s sole superpower swagger and invasive globe-stomping. It is particularly inflamed by the induction of new weaponry in Europe and the planned extension of the anti-missile shield on its periphery.

Russians see this as a direct threat to their security. Naturally enough, they don’t like it and have decided not to take it lying down any longer. This is clear from the frontal criticism of the United States by the Russian President in recent months. The following extracts from Putin’s pronouncements, at home and abroad, amply illustrate the new mindset in Moscow.

Illegitimate action

~ “The United States has overstepped. its borders in all spheres … and has imposed itself on other states. One-sided illegitimate action has not solved a single problem and has generated more conflicts and many human tragedies.”

~ “The missile shield has turned Europe into a powder keg…. It creates an illusion of protection but the possibility that a nuclear conflict is unleashed is actually greater.”

~ “Enlargement of Nato is in no way connected to today’s global threat ~ terrorism. Why is it necessary to put military infrastructure on our border?”

~ “Our American partners have left ABM (the landmark 1972 treaty limiting the missile defences of the old superpowers). They are stuffing eastern Europe with new weapons; a new base in Bulgaria, another in Romania, a site in Poland, radar in the Czech Republic… What are we supposed to do? We cannot just observe this … We have warned them that we will come out with a response to protect ourselves and maintain the strategic balance in the world.”

Let’s make no mistake ~ this is no bravado. President Putin means it and his American counterpart knows that. So do European leaders. While Bush may, characteristically enough, continue with his Rambo countenance, they are beginning to get worried.

Russian submarines have been detected close to British shores and Russian bombers close to British air space, causing Britain to scramble its Typhoon fighters for the first time since the end of the Cold War. Across the Atlantic, Canada is audibly peeved by the Russians planting their flag on the sea bed below the North Pole and laying claim to the Arctic and its natural resources. Closer home, a top Russian General has warned the governments of Poland and the Czech Republic that if they go ahead with siting the missile defence system on their soil, his strategic missile force is fully capable of striking at these installations.

There is more to the new stance. The Russians have deployed their latest air defence missiles around Moscow. These can down any flying object ~ missiles, warheads, stealth bombers, whatever. And, after 15 years of politically dictated restraint, the Russian army has resumed long-haul missions by their strategic bombers capable of hitting targets in US with nuclear weapons. Their surveillance aircraft have buzzed the US military base at Guam.

They are working on a fifth generation air defence missile system capable of hitting targets in space and, like the Americans, are also developing a range of new attack and defence weapons. All this so as not to lag behind, in Putin’s words, “the new Cold War-style arms race started by the Americans.”

What does all this add up to? Simply answered, it adds up to a pretty serious situation in the making. But why have things come to such a pass? Why, after years of seeming cooperation and bonhomie with the West, has Russia so altered its policy? Why is it suddenly flexing its military muscle?

There can be several answers or part answers. It has recovered from the crippling and humiliating aftermath of the break-up of the Soviet Union and is now in a position to reassert its national pride, mainly by regaining its earlier place and influence in the international arena. It is truly concerned about its security environment, especially about the enlargement of American military prowess close to its borders, a sort of re-run of the old encirclement policy. By displaying, deploying and developing its military clout, Russia is only resuming what the West on its part never stopped doing. The Putin leadership wants to convince Russians that the era of want and weakness is past and they are, militarily and otherwise, second to none again, thereby creating the right ambience for Putin’s successor in the Kremlin to stay the course.

At play in Moscow may be a mix of these and other facts and fears and resolves. But I believe the principal reason for adopting the get-tough policy lies elsewhere; it lies in a four-letter American word ~ BUSH. His imperialist designs and brazen acts of aggression have propelled Russia towards majorly shoring up its military apparatus.

Indeed, this double-dealing, domestically the most divisive and derided, and internationally the most mistrusted and despised President in American history, by his lawless decisions and murderous deeds, has caused not only a revival of the old adversarial relationship with Russia but destroyed Iraq and its ancient civilisational treasures and caused the death of tens of thousands of men, women and children there and in Afghanistan, as well as hugely spurred the spread and strengthening of jihadi terrorism.

Altogether, as one of his predecessors, Nobel laureate Jimmy Carter, has repeatedly lamented, Bush has brought “international disgrace” to the United States. The general view across nations is that he has made the world a far more dangerous place than it was when he rode the presidential steed to the White House nearly eight years ago. Undaunted and unfazed by all the criticism and condemnation, he and his diabolical cabal in Washington have reportedly finalized a plan to rubble Iran any day now. One can only hope that they will be seized by an acute fit of sanity and will refrain from yet another barbarity.

Past policies

There are many people in and outside the US who expect things will change immensely for the better when this modern Attila the Hun rides into the sunset next year. I would not bet on it. Of course no one can be as bad as Bush and of course things will change. However, given the fact that past policies set a momentum which is not easy to reverse, given also the fact that US Presidents are basically creatures of its predatory military-industrial complex, any differences in international perceptions and policies that the new President may bring to the Oval Office are likely to be more of style than of substance.

In other words, post-Bush America and post-Putin Russia may well continue to tread the path that many believe cannot but lead to Cold War Mark II. Where would that leave India? Those pathetically besotted with Bush and all things American must ponder over this question. In fact, they must re-visit their “strategic partner” obsession ~ and discard it before it throws us into the vortex of a new East-West whirlpool.

The author is a veteran columnist and former editor.