Russia and the West: The Tragedy of 1204 Redux
by Srdja Trifkovic
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As the demographic, geopolitical and ideological challenge of global Jihad to the shrinking remnant of Christendom looms ever larger, the West appears hell-bent on cordoning off, fragmenting, and eventually destroying the only Eastern Christian power that could and therefore should be its partner in the joint struggle. In the name of lofty ideals, but in truth roused by avarice, blinkered by ideology, and driven by raw cultural prejudice, Western leaders are endangering their own nations by forcing a key potential ally into resentful, and potentially menacing, acceptance of its “otherness.”
No, I am not talking about Byzantium in 1204, although the above description would be apt enough. The tragedy of over eight centuries ago is being repeated with Russia, not as a farce but as a potentially even greater tragedy.
Back then the endeavor was conducted under the cover of the Fourth Crusade. In the name of Christendom and with the stated goal of liberating the Holy Land from the Muslim yoke—the existential enemy—the Frankoi embarked on a campaign that had the conquest and sack of Christian Constantinople as its end result. Today the idiocy and hypocrisy is no less audacious, yet depressingly familiar:
- Earlier in this decade, in the name of “democracy,” a massive joint Euro-American disinformation and electoral manipulation campaign was undertaken to secure the victory of the chosen faction in Geogria and to try and mould the Ukraine into a mirror image of its morbidly Russophobic western third.
- In the name of “human rights” the West is supporting the church-burning, dope-dealing terrorists of Pristina today, just as they had found alibis for the child murderers of Beslan five years ago, ridiculing Russia’s claim to be battling the same enemy that caused 9-11.
With some differences of emphasis—most recently over NATO’s expansion along the Black Sea—the policy-making, academic and media class in Europe and America displays a surprising identity of cultural assumptions and ideological preferences. The tone and substance of rhetoric and propaganda have been replicated at both ends of the political spectrum—neoliberal and neoconservative—here and abroad.
The totality of U.S.-Russian relations over the past decade and a half—including the antiballistic-missile shield, Nabucco pipeline, demands for Black Sea NATO expansion, designs in Central Asia, Kosovo, allegations of “human-rights violations” and “backtracking on democracy,” etc.—reveals a stunning reversal of the two countries’ geopolitical roles.
The Soviet Union came into being as a revolutionary state that challenged any given status quo in principle, starting with the Comintern and ending three generations later with Afghanistan. Some of its aggressive actions and hostile impulses could be explained in light of “traditional” Russian motives, such as the need for security; at root, however, there was always an ideology unlimited in ambition and global in scope.
At first, the United States tried to appease and accommodate the Soviets, then moved to containment (1947), and spent the next four decades building and maintaining essentially defensive mechanisms—such as NATO—designed to prevent any major change in the global balance. By the late 1970’s, the system appeared to be faltering, especially in the Third World.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has been trying to rearticulate her goals and define her policies in terms of classic national interests: peace and prosperity at home, stable domestic institutions, secure borders, friendly neighbors. The old Soviet dual-track policy of having “normal” relations with America, on the one hand, while seeking to subvert her, on the other, gave way to naïve attempts by Boris Yeltsin to forge a “partnership” with the US.
By contrast, the early 1990’s witnessed the blossoming of America’s strident attempt to assert her status as the only global “hyperpower.” This ambition was inherently inimical to post-Soviet stabilization and kept Washington from entertaining any suggestion that Russia might, in fact, have legitimate interests in her own post-Soviet backyard. The justification for the new American project was as ideological, and the implications were as revolutionary, as anything concocted by Zinoviev or Trotsky in their heyday.
In essence, the United States adopted her own dual-track approach. When Mikhail Gorbachev’s agreement was needed for German reunification, President George H.W. Bush gave a firm and public promise that NATO wound not move eastward. Within six years, however, Bill Clinton expanded NATO to include all the former Warsaw Pact countries of Central Europe. Another round of NATO expansion came under George W. Bush, when three former Soviet Baltic republics were admitted—and the process is far from over. Georgia and the Ukraine are off the front burner for now, but not off the agenda. The rationale for NATO’s continued existence was found in the nebulous and eminently revolutionary concept of “humanitarian intervention” used against the Serbs in 1999.
The collapse of Russia’s state institutions and social infrastructure under Yeltsin, accompanied by a hyperinflation that reduced the middle class and pensioners to penury, was a trauma of incomparably greater magnitude than the Great Depression. Yet its architects—Anatoly Chubais, Yegor Gaidar, Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Ryzhkov—were hailed in Washington as “pro-Western reformers,” and their political factions and media outlets were duly supported by the U.S. taxpayers, by way of a network of quasi-NGOs. The wholesale robbery of Russian resources by the Moscow oligarchs and the fire sale of drilling concessions to the oligarchs’ Western cohorts became a contentious issue in U.S.-Russian relations only a decade later, with the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Likewise although there was no evidence that Anna Politkovskaya was killed on Putin’s orders, the U.S. media immediately jumped to that conclusion in November 2006. By contrast, when a nationalist opposition leader was gunned down last May in would-be NATO candidate Georgia—the fiefdom of Mr. Bush’s good friend Mikhail Saakashvili—the event was ignored here and barely mentioned in Europe.
While never missing an opportunity to hector Russia on democracy and criticize her human-rights record, the United States has been notably silent on the discriminatory treatment of large Russian minorities in the former Soviet republics In Latvia and Estonia, the Russians are subjected to arguably the worst treatment of any minority group by a member of the European Union or (with the exception of Turkey) of NATO. As Anatol Lieven of the New America Foundation has warned, Latvia and Estonia “have been allowed by the West flagrantly to break promises made before independence.”
Washington views Russia as a state with limited sovereignty even within her post-Soviet borders. Chechnya is the obvious example: The White House routinely condemns Russian “violations” while demanding “dialogue” and studiously refraining from designating the Chechen child-slayers as “terrorists”; but no other aspect of Russia’s domestic policies, from education (“ethnocentric”) and immigration (“restrictive”) to homosexual rights (“appalling”) and jurisprudence (“corrupt”), has escaped scathing criticism. On the eve of his G-8 meeting with Putin last May, Mr. Bush declared that “reforms that were once promised to empower citizens have been derailed, with troubling implications for democratic development.”
That a “democratic” Russia must be subservient domestically and externally to U.S. demands is accepted on both sides of the U.S. duopoly. George Soros warns that “a strong central government in Russia cannot be democratic” by definition and further says that “Russia’s general public must accept the ideology of an open society.” Of course, “democracy” thus defined has more to do with one’s status in the ideological pecking order than with the expressed will of one’s electorate—which meshes nicely with the Leninist dictum that the moral value of any action is determined by its contribution to the march of history. To wit, Putin’s approval rating in excess of 70 percent is cited as further evidence of his populist demagoguery.
The notion of Russia’s fundamental illegitimacy and limited sovereignty was on display last April, when Moscow rejected Great Britain’s demand for the extradition of Andrei Lugovoi, supposedly suspected by British officials of murdering his fellow ex-KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko. And yet a conflict over extradition between Britain and Russia is not new: It is eight years old, and started with London’s point-blank refusal to extradite Boris Berezovsky, an arch-oligarch, and Akhmed Zakayev, accused of a host of horrendous terrorist crimes in Chechnya. What is more, a British court accepted a plea by Mr. Zakayev’s lawyers that he would not get a fair trial. Accordingly, the Old Bailey judge ruled that “it would be unjust and oppressive to return Mr. Zakayev to Russia.” If Russia, on the other hand, dares hesitate to honor a Western extradition order for a Russian citizen, then it’s time for another paroxysm of ritualized bipartisan Russophobia.
On current form, things will remain the same, or perhaps become worse, no matter who comes to the White House next. For Mrs. Clinton, Putin has no soul. Richard Holbrooke, her likely secretary of state, wants a firm response to “a series of Russian challenges to the stability of Europe” such as the refusal to accept Kosovo independence. He descries Putin’s “increasingly authoritarian, often brutal, policies,” yet cautions that, “until President Bush weighs in strongly with Putin (as President Bill Clinton did a decade ago with Boris Yeltsin), there is a serious risk Moscow will not get the message.”
Moscow gets the message. It has countered American scheming in the Caspian region with a new gas alliance with Central Asian producers. It has successfully tested a new nuclear missile. It will continue to veto Kosovo’s independence, and the responsibility will be on those who had promised the Albanians that which is not theirs to give. It will develop new oil fields in the Arctic, while Americans are paying ten dollars per gallon at the pump. And, in the end, Russia will survive, says Anthony T. Salvia, a former senior official in the Reagan administration. Ex-Cold Warrior now sees that Russia has no choice but to stand up to America:
Sooner or later, U.S. foreign policy will collide with reality—it may already have done so in Iraq—and Washington, shorn of its ideological blinkers, will finally embrace the foreign policy imperative of the 21st century: Solidarity and strategic cooperation between the United States, Europe and Russia on the basis of their shared Christian moral, intellectual and cultural traditions.
This is the way forward in the face of profound challenges from a rising China and resurgent Islam. Or, as I’ve been saying ever since September 11, it’s time for a true Northern Alliance.
The reshaping of Russia’s soul is the final stop. Its people are largely socially conservative and many are deeply Christian. But the oligarchs and their Western mentors are radical advocates of postmodernity hostile to Christianity. George Soros is only the most visible proponent of the deconstruction of nations and states as Europe has known them for centuries, with Russia always the main prize.
In reducing Russia to a land-locked Muscovy from without and subverting it from within, “the West” is acting irrationally and to its own detriment. It appears like it cannot help doing so, as if Samuel Huntington’s notion of ‘civilizational blocks’ determines Western attitudes to the Orthodox East. The identity of the East European Christians came to be deemed irrelevant at best, and an obstacle at worst. Those peoples lost so much—under the Ottomans and the Communists—that their survival, let alone revival, was scarcely imagined but a decade ago, except on Western terms, as faithful imitation of, and absorption in, the postmodern, post-Christian, postnational “West.” In 1204 the “Frankoi” demanded compliance. Likewise in the ongoing replay any gap between the Sorosite Left and imperialist Right, the United States and Europe, and between Europe old and new, disappears completely. This is the only crusade that the Muslims can support with glee. It is worse than a crime, it is a mistake.
The madness known as the U.S. Foreign Policy is an amorphous beast with many names that demands engagement abroad and wide-open doors at home. Both abroad and at home, the impulse is neurotic; its justification, gnostic. It reflects the collective loss of nerve, faith, and identity of a diseased society, producing a self-destructive malaise that is literally unprecedented in history.
The intoxication is the arrogant belief, in general, that our reason and our science and our technology can resolve all the dilemmas and challenges of our existence, and, in particular, that enlightened abstractions—democracy, human rights, free markets— can be spread across the world and are capable of transforming it in a way that would ultimately turn Yusufs into Joes.
Both the madness and the intoxication have a “left,” essentially Wilsonian, narrative (one-world, postnational, compassionate, multilateralist, therapeutic) and a “right,” or neoconservative one (democracy-exporting, interventionist, monopolar, boastfully self-aggrandizing). Though differing in practice, both outlooks are utopian and firmly rooted in the legacy of the Enlightenment and the rejection of any power independent of “the market” and the ostensible will of the multitude. Both hold that Man is naturally good and improvable, that human conflict is unnatural and vanquishable, that chaos and bloodshed around the world are primarily the fruits of some flawed policies of the West (Wilsonians) or the result of our insufficient “engagement” (neoconservatives).
The former find remedies in endless self-examination, in the supranational mechanisms of “collective security” controlled by themselves, and in the promotion of “dialogue” with every Third World tyrant and madman, for as long as he declares a grievance against us. The latter rely on the use of force to impose their benevolent global order on a supposedly grateful pre-postmodern humanity. Both are united in their loathing of the realist view of America not as an ever-expanding empire but as a republic with definable borders and interests rooted in her history, culture, and tradition. When a realist warns of the Hobbesian nature of the real world and advocates national interest as the foundation of this country’s external affairs, they both cry in unison, “Isolationism!” “Racism!” or some other ism.
It is incorrect to describe Wilsonianism and neoconservatism as two “schools” of foreign policy. They are, rather, two sects of the same Western heresy that has its roots in the Renaissance and its fruits in liberal democracy. Their shared denominational genes are recognizable not in what they seek but in what they reject: polities based on national and cultural commonalities; the building of durable institutions and independent economies; in other words, they converge in their rejection of all that post-Soviet Russia stands for!
Both view all permanent values and institutions with hostility. Both reject any political tradition based on the desirability of limited government at home and nonintervention in foreign affairs. Both claim to favor the “market” but advocate a state capitalism managed by the transnational apparatus of global financial and regulatory institutions. Far from being “patriotic” in any conventional sense, they both reject the real, historic America in favor of a propositional construct devoid of all organic bonds and collective memories. The two sects’ deep-seated distaste for the traditional societies, regimes, and religion of the European continent is manifested in their visceral Russophobia. Both Wilsonians and neoconservatives are united in opposing democracy in postcommunist Eastern Europe, lest it produce governments that will base the recovery of their ravaged societies on the revival of the family, sovereign nationhood, and the Christian Faith.
Inevitably, they have joined forces in creating and funding political parties and NGOs east of the Trieste-Stettin Line that promote the entire spectrum of postmodern isms that have atomized America and the rest of the West for the past four decades. From Bratislava to Bucharest to Belgrade, both present the embrace of deviancy, perversion, and morbidity as the litmus test of an aspirant’s “Western” clubbability. Ultimately, both sects share the Straussian dictum that the perpetual manipulation of hoi polloi by those in power is necessary because they need to be told what is good for them.
The global power of the neoliberal-neoconservative regime is unlikely to be broken incrementally by an America gradually coming to her senses. It will indeed be broken, but the price will be paid in Middle American blood and treasure. We cannot know when and how this will happen—but happen, it will. We cannot know what will be the theme of after-dinner discussions a hundred years hence, but we do know it will not be the global grandeur of the liberal-democratic-capitalist Pax Americana.
From Dr. Trifkovic’s Address to The Robert Taft Club, Washington D.C., April 7, 2008.
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1 Comment by Thomas Miller on 8 April 2008:
What I don’t understand is the continuing arrogance of our foreign policy-making establishment that leads them to believe Russia is at our mercy, and must therefore bend to the will of our elites. As Russia has the world’s largest supply of natural gas, and is a leading producer of many other precious commodities, aren’t the chips really in Russia’s corner? Doesn’t the resource hungry West need them more than Russia needs us?
2 Comment by Andrew E. Roesell on 8 April 2008:
I would argue that this mentality also has a paleo-libertarian side. A belief that the market is the ultimate standard of value and that cultures, governments, and, Christianity, itself, ought to obey the dictates of the “sacred contract” of individual wills, and that such as this is the only truly moral form of society. However, at least these folk prefer not to impose their system by force. They prefer to be a City on a Hill. It is a bit like the Anabaptists, the violent ones versus the pacifists (i.e. the Amish) Unfortunately, such an ideology also leaves the West undefended, in their hatred of “the state.”
3 Comment by james on 8 April 2008:
For more on the real islamic threat (and as far as I know the only person to study terrorism in Russia) visit Paul Murphys website retwa.org which lists daily terror attacks or reads his excellent book “Wolves of Islam”. If you ever do a book review Srdja Trifkovic then it would be great if you would review this one as it helps give a real insight of what is happening in Russia.
4 Comment by Eagle on 8 April 2008:
Dr. Trifkovic, thank you for this marvelously written assessment of the current state of international relations.
Is it not remarkable that not a single Arab country has yet “recognized” Kosovo?
http://www.kosovothanksyou.com/
Combine this with emerging Middle Eastern political and economic cooperation with Russia and one senses that Washington’s ploys will not be swallowed whole. There appear to exist regimes which could be labeled as much, if not more, “nationalist” rather than “Islamist” on the political spectrum, and it strikes me that these countries, in particular, will not easily fall for the Washington ploy of murder on their lands in exchange for central European lands “for Islam”.
5 Comment by Jack Gates on 8 April 2008:
“The madness known as the U.S. Foreign Policy is an amorphous beast with many names that demands engagement abroad and wide-open doors at home. Both abroad and at home, the impulse is neurotic; its justification, gnostic. It reflects the collective loss of nerve, faith, and identity of a diseased society, producing a self-destructive malaise that is literally unprecedented in history.
“The intoxication is the arrogant belief, in general, that our reason and our science and our technology can resolve all the dilemmas and challenges of our existence, and, in particular, that enlightened abstractions—democracy, human rights, free markets— can be spread across the world and are capable of transforming it in a way that would ultimately turn Yusufs into Joes.” … -Dr. Srdja Trifkovic
I’ll just add this because I suspect historically we may have if fortunate reached some kind of turning point being possible. Since TIME as it pertains to peoples in particular and to all peoples in general has some considerable role. Although I agree with everything you wrote in yours above, I’m suggesting one of the root causes of the wrong direction having at last gone too far way too far may be contained within the following:
on 08 Apr 2008 at 9:32 am47Jack Gates -
I suspect that more than providing the human mind with imagery which war certainly does, we enter into it yet so easily (gleefully?) or rush to it ‘rush to war’ recall the invasion of Iraq bogus reasons or not. Because [the essence of] War – and for the Greeks ‘essence’ meant what the thing is in toto, and not some esoteric and isolated aspect of it – may be required of us when we are not yet able to get it met peacefully. Well give me that as a given, for the purpose of this blurb. Namely that that is one compelling facet or cause of the phenomenon of human warfare!?!
A quick look at Aristotle’s doctrine of the four causes. Here’s where we miss the boat on moving forward from the times of the Greeks – without being waylaid from the source and detoured through the Romans and further diluted in what they transmitted to our own particular peoples/cultures. Cause and effect: for Rome which rose to power and empire primarily on account of its talent for inculcating and harnessing human discipline. Cause and effect simply meant a will to bringing into appearance what one desired to be, and the means to do so. That predominant meaning is today the general understanding in the West. … But the meaning for the Greeks was much more organic and connected and so what cause and effect predominantly meant in the going back and forth between the the two (cause effect) was indebtedness and responsibility; because although it is generally understood that the cause precedes the effect (yes in one sense) the need for the effect in the back and forth, left to right, right to left also calls out for the cause and in that sense is prior in occasioning the eventual consequence. So you can see what the Greeks meant, by the essence in that [its whatness] is the thing itself. Not merely some isolated or flimsy aspect when identifying soemthing’s essence.
1.) causa materialis or briefly the material or matter the clay 2.) causa formalis the form for it to take its shape i.e. aspect 3.) causa finalis – in the West (and East) we would think or assume it’s the function or its ‘purpose’ but for the Greeks no that means the occasion for the first two causes e.g. the occasion for which matter & form are to be co-responsible [i.e. the greek aition, telos] and finally 4.) causa efficiens once the ‘effect’ is whole or finished given the correct understanding of # 3 causa finalis. So the fourfold process of ’cause and effect’ is understood as one of indebtedness and subsequent responsibility which sort of has very little to do (or nothing at all?) with the more linear Roman notion of bringing about and effecting using the instrumentally of human discipline as proxy for the implementing of one’s will [i.e. the roman causa.]
Now positing for a moment if the Greeks were correct or in particular Aristotle (as he no doubt was correct except he also included essence; so it was not just ‘correct’ but the truth of the thing itself). … {Later: “Know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”} … And positing then that ontologically speaking in terms of who we are as human beings, we are *required subsequently by our place within the larger reality of which we are a part and within which we find ourselves to be. To fulfill – as a part of the requirement of who we are (inclusive of essence or its totality) – to fulfill our so to speak whatness (i.e. what we ARE.) … If we aren’t doing that and are therefore troubled or frenzied in our own comportment among others both domestic and foreign – perhaps then it manifests as an equal and opposite urge toward random and/or organized violence (WAR) to ‘get to the bottom of it’? -?-
LOOK – The morality so to speak you may notice is organically already built into the Greek way or understanding of the fourfold process of ’cause and effect’. But because we have *separated the two currently in the West you may notice today in the West we even (and perhaps rightly so) *question morality itself as something sort of fake or fabricated which one does or *must do usually disingenuously in order to have a certain desired ‘effect’ on another. You know – so we automatically – perhaps in knowing ourselves, [speak evil of good] and say or think, I wonder what ‘they’re really up to?’ I wonder why he or she did that [apparently good] thing, but you know, we ‘know’ better. In other words we even overlay our INCOMPLETE understanding of the fourfold process of ’cause and effect’ onto morality itself. Right? I.e. what were they trying to *accomplish (effect), what was the ‘real’ agenda is the knee-jerk attitude today in the West. (Right?) Or, am I being too honest? Are people now getting on buses and leaving town in order to get further distance between themselves and me!?! Fine by me, good! Go.
Used to be in prior, more quaint or naive times in our recent past -over the last 1,500 years, we were so fixated on morality even if our understanding was incomplete therein as well, we were as it were ‘trying’. Today in moving away from the more religous fixation in this matter and into the more ‘aware’ in some regards, and more baldly corrupt as well secular domain or perspective, we still err *profoundly (meaning without even realizing it) when on the other hand the standard is the completeness or wholeness of the Greek. … We’re creatures of habit, conceptual creatures of habit and therefore we are PREDJUDICED toward our more linear (one directional –>) and therefore less complete Roman and today Western ways. Until now, we have entered the *absurd, have we not?
Perpetual WAR of course ‘in search’ of peace. Maybe we’re ready finally to begin again, where the Greeks actually left off!?! There’s a lot of the Greek in Christianity. It’s not actually either/or but both.
We’re older now – that’s Ok.
“And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall fade, by verse distils your truth.” -W.S.
Carry on old chaps! Carry on, I say.
____________
end of above post of mine on another board. Dr. Trifkovic yours of course did not descend to the level of the obvious. What you wrote is accurate in my opinion and much less than obvious to most (including our ‘leaders.’) However I suspect at this point in time we all may be ready to plunge deeper into what motivates today’s absurdities. ? These [dangerous] things as you say are in their extremities unprecedented. That could be sign of actual change or turnabout. Let’s hope prior to the other alternative cataclysm. … That’s not good.
6 Comment by G.S. on 8 April 2008:
“The White House routinely condemns Russian “violations” while demanding “dialogue” and studiously refraining from designating the Chechen child-slayers as “terrorists”; but no other aspect of Russia’s domestic policies, from education (“ethnocentric”) and immigration (“restrictive”) to homosexual rights (“appalling”) and jurisprudence (“corrupt”), has escaped scathing criticism.”
So in effect, the Bush Administration condemns Russia for adhering to every last policy plank — from being “tough on terror” to immigration reform to opposing “gay marriage” — which motivates the bulk of Republican voters.
Un-friggin’-believable.
7 Comment by Maciano on 8 April 2008:
Fantastic, mr. Trifkovic.
8 Comment by Jack Gates on 8 April 2008:
el’G.S. – I agree. See my post #5 above… (I kid – you read it already.) I’m ‘proud’ of it. I don’t want to be lazy, no more. I’ve got to accept me. You know/! … funny. It’s TIME! good ol’ – time.
9 Comment by Michael Kenny on 8 April 2008:
Whatever the US may be doing, I don’t think anybody in Europe wants bad relations with Russia, which is the largest member of the Council of Europe. Far from being a “land-locked Muscovy”, therefore, it is at the centre of European affairs and it is very clear that when Putin speaks, he is ignoring the US and speaking to the rest of Europe. That paid off when Merkel blocked NATO expansion. It also paid off when Sarkozy (”pro-American” in neocon cloudcuckooland!) said he would re-join the NATO command structure only if a parallel European defence system was set up. (Blair was also a proponent of that idea.)
Also, don’t foregt that the Russian minorities in Estonia and Latvia can always asert their rights before the European Court of Human Rights and the problem is, in any event, dying of old age since the young of both countries are totally integrationist, regardless of the language of their parents.
The smear campaign against Russia dates essentially from the arrest of Khodorkovsky. His rights, too, are protected by the European Convention on Human Rights, which is more than would be true if he had been arrested in the US!
10 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 8 April 2008:
Queston for Dr. Trifkovic- What would or could the US do if Russia decided to intervene in Kosovo on the Serbian side?
11 Comment by MK on 8 April 2008:
Serbia should proclaime itself as a Russian Republic!
and let President Putin take care of Sebian ppl!!!
12 Comment by John Smith on 8 April 2008:
This talk of Russophobia is exaggerated (as it usually is when “phobia” is attached to some political matter). For example, far from being overly critical the West turned a blind eye for the most part to the harsh methods Russia used in Chechnya. It never became a real issue (Tibet has already generated more heat). Can you think of no reasons why Latvians and Estonians might be a little bitter toward their Russian inhabitants and leery of the Russian state? And wasn’t the collapse of the Russian economy more the fault of decades of unworkable communism, a painful but inevitable affliction, than the machinations of Western politicians?
The Republicans (and specifically the Republicans) have antagonized the Russians for reasons of domestic politics (Putin does the same thing on the other side). Yes the form of that antagonism is liberal imperialism, pushing those agendas abroad that don’t work back home (certainly they no longer consider national interests in such matters). Modern Western morality would certainly gag a maggot, and the Bush administration’s clumsy attempts to reignite a cold war so that their party doesn’t have to face the reality that there is really no reason for them to exist anymore (since they’ve pretty much sold out everything they believed in and every one who supported them through all those years of ridicule) are deplorable, but the Russia pictured here is just a little too innocent.
13 Comment by james on 8 April 2008:
European Court of Human Rights have allowed genocide against Serbs in Kosovo so I dont think they’ll protect Russians in the Baltic countries.
Barely mentioned in the press Estonia was considered adopting a law were Russians who have been there since the collapse of the Soviet Union who have never been given citizenship if they commit a crime which is inevitable since they cannot hold citizenship are to be deported to Russia.
European Court of Human Rights didn’t complain when EU states openly allowed terror recruitment in Mosques for the fight against Serbia and Russia, or allowing Baber Ahmed who ran Azzam publications to run for political office in Britain.
EU and the US want a confrontation with Russia, they hate the fact that Russia is run by a leader who puts the interest of Russia before US or EU and doesn’t want to be run by Jewish Oligarchy who has more loyalty to Isreal than to Russia
@9Michael Kenny
The average European and American hates Russia. They only like Russians of socialist origin who hate an ethnic Russian national identity or those who prostate themself in front of the American Enterprise Institute. The media smear campaign against Russia started as soon as Putin came to power. The US and Europe installed the Bolshevik goverment in Russia which killed an estimated 15 million ethnic Russians and engineered the theft of Russias wealth during the 90’s. If Rothschild frontman Khodorkovsky were tried in the US he would not have got an 8 year prison sentence he would have got a 1000 year prison sentence.
I’ve noticed that Europeans and American justify hating Russians by claiming Russia is a constant threat and that the average Russian hates Europeans and Americans.
Europeans and Americans practicaly sanctioned the Beslan massacre.
14 Comment by Eagle on 8 April 2008:
There emerged comments from Mr. Lavrov in Russia that may well be a message to the (pro-Russian) Serbian Radical Party and their supporters: there is no need for Russian troops in Kosovo, even under the UN mandate. Mr. Lavrov is very friendly to Belgrade’s view of the Kosovo situation, but AGAIN Russia is signalling that it does not want a brawl with NATO.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080408/104101963.html
The US is, however, proving to be unrelenting in its “encriclement” and “vilification” program, not to mention abuse of Orthodox slavs in the Balkans, all in the name of provoking Russia.
Why? This is likely a battle for Europe waged by the US and Russia. Russia may want to join the EU at some point, and thereby become the largest and most influential country in a continent-wide union. The same is likely true of NATO or, more precisely, a “parallel European defense” program which will NOT include the US, if Russia has its way.
The French establishment has long shown interest such that even the current “pro-war, pro-American” French president cannot ignore the development of a “European defense”. Germany is on the fence – it does not have a history of much liking slavs, as its visceral reaction in the media and ministries have proven repeatedly vis-a-vis the Balkans – but its leadership might eventually bend to a strong and rational business community which is considerably less Russophobic.
The US would like to make NATO hostile territory for Russia, but the rug may be pulled from under it if the Franco-German axis leans in favor of a composed and rational Russia and drags the rest of western Europe with them. Thus, the need to “populate” NATO with more American satraps (i.e., small eastern European countries that have played the role in the past vis-a-vis their Soviet or Nazi masters). An Albanian ally in NATO – really?!
Serbia is not playing ball – therefore she becomes not only a target, but a cultural proxy on the receiving end in Russia’s stead. Usually Greece does not comply either – but the mainland is being subverted from within against the will of its people while the island of Cyprus remains steadfastly independent. Surprisingly Poland seems subverted, though she may come around to a more independent stance, which is her custom, once her relatively traditional culture tires of the NGOs forcing abortion, free sex, homosexuality, and other obscenities down the collective throats of her Catholic populace.
The US wants to goad Russia into a war – cold and regionally hot – in order to prevent a real European union from emerging (an independent one without the US, and maybe without the UK). And Russia is trying to avoid a war in order to make that union possible. The latter is in the interest of Euro-Christendom and peace. While Russia is not by any means pristine, one can be forgiven for hoping she represents a more sane future for Europe.
Though the Serbs should not fool themselves that this will mean a military showdown over Kosovo (at least not in the near term…one could extrapolate a line that demonstrates that Kosovo, and other Muslim “states” in central Europe, become analogous to Chechnya and Dagestan in the future of say decades down the road when Russia “takes leadership” of the EU and by which point it becomes clear that the narco-democracies birthed by the US State Department cannot “integrate” with Europe).
15 Comment by Tomislav Milosevic on 8 April 2008:
I cannot agree more with these observations. In fact, articles by Dr. Trifkovic often help me in struggle to keep my sanity.
It is not enough only thinking along these lines though. Gravity and dangers of the situation our World is presently in, requires PROPER thinking along these lines.
Dr. Trifkovic consistently addresses major moments in our times, eloquently connecting and illustrating them with history,geography, philosophy.
That would be the proper thinking. Most of comments which follow are not.
Along the lines, yes. Proper, no.
Out times are soon to be History to some future generation therefore we all bare full responsibility. Sanity has to prevail. Stakes are too high.
16 Comment by Roy Tripp on 9 April 2008:
I find this Anti-Christian, Anti-Orthodox world very sobering. Christ did tell us to take up our cross daily and He also said that if they persecute me they will persecute you. So true!
17 Comment by NGPM on 9 April 2008:
@13 James: “The average European and American hates Russia.”
Dead-on. Europeans may not want “bad relations” with Russia, but fear and loathing of the Putin administration and a reluctance to make conciliations with a country that continues to support his policies are the mainstream order of the day.
Europeans have viewed Russia as a threat for several centuries, actually. Whatever balance-of-power justification there may be for this, attempting to corner them on “human rights” violations is absolutely ludicrous.
The core problem stems from this: if they wanted, Europe and Russia could at least come to terms on several common interests–notably protecting their Christian heritage against Islamic militancy. And if they continue failing to do so, they are both doomed anyway.
18 Comment by NGPM on 9 April 2008:
“Russia may want to join the EU at some point, and thereby become the largest and most influential country in a continent-wide union.”
The present fertility rates may make that about as likely a prospect as Turkey joining the EU…
19 Comment by Eagle on 9 April 2008:
I do not understand your point. Turkey is supported by several European factions in its bid to join the union – including the state least likely to welcome it, Greece.
Russia may seem an unlikely member state, but I would not rule it out over the long term. As to Russia’s abismally low fertility rates; even if her government’s incentives to improve birth rates fail over the next few decades, it will still have the highest population of all European states in 2050.
A key question is what the European super-state will look like over the long term: one that reflects the geographic and nominal cultural elements of its name or one that resembles Sarkozy’s “Mediterrenean Union” – a geographically larger amalgam that encompasses Europe and north Africa. Russia has a history of and relatively successful experience in absorbing non-European, non-Christians. Russia herself may play a role in the Euro-Africazation of the union. One hopes not.
It is, at the end of the day, a leap of faith that many of us, myself included, make when we hope that Russia will represent a reassertion of rational true European ideals of geograhic survival and Christian cultural revival. Her current leadership and the trajectory of many cultural indicators are presently positive, but I fear that one cannot discount the cultural inertia of a collectively larger western Europe. Will Russia lead the latter out of her malaise or join her in the suicidal journey?
20 Comment by Theodore Van Oosbree on 9 April 2008:
Of course we should stop the provocation of Russia. Our only legitimate interest there is that the Russians do not threaten us or their neighbors with military force (which they are unlikely to do unless we provoke them!). We should have no illusions, however, that Russia is a Christian country. Few Russians pay more than lip service to Orthodoxy and the Orthodox hierarchy there was appointed by the KGB. The religious situation there is not unlike that of western Europe, also a formerly Christian area. The conflict is not religious but geopolitical. Those who oppose EU and NATO expansion for nationalist reasons (e.g., Russia and Serbia) aroused the wrath of the Eurocrats and their allies in America. Since expansion of both serves no legitimate American interest and could put us in conflict with a resurgent Russia, Americans should oppose it too.
21 Comment by NGPM on 9 April 2008:
Bitter popular opposition may well bring down several governments if Turkey were actually to be accepted as a full member, and in any case if and when it did accede, the Union would arguably not last more than a decade. Also, when Europe, as is probably inevitable, follows the Anglosphere into financial crisis, the resources necessary to absorb the Turkish Republic would not, even superficially, existant. Finally, the opposition of Angela Merkel is for now enough to hold it off, and if she remains Chancellor, the fact of her opposition will probably not change if she senses that she owes her victory in part to voter backlash over this and other cultural issues.
And I was referring, that the demographic collapse of Russia could make it a majority Muslim state well before the end of the century. My thought-process of connecting Russia thus to Turkey was a bit hasty and disjointed, but it should not be ruled out that the fear–real or imagined–of admitting a huge and future Islamic state into the Union would make talks of admitting Russia difficult.
“The religious situation there is not unlike that of western Europe, also a formerly Christian area. The conflict is not religious but geopolitical.”
To a large extent, yes, but there seems to remain a certain rough tribal “edge” to the Russian character that has not been smoothed over by global cosmopolitanism the way the unique cultures of Europe have been watered down. Does this give them more hope for a revival of ancient tradition? Maybe.
22 Comment by Eagle on 9 April 2008:
“admitting a huge and future Islamic state into the Union would make talks of admitting Russia difficult” -NGPM
If it were to pass, it is farther than 2050 into the future. If Russia joins the union it would be sooner than that. At current pace, France will become majority Islamic before Russia.
As long as the Anglosphere (US-UK) defines the competition with Russia, and not Europe at large, that competition remains as much religious-cultural as geopolitical because that axis retains factions that have great distaste for Russia specifically and Orthodoxy generally on cultural terms.
The Vatican and Catholic central/southern Europe will play a major role in how Europe goes vis-a-vis Russia. If practicing Catholics recognize in large numbers (as many participating in these dialogues have) that practicing Orthodox are their natural cultural allies in a world gone mad, then one hopes this could translate politically to something beneficial. Catholics may begin to realize that the factions in the Anglosphere who detest Russia/Orthodoxy detest Catholocism only slightly less. Talk to old New England elite and listen to their take on “Romanism” and one gets the picture…
We may find that the choice of a German pope was not accidental, but not for the reasons already discussed publicly. Yes, he needs to be a symbol of faith in a materialistic west, but what if he also proves a valuable bridge to the east because of the ideas that he can propose and people that he can animate in central/Catholic Europe? His comments on Islam in Regenstein, the Holy See’s non-recognition of Kosovo, and his participation in Orthodox liturgies in Constantinople make him a popular pope in the east, as far as that popularity goes.
23 Comment by james on 9 April 2008:
@12John Smith
Sick of hearing how the west turns a blind eye to Russian “human rights violations in Chechnya” when they actively allow terror recruitment and financing of the most extreme groups like they did in the Balkans who are kidnapping, torturing and murdering Russian civilians even today there are terror camps run by Abdullah Bin Laden in Bosnia and despite media and think tanks assuring us that there no major foreign terror groups operating in Chechnya or how its leadership before the first war was financed by a mafia who were ethnicly cleansing, murdering and kidnapping the ethnic Russian population.
I could go on for ages about the misrepetations and lies about the Chechen conflicts and what it truly represents but you should read Paul Murphys book “Wolves of Islam” or visit his website http://www.retwa.org
From its inseption to its demise the Soviets senior government post were majority Jewish yet I dont see them harrassed.
The collapse of the Russian economy wasn’t just because of the corrupt soviet system. Western banking firms with the aid of Harvard professors instituted economic “shock therapy” were state assests were to be quickly sold at fire sale prices and foreign aid was to be invested were it was deposited in western banks who financed there front men in Russia to by up state assests at bargain prices the best example is Rothschilds financing of Khodorkovsky to create the Yukos. Russia didnt even get tax income from these companies as they were involved in tax evasion. Some speculate it being as high as $1 trillion in lost revenue.
24 Comment by victor on 9 April 2008:
so what does this have to do with the global jihad?
25 Comment by John Willson on 9 April 2008:
The best writer on the politics among nations. Thank you, Dr. Trifcovic.
26 Comment by Ron Lewenberg on 9 April 2008:
Oh noble Russia, that has never backed Iraq and now seeks to support Iran, all for the sake of expensive oil.
Oh just Russia, ruled not by the KGB thugs who supported Arab Nationalists and Jihadi terrorism against the west.
Oh peaceful Rodina, negotiating well with its former subject nations, never once threatening them or helping foment civil war.
Oh truthful Moscow, which shed its Soviet past.
I’m being sarcastic. Other than rank Soviet-influenced Slavophilia, what’s Trifkovic’s excuse?
27 Comment by Eagle on 10 April 2008:
Mr. Lewenberg,
By “backed Iraq” and “supports Iran”, what exactly do you mean? Diplomatically voices concern over blatant and unjust aggression against national sovereignty?
Was it Russian secret services funneling money to jihadists, or American? As I recall, it was an American-propped Taliban that wreaked havoc in central Asia, most notably against its own people, and then later backed the elements that destroyed the World Trade Center.
Did the Russian Army fight to retain control, or did it leave the former Soviet satellites peacefully? Russia is indeed meddling in the affairs of the neighboring countries, but I am curious what do you call the activity of American NGOs in those same countries? Well, come to think of it, in virtually every country on the planet?
Russia is not nearly perfect, but, then again, I don’t see anyone claiming so. I challenge you to explain your emoting with some simple facts.
28 Comment by james on 10 April 2008:
The West supported terrorist groups in the Balkins, especially Bosnia. Every major terror attack has some link to Bosnia, past or present. It was Russia that was the main opponent of this agenda.
While the US was holding secret diplomatic relations with the Taliban Russia was the main backer of the Nothern Alliance right up until 9/11.
Involved in other countries? The US tried to overthrow Chavez in 2003 and aided in the creation of Kosovo run by KLA terrorists and instigated the overthrow of Milosevic in Serbia. The US was heavily involved in the illegal trail of Milosevic in the Hague.
29 Comment by Zoran Masirevic on 10 April 2008:
Once again, Dr. Trifkovic reminds us why he is (by far) the most brilliant Serbian-American scholar in the academic field of international relations and geo-political analysis. This article is a dead on study of “Russia vs. West” historical game, executed with a dimond cut precission, insightful observation and fluent eloquency. A+!
30 Comment by G.S. on 11 April 2008:
Mr. Lewenberg,
Your brand of anti-Slavicism might fly over at Stormfront, but it doesn’t impress anyone here.
31 Comment by Eagle on 11 April 2008:
I would echo Mr. Masirevic and add that Dr. Trifkovic is in the top echelon of AMERICAN experts in the field, not merely Serbian-American. The logic applied in his anlaysis cuts past detractors’ claims of slavic bias.
32 Comment by Michael Averko on 13 April 2008:
RL:
Your rhetorical points are severely skewed. The Clinton administration looked the other way when Iran armed the supporters of Muslim fundamentalist Alija Izetbegovic in Bosnia. The supply route was via Croatia, with the Croats skimming from atop.
The US and Saddam had a definite relationship as well.
Post-Soviet Russia hasn’t supported Jihadi terrorism against the West. On the other hand, the West has had some perplexing stances on such terrorism when directed against Russians and Serbs.
Rodina is no longer around and never held presidential power in Russia. Contrary to your misguided sarcasm, the Orange Guard in Ukraine, Saakashvili in Georgia and some Latvians and Estonians are from being innocent on the matter of fomenting misguided tensions in the former USSR.
BTW, most key Russian officials don’t come from a KGB and-or FSB background.
To be pro-Serb and pro-Russian isn’t in itself anti-Western.
33 Comment by james on 13 April 2008:
@31Eagle
I second that statement. Unfortunetly there is only a handful of people who travel to Russia or spend time talking to people there, investigate whats really going on most notable examples being Peter Levalle, Robert Bruce Ware and Paul Murphy. The fact that Putin has a 70% approval rating after 8 years and its first baby boom since the collapse of the Soviet Union should show whats being presented in the media is not a reality.
You forgot “organ harvesting terrorists of Pristina today” hope you right a column about this soon.
On Euronews it said 30 countries have already recognised Kosovo primarily US and EU states. Thats a disgrace! Where are the protesters complaining about that the way they protested about Tibet. Serbs in Kosovo are facing far more oppression than Tibetians in Tibet.
34 Comment by Ron Lewenberg on 13 April 2008:
Eagle wrote:
“By “backed Iraq” and “supports Iran”, what exactly do you mean? Diplomatically voices concern over blatant and unjust aggression against national sovereignty? ”
No, I mean seeling them arms and aiding Irans nuclear program.
“Was it Russian secret services funneling money to jihadists, or American? ”
Soviet and Russian intelligence have been subsidising Islamist militants and anti-Western terrorists for over 50 years. Do just not pay attention?
“As I recall, it was an American-propped Taliban that wreaked havoc in central Asia, most notably against its own people, and then later backed the elements that destroyed the World Trade Center. ”
We didn’t prop up the Taliban. We gave a few million for anti-drug programs. Try again.
“Did the Russian Army fight to retain control, or did it leave the former Soviet satellites peacefully? ”
Tell it to the Lithuanians murdered by Gorbachev. Or the support by Russia for warring factions against Georgia and Armenia, and the open threats against Ukraine.
GS,
I’m not anti-Slavic. I support a free Ukraine (and Beloruss). I want an authentic nationalist Russia, not one driven by revanchism into neo-communism.
But, yes I am anti-Slavophilic, since this is a specific pan-nationalist ideology of Russian or Soviet dominence of all Slavic peoples. Call is slavery on behalf of Moscow.
Mr. Averko,
“The Clinton administration looked the other way when Iran armed the supporters of Muslim fundamentalist Alija Izetbegovic in Bosnia. The supply route was via Croatia, with the Croats skimming from atop.”
Did I defend our Yugoslav policies? Nope.
“Post-Soviet Russia hasn’t supported Jihadi terrorism against the West. ”
And supporting Iran, which is fighting a proxy war against us costs no American lives. Oh, wait it does.
Giving diplomatic support for Hezbollah costs no western lives. Oh wait, it does.
“Rodina is no longer around and never held presidential power in Russia. Contrary to your misguided sarcasm, the Orange Guard in Ukraine, Saakashvili in Georgia and some Latvians and Estonians are from being innocent on the matter of fomenting misguided tensions in the former USSR.”
Tensions are real. Using oil embargoes, funding ethnic seperatist groups to foment civil war (which Russia will solve), is not peaceful.
Waging cyber war on Baltic states that dare repudiate Stalin’s invasion, definitely creates tensions. Tzar Putin does not believe in negotiating.
And unlike you and Putin, I see nothing invioloble or holy about the communist empire.
“BTW, most key Russian officials don’t come from a KGB and-or FSB background.”
A fish rots from its head.
“To be pro-Serb and pro-Russian isn’t in itself anti-Western.”
No, but to apologize for communists and communist-lovers revanchist dreams of anti-American empire is.
35 Comment by Allen Wilson on 14 April 2008:
Mr Lewenberg, no one here is defending communists or communist lovers, nor any dreams of anti-American empire. Nor is Russia a revanchist state heading towards neo-communism.
36 Comment by Michael Averko on 14 April 2008:
Talk about distortions.
As is true with some others here, I’m clearly not Communist.
Estonia recently elected a key Brzehnev era Communist. Moldova is governed by an elected president, who is a member of the Moldovan Communist Party. In comparison, the Communist Party in Russia isn’t as influential.
Russia didn’t create the ethnic tensions in Georgia. The post-Soviet Georgian governments have left a good deal to be desired. Anyone not seeing this isn’t in sync with reality.
Likewise, the Orange Ukrainian, Latvian and Estonian sides have their own imperfections which Russia rightfully opposes. BTW, are Orange Ukrainians “Communist” for supporting Ukraine’s Communist drawn boundaries?
Actually, Al Qaeda seems to have more of a Saudi and Pakistani connection than Iranian. FYI, Russia recently voted yes on a UNSC resolution critical of Iran.
37 Comment by Eagle on 14 April 2008:
Mr. Lewenberg,
So let me get this straight, slavophile Russia was selling arms to Iran, and Iran, in turn, was selling arms to Bosnian Muslims to kill slavic Serbs which Russia is, in turn, propping up as part of a grander pan-slavic project??
I am not claiming that Russia is pure, but neither is the US. And I utterly dispute some pan-slavic claims. If they were true, Russia would be doing far more to prop up Serbia’s economy, polity, and military. They are in fact, outside of diplomatic efforts and some medicinal convoys to Kosovo Serbs, doing far less than you claim. In fact, Russian foreign minister Lavrov recently stated in no uncertain terms that Russian military involvement in Kosovo was not forthcoming.
What I find peculiar is that it seems like the US government would like to corner Russia such that it is forced into a more aggressive stance vis-a-vis the US and western Europe. Why this is so is a key question and my best guess is that the US fears at some point a Russo-German EU which could supplant the “Anglosphere” as the dominant world power in economic and military terms. This is not pan-slavism at work. The slavic world even if united could not achieve this. But a united continental Europe could.
38 Comment by G.S. on 16 April 2008:
@Eagle:
“US government would like to corner Russia such that it is forced into a more aggressive stance vis-a-vis the US and western Europe. Why this is so is a key question…”
I’m afraid the answer is much less rational than the one you propose, bearing more resemblance to the hostile relations btwn Oceania, Eastasia, and Eurasia in Orwell’s *1984*.
The American elite class needs the American people to see Russia — or whoever — as the enemy, so that it never occurs to the American people that their real enemy may reside a bit closer to home…
39 Comment by Simon Newman on 17 April 2008:
Overall, good piece. However:
“In reducing Russia to a land-locked Muscovy from without and subverting it from within, “the West” is acting irrationally and to its own detriment. It appears like it cannot help doing so, as if Samuel Huntington’s notion of ‘civilizational blocks’ determines Western attitudes to the Orthodox East…
…their survival, let alone revival, was scarcely imagined but a decade ago, except on Western terms, as faithful imitation of, and absorption in, the postmodern, post-Christian, postnational “West.” ”
This is the exact opposite of what Huntington advocated. Huntington says that the Orthodox world is different from the West, and attempts to assimilate it into the West is a Bad Idea. Conversely he’s not against inter-civilizational cooperation, eg the West and Orthodox civilisations cooperating to help survive the Islamic threat. Huntington wants the West to act in its own self interest, which may mean cooperation or confrontation with other civilisations, depending on how aggressive and universalist they are. Currently the two aggressive & universalist civilisations are Islam and the West – but Islam is gaining power and the West is in relative decline, a bad position for a Western global jihad. Huntington wants the West to be more particularist, less universal, and more realistic.
Admittedly at one point in Clash of Civilisations he does say the West/USA should ‘constrain China’, which does not follow from his prior argument. His argument is Paleocon, but there are neocon/neoliberal influences that can make it unclear and have even allowed wild misperceptions, such as the idea that he believes in the West ‘transforming’ Islam, or Russia, or China. No, no, no.
40 Comment by Eagle on 17 April 2008:
G.S.,
I won’t claim that my guess is ironclad; it is a guess based on the interpretation of events and an application of strategic thinking.
I would think other reasons also drive the decision to provoke Russia, but I believe they are secondary. Yes, their is the “yankee” cultural reflexive anti-Orthodox sentiment. But there is also a reflexive anti-Catholic sentiment (certainly not as pronounced as the former, but it exists none-the-less).
And, yes, I agree that the oversized government and her contractors will always need boogey-men to slay in order to justify growth in numbers and spending, but why not stick to the more easily fabricated boogey-men that are in reality small to non-existent threats (say, North Korea, or the nebulous and ubiquitous “evil doers”) rather than create an actual and powerful enemy (Russia) unless you have a real objective to accomplish other than the presence of a symbolic boogey-man?
No, it’s not simply creating the illusory “other” in this case. Russia, with actual and potential capacity for economic growth, combined with an independent mode of thinking, represents a real and growing threat to global Anglo dominance. If continental Europe, particularly Germany, sways her way, the Washington-New York-London axis will be considerably diminished in their capcity to “call the shots”. And this scares the snot out of the Anglo elites who control the spread of democracy and freedom (Anglospheric military hegemony), free-speech (Anglospheric media), and free trade (Anglospheric currency, trade and banking).
41 Comment by james on 18 April 2008:
@40Eagle
I dont think EU states are going to fracture and join an alliance with as the European Psyche is historically anti- Russian perfect example is the European/US installation of communism in Russia. Also politicains in theses countries are members of globalist organisations like Council on Foreign Relations which is anti-Putin.
42 Comment by Eagle on 18 April 2008:
James,
I am not commenting on the probability of the outcome, but am considering the necessity from Russia’s viewpoint on pursuing such a path.
Further, the New England establishmentarian and English psyches are reflexively and deeply anti-Russian; the continental Europeans not equally and inflexibly so.
Additionally, we are discussing a game playing out over the long-term.
Finally, what the many (small) European countries believe or believe not is utterly irrelevant because we live in a world where big power politics counts. Russia and Germany are the big and growing powers of continental Europe. The small countries will follow where they go, one way or another, should those two powers get fed up and tell the US to stop meddling and leave their continent.
43 Comment by Allen Wilson on 18 April 2008:
Huntington is right in much of what he says, but I have always taken issue with the idea that the Orthodox east is somehow a completely separate civilisation from the west. The Western world began in Greece, but Greece is now part of the Orthodox east. Should we now reject our Greek cultural inheritance because it is ‘Eastern’? Yes, there are differences between different parts of Europe, but if we consider the Orthodox east to be a separate civilisation, then why not consider the protestant Northwest of Europe a separate civilisation from the Catholic Southwest, or at least an incipient one, still in the process of separating over the course of time? It would be no less absurd. There is a single Western world, it includes Russia and all European orthodoxy, and it included Byzantium as well. It’s time for the infighting and backstabbing between cultural, racial, and religious brethren to stop so we can face the external threat.
44 Comment by G.S. on 18 April 2008:
“…why not stick to the more easily fabricated boogey-men that are in reality small to non-existent threats?”
Good point.
45 Comment by AP on 20 April 2008:
>> The Western world began in Greece, but Greece is now part of the Orthodox east. Should we now reject our Greek cultural inheritance because it is ‘Eastern’?
and how did “Eastern Orthodox Religion” influence Plato, Archimedes and Aristotle? Are Greek atheists, Buddhists or Muslims less “Greek”? Nope. So stop trying to tie religion with Greek’s past. The fact that Greece was the cradle of civilization does not mean that Eastern Orthodox is “it.”
46 Comment by Allen Wilson on 21 April 2008:
AP: Thanks for your arrogant, hateful, ridiculous post. Now you need to point out exactly when and where I said that Eastern Orthodox religion ever influenced Plato, Archimedes, or Aristotle. If you cannot do so, then do not ask a stupid rhetorical question. If you think I’m ”trying to tie religion to Greece’s past’, then perhaps you are not smart enough to understand what I was saying. What are you, another one of those anti-Orthodox bigots, or just an all around, hateful anti-Christian bigot?
Yes, Greek atheists, Bhuddists, and Muslims are in fact less ‘Greek’ because they are turning their back on their own cultural heritage, and Greeks who adopt Islam are also traitors to their country, to God, and to their culture and heritage.
If you think I meant to say that ‘Eastern Orthodox is “it”‘ because Greece is the cradle of civilisation, then perhaps you need to learn how to think coherently.
Take your insults and hateful personal attacks elsewhere.
47 Comment by AP on 22 April 2008:
wow! No hate on my part, just a statement. There was no need to answer with an avalanche of loaded words.
Let’s follow up on your logic: Given that Christianity was not Greece’s first religion, why aren’t Christians traitors to the cultural heritage? Most of what made Greece “Greece” happened well before Christianity took root there.
Suppose I am a Greek, DNA proves it, and I am proud of my heritage but my family never adopted what was then a new religion, Christianity. Why am I less Greek than you?
For the record, I am a Catholic and genetically Greeks are our closest relatives, but I am not Greek. And no, my family had nothing to do with the fourth crusade.