Stephen Cohen has an article titled;
The New Cold War
. Cohen argues that the main threat to American security remains Russia and that the American policy approach to Russia since the Cold War is exacerbating that threat.
Cohen points to many statistics of a Russian state in decline since the 1980s. It is under-going depopulation, demodernization and is suffering wartime death and birth rates. Additionally there is little to no public support or confidence in the governmental institutions outside of Vladimir Putin.
Cohen sees Russia as forming a threat to the US through either Balkanisation as the political, economic and ethnic divisions result in further disintegration of what was once the Soviet Empire.
The other possibility he mentions is the increasingly autocratic government and oligarchic economy enabling virulent authoritarianism and nationalism. Regimes of this nature tend to spread disruption to their international neighbours.
Cohen identifies two policies toward a fragile Russia which Washington has undertaken;
one decorative and outwardly reassuring, the other real and exceedingly reckless. The decorative policy, which has been taken at face value in the United States, at least until recently, professes to have replaced America's previous cold war intentions with a generous relationship of "strategic partnership and friendship." ... The real US policy has been very different - a relentless, winner-take-all exploitation of Russia's post-1991 weakness. Accompanied by broken American promises, condescending lectures and demands for unilateral concessions, it has been even more aggressive and uncompromising than was Washington's approach to Soviet Communist Russia.The latter policy is the encirclement of Russia with American bases in parts of the old Soviet states such as Ukraine, Georgia and Azerbaijan. Cohen argues that this doctrine entails that Russia has no legitimate interests outside of its own sovereign territory. He also argues that America has interfered in Russian internal affairs as well, basically not treating it with the fearful respect that it did during the Cold War. This has lead to a 'chill' in Russian-American relations;
The extraordinarily anti-Russian nature of these policies casts serious doubt on two American official and media axioms: that the recent "chill" in US-Russian relations has been caused by Putin's behaviour at home and abroad, and that the cold war ended fifteen years ago. The first axiom is false, the second only half true: The cold war ended in Moscow, but not in Washington, as is clear from a brief look back.Cohen links this behaviour to the triumphalism of the ending of the Cold War which was claimed as an American victory, rather than a Soviet-American mutual decision to end the conflict.
One was to treat post-Communist Russia as a defeated nation that was expected to replicate America's domestic practices and bow to its foreign policies. ... From that triumphalism grew the still-ongoing interventions in Moscow's internal affairs and the abiding notion that Russia has no autonomous rights at home or abroad.Russia still has a veto on the United Nations, but neo-conservatism has done an end-run around multi-national institutions as the United States seeks to restate its right for national sovereignty and international hegemony. In reality, Russia is being treated little differently to other nations under the neo-conservatist foreign policy doctrines coming from the White House. Cohen's claim that this is not new to the Bush Administration is true, but the Clinton White House had similar views on US hegemony and the on-going reach of its military. In terms of rhetoric and behaviour surrounding that doctrine, Clinton was less abrasive internationally than Bush II has been. The Cold War was an economic one that centred on social and economic organisation. The Soviet's did lose that competition. Liberal democracy and a market economy were better able to provide prosperity to its people. Additionally those forms of organisation were better able to provide political stability to its institutions, effectively minimising the destructive effects of corruption and arbitrary government. Communism, as practiced by the Soviets could not compete and collapsed under its own weight. Autocracy and oligarchy are not much better than the prior Soviet political and economic organisation. The west is right to point this out to Russia. Even though the west is going through its own collapse into executive decree in the Washington and Westminster systems, there are enough checks and balances that executive decree is hitting barriers. The spread and reach of American military has meant that any nation which is an American ally has an American base on its territory. Australia has two for instance. It is only really Russia, China and Iran who do not now; and even they are surrounded by fixed bases and American blue-water projection from its carrier groups. American policy has been destructive in the past, the action in Iraq has had a destabilising effect on the region, as well as oil markets. Russia again is no different in this respect. America plays power politics hard and spares the whip for no nation - not even a longtime lapdog ally like Australia. This is effectively the world-order that Russia, like other nations, has to exist in. So what should Russia's policy be? Putin has been building new sympathetic states to the Kremlin between Russia and EU/NATO; such as Belarus and a failed attempt at the Ukraine. This will fail, the best means to capture the world's attention is to build a thriving internal economy. Do that and every nation will want to be Russia's friend. China has discovered that despite being a one-party state, the west wants a part of the new Chinese prosperity. Russia has enough people that even if it maxes out in GDP per-capita, it will be one of the world's biggest economies. This, coupled with Russia's existing military power and entrenched status in multi-national institutions from its Soviet days, will ensure that America and other nations wont be able to push too hard against Russia. Russia doesn't have to Americanize to achieve this; but it will have to adopt more liberal political and economic policies, and this is where Russia has failed. Cohen has a point that American policy toward Russia should be more aware that Russia could be at a tipping point internally where it adopts a path that can lead to greater international disruption. But it is naive to think that American policy will change to allow a 'Russian exception'. Power politics is selfish and focused on internal advantage. The only exception America will follow is American exceptionalism. It stands that other nations need to put themselves in a position of strength in this environment and the path Russia has taken under Putin does not achieve this. cam
