For Vladimir Putin, who grew up knowing nothing of a world not
divided by the Cold War, his return to confrontation with the West
is like finding his lost security blanket.It’s a return to the
familiar, to the intellectually comfortable. It’s also self-created
and self-serving.
The fateful Russian disease of paranoia works well to justify a
seemingly instinctive aggressiveness of Putin and his old KGB
comrades. The difference between now and the past is that present
day Russia has a relatively stable and growing economy, an open
door to friendship with America and Western Europe and, if it would
only take advantage of it, is in a position to act as a major
peacemaker in the Middle East.
The trouble with this political portrait is that Western leaders
have let Putin get away with his display of gorilla-like breast
beating. In recent days Vladimir Putin has done everything
convenient to him to provoke retaliation by Great Britain and the
United States.
The American announcement of plans to place missiles in Poland
and radar in the Czech Republic came as no surprise to Moscow. It
had been apprised of this long before and well understood there was
no intent whatsoever to target their country. The Russian reaction
was calculated and specifically timed.
The assassination of Alexander Litvinenko also was a well
thought out attack on Tony Blair’s government when Downing Street
steadfastly refused to turn over the exiled billionaire Boris
Berezovsky and his ex-KGB employee.
As a result there is an escalating expulsion of embassy
personnel in both London and Moscow. The Russians defiantly kicked
out the high-ranking British trade official responsible for all of
the U.K.’s commercial, economic and scientific affairs with Russia.
This was on top of the serious rupture by Putin’s government of
cooperation on counter-terrorism issues.
Putin this week has repeated that the “missile crisis” (his
term) now requires a major Russian military build-up including
substantially increased intelligence activity. (A conspicuously
disingenuous statement as Russian foreign intelligence ops already
have grown exponentially in the last several years.)
In a display of old Cold War rhetoric the Russian president told
a graduating class of military and security officers that their
country must respond to “American global threats.” In this same
speech, in a most derogatory manner, he attacked the British, “who
act as if they are still a colonial power.”
Why the vivid rhetoric and the threatening posture? The simple
answer is “because they can do it.” And one can add that they think
they can get away with it. The charismatic Blair is gone and the
dour Scot, Gordon Brown, was long considered as unwilling to be
confrontational in international matters. The U.S. administration
of George Bush has been adjudged by Moscow as an emasculated
political entity on both domestic and foreign fronts.
The timing was perfect for resumption of some form of political
warfare — if not an actual cold war, at least a stingingly biting
winter chill. Yet the question remains as to exactly why Putin
would choose to act now, if at all.
The answer is obvious enough. Vladimir Putin and his supporters
actually have found this a propitious time to restart a cold war as
a justified response to what they believe was exploitation by the
West after the fall of the Soviet Union. At least that’s what they
are pushing in international news circles.
Even Western-feted Mikhail Gorbachev has lent his support by
claiming America wants to “build a new empire…ignoring the UN
Security Council.” Opportunistic as ever, Gorbachev would like to
struggle out from under his countrymen’s view that he was
responsible for destroying the USSR.
It’s a good time politically to get on the anti-American
bandwagon. Russia for the first time since the communist revolution
is growing into a major economically viable nation. Moscow can take
advantage of the anti-U.S. momentum in the Middle East and
throughout the developing world.
Putin is a careful risk taker. Now is the time to move and he
has done so, and done it sharply. The question is whether he is
right about the weakness and preoccupation of the administrations
in London and Washington — or do they have the political ability,
and the will, to respond effectively?
The challenge is nothing less daunting than standing up to V.V.
Putin’s provocation of a new form of cold war driven this time by
the same raw national ambition but without the ideological cover of
the past.
