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RedditElsewhere in The Nation, Stephen F. Cohen makes the point that neither John McCain nor Barack Obama have properly addressed U.S. policy toward Russia. He provides a capsule history of recent U.S. blunders in regard to Moscow, which have caused a nationalist reaction in that country. And he properly bemoans that fact that both McCain and Obama "have promised to be 'tougher' on the Kremlin than George W. Bush has allegedly been and to continue the encirclement of Russia and the hectoring 'democracy promotion' there, which have only undermined US security and Russian democracy since the 1990s."
In Obama's case, at least, one reason why the Illinois senator may have adopted that point of view is that he's getting advice from some of the hardest of hardliners on Russia policy. Most prominent is Michael McFaul, who, if not a neoconservative, is a well-known advocate for a bare knuckles approach toward Russia.
McFaul is a political scientist at the Hoover Institution, on the campus of Stanford University. He's back there after a stint in Washington, during which he provided advice to President Bush about Russia policy. And now he's advising Obama.
From a Stanford profile of McFaul, he describes what he calls a "turning point in his life":
McFaul's passion for studying Eastern Europe reemerged in 1988 when he visited Russia to interview Soviets on the ways they influenced African communists. While the research project proved "a total bust," McFaul calls the year "a kind of turning point in my life." It was then that he encountered a woman who put him on the path to his current interests and new book. An African studies scholar and dissident, she told him that if he was seeking true revolutionaries, he should stay in Russia and meet her contacts who, by the way, were trying to overthrow the Communist state."She introduced me to some anti-Communist revolutionaries, people who seemed pretty kooky at the time, frankly," McFaul recalls. Their free-market and free-election-oriented "Thatcherite" politics seemed gravely out of place in the Soviet Union. "It would be the equivalent of meeting someone here ... who said we should have Marxism-Leninism as an ideology and we should create a one-party state."
Nevertheless, these "crazy" activists captured McFaul's attention. He went so far as to help members of a group called Democratic Russia get in touch with Western agencies and foundations [including the Hoover Institution--RD] who gave them money to support their activities. McFaul got funding to spend more time in Moscow, where he attended mass meetings and got to know the opposition leaders better.
"I just kind of soaked in the historical moment," he recalls.
You can see an interview with McFaul here, in which he criticizes NATO for not going along with Bush's plan to expand NATO to include Ukraine and Georgia, something that would be seen in Moscow as tightening the noose around Russia. Obama supports the expansion of NATO.
Last year, McFaul slammed Time magazine for naming then president Vladimir Putin its "Man of the Year":
"In the 1990s, so the Time story goes, Russia was a place of lawlessness, economic depression, and instability. In the last decade, however, Russia has become a place of order, economic growth, and stability. The cause for the change: Putin. As [Managing Editor Richard] Stengel theorizes, 'Individuals can make a difference to history, and Russia's Vladimir Putin, our choice for 2007, proves the point.'"
But McFaul doesn't care about stability, since his main goal vis-a-vis Russia is to call attention to the autocratic nature of Putin's rule.
Dmitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center in Washington, is one of the capital's experienced Republican party "realists," and a fierce opponent of the neoconservative school of foreign policy. When I spoke to Simes, he said that Obama is getting advice not only from McFaul but from Zbigniew Brzezinski, another hardliner on Russia. "Brzezinski and McFaul are not known for their desire to engage Russia on anything," says Simes. "If McFaul is representative of Obama's foreign policy thinking, it's difficult to imagine that there will be any sort of positive engagement with Russia if he is elected." Still, Simes suggests that Obama is a kind of blank slate with little or no track record on Russia.
i always try to fix my own groove before i make others fix theirs.
unless, of course they ASK for help.
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/02/2008 @ 9:41pm
McBama '08 -- A Brand YOU Can Trust!!!
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/02/2008 @ 9:42pm
Doesn't DREYFUSS know KvH probably wants the US to get tougher w/Russia.....her `contacts' or those she admires over there are all suffering or getting murdered?????
Posted by 2HAPPY at 07/02/2008 @ 10:58pm
I really hope that I'm not slipping too much into a "but seriously, bad arguments" funk, but...seriously, bad arguments.
First off is the Stanford profile of McFaul. What is problematic about any of this?? He disliked the communist Soviet Union and favored forces that would overthrow repression there. I understand that there are stability concerns, but it's not like the Soviet Union itself was a huge promoter of stability...also, it was a brutal dictatorship.
Second, I thought this was particularly ironic:
<<Last year, McFaul slammed Time magazine for naming then president Vladimir Putin its "Man of the Year"...But McFaul doesn't care about stability, since his main goal vis-a-vis Russia is to call attention to the autocratic nature of Putin's rule.>>
Wow, this is interesting, coming from someone that I'm willing to BET was not happy about US support for anticommunist dictatorial regimes during the Cold War.
I don't understand what the problem with this guy is. Literally his position is "stable tyranny is still hideously unjust." Yes! That's just true.
Posted by Thrawn at 07/02/2008 @ 11:16pm
Posted by Thrawn at 07/02/2008 @ 11:16pm
What's your beef with post-Yeltsin Russia? They've got oligarchs. We've got oligarchs. It's a symbiotic relationship. Guess who the mentor was?
Posted by Sorelish at 07/02/2008 @ 11:38pm
<i>Posted by Sorelish at 07/02/2008 @ 11:38pm </i>
Before I go into my post, I want to make it clear that I harbor absolutely no disrespect towards you, even if I disagree profoundly with your position. That said...
Um..hmm...yeah, us and post-Yeltsin Russia? Not really analogous. One, our elections are Actually Elections, they're not just "wow, the guy Putin likes won by 97%!" More participation would be nice, but that doesn't make elections illegitimate, it just means that our public square needs to be more robust. Two, relatedly, our country isn't run (contrary to the rhetoric of someone) by people with dictatorial or expansionist ambitions. Three, freedom exists here, even if you disagree (as I do to an extent) with particularized limitations on it. Seen any people Bush didn't like murdered lately? Thought not. If you'd like me to elaborate, I'm more than willing to. Though I can certainly grant that the move to capitalism within Russia may have been to quick, without reestablishing all of the necessary institutions that the Soviets utterly demolished, it's not like the current state is trying to be "as much like the US as possible." This is silly.
Here's the great thing, though. Even if it were...the argument still doesn't work! Even if you think there are problems with the US' system, that doesn't make it wrong to ALSO criticize other systems. The implication of this argument is literally that Dietrich Bonhoeffer would be unjustified in criticizing Italy for being fascist! Therefore, even if the first premise of the argument is correct (which it isn't remotely), the argument still fails.
Posted by Thrawn at 07/03/2008 @ 12:09am
our country isn't run (contrary to the rhetoric of someone) by people with expansionist ambitions.
Posted by Thrawn at 07/03/2008
have i got some marshland on the tigris to sell you!
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/03/2008 @ 12:30am
One, our elections are Actually Elections,
Posted by Thrawn
live hard, DIE BOLD!
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/03/2008 @ 12:33am
it just means that our public square needs to be more robust.
Posted by Thrawn
here's a nifty read:
http://tomdispatch.com/post/174951/rick_shenkman_american_stupidity
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/03/2008 @ 12:34am
it's not like the current state is trying to be "as much like the US as possible.
Posted by Thrawn
actually, it may be the other'way'round.
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/03/2008 @ 12:35am
Hehe, Frosty, I can't help liking the clever way in which you frame your responses. Despite this, though, I think that a lot of them are either nonresponsive or problematic.
<<have i got some marshland on the tigris to sell you!
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/03/2008 @ 12:30am>>
This is in response to my claim that the US isn't expansionist. What do I mean by this? That we don't have a particular desire to "occupy," as it were, the world or to claim greater territory than we currently possess. Granted, the extent of our military bases across the world IS in somewhat of a state of tension with this, but I still don't think that reflects out-and-out expansionism. Nor do I think that the case of Iraq, which you allude to here, poses a serious challenge to my point. It's not as though the US went in with the intention of controlling Iraq from that point on; once it was stabilized, we wanted to get out. In fact, one of the most notable trends in US military interventions is a HESITATION to even participate in a conflict where we expect meaningful casualties, and a desire to leave as soon as we've fixed the specific problems we've caused. See, for instance, Rwanda.
<<Posted by frosty zoom at 07/03/2008 @ 12:33am >>
Ahh, Diebold, the classic response to free and fair elections. Three responses. One, there is certainly no demonstrative proof that rigged machines delivered the victory to Bush in Ohio, and maybe if Gore had even won his home state Florida might have been less important. Two, the cases in question also deal with situations where the candidates were very close percentage-wise in votes, in contrast with a "favorite of the current ruler" who just happens to win with 90-some-odd percent of the vote. Three, more broadly, free and fair elections indubitably exist. I think that's pretty clearly established by any reasonable investigator, which distinguishes us very easily from Russia.
<i>here's a nifty read:
http://tomdispatch.com/post/174951/rick_shenkman_american_stupidity
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/03/2008 @ 12:34am</i>
This is interesting, actually, and I have to agree with a lot of the stuff Shenkman says about the extent to which the public is often uninformed. Though I do think basic moral questions are things about which virtually anyone can have a reasonable opinion, I do think the extent to which people are often uninformed about what fundamental policies even mean is deeply problematic.
So what does this mean? I think, honestly, that it exposes some of the fallibilities within our republic. There is no doubt in my mind that our society is far, FAR more democratic than that of Putin's Russia. At the same time, though, I think we still have some serious issues to confront. In addition to problems like poverty and homelessness, we need to really consider the troubling gaps in civil society. Although I think we've progressed a long way in education since schools were extremely scattered, unofficial and limited in virtually every way, the institutions which allow us to engage in and perpetuate discourse as a polity really do have serious issues. What, if any, concrete policies will solve them? I don't know, but I do think you're absolutely right that they need to be solved.
Posted by Thrawn at 07/03/2008 @ 02:29am
Alas, there's plenty of proof that Diebold helped the GOP steal Ohio; start with RFK Jr's book & go on from there, plenty of good leads.
And we know who sent the Brooks Bros mob down from GOP congressional offices to Florida to stop vote counting with force.
"It would be the equivalent of meeting someone here ... who said we should have Marxism-Leninism as an ideology and we should create a one-party state."
As Dick Cheney would say, So?
We have a one party state & the candidates get to fight it out to see who gets to serve The Owners, certainly not We the People.
Posted by sloper at 07/03/2008 @ 04:09am
'...Simes suggests that Obama is a kind of blank slate with little or no track record...' -- Robert Dreyfuss -- The Nation 2 July, 2008
'In a wide-ranging interview with Charlie Rose, [Bill] Clinton suggested Obama was ... inexperienced...' -- Ari Melber -- The Nation -- 15 December, 2007
'As we begin our fourth century as a nation, it is easy to take the extraordinary nature of America for granted.' -- Barack Obama -- 30 June, 2008
'…I promise you I'll learn about it by the time I leave here on the ride back to the airport...' -- Barack Obama -- 19 May, 2008
Posted by HonestLiberal at 07/03/2008 @ 09:17am
'As we begin our fourth century as a nation, it is easy to take the extraordinary nature of America for granted.' -- Barack Obama -- 30 June, 2008
Posted by HonestLiberal at 07/03/2008 @ 09:17am
No wonder Obama said we've got 57 states.....I must've missed out on a century's worth of new states coming into the union!
Posted by 2HAPPY at 07/03/2008 @ 10:40am
Well if McFauls ideas are the wrong ones, then what are the right ones? It is allways easier to criticize than create. What sort of barganing chips do we have now that Russia is sitting over millions of barrels of oil?
Posted by Extraneous at 07/03/2008 @ 11:35am
Well if McFauls ideas are the wrong ones, then what are the right ones? It is allways easier to criticize than create. What sort of barganing chips do we have now that Russia is sitting over millions of barrels of oil?
Posted by Extraneous at 07/03/2008 @ 11:35am
That's it! Finally, we know what Obama means with Change & Yes We Can ... 57 states & counting.
BTW: not expansionist? That's a hot one.
E.g. the US military has occupied 40% (forty percent) of Kuwait territory continuously since 1991. If you recall, Bullthrower Bush the First told us we were going to war in Kuwait to restore dem0cracy. Kuwait was a monarchy, of course, still is, notwithstanding an advisory parliament which serve at the emir's pleasure & which he ignores. Bush democracy.
Moreover, that Bush's ambassador to Iraq, dear April, encouraged Saddam to invade Kuwait, on Bush the First's orders, assuring Saddam that the US wouldn't object. That's the same US that was Saddam's recent ally in his war against Iran, cash & poison gas supplied by special Reagan emissary, D. Rumsfeld.
Nah, the US isn't in the least interested in expansion.
Yawn.
Posted by sloper at 07/03/2008 @ 11:39am
Posted by Thrawn at 07/03/2008 @ 02:29am
thanks for your response.
<i>thrawn (thrôn)
adj. Chiefly Scots
1. Crooked or twisted; misshapen.
2. Perverse; contrary.</i>
heheh!
anyhoo,
colonialism litish! -- imf, world bank, usaid, military bases -- take a deeper look.
legitimate elections -- obviously better than russia. while i do trust u.s. elections 17 times out of 20, plus or minus 5.7 times, the trends to return to 19 century "democracy" are quite worrisome. i think MEXICO did a much better job with THEIR election in 2000 than the SCOTUS did! plus, how "free" and "fair" are elections where you need $200 million just to get started?
be safe,
fz.
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/03/2008 @ 12:13pm
What sort of barganing chips do we have now that Russia is sitting over millions of barrels of oil?
Posted by Extraneous at 07/03/2008 @ 11:35am
t-bills.
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/03/2008 @ 12:15pm
<i>Posted by sloper at 07/03/2008 @ 04:09am </i>
As much as I hate to say this on a blog commentary section...your post seems to be just a huge collection of assertions, and considering the magnitude of those assertions, they require FAR more warrant than you're giving them. Could you please provide actual warrants for the claims you've made about Florida and Ohio, rather than simply "but RFK, a completely reliable and thorough source, talks all about it in his book"?
On the second part, about the one-party state claim, three questions? First, who are the "Owners" you speak of? AIPAC? Nope; that one's been debunked too many times to count. Arms corporations/Halliburton? Nope; military-industrial complex doesn't stretch nearly that far. So who? Second, what is is that constantly AND (in your view) destructively unifies Democrats and Republicans? It's not enough to show here that they have some common ground; without that, real democratic deliberation is impossible. You have to show that the common ground in question is destructive. Third, why bother having the two parties, then? I know this may seem like too easy a response, but really, how uncertain can the interests of these "Owners" really be? Frankly, I think this is a huge weakness of any position that suggests that the parties are really in thrall to some one specific group or individual. There are real, meaningful differences between Democrats and Republicans; their policies are very different and often have very contrasting effects. This isn't to suggest that there aren't times where certain domains of public policy are agreed on between Democrats and Republicans (like, finding some way to manage the Cold War as a clear US national security interest), but that's not even close to the massively anti-democratic system that you claim we have.
Posted by Thrawn at 07/03/2008 @ 12:27pm
The fundamental point to take away from this article and from many of Obama's past foreign policy pronouncements and recent actions is that, to cop a phrase from The American Conservative, he wants to make the world safe for liberal interventionism again. Multilateral if possible, unilateral if "necessary," Obama gives every indication that he will be bombing or starving more than one rogue state, and will do everything in his power to poke at the Russian Bear and, probably, at the Chinese Dragon.
Contrary to what Mask seems to think, I don't think Stephen Cohen or Katarina vanden Huevel are any more naive than Dimitri Simes, Pat Buchanan or the other conservatives, foreign policy "realists" and right-wing non-interventionists who have spoken out and written against the U.S.'s new Cold War against Russia, including in the pages of The American Conservative. Nor do I think that most other liberal, progressive or left Russia experts are naive about Putin or Russia.
Russia is a major power. Not as strong as us, but not one to dismiss. Much of its populace and leadership feels, with good reason, that the promises made to Gorbachev by Reagan and Bush I that brought about the end of the first Cold War were not kept by the U.S. - including not expanding NATO to Russia's door step - and have no desire to repeat either the shock therapy medicine cheered on by the West's bankers and elites, the corrupt privatization, or the embarrassment that became Boris Yeltsin and his sham "democracy" ("Up with Democracy! Bomb an Elected Parliament!").
None of the above should be used to dismiss who Putin is, what he stands for and how he is going about imposing it on Russia. I am all for direct, people to people, union to union support for journalists, dissidents and unions fighting against his regime. But I have no faith in the benevolence of the American or European elites when it comes to Russia and its people. They have spent the better part of the last 20 years grinding their noses into the ground, crowing over how "we" won the Cold War, "you" lost it, and "boohoo" over your exploding poverty, unpaid wages, falling life expectancy and every other indignity and trouble they have suffered. I hope the Russian working class finds its power and overthrows Putin. But I see no sense in provoking a nuclear-powered nation by encircling it with military allies, anti-missile defense shields (even if they don't work) and dozens or hundreds of bases and air fields. Of course they feel threatened. Christ, what do you think our reaction would be if the Chinese or the Russians signed a mutual defense agreement with Cuba and stuck an air field outside Havana and a naval base next to Guantanamo?
Oh yeah, something like that happened 45 years ago and we almost went to war over it. I suppose Kennedy and Co. were just overreacting.
Posted by cka2nd at 07/03/2008 @ 5:41pm
<i>Posted by sloper at 07/03/2008 @ 11:39am </i>
I think it's important to be very careful here. In terms of our military forces, absolutely they have a global scope. It is truly astounding, and disturbingly unknown to most US citizens, how many bases we have in countries around the world. In that sense, I think we have absolutely become an empire.
That's not what I'm challenging, though. What I'm challenging is the claim that we're expansionist, meaning that we have a desire to control vast expanses of territory and more or less make it our own. I don't really see compelling evidence that this is the case. I'm pretty sure Kuwait's ambassador was never "ordered" to relay any messages from Bush, nor did the Bush Administration (either one) have some kind of "international-community-commanding" position. Could Bush Sr. garner the SUPPORT of the international community (as he did for Gulf War I)? Absolutely. Did he "command" them? Not at all.
<i>Posted by cka2nd at 07/03/2008 @ 5:41pm </i>
A couple of things here. First of all, I think you have some valid concerns; some of the ways we dealt with the ex-Soviet Union left a good deal to be desired. I actually think that we should, if not in the past then certainly now, have invited Russia to JOIN NATO rather than have it be seen as some kind of hostile force even when the Cold War was over. I wouldn't go so far as to say that the American leadership doesn't care what happens to Russia; I think that's an unwarranted leap.
By the way...do you actually believe that Russia, RIGHT NOW, feels militarily threatened??? Do you think they are actually so insane as to believe that America not only believes that Russia is a direct and serious threat (though their friendliness with China is reason for concern), but would actually consider an ATTACK despite the danger of nuclear weapons involved, the virtual impossibility of conquering the Russian terrain, and the general lunacy of invading Russia?? And yes, I know some posters may say "but wait, they invaded Iraq!" Not at all analogous. No, Russia cannot use "we feel threatened" as an excuse, though it certainly is a convenient excuse for Putin and his ilk to maintain their dictatorial power (Actually dictatorial, as contrasted with the insane "George Bush is a dictator" nonsense that sometimes makes its way into political discourse).
I'm also glad to see that no one has seriously attacked McFaul's advocacy here, because it's literally "but aren't bad things bad?" Yes, they are. Oppressive dictatorship is bad, no matter how powerful or "stable" the dictator happens to be.
Posted by Thrawn at 07/05/2008 @ 01:15am