There comes a time in the onward march of history when a page is turned. Such was the end of the cold war. Since then the United States, with the United Kingdom steadfast at its side, has bestrode the world as the only superpower. Its agenda was the example to follow. Its model of capitalism was the best. Democracy was the right method of government. Local problems could easily be solved with military intervention. Eventually everyone would fall in line because the American way is the best way.
As part of this global vision, some might call it an imperial vision although Americans are opposed to the notion of empire, China with its own form of state capitalism has been embraced by the US, in spite of the fact that it is not a democracy and is still run by its Communist party. A deal was struck. America would take China’s manufacturing output; China would take America’s money and also buy its debt as deficits began to yawn. This is why America’s Forex reserves are down to $126billion and why China’s stand at a fraction under $4trillion.
Russia has however been a different story. While China made a relatively seamless transition from Maoism to the real world, Russia floundered in chaos under Yeltsin and had to wait for Putin before it even looked as if it could stand up without falling over. America and Europe somehow failed to connect with Russia during those times. Yes there was contact and there were projects, but no real partnership. Whilst the eagle seemed able to measure, read and cope with the dragon, it appeared unable or unwilling to understand the bear. Britain did not help. Blame the Russians has been the default option of the foreign office since before the nineteenth century Crimean war.
Meanwhile instead of everything moving forward on a upward trajectory, things began to go wrong. There was 9/11, the calamity of the Iraq invasion, lack of real achievement in Afghanistan, disaster in Libya, slaughter in Syria and a global financial crash as well. Russia looked on and drew closer to China diplomatically. There was trouble for the inheritors of the old soviet empire in both Chechnya and Georgia, yet somehow these were managed by Russia as national rather than international difficulties. The west watched and let Russia get on with it. The blue smoke belching in clouds from elderly tanks revealed a military capability of severe limitations.
As regular readers know I am more sympathetic to Russia than most of my fellow countrymen. I think I understand that when you look west from east it is a different perspective. My ancestors on my mother’s side lived for over four hundred years on the same estate farming the same land near the Baltic coast in an area now known as Kaliningrad, which since 1945 has been part of Russia. Except for a short period of the failed Weimar republic they survived and prospered without any notion of democracy. Further to the east, Russia itself has only been a democracy since the fall of communism. What Russians want from their democracy is a strong state which will guard and protect them and a strong leader who will make it function properly. They like a Czar by whatever name. This is why they like Putin. They see a West which has much to commend it and an America which has much to envy, but Russia is unique, it is their motherland and they will defend it no matter what. Even if the Czar is a butcher like Stalin.
As Russians see it they have tried to be friends with the West, but mostly they got the brush off from people who look down upon them and see the worst in them. A West which has entirely forgotten that it would still be under Nazi rule were it not for the forty million Russians who died fighting Hitler’s Germany. For twenty years the West has had its way, and America has been unchallenged as the power on the earth. That is now over. From now on there will be another voice, account of which will have to be taken. A huge military upgrade is in progress, with new tanks, planes, missiles and nuclear weapons on the way. How much of this Russia will be able to afford and how much of the new technologies will be reliable is not yet clear. What is clear is the state of mind. In future Russia will not let the West have its way unchallenged. China will be its diplomatic ally and in extremis a military ally as well.
This does not mean a new cold war. But it does mean from now on the West will have to think before it acts. Russia remains one of the two nuclear superpowers. We may be re-entering an era when one wrong move means the end of the world. The younger generations will have to get used to that.
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