Mainstream media has published a great many reasons for state officials, editors & commentators believing we should see Russia as a threat. What might be the basis for these fears, real or irrational?
The EU is preparing a thirteenth round of sanctions against Russia to coincide with the second anniversary of the beginning of Russia’s special military operation. It is as good a time as any to ask why the West is acting in such a way.
On the face of it, taking into consideration the sheer number of wars the USA and its allies have initiated over the last two decades, and the millions who have died or been displaced, Russia’s single intervention regarding Ukraine would appear to be small beer indeed. It would appear there is more to this than meets the eye.
You could be forgiven for thinking that the leaders of the western world conceive themselves to be in a life and death struggle with Russia over Ukraine. Could it be that this is exactly how they see it? Is it possible that there is an overall western elite plan that Russia’s action has interfered with? Or, are the western allies merely acting in what they see as a preemptive, strategic manner due to their fear that Russia wishes to reconstitute the Soviet Union and restart the Cold War? Or is the reason a combination of these factors or even something else entirely?
Looking things over we see that the antagonism displayed against Russia predated the start of her operation in Ukraine. Since a certain address given at a security conference in Munich ‘way back in 2007 Putin at least became the prime geopolitical target for western political and media elites, and no doubt for western intelligence agencies also. However, it was not only Putin who received criticism, the military policies of the Russian state as a whole were certainly looked at askance.
THE WARS IN CHECHNYA
Boris Yeltsin was president of Russia during the entire period when Russia fought the First Chechen War (December 1994 to August 1996) and was president also for the first five months of what is called ‘The Second Chechen War’ (August 1999 to December 1999).
A cursory glance over search results using the word ‘Chechnya’ is all it takes to glean the approach western media and political leadership took to Russian activities there. So, it isn’t just Putin that concerns the West though you might think so due to the frequency of Putin’s name being used rather than Russia in reports stretching back decades. Uniformly in common media and political parlance ‘Putin did this… or that‘ when the activity being described was a function of the Russian state or military. So, it’s not just Putin. What else could it be?
THAT SPEECH IN MUNICH
Though we have just concluded that the main reason for the West’s fervid and abiding angst regarding what is going on in Ukraine is not exclusively down to Putin alone, his statement to its elites in Munich on February 10th 2007 can be seen as a primary source of concern for them. In it Putin told them in plain language that though Russia would work in coordination with the western powers on all major areas of international concern (nuclear proliferation, international terrorism etc.) Russia would not be dictated to by any one nation or group of nations. This went down extremely badly at the time and whereas before this speech Putin had been somewhat feted globally he was now consigned to being a virtual pariah. At least in the West. Why was this?
9/11 convinced the political elites of the USA that it was absolutely vital that there should be zero future opposition to the U.S. and that further to this goal no opposition or alienation from the USA could any longer be tolerated. The USA, known as the world’s policeman before 9/11 would now move forward to be the world’s surveillance office, warder, judge, and where necessary executioner. All nations must submit to this new reality, know their place and act in the way the USA required at all times… or suffer the consequences. So, Vladimir Putin (who had assisted the USA in its war in Afghanistan) now standing in front of them saying that Russia would NOT be dominated or told what to do… not be told how high to jump in other words, didn’t sit at all well with these western elites. So he became their Public Enemy #1.
IT’S MORE THAN MUNICH - IT’S SPHERE OF INFLUENCE
As we saw regarding the Chechen wars it’s not all down to Putin. When it comes to the war with Georgia it was both Russia AND Putin however. Though, as even the BBC’s flagship TV news programme ‘Newsnight’ admitted at the time the situation regarding Georgia and South Ossetia was complex and much blame could be put at Georgia’s door, it has been Russia, and Putin, who have been blamed ever since. Russia came to the aid of the Russian-speakers of the region when they came under attack from Georgian Grad multiple launch rocket systems and subsequently quelled the violence. Russian peacekeepers have been there ever since. Despite this conflict having an equally complex history to those in Chechnya Russia got the blame and continues to get the blame in the West.
Russia, according to the seemingly regime change-addicted West, is not supposed to have any sphere of influence no matter what it must endure in its neighbourhood. One wonders what it is meant to do when a crisis breaks out involving extreme violence breaks out on its borders, simply wait it out and hope for the best presumably. Only the western powers are allowed the right to have not only one, but many spheres of influence. At times it appears to reduce to only one rather large sphere, one that encompasses the entire globe. If the collective west conceives the entire world to be its responsibility (for whatever reason) then we can see that others exercising their own local influence is not at all welcome and is in fact to be slapped down and that nation be firmly put in its place.
RUSSIA IS UNWILLING TO BE ‘PUT IN ITS PLACE’
As we know from Putin’s speech of 2007 the signal coming from him and the entire Russian political elite was that Russia will NOT be put in its place. After all, it had overcome a great many painful and deeply tragic vicissitudes in its long history to be confined to a kind of obedient serfdom. The USA had suffered an atrocity that created a national tragedy on 9/11, one that can be compared to a degree with the Holocaust suffered by the Jews, a tragedy and atrocity held by the state of Israel to bestow on it an allowance to perpetrate certain acts others are forbidden from (as we see now in Gaza). However great these atrocities were we can see that the unique status afforded themselves by these states due to these atrocities contributed to the allowance they gave themselves as unique states, states some would say who were bestowed of a special place by their god. Russia however, even though it had lost some twenty seven million of its citizens co-winning the Second World War was and is seen as having no right to self-protection. Russia is not willing to accept this.
WE WON THE WAR
If you ask around in the USA, UK and in most of Europe who won WWII the most common answer you will get is “Britain and America”. Some may mention Russia but the numbers doing so will be minuscule. Russia became marginalised across the western political and media spheres due to the advent of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact. The words Russia and russian became dirty words in the era when the phrase ‘Better Dead Than Red’ was commonplace. The demonisation of Russia and Russians permeated western cultures to their subconscious core. Those who are perceived as ‘other’ become dehumanised and instead of real and normal flesh and blood humans they become in the subconscious mind sub-human, something lesser and objects of fear and loathing. In this way the foundation of a deep-seated fear and antagonism toward anything Russian was laid in deep. Despite the part the Russian state and people played in the winning of the war.
PUTIN WANTS ALL UKRAINE, THEN TO BRING BACK THE SOVIET UNION
As Professor John J. Mearsheimer has repeated many times there is not a shred of evidence that Vladimir Putin’s goal (it is always Putin’s goal, not Russia’s) ever was to take all of Ukraine and neither is there any that he (it) wants to recreate the Soviet Union.
‘John Joseph Mearsheimer (born December 14, 1947) is an American political scientist and international relations scholar who belongs to the realist school of thought. He is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He has been described as the most influential realist of his generation.’ (Wikipedia)
Those who say Putin (it is always Putin) wants the Soviet Union back point to a statement he made saying that the fall of the Soviet Union was a great catastrophe for the Russian people. What they do not relate to their listeners however is the context in which he made this remark. The object of his sorrow was that ethnic Russians in the moment of the collapse were left isolated from their motherland as the Soviet Union fell. His clearest statement on whether the Soviet Union should be remade goes something like this however:
“Those who do not regret the fall of the Soviet Union have no soul. Those who want it back however have no brain.”
But the above does not stop the array of western leaders who are now ringing alarm bells by saying that Russia is coming for their nations. As Professor Mearsheimer has also said, Russia has neither the capacity nor the inclination to even take the whole of Ukraine, never mind the Baltic States and Western Europe. It hasn’t the inclination (poisoned chalices all) the money (Russia’s economy is small compared to that of the former Soviet Union) or the military (think of the long slog to take 20% of Ukraine x 100-1000).
THE WEST SIMPLY WANTS IT ALL
Staying top dog as long as you possibly can is an addictive pursuit. You get used to the ‘good life’, the power, the control, the status. You feel good, you feel you have ‘arrived’. You are looked up to, respected, perhaps feared. What you say goes and if it doesn’t, well, you’ll want to know why. Few give up the privileges of wealth, influence and power easily. In the case of individuals the end does come no matter what you do. But with nations that sense of entitlement, bolstered as it is by innumerable myths, prejudices and continuing desire for all the benefits that accrue, get passed down from one set of ‘owners’ to the next. Benefactors are few. Those who have it all and want to keep it are far and away in the majority. And when you have always had immense power to wield to keep all these things you tend to use it.
THE LION IS WOUNDED AND DYING
Mortally wounded beasts strike out at almost all around them, seeing danger in just about every location. The immensely powerful beast of the USA with its also powerful gang members around it, has started to become afraid that its power is waning. Decade after decade the North American beast has been virtually all-powerful, just like its god. Born as the perfect state with perfect laws, perfectly good intentions and an appetite for perfect exploitation of everything their god gives, it was always destined to become a formidable force. They, the good, had come from very bad Europe and from innumerable other ‘very bad’ places to found the most perfect country possible. Annihilating the native population in the process was simply an easily ignored footnote in their glorious history of perfection.
But what’s this? They are not loved for their “perfection”? Too many now hate them and wish them ill. Time to straighten up, build those muscles and smite these unbelievers. Time to take them down a peg or two if they’re getting too strong. Time to fight and show them what we can do if they dare threaten us. We are perfection. Who do you think you are!
But still the beast knows it is wounded and can feel that more keenly with every passing day. ‘They’ want to quarantine us, ‘they’ want to treat us as criminals when we are the most holy, the most good… we are without blemish or bad intent. Yes, we may make mistakes but they are only that, honest mistakes. Learn from us. Hear our teachings. We will bring you the holy fruits of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’. Just trust us as we kill who we must to bring the peace which guarantees your access to them!
But still the beast knows its blandishments are falling on increasingly barren ground. It is confused and angry, pointing at those others ‘over there’ who must be responsible for its pain and for denying it the birthright of perfection which it is entitled to… and now begin to refuse to be subservient.
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