M.D. Nalapat
Manipal, India — The Soviet Union became a
superpower during the rule of Josef Stalin, who terrorized those territories
that he did not immediately annex. After the 1939-45 war, the USSR controlled
Eastern Europe and challenged the primacy of the United States and its European
partners across the world.
But since Stalin’s death in 1953, Moscow
has almost always given way when confronted with a resolute Western response.
Nikita Khruschev blinked hard in Cuba in 1962, with the United States agreeing
only to avoid another invasion of Cuba -- a course that anyway had been shown
to be folly a short while earlier -- in exchange for a humiliating withdrawal
of Soviet missiles from the island.
Throughout the Cold War, although Moscow
enjoyed considerable conventional military superiority in Europe, its forces
never once strayed beyond the boundaries set in 1945. Had it done so, the
history of Europe may have been different in that such tensions would almost
certainly have affected the economic environment negatively.
As it turned out, it was the USSR that
imploded economically, drained both by a dysfunctional central-command system
as well as by military spending that would have been justified only if the
armaments so expensively procured were put to use to secure geopolitical gains.
The Afghan war most exposed the strategic
cowardice of the Soviet leadership. At any stage in the decade-long conflict,
an attack on Pakistan would have resulted in the immediate drying up of the
flow of supplies from across the border to the mujahideen. It is unlikely that
the United States and other NATO partners would have risked a flare-up of
Warsaw Pact-NATO tensions in Europe by seeking to protect Pakistan from a
Soviet assault. Peshawar and other centers of Afghan resistance would have been
pulverized by Soviet bombing, and international jihad -- which today has
morphed into a severe threat to international security -- would have lost its
Afghan-Pakistani sanctuary.
Today, it is the United States that is
following in the timid footsteps of the USSR, by winking at the blatant support
given from within Pakistan to a re-energized Taliban, thus dooming to eventual
failure the NATO mission in Afghanistan.
The Russian invasion of territory belonging
to the independent state of Georgia has shown that the rulers in Moscow have
analyzed the numerous instances when Moscow gave way to NATO, and come to the
conclusion that these have been without any reciprocal benefit. This is similar
to the assessment of some within the Indian strategic community regarding
India's self-restraint when juxtaposed with the absence of concessions the
country has received for its exemplary record on nuclear and missile
non-proliferation.
The combination of bluster and cowardice
that characterized both Khruschev and Brezhnev has given way to a ruthless
acceptance of risk and violence that marked the tenure of Josef Stalin.
Although only a middling economic power, its nuclear and missile might has made
modern Russia a military colossus, impossible to challenge except at the cost
of a war that would devastate Europe. Clearly, the authorities in Tbilisi
miscalculated the frequent expressions of support from the United States and
the European Union as implying a serious commitment to defend their country
against a Russian attack -- a bluff that Moscow has now called.
Next on the menu will be Ukraine, which for
strategic reasons cannot be allowed to enter into a military alliance with the
Western powers. Russia has exacted a considerable geographical cost to Georgia
for its decision to side with the West, and a partition of Ukraine may follow
any move by Kiev to follow the Georgian example of seeking to bait the Russian
bear.
A Sino-Russian condominium has become a
reality in today's world, and this formation possesses both military and
economic muscle. Ironically, it is the policies of George W. Bush and Dick
Cheney -- measures that have had the consistent effect of pushing up oil prices
-- that have made it possible for Moscow to show up Washington's support to
Georgia as so much hot air.
Should the Chinese and Russian militaries
expand their cooperation and conduct joint exercises, including in the European
part of the Russian Federation, it is not certain that NATO would risk a
nuclear conflict to protect Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary from Russian
pinpricks. With the separation of Slovakia from its territory, the Czech
Republic has already "paid its dues" to Moscow, and will thus enjoy
greater freedom to mesh its strategic establishment closely with its western
neighbors.
Interestingly, Russian Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin now gives the example of Kosovo to justify his invasion of
Georgia. The forced breakup of Yugoslavia -- begun by Germany's backing for
Croatia in 1992 -- has created a useful precedent for the redrawing of
boundaries in Europe. It may soon be copied in Ukraine, following on Russian
successes in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Despite three decades of economic reform,
the political system in China has remained authoritarian, with powers vested in
the Communist Party that would have met with the approval of one of the party’s
icons, Stalin. As for Russia, although some of President Dimitry Medvedev's
personal advisors may seek to emulate Mikhail Gorbachev in linking Russia
firmly with Europe, the reality is that the current president of the Russian
Federation owes his selection to the “siloviki” who are the heirs of
post-Yeltsin Russia, and not to any democratic process of candidate selection
such as that witnessed in the United States over the past year.
Should Medvedev fail to back those intent
on ensuring a return to the "good old days" of superpower status, he
will very soon either be rendered ineffective or replaced "on grounds of
health." It is Vladimir Putin who represents the actual ruling caste in
Moscow, a group that sees itself facing a steady diminution in Moscow's
geopolitical space after Boris Yeltsin replaced the Communist Party in 1991 and
followed a policy of conciliation.
The Bush-Cheney oil dividend, combined with
the generosity of U.S. corporations such as Walmart, have enabled Moscow and
Beijing to present a challenge to the West that they expect will begin a
process away from Western primacy over the globe, replacing it with a new
"Lukewarm" War.
-(Professor M.D. Nalapat is
vice-chair of the Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair, and
professor of geopolitics at Manipal University. ©Copyright M.D. Nalapat.)
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