The U.S.-Russia “phony war”: How Washington
warmongers could bring us from stalemate to catastrophe
One of two outcomes is likely: Another long Cold War, or a great
power conflict
By Patrick L. Smith
August 17, 2015 "Information
Clearing House" - "Salon"
- The Ukraine crisis and the attendant
confrontation with Russia assume a “phony war” feel these days. As
in the perversely calm months between the German invasion of Poland
in September 1939 and the Blitzkrieg into the Low Countries
the following spring, nothing much seems to be happening.
No one took comfort then—a fog of anxiety suffused
everything—and no one should now. One almost prefers it when
Washington politicians and other temporarily important people are
out there grandstanding and warmongering. At least part of what is
occurring is visible, even as the whole never is. Now one sees
almost nothing, and we get an idea of what the historians mean when
they describe the queasiness abroad during the phony war period.
A formidable file of political, diplomatic and
military reports has accumulated by drips and drops of late, and it
strongly suggests one of two things: Either we are on the near side
of open conflict between two great powers, accidental or purposeful
and probably but not necessarily on Ukrainian soil, or we are in for
a re-rendering of the Cold War that will endure as long as the
original.
One cannot look forward to either, the former
being dangerous and the latter dreary. But it has to be one or the
other, barring the unlikely possibility that Washington is forced to
accept a settlement that federalizes Ukraine, as Europe and Moscow
assert is sensible.
It is hard to say when this thought came to me,
but it has to be since Secretary of State Kerry’s May meeting in
Sochi with President Putin and Sergei Lavrov, his foreign minister.
That session seemed to mark a dramatic turn toward sense at the time
and won much applause, including here. But things have deteriorated
ever since.
“Kerry is now sidelined on Ukraine, it seems,
since his four hours with Putin last May,” a prominent Russianist
wrote in a personal note 10 days ago. “Another escalation by the war
party—headed, I think, by [Vice President] Biden, [Senator] McCain,
et al.”
That did it for me. We are not quite back to
square one, but we are not far from it. It is almost certainly
clearer to Russians and Europeans than it is to Americans, but
Washington acquired a forked tongue after the Minsk II ceasefire was
signed last February, and the warmongers are trampling those
favoring a negotiated settlement at this point.
A month after Kerry’s one-day visit to Sochi,
Senator McCain pitched up in Kiev yet again to deliver another of
his “shame” speeches. Europeans should be ashamed, he said, for
insisting on a diplomatic settlement in Ukraine and not doing enough
to back Kiev’s troops. That week, the Senate approved a bill
authorizing the Pentagon to send Kiev an additional $300 million
worth of defensive weapons.
McCain is one of those many on Capitol Hill who
have no clue where shame lies in Ukraine. A coup Washington
cultivated, producing a patently incompetent administration in Kiev
openly dependent on violence-worshipping Nazi nostalgists? Six
thousand dead and counting? A purposeful and absolutely pointless
revival of tensions across Russia’s western borders? No shame here,
Senator?
***
A few days ago came news that American soldiers
are to begin training the Ukrainian army this autumn. Given the
Pentagon has been training the Ukrainian national guard since April,
it is not too much to say Americans have assumed de facto control of
the Ukrainian defense apparatus. And no wonder, given the well-known
problems of corruption and incompetence in Ukraine’s military and a
lack of will among troops when ordered to shoot their own
countrymen.
This is the new micro picture. In the course of a
few months, Pentagon and State have re-upped their effort to
encourage the Poroshenko government to resolve its crisis with
rebellious citizens in the east of Ukraine on the
battlefield—foursquare in opposition to Franco-German efforts to
fashion a negotiated settlement in concert with Moscow. Washington
thus fights two fronts in the Ukraine crisis, a point not to be
missed.
As to the macro picture, it now shapes up as very
macro indeed.
As noted in this space a few weeks ago, Defense
Secretary Carter made a grand sweep through the frontline nations
where NATO will now maintain battle-ready materiel. Here are the
numbers behind the display: NATO has increased military exercises in
close proximity to Russia’s western border from fewer than 100 last
year—already an aggressive number—to more than 150. Reconnaissance
flights and airborne exercises bumping up to Russian airspace have
increased nearly tenfold.
NATO’s European missile defense system, while
altered during Obama’s first term, proceeds apace—if you can believe
it, still under the pretense that it is intended to protect the
Continent from short-term missiles fired from Iran. Who is this fig
leaf intended to fool, you have to wonder. I doubt even Tom Friedman
takes it seriously.
Is the Russian military in an expansionary mode?
You bet: new missile defense systems, a rapid reaction force
increasing to 60,000, new tank and artillery units, air force
upgrades. The country’s borders start to bristle, and for the same
reason they did during the Cold War decades: Russia’s perception of
a NATO threat on its borders is altogether realistic. Only
ideologues given to subjective reasoning and allergic to historical
causality—not to mention maps—could possibly think otherwise.
* * *
The timing here is remarkable. Kerry, the
Europeans, Russians and Chinese signed an historically important
accord governing Iran’s nuclear program on July 14. Obama thereupon
praised Putin for his cooperation—and it was key in getting the deal
done. Lavrov, as Kerry recognizes, is a gifted diplomat.
Two weeks and two days later Treasury names 26
more Russian individuals and companies to its sanctions list. So far
as I can make out, this was entirely out of the blue, in response to
nothing.
“Treasury Department officials made no reference
to the Iran deal in their announcement, or in a conference call with
reporters,”
the Times reported. I am sure they did not. They described the
list as a “routine step,” The Times added. I am sure it was not.
The usual explanation for these
things—bureaucratic muddle, officials in one cabinet silo declining
to cooperate with those in another—does not plug in this time. I put
this move down to either (1) another sop to Washington warmongers,
(2) a good-cop, bad-cop routine the administration is trying on, (3)
another skirmish in which the Kerry camp failed to prevail, or (3)
an outmoded notion of impunity wherein American officials think they
can do anything to anybody and there will be no comeback.
Ditto the latest on Malaysian Flight MH-17, downed
on Ukrainian soil last year, and the ongoing nonsense concerning
foreign-funded NGOs operating in Russia. Let us take these in order.
The Netherlands-led investigations into the
downing of MH-17 have been unconscionably, not to say suspiciously,
long in coming. The technical report on cause is due this October;
the one assigning responsibility could run into next year. There can
be only one reason the U.S. and other Western powers insisted on a
Security Council vote last week nominally intended to name a
tribunal to prosecute the guilty. Creating such a tribunal was out
of the question, as was clear in the circumstances; the purpose was
to prompt the Russian veto Moscow had made perfectly clear it would
exercise.
Ask yourself: Why else require Security Council
action when one of the five permanent members advised the other four
it would not accept it?
We had our cue immediately after the crash. Kerry
took the lead in vigorously, incessantly and irresponsibly insisting
that Russian-supported insurgents had brought the plane down with a
Russian-made missile. Any other explanation was cast as outside the
tent of the permissible: It was deranged or advanced in the service
of the Kremlin or flew in the face of plain facts, never mind there
were almost none established.
This was politics from the start, in short. Were
it otherwise, we all would have confined ourselves to mourning as
proper inquiries proceeded.
Who is involved in the inquiries as we have them?
The Netherlands leads Malaysia, Ukraine, Australia and Belgium. Fair
enough the Malaysians are in on this, but I will qualify the point
in a minute. Without qualification, what in hell is Ukraine doing
investigating an incident in which it may possibly be implicated? It
is already on paper accusing Russia of responsibility—a prima
facie disqualifier.
As to the Australians, way too Cold War-ish for my
money. The Belgians are a minor power but a cooperative Western
power all the same.
As you may have guessed, I have no patience with
the charade wherein ideology and politics do not animate this
question. In my view, the truth of the MH-17 incident was doomed
from the first by both.
Having a large number of victims among the dead
does not qualify any nation to participate in an investigation. In a
rational world this would disqualify them. Malaysian Airlines owned
and flew the plane: Yes, Malaysians ought to be part of the
inquiry—maybe even direct it. But a proper inquiry would be
comprised of internationally recognized investigators, forensic
scientists and jurists precisely from disinterested nations with
records of non-ideological judgments.
Julie Bishop, the Australian foreign minister,
after the vote: “The veto is a mockery of Russia’s commitment to
accountability.”
Bert Koenders, the Dutch foreign minister: “I find
it incomprehensible that a member of the Security Council obstructs
justice.”
Samantha Power, Washington’s U.N. representative:
“Russia has tried to deny justice to the 298 victims on that plane.”
See what I mean? Rubbish from fools rushing in.
None of these statements holds up as anything more than hyperbole
for the peanut gallery. It is all pretend. Yet these nations,
notably the U.S., propose to help determine who sits on a criminal
tribunal.
Here is Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s U.N. envoy, after
the vote: “Political purposes were more important for them than
practical objectives.” With no apologies, I find this the truest
thing said on the occasion.
Russia has since advanced its own proposal for a
way forward on the MH-17 incident. It advocates what it has wanted
all along: to internationalize the investigation by way of greater
U.N. involvement beyond the Security Council. It wants a special
envoy named, and it wants transparency by way of organization and
working methods. It does not ask to participate in the inquiry. And
it is critical of delays in the Dutch-led efforts.
I will say this simply: This is a rational
proposal. I make no reference whatsoever to its origin in reaching
my conclusion.
* * *
Washington, proving the point about consistency
and dull minds, never tires of criticizing Moscow, Putin in
particular, for its (or his) treatment of foreign-funded NGOs. Since
2012, they have been required to register as foreign agents—exactly
as the U.S. requires. Alert readers will recall how this ruling is
repeatedly used to advance the demonization of the Russian leader.
The “foreign agents” bit is put down as a Stalin-era cover to
suppress well-meaning people trying to do honorable things.
“MOSCOW, July 22—The MacArthur Foundation is
closing its offices in Russia after more than 20 years of
grant-making here, becoming the latest casualty of new restrictions
meant to limit the influence of foreign organizations in Russia.” So
wrote the New York Times two weeks ago.
Think about this. MacArthur set up shop in Moscow
during the Yeltsin years, when hyper-hubristic Americans thought
they were going to remake all of Russia in their own image. Yeltsin
had no objection, but unless you are unable to connect any dots at
all you will recognize this as a problem—an accumulating disruption.
Stephen F. Cohen’s book in this period, “Failed
Crusade,” explains this in startling detail.
What kind of organizations is MacArthur going to
fund? Its website says it “works to defend human rights.” The Times
says it backs “civil society organizations.” I do not know about
you, but when American do-gooders utter buzzwords like “human
rights” and “civil society” I am immediately wary of the intent. So
are Venezuelans, Russians and numerous others.
MacArthur is one of 12 NGOs and NGO-funders placed
on a kind of watchlist last month; they could be required to close
operations if their activities are deemed undesirable. Watchlist
became “blacklist” in a matter of a few paragraphs in the Times
account—a term the Times has a lot of nerve using—but never mind.
Others on it are George Soros’ Open Society
Institute (“…aims to shape public policy to promote democratic
governance,” its website explains), Freedom House (a notoriously
russophobic Cold War subversion machine) and the Charles Stewart
Mott Foundation, which began humbly enough doing community work in
Flint, Michigan, but is now up to its knees in “civic activism” and
“civil society development” in Russia and the former Soviet
satellites. A project Mott funded in June studies “citizen protests,
demonstrations, and discontent” in these nations. Just trying to do
the right thing, per usual.
What business do the MacArthur Foundation or any
of these other institutions have “shaping public policy in Russia?”
How many people other than Americans are phony enough to fold
deregulated private enterprise and free-market economics into a
definition of human rights? We Americans may be drowsy from the
lullaby of our excellent intentions always and everywhere, but the
conceit is preposterous. It is best to understand it in context and
with a brief history in mind—the kind our media will never supply.
My jaw hit the edge of my desk when I saw Freedom
House listed among the NGOs unfairly (the baseline assumption)
placed on Moscow’s watchlist. As many readers will know, this group
has gone around the world annually since the Cold War decades rating
all nations as “free,” “partly free,” or “not free.”
“Freedom in the World,” wherein this stuff is
published, is a blunt instrument, fair to say. So is “Freedom of the
Press,” another annual index. I love the 2015 map in the latter
book: All Western nations are colored green, having a free press.
Apart from Japan, Papua New Guinea, Ghana, Uruguay and a few specks
in the Caribbean, there is no free press anywhere else on the
planet.
Even if you agree with these assessments, Freedom
House is problematic, to put the point too mildly. Cuba has long
accused it of being a C.I.A. front, which is only administratively
untrue: It routinely takes funds from the Agency for International
Development, another U.S. government organization and a longtime
conduit for money deployed in the service of foreign subversions.
A few years ago the Financial Times reported that
State had used Freedom House as a conduit to fund “clandestine
activities” in Iran. “Far more often than is generally understood,”
the FT quoted Freedom House as asserting, “the change agent is
broad-based, non-violent civic resistance—which employs tactics such
as boycotts, mass protests, blockades, strikes and civil
disobedience to de-legitimate authoritarian rulers and erode their
sources of support, including the loyalty of their armed defenders.”
Paraphrase: We’re into coups. Straight to the
point, Freedom House started sending A.I.D. funds to Ukrainian
“civil society” NGOs, which did years of advance work prior to last
year’s coup, as early as 2004.
All of these groups claim to be independent of
government, but as Freedom House’s history illustrates, this means
only that Washington has outsourced certain of its unpublicized
policy functions. The Ford Foundation, the granddaddy of all
colluding NGOs, remains infamous for putting itself at the C.I.A.’s
disposal since the ethically retarded John J. McCloy ran the shop in
the 1950s and ’60s. At the Cold War’s height, McCloy has two or
three Ford executives permanently assigned to manage liaison with
the agency.
An incident last year caught my eye as an
illustration of how this computes out on the ground.
Last August Moscow expelled one Jennifer Gaspar, a
43-year-old lawyer resident in St. Petersburg for a decade. Gaspar
was been active in the “foreign agent” corner of the NGO scene and
is married to Ivan Pavlov, a human-rights lawyer who founded and now
runs the Institute for Information Freedom Development (a name I
appreciate for its spooky Cold War ring).
The institute’s latest financial report is
here. Take a
look at where it gets his money: A.I.D.; the National Endowment for
Democracy, which is also in the coup business and is funded by
Congress; Open Society; MacArthur; and Ford.
Last week, Moscow took its first action against an
American NGO, declaring the N.E.D. undesirable. Here one sees how
the game plays out.
No one seems to dispute the N.E.D.’s mission to
destabilize governments not to Washington’s liking. The media’s
trick—and they are ever-faithful to it—is simply not to describe the
mission. Carl Gershman, the N.E.D.’s president, is on the record
saying the agency’s work is to funnel funds to opposition groups in
countries such as Russia and Venezuela. The autumn prior to the coup
in Kiev he described Ukraine as “the biggest prize.”
Responding to Moscow’s ruling that the N.E.D. has
to go, Gershman wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post saying
it is “the latest evidence that the regime of President Vladimir
Putin faces a worsening crisis of political legitimacy.”
Huh? The guy has an approval rating of nearly 90
percent. This, you see, is how the game plays out—as much as
anything else a charade to keep Americans comfortable as their taxes
finance subversions.
Here is my take on this whole NGO scene in Russia.
Whatever good foreign NGOs may do—and there is some or even much,
surely—they should indeed go home. Three reasons.
One. These groups were as drunk on ideological
righteousness during the 1990s as Yeltsin was on vodka. This party
is over. If a single point above any other can be assigned to Putin,
it is that Russia is no longer a free-for-all. Again, Cohen’s
“Failed Crusade” tells the story.
Two. To assume Russians need American help in
achieving social justice, a vibrant public sphere, a free press and
an orderly democratic process is simply the height of silliness.
These are all questions Russians are competent to decide upon and
will. The flip side here: America is in crisis precisely because it
has none of the above.
Three. NGOland has long, long been too polluted
with mal-intended missions for any foreign power reasonably to
tolerate such agencies on their soil. And they slip more mickeys
into their drinks now than ever, it would appear. A lot of people,
in and out of NGOs, seem to think—or believe, faith-like—that
destabilizing Russia is a good idea. Sensible people know otherwise.
I still honor Sukarno, the charismatic Indonesian,
for his remark in 1964, by which time he was fed up with
Washington’s covert efforts to foment the blood-soaked political
purge and insurrection that would depose him three years later: “Go
to hell with your foreign aid,” the Bung, as he was affectionately
called, told Americans. Time and again it seems to apply.
* * *
Who knows how long our phony war with Russia will
last? It is hard to see through the fog, but I find in it one source
of comfort.
Washington has been stymied in Ukraine, and may
not have a next move. The client regime is too weak and unskilled,
the economy is destroyed, European objections to a military solution
too strong, and Russian resolve too firm. Hence this summer doldrum.
This column predicted American failure and retreat
in Ukraine soon after hostilities between Kiev and the eastern
regions broke out in the spring of last year. I hold to this. The
eventual question, not yet ready to be posed, is how big a mess
Washington will make as it withdraws. History provides no pleasing
answer.
Patrick Smith is Salon’s foreign affairs
columnist. A longtime correspondent abroad, chiefly for the
International Herald Tribune and The New Yorker, he is also an
essayist, critic and editor. His most recent books are “Time No
Longer: Americans After the American Century” (Yale, 2013) and
Somebody Else’s Century: East and West in a Post-Western World
(Pantheon, 2010). Follow him @thefloutist. His web site is patricklawrence.us.