Every year Western leaders mark D-Day by hailing The Greatest Generation of Americans, Britons, Frenchmen, and Canadians who “saved the world.” Except that they invariably overlook the role Russians played.
This constitutes a historic oversight (or slight). Moreover, it is at the root of much of the resentment that has beset Russia’s relationship with the West ever since, making attempts to “reset” it so elusive.
I sympathize with [Putin apologist Stephen Cohen’s] assertion that Putin ‘had no choice but to react.’ Indeed, Putin could have based the address he delivered last week [defending Russia’s annexation of Crimea] on the commentary I published six years ago. For, in ‘Bush Digs His Spurs into Butt of Already Scorned Russian Bear,’ April 2, 2008, I warned Western countries about pushing Russia into a corner, explaining that this would provoke, if not goad, Putin into flexing his Cold War muscles.
NATO did not strike the military alliance with Ukraine that I argued would be tantamount to provoking war with Russia. Still, Putin could be forgiven for regarding the way the EU incited the overthrow of its pro-Russian president (to prevent Russia from striking an economic alliance with Ukraine) as no less provocative.
(“Putin Took Crimea More Out of Resentment and Fear than Imperial Ambition,” The iPINIONS Journal, March 24, 2014)
This quote reflects a little of my ambivalence over the way Obama is leading Western efforts to sanction Putin for annexing Crimea. Most notably, Western leaders have disinvited him from this week’s G8 summit, pointedly reclassifying it as the G7.
I fully support Obama’s determination to prevent Putin from emulating Hitler’s military aggression with impunity. I just detest the “do as I say, not as I do,” arrogance, if not hypocrisy, inherent in Obama’s rallying cry.
For example, he lectured Russia in Brussels yesterday about invading a weak neighbor like Ukraine. But I’m surprised he did not bite his tongue. This, given America’s invasion of weak neighbors like Grenada, Haiti, and Panama. Not to mention its far-flung misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
More to the point, though, far too many Westerners overlook the indispensable role Russians played, to say nothing of the sacrifices they made, to make D-Day the turning point of World War II (or as the Russians refer to it, the “Great Patriotic War”). Never mind the prevailing view among Russians that, by the time Westerners launched their D-Day offensive in June 1944, Russia’s greatest generation of men had already effectively defeated the Germans. That the Western allies steadfastly ignored Russia’s entreaties – from as early as 1942 – to join the fight laces Russian resentment with indignation.
In any event, I urge you to take a moment to reflect on this war, and how world history has unfolded since, from the Russian perspective. Because you too might agree that Putin had no choice but to “react” by flexing his muscles in Crimea.
Of course, this is hardly the forum to expound on the Cold War. Just bear in mind that its outcome was as humbling for Russians as the outcome of WWII was degrading for Germans. Indeed, it speaks volumes that Putin has famously lamented the former (i.e., the breakup of the Soviet Union) as the “greatest geopolitical tragedy of the twentieth century.”
With that, I urge you to consider these few points:
- From the Russian perspective, President Hollande inviting Putin to France to hail the pivotal role Americans, Britons, Frenchmen, and Canadians played in winning WWII is rather like Chancellor Merkel inviting Obama to Germany to hail the pivotal role Poles, Czechoslovaks, Hungarians, and Romanians played in winning the Cold War.
- According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s SIPRI Military Expenditure Database (April 2014), the United States spends more to maintain its worldwide military dominion each year (at $640 billion) than the next eight countries combined, namely, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and India (at $607 billion).
- The United States has between 700 and 1000 military bases in about 70 countries around the world. Russia has between 10 and 15 military bases in about 10 countries.
- Americans would argue that, instead of invading, their host countries invited them to build every one of those bases. But the Russians could argue with just as much conviction, even if not as much credibility, that host countries invited them too; not least in the case of Ukraine, where an infamous referendum three months ago authorized Russia to annex Crimea.
- How do you think Americans would feel if Russians had military bases – complete with nuclear weapons – in places like Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua; that is, the way Americans have them not just all over the world, but in so many countries right in Russia’s backyard? How do you think Americans would feel if Russians had aircraft carriers patrolling the Caribbean Sea, the way Americans have them patrolling all international waters, including the Black Sea?
I feel obliged to note that much of the reporting on China’s first aircraft carrier fails to mention that the United States already has eleven of them. Even Italy and Spain have two each. By contrast, when it launches its carrier, China will join Russia, India, Brazil, Thailand, France, and England with just one…
Even if China [or Russia] were to use its aircraft carrier to flex its military might around the world, it would merely be doing what the United States has been doing with self-righteous hegemony for decades.
(“China’s First Aircraft Carrier Incites (more) Irrational Fear,” The iPINIONS Journal, June 9, 2011)
- It’s imperative to grasp the unparalleled military dominion the United States has exercised on the world stage for decades. Because only then can one understand a little of Putin’s abiding resentment – his preternatural Napoleonic complex notwithstanding.
Enough said?
Mind you, despite these instructive points, I shudder to think of a world dominated by Russia instead of the United States. I just think the world would be an even better or safer place if the United States exercised its dominion with a little more understanding and humility and less self-righteousness and arrogance.
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