The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming (back to Cuba)!
Russia has quietly reached an agreement with Cuba to reopen a Soviet-era spy base on America’s doorstep, amid souring relations between Moscow and Washington.
The deal to reopen the signals intelligence facility in Lourdes, south of Havana, was agreed in principle during President Vladimir Putin’s visit to the island as part of a Latin American tour last week, according to the newspaper Kommersant.
(London Guardian, July 16, 2014)
There’s nothing quiet about media reports on this agreement of course. My opening line alludes to the 1966 comedy film, which depicts the Cold-War hysteria that ensues after a Soviet submarine beaches on the New England coast. This reason it is so apt here is that media reaction to this agreement is emulating the hysteria that film depicts.
Mind you, Putin has taken pains to deny these reports:
Russian President Vladimir Putin denied media reports that Russia was planning to reopen the Soviet-age SIGINT facility in Lourdes, Cuba, once was largest foreign listening post of its kind, but shut down under U.S. pressure.
(RT, July 17, 2014)
Except that this is the same Putin who took pains to deny reports about Russia’s intent to annex Crimea, only to do just that without any hint of contradiction or hypocrisy mere weeks later. Indeed, in this relatively advanced age of technology, when the NSA can spy and eavesdrop on every movement and sound on the planet, Putin seems determined to continue using Hitler’s “Big Lie” tactic – even if, far from fooling anybody, it just makes him look like a delusional fool.
More to the point, though, reopening military bases (in Cuba and the Arctic), re-annexing territories (in Ukraine and Georgia), and reestablishing military alliances and financial institutions (to counter NATO and the IMF/WB) are all pursuant to Putin’s own master plan to revive the Soviet Union. And the elixir of life in this respect is oxygenating propaganda that would make even Joseph Stalin blush … or make North Korea’s Kim Jong-un green with envy. It is beyond Orwellian….
The problem, however, is that Putin is repeating the same foolhardy, spendthrift mistakes that led to the demise of the Soviet Union in the first place. Nothing demonstrates this quite like the way he made such a public show, during a state visit to Cuba on Friday, of forgiving $32 billion of its Soviet-era debt.
This would’ve made sense, mind you, if Putin did it in exchange for sweetheart business deals. But China’s far more sensible and shrewd president, Xi Jinping, had already struck (most of) those deals, which he intends to seal during his own state visit to Cuba next week. More to the point, Xi did it pursuant to China’s master plan to wield, with hard cash, the kind of superpower influence the Soviet Union wielded, with military might.
While the United States is accusing China of gaining superpower-economic status by cyberspying, China is gaining superpower-political/military status by brazenly buying up alliances all over the world.
Indeed, it is no accident that Xi is holding a summit in Trinidad with leaders from the Caribbean and Central America before meeting in California with Obama.
(“Obama to Lecture China’s Xi on Cyberspying…? Puhleeese,” The iPINIONS Journal, June 4, 2013)
Frankly, Putin is just wasting billions trying to make Cuba as strategic to Russia today as it was to the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. The strategic folly of this is surpassed only by the billions he wasted showcasing this year’s Sochi Winter Olympics at a cost of $51 billion, especially when juxtaposed with the $6 billion Canada spent putting on the Vancouver Winter Olympics just four years ago.
All that’s left now is for Putin to deploy weapons there and trigger another Cuban missile crisis. Never mind that I’m on record affirming Russia’s right to establish a full-scale military base in Cuba or anywhere else, especially given that it’s currently projecting power abroad with a mere 15 military bases, while the United States is doing so with nearly 1000. (I decried prevailing American hypocrisy in this respect in “D-Day that Saved the World?” June 6, 2014.)
In fact, I don’t mind admitting that I appreciate Putin’s motivation. After all, he’s only trying desperately to project Russian strength and pride after decades of the United States not only dancing on the Soviet Union’s grave, but also trying to jam its prerogatives as “the world’s sole superpower” down Russia’s throat. Most notable in this respect was establishing military alliances (in Russia’s backyard) with republics of the former Soviet Union, after assuring Russia it would not do so. (I’ve written many commentaries on this dynamic over the years, including most recently, “Putin Took Crimea more out of Resentment and Fear than Imperial Ambition,” March 24, 2014.)
But only this sense of pathological resentment explains why Putin would risk bankrupting and isolating Russia – by forgiving billions here, throwing away billions there, and, even worse, engaging in tit-for-tat (or as Putin says, “boomerang”) economic sanctions with the United States and European Union.
Except that growing existential resentment among Russians will, in due course, surpass Putin’s superpower resentment. Because he’s not only misappropriating their money (while they are wallowing in Dickensian poverty), but also sending their sons, disguised as Ukrainian separatists, to die in his vain attempt to control even more Ukrainian territory.
The annexation of Crimea, the media offensive against Kiev and the threat of military force against Ukraine are President Vladimir V. Putin’s ultimate response to Russia’s own failures. His latest actions are a veiled recognition that all of his other efforts to prove that Russia is regaining the Soviet Union’s status as a global superpower have come to nothing.
(New York Times, April 17, 2014)
Meanwhile, just as President Ronald Reagan was prepared to play tit-for-tat for as long as it took for the Soviet Union to spend itself into complete disintegration, President Barack Obama seems prepared to do the same for as long as it takes for Russia to spend itself into further degeneration. Obama telegraphed this intent at the White House yesterday, when he delivered a statement on the unprecedented conflagration of challenges the United States is currently facing … as the world’s sole superpower:
We live in a complex world and at a challenging time…
None of these challenges [namely, Ukraine’s fight for sovereignty from Russia, Iran’s attempt to develop nuclear weapons, rampaging jihadists calling themselves ISIS/ISIL terrorizing Iraq, and the ongoing conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians] lend themselves to quick or easy solutions, but all of them require American leadership…
I’m confident if we stay patient and determined that we will, in fact, meet these challenges.’
(The Associated Press, July 17, 2014)
Again, Putin is engaged in a foolhardy, costly, deadly, and ultimately unwinnable geopolitical-chess game. But I fear it’s game on between him and anyone who stands in the way of his neo-Soviet ambitions.
Related commentaries:
Obama lecturing Xi…
D-Day…
Putin took Crimea…
Groundhog-day flare up between Israelis and Palestinians… (in light of the ground invasion Israel launched into Gaza this afternoon)