Putin, John McCain, and a very Russian American

I thought it was interesting that Ethan decided to do his latest current event on an opinion post, so I thought I might do the same. The story I read was a response to a response to a plea. My opinion page comes from a Russian News Website called “Pravda,” the same news site in which John McCain recently published an opinion piece in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s appeal to the American people that was published in "The New York Times." The appeal can be found here, McCain’s rebuff can be found here, and the actual opinion page I am writing about can be found here. I would love if someone would check the legitimacy of my "Pravda" links. While reading the articles in "Pravda" I couldn't shake the feeling that "Pravda" wasn't terribly trustworthy; however, "BBC" references McCain's article here which suggests that "Pravda" is legitimate. I'll let you check the sources and decide for yourself. 

Allow me to give a brief chronological summary of these articles. Back in the midst of congressional debates over Syrian intervention, there was a lot of noise coming from Russia, who supports the Assad regime. On September 11th, only a little under two weeks ago, the Russian President Vladimir Putin published an opinion page in "The New York Times" directed toward the American people. In it he urged America against intervention using some shifty rhetoric. The biggest hole (and the ultimate downfall of Putin's appeal) was his concluding paragraph when he took a stab at what he called "American exceptionalism." I feel that this is the most significant part of the article and I will explain why later. On the 19th of September, Senator John McCain published an opinion piece in "Pravda" which offered a pretty emphatic attack on the Russian government and its legitimacy which was almost assuredly a response to Putin's appeal. He called Russian officials corrupt and made claims that he believes more in the Russian people than the Russian government does. On the 23rd, just yesterday, another opinion piece was published in direct response to McCain's article by Mike Lazuka. In it Mike Lazuka calls himself an average American citizen and he ridicules McCain and other American politicians, calling them corrupt in a vehement appeal the justice of an underprivileged mass, or at least the sentiment would imply so. 

My article is not a direct response to any one of these articles; instead, I am addressing the denoted sentiments in all of these articles. Allow me to return to Putin's stab at "American exceptionalism." Putin's appeal was a leaky sink and that anti-American sentiment came dripping out of a very maltreated hole. It is a very Russian sentiment to believe that Americans are a pretentious, arrogant people, and I am sure that it is not exclusively Russian. The sentiment is assuredly the thought child of cold war sentiment, sort of how we still refer to Russia with a tinge of animosity. I'm sure that when Putin decided it was time to grab the attention of the American people, he couldn't pass up the opportunity to give America a little soap box talk. I do not believe that all or even a majority of Russians hate America; however, I do think that there are quite a few that are aggravated by us a little more than occasionally and that Putin's hit-and-miss concluding paragraph exemplifies this. 

Onto McCain. There was a lot of indignation at Putin's pretensions. A slew of opinion writers rose up to attack the violation of American ideology and to attack Putin himself. Americans viewed Putin's article not only as thinly veiled hostility, but vaguely hypocritical. I am also sure that the fact that Putin's appeal was directed to the American people over the heads of their elected, decision making representatives was felt as a kind of patronizing move to a lot of politicians. McCain's attack was probably some combination of all the aforementioned sentiment. Why not take the opportunity for our Compact Constitutional Democracy to take a couple of swings at Russia? It has long been considered effective rhetoric to drop a couple of "corruption" bombs in your attack of a foreign state. Corruption as an accusation has become pretty nebulous, after all. This is not to suggest that McCain's accusations were incorrect. This is not either to suggest that they were correct. This is to suggest that McCain's response was probably birthed much more out of indignation than a sense of concern for the Russian people. I think it was more of a response to the fact that Putin challenged America and that McCain didn't want to leave that fact hanging. I think as a galvanizing agent for the Russian people it was ineffective.

Onto Mike Lazuka. Honestly this perspective doesn't sound average at all. It sounds like a lot of teenage angst piled onto some voting rights. Whoever this was kind of sounds like a conspiracy theorist (maybe a little paranoid?). There was a lot of "trust no one" and "the bourgeoisie feed their children off of blood money" rhetoric in there. I think the bourgeoisie as a political and economic entity are a very real part of the world; however, I don't like it when people use the concept of bourgeoisie as a default accusation, relying solely on the pathos of the concept to persuade their listeners. It's almost sacrilegious. If you forget what really defines the bourgeoisie and the concept becomes more about mud slinging than it does about the dangerous economic extreme of skewed wealth and power than you become desensitized to the reality of the bourgeoisie. That can become dangerous. I really don't think this opinion page should be regarded with real consideration, or at least with much less consideration. The entire article isn't erroneous, but it really doesn't work as a galvanizing agent and it really is too biased to be representative of large demographics, Russian or American. If you can filter through all of the noise and lights there are some interesting things to consider. Probably the most prevalent is that it was published. If "Pravda" felt that the article would appeal to at least some of their readers then there must be some Russians who found this article very agreeable, and that would suggest some very anti-American sentiment.

As far as the articles go, I think both Putin and McCain make some very good points. I actually agree with Putin's "American exceptionalism" attack. I think that both arrogance and jingoism are dangerous and I think that Putin is referring the American versions of both those ideas which are relatively prevalent in our society. America is exceptional, but exceptional does not imply superior. I think we will dig ourselves into the same hole the Romans did if we don't reconcile a little bit of humility. As soon as humility in a society is recognized a lot of problems disappear. Responsibility, both individual and governmental, becomes more prevalent and a lot of issues take care of themselves, such as personal debt and a large amount of the need for welfare. 

I also think some of McCain's accusations have meat to them. Putin has shown himself to be impatient with protesters and with dissent. There have been a fair amount of people arrested for this action. The last Russian presidential election still shows some signs of illegitimacy. If these accusations hold true, than maybe McCain is more correct than we initially thought. 

The summation of all of this is supposed to be that Russia still holds a fair amount of anti-American sentiment and that this should be recognized and considered as we deal with Russia in the coming months and years.

   

Russia Proposes Syrian Cooperation to Avoid U.S. Attack

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24022866

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/world/middleeast/kerry-says-syria-should-hand-over-all-chemical-arms.html?hp

Both of the above articles, one from "BBC" and the other from "The New York Times," give different accounts of the same event. 

Recently Secretary of State Kerry was asked if there were any measures Syria could take to avoid U.S. military intervention. Kerry responded that Assad could relinquish his entire chemical munitions stockpile within the week. Russia, taking advantage of his rhetoric, proposed just that: Syria submit all illicit chemical stockpiles for inspection and then eventual destruction. The articles raised several concerns which include the fact that Assad still denies possession of the Sarin gas used and the fact that this could merely be a ploy to distract President Obama from his already difficult task of swaying congressional approval. 

There are several key points to consider with this proposal. Both of the aforementioned concerns are valid and problematic. The first of them, Assad's denial of possession, is a large road block. There is more evidence that Assad does posses chemical munitions than not, such as the evidence procured by the U.S. and U.N. used in Kerry's earlier accusations, and the fact that Syria's major ally, Russia, has given no such denials. Assad is up to his neck if he really is guilty of chemical warfare, and even if there weren't so many logistical consequences of his actions to consider, after such vehement denials, it would be embarrassing to the dictator to procure the munitions. In short: Assad will probably want to save face more than he will be eager to deter American intervention and appease his allies. 

The second of them, the theory of ploy, is also valid. Russia's actions are shifty. This is the first real cooperative stance that Russia has taken on the issue since the Syrian business began. There are two prominent possible explanations to this sudden change of heart.

The first of which is that Russia is merely buying time for Assad to win the war or to secretly dispose of his chemical cache (or something else along those lines). Obama is struggling to win congressional approval, especially in the House of Representatives. If the vote on the issue was today, the House would almost assuredly vote against intervention, even if every representative who is currently undecided voted in the affirmative. Most all of the President’s efforts in the past weeks have been focused on intervention. If Russia continues to push for compromise and the strongest sentiment behind intervention continues to be the use of chemical weaponry, then the President would have to seriously consider the offer. If the President immediately denied what seemed to have been the nonviolent solution to the issue, then allegations of the U.S. being an imperialistic warmonger would have a lot more stick than they usually would. Russia could be counting on this to buy their ally the aforementioned time that it desperately needs.

The second explanation is that Russia is very afraid of the solidity of American intervention. With events like Iraq and Libya as examples, the chances of Syrian victory against the United States in a war, even one that only included the U.S. air force and navy, are next to none. Syria holds Russia’s last foreign military base and one of the best points of access Russia has to the oil-rich Mediterranean, so Russia has very large incentives for the current Syrian regime to remain in power. Short of entering war against the U.S., Russia encouraging their ally to relinquish their chemical weapons seems like the most plausible way to save Syria from America.

Plausibility of the solution aside, the fact that Russia is making cooperative moves is a good thing. Although Russia isn’t the threat it was when it was part of the USSR, it is still a major power house that is to be reckoned with and still harbors a fair amount of anti-American sentiment. Russia feels threatened by the United States in many ways by things such as its unrivaled military which occupies a fair amount of the globe and its economic standing in the world. The current President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, in my opinion, is a scary man in regards to global stability. He is not proven himself to be a patient man when it comes to vocalized dissidence and the previous election still vaguely reeks of illegitimacy (not to mention is the physical epitome of a James Bond villain). It feels like he harbors some of that anti-American sentiment and a lot of the Syrian situation has aggravated that. So these recent actions are more comforting in regards to Russian-American relations.

As far as whether or not the U.S. should comply with the Russian proposal, time should be the judge. Russia may or may not pursue the proposal and depending on whether or not congress votes to support intervention, it may become the only available solution. I think Obama should continue his efforts to sway congress in favor of a limited involvement policy (“no boots on the ground”) and let the results of that determine with what seriousness we regard the Russians proposal.