Constantine Pleshakov - The Crimean Nexus

It is in our cultural code to choose David over Goliath, and a weaker nation challenging a stronger nation tends to attract our sympathy—as long as David and Goliath are not wrestling in our backyard, because, with humans, avoiding damage to self and property goes deeper than empathy.

Not just Davids but Goliaths too have interests, and we can’t ignore them on moral grounds. A founding editor of The American Conservative , Scott McConnell, wrote that after the collapse of the USSR the West could choose between two models—that of 1815, when the defeated France was brought into the Concert of Europe, and that of 1919, when Germany was ostracized under the Versailles Treaty. George H. W. Bush, continued McConnell, clearly thought along 1815 lines, but his approach was incrementally “reversed by his successors, first by the Clinton-Albright duo, and then by his son, and now by Obama, the latter prodded by his belligerent assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland.” [30] Scott McConnell, “NATO’s Wrong Turn,” The American Conservative , March 28, 2014, www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/natos-wrong-turn (retrieved November 22, 2014).

One can’t help noticing that throughout the 1990s the policy makers of the West generally ignored Russia’s national feelings. “Eat your spinach,” representatives of the West said to the confused, angry nation, expecting it to emerge a smiling happy democracy. A great testimony in this respect comes from Jeffrey Sachs, the American economist advising Russians on “shock therapy” economic reform in the early 1990s. For Sachs, the crisis in Ukraine proved the road to Damascus, and this is what he had to say about it: “It took me 20 years to gain a proper understanding of what had happened after 1991. Why had the US, which had behaved with such wisdom and foresight in Poland, acted with such cruel neglect in the case of Russia? Step by step, and memoir by memoir, the true story came to light. The West had helped Poland financially and diplomatically because Poland would become the Eastern ramparts of an expanding NATO. Poland was the West, and was therefore worthy of help. Russia, by contrast, was viewed by US leaders roughly the same way that Lloyd George and Clemenceau had viewed Germany at Versailles—as a defeated enemy worthy to be crushed, not helped.” [31] Jeffrey Sachs, “Viewpoint: Why the Shadow of WW1 and 1989 Hangs over World Events,” December 16, 2014, BBC Magazine , www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30483873 (retrieved December 17, 2014).

Critique of Western universalism is among the underappreciated theses of Huntington’s magisterial Clash of Civilizations . There is something in his interpretation of the West that can make liberals and conservatives equally uncomfortable: humility. Modernization, Huntington reminds us, “is distinct from Westernization and is producing neither a universal civilization in any meaningful sense nor the Westernization of non-Western societies.” Consequently, efforts “to shift societies from one civilization to another are unsuccessful.” Therefore, he concludes, the survival of the West depends on “Westerners accepting their civilization as unique not universal.” [32] Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations , 20–21.

By siding with “pro-Western” dissidents abroad, we compromise our values in the eyes of those peoples, undermine the future of the values we want to spread, and exacerbate divisions within the torn societies. In short, by interfering, we make an un-Western country anti-Western.

A popular point of view is that there used to be a “good” Russia, which later got corrupted into something evil. But it is incorrect to separate Vladimir Putin from the Russian Main Street. Within two decades, in the course of several acceptably free elections, the Russian majority has moved from laissez-faire democracy to soft authoritarianism. As Henry Kissinger succinctly put it, “For the West, the demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one.” [33] Kissinger, “To Settle the Ukraine Crisis…”

As I write these words, Putin’s approval rating in Russia stands at 86 percent. By the time you read them, it may have slipped to 60 percent or less. Russia may even have a new leader. But Putin’s triumph or fall is not the point. The point is that it is precisely Russia’s un-Westernness that makes the majority of Russians so proud.

The ideological disconnect between Russia and the West is strong again. This time, Russian elites and the majority of Russian voters swear not by Communism, but by civilizational particularism. They see the Russian civilization as distinctly separate from the rest of the world, including a specifically “native” understanding of people’s rights and freedoms.

Desperate to see light at the end of the tunnel, a number of American analysts are now saying that there will be a “better” Russia after Putin. There might be. Or not. Most likely, there will be one, but only briefly. Russia will open up to the West for a decade or so, and then close down again, following its own endemic rhythm.

That should give us pause: Russia refuses to change, we refuse to accept that. But then again, as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s king put it, “If I commanded a general to fly from one flower to the next like a butterfly, or to write a tragedy, or to turn into a seagull, and if the general did not carry out my command, which of us would be in the wrong, the general or me?” [34] Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince , translated by Richard Howard (New York: Harcourt, 2000), 30–31.

In the summer of 2014, President Obama, exasperated by critics asking for a clear sense of direction in and a philosophy of foreign policy, told reporters that his guiding principle in foreign affairs was “Don’t do stupid stuff” (according to witnesses, the president used a stronger word). His enemies immediately called that fecklessness and a comedown. His former secretary of state Hillary Clinton scolded the president in an interview with The Atlantic , pronouncing, “Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.” [35] David Rothkopf, “Obama’s ‘Don’t Do Stupid Shit’ Foreign Policy,” Foreign Policy , June 4, 2014; Jeffrey Goldberg, “Hilary Clinton: ‘Failure’ to Help Syrian Rebels Led to the Rise of ISIS,” The Atlantic , August 10, 2014; Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Obama Doctrine,” The Atlantic , April 2016; John McCain, “Salute to a Communist,” New York Times , March 24, 2016.

For sure, “First, do no harm” is not a principle that sits well with the twenty-first-century American zeitgeist. Don’t just stand there, do something—we are being taught. Operate immediately, spike up the meds, be aggressive in treatment, can’t you see that we are losing him/her (Libya/Ukraine)? Yet Obama’s philosophy of non-maleficence did get endorsed by a number of renowned experts. David Remnick of The New Yorker approvingly commented: “When your aim is to conduct a responsive and responsible foreign policy, the avoidance of stupid things is often the avoidance of bloodshed and unforeseen strife. History suggests that it is not a mantra to be derided or dismissed.” [36] David Remnick, “World-Weary,” New Yorker , September 15, 2014.

Future historians of the American presidency will, no doubt, uncover the reasons for and the ways in which Obama’s principle of non-maleficence got hijacked in 2011–2014, but no matter their origins, the consequences of the follies in countries like Libya or Ukraine will be now felt for generations.