As I understand it, all the cool kids at the White House (whose number, according to Ben Rhodes, is limited to President Obama and, well, Ben Rhodes) like to call the blinkered, myopic terminally self-righteous American foreign policy establishment “the Blob.” That said, if you’re up for some seriously blinkered self-righteous myopia, you ought to check out the recent NYT editorial “Vladimir Putin’s Dangerous Obsession”, which rather sounds like a “midnight” romance novel, but in fact is much, much worse.
After first critiquing Russia’s bad behavior in Syria and Ukraine, the Times engages in the following pearls-clutching regarding recent events in the Baltic Sea: “On April 29, a Russian warplane came within 100 feet of an American fighter jet over the Baltic Sea and did a barrel roll over the jet, which could have been catastrophic. Two weeks earlier, two Russian warplanes flew 11 simulated attack passes near an American destroyer in the Baltic.”
The Times doesn’t see fit to mention that the Baltic Sea is more than 4,000 miles from the U.S. and 0 miles from Russia, site of St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, and home of the (tiny) Russian Baltic Fleet. If the (tiny) Russian navy engaged in maneuvers off Chesapeake Bay, one could expect barrel rolls and simulated attack passes galore on the part of the U.S. Navy. But that’s not the worst. Lamenting Russia’s in fact lamentable behavior in Ukraine, the Times goes on to say this:
“Anxieties about Russia among NATO members in Eastern Europe had forced the alliance to make plans to deploy four combat battalions of roughly 1,000 troops each in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Two battalions will be American, one German and one British. They aren’t enough to repulse a Russian invasion, but NATO hopes they will deter Moscow from crossing alliance borders. NATO is also proceeding with a European missile defense system intended to protect against Iranian missiles. Last week, a base in Romania became operational and ground was broken for a base in Poland. More and bigger military exercises are also on the agenda.
“Mr. Putin has long misread NATO, which was significantly demilitarized after the Cold War, as a threat. His more assertive behavior may produce exactly the reinvigorated alliance he feared, one that is much more serious about military spending despite problems with economic growth, Syrian refugees and political dysfunction.”
“NATO hopes they will deter Moscow from crossing alliance borders”? Sorry, Times, Russia is not an aggressive power. The overwhelming economic collapse of the old Soviet Union caused not only the highly unwilling satellite states of Eastern Europe, like Poland and Czechoslovakia, to escape from the old Soviet Empire, but long-time components of the old Russian Empire, like Ukraine, to leave as well, despite decidedly mixed populations and loyalties. Now that Russia is regaining some of its old strength, the balance of power is shifting. The recent Russian incursions into east Ukraine were largely the result of Western efforts to “free” Ukraine from Russia’s orbit. Putin is no Adolph Hitler, Hillary Clinton’s windy verbiage to the contrary notwithstanding, nor is he even Catherine the Great, who more or less swallowed up Ukraine just about the time the USA was coming into existence. Putin does not want war, or even new territory. He does want power. He is a right-wing authoritarian nationalist who rightly sees the efforts of U.S.-financed “freedom advocates” in Eastern Europe as covert efforts aiming at the reduction of Russia’s influence and his own eventual dismissal from power. He hasn’t “misread NATO” at all. The expansion of NATO had as its explicit purpose the intimidation and marginalization of Russian power in Eastern Europe, largely to punish modern Russia for the crimes of the Soviet Union and the Czars. Putin is a bad man, but not a dangerous man, not to the U.S. But the Times can’t see this because they won’t look at things from Putin’s point of view. Why should they? He’s bad and we’re good. You don’t want to take the side of evil, do you?
