Wednesday, December 21, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
15
Commentary...
The Eurasians are coming!
By Jim Cornelius
News Editor
— especially Ukraine and
Georgia and even the Baltic
states.
Those states are obviously
on Russia’s western periph-
ery; they’re not the true inter-
est of the Eurasia-oriented
ideologues who seem to have
gained a great deal of throw-
weight in Putin’s Russia over
the past few years.
Eurasianism has a long
pedigree — dating back to the
1920s when White Russian
intellectuals developed a par-
adigm by which they could
understand and cope with
the Bolshevik Revolution, an
earthquake that had turned
their world upside down.
The ideology has usually
been on the far right margins
of Russian political thinking,
but in the past decade it has
infiltrated the mainstream,
with Putin framing policy
with Eurasianist terminology
and rhetoric.
Eurasianism considers the
“East” the center of gravity of
Russia, and considers Russia,
as a metaphysical concept, to
be utterly separate and differ-
ent from Europe. It’s strongly
tied to Orthodox tradition and
is authoritarian in its politi-
cal philosophy — which, of
course suits Putin well. Eur-
asianism is, in every sense,
opposed to the political, ideo-
logical, material and social
values of the West.
Putin is a pragmatist, and
he’s probably using the Eur-
asianist philosophy to incul-
cate a sense of nationalism
and us-against-the-world
solidarity that bolsters his
The nomination of Exxon
CEO Rex Tillerson for Sec-
retary of State is a very sig-
nificant development, one
that confirms President-elect
Donald Trump’s sympathy
toward Russia.
It would be a mistake to
underestimate Tillerson’s
qualifications — you don’t
get to be the head of a major
oil company unless you are
highly intelligent and geo-
politically savvy. Tillerson
is reportedly both, in spades.
And he has established a
remarkable working relation-
ship with Russian President
Tsar Vladimir Putin.
Many people are troubled
by Trump’s warm attitude
toward Russia, and critics
portray Trump as Putin’s
stooge. That’s simplistic. I
suspect that Trump naturally
and instinctively identifies
with the Russian strongman
(in part because of Putin’s
great personal wealth, but
mostly because Trump is a
fundamentally weak man who
is attracted to tough guys).
Yet it seems clear that Trump
and the team he is assem-
bling ideologically swerve
away from the Establishment
Atlanticist paradigm that has
driven U.S. foreign policy
since 1945. In short, they
don’t have a big problem with
Russia asserting its interests
and reestablishing its geostra-
tegic hegemony over the Eur-
asian continent.
In fact, they see mutual
interests — from oil explora-
tion in the Arctic to combat-
Open
ing a mutual enemy in Islamic Christmas &
Year’s
radicalism. And they simply New Day!
like the Russians a whole
lot more than they like the
Chinese.
If there is, in fact, a broad
tilt toward Moscow, that’s
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authority. But the Russian
strongman seems also to
genuinely share many of the
instincts of the ideology, and
he certainly seems to be play-
ing it out: Once he established
his domestic dominance, he
launched a long-term project
to regain lost imperial terri-
tory and to disrupt and desta-
bilize the West.
There seems to be no doubt
that Russia actively sought to
disrupt the 2016 presidential
election through hacking the
Democratic National Com-
mittee and providing a data
dump to Wikileaks. Putin may
have been directly involved.
There’s a lot of pearl-
clutching going on about
Russia’s interference, which
must seem like a pretty good
joke in the Kremlin. The
U.S. would never do some-
thing like that, meddling in
a nation’s election — except
maybe in Iran, Indonesia,
South Vietnam, Italy, Mex-
ico, Nicaragua, El Salvador,
Guatemala, Afghanistan…
So, what happens if the
U.S. decides that it is com-
fortable with a “Eurasianist”
Russia? How do Eurasian-
ists, who form their identity
in large part in metaphysical
opposition to the West, react
to a suddenly more receptive
and cooperative U.S.?
Putin will seek a free hand
in what he sees as Russia’s
sphere of influence (the old
Soviet Empire) and an eas-
ing of sanctions on individual
members of his elite. He’ll
likely get both.
It will be very interesting
to see how Trump’s Iran
hawks — proposed National
Security Advisor Lt. General
Michael Flynn, proposed CIA
director Mike Pompeo, Sec-
retary of Defense-in-waiting
General James Mattis — will
square their profound sus-
picion of that regime with a
potentially cozy relationship
with Iran’s partner, Russia. In
fact, the status and stature of
Iran may be the telling point
in the success or failure of a
new U.S.-Russia relation-
ship. Bear in mind that the
Russians and the Iranians
basically just won the Syrian
Civil War with the re-taking
of Aleppo. Their man Assad
will continue to rule in the
ruins and the Iranian arc that
runs from Iran across Iraq and
Syria to its client Hezbollah
in Lebanon.
Interesting times.
Trump’s outlook and
appointments presage some-
thing more than a “reset” with
Russia, which the Obama
administration touted and
failed to deliver upon. This
could represent a deep change
and a marginalization of the
Atlanticists, including many
of the foreign policy old
guard in the Republican Party
(think John McCain).
This has the potential to
be highly disruptive of the
post-war world order, which
has, ironically, been breaking
down ever since its appar-
ent triumph over the Soviet
Union in 1991. It’s nerve-
wracking at best and down-
right mad at worst to com-
mitted Atlanticists — which
is most of us, since that’s the
paradigm that we’ve lived in
for 70 years.
We’ve only dealt with
Russia in a couple of ways —
as an enemy or as a prostrate,
shambolic mess that we could
exploit and remake in the
image of Western capitalism.
It’s impossible to predict
how it might go if we accept
Russia as a legitimate Eur-
asian empire — a third pole
(the other being China) in the
great geopolitical scheme.
Such a change would
likely create oscillations that
spin the world in unexpected
directions. That could be a
good thing — but there’s also
the potential for chaos. Keep
your powder dry.
Wishing you a safe & happy
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