Ruminations, January 4, 2009

The Cold War redux

United States-Russian relations seem to be deteriorating. Some think that we are headed back into another cold war. The New Cold War, a new book by Edward Lucas, former Moscow bureau chief for the Economist, makes just that point. Is that really the situation?

The 20^th century began in Russia with the autocrat Czar Nicholas running the country. The Russian Empire controlled the area south of the Caucuses, Ukraine, Finland, Estonia, Li thuania, Poland, Latvia and Belarus. Political opposition was dealt with harshly by internal security and often deported to Siberia.

Today a historian might write a brief foreign policy history of Russia in the 20^th century something like this:

·         In 1917, communists under Vladimir Lenin overthrew the czar and formed a new country. In a peace treaty with Imperial Germany, Russia ceded most of its possessions.

·         In 1945, at the conclusion of World War II, The Soviet Union gained tacit if not actual control of all of Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, East Germany, Bulgaria, Romania and Czechoslovakia.

·         From 1945 to 1991, the West and the Soviet Union engaged in a cold war, threatening each other and often engaging in proxy wars.

·         In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and was replaced by the Russian Federation. The cold war ended.

·         In 1999, Vladimir Putin, 15-year veteran of the KGB gained power and began to move Russia back to a new cold war.

Sometimes when we are close to a situation, we can’t see the forest for the trees. A historian writing 100 years from now might write summarize the same period something like this:

·         In 1917, a political crisis caused a change in government.

·         In 1991, a political crisis caused a change in government.

·         From a foreign policy perspective, little changed in 100 years.

Just as “new and improved” is a marketing phrase often used to appeal to the uninitiated, it could be that the name “Soviet Union” was a marketing tool used by the Russian Empire to make its territorial acquisition more palatable. (To be sure, many communists running the Russian government thought that the Soviet Union was indeed a new and improved version of Russia.) It could be that the only thing that has materially changed in Russia over the past few hundred years has been the ruling family. Yugoslavian leader and fellow communist Milovan Djil as may have received a hint of that during a 1944 conversation with Stalin:

“It is engraved in my memory that Stalin used the term Russia and not Soviet Union.”

Maybe Vladimir Putin is a normal continuation of Russian leaders and we only thought that hostile relations ended in 1991.

Bipartisan leadership

That’s what all Americans say that they support – bipartisan leadership. It sounds good; everyone on the same side and pulling together. But does it really mean the same thing to everyone and when a politician reaches out to the opposition for political purposes, does it really work?

In general, when people laud bipartisanship, what they really mean is that those who disagree with them should stop disagreeing. In other words, do what I want and we’ll have bipartisan agreement. Fair enough but getting people to drop long held and cherished beliefs is nigh impossible and finding common positions is usually relegated to specific issues and do not apply across a broad spectrum.

But does it really work? If a leader performs or supports an issue that is contrary to his normal positions, will that leader amalgamate the opposition and his supporters? Consider former president Bill Clinton.

• In the 1996 state of the union address, then President Clinton said, “The era of big government is over.” Did the political right embrace him? Did the political left support him? The right considered Clinton treading on their territory and thought the statement disingenuous, coming from a Democrat. The political left thought he was betraying all their hopes for programs for the public good.
• In putting together his first budget as president, Clinton thought that the balance between spending and taxing was causing the deficit to increase too rapidly. He decided to abandon many spending programs that he had promised. Did the Republicans congratulate him for doing so? Hardly. Did the democratic left think he had done well to take a page from the right in the spirit of bipartisanship. No way.
• When Clinton endorsed welfare reform, he was basically taking a conservative position. Conservatives responded by saying, it’s about time, and liberals said that he was being heartless.
• When Clinton supported free trade, the conservatives grudgingly gave him some credit while liberals castigated him

In short, Clinton’s attempts at bipartisanship did not help him at all. What about his successor, George W. Bush, who came to the presidency claiming he was a “uniter not a divider”? What did his attempts at bipartisanship get him?

• In 2001, President Bush reached across the aisle and worked with Ted Kennedy (D, MA) on “No Child Left Behind.” The result was that the Democrats (including Kennedy) slammed Bush for under-funding the bill and Republicans became suspicious of Bush’s relationship with Kennedy.
• In signing the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, Bush gathered no liberal support. The right deplored the bill and, in fact, Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R, KY) sought to have the legislation overturned by the Supreme Court.
• Bush had Democratic Senate support for the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq. But when the war became difficult and he needed support, the Democrats abandoned him.
• When the President proposed private accounts as part of Social Security reform, the Democrats opposed it. So the president met them halfway and said it was a discussion point. The Democrats still refused to discuss it and he failed again.
• In 2006, the President sided with the Democrats for an immigration reform bill. It failed and the Democrats accused him of being against immigration and the Republicans accused him of being too liberal on immigration.

Bush’s attempts at bipartisanship failed. How’s Obama doing? He hasn’t taken office yet but, during the campaign, he was often billed as the candidate who could transcend party lines. But he has made a nominal effort at bi-partisanship and has received some reaction.

• When he re-appointed Robert Gates as his Secretary of Defense, liberals and the anti-war left were shocked and conservatives still don’t trust Obama regarding the war on terror.
• When Obama picked the Reverend Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration, some on the left were apoplectic. The right is still waiting to hammer him.

Seeking bipartisanship may not be a practical political philosophy. A leader would be better served to stick to principles and if bipartisanship falls into place, so be it. Perhaps President Harry Truman understood bipartisanship best. When he received the Democratic nomination for president in 1948, he didn’t say that he would work with Republicans in a spirit of bipartisanship. He didn’t say that Democrats and Republicans would reason together. He didn’t say that he would extend an olive-branch to the other side of the aisle. He said, “I will win this election and and make the Republicans like it." (Note: The Republicans didn't like it but Truman was a successful president anyway.)

Mass paranoia department

It seems that the latest catch phrase being used by the local news departments is: “What the (insurance companies, banks, retailers, oil companies, government or other organization of your choice) don’t want you to know.”

It seems that there is a mass conspiracy against us poor folks in the general public by some nefarious organization and the news stations will expose them. Well! Next week, I’m going to fill you in on what the news stations don’t want you to know.

Quote without comment

Winston Churchill, in his 1934 essay, titled “Roosevelt from Afar,” addressing Roosevelt’s efforts to right the American economy: “It would be a thousand pities if this tremendous effort by the richest nation in the world … should be vitiated by being mixed up with an ordinary radical programme and a commonplace class fight.”

Robert J. Kulak

West Hartford, Connecticut