<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<span></span>
<br>
<h2 property="dc:title"> <big><big>Cold War Against Russia—Without
Debate </big></big></h2>
<div class="article-teaser">
<p><big><big>The Obama administration’s decision to isolate
Russia, in a new version of “containment,” has met with
virtually unanimous support from the political and media
establishment.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big></div>
<big><big> </big></big>
<div class="views-field-value byline"><big><big> <a
href="http://www.thenation.com/authors/katrina-vanden-heuvel"><span
property="dc:creator">Katrina vanden Heuvel</span></a> and
<a href="http://www.thenation.com/authors/stephen-f-cohen"><span
property="dc:creator">Stephen F. Cohen</span></a></big></big>
</div>
<br>
<div class="field field-type-filefield field-field-image">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item odd"> <a
href="http://www.thenation.com/sites/default/files/obama_russia_ukraine_rtr_img.jpg"
title="Barack Obama" class="thickbox initThickbox-processed"
rel="gallery-179579"><img
src="cid:part3.02040600.09040908@comcast.net" alt="Barack
Obama" title="Barack Obama" class="imagecache
imagecache-main_node_view_image" height="378" width="615"></a>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="field field-type-text field-field-image-caption">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item odd">
<p><big><big><em>President <span class="mandelbrot_refrag"><a
class="mandelbrot_refrag"
href="http://www.thenation.com/section/barack-obama?lc=int_mb_1001"
data-ls-seen="1">Barack Obama</a></span> delivers
a speech at Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels,
Belgium, March 26, 2014. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)</em></big></big></p>
<big><big> </big></big></div>
<big><big> </big></big></div>
<big><big>
</big></big></div>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Future historians will note that in April 2014, nearly
a quarter-century after the end of the Soviet Union, the White
House declared a new Cold War on Russia—and that, in a grave
failure of representative democracy, there was scarcely a
public word of debate, much less opposition, from the American
political or media establishment.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>The Obama administration announced its Cold War
indirectly, in a front-page <em>New York Times </em>story by
Peter Baker on April 20. According to the report, President
Obama has resolved, because of the Ukraine crisis, that he can
“never have a constructive relationship” with Russian
President Vladimir Putin and will instead “ignore the master
of the Kremlin” and focus on “isolating…Russia by cutting off
its economic and political ties to the outside
world…effectively making it a pariah state.” In short, Baker
reports, the White House has adopted “an updated version of
the Cold War strategy of containment.” He might have added, a
very extreme version. The report has been neither denied nor
qualified by the White House.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>No modern precedent exists for the shameful complicity
of the American political-media elite at this fateful turning
point. Considerable congressional and mainstream media debate,
even protest, were voiced, for example, during the run-up to
the US wars in Vietnam and Iraq and, more recently, proposed
wars against Iran and Syria. This Cold War—its epicenter on
Russia’s borders; undertaken amid inflammatory American,
Russian and Ukrainian media misinformation; and unfolding
without the stabilizing practices that prevented disasters
during the preceding Cold War—may be even more perilous. It
will almost certainly result in a new nuclear arms race, a
prospect made worse by Obama’s provocative public assertion
that “our conventional forces are significantly superior to
the Russians’,” and possibly an actual war with Russia
triggered by Ukraine’s looming civil war. (NATO and Russian
forces are already mobilizing on the country’s western and
eastern borders, while the US-backed Kiev government is
warning of a “third world war.”)</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>And yet, all this has come with the virtually
unanimous, bipartisan support, or indifference, of the US
political establishment, from left to right, Democrats and
Republicans, progressives (whose domestic programs will be
gravely endangered) and conservatives. It has also been
supported by mainstream media that shape and reflect
policy-making opinion, from the <em>Times</em> and <em>The
Washington Post </em>to <em>The Wall Street Journal</em>,
from <em>The New Republic</em> to <em>The Weekly Standard</em>,
from MSNBC to Fox News, from NPR to commercial radio news.
(There are notable exceptions, including this magazine, but
none close enough to the mainstream to be “authoritative”
inside the Beltway.)</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif; color:#bf0e15;
font-weight:bold; font-size:14px; text-align:center"><big><big><br>
</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>To be more specific, not one of the 535 members of
Congress has publicly expressed doubts about the White House’s
new “Cold War strategy of containment.” Nor have any of the
former US presidents or presidential candidates who once
advocated partnership with post-Soviet Russia. Before the
Ukraine crisis deepened, a handful of unofficial dissenters
did appear on mainstream television, radio and op-ed pages,
but so few and fleetingly they seemed to be heretics awaiting
banishment. Their voices have since been muted by legions of
cold warriors.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Both sides in the confrontation, the West and Russia,
have legitimate grievances. Does this mean, however, that the
American establishment’s account of recent events should not
be questioned? That it was imposed on the West by Putin’s
“aggression,” and this because of his desire “to re-create as
much of the old Soviet empire as he can” or merely to
“maintain Putin’s domestic rating.” Does it mean there is
nothing credible enough to discuss in Moscow’s side of the
story? That twenty years of NATO’s eastward expansion has
caused Russia to feel cornered. That the Ukraine crisis was
instigated by the West’s attempt, last November, to smuggle
the former Soviet republic into NATO. That the West’s
jettisoning in February of its own agreement with
then-President Viktor Yanukovych brought to power in Kiev an
unelected regime so anti-Russian and so uncritically embraced
by Washington that the Kremlin felt an urgent need to annex
predominantly Russian Crimea, the home of its most cherished
naval base. And, most recently, that Kiev’s sending of
military units to suppress protests in pro-Russian eastern
Ukraine is itself a violation of the April 17 agreement to
de-escalate the crisis.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Future historians will certainly find some merit in
Moscow’s arguments, and wonder why they are being widely
debated in, for example, Germany, but not in America. It may
already be too late for the democratic debate the US elite
owes our nation. If so, the costs to American democracy are
already clear.</big></big></p>
<section id="conversation" data-role="main"
data-tracking-area="main">
<div id="posts">
<ul id="post-list" class="post-list">
<li id="post-1362874046" class="post">
<div data-role="post-content" class="post-content"><big><big>
</big></big>
<div class="avatar hovercard"><big><big>
<a href="http://disqus.com/the_widower/"
class="user" data-action="profile"
data-user="104727625">
<img data-role="user-avatar" data-user="104727625"
src="cid:part6.07020304.01070600@comcast.net"
alt="Avatar">
</a>
</big></big></div>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<div class="post-body"><big><big>
</big></big>
<header><big><big>
<span class="post-byline">
<span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a
href="http://www.thenation.com/article/179579/cold-war-against-russia-without-debate#"
data-action="profile" data-user="104727625"
data-role="username">the widower</a></span>
</span>
<span class="post-meta">
<span class="bullet time-ago-bullet"
aria-hidden="true">•</span>
<a
href="http://www.thenation.com/article/179579/cold-war-against-russia-without-debate#comment-1362874046"
data-role="relative-time" class="time-ago"
title="Wednesday, April 30 2014 2:47 PM">3
months ago</a>
</span>
</big></big></header>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<div class="post-body-inner"><big><big>
</big></big>
<div class="post-message-container"
data-role="message-container"><big><big>
</big></big>
<div class="publisher-anchor-color"
data-role="message-content"><big><big>
</big></big>
<div class="post-message " data-role="message"
dir="auto"><big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>The encirclement of Russia with
missiles, & the violation of the
agreement between Gorbachev & Reagan
not to expand NATO into the formerly
Warsaw Pact countries tells you all you
need to know. Yes. today we have no one of
the caliber of Senators Morse or Fulbright
to show how idiotic our foreign policy is.
Plus we have have a corporate controlled
press which is just as full of propaganda
as the Soviet press ever was under
Communism.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big></div>
<big><big>
<span class="post-media"></span>
</big></big></div>
<big><big>
</big></big></div>
<big><big>
</big></big></div>
<big><big>
<br>
</big></big></div>
</div>
<ul data-role="children" class="children">
<li id="post-1365850756" class="post">
<div data-role="post-content" class="post-content"><big><big>
</big></big>
<div class="avatar hovercard"><big><big>
<a href="http://disqus.com/cedarcat/"
class="user" data-action="profile"
data-user="48004986">
<img data-role="user-avatar"
data-user="48004986"
src="cid:part10.08020101.09010400@comcast.net"
alt="Avatar">
</a>
</big></big></div>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<div class="post-body"><big><big>
</big></big>
<header><big><big>
<span class="post-byline">
<span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a
href="http://www.thenation.com/article/179579/cold-war-against-russia-without-debate#"
data-action="profile"
data-user="48004986"
data-role="username"> Cedar Cat</a></span>
<span><a
href="http://www.thenation.com/article/179579/cold-war-against-russia-without-debate#comment-1362874046"
class="parent-link"
data-role="parent-link"> the widower</a></span>
</span>
<span class="post-meta">
<span class="bullet time-ago-bullet"
aria-hidden="true">•</span>
<a
href="http://www.thenation.com/article/179579/cold-war-against-russia-without-debate#comment-1365850756"
data-role="relative-time" class="time-ago"
title="Friday, May 2 2014 1:00 AM">3
months ago</a>
</span>
</big></big></header>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<div class="post-body-inner"><big><big>
</big></big>
<div class="post-message-container"
data-role="message-container"><big><big>
</big></big>
<div class="publisher-anchor-color"
data-role="message-content"><big><big>
</big></big>
<div class="post-message " data-role="message"
dir="auto"><big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>When I lived in Moscow in the
early 1990s, the Russians used to say
that the big difference between
Americans and Russians was that the
Americans didn't realize that the news
was propaganda.</big></big></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</section>
</body>
</html>