Tale as Old as Time…How Russia Sees the World
Before we talk about the absurd stupidity of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or the obvious issue of Vladimir Putin, a calculating Narcissist with an inferiority complex that would even make Freud turn over in his grave, let’s look at some facts of Russian history. First, let me qualify myself. I experienced the Cuban Missile Crisis when I was twelve, and that scenario greatly influenced me. While it scared the crap out of me, like so many others of my generation, it sparked an interest in our ’enemies.’ Shouldn’t we be able to talk to these people? I was fascinated with the Russian Language: the guttural sounds and those letters of the Cyrillic alphabet gave me goosebumps! What if I could speak in that language?! In those days, the idea of learning Russian was off the charts. My wife of 50 years, who dated me back then, says: “You just wanted to attract attention to yourself.” Go figure. For some reason, foreign languages came easy to me. I took German in high school and got a Russian language tutor when I was 16. I went on to major in Russian, studying in St. Petersburg (Leningrad at the time), finishing with a Master’s Degree in Russian from the School of International Service of the American University.
This included a good dose of Russian history- especially Russian military history.
So here are some things I learned. As we all know, Russia is a country with a rich culture. The world knows the great Russian composers and writers, artists and scientists who have contributed to the world. There is an amazing story of how Peter the Great in the 18th Century literally yanked Russia into the modern world with an enormous Western influence. St. Petersburg was called his “Window on the West.” In terms of military achievement, we all know Russia’s amazing victory over Napoleon, driving the French army so far back that Russian troops occupied Paris. In fact, some say that the word: “bistro” came from Russian soldiers yelling at the French waiters: “bweestra,” meaning “quickly” in Russian.
And, of course, there was ‘The Great Patriotic War’ when the Russian army drove the Germans back in record time through Berlin. In both of these examples, superior military leadership-General Kutusov in 1812 and General Zhukov in 1944- coupled with a threat to Holy Mother Russia won the day….at a horrible cost of 25 million lives. And as far as Putin and Russian leadership are concerned, they took the major brunt of the Nazi beast led by Stalin while we took up the slack. In April 2019, a Levada Center poll revealed that 70% of Russians approved of Stalin’s role in Russian history, the highest ever recorded and that 51% viewed Stalin in a positive light. No mention that millions of Russians died under his tyrannical rule. Go figure.
The Other Side of ‘Holy Mother Russia’
There are two other aspects of Russian history: endemic bureaucratic ineptitude and a pseudo-historical messianic philosophy of Moscow as the ‘Third Rome’ against the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ West. This philosophy dates back to the time of Ivan the Terrible (Ivan “Grozny” in Russian, meaning ‘awesome,’ not terrible, by the way). In Russian history, this philosophy is often referred to as Orientalism. Putin is using this old nationalistic philosophy as a pretext to support his aggression in the Ukraine, projecting himself as the defender of Holy Mother Russia against the militarily aggressive decadent West. Unfortunately, this logic makes perfect sense to him and his cronies, and if you consider it long enough, it carries a lot of validity from the Russian point of reference. This kind of view was evident during the Cuban Missile Crisis when Kruschev told Kennedy why he shouldn’t bitch so much about missiles defending Cuba when the US had missiles in Turkey aimed at Russia? Tit for tat’ didn’t work for Kennedy. But in Putin’s view: why not? Who the hell do capitalist Americans think they are?! Who gave them the right to set the world standard?! “Russia is the largest country in the world with 13 time zones and one hell of a culture, history and energy, thank you very much!”
Corruption, Ineptitude and Sloth
There are other factors involved in all of this: pure bureaucratic ineptitude, corruption and laziness with a good dose of alcoholism. The Russian government has centuries of history of bloated bureaucracies, fraught with people ‘on the take’ at every level. In fact, one of Putin’s initiatives early on was to streamline and clean up the corrupt bureaucracy.
Winston Churchill called Russia
“a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma,” and his words in 1939 spoke eloquently to the Western sense of Moscow as the “other” - an inscrutable and menacing land that plays by its own rules, usually to the detriment of those who choose more open regulations.”
Making the Ultimate Stupid, Catastrophic Mistake
I remember the immense dichotomy between the resplendent beauty of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg or the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow and cutting up magazines for toilet paper with nets around buildings to catch falling bricks from shoddy construction. There have been more than a handful of close calls over the years between Russia and the US with nuclear weapons.
All of these ‘near misses’ were in a relative time of peace. This fever pitch brought on by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Russian ineptitude sets the stage for a catastrophic mistake.
Before we talk about the absurd stupidity of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or the obvious issue of Vladimir Putin, a calculating Narcissist with an inferiority complex that would even make Freud turn over in his grave, let’s look at some facts of Russian history. First, let me qualify myself. I experienced the Cuban Missile Crisis when I was twelve, and that scenario greatly influenced me. While it scared the crap out of me, like so many others of my generation, it sparked an interest in our ’enemies.’ Shouldn’t we be able to talk to these people? I was fascinated with the Russian Language: the guttural sounds and those letters of the Cyrillic alphabet gave me goosebumps! What if I could speak in that language?! In those days, the idea of learning Russian was off the charts. My wife of 50 years, who dated me back then, says: “You just wanted to attract attention to yourself.” Go figure. For some reason, foreign languages came easy to me. I took German in high school and got a Russian language tutor when I was 16. I went on to major in Russian, studying in St. Petersburg (Leningrad at the time), finishing with a Master’s Degree in Russian from the School of International Service of the American University.
This included a good dose of Russian history- especially Russian military history.
So here are some things I learned. As we all know, Russia is a country with a rich culture. The world knows the great Russian composers and writers, artists and scientists who have contributed to the world. There is an amazing story of how Peter the Great in the 18th Century literally yanked Russia into the modern world with an enormous Western influence. St. Petersburg was called his “Window on the West.” In terms of military achievement, we all know Russia’s amazing victory over Napoleon, driving the French army so far back that Russian troops occupied Paris. In fact, some say that the word: “bistro” came from Russian soldiers yelling at the French waiters: “bweestra,” meaning “quickly” in Russian.
And, of course, there was ‘The Great Patriotic War’ when the Russian army drove the Germans back in record time through Berlin. In both of these examples, superior military leadership-General Kutusov in 1812 and General Zhukov in 1944- coupled with a threat to Holy Mother Russia won the day….at a horrible cost of 25 million lives. And as far as Putin and Russian leadership are concerned, they took the major brunt of the Nazi beast led by Stalin while we took up the slack. In April 2019, a Levada Center poll revealed that 70% of Russians approved of Stalin’s role in Russian history, the highest ever recorded and that 51% viewed Stalin in a positive light. No mention that millions of Russians died under his tyrannical rule. Go figure.
The Other Side of ‘Holy Mother Russia’
There are two other aspects of Russian history: endemic bureaucratic ineptitude and a pseudo-historical messianic philosophy of Moscow as the ‘Third Rome’ against the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ West. This philosophy dates back to the time of Ivan the Terrible (Ivan “Grozny” in Russian, meaning ‘awesome,’ not terrible, by the way). In Russian history, this philosophy is often referred to as Orientalism. Putin is using this old nationalistic philosophy as a pretext to support his aggression in the Ukraine, projecting himself as the defender of Holy Mother Russia against the militarily aggressive decadent West. Unfortunately, this logic makes perfect sense to him and his cronies, and if you consider it long enough, it carries a lot of validity from the Russian point of reference. This kind of view was evident during the Cuban Missile Crisis when Kruschev told Kennedy why he shouldn’t bitch so much about missiles defending Cuba when the US had missiles in Turkey aimed at Russia? Tit for tat’ didn’t work for Kennedy. But in Putin’s view: why not? Who the hell do capitalist Americans think they are?! Who gave them the right to set the world standard?! “Russia is the largest country in the world with 13 time zones and one hell of a culture, history and energy, thank you very much!”
Corruption, Ineptitude and Sloth
There are other factors involved in all of this: pure bureaucratic ineptitude, corruption and laziness with a good dose of alcoholism. The Russian government has centuries of history of bloated bureaucracies, fraught with people ‘on the take’ at every level. In fact, one of Putin’s initiatives early on was to streamline and clean up the corrupt bureaucracy.
Winston Churchill called Russia
“a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma,” and his words in 1939 spoke eloquently to the Western sense of Moscow as the “other” - an inscrutable and menacing land that plays by its own rules, usually to the detriment of those who choose more open regulations.”
Making the Ultimate Stupid, Catastrophic Mistake
I remember the immense dichotomy between the resplendent beauty of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg or the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow and cutting up magazines for toilet paper with nets around buildings to catch falling bricks from shoddy construction. There have been more than a handful of close calls over the years between Russia and the US with nuclear weapons.
All of these ‘near misses’ were in a relative time of peace. This fever pitch brought on by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Russian ineptitude sets the stage for a catastrophic mistake.
“The Guns of August”
Barbara Tuchman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book-The Guns of August- about how the European powers ‘tripped’ into World War One, is an instructive tale to heed. This time, unfortunately, the stakes are of biblical proportions. I wish this were hyperbole. Unfortunately, it is just the beginning... hopefully not of ‘the end’ for all of us…and based on blind megalomania and pure stupidity. Stay tuned…
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