Relax, Moscow: Obama doesn’t want you ‘contained’ or ‘weakened’

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Hot Air: There is some dispute as to when the Cold War truly began, but many historians contend that the military, ideological, and geopolitical struggle between the Western and communist worlds was not obvious to most observers until March of 1946. Then, and somewhat controversially, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill warned an audience at a small college in Fulton, Missouri, that an iron curtain has descended across the continent of Europe.

 

That reality should have been apparent as early as 1945. Almost from the moment World War II ended, a proxy war between Western powers and the Soviets for control of the destinies of Greece and Turkey exploded. By the winter of 1946, the Soviet question hung in the minds of the capitalist worlds policy makers. It was then that a comprehensive doctrine for dealing with the Soviets was elucidated, perhaps inadvertently, in George Kennans Long Telegram.

 

Scholars are generally predisposed to view Kennans approach to the Soviets expansionism as predominantly ideological. Many of his recommendations, including the doctrine of containment, are founded in his understanding of the Bolsheviks approach to realizing the goal of international communist solidarity. The Long Telegram, and a subsequent 1947 article in Foreign Affairs, strikes a modern reader as an acutely realist perspective on how Russia views its neighborhood and what it regards as its strategic priorities. Perhaps that is why Kennans views seem to be foundational elements relating to how Washington combats Russian aggression today.

 

The Russian leaders are keen judges of human psychology, and as such they are highly conscious that loss of temper and of self-control is never a source of strength in political affairs, Kennan wrote. They are quick to exploit such evidences of weakness.

 

For these reasons it is a sine qua non of successful dealing with Russia that the foreign government in question should remain at all times cool and collected and that its demands on Russian policy should be put forward in such a manner as to leave the way open for a compliance not too detrimental to Russian prestige, he continued.

 

The doctrine of containment had a sort life as the central pillar of American foreign policy. While Kennans doctrine continued to serve as a fundamental tool for understanding how the Soviets viewed their world, a reactive approach to Soviet expansionism fell out of favor in 1950 with the eruption of the Korean War. Only in the 1980s was this doctrine semi-formally abandoned as the Reagan White House embraced a policy that advocated an aggressive rolling back of Soviet influence around the world.

 

Today, containment seems to be back in fashion. In Washington, Kennans recommendation that Moscow always be provided with a face-saving means of extricating itself from the crises it precipitates is quite popular. But what if Russia does not take the off ramps that it is graciously offered by cowed Western diplomats performing acts of diplomacy for diplomacys sake? What if Russia fully understands that Western leaders have no stomach to do what is necessary to douse the flames of war in Eastern Europe despite the fact that this instability serves Moscows interests? What then?

 

President Barack Obama provided the answer on Monday in a joint press conference alongside his German counterpart: Nothing.

 

We are not looking for Russia to fail, Obama asserted. We are not looking for Russia to be surrounded and contained and weakened. Our preference is for a strong, prosperous, vibrant, confident Russia.

 

There is a difference between understanding and acknowledging Russias national interests and security considerations and deferring to them. For example, both Reagan and George H.W. Bushs White Houses acknowledged Russias apprehensions concerning a united Germany and what it regarded as an existential determination to pursue strategic depth by maintaining its European sphere of influence and rejected them as legitimate. Obama, on the other hand, has both acknowledged the logic in the Kremlin applies in order to justify Russian aggression some of which is borderline propagandistic, particularly the notion that the West wants a weak and subservient Russia and has legitimized them.

 

While the president assured his audience that there would come a time when his patience had run out and that the pursuit of a diplomatic resolution to the crisis in Ukraine would have to be abandoned, Obama insisted that he would have no way of knowing when that time had come.

________

 

Vaguely vigilant.