The Democratic and Republican conventions are over. Thank god. All the political pomp, demigod worship, endless biographical tales, self-congratulation, repetitions of God Bless America, convention protesters and chants of U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A have reduced to a low simmer. Now the pundits and campaign gurus are weighing in. To my surprise McCain beat Obama in the preliminary TV ratings:
Across all broadcast networks Thursday, Sen. McCain’s speech ended the night with a 4.8 rating/7 share, compared to Sen. Obama’s 4.3/7 average, according to overnight numbers from metered households in 55 U.S. markets measured by Nielsen. These ratings are preliminary, however, and are subject to change.
I have lots of thoughts on the both party’s performances which I won’t belabor here. Suffice to say I think Obama gave a good speech until he began to promise the world. At that point I promptly turned him off. McCain’s speech was just boring. As everyone knows, they man doesn’t fare well behind a podium.
I do have to say that McCain’s response to the attempts to disrupt his speech was brilliant. “My friends, my dear friends,” McCain said moving off script, “please, please don’t be diverted by the ground noise and the static.” This gave his speech a jolt in the arm. Unfortunately, it faded rather quickly as he became mired in teleprompter morass. I gave him the axe after 20 minutes and tuned into the new 90210 (which I loved).
While McCain doesn’t stay on message when he speaks off the cuff, part of me thinks it would have been quite entertaining to see him wonder around the stage, microphone in hand, talking “small town meeting” style. Alas, there just isn’t much room for spontaneity in managed democracy.
Speaking of managed democracy, what role did Russia play in the words of the candidates. Very little actually. Obama only mentioned Russia once with his promise to “curb” its agression. Here’s is what Obama said:
I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts. But I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression. I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate change and disease. And I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future.
McCain mention of Russia was a little more substantial. He put oil and empire at the center of Russia’s “invasion.” Though he said that he would work to establish good relations. Here’s what the Maverick had to say:
“We have dealt a serious blow to al-Qaeda in recent years. But they are not defeated, and they’ll strike us again if they can. Iran remains the chief state sponsor of terrorism and on the path to acquiring nuclear weapons. Russia’s leaders, rich with oil wealth and corrupt with power, have rejected democratic ideals and the obligations of a responsible power. They invaded a small, democratic neighbor to gain more control over the world’s oil supply, intimidate other neighbors, and further their ambitions of reassembling the Russian empire. And the brave people of Georgia need our solidarity and prayers. As President I will work to establish good relations with Russia so we need not fear a return of the Cold War. But we can’t turn a blind eye to aggression and international lawlessness that threatens the peace and stability of the world and the security of the American people.”
Both are rather bland statements that are more to say that they know Russia exists rather than how to deal with it. What really strikes me about both these excerpts is how similar they are. If you slice out the rhetoric and hyperbole, Obama and McCain are basically saying the same thing.
It’s hard to say who will be better to Russia. Both candidates have their firm face on, looking all manly and foreign policy-like. Plus so much of that they say is for domestic consumption. As banal it may sound, Russia, as well as us all, will just have to wait to see what either will do once they’re in office. For campaign time it’s much safer to speak loudly and carry a small stick.
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I suspect Cyrill was at the administering end of a “good will” at the time…
You suspect wrong. I had nothing to do with Russia until 1994 when I got back into interpreting. I have worked in lots of different venues both government and private and I have seen the good will myself and saw how Russian visitors just blew it on petty whining for handouts, on drinking and on inability to hide that they could not care less for anything but shopping. You only need a few experiences like that to know you are being used and the good will began to evaporate.
Now things did not change a whole lot when Russian state employees come. Private sector is quite different now.
I will give one point in here. There was much more good will on private level. Government people were more likely to treat Russians with condescension, just like they do to anyone else. So, if all your experience was with US officialdom or academia, then yes, you would get that opinion. It is however hardly accurate.
For what is worth, I think that during the first half of the 1990s (end of Gorby and fist years of Yeltsin’s first term) both Russia and the US wasted a lot of genuine and mutual good will. Both sides were responsible for this, but I cannot tell which side was the guiltier one.
This extended all the way to the individual, little people, level. As you know, I’m a naturalized US citizen who is authentically grateful to the US, and yet I remember being quite bothered by how most of my Russian friends in Moscow idealized the US and all things American. They in turn thought that there was something weird about my attempts to inject some realism into their idealized picture (which I tried to do by bringing up negative aspects of US life). Expectations were so high, that it was obvious to me that a backlash, fueled by disillusionment, will eventually follow.
What reaction do you expect from the village boy like me towards the sexy bitch from Alaska, Cyrill?
Maybe omit the B-word a couple times for a change? It’s not the village, it’s the krutizna that’s oozing.
Uh, no. The US expected Russian support because the Taliban was supporting Khattab and Basaev. (I love the “silence” bit. As if giving out intel, bases, and airspace is “silence.” I like the “expecting” bit too, as if Putin hadn’t offered it.)
That’s exactly my point. That intel and bases was expected since Russia “owed” for the pass on Chechnya. And it wasn’t much since the bases were not even in Russia.
Kolya, good point about high expectations leading to disillusionment. I am a Perestroika junkie, and you look at all the wide eye adulation of the West during the 80′s and you can’t help but cringe a bit knowing that reality would eventually catch up with those innocent kids.
Speaking of which, I can’t tell if Nau’s song Goodbye America was about the realization that the West wasn’t what it was thought to be or something else. Anyone care to offer any light on this?
I know Lyndon has had a number of posts in the past on his blog on how the West “lost” Russia. I am too lazy to hunt them down right now, but the gist of what I remember was that it was simply inevitable that the US and Russia would be on confrontational terms again, no matter how you tried to change the equation. To tell you the truth, I think the majority of the people in both countries feel more comfortable with the US and Russia being adversaries. Being friends just seems too weird and unnatural.
And it wasn’t much since the bases were not even in Russia.
I do have to wonder, not for the first time, if certain people have spent too much time in Moscow when they consider that Putin must be given praise for allowing the US to use the airbases of the independent countries Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. No greater insight into Russia’s view of Georgia can be gained by considering Putin’s “generosity” at granting US access to a foreign airbase.
Speaking of which, I can’t tell if Nau’s song Goodbye America was about the realization that the West wasn’t what it was thought to be or something else. Anyone care to offer any light on this?
My wife was teenager at the time, and she attributed it to some new, but very brief, policy which reversed some aspect of perestroika. She was all a bit hazy on the details though, and I suspect her interest in the song didn’t extend much beyond Vyacheslav Butusov.
The young lad who was in 90210 – the guy who was going out with Tori Spelling – is engaged in real life to none other to Megan Fox, who is one of the hottest birds in the world at the moment.
Sean,
Thanks to you I am now traumatized from discovering that I have missed Brenda’s triumphant return. My doctor recommends a stiff G&T (or two).
Meanwhile, two events have popped up on the radar (literally):
Japanese alarm at rise in Russian military activity
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/2688873/Japan-warns-of-increasing-Russian-military-presence.html
The article doesn’t mention though that Japan has(?) modified its constitution to allow out of area operations and is being built up, along with Australia, as part of the US ‘defensive pact’ in south east asia…
The second is more curious:
US suspends sanctions against Belarus
http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=331694
Though there is nothing really in the report out of the ordinary, being more friendly to Lukashenko could be annoying to the Kremlin, even if it will go nowhere…
About half of the comments for this post show that as far as popular culture is concerned I am (and always was) hopelessly out of it.
”US suspends sanctions against Belarus
http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=331694
Though there is nothing really in the report out of the ordinary, being more friendly to Lukashenko could be annoying to the Kremlin, even if it will go nowhere…”
Last week Belarus banned their children from travelling to Ireland.
Every year a few thousand Belarussian kids from Chernobyl-affected areas travel to Ireland for a few weeks and have a holiday here. Seemingly its very good for them to get away from their poisoned regions for a while, and often the kids, who are very sick as it is and many of whom have deformities, get operations or other kinds of medical treatments here to help with their ailments. Of course the Irish pay for all of this entirely from start to finish and not only that but have spent a fortune building/trying to improve orphanages etc in the affected areas. Last week, for no obvious reason at all, except that he could do it, Lukashenko has banned the children from travelling.
One has to wonder what goes through the minds of people like Lukashenko, and what kind of perrson would actually do something as pointless and utterly nasty as this. The Irish involved were interviewed on tv and were just lost for words, as were the rest of us watching.
Relax, Aleks.
Japan issues military report about external threats every year. And guess what country is number One in the list?
China and N. Korea are on second and third if I recall it right. Nothing to worry about.
As to Belarus – as I understood USA dropped sanctions against two companies that are part of Belhim (Белхим). Belhim has big business in US. So правильные пацаны talked to right guys at Administration about financial aspect of “sanctions” – and the problem was solved.
This song first appeared in 85, just before Chernenko died.
Irishman,
Clinton looked the other way during the First Chechen War not because he favored Yeltsin. Clinton looked the other way in an awful lot of situations. He also looked away when Rwanda massacres took place. He abandoned Somalia. He wasn’t in a hurry to get involved when fighting erupted in old Yugoslavia, and when he finally commited the US, he made a lot of bad decisions there. He bombed China embassy in Belgrad and his chief commander (Clark) gave orders to attack the Russian troops (his order was refused by the British subordinate, iirc).
That’s why I said that Democrats are unstable about foreign policy. They start by denying the obvious truth, that wise use of military power is necessary to solve many entrenched problems in the world. Sooner or later, the reality prevails and they finally commit the troops, but when they do, they make terrible mess of things.
I know you will counter that Bush messed up in Iraq, but if you think about it carefully, you must realize that Bush never came even close to antagonizing big countries like China and Russia the way Clinton did. By all indication, Obama and Biden will be even worse than Clinton in that respect.
Remeber, Russians can stand adversity. They listened to Reagan and came to respect him, because they decided they knew where he stood on importand issues. Obama and Biden will get no respect from them.
”Irishman,
Clinton looked the other way during the First Chechen War not because he favored Yeltsin. Clinton looked the other way in an awful lot of situations.”
Candide, Clinton looked the other way when Yelstin levelled Chechnya cos he wanted Yeltsin the remain in power. Clinton could have made as much noise as he wanted in 1995-1996 but didnt because he wanted to ensure Zyuganov wasnt elected, and Clinton did indeed look the other way when allegations of electoral fraud in 1996 in Russia were touted, and had no complaints when the votes of Yeltsin’s re-election were burned literally the day after the ballot, in blantant controvention of Russian electoral rules. I do appreciate that that Clinton did piss off the Russians in 1999 when he bombed Serbia, but I think the importance of Serbia to the Russians has always been greatly overstated. There were protests at the US embassy by a few thousand Russians(and Mark Ames)but the thing was forgotten about very quickly. By the time Clinton stepped down in 2000 relations had been restored with Putin then at the helm. Points involving China, whilst interesting, are not actually relevant to your original point that the Democrats ruined relations with Russia. Patently they did not.
Compare this to what I said earlier about the Republicans pissing off the Russians with scrapping missile talks and the WTO, and add in the Republican’s support of major NATO encroachment on Russia’s borders and the missile defence shield in Poland. I think its quite obvious from all this that Bush, and not Clinton, have ruined relations with the Russians (and of course the Russians have contributed too).
By the way I make no attempt to justify or support Clinton; I’m just calling it as I see it – whom Americans elect to be their President is their own business at the end of the day.
The EU just couldn’t resist!
EU looks for closer ties with Belarus after Georgian war
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1429178.php/EU_looks_for_closer_ties_with_Belarus_after_Georgian_war__1st_Lead__
Looks like my initial suspicions were right. Timing, timing, timing.
Human rights? Democracy? Freedom of Speech? It looks like even the EU is now thinking about making a deal with one ‘devil’ to get at another! It is just too hilarious for words. Sad days indeed for the humanitarian warriors…. Benito-Ferrero-Walnutz and all.
Pathetic
Irishman.
When we – in Russia – were electing Yeltsin the side Clinton was looking at was irrelevant. Believe me (and I voted all the times) – Clinton’s opinion and nose were least things to influence people. In fact more and more people had started to think that if US was not happy with what we were doing – this was indication we were doing right thing. Kolya was right about illusions – they were evaporating very fast.
And all mess with Yugoslavia is not forgotten.
But you are right by saying that Bush administration has made “great” job to whipe off the rest of illusions….
”When we – in Russia – were electing Yeltsin the side Clinton was looking at was irrelevant. Believe me (and I voted all the times) – Clinton’s opinion and nose were least things to influence people.”
In fairness ivanov I do appreciate that Clinton had no influence in the elections himself at all with Russians, but he did want to be seen to be supporting Boris Yeltsin – my point was that it was not he who ruined relations, or at least create the situation that Russia and the US find themselves in now.
”And all mess with Yugoslavia is not forgotten”
I think – though I could be wrong – that Russia has no genuine interest in Serbia at all, and when Clinton attacked Serbia Russian pride more than anything else was hurt. And Russia’s moaning about Kosovo independence has more to do with what was coming down the line with Ossetiya and Abkhazia than any heartfelt feelings for Serb integrity. I only have anecdotal evidence but a lot of Russians I spoke to consider Serbia a pain in the arse that keeps getting itself into trouble.
”The EU just couldn’t resist!
EU looks for closer ties with Belarus after Georgian war”
In the light of what I wrote above about Belarus, I’m actually horrified Aleks. The EU shouldnt be giving them any friendship at all.
”About half of the comments for this post show that as far as popular culture is concerned I am (and always was) hopelessly out of it.”
Kolya you’ve already had 3 or 4 careers in your life and in fairness that is indicative of an individual who uses his time prudently rather than wasting it watching the likes of 90210, The Hills etc. A soldiering boiologist farmer with the coolest of all Russian names. You the man Kolya. You a LEGEND!
No, he didn’t create the situation. And by “situation” I mean not US-Russia situation only.
If he said “We’d f***d so what?” – then he would get respect from Russian (both men and women). But when “the leader of the free world” didn’t know what he was doing in his office – how we could trust him? 
But Clinton started the process of fading illusions. When he was “not sure” what it was with Monica
Huge contrast with Ronald the Warrior.
have you noticed I said “Yugoslavia” not “Serbia”? It was not about Serbia or Kosovo. It was about US. When they say “We are partners” but in fact mean “I’m the boss – you the foll” – it would be strange to expect any respect form Russia. Unless you follow the rule “Боятся – значит уважают”.
The main two rules of recent US politics is 1. “Уж если я чего решил – то выпью обязательно”.*
2. “Будет такая борьба за мир во всем мире – никому мало не покажется” **
These rules worked (or at least looked like they do) against weak “partners” like Iraq or Yugoslavia. But Russia is a little bit different. And very much disappointed that such simple basic fact escaped from the heads of eggheads in Washington, DC.
PS. Also the country that think Palin is a great person to be President and Dermocracy wins in Pakistan – such country scares not Russia only.
————————————
*”If I decided something – I’ll get dunk no matter what”
**”There will be such fight for peace in the world – no one will escape!”
- but I’m not sure this is good enough translation.
upd.
foll = fool (я начальник – ты дурак in Russian)
Irishman,
The way I see it is that the Serbia-Russia relationship is more one of convenience. Neither side believe more. Serbia/ex-SFRY provided Russia with some leverage against western domination when Russia itself had almost none, especially the west’s complete disregard (or cherry picking/deliberate misinterpretation) of UNSCR. The same was true when the Russian Empire was expanding, Serbs and other slavs posing as a useful foil in entre-empire rub-a-dubbing.
I don’t think the Serbs trust Russia much either (as I already posted that Yeltsin stabbed them in the back over Kosovo and thus ‘won’ the ‘war’ for NATO in 1999), but they have few friends who will stand up for them (curiously Romania is among one of the better ones) and of course is an important glue amongst the nationalists of various shades, i.e. a kind of open marquee. Serbia also uses Russia as leverage against western domination. Both are weary of western ‘promises’ (batteries as always are ‘not included’). Fortunately, with globalization, there are alternative economic partners available to help reduce the influence of one’s near neighbors in the domestic economy and hence its politics.
As for the whole EU-Belarus thing, it’s a bit early to tell, but from the humanitarian propaganda of the last 20 years ‘we had to bomb them to save them’ and the like, I’m amazed that these same people appear to be so quickly dropping (or ‘scaling back/resizing/adjusting/whatever’ as they may now like to spin it) this idea in favor of good old-fashioned realpolitik, or what appears to be in this case, just to wind up Laurel & Hardy of the Kremlin.
It begs the question, which of these people are the real idealists and which ones are just the groupies, along for the ride and is/was ‘humanitarian interventionism’ basically a product of seriously asymmetric power relations following 1989?
I wonder what would have happened if Russia had pushed back earlier, say 2005ish? To make a possibly dodgy parallel, post cold war western influence basically mirrored that of the credit crunch, both were living beyond their means for quite a while which was only possible because the trust and the underlying support that it relied on had not been seriously challenged either actively or passively.
These last few years will certainly be a boon for the employment of historians…
NATO still has to die though. It is bad for the EU’s identity and independence, though it is a good excuse to avoid spending $$$ on blowing people up. The umbilical cord should be cut as it is strangling the baby.
I don’t know how it is at the more cynical and pragmatic governmental levels, but I think that at the personal level Russians, in general, have a pro-Serb disposition and Serbs, in general, have a pro-Russian disposition that transcends parties and regimes.
I’ve been to what used to be Yugoslavia only once. In 1989 we rented an Opel in Belgrade and drove all over the place. Little did we know that in a few years there will so much blood and the places we visited would become different countries (Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia). We did notice, though, that when I said that I was Russian the faces of the Serbs lit up, while the ones of the Croats did not. We also encountered Serbians bad-mouthing the Croats and Croats bad-mouthing Serbs. We also encountered Slovenian separatist, but they never betrayed any anti-Serb animosity. One thing we did not encounter at all was animosity between the Serbs and the Bosnians. So when things went bad in Yugoslavia, I was not surprised by the war between the Serbs and the Croats, but I was indeed surprised not only by the war between the Serbs and the Bosniaks, but also by its viciousness.
“Kolya you’ve already had 3 or 4 careers in your life and in fairness that is indicative of an individual who uses his time prudently rather than wasting it watching the likes of 90210, The Hills etc. A soldiering boiologist farmer with the coolest of all Russian names. You the man Kolya. You a LEGEND!”
Thanks, Ger. I feel very special now!
Truth be told, the only reason that I’m spending so much time on the Internet in the middle of harvesting season is that things did not go well. I quit farming this July at a fairly big (for me) loss. Nothing to do with either farming or the market (good demand here). With great pain I quit because of unique personal circumstances. I hope to get back to it. That’s all I’ll say.
Internet is much worse than drugs… indeed.
We all here are lost for the world
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