Page 2 of 2 Putin's reading of
Solzhenitsyn By Dmitry Shlapentokh
continues to shrink, and there is a
continuous increase in the trade deficit with
China, testifying that it is continuously hard
pressed by the East. Within the West, the US is
also hard pressed by the continuous rise of the
euro and the simultaneous shrinking of the dollar,
which underlines how crooked the official US
statement that inflation is just 2% in the new
year really is.
The same could be said
about Putin's Russia. Most of its oil-produced
wealth is either consumed or transformed into luxury
items. Russian industrial
production - machinery, cars, planes - in many
cases does not even reach the Soviet level prior
to the era of Mikhail Gorbachev. And practically
nothing has been done to upgrade the aging
infrastructure.
Education is another
aspect of national health. Here the US and Russia
are on a par, for the elite of both countries,
while expressing verbal concern for education, has
done little to improve it. Recently, the US mass
media widely discussed America's major educational
problems: the racial composition in one US school.
The mass media were concerned that the old
rules that mandated "busing", the compulsory
transfer of white students to predominantly black
schools, could be revoked. Observers were
extremely concerned that lack of "diversity" would
have the most devastating effect on US education.
No one actually asked what were the student's
knowledge/skills in the major academic subjects
and how the rise of these skills related to the
mingling of students of different color.
In fact, the actual result of education
was of no concern. The media hype was nothing but
the result of a political ploy, eg the appeasement
of the minority electorate - the reason for all
the discussion on the danger of the end of
"multiculturalism". The same could be said about
other segments of the US education system. And
Putin's Russia looks in many ways quite similar.
The Russian elite continues to proclaim
that Russia should be producing more high-tech
engineers, scientists and educators. Still, the
actual investment in science is minuscule, and
most scholars can barely survive on their
extremely meager salaries. And while the US
increasingly "exports" dollars, Treasury bonds and
"democratic values" and Russia its "spirituality"
and, of course, gas and oil, both countries are in
decline relative to the major rising economies and
geopolitical centers: East/Southeast Asia, with
China as the center, and the European Union.
Russia and the US have little option but
to court each other. Russia's choice is really
limited, at least in the long run. Fearful of
China and even the rising Iran, Russia would like
to join Europe, but this is not plausible, at
least in the near future. Europe certainly needs
Russian gas and oil but would hardly integrate
Russia into itself, not even economically. The US
seems to have much better options. Still, they are
quite limited, and there is a heavy price to be
paid.
Several years ago, on the eve of the
Iraq war, Robert Kagan published a much-quoted
article comparing the US, "the dangerous nation",
to Hobbesian-minded, powerful Mars while Europe
was a feeble female Venus. Loaded with an enormous
number of military hardware - "Viagra" - costing
trillions, and the geopolitical "Kama Sutra" from
countless think-tanks and universities, Mars
jumped on Iraq and Afghanistan in "shock and awe".
After almost five years of struggle with
the unwilling "girls", Mars revealed his absolute
importance in front of a giggling Venus. She, of
course, would not mind dating Mars again, but as
an equal partner, not as second fiddle.
An
alliance with China would be even more dangerous.
The rapidly expanding giant could well absorb the
US economically, and later geopolitically. But
Russia is the perfect match.
As Putin
revealed reluctantly, his regime is not that of a
new Stalin. Russia would never challenge America's
global position. At best, Russia would ask for
influence in its back yard - the former Soviet
republics. At the same time, a declining and more
and more inward-looking US would also be unlikely
to hold sway over Eurasia in the long run.
Thus the meeting of Putin and Bush was not
a mismatch but, who knows, possibly a benign new
alliance, cemented not so much by the chemistry of
two leaders but actually an affinity of two
countries whose global long-term relation to other
nations and whose possible absolute decline should
push them to embrace each other.
Dmitry Shlapentokh, PhD, is
associate professor of history, College of Liberal
Arts and Sciences, Indiana University South Bend.
He is author of East Against West: The First
Encounter - The Life of Themistocles (2005).
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