Page 2 of 2 Americans play Monopoly, Russians chess
By Spengler
grammar in the Belorussian language was not printed until 1918, and little over
a third of the population of Belarus speaks the language at home. Never has a
territory with 10 million people had a sillier case for independence. Given
that summary, it seems natural to ask why anyone should care about Ukraine.
That question is controversial; for the moment, I will offer the assertion that
partition is the destiny of Ukraine.
Even with migration and annexation of former Russian territory that was lost in
the fracture of the USSR, however, Russia will not win its end-game against
demographic decline and the relative growth of Muslim populations. The key to
Russian survival is Russification, that is, the imposition of Russian culture
and
Russian law on ethnicities at the periphery of the federation. That might sound
harsh, but that has been Russian nature from its origins.
Russia is not an ethnicity but an empire, the outcome of hundreds of years of
Russification. That Russification has been brutal is an understatement, but it
is what created Russia out of the ethnic morass around the Volga river basin.
One of the best accounts of Russia's character comes from Eugene
Rosenstock-Huessey (Franz Rosenzweig's cousin and sometime collaborator) in his
1938 book Out of Revolution. Russia's territory tripled between the 16th
and 18th centuries, he observes, and the agency of its expansion was a unique
Russian type. The Russian peasant, Rosenstock-Huessey observed, "was no stable
freeholder of the Western type but much more a nomad, a pedlar, a craftsman and
a soldier. His capacity for expansion was tremendous."
In 1581 Asiatic
Russia was opened. Russian expansion, extending even in the eighteenth century
as far as the Russian River in Northern California, was by no means Czaristic
only. The "Moujik", the Russian peasant, because he is not a "Bauer" or a
"farmer", or a "laborer", but a "Moujik", wanders and stays, ready to migrate
again eventually year after year.
Russia was never a
multi-ethnic state, but rather what I call a supra-ethnic state, that is, a
state whose national principle transcends ethnicity. A reader has called my
attention to an account of the most Russian of all writers, Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
of his own Russo-Lithuanian-Ukrainian background:
I suppose that one of
my Lithuanian ancestors, having emigrated to the Ukraine, changed his religion
in order to marry an Orthodox Ukrainian, and became a priest. When his wife
died he probably entered a monastery, and later, rose to be an archbishop. This
would explain how the Archbishop Stepan may have founded our Orthodox family,
in spite of his being a monk. It is somewhat surprising to see the Dostoyevsky,
who had been warriors in Lithuania, become priests in Ukraine. But this is
quite in accordance with Lithuanian custom. I may quote the learned Lithuanian
W St Vidunas in this connection: "Formerly many well-to-do Lithuanians had but
one desire: to see one or more of their sons enter upon an ecclesiastical
career."
Dostoyevsky's mixed background was typically Russian,
as was the Georgian origin of Joseph Stalin.
Russia intervened in Georgia to uphold the principle that anyone who holds a
Russian passport - Ossetian, Akhbaz, Belorussian or Ukrainian - is a Russian.
Russia's survival depends not so much on its birth rate, nor on immigration,
nor even on prospective annexation, but on the survival of the principle by
which Russia was built in the first place. That is why Putin could not abandon
the pockets of Russian passport holders in the Caucusus. That Russia history
has been tragic, and its nation-building principle brutal and sometimes
inhuman, is a different matter. Russia is sufficiently important that its
tragedy will be our tragedy, unless averted.
The place to avert tragedy is in Ukraine. Russia will not permit Ukraine to
drift to the West. Whether a country that never had an independent national
existence prior to the collapse of communism should become the poster-child for
national self-determination is a different question. The West has two choices:
draw a line in the sand around Ukraine, or trade it to the Russians for
something more important.
My proposal is simple: Russia's help in containing nuclear proliferation and
terrorism in the Middle East is of infinitely greater import to the West than
the dubious self-determination of Ukraine. The West should do its best to
pretend that the "Orange" revolution of 2004 and 2005 never happened, and
secure Russia's assistance in the Iranian nuclear issue as well as energy
security in return for an understanding of Russia's existential requirements in
the near abroad. Anyone who thinks this sounds cynical should spend a week in
Kiev.
Russia has more to fear from a nuclear-armed Iran than the United States, for
an aggressive Muslim state on its borders could ruin its attempt to Russify
Central Asia. Russia's strategic interests do not conflict with those of the
United States, China or India in this matter. There is a certain degree of
rivalry over energy resources, but commercial rivalry does not have to turn
into strategic enmity.
If Washington chooses to demonize Russia, the likelihood is that Russia will
become a spoiler with respect to American strategic interests in general, and
use the Iranian problem to twist America's tail. That is a serious risk indeed,
for nuclear proliferation is the one means by which outlaw regimes can pose a
serious threat to great powers. Russia confronts questions not of expediency,
but of existence, and it will do whatever it can to gain maneuvering room
should the West seek to "punish" it for its actions in Georgia.
One irony of the present crisis is that Washington's neo-conservatives, by
demanding a tough stance against Russia, may have harmed Israel's security
interests more profoundly than any of Israel's detractors in American politics.
The neo-conservatives are not as a rule Jewish, but many of them are Jews who
have a deep concern for Israel's security - as does this writer. If America
turns Russia into a strategic adversary, the probability of Israel's survival
will drop by a big notch.
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