In case anyone was worried that all of the old-school sovereign state security experts would run out of things to do: In the last weeks a range of news items indicate that Russia, in any case, is still very active in the old geostrategic game. Plans for the 2007 defense budget include a major increase in military spending overall and new investment in ICBMs. At the NATO summit, Putin attacked the United State’s post-Cold War international stance saying that the “uncontained use of force” “is very dangerous, nobody feels secure anymore because nobody can hide behind international law.” The immediate provocation for is the U.S. initiative to place anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe, and to relocate anti-missile units in the Pacific closer to Russia. The longer term context is clearly one in which the U.S. has, for years, simply failed to take Russia’s strategic interests very seriously (leaving aside for a moment whether it should). The most recent example, aside from the anti-missile deployments, are comments by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that due to uncertainties about future developments in China and Russia, American strategic thinking had to include the possibility of war with these countries.
Feels like the Cold War. But there is a curious twist:The Russians are explicitly talking about an assymetrical response. Putin’s speech included reference to new generation ICBM’s that would make any missile defense system irrelevant. And Viktor Ozerov, the head of the defense committee in Russia’s upper house of parliament, said “U.S. attempts to draw our nation into a new arms race. We will have to find an asymmetrical response.” A Russian expert, Ruslan Pukhov, echoed a similar sentiment when he said that “The United States is stuck in Iraq, seemingly with no way out. At least, it can’t think of any solution at this point. Gates’ words and the fact that bases are being deployed along Russia’s perimeter are linked. That’s unpleasant, of course, but no reason to permit our country to be dragged into a new arms race,” Pukhov said. “To quote President Putin, we shall respond to anything that affects us – asymmetrically but effectively.”
The full text of Putin’s speech is here. Robert Gates’ response is here.
Analysis please. Russia has no problem with using force on its neighbors. And playing the energy card. The fact that the US has vast overseas military operations is hardly a secret. So, what is the event? or aspect of a problematization at issue here?
Well, on one level, I am saying this is not an event — feels like old times (sovereign state security). But the fact that the response is explicitly asymmetrical is, I think, interesting. After all, symmetry was the major principle of the Cold War. Putin said on more than one occasion that asymmetry was more economical; and that, given the financial condition of the country, it was all Russia could afford. It is a response — perhaps their only possible response to U.S. unilaterialism.
A note from Kiev:
What was most striking here, which may not show up as clearly in the written texts, was the role of affect.
Putin’s affect was interpreted here as hostile, severe, and aimed at the U.S. Putin’s delivery was appropriate to an enemy who considers himself threatened, at least someone to be reckoned with. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a sustained performance of that affect in public, directed against the U.S., from a leader of the Kremlin. It is hard to imagine from a Yeltsin or a Gorbachev (or even a Brezhnev). Putin’s is a cold fire, but in his own way he seemed a valium away from pounding his shoe on the podium. Snippets of his speech in cold, clipped Russian stalked evening newscasts all week.
Gates’ affect was also notable. Gates here is interpreted as having been dispassionate though serious in his response. People noticed the return of a U.S. defense secretary who could see through a bluff, who resisted rising to bait, who was cool enough to walk away from a fight. He just seemed to pour cold water on Putin’s spark. (Kievans also compared this with U.S. leadership’s public reactions to Saddam Hussein’s bluffing regarding WMD in November-December 2002. The difference might be an indicator of an event of some kind behind the scenes.)
In my descriptions of the two, words about cool and cold are not used unintentionally. I have seen and heard the words “Cold War” more this week than in all of my previous 36 months living in Kiev put together. Despite Gates’ speech, three Kiev tabloids this week announced “the beginning of a new Cold War” between Russia and the U.S. Every serious news magazine featured it. As I write this, I’m watching the most respected and popular weekly news discussion program. Tonight they have a studio audience of parliamentarians and Deputy Prime Ministers, connected by teleconference with equally eminent members of the governments of Russia, Georgia, Poland, and the leading dissident from Belarus. They’re all gathered to discuss Putin-Gates exchange of speeches and what it means for Ukraine’s relations with NATO.
I don’t know if the exchange of speeches will be understood in the future as an event, but it is definitely seen here as a marked departure from the going Russia-U.S. discourse. The change is seen not as much in the words — as Paul points out, the information is well-known, as are the relative positions of the governments. The change that people here noticed was in the perceived affect with which the speeches were delivered.
But again, I would point to the assymetry. In the United States, this really was a non-event. Not even a blip on the radar. In the FSU, as Monica points out, much more than that. So there is something decidedly un-Cold War about this. In the beginning of the Cold War, the Cold Warriors spent all their time saying “you better be fucking scared about the Soviets!” And now the hawks just ignore it, and refuse to acknowledge it is an issue.
Follow-up from the region: Like a successful new currency, Putin’s speech is circulating with increasing velocity here. Headlines and t.v. specials have moved on, but Putin/Munich phrases are becoming units of everyday exchange, bon mots beyond the jitterati.
A favorite example, from a conversation about Ukrainian ag and GMOs. Me: Should GM crops be grown in Ukraine despite EU policy? Stepan: “Kak Putin skazal, ‘Komu eto ponravitsya?’” (“As Putin said [about NATO expansion], ‘And who’s that going to please?’”) Putin’s sarcasm is being used as a synonym for the U.S. and its hidden agenda.
The initial asymmetry Stephen describes grows in the recirculation. Over there, the silence makes me wonder, How hidden does an agenda have to be from its maker before it’s non-existent? Or, in the case of something like GM seeds and foods, how open does an agenda have to be before it’s not “hidden”? And here, where Putin did strike quite a nerve, some of Chris’ notes on publics and publicity, and particularly the creation of publics, seem apt.
One other note, on the asymmetry. It still may be early days to call this a non-event in the U.S. It does take CSIS a few weeks to organize a seminar of eloquent alarm bells, after all. (This is significant when U.S. news outlets seem increasingly dependent on D.C. and NYC think-tanks to focus their attention in foreign reporting outside of the war zones.)
Kiev papers reported the U.S. Congress freaked out over Putin’s speech. Granted, that could be just another means of recirculation. If it proves true, though, Putin may have planted seeds of suspicion in a new Congress reluctant to be seen as naive. A Cold War isn’t always built in a day.