The Bear is back!

My father got his Masters in leadership studies. I recall reading one of his projects which stated that one of the tasks of a leader was to "scan the horizon." The idea was that while the peons and grunts kept their nose to the grindstones, someone had to keep their head up, scanning around to see if grindstones were going out of fashion. Another writer, Stephen Covey, used the metaphor of the jungle - you can expend a lot of energy hacking your way through the jungle - you can display great teamwork, dedication and sacrifice. You can even make great progress. But if nobody climbs a tree to look around, you might be expending all that energy heading the wrong direction.

It would appear that while the Bush administration has been heavily haemorrhaging American blood, money, (to the tune of between 2 and 3 billion dollars a week,) and international goodwill into the sands of Iraq, a real enemy, a superpower villain, has been repositioning itself for another attempt to take over the world. The scenario lends itself so easily to comic book analogy: beaten beyond all point of being a threat, the villain lays gasping in the gutter. His evil army has been broken and scattered, and the villain's demise is imminent. Our superhero turns to the innocent, wide-eyed bystander and says something heroic, in a deep voice. When he turns back, where the villain lay is only a wet smear of blood, leading into the sewer grate. He has escaped! He lives to fight another day! Who knows when and where this dastardly villain will again emerge to threaten the lives and freedom of the citizens of our fair city?

Who is this frightful villain, you ask? Well, who was America's arch-nemesis?
"I know!" you say - "Osama Bin Laden!"
But no, unfortunately, Mr. Bin is just the latest in a series of villains who pop up for an issue or two and then disappear. Who was REALLY the arch-nemesis, for a long time?

I'll give you a hint: When the "leader of the free world," Bush Jr. met their current leader, Bush said "I looked the man in the eye. I was able to get a sense of his soul." Colin Powell later changed the quote, and responded, "I look into his eyes, and I see the KGB." (Incidentally, John McCain is now using Powell's uncredited line on the campaign trail.)

So after 50 years of fighting the cold war, when America stood as the sole remaining superpower, surveying the vast world, and wondering where and how to exert its vast power to do good, what was Russia doing? Well, they began by electing a drunk, and selling off all the large state business concerns to cronies. The cronies got right to work stealing all the aid money the west pumped into their investment infrastructure, and made off with it. Billions and billions of dollars and euros, gone! Gone? No, not gone! Invested in . . . the armed wing of their businesses. Suddenly "Russian Mafia" entered our vocabulary. Tough as nails, more motivated, more organized, and better armed than the amateurish family-run affair they have in Italy, the Russian mafia managed to get their fingers into everything in Russia.

As the state continued to sell off infrastructure to oligarchs, and the crime-bosses continued to grow in power and influence, the small businesses, so vital for the creation of a middle class, which is in turn so vital to a functioning democracy, were attacked on one side by a tax-code of byzantine complexity left over from communist times, which taxes at a rate of 120%, and by mob bosses demanding protection money on the other. Left with no money and two broken kneecaps, small Russian business decided to roll over and play dead. As their economy imploded, young people were left without jobs, and old people saw their already paltry pensions reduced further as the ruble lost value. What hurt even more, however, was the loss of international prestige, the loss of empire.

The old folks in question, you see, had seen a lot. They had lived through very dark times, when there was a constant external threat, willing to bomb your cities to rubble, and a constant internal threat, willing to torture you and condemn you to the gulag for expressing an opinion. Meanwhile, quotidian life consisted of standing in line for hours and hours to receive a paltry amount of shoddy quality goods, if you were lucky.

The reason for all this internal threat and external threat and poor quality goods was that, well, we are at war. In attempting to create conditions for equality for all and a workers paradise around the world, some resistance from the imperialist capitalist pigs could be expected. The ruling classes would never give up their exploitative stranglehold on the workers without a fight. Therefore, since we are at war, sacrifices must be made. That is why we don't have butter. That is why internal dissent cannot be allowed. Temporary sacrifices made, in the name of future victory. And in the meantime, just look at what an empire we already have massed at our side.

And that was the one consoling thought with which the worn-down Russian could console himself as he dropped off to sleep at night. We may be poor and harassed, but we are an empire. We are important. We may be forced to sacrifice, but the West thinks of us constantly, takes us into account, ponders our movements. We matter. When our ambassador clears his throat in the UN, every eastern bloc ambassador turns his head, and Germany begins to sweat.

Then, suddenly, that was gone. Overnight, the empire you gave so much for, sacrificed children and relatives to, suffered on behalf of, was gone, slipped away, in the course of a few months. The rot that underlay the whole system was suddenly exposed for all to see. They were left with nothing except the brief, ephemeral promise of prosperity and democracy like in the west. But instead the poverty and the bureaucracy continued, but now without order, and instead of one force who terrorized the population, multiple forces competed for the privilege.

A few people prospered, wildly. Most, left with nothing, their name a byword among the nations for a failed state, began to look for who to blame. In the end, they blamed the west, and began to invoke a mythical spirit of Slavic, Russian nationalism which was under attack. They counted democracy as a foreign scam perpetrated on them by the malignant powers of the west. An alien import, designed to sap the native strength of the Russian people, and make them soft and corrupt like the west.

The West! Their enemy before, their enemy now. One nationalist politician commented that Russia had opened a window on the west, and gone to sleep. When it woke up, it wondered why all the family was sick. It was time to close the windows of the Russian house. And article after article, from The Economist to TIME, documentary after documentary, and a continual stream of news stories say the same thing - Russia is suffering, Russia is angry, and Russia blames the west.

Enter Putin. A strong ruler for a strong Russia. A former KGB officer only in the sense that the KGB has ceased to exist under that designation. But once KGB, always KGB. He places KGB officers at every level of Russian government, and gives ex-KGB businessmen preferential treatment until Russia is once again a de facto KGB state, with the same paranoid outlook on the world, but with a new, more functional economic system. Internal dissent is actively put down. Non-sympathetic businessmen are railroaded, and jailed.

Meanwhile, the West has no reason to even think of Russia, occupied as it is with lines in the sands of the middle east. Russia sends a column into Serbia in the middle of the night, captures the airport, and demands a slice of Serbia to "monitor," and the west says nothing. Russia undertakes a war in Chechnya which it can ill afford, with disastrous humanitarian consequences for both the civilian population and the Russian recruits sent to fight it. In numerous cases, Chechen women end up giving Russian troops food out of compassion, since their corrupt commanders have sold their supplies on the black market for a profit. Journalists who report on the widescale tragedy attract the ire of the state, and Russia actively represses freedom of the media, with many journalists who spoke out about the state dying of random criminal attacks, and the west says nothing.

Russian state-sponsored agents enter the UK with radioactive materials, and poison a British, (albeit former Russian) citizen on British soil. In response the west makes large squawking sounds, and makes windy noises. In response, Russia closes down British council language schools and cultural centers. They don't need English language libraries anyway, thanks.

Russia plants a flag under the North Pole, and claims it, (and the oil that may be there) for the Russian state - and the west glances briefly at it, having been attracted by the word "oil." (Incidentally, it now turns out the Russians may have placed the flag in the wrong spot. But if no one is paying attention anyway, it hardly matters.)

Russia begins to take umbrage to its former dominions chumming up with the west. Ukraine and Georgia reject politicians sponsored by Russia, who act as sock-puppets for the Kremlin, and elect pro-western governments in an act as dangerous as any violent revolution. Russia literally attempts to poison the Ukrainian pro-western contender, and the west says nothing. Russia encourages separatist sentiment in breakaway regions in the nations around it, and the west says nothing. It is when these countries apply for NATO membership that the gloves come off.

When Georgia squirmed its way out from under the Russian thumb, two regions tried to test the limits of their new-found freedom, and in a chain of reasoning that works only in the logical vortex of the Balkans, figured that the smaller their eventual state, the more free everyone would be. Russia immediately took up the cause of the breakaway regions, and insisted that Russian "peacekeepers" enter South Ossetia, (North Ossetia remains in Russia proper,) to prevent further civil war. (Odd how civil war is so distasteful to the Russians if it occurs anywhere that doesn't further their interests.) Once there, they proceeded to install Russian politicians in high-level positions, issue Russian passports to all South Ossetians who wanted one, (just in case,) and kindly allowed the breakaway province to use the Russian ruble as its currency, (just for now.) The sum effect of these actions was to suddenly create thousands of newly-minted Russian citizens in South Ossetia, so that when Georgia made a move to retake the province in question, Russia had to protect its "citizens."

Swedish Foreign minister Carl Bildt stated: "And we have reason to remember how Hitler used this very doctrine little more than half a century ago to undermine and attack substantial parts of central Europe." Which invites us to another comparison between the rise of a nationalist Germany, and the rise of Russian nationalism today. When Hitler demanded Austria, Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland and Poland, the west followed a consistent doctrine of energetic hand-wringing followed by formally granting him what he had de facto taken, lest we be led into confrontation. The doctrine of appeasement, as it came to be known, led us into World War II. Many historians believe, (in accordance with the doctrine of "a stitch in time saves nine") that an early confrontation with Hitler would have been the far less costly option.

Many pundits like to say that "On 9-11, the world changed." It didn't. We finally looked up from our plates to see what had changed long ago. And while the US is now absorbed in its latest short-sighted view of the world, the new global conflict is taking shape. We tried appeasing Hitler. We tried ignoring Bin Laden. A combination of these two tried-and-true doctrines with Russia would be nothing less than lethal.