For years I have enjoyed Mark Helprin’s novels – “Winter’s Tale” is specifically quite good. What many may not have known is that Helprin is a pretty prolific and uncompromising political opinion writer – and I believe that for many of my readers he may come off as strident and absolutist. In other words, his writing not the typical dreamy political ramblings of an arts-oriented observer.
This is from his latest in the Wall Street Journal, which is sure to raise some objections among some of you, myself included:
What we have here is an inadvertent homage to Lewis Carroll: We are going to cancel a defense that takes five years to mount, because the threat will not materialize for five years. And we will not deploy land-based interceptors in Europe, because our new plan is to deploy land-based interceptors in Europe. (…)
Not OK. When Neville Chamberlainreturned from Munich at least he thought he had obtained something inreturn for his appeasement. The new American diplomacy is nothing morethan a sentimental flood of unilateral concessions–not least, aftersome minor Putinesque sabre rattling, to Russia. Canceling the missiledeployment within NATO, which Dmitry Rogozin, the Russian ambassador tothat body, characterizes as “the Americans . . . simply correctingtheir own mistake, and we are not duty bound to pay someone for puttingtheir own mistakes right,” is to grant Russia a veto over sovereigndefensive measures–exactly the opposite of American resolve during theEuro Missile Crisis of 1983, the last and definitive battle of the ColdWar.
Stalin tested Truman with the Berlin Blockade, and Truman held fast.Khrushchev tested Kennedy, and in the Cuban Missile Crisis Kennedyrefused to blink. In 1983, Andropov took the measure of Reagan, and,defying millions in the street (who are now the Obama base), Reagan didnot blink. Last week, the Iranian president and the Russian primeminister put Mr. Obama to the test, and he blinked not once but twice.The price of such infirmity has always proven immensely high, even if,as is the custom these days, the bill has yet to come.
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“When Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich at least he thought he had obtained something in return for his appeasement.”The US certainly obtained something useful from the Russian government. The Russian government permits NATO the use of their airspace and ground transportation system to support operations in Afghanistan as an alternative to NATOs threatened supply lines through Pakistan.Or do you like it when NATO’s supply trucks get blown up while transiting Pakistan?Not poking sticks in the eye of people who are doing stuff for you is just… basic politics.
I think Bob makes it clear in the post that he doesn’t agree with a lot of Helprin’s article, which probably isn’t all that hard to see.Regarding NATO and Afghanistan, first let’s remember that the organization is providing a service that contributes to Russia’s national security. If Afghanistan blows up in a big way, Russia will unfortunately have to shoulder a lot more risk from the region than the faraway United States – so of course they would want NATO to be successful there.Well, at least some in Russian government are smart enough to see it that way. Others obviously pushed forward with the attempt to close the Manas airbase through state bribery, which just led to more state bribery from Washington and another faked election ignored by an opportunistic Central Asian dictator.If we go further back, the generosity of Russia toward NATO and the United States after 9/11 was unprecedented and largely rebuffed by an arrogant and ungrateful Bush administration. Others may say that this was just a quid pro quo for the world to ignore Chechnya, but we’ve always thought it was a tremendous waste of an opportunity to build trust.
“Regarding NATO and Afghanistan, first let’s remember that the organization is providing a service that contributes to Russia’s national security. If Afghanistan blows up in a big way, Russia will unfortunately have to shoulder a lot more risk from the region than the faraway United States – so of course they would want NATO to be successful there.”Sometimes countries don’t see their interests so clearly, like when the US pressured Yeltsin to cut money and supplies to Najibullah so the people we are presently fighting there could take over the place.”Others obviously pushed forward with the attempt to close the Manas airbase through state bribery,”Some evidence for this would be nice.”which just led to more state bribery from Washington and another faked election ignored by an opportunistic Central Asian dictator.”Indeed, the recent Afghan elections were pretty bad.
Um, riiiight, that $2 billion from Moscow to Bishkek was to help them build a vibrant civil society initiative and social services programs. Bakiyev played the Kremlin and then played Washington. He’s a smart little despot.