A Dangerous Realignment Putin's Ukraine Obsession
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Number 132 • July/Aug 2014 • $8.95 Gideon Rachman Scotland’s Rebellion James Kitfield Hawks in Retreat David Shambaugh China’s Weakness Robert W. Merry Reagan’s Guru www.nationalinterest.org Jacob Heilbrunn Stefan Zweig’s World RUSSIA’S BACK A Dangerous Putin’s Ukraine Realignment Obsession by Dimitri K. by Nikolas K. Simes Gvosdev Number 132 . July/August 2014 The Realist 5 Reawakening an Empire by Dimitri K. Simes By indulging in bluff and bombast toward Moscow, Washington has created the worst of all worlds. It has stoked Russian militant nationalism, convinced Vladimir Putin that the United States is weak and indecisive, and driven Russia closer toward China. Articles 16 Ukraine’s Ancient Hatreds by Nikolas K. Gvosdev Three hundred years of history explain why Vladimir Putin can never see Ukraine as a fully legitimate sovereign nation. Even if Ukraine stays nominally independent, it will remain Russia’s plaything. 25 London Falling by Gideon Rachman First the empire disappeared. Now Britain itself could crumble. Scotland exiting the United Kingdom would have global implications. Other would-be nations are watching. 31 Scotland’s Nationalist Folly by Tom Gallagher The Scottish National Party’s Alex Salmond, a disingenuous rogue, is leading Scotland into disaster. The snp’s rhetoric of empowering the poor and needy and standing up to an “imperialistic” English elite plays to a sense of victimhood that currently thrives in Scotland. 39 The Illusion of Chinese Power by David Shambaugh The belief that China is a global power is widespread, understandable and bogus. Beijing’s high- level diplomacy is really a kind of theatrical show, more symbolism than substance. China is a lonely power, lacking close friends as well as allies. 49 Defense Hawks Take Flight by James Kitfield Republican hawks are embattled. The 2016 election will likely reveal whether they can once more go on the attack, or whether a series of protracted conflicts abroad has finally rendered them impotent and obsolete. 56 Reagan’s Éminence Grise by Robert W. Merry James Burnham feared that the West would lose the Cold War by adopting a defensive posture. Few had more influence over Ronald Reagan’s pugnacious approach to the Soviet Union than this brooding intellectual who moved from Trotskyism to conservatism. 67 Hail to the Deep by James Holmes The submarine transformed war at sea. Yet the grandmasters of naval strategy died before subs came into their own. Can their insights be salvaged? Reviews & Essays 76 The CIA’s Favorite Novel by Christian Caryl Peter Finn and Petra Couvée’s The Zhivago Affair deftly tells the story of how the cia smuggled copies of Boris Pasternak’s banned novel behind the Iron Curtain. But the Soviet censors left a deep mark. Russia has since become a singular cultural wasteland. 83 The Exile by Jacob Heilbrunn George Prochnik’s study brilliantly illuminates the turbulent life of the popular Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig, who fled Nazism. It reveals that in losing the narrative thread of his life, Zweig himself ended up becoming the story. 88 France’s Citizen King by Aram Bakshian Jr. Philip Short’s biography traces the fascinating rise of François Mitterrand, the socialist leader, Cold War hawk and libertine who schemed his way to the top. His personal physician correctly described him as a combination of “Machiavelli, Don Corleone, Casanova and the Little Prince.” Images Kremlin.ru: page 12; Ronald Reagan Library: page 63; Shutterstock: pages 9, 17, 21, 26, 29, 36, 45, 51, 81, 87; Wikimedia Commons: pages 33, 41, 48, 54, 58, 61, 70, 73, 78, 84, 93, 95 Published by The Center for the National Interest Charles G. Boyd Chairman Maurice R. Greenberg Chairman Emeritus Henry A. Kissinger Honorary Chairman Jacob Heilbrunn Editor Dimitri K. Simes Publisher & CEO Harry J. Kazianis Managing Editor Paul J. Saunders Associate Publisher Robert Golan-Vilella Associate Managing Editor John Allen Gay Assistant Managing Editor Advisory Council Rebecca M. Miller Assistant Editor Richard Burt Chairman Morton Abramowitz Political Editor Graham Allison Robert W. Merry Conrad Black Ahmed Charai Contributing Editors Leslie H. Gelb Aram Bakshian Jr. Evan G. Greenberg Ian Bremmer Gary Hart Ted Galen Carpenter Zalmay Khalilzad Christian Caryl Kishore Mahbubani Amitai Etzioni John J. Mearsheimer Nikolas K. Gvosdev Richard Plepler Bruce Hoffman Alexey Pushkov Michael Lind Brent Scowcroft Paul R. Pillar Ruth Wedgwood Kenneth M. Pollack J. Robinson West David Rieff Dov S. Zakheim Owen Harries Editor Emeritus Cover Design: Emma Hansen Robert W. Tucker Editor Emeritus Cover Image: ©Gleb Garanich/Reuters/Corbis Editorial Office The National Interest, 1025 Connecticut Ave, nw, Suite 1200, Washington, dc 20036. Telephone: (202) 467-4884, Fax: (202) 467-0006, Email: [email protected], Website: http://nationalinterest.org Subscription Office Postmaster and subscribers please send address changes and subscription orders to: The National Interest, P.O. Box 1081, Selmer, tn 38375. Telephone: (856) 380-4130; (800) 344-7952 Rate: $39.95/yr. Please add $5/year for Canada and $20/year for other international deliveries. The National Interest (ISSN 0884-9382) is published bimonthly by the Center for the National Interest. Articles are abstracted and indexed in P.A.I.S., Historical Abstracts, International Political Science Abstracts, U.S. Political Science Documents, Political Science Abstracts and America: History and Life; articles are available on microfilm from University Microfilms International, and archived on Lexis-Nexis. Periodicals postage is paid at Washington, dc, and at additional mailing offices. ©2014 by The National Interest, Inc. The National Interest is printed by Fry Communications, Inc. It is distributed in the U.S. and Canada by Ingram Periodicals (18 Ingram Blvd., La Vergne, tn 37086; 615-793-5522). The Realist war between Russia and Japan on multiple Reawakening occasions on the eve of their 1904–1905 conflict. How could there be a war if he an Empire did not want it, the czar said to his advisers, especially because he considered Japan far By Dimitri K. Simes too small and weak to challenge the Russian Empire. While Nicholas II genuinely did not resident Barack Obama likes to say want war, he assumed that Russia could get that America and the world have away with almost whatever it wanted to do Pprogressed beyond the unpleasant- in the Far East. At first, Japan reluctantly ness of the nineteenth century and, for that acquiesced to Russian advances—but matter, much of the rest of human history. Tokyo soon began to warn of serious He could not be more wrong. And as a re- consequences. Overruling his wise advisers, sult, he is well on the way to repeating some Finance Minister Sergei Witte and Foreign of history’s most dangerous mistakes. Minister Vladimir Lamsdorf, the czar Few would think to compare Obama to decided to stay the course. He saw Japan’s Russia’s last czar, Nicholas II. Nevertheless, concessions as evidence that the “Macacas,” Emperor Nicholas II, like President Obama, as he derisively called the Japanese, would thought of himself as a man of peace. A not dare to challenge a great European dedicated arms controller, he often called power. When they did, the result was for a rules-based international order and humiliation and a devastating blow to insisted that Russia wanted peace to focus Russia’s global standing. on its domestic priorities. Of course, From the outside, the Obama Obama’s philosophy of governance and administration appears to be following a world outlook differ profoundly from those similar trajectory in its approach to of this long-dead autocrat. Yet there is one Russia. Top officials seem to believe that disturbing assumption they appear to share short of using force, the United States can in foreign affairs: the idea that as long as you respond as it pleases to Moscow’s conduct do not want a war, you can pursue daring in Ukraine without any real risks. At the policies without risking conflict or even war. same time, the administration has gone Consider Ukraine. In March, Obama to great lengths to personalize the dispute said, “We are not going to be getting into by targeting Russian president Vladimir a military excursion in Ukraine.” Nicholas Putin’s associates and graphically describing II also declared that there would be no Putin’s flaws and transgressions, including in State Department fact sheets. And even Dimitri K. Simes is president of the Center for the as it takes these measures, liberal hawks and National Interest and publisher of The National neoconservatives are denouncing Obama as Interest. weak for not going further. The Realist July/August 2014 5 The swing from euphoria over the fall of the Berlin Wall to noisy calls for a new cold war provides a sobering reminder of the superficiality of American analysis of Russia’s motives and goals. The weakness is there, but the bellicose cost them dearly if Russia disregards nato’s stances that Obama’s critics espouse are red lines. The appropriate response to unlikely to deter Moscow and might Russia is to consider how we can convince even do the opposite. So far, the United it to choose restraint and, when possible, States has fundamentally miscalculated in cooperation. Such an approach must be dealing with Russia. By indulging in bluff based on an analytical assessment of how and bombast, it has created the worst of Russia defines its interests and objectives all worlds. It has stoked Russian militant rather than the way American policy makers nationalism, convinced Putin that the would define them in Moscow’s shoes. It United States is weak and indecisive, and will also require a combination of credible exposed the divisions within the West. These displays of force that appear distasteful to difficulties will only be compounded if the Obama and credible diplomacy that looks Obama administration yields fully to the distasteful to his critics.