Why Cold War Again Stephen Cohen
According to his critics, Prof Stephen Cohen is "Putin's No 1 American apologist", a swain traveller of an authoritarian rogue state and an implacable opponent of western efforts to contain Russian aggression and expansionism. Adding to their outrage is Cohen'southward endorsement of U.s. president Donald Trump'south pro-Putin sentiments, even though he is a life-long Democrat.
By his ain lights, Cohen is a "patriot of American national security". He rejects the Russiagate narrative that Putin's meddling in American politics led to Trump's election equally not simply faux but dangerous and damaging to American interests. Far from beingness a subversive threat to the United States, Putin is a potential partner in a revived Russo-American détente. The greatest threat to American security, argues Cohen, is not Putin's foreign policy only international terrorism, nuclear proliferation and instability in the Eye Due east.
Cohen was not always so notorious. A highly respected historian of Soviet Russia, he fabricated his proper noun with a masterly biography of Nikolai Bukharin, a moderate Bolshevik leader executed by Stalin in 1938. In the 1970s and 1980s, Cohen was deeply involved with dissident circles in the Soviet Union, doing much to propagate their views to the wider globe. He was also an ardent supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev'due south efforts to democratise Soviet socialism.
You can't understand Putin and contemporary Russia without reference to the country's historical retentiveness of the 1990s
Simply after the collapse of the communist system in 1991, Cohen became a dissident of a new blazon – a severe critic of the US'due south crusade to reinvent Russia as a liberal, gratuitous-market place democracy. Russia's traumas in the 1990s were by and large dwelling-grown, simply Cohen felt the US shared responsibility for the so-called economic shock therapy that impoverished the Russian people, created an elite of super-rich oligarchs and corrupted the land'due south politics.
As Cohen never tires of reminding us, you can't understand Putin and contemporary Russia without reference to the country'due south historical memory of the 1990s. Central to that memory is the disdain with which a triumphalist West treated post-Soviet Russian federation, deemed to exist a weak ability whose interests and sensibilities could be trampled on with impunity. It was not Putin who caused what Cohen calls the new common cold war, but Nato'southward expansion to Russia'due south borders; US and EU meddling in Ukraine; and western government-change wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Great socialist people's libyan arab jamahiriya and Syria.
New common cold war
This book is based on a series of weekly radio broadcasts made past Cohen nether the rubric The New The states-Russian Cold War. The broadcasts began in 2014 simply Cohen had long argued that a new cold war was unfolding in American-Russian relations.
At that place is an urgency and anxiety running through Cohen's commentaries because he sees the new cold war as much more dangerous than its predecessor. Russiagate has been accompanied by a pernicious Russophobia that demonises non but Putin but the Russian people. The resultant hysteria has been ramped upwards by United states media, past grandstanding politicians, and by blatantly self-serving military and industrial interests. American elites seem to have lost their fear of atomic warfare, while there is little or no mainstream political opposition to current hawkish policies aimed at Russia. Every bit Cohen points out, even at the pinnacle of the Soviet-American common cold state of war – an existential struggle between capitalism and communism – there were many mainstream advocates of détente with the USSR. During the onetime common cold state of war the communist bloc acted every bit a buffer between the two sides. The new cold war is being fought straight forth Russia's borders, most dangerously in a proxy ceremonious state of war being battled out in Ukraine.
Among Cohen's many controversial claims is that the greatest scandal in American politics is not Russiagate merely Intelgate – the myth propagated by elements of the Us intelligence community that Putin is attempting to subvert American democracy. The reverence with which some liberals greet pronouncements fabricated by today'south intelligence chiefs is in sharp contrast to their by critiques of the malevolence and misinformation spread past the CIA, the FBI and other agencies.
Another Cohen target is the hallowed institutions of the American media, especially the New York Times and the Washington Post, whose reporting on Russia he sees as not only tendentious but actively deceitful. The narrative of the new cold war is driven past stories published by these newspapers that are based on unverified, anonymous intelligence. According to Cohen, the Times credo of "All the News That's Fit to Print seems to accept become All the News That Fits".
Hillary Clinton may have compared Putin to Hitler just the Russian president is really a moderate
Bolstering Putin
Although the book focuses on electric current diplomacy, Cohen brings to bear a much-needed historical perspective. The showtime post-Soviet Russian-Western clash occurred in 1998-1999 when Nato sponsored the secession of Kosovo and bombed Russia'south marry, Serbia – an intervention that Moscow subsequently used to justify its takeover of Crimea. If the past is any guide, western sanctions against Russia will achieve nothing, except to bolster support for Putin at habitation. Notwithstanding the accusations of treason that greeted Trump's meridian with Putin in Helsinki, he is non the first US President to favour détente with Russia. That was the policy of Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan likewise.
Cohen is by no means an uncritical supporter of the Putin regime. While he sympathises with Moscow'south strange policy he characterises its domestic polity every bit a "soft absolutism" and sees Russia as a society in transition to a better democracy. What he fears is that western isolation of Russian federation will blow the country off the democratic path. Waiting in the wings to replace Putin are not pro-western liberal democrats – who have little support in Russia – but truly disciplinarian ultra-nationalists. Hillary Clinton may have compared Putin to Hitler merely the Russian president is actually a moderate.
Cohen gives the impression that he is a solitary voice opposing the spurious narratives created past the new common cold war warriors. He is disappointed by what he calls the "silence of the doves". In fact, the new cold state of war has many critics, not least among Russia experts. In Europe, if not in the United States, at that place is a strong undercurrent of what the Germans call Putinverstehers – those who urge agreement of the Russian point of view. Liberal elites may wax hysterical about the Russian threat, but common sense near Putin prevails among the general public.
The title of Cohen's book is intended not as a prophecy but a warning. In the overexcited debate near Putin and Trump, Cohen chooses to eschew moderation considering he believes that in practice that results in conformity with an anti-Russian federation narrative that is not only wrong only dangerous. This book will delight his supporters and enrage his opponents, while readers of a moderate persuasion will be able to admire the passion and tenacity of his resistance to the tendency towards provoking war with Russia.
Geoffrey Roberts is emeritus professor of history at University College Cork and a member of the Royal Irish Academy
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Source: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/war-with-russia-by-stephen-cohen-review-a-stern-warning-1.3738513
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