Peter Beinart on Russian and American neocons: an imaginary symmetry

Peter Beinart has written for The Atlantic a curios article, the real purpose of which is still unclear to me. The article is titled Vladimir Putin, Russian Neocon, which may give you a hint about the contents and subtitled: "How Russia's president resembles the American hawks who hate him most". The lede quite amply distills the contents.

This conclusion is supported by three different points of comparison:

1. Putin is obsessed with the threat of appeasement

Appeasement is, I strongly suspect, the main thread of the article, and we shall return to it at the end. However, trying to prove the symmetry of Russian (or Putin's) rejection of appeasement and the Western "hawks" rejection of same, prof Beinart is driven by linguistic similarities, disregarding the history of appeasement in Europe and United States. The appeasement during pre-WW II years, that cost many million lives in the end, the appeasement that allowed Soviet Union, China and lesser tyrants bloody suppression of dissent during the long post-WW II years, the appeasement that allows Syria and Iran butcher the Syrian population, that permits the travesty of the dictators' club pompously called United Nation - is it the same kind of appeasement that is being rejected by Putin?

Now pull the other one, prof Beinart.

As for the envy that, according to the author, some hawks feel toward Putin: I wouldn't want to argue against its existence. But if Americans today feel some envy looking at a decisive leader who doesn't dither, prevaricate and renege on promises and commitments - it must be difficult to judge them harshly.

2. Putin is principled—so long as those principles enhance national power

Beg pardon? This "principled" ex-KGB man will do what it takes to reach his goals and step on anyone who stands in his way. For many years his chief art (and occupation) was to isolate his most effective and outspoken rivals - from billionaire oligarchs to unruly reporters - and getting rid of them in a rich variety of methods all over the world. Now he turned his attention to expansion of Mother Russia under all kinds of unashamedly rude pretexts, not very different from the pre-WW II German acts of expansion. And prof Beinart calls this "principled"? Oh boy...

If this is not a cheap exercise in rhetoric, show me one, please.

3. Putin doesn’t understand economic power

Possibly, and I am not sure that Peter Beinart (or I for that matter) do fully understand the subject, both of us not being schooled in economics, as far as I am able to detect. One thing I know, though: try nurturing your economic power without being able to flex your military muscle, and let's see where it will get you in this world (that isn't very much invested in appeasement these days, at least not outside US and western Europe).

Now a general notice about the hawks that prof Beinart decries in the article. While the article itself operates mostly in some strange linguistic universe and is hardly supported by facts*, I would like to know one single thing about these menacing and frightening American hawks: how many square meters (OK, talk to me in square feet if you must) of foreign territory did they add to the territory of USA lately (or earlier, for that matter)?

On the other side of that imaginary equation: Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Crimea, Russian troops massing on the eastern borders of Ukraine with plans not very clear at the moment, but menacing nevertheless. Looks like USA hawks are rather ineffective, all things considered.

And nothing else needs to be argued, really. Still, being as much Jewish as prof Beinart, I would like to add a few bits and pieces to complete the picture. Let's start with comparison of mutual likes and dislikes of Russians and Americans.

Only a Quarter of Americans See Russia as an Enemy:

Since last November, the percentage viewing Russia as an adversary has risen eight points (from 18%) while the share saying it is a serious problem has increased seven points (from 36%). The number of Americans who do not think of Russia as much of a problem has fallen by almost half – from 40% then to 22% today.

While the trend, shown in the picture below, is that more Americans are becoming concerned about Russia, it's still easy to see that the current level of concern is nothing compared to the situation 30 years ago:

Notwithstanding the better general opinion that Russians express about Americans (about 60% positive) than vice versa (only 37% of Americans hold a favorable opinion of Russia), there is a hard core of America haters in Russia that isn't matched by anything even remotely similar in US. Of course, as a bilingual surfer, I am in a better position to judge than professor Beinart, but I guess that striving for linguistic and other symmetries depraved him of his usual passion for objectivity anyway.

The Russian Internet, whether it reflects the state of mind of the general population or only that of the surfers, is choke full of expressions of hate, derision and rejection addressed by Russians at the general American population. Here is a typical, albeit expressed in better English, example of such hate:

Click on it, please, and read it all, it's an important human document, a true presentation of the above mentioned hard core haters' considered opinion.

And, since language takes an important part in prof Beinart's article, is prof Beinart aware that, unlike in US English, Russian language has several terms of abuse, aimed specifically at Americans? "Pindos" being the newest of them. I can tell you that (besides and beyond that above linked article), the term "Pindos", when pronounced in Russian, carries a few additional flavors I wouldn't dare go into in this post. And, as the Russian Wiki discloses:

By absolute frequency of invocation in the Internet environment, invectives for Americans ("Amerikos", "Pindos", "Yankees" - 1.1 million mentions) took the second place, behind the Ukrainians ("Khohol" - 1.2 million mentions) and ahead of the Jews ("Kikes"/"Zhidy" - 1.0 million mentions).

Wow, ahead of "kikes" - that's not an easy feat in Russia, I can assure you.

All in all, I dare prof Beinart to find some symmetry in this too. And good luck. But as far as I know, American English doesn't include anything similar to "Pindos"...

I guess that prof Beinart, a student of history, knows all too well how easily a deft and manipulative ruler (sounds like Putin, doesn't it?) could turn the verbal violence into  real, physical one, at will. Enough said - I hope.

It would have been all, if the end of the article weren't more disturbing than the rest of it. It starts with somewhat relaxing remark:

None of this is to suggest that American and Russian actions are morally equivalent. For all its errors and crimes, American foreign policy is restrained by our democratic political system in a way Russia’s is not.

But the last sentence, that casual afterthought kind of turns the whole on its head:

Maybe “metrosexuality” and “mom jeans” aren’t so bad after all.

It refers (sympathetically) to appeasement and to the appeasing ways of the current POTUS and his administration.

And it shows an interesting and very, very much disturbing trend. If you put together the "progressive" left, presented in this case by Peter Beinart, the quite strong paleoconservative stream in American politics and the good part of today's libertarians, lead by Rand Paul and his daddy: the powers of isolationism (or, at least, relentless appeasement) in today's USA are considerable indeed.

Where does it end?

(*) Unless you consider the timely (and somewhat sympathetic) references to Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Gaza and the late Caudillo Chavez to be part of the factual basis of the article, of course.