Is a Cold War between the East and the West on the verge of repeating itself?

No

Every nation has in its historical experience endured economic depression on a grand scale, yet few have seen as meteoric a recovery from the dregs of financial and societal despondency as Russia, whose rapid convalescence in recent years under the auspices of the administration of former President and current Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin has transformed the country into an economic marvel. This has in turn allowed the largest member of the former USSR to muscle its way back into a position of influence and prominence upon the world stage. The country's current state is starkly contrasted with the uncertainty and misery that defined Russia's society and economy in the 1990s, when nearly 50% of the population lived below the government-designate d poverty level1. Proof of the incredible economic recovery is evidenced by the fact that the middle class has expanded by a factor of seven since 2000, from eight to 55 million, and the country claims more billionaires than any other nation save America2. In opinion polls, the populace frequently cites Putin and his policies, which have consistently emphasized stability over democratic reform, as the primary factor catalyzing the dramatic improvement in living standards over the past decade. This reflects the nation's disillusionment with liberal democracy, which brought most only strife and financial ruin in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse (A caveat to this statement is that current polls suggest a majority of Russians may, as they become increasingly prosperous, find the willingness to stomach more government transparency and free market economics once again). Although they reside in a state that Western observers frequently decry for its 'authoritarian' tendencies', Russians' view of their chief executive is overwhelmingly positive, and the Putin administration's policy trend towards what he labels 'managed democracy', in which the average Russian's civil liberties are curtailed in the perceived exchange for a guaranteed income is supported by a majority of the electorate3

Putin has capitalized on his incorrigible and ubiquitous political hegemony by serving as the sole and unchallenged arbiter of his nation's foreign policy role in the larger context of international politics. Although few could argue that he has achieved the revered cult-of-personality status that characterized the leadership of previous Russian strongmen, his rhetoric and its subsequent dissemination through the state-controlled media largely dictates the nature of Russian perceptions of the world at large.

Ipso facto, the United States figures prominently in the scope of Russian foreign relations, as it does with virtually every other country's international agenda. Russia and the United States forged an unprecedentedthough still limiteddegree of economic integration in the 1990s, largely motivated by the late President Boris Yeltsin's belief that his country's financial hemorrhage had to be stanched by Western economic muscle, and in the wake of the catastrophic terrorist strikes afflicted upon New York and Washington DC on September 11, 2001, US President George Bush found Putin to be a willing if ephemeral partner in the former's proclaimed War on Terror.
Alexis de Tocqueville stated that the two great powers were "marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe."4 This prophesy has already been fulfilled by the Cold War, but many policy elites and average citizens of both nations recognize that it will be borne out yet again in the coming future. The fates of both states are to a point intertwined. Yet they will never share the exact same paths of progress, and neither nation can plausibly ignore one another, though the United States and the European Union have arguably done an excellent job of trampling upon Eurasian interests in recent years.

Thus, because of the Russian population's near universal literacy, and, as stated previously, because of America's unavoidable visage looming large on the international horizon, one would be hard pressed to find a member of the electorate without an opinion of the United States; however, gleaning a positive viewpoint from any opinion poll is increasingly difficult.

This essay will examine how Russians perceive the United States, its impact upon their society, national political agenda, the extent of the two nations' economic congruity and interrelationship, the motivators and influences behind the perceptions, and how these viewpoints compare with the prevalent paradigms imbuing America's self-awareness.

An acknowledgement of interdependence

Ever since the coffin of Lenin's great Soviet Empire was sealed with Mikhail Gorbachev's resignation on December 25, 1991, the definition of Russo-American relations has been a blurry and hotly contested entity. Following the Cold War's anti-climactic conclusion, both the Russian people and its leadership were ready to embrace the values of the West, hoping to gain the economic prosperity through capitalist means that had eluded them in the throes of a failed planned economy. But as esteemed statesman and author Alexander Solzhenitsyn stated in a 2007 interview with Der Spiegel, "The perception of the West as mostly a 'knight of democracy' has given way to the disappointing conclusion that Western policies are build [sic] on pragmatism, often cynical and selfish. For many Russians it was a hard experience, a collapse of ideals."5 This lack of confidence in the West does not fall squarely upon the economic turmoil of the previous decade but is also a product of the aggressive expansionist mentality that has affected the liberal democratic alliance of the US and Europe. Russia views the rapid absorption of former Soviet satellite states into NATO and the EU, whose policy aims frequently encroach upon Russian interests, as a calculated effort to rebuff and contain Russia's resurgence as a major global competitor.

In order to understand Russian skepticism of the West, and specifically Russian qualms concerning the United States' acutely bellicose nature, one must first gauge the extent of coadunation that has occurred between the former rivals under the post-communist regime. Although relations have deteriorated to their lowest level since the Cold War, there has been consistent significant foreign investment in Russia, barring the current global financial crisis. The first six months of 2007 saw private capital inflows from around the world increase to $67 billion, a greater figure than that of the entire previous decade.6 Also, the United States is Russia's sixth largest trading partner by imports, valued at $10.8 billion in 20077.

Much weightier is the United States' heavy reliance upon Russian natural gas to pad the apertures in it energy supplies created by the inconsistency of import levels from politically volatile petroleum powerhouses such as Venezuela, Nigeria, and the Middle East. US Energy Secretary Sam Broadman in 2006 forecasted that by the end of the decade nearly 20 percent of the nation's natural gas consumption will be supported by Russia.8 Obviously, the great bear's current economic halcyon is mostly attributable to surging energy prices, and as the world's largest oil consumer, the United States has unquestionably played a large role in generating the current state of financial conviviality in Russia's markets.

Yet credit for America's indirect but inescapably positive contributions to the Russian economy are overshadowed by resentment of the manipulative role Russians perceive the US has taken in its involvement with the post-Soviet republics. The proposed installation of a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic has upset Russophiles who did not buy the former Bush administration's assertion that it was to be used as a defense of Europe from rogue states like Iran. To the contrary, they assert that its function was to assuage the deluded American neo-conservative leadership in its anxiety over the spurious threat of emergent Eurasian imperialism.

This is but one example of the contentions that marred Russo-American relations under the previous presidential administrations of both countries, and has yet to heal. Another quandary, and not least of which, is the accelerated, if superficial, Americanization of Russian society that the Kremlin warns is immolating the country from the inside out. Since the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, American pop culture has inundated the national consciousness of the former USSR in a pattern similar to the rest of the world. The global intelligentsia have lambasted the 'destructive force' of this American cultural invasion, arguing that it is rapidly effacing and supplanting the unique customs and traditions of less influential nations like Russia; however, one cannot necessarily label this phenomenon a net negative, as former New York Times dance critic John Rockwell conjectures in a 1994 op-ed

"It may be that the world is being inexorably transformed from old to new, from narrow to broad, from kayak to jet. Maybe Western suits worn by Saudi or African businessmen, maybe even the English language itself, are not so much emblems of American superiority as the simple acceptance by a developing world of a single international standard of discourse."9

Rockwell argues that the worldwide absorption of the United States' cultural exports are in fact a natural repercussion of the global economy's drive for efficiency. What is frequently witnessed in Russian society is not a deluge of purely American cultural icons and concepts overwhelming and leveling the Russian cultural landscape, but instead the hybridization and incorporation of these entities into the society's larger cultural framework alongside traditional and uniquely Russian constructions.10 There is, however, little cultural reciprocation between the two countries and one could argue the only influence Russia has on its former arch-enemy in this respect is the achievements of Westernized Russian immigrants.

Despite the freewheeling flare of American pop culture and its democratic connotations, some Russian's have asserted that cultural imports from America are actually undermining efforts at political liberalization in Russia. Daniil B. Dondurei, editor in chief of Cinema Art magazine, was recently quoted in a New York Times expos on American-style sitcoms that have become wildly popular among Russian media consumers.

"Today, people are becoming accustomed to not thinking about life. The television is training them to not think about which party is in Parliament, about which laws are being passed, about who will be in charge tomorrow. People have become accustomed to living like children, in the family of a very strong and powerful father. Everything is decided for them."11

Trends point towards a loosening of political and economic ties between Russia and the West, and as Mr. Dondurei states, despite the increasing number American cultural inventions that are transported to Russia, the Kremlin is effectively co-opting them as tools of suppression rather than the instruments of democratic liberalization as would be ideally envisioned. The rift is rapidly expanding, as Dmitri Trenin, Deputy Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center writes in Foreign Affairs,

"Until recently, Russia saw itself as Pluto in the Western solar system, very far from the center but still fundamentally a part of it. Now it has left that orbit entirely: Russia's leaders have given up on becoming part of the West and have started creating their own Moscow-centered system. The Kremlin's new approach to foreign policy assumes that as a big country, Russia is essentially friendless; no great power wants a strong Russia, which would be a formidable competitor, and many want a weak Russia that they could exploit and manipulate."12

As Russia strengthens economically, and in turn militarily, it will view with increasing disdain its immediate post-communist strategy of policy weaning from the West and will attempt to forge a significantly divergent path from that of other capitalistic global powers.

Perceptions of the United States among Russia's social cleavages
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As stated previously, because of its too-close-for-comfor t relationship between the media and society at large, foreign policy reflections within the government apparatus largely parallel those of the rest of the population, though surveys and routine occurrences in the country's political life suggest that both parties retain a great degree of mutual distrust.13

At a high-level security conference held in Munich in February of 2007, Putin had barbed criticism for the United States, postulating that it had "overstepped its borders in all spheres..." and had "imposed itself on other states."14 Such statements are largely reflective of the opinions of the Russian citizenry. A 2006 poll by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace found that 61% of Russians view the US as having a negative influence on the world and 74% demonstrated disfavor concerning America's use of its military brawn. Despite such results, a similarly whopping 74% gave the United States' free market economy positive marks and twice as many approved of its system of government as disapproved.15 These data are promising in that they point towards an aspiration of the Russian people for a more democratic future.

Despite the positive conclusion in the latter part of the poll, Russians hold a strong distaste for America's current political leadership. Many Russians believe the US is hypocritical in its policy execution. Natalya Narochnitskaya, a former Russian legislator working with the Moscow-based Institute of Democracy and Cooperation, succinctly revealed the Russian attitude in a March 2008 Chicago Tribune article stating, "The U.S. claims to be a leader in exporting to the rest of the world this human-rights revolution. But this teaching [from the US] is a bit hypocritical. There isn't any society that has no problems at all and no human-rights violations. Human beings are not perfect, no matter where you are."16 Revelations concerning the US military's abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib, a detention facility in Iraq, and the confinement of alleged enemy combatants in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for indefinite periods of time without legal counsel has verifiably damaged America's credibility abroad. American and other Western watchdog groups and NGOs frequently chastise Russia for its government's deficient respect for the rule of law and privacy rights, yet even these independent institutions have been flouted by Russian policy elites for ignoring the Bush administration's policy of the warrant-less wiretapping of domestic phone calls.

Though such preponderances as Ms. Narochnitskaya's correctly identify America's foreign policy hypocrisy, Russians have far to go if they are to achieve their democratic ambitions. Within the national character is an evident struggle with the country's latent affection for other authoritarian regimes. China is regarded as a largely positive force in the world, despite that grotesque human rights violations are common practice of President Hu Jintao's government. Russians are also much more likely than members of more democratic societies to believe that current US-instigated conflict in Iraq was a violation of that country's sovereignty, the brutality of Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist movement aside. In the months prior to the commencement of the American-led invasion, Russia was staunchly opposed to regime change in Iraq and armed confrontation in general. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov stated that such action could not be sanctioned by the UN and was a call for "violence and lawlessness."17 This opinion masked a more pragmatic motive: Russia's commercial interests in the region would no doubt be jeopardized by the incursion, causing a potential economic backlash domestically. Such concerns proved well founded. During the presidency of Saddam Hussein, a third of all Oil For Food contracts were awarded to Russia. Since his volatile removal from power, Russian investment in the region has backslid considerably.18

Summarily, Russians of all creeds and walks of life hold a very similar view of the United States and its policy aims, though it is often the case that they are for markedly divergent motives. The Russian state apparatus under the aegis of President Putin has attempted to direct the populace into what Russo-Ukrainian geo-political specialist Gavin Knight labels "the foothills of fascism." Knight argues that the return of Soviet-style propaganda and the relatively recent manifestation of a Jungsvolken-like youth movement known as the Nashi are sure signs that Russia's emergent super-charged patriotism is pushing the country in a direction that sickeningly resembles the waning days of the Weimar Republic.19 Despite the parallels, Putin cannot rationally be viewed as a new Hitler and Russia will never instigate a holocaust of its ethnic minorities aping the policies of Nazi Germany. The fascistic tendencies of the current political landscape are mere ramifications of the president's autocratic consolidation of power and, as is the case with most undemocratic regimes, serve as a distraction from crises at home. Therefore, it is prudent to conclude that a large swath of the electorate holds distaste for the West and America out of state-induced paranoia and propaganda while those in power dislike it for the policy obstacles it presents on the road of return to bygone greatness.

Until a few years ago, many in the Russian government and among the intelligentsia may have clung to the belief that Russia could attain success within the framework of a partnership with the West, yet as Russian journalist Fyodor Lukyanov stated in an interview with the BBC, Russian policymakers feel let down by the United States.

"In Putin's eyes, Russia has done a great deal for the West and America. Putin removed the military base from Vietnam, he shut down the radar station in Cuba, he did not stand in the way of the US opening bases in Central Asia. The US believes that Russia had no choice and that it was in Russian interests anyway but Russia believes that all it got for its efforts was the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the dispute with Georgia, Nato [sic] expansion and now these anti-missile sites."20

Clearly, both sides are to blame for the dilapidated state of Russo-American relations. Greater sensitivity on the part of the United States toward historical Russian cultural and political proclivities and a cooling of vehemently Slavophilic rhetoric emanating from the Kremlin would serve both nations' interests well. Yet the unmitigated authority the Russian state wields over the country's media distribution, which is unsurprisingly slavishly pro-government and rarely spares any positive words for the West, does little cause for rapprochement between the two powers. The following section will address how the Russian media shapes the cultural and political attitudes Russians hold towards the United States through the character of its discourse.

The Russian media and its discontents

Few examples of genuinely independent media remain in Russian society today. With the government's severing of TV6's electrical cables in 2002, the plug was pulled on the last autarchic television station in the country. Under the Putin administration, state-owned conglomerates and industry magnates loyal to the government have acquired control of the print media giants Pravda and Kommersant. The only independent newspaper with a circulation ranking itself above the status of village bulletin is Novaya Gazeta, boasting a weekly readership of around a half million.21 Bankrolled by Mikhail Gorbachev and the bipolar political personality of business mogul Alexander Lebedev, the rare Russian politician who is both democratic-minded and a supporter of the Kremlin, the paper's staff has been a frequent target of the contract killings that have wrenched the enterprise of Russian journalism over the past decade. Despite these palpable physical threats, Novaya Gazeta's prominent backers have insulated the organization from financial insolvency and the imminent prospect of a government office raid. The most immediate threat is instead the painful slide into irrelevancy that members of the company's staff have long feared as Russian's forego their once rabid interest in muckraking journalism for lighter fare as part of a current trend towards political apathy. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Novaya Gazeta's chief investigative reporter Roman Shleinov lamented that "Even if we were to publish pictures of Putin receiving suitcases of money at the Kremlin door, no one would care."22

The Russian populace has no doubt acquired an attitude of detachment towards state politics that has allowed Putin's government free license to toy with civil liberties and thrust forward with an aggressive foreign policy. Yet the highly literate populace remains keenly aware of news events, information about which is primarily conveyed through the government-operated media. The paucity of independent news sources allows state broadcasters to foment and convey to the public as fact nearly any opinion they desire. Regarding foreign policy, the negative perceptions of America frequently discussed in this essay are the common subject matter in reports on global affairs. The anemic opposition press, almost solely comprised of Novaya Gazeta, have their hands full with purely domestic investigations and rarely find space in their columns to correct misconceptions about the world at large as propagated by the government.

That is not to state that healthy criticism of the government has been entirely expunged. English language dailies such as The Moscow Times and its sister paper The St. Petersburg Times, popular among English-speaking Russians, tourists, and expatriates, are distributed throughout the cities whose names are borne in their respective titles. Editorials by government critics like Georgy Bovt that acerbically deride the Putin regime routinely appear in these papers. Because of their foreign ownership, and perhaps also due to their constricted circulation caused by the language barrier, these publications remain largely immune to government interference.

In lieu of its frequent negative portrayal of America, it is important to distinguish that the state-run media, however undemocratic it may be, does not illustrate its ex-Cold War opponent as the narcissistic, esurient, capitalistic anti-Christ depicted in Soviet propaganda reels that gather dust in the basement of a Moscow ministry building. Rather, the tone of most news pieces discussing affairs in or involving the United States is one of caustic cajolery, much in the tradition of the darkly humorous Eastern European idiom "and you are lynching blacks." Exposs that take digs at American domestic policy fowl-ups, especially regarding its sensitive and macabre history of racial politics, are not difficult to find in opinion sections. Though many such attacks may appear a bit petty and overtly biased, knee-jerk declamations of anti-Americanism on the part of Western observers do not accurately describe many of the legitimate criticisms the Russian media directs at the US. It is only when absurdist claims of nationalistic destiny not unlike those common on the opposite end of the globe grab hold of news articles and opinion pieces does the government's undue influence upon information dissemination become grossly apparent.

It is not difficult then to understand why the Russian public resents the United States for its pharisaical national persona. Americans who as a society revel not only in their overwhelming achievements, but also in their ability to self-congratulate draw the jealous ire of lesser nations with ease. Though this oversimplified personification does not begin to address the complexity of such perspectives, it is precisely this attitude of arrogance and self-righteousness that defines America's global hegemony in the eyes of most Russians. Despite the media's pervasive bias, negative opinion of the United States is actuated by the same factors that anger the citizens of freer nations.

America's self-acumen: Converging opinion despite diverging agendas

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace survey cited earlier in this essay found that a majority of Americans disapproved of the political leadership in their country. Since that survey in 2006, the population's disfavor of the Bush administration swelled to levels comparable to that of the citizenries of other developed nations, and did not abate until the end of the unpopular executive's term. Other surveys conducted by the same organization reveal that Americans' support a more multi-lateral foreign policy, a strengthening of supra-national bodies such as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice, and a reduction in its current role as a perceived global policeman. All of these views have been vindicated with the election of Democrat Barack Obama, whose political rhetoric has been consistently more internationalist and favorable of mutli-lateralist policy.

Regarding the attitudes asserted in the Russian press, and the Russian public's opinions of the United States, both countries align closely in their appreciation of America's political and economic institutions. It is remarkable that Russians do not attribute more bad faith to such systems since they have produced an American political leadership in the past decade that has been so strongly disliked in the former USSR. Yet the Russian media's character defamation of America is not anywhere close to the affirmative self-regard of most American citizens. Many Americans do not view catcalls of hypocrisy in the area of human rights as legitimate. Such violations are viewed as the product not of debased proclivities incipient in the culture but are rather the poor choices of the government in power. If instead of George W. Bush, the moniker Wiretapping and Torture had landed on the ballot, few Americans would have conceivably voted for such a candidate.

It is apparent that the Russian national character is currently vacillating between its desire for a more democratic future and a more stable one. It faces the conundrum of the quasi-autocracy quashed between the external and marginally internal pressures for reform and the population's immediate yearning for economic certainty and domestic tranquility. Clearly if Russians could have their cake and eat it as well, they would, yet the nation's gradual exuviation of democracy has not positioned it well for Western integration and instead primed it for a course similar to the one China is now trekking, in which mixed-economy capitalism is embraced absent democratic reform and civil freedoms. Full-fledged liberal democracy could be as easily realized in the future as not. The West can take more steps to ensure the latter scenario comes to pass to prevent another Cold War and ensure greater international peace.

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