Russia Under the New(old)New Regime

Russia is more dangerous to the West today because it is viewed as having no ideology. This is incorrect. Russia still has a highly statist ideology. It is, however, much more difficult for the West to understand than was communism. Unlike communism, the ideology now in ascendance is largely Russian or slavic in origin. It is much older than communism. It is the idea that Russia is the "third Rome." It is the inheritor of both the legacy of the Western Roman Empire(Rome) and the Byzantine Eastern Roman Empire(Constantinople). This makes for an ideology vast in scope and in geographic ambition. To Russians, geography and history are inextricably linked.

Communism, perhaps, was only a sub-idea which rested upon this far vaster and older set of ideas. Many in Russia view themselves as being in the same position as Constantinope circa 1200 AD, caught between maurading West European crusaders and Jihadi moslems.

The new(old) ideology in Russia is a dangerous and potent combination. Related to the idea of the "third Rome" is the Russian idea of the ideal leader. In Russian this leader is called the "gosudarstvennik." It means literally "man of state." To Russians, the State is not just the government. It is the entire culture, society and slavic civilization. The State is an expression of all these things. The "man of state" is not only the Russian leader. He is the defender and upholder of an entire civilization, the "third Rome" stretching from Central Europe through Central Asia to the Pacific.

To Russians, a "great power" is not only a strong unified state acting abroad, it is also unified completely internally as well. Therefore, any federated government and rival checks and balances within Russia opposite the "man of state", are weaknesses and a threat to Russian Civilization. These common features of Western democracy are thought of as treason in Russia in that a disunified Russia is more vulnerable to Her enemies. This unification of internal and external policies is reflected in two concepts called "the dictatorship of the law" and "derzhavnichestvo" roughly translated as "great powerishness." "Dictatorship of the law" means that though the "man of State" is de jure subject to the law, it is he through the executive branch that interprets the law, not the judicial or legislative branches. In this way the man of state can quell internal enemies. This strengthens Russia externally as well, in her status as a "great power."

The last concept of Russia's ideology is centralization. The top of the government gives the orders. Thoe orders are followed exactly on the way down the levels of governement. This is called "vlastnaya vertikal" or "power vertical." To the Russian mind it is made necessary, paradoxically, as an antidote to weak, corrupt and inert public administration. Therefore, centralization is not seen as empowering the beauracracy but as checking it and curbing its abuses. It is the cultural leader, the "man of state" who fights the enemies of civilization internally and externally and ensures that Russia remain a great power.

The Yeltsin years of the 1990s are considered the reason most Russians support the new authoritarianism. Yeltsin's attempt to loosen centralization led to the collapse of Russia's external power and Her humiliation. Vladislav Surkov, the Russian philosopher/propagandist, has put a philosophical color on this desire for centralization. Sysnthesis of ideas is extolled rather than the analysis of one idea. Idealism is celebrated over pragmatism. Images are more important than logic, intuition over reason and the general over the particular. These ideas reflect the reality of government in Russia. That is that centralization, a strict ideology in pursuit of common goals and the reliance on strong and powerful personification of the leader to wield the power of the "man of state" are all desirable and necessary to uphold "culture" and promote Russian power.

This ideology is remarkably similar to the Wilhelmine German ideology of "kultur" that was even more distorted and perverted by the National Socialists. Putin views these ideas as upholding "sovereign democracy." This means that the state is democratic, however the state has the right to determine what that "democracy" means in practice without, necesessarily, adhering to notion that Western countries might perceive as democratic.

In addition to all this ephemeral ideology there is the specter of Russian natural gas reserves and the giant state-owned Gazprom. Gazprom is used as a geopolitical weapon by the Russians. It buys smaller Western energy companies, especially in Western Europe. It uses the technology and expertise of these companies to find more gas fields. It does this by taking advantage of Europe's relatively free market in energy production, using the backing of the Russian government to the utmost. Once a new gas foield is found it offers western energy companies a share in the venture. It then slowly but effectively manipulates them for the benefit of Russia. The goal of Gazprom is to deal with each EU country on a bilateral basis, causing each to be as dependent on Russia for gas as possible. This is much easier than dealing with a unifed EU that has a clout at least equal to Russia's

Another goal of Gazprom is to buy as many "downstream" energy facilities, like refineries, as it can in Europe. This allows Russia to control both the flow of gas and how it is distributed. A coming difficulty for GaZPROM is that it is going to have trouble supplying its market. Russia has been so successful in inceasing Europe's gas dependency on Russia that its customers are far more numerous than its potential to supply gas. This is exacerbated by Gazprom's move into the east Asian market.

The intriguing and dangerous question is what does the Russian government intend to do about Gazprom's coming inability to supply Eruope with gas.

In this inadequate and brief description we see that the narrative about Russia that was built in the West in the 1990s was largely fictitious fantasy based upon our hopes of what Russia was becoming as opposed to what it was, has been and is. It is a highly aggressive state who sees the United States as it strategic adversary and likely enemy. It centralizes power internally in order to more fully and deliberately project power externally. It aligns itself with nations from China to Iran to Venezuela who have the same ideological, anti-democratic and anti-American ideas as itself. Russia uses power much more effectively and deceptively than did the Soviet Union. It uses and penetrates markets in order to get ready cash. It uses gas and oil as a weapon. It outwardly fights Islamists while with the other hand embracing Islamic terror states like Iran. It used and uses false and phony opposition and ruling parties in eastern Europe to maintain a deceptively large amount of control over its former satellite states. It does this because, other than with the notable exception of Poland, the internal security services of those nations are still controlled by old KGB structures that were never rooted out.

Most of all, it takes advantage of the still pervasive anti-Americanism in the world and the growing conspiricism/cynicism of the American people for its own ends.

President Bush was a certifiable disaster in his Russia policies. He propped up Putin at every turn. Lets us hope that President Obama pursues a wiser policy of active opposition to Russian authoritarianism at home and growing agressiveness abroad.

here's a clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6suIQ6TPlo