The bear is coming out of a long hibernation and feeling a bit rejuvenated.
The Russian military was clearly superior to that of a small country in its “near abroad” — Georgia — but is a “resurgent” Russia a threat to the United States? If the United States insists on expanding its informal empire into Russia’s nearby sphere of influence, it has to expect some pushback from a Russia that is no longer as weak as it once was and is resentful at having been trampled on during the 1990s and early 2000s.
At the end of the Cold War, the United States pledged verbally to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that if the U.S.S.R. allowed Germany to reunite and embed in NATO, the U.S. would not expand the alliance, which the bear perceives as hostile. The United States, however, violated this promise and repeatedly expanded NATO — inducting former Soviet Warsaw Pact allies in Eastern Europe and even former Soviet republics (the Baltic states). (Incredibly, even after the U.S. and NATO were proved impotent in helping Georgia during its recent war with Russia, the Bush administration is still pressuring its reluctant European allies to admit Georgia and the Ukraine, an even more important former Soviet republic on Russia’s border). Further showing that the U.S. foreign policy elite never ended the Cold War have been repeated acts by both Democratic and Republican presidents to thumb their nose at a weakened Russia — for example, winning U.S. access to military bases in former Soviet Central Asia, rerouting energy pipelines from the oil-rich Caspian Sea around Russian territory, and planning to build missile defense installations in the territories of former Soviet allies Poland and the Czech Republic.
But the bear is now coming out of a long hibernation a bit rejuvenated. Using increased petroleum revenues from the oil price spike, the Russians will hike defense spending 26 percent next year to about $50 billion — the highest level since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet as the oil price declines from this historic high, Russia will have fewer revenues to increase defense spending and rebuild its military.
Even the $50 billion a year has to be put in perspective. The United States is spending about $700 billion per year on defense and starting from a much higher plain of capability. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian military fell apart and was equivalent to that of a developing country. Even the traditionally hawkish U.S. military and defense leaders and analysts are not worried about Russia’s plans to buy modern arms, improve military living standards to attract better senior enlisted personnel, enhance training, and cut back the size of the bloated forces and officer corps. For example, Eugene B. Rumer of the U.S. National Defense University was quoted in the Washington Post as saying that Russian actions are “not a sign, really, of the Russian military being reborn, but more of a Russia being able to flex what relatively little muscle it has on the global scale, and to show that it actually matters.”1
In addition, the Russian military is very corrupt — with an estimated 40 percent of the money for some weapons and pay for personnel being stolen or wasted. This makes the amount of real defense spending far below the nominal $50 billion per year.
U.S. analysts say, however, that increased military spending would allow Russia to have more influence over nations in its near abroad and Eastern Europe. Of course, throughout history, small countries living in the shadow of larger powers have had to make political, diplomatic, and economic adjustments to suit the larger power. Increased Russian influence in this sphere, however, should not necessarily threaten the security of the faraway United States. It does only because the United States has defined its security as requiring intrusions into Russia’s traditional sphere of influence. By expanding NATO into Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the United States has guaranteed the security of these allied countries against a nuclear-armed power, in the worst case, by sacrificing its cities in a nuclear war. Providing this kind of guarantee for these non-strategic countries is not in the U.S. vital interest. Denying Russia the sphere of influence in nearby areas traditionally enjoyed by great powers (for example, the U.S. uses the Monroe Doctrine to police the Western Hemisphere) will only lead to unnecessary U.S.-Russian tension and possibly even cataclysmic war.
Endnote
1. Quoted in Thom Shanker, “Russia Is Striving to Modernize Its Military, the U.S. Notes With Interest, Not Alarm,” New York Times, October 20, 2008, p. A8.
Lame arguments from start to finish. Mr. Eland is sounding an awful lot like a shill for Russia’s official unofficial organs of disinformation, Pravda and RIA Novosti. In fact, a lot of what he wrote here could have been lifted straight off their pages.
My understanding is there has never been any formal agreement by the U.S. it would exclude former Soviet republics from future membership in NATO. I don’t know, then, where Mr. Eland gets this idea and I invite him to cite sources. There have been discussions of this policy, certainly; but no finalized agreement. Likewise, Russia bristles at every U.S. operation anywhere near its borders in nations it once ruled or had relations with. When the Soviet empire fell, a security vacuum was created only the U.S. could fill. Russia is, itself, a rogue nation given to bullying its neighbors, creating the very conditions for which Georgia and Ukraine have sought NATO membership. When Russia was struggling and before we helped them develop their oil and gas, they were less belligerent about ex-satellite defections to NATO. Now they have a rich funding source and an interest in transmission through these two countries, they want total control.
If we take Eland’s logic to its conclusion, China and Iran have a security interest in Georgia just as valid as Russia’s. Is Russia willing to share control with Iran or China? Absolutely not! By his logic, we have valid security interests in the Caribbean rim, Canada, and the Arctic (oil rich wastes). Is Eland suggesting then Russia should butt out when we flex our muscle this side of the pond? Statements he’s made heretofore suggest otherwise. Eland is a longtime liberal apologist for anyone not American. Russia’s invasion of Georgia has nothing to do with its security as that has never been threatened. It has everything to do with oil and gas transmissions, and Russian control of those. Russia is the one bullying and needs to stop.
I thought conservatism recognized the supremacy of USA everywhere, all the time. The defeatism in this article is appalling. If USA thinks Latvia should be in NATO, then no one should be allowed to challenge that position without facing the great American military machine.
I think Eland is right. What reason could we possibly have not to trust Russia to act responsibly in its surrounding region? What bad could possibly come from Russian expansion into smaller countries? The only people stupid enough to suspect the good and honorable government of Russia are xenophobic warmonger nutcases who want all-out nuclear war. Like that damn George W. Bush. Thankfully we have a cooler head in the white house now. We can play Timothy Treadwell to that Russian bear.
luminousball,
Don’t mistake Eland for a conservative just because he posts his nonsense here. He’s just one more pompous drive-by liberal who never answers to criticism. He’s been unmasked each time he dumps a fresh load of manure.
I consider myself to be quite fiscally conservative. Also, to a lesser extent, I consider myself to be socially conservative. What exactly does “policing the world” have to do with either of those things? I’m afraid I just don’t understand most conservative’s views when it comes to this kind of thing. How does spending 700 Billion dollars on defense and shipping troops all over the world count as conservativism? I’m seriously asking – not trying to be an ass.
Tsiroch,
Excellent question, though I was not really addressing the relative merits of intervention as regards Georgia. Rather, I was setting the record straight, debunking Eland’s pro-Russian stance, and reminding readers Eland is neither a conservative nor representative of conservative views (he posts here as a drive-by liberal).
As for “spending 700-Billion dollars on defense and shipping troops all over the world count as conservativism”, it doesn’t. However, it also isn’t especially un-conservative. Defense and foreign involvement are only anti-conservative when and to the extent they threaten our values, liberties and limited self-government. Fiscal conservatism will support these only when/if, on balance, they are the least costly option (calculations of cost should include indirect impacts, however). Social conservatism will always have an interest in a strong home defense when/where/if threatened by externalities, but is neutral otherwise.
Conservatism is less rigid as regards the military than are big-L Libertarians and some of the more pacifistic liberal-socialists. Conservatives should, of course, always be vigilant against government, police, and military not generally under civilian control (make the control too rigid, however, and your military ceases to be effective). Unfortunately, we long ago crossed that Rubicon and have little chance of going back. Therefore, we make the best with what we have and labor to manage things so they don’t deteriorate further. And, sometimes, we are just compromised by our own principles where they sometimes conflict. As I have said elsewhere, never mind conservatism v. liberalism, freedom is a balancing act between anarchy and despotism.
As dangerous as a powerful military is to personal liberty, we have yet to experience military-rule in this country. Partly that is because of the strongly libertarian culture, but also because that culture is well ingrained in our military’s own psyche. This has been helped in large part by not having a hereditary military-class in which officers are drawn from the same families. This was largely by design (e.g., annual re-budgeting, Congressional appointments to our academies), but is also a matter of accretion and subject to change. The greater danger to personal liberty in the 20th century has, ironically, been from a bloated many-tentacled civilian government; and it is there we conservatives must focus our main energies.
$700-billion is a huge sum, but not when you consider it as a function of GDP. Right now this represents 5% of GDP ($13.8-trillion), and for most of the war averaged around 4.4% (economic plunge makes the 5% a temporary condition). The historical average of defense spending since 1950 has been 3.5%. This tells us, the war on terror increased this spending to roughly 1.5% (0.9% averaged; actual supplemental war spending is 145-billion out of the total defense budget of $699.1). Contrast this with a WWII total defense spending of 40% of GDP in late-1943, and which averaged around 32% for the entire 3.4 years of direct U.S. involvement. From the American Civil War to WWII defense spending averaged 2% of GPD. Thus, the wartime spending of WWII exceeded 30% of the economy right at the tail end of the Great Depression. If we could manage that, surely we can handle 1% of GDP. We can also look at this war spending as a percentage of the federal budget. The current expected budget for fiscal 2008 is $2.918 trillion (including bailouts). As percent of budget, then, war-fighting is 5% of the total Federal budget. At this level, the WOT is still a bargain. Even so, the more relevant questions are: what does this buy us in the way of security, do we really have a choice in the matter, what would have been the economic cost of treating the threat less seriously, and have we shown an appropriate level of restraint in the pursuit of what are legitimate objectives.
If diplomacy had had any serious chance, I would have been for it. As it does not and left us open to attack, I was not. The cost of doing nothing was and remains greater than the cost of doing what we did. The threat against us is less, but is still out there.
One final question you might want to consider is this. In every milieu, one nation-state has a preponderance of military power. Where two such powers exist and they are nearly equal militarily, the danger of conflict rises significantly; and where multiple near equal belligerents exists this danger increases geometrically to their number. Clearly then, the least volatile situation is one in which strength in the one is so much greater than in the others the others will not behave bellicosely (at least not openly). Assuming this least volatile situation to be desirable, in which nation/culture would you currently prefer that strength to reside; in a chauvinistic, security driven expansionist state like Russia, a theocracy with delusions of world dominion like Iran, or a freedom-loving, culture-tolerant, and generally laid back nation like ours? If not us, then whom? I know we are not perfect, but looking at the rest: do we really want to relax our guard so much one of these others become the new big-dog? Sooner or later it will happen, but let’s, at least, give them a little more time to mature.
2008 Federal Budget: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2008/pdf/08msr.pdf