In July, a Russian mini-submarine planted a Russian flag on the seafloor at the North Pole, as a symbol of a Russian claim that this area is an extension of the continental shelf extending north from the Russian coast. The coming version of the Law of the Sea Treaty allows countries to claim rights to minerals under their continental shelves, and it seems likely that the Arctic Ocean covers valuable resources. If indeed global warming opens that ocean to regular use, those resources will suddenly become available. At least that is the argument the Russians are now making.
However, the flag planting can also be seen as an example of the increasingly confrontational policy now being followed by Vladimir Putin. Many Russians, particularly in the military and its supporting industries, are already hostile to the United States. Our initiatives, especially ballistic missile defense, have long been portrayed primarily as attacks on Russia and its power. For example, the Russians have described the deployment of ballistic-missile defense systems in Central Europe as a threat to them. They seem to regard as illegitimate the possibility that such defenses might somewhat reduce any Russian missile threat to Central European countries.
Two other recent events reinforce the growing feeling of Russian assertiveness. Russian "Bear" bombers, which during the Cold War frequently ventured far from the Soviet Union, are once again skirting NATO coasts. In July they approached Scotland, causing the British to scramble Tornado fighters, and they also approached Guam, causing a U.S. scramble. The Russians claimed that both missions were routine, and a Russian diplomat argued that there was no cause for nervousness. It was no more than the Russian military recovering from its post-Cold War low point, buoyed by oil and gas revenues.
However, many in the United Kingdom saw the Russian bombers as a way ot showing displeasure at British demands that a former KGB officer involved in the poisoning of Pavel Litvinenko, an ex-KGB agent who had been granted British asylum and citizenship, be handed over for trial. The Litvinenko affair in turn has been seen as an example of the increasingly dictatorial character of the Putin regime. Some have suggested that Litvinenko's fatal sin was to charge that, in the interest of reinforcing his rule, Putin or his cronies carried out terrorist attacks in Russia, such as a massive bombing in Moscow, that were attributed to Chechen rebels.
Russian Concerns
The Russians certainly see other threats. The United Nations is currently pondering the future of Kosovo, where NATO fought its first war in 1999. In theory Kosovo is still part of Serbia, but it is governed by the United Nations, and its majority Albanian population wants independence. The Russian position has been that the future of Kosovo is up to Serbia. To many in Kosovo, this is absurd; the problem in the first place was that Kosovo was treated by Serbia as a sort of colony. All other ethnically distinct parts of the former Yugoslavia have been given their independence.
The Russians care because Russia itself is not a homogeneous country. It contains numerous enclaves of people who consider themselves anything but Russian, and who might well prefer independence. Chechnya, in the south Caucasus, is the most prominent example. Its largely Muslim population has been in periodic rebellion since the area was annexed in the 19th century. For more than a decade, the Russians have been unable to end the guerrilla war in Chechnya, and they have charged Chechens with u series of outrages in other parts of Russia. The Russians argue that Chechnya is another example of the worldwide terrorist war being waged by Islamic fundamentalists, hence they deserve the sympathy and support of the West. Many outside Russia (and some inside) see it instead as a very dirty war waged against civilians whose sin is to demand some degree of local rule.
From a Russian point of view, Kosovo is like Chechnya. If it can be torn from Serbia by outsiders, then the United Nations or NATO might do the same with Chechnya-and with other parts of Russia. The Russian empire, already grievously wounded at the end of the Cold War, might further unravel. That is unacceptable to Russian leaders.
To historians of Russia and the former Soviet Union, none of this is altogether unfamiliar. Russia always had two faces, one xenophobic and mystical, concerned with a civilizing mission that justified empire, the other turned toward the West and a more rational and modern future. In this very broad-brush view, Russian shame over Cold War defeat and anger at the economic shock treatment delivered in its aftermath have caused many to turn toward the first face, and Vladimir Putin is its exponent. Historically, the xenophobic side of Russia has generally been associated with strong-man rule. Such rule is buttressed by advertising the West as an enemy.
History Lesson
There is, however, a much more disturbing possibility. If the Cold War was World War I fought in slow-motion, then the question is whether post-Cold War Russia is Weimar Germany, and whether we are now seeing the run-up to something like World War II. The key is a German belief that they had somehow been cheated of victory in World War I, which they told themselves had been a defensive, rather than an aggressive, war. Although the Allies managed to impose a "war guilt" clause in the Versailles Treaty that ended the war, within a few years many saw it as an unfair imposition; World War I seemed to be a disaster to which all parties had contributed. Similarly, the other clauses in the Versailles Treaty were soon portrayed as excessive punishment of the Germans.
These views led in turn to Western acceptance of what seemed to be reasonable German demands in the 1930s. For a variety of reasons, it was apparently preferable to see the war as a horrible accident. Most readers of this column will have been taught that it was "war by timetable," impossible to avert once a few errors of judgment had occurred. Similarly, most will have been taught that World War II can be attributed directly to the insanity of Adolf Hitler. Putin is no Hitler, so it follows that Cold War II-or worse-is by no means likely.
However, the reality is different. Well before Hitler was in power, the Germans were asserting their right to overturn the post-World War I settlement. Secret German-Soviet military cooperation began in the 1920s. In 1931, in reviewing the world situation, a British Admiralty document remarked that Europe was approaching a pre-war situation. One indicator was an attempt to unify Germany and Austria, to form a dominant power bloc in Central Europe. Another was that the dominant view in Germany was that Germany had been the victim, not the perpetrator, of the war.
Now think about the Cold War. Many view with distaste any American or other Western pride in having won it. Others are ready to dismiss Soviet responsibility for the outbreak of the war, saying Josef Stalin was only acting defensively when he occupied so much of Central Europe. To the extent that Russians see all or most of their actions as defensive, they cannot imagine that they caused the problem. To the extent that they regard the West as a threat to their special situation, they see as defense what we see as increased hostility and aggressiveness. That is why Putin sees missile defense in Central Europe as a threat. It reduces the military power he wants to exert to keep the West at bay. He sees Western ideas, such as democracy, as a threat. We have no way of reducing that perceived threat, because it generates what we inevitably see as aggressiveness on Russia's part.
No more than the Germans of 80 years ago, modern Russians are unlikely eager to accept their own responsibility for ruining their country by pursuing a pointless war. They cannot, for example, accept that the reason for their current poverty is the militarization that their rulers welcomed for so long; for a time, it seems that half the Soviet GNP was spent on the military. The only reason modern Germans generally accept responsibility for World War II (and hence do not welcome the militarization of their past) is that in occupying the country, the Allies enforced their view of the war and its meaning. Even under those conditions some Germans have taken the view that their suffering under Allied bombing can be equated to the suffering they imposed on others. No effort whatever was spent convincing Russians of the equivalent reality after the Cold War, on the theory that they would become bitter and hostile. It would be a pity if the lack of coercion after the Cold War has had exactly that effect, with unfortunate later consequences.