Schneier on Security

Skeptical • October 30, 2016 5:39 AM

@Schwach: Having detached Turkey and the Philippines from their servile US satellite orbits, Russia is now publicizing the back-channel pressures that the US applied to Greece, to subject them to asset-stripping and deprivation of the means of life.

RT began as a program to improve Russia’s image in the world – and has since become a dreary outlet of anti-democratic, anti-Western, anti-American, propaganda. The above is all the more ridiculous as Turkey clamors to join US led operations in Syria, and indeed in Iraq, while Syria/Russia bomb Turkish-sponsored rebels – but allow me to point out a salient comparison:

The Ukraine tilts westward. In response, Russia poisons its leaders, annexes its territories, invades and destabilizes the rest. It regularly attempts to intimidate the Baltic States, and Sweden moves closer to joining NATO by the year – indeed, it is practically a de facto member – while the rest of Eastern Europe clamors for a stronger NATO.

Russia’s influence is almost entirely coercive, and its effect on the behavior of other nations reflects as much.

Yet the Philippines can talk with China, can threaten to renegotiate its military relationship with the US – and can do so without fear that the US will invade, or destabilize it. Indeed it can do so with a US military presence in its country, while the US advises on the defeat of a stubborn Islamist insurgency – and can do so without fear.

Unlike Russia, the US is allies with those countries it fought during WW2. The US seeks allies, common cause, mutual respect, and brings with it an unfailing faith in the progress of humanity.

Incidentally, the Philippines receives huge sums of aid and assistance from the US in times of crisis; US military cooperation is vital to the security of the Philippines; and US trade is more important to the Philippines than any other country. Indeed, US favorability ratings are high in the Philippines.

Eastern Asia has turned to the US because they trust the US to respect their sovereignty, their rights, their self-determination, while knowing too well that the PRC will not. And the US, having been deeply intertwined in East Asia for more than a century, having bled and died on battlefields from the steaming jungles of Guadalcanal and Palau to the frigid outposts of the Aleutians, from tactical defeat at Pearl Harbor to audacious victory at Midway to the hard-won defeat of fanatical resistance at Okinawa, from precarious bases in Manchuria with Chinese allies to harrowing landings at Inchon with Korean allies, quite determined to ensure the various disagreements among those countries be resolved peacefully, in a framework of mutually guaranteed security and aid.

The US has stood ready to assist South Korea – or Japan – or the Philippines – and elsewhere across the globe – at terrible cost should those nations be attacked. It has been the indispensable source of strength in East Asia (and elsewhere) for those democracies that would retain their territorial rights, and in some cases their independence or survival.

Russia, by contrast, has been the indispensable source of strength for Assad.

US allies understand that they can disagree without fear of such coercion. There are norms that govern relationships between Western allies which do not exist between Russia and its former imperial dominions. There certainly are crimes in US history, particularly during the Cold War, when the US sometimes believed it had to walk with the devil to cross a particular bridge – but one must understand them in the broader context of US policies and history.

This is what some circles in Russia – and elsewhere – fail to grasp. Truly fail to grasp. US policy actually takes the long view that a world of democracies, each with self-determination, is the best future for us all. It’s a belief that underpins the beliefs of neoconservatives, and of liberal internationalists (though they differ sharply on the means to achieve it).

In the short to medium term, US foreign policy is tempered by reality (frequently, anyway, though not always). Stable democracy is not always an option. Change in some nations must come slowly, organically, as a gradual evolution of internal forces.

As to Russia – there is more than one vision of Russia. Imperialistic, paranoid, brutal, insular – or progressive, dynamic, and despite great misfortune, resilient and beautiful.

Should those with influence in Russia discover the truth – that to preserve Russian power in the world, Russia ought cooperate more, to demonstrate its place among great nations as a nation which, while defending its interests, can simultaneously achieve good in concerted international efforts – then the future will be brighter for everyone.

I’m not sure Putin is capable of such a pivot. But some of the brightest in Russia must see, through the smoke of state propaganda, that there is more to the world than a choice between corrupt anarchy and corrupt authoritarianism, that while all human endeavors are imperfect, marred with failures and hypocrisies, yet some are worthier, and better, and hold for us all that which has driven humanity forward from the darkest times of our existence to the present: the will not simply to survive, but the hope and the promise of a better future.