From Russia with love: Putin’s actions reminiscent of Cold War

Calgary Sun
Posted : 2007-08-28 06:20:48

Vladimir Putin, the Soviet KGB agent who is now the president of Russia, is nostalgic for the bad old days.

He resumed the Soviet tactic of sending strategic nuclear bombers into U.K. and Canadian airspace, forcing NATO jets to scramble to stop them. He sent a submarine into Canadian waters to claim the North Pole. And last week, his military chief of staff warned the Czech Republic it would be a "big mistake" if that former Soviet colony dared to join in a U.S.-backed missile defence system. Putin chose the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia to make his point.

This isn't just posing -- though Putin did that last week, too, strutting for the press without his shirt, a strong-man tactic another fascist, Benito Mussolini, made his signature 70 years ago.

It's not posing when you're still a nuclear superpower. And, because of oil prices, Russia is almost an economic superpower, too.

But Russia seeks more than that; Putin wants to regain the strategic importance the U.S.S.R. had during the Cold War. He's even building a new, eastern version of the old Warsaw Pact. Called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, it's a military pact amongst Russia, China, and four former Soviet republics in Asia. And Iran -- whose nuclear plans depend on Russian technology -- has observer status.

To call Russia an ally of the West is false. It might have been, for a fleeting moment, under Boris Yeltsin. But no longer. It can't properly be called a liberal democracy, either.

Under Putin, civil liberties have been restricted, independent newspapers and TV stations have been shut down, outspoken businessmen have been arrested or exiled, and others -- including journalists and political troublemakers -- have been killed, as was Alexander Litvenenko, a former KGB agent who became a critic of Putin. He was assassinated in London with radioactive poison, KGB-style.

Even heads of state are not exempt.

When Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian president, ran an anti-Moscow campaign, he was poisoned, KGB-style, with dioxin that turned that man's once-handsome face into a pock-marked scar, and almost killed him.

Life in Russia is increasingly like that described in Thomas Hobbes' book Leviathan, a war of "all against all," where life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

Life expectancy for Russian men is an appalling 59 years; there are now more abortions than live births in Russia. Transparency International ranks the country one of the most corrupt in the world -- 121st on their list -- Mexico is ranked 70th, and Zambia is 111th.

While the West demilitarized after the Cold War, our enemies didn't, or didn't for long. At the largest Moscow air show in nearly 20 years, Putin announced he seeks military parity with the U.S. again.

This March, China announced a 17% increase in its defence budget, the 19th year in a row of double-digit spending growth. China's military budget is now the second-largest in the world, measured in purchasing power.

The period from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to the fall of the World Trade Center in 2001 was a brief dream where peace and freedom seemed to be inevitable.

But Russian, Chinese and Islamic fascism have intervened.

The days of naive ease are gone.

Despite consistent Kremlin claims that Moscow isn't trying to resurrect the Cold War, a landslide of Soviet-style actions over the last few weeks is doing a pretty darn good job of indicating the exact opposite.

One of the frostiest events was President Vladimir Putin's announcement a little over a week ago that Russia's nuclear bombers were resuming regular long-range patrols on a "permanent basis" after a 15-year hiatus.

In fact, British Tornado and Norwegian F-16 fighters had already escorted the newly-started Russian flights off their coasts going back to mid-July - and the Americans launched to meet the Russians en route U.S. bases on Guam earlier this month.

But Putin's announcement made it in-your-face official. And that same day, Russia launched 14 such bombers on patrols well beyond Russian borders, with the defense ministry claiming the missions were over the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans.

Again, this was regular Soviet behavior right up to the fall of communism. Tu-95 "Bear" bomber/reconnaissance aircraft flew regular missions along the U.S. East Coast, as well as Pacific missions against U.S. forces in Alaska and Asia.

Putin insisted that suspension of such bomber flights in 1992 had undermined Russia's security. Other nations, he noted, had continued such missions despite the Cold War's end - a plain reference to the U.S. global reconnaissance program.

More pointedly, he made those comments on the closing day of joint war games of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Russia's Ural Mountains involving 6,000 soldiers, ending a week of seemingly successful counterterrorism exercises in a mock village. (The SCO consists of Russia, China and four Central Asian states. Some consider it, perhaps prematurely, to be a Eurasian counterweight to NATO and the U.S. - "NATO with oil.")

Moscow's military buildup also continues apace. The Russian armed forces are receiving a major injection of cash, mostly thanks to profits from nationalized Russian oil and gas firms, to overcome years of abject neglect.

At the Moscow Air Show last week, Russia strutted its stuff by unveiling a full-sized mock-up of a pilot-less, stealth bomber, known as the "Skat," which designers claim will out-stealth the current U.S. B-2 bomber.

In addition, senior Russian aides said that Moscow would restart regular production of Tu-95 and Tu-160 nuclear-capable bombers, now that they are flying "combat missions" for the purposes of "nuclear deterrence."

A week ago, a senior Russian general warned Prague about hosting a U.S. missile-defense system on its territory, encouraging the Czechs to hold off on any decisions about stationing the missile shield until after the '08 U.S. presidential elections.

And, on top of Russia's submarine forays under the North Pole, the Russian Navy chief called for the re-establishment of a permanent Mediterranean naval base. (The Syrian port of Tartus may be under consideration)

The Kremlin also pulled the plug on local broadcasts of the BBC. Authorities claim there were licensing problems, but insiders see the souring of relations between London and Moscow as a result of the Litvinenko poisoning case as the probable cause. Either way, the Kremlin's decision is rather reminiscent of the Iron Curtain era, when Voice of America and the BBC were jammed in the Soviet Union.

Putin has also reportedly ordered a new series of "patriotic" textbooks, seemingly intended to whitewash the dirty deeds of the Soviet past for a new generation of already nationalistic Russian youth, just in time for the new school year.
Does all this add up to a new Cold War? Not necessarily, at least for the moment. But as Putin's recidivism gathers momentum, the gap dividing Russia and the West continues to widen.

It all sends a strong message: Putin's Russia is determined to restore its standing on the world stage, through whatever domestic or international means necessary, even if that means fostering a deep freeze (if not a new Cold War) with the West.