The Evil Empire never ended

 

Have we been naïve when it comes to Russia? Maybe Russia simply can´t change, due to reasons of geography and history? For the past 500 years, Russia has oscillated between autocracy and anarchy. Even its short democratic periods have been either more on the chaotic side (Kerensky, Yeltsin) or more on the autocratic one (early Putin). It seems Russia is still stuck in this ever-ending cycle, with Putin now trying to turn the wheel even more towards the autocratic side. Perhaps he will succeed, but another possibility is of course a new “time of troubles”…

Russia´s geography in the geopolitical Heartland of Eurasia makes it fated to come into conflict with essentially everyone else, since the only way the Russian state can break free from these geopolitical constraints is to expand towards the oceans, at the expense of the peoples already living there. Russia also needs to control the habitable zone roughly corresponding to Ukraine, if it wants to be something more than just some isolated (and half-starved) northern polity. Or look at Crimea, since time immemorial an important trade hub at Black Sea! Russia and its neighbors seem doomed to conflict forever. Russia´s most favorable geopolitical position was during Soviet times after World War II (before China broke away from the Soviet bloc).

The authoritarian state is presumably also a product of Russia´s geography. The only way to beat back, control and ultimately suppress the nomadic tribes that has roamed the Eurasian interior since at least the Copper Stone Age (when the horse was domesticated) was to create a highly centralized, militarized and despotic “early modern state” which (surprise) morphed into a even more authoritarian high modern state later on (especially during Stalinist times). Indeed, I sometimes wonder if real Russian nationalism even exist. Isn´t “really existing” Russian nationalism simply loyalty to this bloated state apparatus? Regardless of formal ideology or form of government, the state bureaucracy (and its repressive political police) remains. The apparatus doesn´t even have to be ethnically Russian. It can soak up any group: Frenchmen, Germans, or Scotsmen during Czarism, Georgians and Ukrainians under Communism, various Asiatic groups under Putin. While ethnic Russians of course dominate (at least after the fall of Czarism), the whole thing doesn´t look like a real nation-state (let alone Pan-Slavism). Isn´t there actually something de-nationalized and “universalistic” about the Russian state? The irony! The Alt Right, which claims to support “nations”, are really supporting another version of modern universalism…

The Russian Federation is just a bureaucracy, intelligence service, military and mafia built around Gazprom.

Perhaps this explains the peculiar eclectic character of its official ideology. Putin´s Russia seems to espouse a combination of imitation Communism, imitation fascism, imitation Orthodoxy and perhaps even imitation 50´s America. The entire simulacrum might be on the verge of becoming a vassal to another civilization that constantly oscillates between imperial grandeur and warring states. Yes, that would be China.

The above struck me when I was watching the surrealistic scenes coming out of Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine lately. Obviously fake referendums, soldiers in long lines before busts of Lenin, offices adorned with Czarist symbols and fascistic flags, soldiers forcing voters to tick a “yes” on a ballot at gun point, the Soviet – pardon, Russian – authorities pretending with grave faces that this is somehow “legitimate”, and so on. It looks like a throwback to the absolutely ridiculous propaganda exercises of Soviet times, but above all, it looks artificial and eclectic, as if somebody had randomly throw together elements belonging from entirely different time periods. But perhaps the average Russlander doesn´t see any relevant differences between the Czars, the Reds and the Putinists.

Who knows, maybe they are right. Maybe we have been naïve to think that we could ever strike meaningful agreements with this polity, cooperate with them, or have a balance of power with them. Maybe we should have tried to destabilize them all along. Russia is the Evil Empire that never ended, indeed, the Evil Empire that simply couldn´t have ended.

But there is more. Historically speaking, many European powers have cooperated with Russia. The ever-hypocritical British Empire at some points. France at others. Not to mention Germany! As for Greece and Italy, they seem hell bent on becoming Russian colonies, in the Italian case for reasons best known to themselves. Same with certain irrelevant peoples without history in “Eastern” Europe, such as the brave Czechs. Indeed, all of Europe made itself dependent on Russian gas and oil, while bullshitting about “human rights”, “free elections” and green energy. Many will still do it. Perhaps we have to face the brute fact that in the end, most of Europe simply won´t resist Russia. Geopolitically, only Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic States, Finland and Scandinavia are obviously anti-Russian. The others still feel they can maneuver somehow. We can´t. It´s difficult to maneuver if the geopolitical monster wants to eat you whole. And probably raw, too.

Is there some way out of this impasse? A time of troubles in Russia that lasts forever is one. But then, we might get a whole bunch of neo-nomads on our tail, instead. Or a ChiCom-sphere that extends all the way to Vyborg. 

The other is for Japan to get the bomb and unite with its long lost brethren at the other end of Eurasian space…