Comment
Get Email
Alerts Print
RSS
digg
MIXX
Stumble It!
OLD
ENEMIES IN A NEW CENTURY
August
18, 2008
The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games
attracted huge
television audiences around the world. The Russian incursion into Georgia
drew condemnation. Both events cast revealing light on old enemies in a
new century.
Both countries continue to present serious challenges for the United States. How we deal with them will determine what kind of 21st-century
world we
live in.
China’s phenomenal economic growth, reflected in the
scope of the Games opening ceremony, and its status as a global political,
economic, and eventually military power, come as no surprise. Likewise, Russia’s reemergence as an authoritarian state bent on regaining
vulnerable parts of its former empire also should have come as no surprise. We’ve
helped them both become what they have become.
The
US
has played a major role in China’s 21st-century performance on the world stage. We’ve sent the
Chinese billions of dollars
in exchange for their products and cheap labor. We’ve allowed them to finance our national debt.
We
provided them access to US technology. And despite the fact that our interests frequently
diverge and
they pose a growing military threat, we have sought to make them
our friends, not our enemies.
Similarly,
we have facilitated Russia’s resurgence under Vladimir Putin. We’ve sought to incorporate
Russia in
Western institutions and treated Putin as a partner in world affairs. At the
same time, we’ve largely stood on the sidelines as Putin suppressed
freedom of speech and freedom of the press while placing Russia’s wealth in the hands of the oligarchy. Like
shareholders watching the stock market
fall, we kept our money invested waiting for a turn around that never
came. Making NATO members of former Warsaw Pact countries, a wise strategy
given recent events, only further motivated Mr. Putin to take the actions
he has taken.
Following
the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States
found itself confronted with new and different
threats from those it faced during the Cold War. Radical extremists and
rogue states presented different challenges and made strange
bedfellows of old enemies. The
Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy, released to the public on July
31, 2008, calls China and Russia, "important partners for the future"
with whom "we seek to build collaborative
and cooperative relationships.”
It
acknowledges the fact that we need China's and Russia’s help to effectively combat
radical extremism. But what price are we willing to pay for it? Can we
afford to continue mortgaging our national security with loans from Chinese
banks? Can we afford to stand by and allow
Moscow
to overthrow democratically elected governments in Eastern Europe?
Can we afford to continue spending billions
on foreign oil while
China’s energy consumption and our refusal to drill
drives up the price, pouring money into Russia's coffers they can use to finance military aggression.
The
events of the past week should be a wake up call. The “long war”
against radical extremists requires broad international cooperation. We
must continue to pursue that cooperation aggressively. At
the same time, however, we can not allow China and Russia to use that cooperation to take
advantage of us.
China
and Russia are not democracies. They may be someday, but until they are we
should not expect them to behave like they were. Beijing and Moscow do not share our
democratic vision for the 21st century. They do not share our belief in
human rights. They see us as a threat to their national security and seek capabilities and
relationships to counter us.
No reasonable person seeks
another Cold War or military confrontation with China or Russia.
Russia’s incursion into Georgia, however, demonstrates what can happen when
our foreign policy is based on unrealistic expectations of totalitarian
states.
Putin
took deliberate military action in
Georgia
to send a message to the United States, NATO, and other countries in the region. He
will take similar actions in the future when he deems them necessary.
Expressing his displeasure at the pending US-Poland missile defense agreement, he
recently suggested that
Russia
should “return to
Cuba,” where the Soviet Union and the United States
came as close as ever to nuclear war. One of his generals threatened Poland with nuclear
attack for signing the agreement.
Just bluster? Perhaps not.
China
currently pursues a non-confrontational policy toward the
US; it’s been helpful with North Korea, and it’s pursuing a policy of détente with
Taiwan. It’s showing its friendlier side to the world at the Beijing
Olympics.
As George Will
observed, however, the Games opening ceremony "was a tableau of the miniaturization of the individual and the
subordination of individuality to the collective. Not since the Nazi's
1934 Nuremburg rally, which Leni Riefenstahl turned into the film 'Triumph
of the Will,' has tyranny been so brazenly tarted up as art."
China's
media skills certainly put Russia's to shame. Last week Russians came across
as pillaging thugs. But like Russia, China pursues an aggressive military modernization
program to suppress dissent, project power, and regain lost territory. Taiwan-China
détente notwithstanding, China continues to build up its forces and ballistic missiles along
the Taiwan Strait.
Should
Taiwan-China détente falter,
China
may again choose to intimidate
Taiwan
with the threat of military force as it did in 1996 when it launched test
ballistic missiles at targets near Taiwan
ports. If we are not careful, we could easily find ourselves in a situation
similar to the one we find ourselves in today with
Russia
and Georgia -- suddenly confronted with a military situation we’re not prepared
for.
It
made sense following the fall of the Soviet Union to pursue cooperative
relations with
Russia
and China. That bipartisan policy has reaped benefits for the US
and for world peace and stability. We must, however, face reality. Such a
policy has its limitations. At its core, there are fundamental
incompatibilities between democracies, ruled by principles of human
rights, freedom, and justice for all, and totalitarian states, regardless
of the free-market economic policies they practice. Sooner or
later they do things that force freedom-loving peoples to put their
relationships with them on the line, or worse, stand up to their
aggression with military force.
President Bush will soon leave office and his successor
will inherit these challenges. How our next commander-in-chief deals with
them will shape the the 21st century.
Copyright
© Edward W. Ross 2008
All
Rights Reserved
(Back
to Top)
|