Starting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s relentless laying of the blame for the worldwide financial crisis on American greed (a charge I wish I could dispute with more vigor),
This is a dismal state of affairs, but, since Barack Obama doesn’t strike me as a man easily rattled by puerile provocations (and, one more time, as a still-useful thought experiment, let’s imagine President McCain’s reaction to the threat about Poland), we can filter out most of this noise. Russia is governed by extreme realpolitik--all talk of ideology, of what Alexander Vershbow terms “values gap” and Daniel Fried calls “the moral difference,” is irrelevant; this time, aside from profit and influence, the Moscow power elite has no ideology, values or morals to speak of. In fact, I believe the actual Russia-U.S. interactions over the next four years will boil down to the following few flashpoints:
NATO expansion into
At this point, I am beginning to seem like an advocate of giving
Finally, there is the more general issue of the
Michael Idov is a contributing editor at
By Michael Idov