If anything, there is something very Russian and even provincial about Putin, which explains why he is very popular among those who belong to the equivalent of the red states in Russia, and why most of us find his mannerisms very odd, in the same way, I suppose, that many Europeans (or for that matter, many coastal Americans) couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to have a beer with the unsophisticated but very American George W. It is not a sign, however, that the Russian President is transforming Russia into a some sort of universal model for conservatives.
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That Putin has formed a political alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church and has been exploiting nationalist and religious sentiments to mobilize support from the Russian electorate makes a lot of political sense, and is not so different from the GOP using its alliance with Christian Evangelicals and former southern segregationists. If the latter is a neoconservative dream, the former is a paleoconservative fantasy. One can, of course, criticize Russian conduct in both Syria and Ukraine, but when neoconservative and liberal analysts advance the idea that Russia’s moves are a part of a Cold War strategy, they may be actually projecting their own ambition to amplify the current disagreement with Moscow into a global strategic confrontation.Īt the same time, the thesis promoted by Owen Matthews in the Spectator that “Russia is decisively back as an ideological force in the world-this time as a champion of conservative values,” is no less absurd than the assumption that we are about to resume the Cold War with Moscow. Similarly, by exerting influence on developments in Ukraine, the Russians are protecting their interests in a country that has always been a part of their strategic sphere of influence and is a home to a population with which they share common linguistic and religious ties.
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In fact, as part of this policy, the Russians have also strengthened ties with Israel and have floated the idea of a trilateral strategic and economic nexus of Israel, Greece, and Turkey aimed at containing Turkish pressure in the Eastern Mediterranean, a policy that should have precipitated at least a mild form of cognitive dissonance among pro-Israeli neoconservatives. In that context, the idea that Putin is a new Stalin bent on aggressive expansion of Russian power sounds a bit phony when it’s articulated by Americans who applauded the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.Īs I explained in the National Interest, Russian opposition to Western and Arab efforts to depose Syria’s Assad should not have been interpreted as a reflection of anti-American attitudes but as the continuation of the traditional Russian policy of maintaining influence in the Middle East, as well as being derived from concerns that “the Christians in the former Byzantine province, including a large Orthodox community, would be persecuted if Muslim fundamentalists came to power.” There is no denying that Russia under Putin has been flexing its diplomatic and military muscle in service of its strategic interests, which is basically what great powers, including China, India, and lest we forget, the United States, are supposed to do. security interests by a resurgent Russia. While Putin’s anti-gay tirades on the eve of the Winter Olympics in Sochi may help explain why some American conservatives are fond of a foreign politician who is supposedly rallying against Western secularism and decadence, the crisis in Ukraine, like the one in Syria, has highlighted the policy differences between non-interventionist conservatives and their neoconservative opponents, with the former urging Washington not to intervene in “somebody’s else civil war” and the latter warning of the challenge to U.S. More recently, the British Spectator magazine published a big “think” piece suggesting that Putin actually hopes to become the “the leader of global social conservatism.” The Daily Show even ran a spoof titled, “Better Off Red,” which portrayed Russia as the new “conservative paradise.”
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Matt Drudge called Putin the “leader of the free world,” while Victor Davis Hanson, who in what sounded like a bizarre S&M fantasy, ruminated that “Putin is almost Milton’s Satan–as if, in his seductive evil, he yearns for clarity, perhaps even a smackdown, if not just for himself, for us as well.” Other conservative-leaning pundits perpetuated the meme.
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The counterintuitive argument that Putin should be considered a hero of American conservatives probably originated with the founder of this magazine who asked last year whether in “the culture war for mankind’s future,” Russian President Vladimir Putin was “one of us,” speculating that the former member of the Soviet Communist Party and ex-KGB agent was, well, a paleoconservative.