Горизонт 30/859

RUSSIAN DENVER / HORIZON
4
Rachel Bauman
(NI) In 1920 Walter Lippmann
and Charles Merz wrote a fortytwo-page
supplement for the
New Republic magazine called,
«A Test of the News.» They scrutinized
Western media coverage
of the Bolshevik revolution
and aftermath. They noted that
various newspapers had concluded
over ninety times that
the Bolshevik regime was going
to collapse. Their conclusion was
damning: «The news about Russia
is a case of seeing not what
was, but what men wished to see.
The chief censor and the chief
propagandist were hope and fear
in the minds of reporters and
editors.»
It’s a verdict that is worth recalling
as overheated coverage
of American and Russia is proliferating.
Consider a recent article
on the CNN web site, which
was entitled «Russia continues to
shadow Trump.» In it, the CNN
correspondent Nicole Gaouette
pointed to criticism of Donald
Trump’s statements about Russia.
There can be no doubting
that Trump has created a furor
with his comments about possibly
lifting sanctions imposed
over Russia’s takeover of Crimea
and his favorable comments
Russia, Trump and Manafort: A Test of the News
about Russian president Vladimir
Putin. Gaouette quoted a
number of critics, including former
deputy assistant secretary
of defense Evelyn Farkas and
American Foreign Policy Council
senior fellow Stephen Blank.
What Gaouette did not do
was to cite any experts who
might take a somewhat different
view of whether or not America
should seek to improve its relations
with Moscow. Prominent
experts that might have offered
a different perspective include
everyone from former ambassador
to Moscow Jack Matlock
to Harvard University’s Graham
Allison. Nor did Gaouette provide
a broader political context,
which is that the Obama administration
is reaching out to Moscow,
in the form of Secretary of
State John Kerry’s efforts to work
jointly with Russia in Syria.
Something similar occurred
on Fareed Zakaria’s
GPS this
past weekend. In June Zakaria
moderated a panel with Russian
president Vladimir Putin at the
St. Petersburg International Economic
Forum–an event that the
U.S. government specifically discouraged
American companies
from attending. At the event, Zakaria,
normally an acerbic Putin
critic, was quite deferential. His
questions were studiously neutral,
conciliatory even: «since
neither side seems to back down,
will the sanctions just continue,
will this low-grade cold war just
continue? What is the way out?»
Or: «President Putin, I was wondering
if you may have some
closing thoughts that you could
give us and then we will wrap up
the session.»
A rather different, frostier
tone prevailed on his show. Now
Zakaria treated his viewers to a
kind of symposium on Russia
that featured Anne Applebaum,
Max Boot, David Sanger, and
Masha Gessen. All are wellknown
journalists. But there really
wasn’t all that much dissonance
in their views, apart from
Gessen suggesting that Trump
isn’t quite a puppet of Putin’s and
that the true tale is a little more
complicated. But there was no
one on the program like, say,
Robert Legvold of Columbia
University, who takes a more
sober and detached view of Russia
than the featured panelists.
Zakaria’s program would have
benefitted both in terms of substance
and from a real debate.
But perhaps the most conspicuous
example of spinning
the facts came in arecent piece in
the New York Times, Steven Lee
Myers and Andrew E. Kramer
probe Paul Manafort’s associations
with the seamier side of
Russian and Ukrainian politics,
while failing to take into account
Manafort’s numerous attempts
to draw Yanukovych and
Ukraine away from Russian influence.
The authors even mention
these attempts, but disregard
them, perhaps because they
do not lend any excitement to
the Russian-sympathizer narrative.
Instead, Myers and Kramer
seem to apply to Manafort the
misdeeds and misguided associations
of Yanukovych himself.
«Mr. Manafort’s influence in the
country [Ukraine] was significant,
and this political expertise
deeply valued, according to
Ukrainian politicians and officials
who worked with him,» the
article states.
If this is the case, Manafort’s
pro-Western reform attempts
should be taken even more seriously.
The authors then go on
to examine these contributions,
such as «persuading the government
to lower grain export
tariffs, encouraging Western
agribusiness investment, and beginning
dialogue with Chevron
and Exxon regarding oil and natural
gas exploration.» Preparing
the way for a path to Ukrainian
energy independence certainly
did not coincide with Russian
interests; curiously, this is not
mentioned.
Yanukovych’s party, the Party
of Regions, had great success
under Manafort’s counsel, and
Yanukovych became prime
minister once again after he
was deposed in the 2004–5 Orange
Revolution. Even so, a former
member of Yanukovych’s
cabinet claimed that «Manafort
had ultimately grown disillusioned
with his client,» according
to Myers and Kramer. The
authors then go on to mention
Manafort’s insistence that Yanukovych–then
President–»sign
an agreement with the European
Union that would link the
Russia and America: Destined for Conflict?
Dimitri K. Simes
THE NEXT American president
will face the most serious
challenge from Russia since the
end of the Cold War or, for that
matter, since the early 1980s,
when the United States and Yuri
Andropov’s Soviet Union actively
confronted one another
around the globe. Russia today
is increasingly an angry, nationalist,
elective monarchy, and
while it is still open for business
with America and its allies, its
leaders often assume the worst
about Western intentions and
view the United States as the
«main enemy»–indeed, a new
poll finds that 72 percent of Russians
consider the United States
the country most hostile to Russia.
Worse, Moscow has been
prepared to put its money where
its mouth is in proceeding with a
massive military modernization.
The Russian government is simultaneously
tightening domestic
political and police controls
and seeking new alliances to balance
pressures from the United
States and its allies and partners.
It is important not to oversimplify
this situation. It is not
a reenactment of the Cold War;
history rarely repeats itself so
precisely. Vladimir Putin’s Russia
is not a superpower and its
top officials are realistic about
N30/859 от 08.12.2016 e-mail: info@gorizont.com Simply the best
their country’s military, geopolitical
and economic limitations.
Russia does not have a universal
ideology predicated on the West
as an enemy. In fact, Putin and
his associates regularly profess
interest in resuming cooperation
with the United States and its allies–on
terms acceptable to the
Kremlin. The Russian government
is eager to obtain foreign
investment and access to Western
technology, which requires
normalcy in relations with the
West.
We cannot be sure how Putin
and his associates would respond
if the United States and its allies
were prepared to reshape their
policy towards Russia by defining
their interests more narrowly,
being less categorical about
Russian domestic practices,
putting a premium on avoiding
confrontation and, when possible,
even engaging in cooperation
with Russia. All that can be
said at this point is that Russia’s
trajectory is alarming, but probably
not yet irreversible.
ONE REASON for avoiding
a sense of inevitable confrontation
with Russia is that Moscow’s
truculence is primarily a
function of what America does
rather than who it is. To the extent
that Russia has an ideology,
it is an assertive nationalism that
country closer to the West–and
lobbied for the Americans to
support Ukraine’s membership
as well.» This was precisely
contrary to Putin’s pressure on
Yanukovych. Alas, Yanukovych
did not take Manafort’s advice,
instead choosing the side more
favorable to Putin. This decision
led disaffected citizens to violent
protest in the winter of 2014,
and Yanukovych fled to safety
in Russia. As a professional adviser,
this was clearly a loss for
Manafort. But he responded by v
creating an electorally successful
Opposition Bloc of those
disgruntled with the new Petro
Poroshenko presidency. Yes,
this coalition was by no means
purely pro-Western in ideology.
It even contained, as the authors
note, a few Communists. But in
a Ukraine that continues to be
dogged by corruption and turmoil,
even among those with a
pro-Western orientation, it is
very difficult to say which factions–if
any–are able to move
the country in a positive direction.
These three instances are representative
of a broader trend
in the Western media to offer
sensationalistic and misleading
coverage that exacerbates poor
relations with Russia. The most
recent example of the media,
including the New York Times
and the Washington Post, moving
from reporting on events to
becoming outright propagandists
came during the run-up to
the Iraq War. Today, coverage of
Russia is starting to resemble the
unanimity of opinion that prevailed
over a decade ago on Iraq
and it is seeping into a variety of
outlets.
It’s disturbing that the same
traits are once again manifesting
themselves. The consequences
could be dire. As Walter
Lippmann observed almost a century
ago, «the most destructive
form of untruth is sophistry andp
propaganda by those whose profession
it is to report the news.» As
they focus on Russia and America,
Western journalists would do
well to recall them.
allows cooperation with any nation
that does not challenge Russian
geopolitical interests or its
system of government. Russia
thus maintains good relations
with authoritarian countries like
China and Qatar, and with democracies
like India and Israel.
In part because its leaders are
pragmatic rather than messianic,
Russia’s authoritarianism is still
relatively soft and incorporates
many democratic procedures including
meaningful if not entirely
free or fair elections, a judicial
branch that is autonomous most
of the time and a semi-independent
media. Transitions to democracy
in other countries are