As we celebrate the return of the Back to the
Future franchise, a new Star Wars movie and a host of new editions of computer games by for the most long awaited sequel of all:
Cold War II – The Russian Empire Strikes Back.
The Australian today, accurately if somewhat belatedly,
warns us that “we could be returning to the Cold War dangers.” Could be. Except that it’s already happening.
The Cold War of the Fifties and Sixties was less about the
US and the USSR building up competing vast stockpiles of nuclear weapons and
more about the economic and military cultivation of client states around the world.
In two decades after WW2, developing nations “shopped” for
aid, playing the superpowers off against one another; offering allegiance to
whichever would provide them with the most money and, more importantly, the most military assistance to to either protect the government from insurgency or to arm the insurgency itself.
Competing with Russian influence in the Third World first saw
the US initiate the Marshall Plan which gave 13 billion dollars to rebuild
Europe (and to forestall a communist takeover in Greece and other countries),
establish the OEEC and, in the Kennedy era, set up USAID. That scheme has continued to spends tens of billions of dollars annually. USAID was partly to
relieve poverty and enable economic development in the poorer world, but was also an attempt to
stop nations becoming of Soviet client states. Naturally, the USSR not only refused to participate in the Marshall Plan but actively campaigned against
US aid schemes - while at the same time running similar
schemes of its own.
This process of creating a network of client states saw
the US and USSR engage in a number of proxy wars. The Vietnam war, where North Vietnam and the
Viet Cong were funded and armed by Moscow, was just such a war. The US was there in person: the USSR was there by proxy.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late Eighties,
that great competition ran out of steam for a while.
Now it’s back with
Vladimir Putin determined to rebuild a Russian Empire.
Putin has already annexed Crimea and continues to arm and
fund rebel militias in eastern Ukraine, hoping that that country will be split
in two and the east returned to the Russian fold. He has also expertly
intervened in Syria with the dual purpose of propping up the Assad regime and
wiping out ISIS. This is, of course, at odds with the US and other countries’
aim of removing both Assad and ISIS. Putin, with no regard for the West, has commenced bombing
the "moderate" rebels in Syria to secure Assad’s position (which is quite shaky)
and, having done that, will then work with the Assad regime to attack ISIS. This
is a win-win for Russia - preserving a valued pro-Russian state and reducing the
risk from militant Islam which is a much greater for Russia than the West.
It is also a lose-lose for the US and the West in general.
Under Putin’s scheme Assad remains in power and he gets the credit for doing
what America couldn’t – defeating or curtailing ISIS. Putin becomes the hero of
Syria. And being a hero is what Putin is all about.
Now, following the US troop withdrawal, the government of Afghanistan
is nervously looking to Russia for possible military assistance against the
Taliban. One can only imagine the satisfaction it would give the Russians to
take revenge on the Taliban since it was they who drove the Soviets out of Kabul
in 1989. Obama has ordered
US troop withdrawals be halted but this may be too little too late.
Maintaining a hold on Syria and re-attaching Afghanistan as
a Soviet puppet state could provide Vladimir Putin with a greater Christmas
present that he could have ever hoped for.
As Tom Lehrer sang "Who's next?"
