The Power of Nostalgia in the Absence of Leadership Earlier this week, I posted 2.5 hours of rousing Soviet and Russian Music.... made available on YouTube. The point of that exercise was to show how some might fail to fully appreciate other peoples sense of nostalgia for coherent order and some forms of progress that such order can bring. Putin clearly feels this and he understands that he is not alone. Many will cite sufficient evidence that has been steadily working to use this nostalgia and young American naivete to reincarnate the Soviet Union. Lets take a look. 1. 2000 Russian National Anthem In 2000, Putin reinstated the Soviet anthem as the National Anthem of Russia. A 2009 poll showed that 56% of respondents felt proud when hearing the anthem, and that 81% liked it. 2. 2005 Declarations In 2005, Putin declared the 1991 fall of the USSR to be the world’s largest geopolitical catastrophe. He also said... We are a free nation and our place in the modern world will be defined only by how successful and strong we are. and... The moment we display weakness or spinelessness, our losses will be immeasurably greater. Around this time, then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed concern at the progress of democracy and media curbs in Russia. 3. 2007-2012 CSTO and KSOR Developments The CSTO, or Collective Security Treaty Organization, is an intergovernmental military alliance which was signed on 15 May 1992. It presently has six members: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and two observers: Afghanistan and Serbia. In October 2007, the CSTO signed an agreement with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe, to broaden cooperation on issues such as security, crime, and drug trafficking. In December 2011, Russia won the right to veto the establishment of new foreign military bases in the member states. KSOR is the Collective Rapid Reaction Force intended to be used to repulse military aggression, conduct anti-terrorist operations, fight transnational crime and drug trafficking, and neutralize the effects of natural disasters. 4. 2011-2015 Eurasian Economic Union On 18 November 2011, the presidents of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia signed an agreement, setting a target of establishing a Eurasian Union by 2015. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have also expressed interest in joining the organization. Now, Putin has announced that Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan are ready to launch preparations for a treaty on Armenia’s accession to the Eurasian Economic Union. As for recent actions in Crimea? Perhaps Putin clearly took notice when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed in December 2012 that It’s not going to be called that [USSR]. It’s going to be called customs union, it will be called the Eurasian Union and all of that, but let’s make no mistake about it. We know what the goal is and we are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent it.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 15:22:29 +0000
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