THE RUSSIAN FRONT

This morning’s Washington Post contains an editorial by Murray Feshbach on the massive internal challenges that confront the Russian Federation as its leaders struggle to re-establish their country as a global superpower.

In “Behind the Bluster, Russia is Collapsing,” Feshbach points to the volatile economic situation facing the nation’s oil-dependent economy and the host of public-health crises (ranging from appalling levels of tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS to the more mundane, but rampant, scourges of chronic alcoholism and heart disease) that continue to fuel Russia’s demographic decline.

Money graf:

Predictions that Russia will again become powerful, rich and influential ignore some simply devastating problems at home that block any march to power. Sure, Russia’s army could take tiny Georgia. But Putin’s military is still in tatters, armed with rusting weaponry and staffed with indifferent recruits. Meanwhile, a declining population is robbing the military of a new generation of soldiers. Russia’s economy is almost totally dependent on the price of oil. And, worst of all, it’s facing a public health crisis that verges on the catastrophic.

Feshbach’s broader arguments are already well-known to Russian area specialists. As Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (and Research Professor Emeritus at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service) Dr. Feshbach has for many years been the leading voice regarding the calamitous state of Russian demographics. Readers unfamiliar with his opinions, should give them their due.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates may have come up with the quote of the decade: “At this point I should note that for the first time, both the United States secretary of state and secretary of defense have doctorates in Russian studies. A fat lot of good that’s done us.”

To Gates’ credit, though, it seems to me he’s struck the right note on the South Ossetian crisis: Russia’s response to Georgia’s attempt to seize South Ossetia has been disproportionate and is clearly intended at reasserting authority in Russia’s near abroad, but that is a far cry from the Hitler / Munich parallels so loosely thrown around. In Gates’ words, Russia’s behavior is tsarist, not Soviet, and that makes an enormous difference. Gates is also suitably cautious on the subject of NATO membership for Georgia, which is a welcome breath of fresh air.

Frankly, I find Condoleezza Rice’s conduct more puzzling: if there’s one thing that scholarly training in Russian / East European history ought to teach, it’s the need to be very careful before jumping in the middle of ethnic / national disputes. Down that path lies madness.

I realize that this has nothing to do with Russian history, but it did happen to an historian of Russia.  I’ve lived twenty years in Indiana, and eight years in Kansas, but last night was my first encounter with a tornado.  My house sustained some holes in the roof, a broken window, and a sprung garage door.  At least twenty of my neighbors weren’t so lucky, and had their houses leveled.  The best presentation of what I’ve seen is this aerial footage:

http://www.ksn.com/news/local/19822559.html

The only thing it doesn’t show is the extent of damage to the houses still standing.

I actually appear in the video for the first 1.5 seconds.  I’m the guy at the bottom of the screen walking with a hand in pocket, wearing purple t-shirt with white lettering and ridiculously large boots  (give me a break–lots of nails and broken glass around).