“The sight of Russian tanks rolling through Georgia,” writes Wall Street Journal editorial board member Matthew Kaminski, brings back images of “Chechnya in 1994 and ’99, Vilnius ’91, Afghanistan ’79, Prague ’68, Hungary ’56. Before that the Soviet invasions, courtesy of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, of Poland and the Baltics in ’39 and ’40. Kazaks, Azeris, Tajiks, Ukrainians remember — from family stories and national lore — their own subjugation to Russian rule.”
Why yes, we’ve read those books too. Of course the very important fact that none of those invasions by Russia are at all like the recent war in Georgia… well, that’s not very important.
Ignoring the many silly and irrational phrases in this article—like the condescending Orientalist narrative about Russians craving strong leadership rather than a strong country, claiming either Russia or Russian nationalism are “young” in any real sense of the word, suggesting England and France had a great time adjusting to a post-Colonial world—a darker picture emerges: this is not only completely divorced from reality, it is exactly what the Russian leadership wants.
Ignorant American opinion makers shaking in their boots at the strong and unstoppable Russian advance? Check. The entrenchment in conventional wisdom of Russia as strong and worthy of respect and fear? Check. The willful ignorance of Russia’s many structural political and economic problems because it overran a military 25 times smaller in a battle anyone could have predicted? Check. Deliberately misrepresenting the conflict in Kosovo as a brave, peaceful, small country being destroyed by its brutish powerful neighbor, and so therefore Georgia is the new Kosovo? Check.
Seriously, he gets paid to write this. I don’t think it’s possible to write something more strongly pro-Russia, yet Kaminski is trying to say he opposes Russian expansionism. The blind are leading the blind in American punditry these days.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1771 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust
{ 9 comments }
Not only does Kaminski trot out the same tired cliches that you can find in virtually every Western oped on this crisis, he finishes it all off with a lovely, personal (and equally Orientalist) anecdote about his time in Russia (snowy weather, Russian hospitality, vodka) – Look at me, I’ve been to Russia, I know what they’re like!
All around shoddy.
Before that the Soviet invasions, courtesy of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, of Poland and the Baltics in ‘39 and ‘40.
Why do they always forget Bessarabia? People here remember, too. Although perhaps since many are still in the Russophone mediasphere, they seem to have opinions on the current conflict closer to that of Russians than to that of “new Europe” and the WSJ op-ed page. Whether that’s good or bad for Moldova’s future remains to be seen – I have my own opinion on that, but there’s no need to go any farther (further?) off-topic…
Well, you’re more on topic than that Kaminsky guy. I swear, the last few months the WSJ has been particularly disconnected from reality. Or maybe they always have been, and I just never paid attention to it.
But most of all, I am disappointed neither of you noticed the title’s pun.
I recently tried to explain the concept of Hungry, Hungry Hippos to a Central Asian friend here and he looked at me like I was crazy. Or rather, like North Americans who grew up in the 1980s were crazy because they considered it to be fun.
Kristy, your friend apparently didn’t spend enough time in Moscow in the 1980′s. When I visited Yakutsk, the family I was staying with had a Soviet knock-off version of Hungry Hungry Hippos that they told me they had bought in Moscow at some point in the mid- or late-1980′s. The bottom was stamped with a price in rubles and details in Russian on whatever game manufacturing collective made it.
I really should have asked to buy it off of them.
Osetia said thanks to Russia,so many persons were saved by russian army
Thanks for this great post … I was in the midst of writing up something similar about how the hysteria in Western press over the invasion is exactly what the siloviki want.
However I am having a much harder time reconciling that small space of common sense in between the McCain-Tbilisi bluster and the humorously dishonest official Russian position.
I do think that the structural underpinnings of these conflicts in the Caucasus deserve significant attention, even if that attention is for the moment distorted. Unfortunately, you all know as well as I do that as soon as hurricane hits Florida, the media will forget all about this inconvenient piece of international news. Georgia could become this year’s Liberia.
Nathan, I’m dying to know what the Soviet knock-off version of Hungry, Hungry Hippos is called and where I can find it.
over the years, usually those who have underestimated russia have been proven wrong.
just sayin’