Failure to Communicate

I attended the US-Russia Forum in Washington, DC earlier this week, and came away with mixed impressions. On one hand, almost everyone involved was trying to improve relations between Russia and the U.S. On the other, entirely too many Americans involved continue to believe that the problem here isn't the Atlantic Empire's abuse, but some phantom Russian intransigence, "revisionism" or "retrenchment."

(inspired by commenter "bearspaw" below; as seen on Facebook)

I've offered up my overview of the conference in a column over at Antiwar.com. To sum it up here, the presenters had a very real diversity of opinion, rather than being "Putin apologists" as presstwats predictably claimed. Leonid Gozman, for example, openly backed the Kiev junta, illustrating the typical position of what passes for "liberals" in Russia (and explaining why their support runs into low single digits). There were speakers blaming the EU (which has shown its utter inability to do anything but obey Washington), or even asserted that Russia's reaction in the Crimea endangered nuclear nonproliferation talks - without stopping to think it's the Imperial pattern of aggression that's compelling countries to seek nuclear insurance in the first place.

For their part, I don't think the Russians fully understand this, either. It's only normal for everyone to interpret the behavior of others through the prism of their own; so Americans always see others as aggressors, invaders, liars, murderers and terrorists. The latest example of this "flipping the script" is a New Republic feature comparing Putin to Milosevic. In reality, it is the West acting towards Russia the same way they acted towards the Serbs two decades ago. I've argued before that Putin is aware of this, though the Russian public and media in general may not be. The Russians tend to see Americans as rational actors, playing the game of politics by the rules. Perhaps they ought to watch (or better yet, read) some Game of Thrones, lest they end up like the Starks to the Anglo Lannisters.

To borrow a movie quote, what we have here is a failure to communicate. And that's not just depressing, but in the present situation, downright dangerous.