{"id":7721,"date":"2014-07-30T07:49:16","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T14:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=7721"},"modified":"2014-07-30T07:49:16","modified_gmt":"2014-07-30T14:49:16","slug":"our-russia-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/our-russia-experts\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Russia Experts"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online<\/a> – The Corner<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"Photo
Photo via www.carnegiecouncil.org<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the more depressing things in watching Vladimir Putin is the manner in which Russian \u201cexperts\u201d at home have for years now all but cheered him on. In the latest\u00a0Nation\u00a0<\/em>magazine, Stephen Cohen has written one of the most embarrassing apologies of Putin\u2019s imperialistic misadventures imaginable. A Russian state public-relations official could not have offered a shakier contextualization of Russian expansionism.<\/p>\n

In the last few years someone named Mark Adomanis (who identifies himself as \u201cI specialize in Russian economics and demographics\u201d) has perhaps offered the most unfortunate apologies for Putin\u2019s Russia and the serially excused reset as proof of a strong Obama foreign policy (\u201cPerhaps I am a deeply unserious person, but I think it is not only\u00a0possible\u00a0<\/em>to \u2018seriously\u2019\u00a0argue that 2012 Russia is more reasonable towards the United States but that it is\u00a0quite\u00a0easy\u00a0<\/em>to do so\u201d.) He routinely chastised skeptics (me in particular in often ad hominem style) for suggesting that reset with Russia would only empower Putin\u2019s authoritarianism, weaken our Eastern European allies, and project a dangerous sense of U.S. indecision and vulnerability. At the time (2012) Adomanis ridiculed any suggestion that reset was counterproductive. In a 2012 piece that unfortunately bragged \u201cOne does not need to be a\u00a0proselytizer\u00a0for \u201cthe reset\u201d to note that American-Russian relations are\u00a0better\u00a0<\/em>now than they were when Obama first took office,\u201d\u00a0he\u00a0argued<\/a>,<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I\u2019m very familiar with conservative critiques of Obama\u2019s Russia policy, and the most frequent criticism is that improved relations with Russia weren\u2019t worth the cost: coddling up to a thug like Putin was simply too high a price to pay for the relatively paltry returns. But\u00a0Hanson\u00a0is making a far more radical argument. He\u2019s arguing\u00a0both\u00a0<\/em>that our attempts to improve relations with Russia angered our NATO allies like Poland and the Baltics\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>that attempts to improve relations with Russia actually\u00a0worsened\u00a0<\/em>relations with Russia. I suppose it\u2019s possible to imagine\u00a0a foreign policy initiative that is so\u00a0horrifically\u00a0planned and executed that it worsens relations with\u00a0everyone,\u00a0<\/em>but while I have been critical of the reset since its inception it seems very hard to argue that it has backfired so\u00a0catastrophically.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In reality, Obama\u2019s foreign policy vis-a-vis Russia has failed not due to its cowering weakness and\u00a0accommodation, but due to its significant overlap with the previous administration\u2019s bullheaded and illogical insistence on pursuing ballistic missile defense in Eastern Europe. That\u2019s a criticism I would love to hear made, but it\u2019s one that\u00a0Hanson\u00a0is incapable of making because it would require that he recognize\u00a0Obama as a persistent and forceful advocate of American power.<\/strong>\u00a0(emphasis added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I do plead guilty that I could not and do not yet quite sense the supposedly forceful Obama advocacy of American power, and also to arguing for the last few years\u00a0\u201c<\/em>that attempts to improve relations with Russia actually\u00a0worsened\u00a0<\/em>relations with Russia.\u201d\u00a0But I think most shared that conclusion; it seemed obvious from that the way that Secretary Clinton promoted reset that it would lead to worsening relations by undercutting Russians who had legitimate complaints about Putin\u2019s thuggery and thereby would only further encourage his absolutism, by our acquiescence green-lighting more Russian adventurism that could only in the future destabilize the former Soviet republics and lead to increased tensions with the U.S. and Europe, and by inflating Putin\u2019s stature that was not otherwise earned by the Russian economy, political system, military, or morality and that might in other regions run counter to U.S. interests.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online – The Corner One of the more depressing things in watching Vladimir Putin is the manner in which Russian \u201cexperts\u201d at home have for years now all but cheered him on. In the latest\u00a0Nation\u00a0magazine, Stephen Cohen has written one of the most embarrassing apologies of Putin\u2019s imperialistic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[375,844,977,167,846,23,46,196],"tags":[12,1055,1074,424],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-20x","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12105,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-russian-under-every-bed\/","url_meta":{"origin":7721,"position":0},"title":"A Russian Under Every Bed","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 19, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review The three-year-long effort to abort the Trump presidency \u2014 now culminating with a manipulated impeachment effort \u2014 has warped U.S. foreign policy toward Russia. From 2009 to 2014, the Obama administration\u2019s official policy (\u201creset\u201d) was appeasement of Vladimir Putin\u2019s autocratic Russia. Obama and Secretary\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10457,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-does-the-left-suddenly-hate-russia\/","url_meta":{"origin":7721,"position":1},"title":"Why Does the Left Suddenly Hate Russia?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 8, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review After 70 years of accommodating and appeasing Russia, Democrats suddenly foment a red scare. Russian Realism? 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