The Moscow Times newspaper maintains an impressive stable of pundits analyzing Russian political developments, and their weekly columns are often required reading for those who wish to understand and properly respond the rise of the Neo-Soviet Union. Two recent examples deal with the disturbing and self-destructive rise of official anti-Americanism in Russia: Georgy Bovt documents its rise in the Russian Duma, while Alexander Golts explains its new significance in the Russian military.

Bovt writes:

Last week, a remarkable document titled “On a Likely Scenario of Action of the United States toward Russia in 2006-2008” was circulated in the State Duma. It is undoubtedly the largest-scale and most comprehensive anti-U.S. program that post-Soviet Russia has seen. ÄIts authors areÅ Valentin Falin, a former member of the Communist Party Central Committee and sometime adviser to Mikhail Gorbachev who served as ambassador to Germany before turning on and pillorying his former boss at every available opportunity, and former foreign intelligence chief Gennady Yevstafyev. Suffice it to say that it brings together almost all of the anti-U.S. myths of the last 15 years. For example, it says that the United States cannot “come to terms with Russia’s growing strength,” and that Washington is preparing to “bring down” the Putin regime from within, specifically around the time of the 2008 presidential elections. The United States will, the report says, work to isolate the Russian political elite, and look for a stalking horse among liberal groups — currently former-Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov — and, inevitably, the CIA is drafting an “Orange project” for Russia. “For the United States, it is unacceptable in principle to have sovereign democracy in Russia … that is not built into the construction of global American leadership.” The United States will also work to undermine “Russia’s energy sovereignty,” and simultaneously push for Georgia to be accepted into NATO. The whole document is filled with a spirit of confrontation, a paranoid search for enemies and all sorts of U.S. conspiracies.

The growth of this classic Soviet paranoia, even at a time when Russia appears to be resurgent, is convincing evidence that Russia is proceeding back down the Soviet path. Neo-Soviet propaganda is another: Weirdly, Falin has repeatedly and publicly complained about ???????russophobia??????? in the West (he stated, for instance, that ???????in my opinion the ???????cold war???????? hasn????????t ended, since its groundwork ???????? Russophobia ???????? still exists; it????????s an evil and tenacious phenomena, that can be substantiated by many historical examples???????), even going so far as to allege that the West intentionally opened the front against Nazi Germany late so as to debilitate Russia (Russians regularly harangue the West for failing to give Russia due credit for its role in bringing down the Nazis, always ignoring the fact that Russians give the West absolutely no credit at all for its own role). This is classic Russian hypocrisy: It????????s a crime to be ???????russophobic??????? but it????????s perfectly rational to be ???????americaphobic.??????? Russia must be given time to change, America must change right now.

Now here????????s Golts:

As the latest attempts to reform the military run out of steam, the top brass are beginning to demand a military doctrine from the Kremlin, arguing that they cannot build up their forces without a document that clearly identifies the country’s enemies, its allies, and the sort of war we are supposed to be preparing for. In short, they’re looking for the equivalent of the General Secretary’s reports to the Soviet Communist Party congresses in the good old days. The main question, of course, is who should be included in the list of Russia’s potential enemies. The journalists who wrote the latest article on the new military doctrine said it singled out the United States and NATO. If the document was drafted without instructions from the Kremlin, this means that the military leadership is pushing the country into a new confrontation. It’s worth remembering that when the current military doctrine was being drawn up in 1999-2000, the General Staff argued that the United States and NATO posed a clear threat to Russian security. At the time, the Kremlin was irritated by the actions of the West in Yugoslavia, but Ivanov, who was then head of the Security Council, had the sense to remove this provocative statement from the final draft. Now it seems the generals are riding a new wave of anti-Americanism to throw the same old arguments at the Kremlin. And not because they seriously think a military confrontation with the United States and NATO is likely. Their only interest is in preserving the current structure of the armed forces so that they can hold on to their jobs as long as possible.

The similarities between the goings on in the Duma and in the Army, as described by these two columnists, are disturbing to say the least, and not merely because of their national security considerations for the United States. Indeed, a recent article in Newsweek insightfully points out that Russia is far from being a military or economic juggernaut capable of doing serious harm to the U.S. The authors note:

It’s no secret that, for all Russia’s new oil wealth, its Army remains poorly trained, malnourished and demoralized. Alcoholism, suicide and corruption are rife. Weaponry is aging and newer models arrive at a trickle: India has bought more Russian tanks since 2001 than the Russian Army. Of the $648.1 billion in foreign investment worldwide in 2004, only $11.6 billion went to Russia. The 2005 Foreign Policy/A.T. Kearney survey placed it 52nd in a list of 62 countries????????a drop of five places from 2004.

As if to bolster the Newsweek position, the World Economic Forum just published its most recent economic competitiveness survey, and here Russia plummeted even more dramatically than in the Kearney survey, from position #53 last year to #62 this year ???????? a decline of nearly 17% in just one year. And these negative results are coming while Russia????????s revenues are at their peak, with oil prices having skyrocketed. As the Newsweek article asks: ???????What happens when????????not if????????oil and gas prices begin to retreat????????

So rather than fearing Russian encroachment on U.S. security, we should rather be disturbed by our failure to take corrective action, relatively easy given Russia????????s significant weakness, and even more so by Russia????????s apparently suicidal desire to provoke a new Cold War with the United States. Compared to Russia, the USSR had a far larger population, military establishment and economy and yet the USSR was no match for the U.S. in the last cold war. That decimated Russia would even consider provoking such a confrontation indicates not only latent hatred of the United States but a fundamental inability to perceive reality. Even though Russia has become a more open society with the fall of the formal Soviet structure, its impoverished population still remains largely cut off from real information about the outside world. Perhaps even more important, the Kremlin continues to insulate itself from the criticism and information flow that would come from viable opposition parties and an independent news media, resulting in an ???????Emperor????????s New Clothes??????? phenomenon that renders Russia virtually incapable of recognizing, much less improving, its shortcomings.

How is it possible that Russians can barrel so heedlessly down the selfsame path that led to their utter ruin only decades ago? And, even more disturbing, how is it possible that we can sit idly by while our moment of opportunity to interrupt this activity once again passes, giving Russia the chance to morph into something that actually could threaten basic U.S. interests? Remember, Russia is displaying this rabid anti-Americanism even though the current occupant of the Oval Office has ???????looked into the eyes of Putin??????? and found him to be a partner he can deal with. What can America expect if the next president takes a more critical view of Russia and its KGB spymaster president?

Kim Zigfeld publishes the Russia blog La Russophobe.