The Hunt For Russian Aggression
The report that two Russian attack subs appeared off the eastern seaboard in international waters has been an occasion for all kinds of speculation. While the subs’ appearance is remarkable mostly for how rare and unusual it is for the Russian navy to send its best vessels so far out to sea, thus underscoring how relatively non-threatening Russian conventional forces are to U.S. security and how few Russian provocations of any kind there have been for decades, it has prompted some predictable yelping. David Satter writes:
They are in international waters and have not taken any provocative actions. Nonetheless, they convey a message. In the wake of President Obama’s visit to Moscow and Vice President Biden’s prediction that Russia’s weakness will produce conciliatory behavior, the submarines demonstrate that the Kremlin has no intention of changing its aggressive stance toward the U.S. [bold mine-DL]
Russia does not have an “aggressive stance toward the U.S.” I’m not sure what one can call this except delusional. Our government arms and trains the military of a neighboring state, which then uses its army to escalate a war with Russia and kill Russian soldiers, and it is Russia that has an “aggressive stance.” Our government bombards a nominal Russian ally for 78 days without just cause, but it is Russia that is the aggressive one. We try to bring every former satellite and province into our anti-Russian military alliance, and it is Russia that is the aggressor. When Russia has the gall to protest against these provocations and aggressive moves, or even dares to retaliate against attacks on its soldiers and the populations under their protection, it is Russia that must be acting aggressively. The most frustrating thing about these lies is that they are so transparent and incredible, but they are nonetheless widely accepted and believed.
It is true that Biden’s prediction was wrong, in no small part because Moscow was bound to become unyielding and uncooperative because of Biden’s calculated insults to Russia during and after his visit to Ukraine and Georgia. If the Russians are cooling noticeably towards the new administration, it is because that administration has been operating at both “the level of dissimulation and the level of reality.”
P.S. Scoblete offers one of the few sensible comments on this story:
Either way, this should serve as a good reminder that it is jarring when a not-quite-friendly nation brings military power right up to your borders. Food for thought.
Quite. Now imagine how our political class would react if Russia had made security guarantees to multiple neighboring states and set about arming and training their militaries to “defend” against U.S. “revisionism” and “aggression.”
8 Responses to “The Hunt For Russian Aggression”
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One thing I do have to ask though, is doesn’t Russia figure that this sort of stuff just seems to validate the nutbars even more in this country? And to be fair, the Pentagon has pretty much dismissed this as an issue of concern, pointing out, as you state, that America has its fleet at eternal vigilance in international waters everyday, all year. Like the annual trotting out of Chinese nuclear subs, its mostly an occasion to rib us that we’re not the only one’s with a decent fleet, though evidently the only one with the means to operate it constantly throughout the world.
If the presence of these two subs off our coasts relates to anything we did, my bet would be in response to our positioning of ships in the Black Sea. The Russians are very protective of this area and were very irritated at our presence there.
Anyone is free to sail about in international waters if they choose to. Still Russian maritime power raises hackles for the same reason that Germany’s did. Land-based powers who develop powerful navies are always suspected of having aggressive intentions. The old Soviet Navy was clearly a challenge but despite all the money spent on it, it lays in rust and disrepair. Russia now wants a rejuvenated, functional navy commensurate with it’s legitimate interests. Why not?
As I wrote today, it’s a bit foolish to worry about the proximity of Russian submarines. After all, the Russians have the technology to nuke us from the other side of the planet.
With that said, we should all internalize Daniel’s point about how our relationship to Georgia and other former Soviet satellites is far more aggressive than anything Russia has done or said to us in quite a while.
jesus!!! tell me why is it that when i was a soviet citizen back 25 years ago i Ioved America, coca-cola and levi’s and I felt some sorta simpathy…
i mean i was a hard core communist kid i’d say, filled up with propoganda and stuff, but still, there was a place for THE America in my heart, and i belived that no matter how wrong in my notions i was (if I was) the people on the other side were the same, believing (may be false) the righteous ideas contrary to mine beliefs. and i accepted and respected it.. you know?..
well, thing’s ‘ve changed, drastically, since then.. the world have changed.. have America noticed this change??? there is no Soveit Union anymore, hello?! Anybody home??
the further it goes the more the United States remind me of guess who.. the Soviet Union – the old and rusty empire crumbling on self-deception..
after the collapse of USSR I’ve traveled a lot, lived a few years in US (east coast), i mean i’m no stranger, I still miss gloomy Trenton mornings occasionally ; ) .. but guys.. there’s something terribly wrong going on with America on all fronts these days.. can’t you all see???
After all the traveling I’ve ended up back in Russia, and you know what – it is not Soviet Union anymore!!! : ) and I feel more free here.. and there are no more of those emperial lies I had heard at times when I grew up: “we are the center of communism and freedom and we should spread it all around the world”.. remind you of anything???
thank you, Daniel Larison, for trying. i have a few friends left in US thinking the same way and not trying to make a scarecrow of Russia, but here are so few of you..
there is always an enemy – if you are loking for one…
what russians still need to do to not impose a treat to US – desintegrate ourselves and become slaves to GM, Boeing or Texaco?!!
Cheers!! ; )
Yuri (ex-commie kid)
PS Please, post my comment, i’ve spent so much time regestering and typing it, really.. : )
Mine! “Our government arms and trains the military of a neighboring state, which then uses its army to escalate a war with Russia and kill Russian soldiers”… Daniel: What are you talking about?! Georgians are free people like you and me and not just Russian “satelites”. They live in a soverign state has right to defend its borders (as it tried a year ago) and to chose their own aliances.
Russia has no right to enslave an independent nation, no matter how far or how near from Russia’s borders.
After all the traveling I’ve ended up back in Russia, and you know what – it is not Soviet Union anymore!!! : ) and I feel more free here.. and there are no more of those imperial lies I had heard at times when I grew up
Russia occupies a piece of East Prussia, has troops in “Trans-dniestria”, has unsettled differences with Japan about Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands, likewise differences with Finland, and persists in efforts to keep Belarus, Moldava, and Ukraine out of the EU. All of these seem a bit at odds with your statement. Russia is also curiously unenthusiastic about taking ethnic Russians back into their homeland from various colonizations. One would think it might be population that would be appreciated.
The northern Caucasus peoples probably don’t have much business being element of Russia, an opinion ethnic Russians seem to share. Indeed, there are quite a few Asian peoples and stretches of land they live in which Russia conquered in the times of the Czars. These it could probably spin off without real loss in the next few decades.
Since Russia is no longer an empire, its government and people will of course view these things sensibly and act benignly- for the good of all parties involved.
Or maybe not.
Russia occupies a piece of East Prussia, sorry but actually Kaliningrad stopped being East Prussia in 1945 and it may have been contentious that allmost all the previous German speaking population were expelled but the people who live there now are Russian.
Has troops in “trans-Dniestria”, well yes and sometimes they have been constructive peace keepers and sometimes corrupt smugglers but no more odd than US has troops in Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo etc
Has unsettled differences over Japan about Sakhalin Island and Kuril Islands, true but it is more ego on each side than anything else with the 4 small Kuril Islands and as for Sakhalin the Japanese have accepted it is lost, it has now been Russian a lot longer than it was ever Japanese, (i.e. 1905-45). The comparison might be the US and Canada have unresolved differences over the Canadian Arctic boundaries.
Persists in efforts to keep Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine out of EU. Well sorry Belarus is a dictatorship with close ties to EU and barely on speaking terms with EU, no real efforts needed, Moldova has just had a reasonably fair election and the better guys won but is way too poor to be considered for EU membership for decades, and Ukraine may have long term ambition to join but most of the EU at present would reject it as too big and too poor, it would be like giving free right to live and work in all of US to all Mexicans. Ukraine does not yet have a political consensus as to it’s future and there are a large population who really would want closer relations with Russia.
Russia is unenthusiastic about taking ethnic Russians back after colonisations, again sorry but the EU states demand Visas from US citizens wanting to move to the EU even if they are “ethnic” Irish-Americans or Italian-Americans etc etc
Oh by the way in comparison US has bases in 80 nations across the planet corporate colonial outposts on even more etc etc. Russia is a big country with a complicated history and occasional tensions with nations around it’s long borders but it no more strange than most other countries.
I know, why foreign people beilive that Russia is agressor.
1. TV show to you sea of lie.
2. Many stuped american people.
3. Somebody is afraid our country.
This FEAR doesn’t give to understand trust usial people.
Russia-Usa are balance of world’s safety.
If world lost Russia, there will be only wars , such Germany in 1939-USA will be occupe many countries.
Lie don’t help you. Be easy .
Justice triumphs.-that;s our life’s law.
Calm life, frendlyship-are things, which we all strive.
P.S. I like your’s poem ))
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.