It [the unipolar world] is world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within.

And this certainly has nothing in common with democracy. Because, as you know, democracy is the power of the majority in light of the interests and opinions of the minority.

Incidentally, Russia – we – are constantly being taught about democracy. But for some reason those who teach us do not want to learn themselves.

I consider that the unipolar model is not only unacceptable but also impossible in today’s world. And this is not only because if there was individual leadership in today’s – and precisely in today’s – world, then the military, political and economic resources would not suffice. What is even more important is that the model itself is flawed because at its basis there is and can be no moral foundations for modern civilisation. ~Russian President Vladimir Putin

First of all, it is actually rather stunning to hear a head of state from any country put forward an argument of this relative complexity.  To listen to our politicians babble generically about “freedom” or “stability” or “terrorism” is to come away with the impression that their audience is a mob of cretins (or they think that their audience is a mob of cretins) incapable of understanding thorough and elaborate analysis of geopolitics.  As I read Putin’s speech, I am also struck by how relatively reasonable it is.  He complains of NATO expansion and the betrayals of past promises not to station forces in the new member states–as well he might–and he repeatedly insists on the importance of respecting international law. 

Compared with Cheney’s needlessly provocative Vilnius speech in which he hectored the Russians primarily for their internal affairs (whatever you may think of them, they are the Russians’ business and not really ours), Putin’s objections to American hegemony and interventionism address a problem that is properly international in nature and they do so in a way that actually echoes much of what the rest of the world’s governments think.  If this were not the President of Russia saying this, but the Secretary-General of the U.N. or the British Prime Minister, it would be much more difficult to hide behind tired Russophobia and cliches about resurgent authoritarianism.  There would have to be at least some minimal attempt to address what the speech contained.    

To read the headlines about the speech, you would think that he had been banging on the podium with his footwear, but instead you find someone explaining, much as our European allies tried to do some years back, that unipolar domination is practically impossible and ruinous for any state that attempts it.  This is actually true, and it is also valuable advice that Washington would be foolish to dismiss in a fit of pride and anger.

What else did Putin say that has so offended some people?  He said:

We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state’s legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations.

There has certainly been disdain for international law, and when there has been attention paid to it it has been the most selective, tendentious kind of reading of the law to fit policies, such as the invasion of Iraq, that had already been decided upon.  Today American politicians square off over who is more willing to launch an illegal war on Iran–where exactly has Putin erred in saying what he has said?  The United States government does impose itself on other nations in a variety of ways, this is wrong and it is causing inevitable backlash that is harmful to all parties. 

And what else?  He said:

People are trying to transform the OSCE into a vulgar instrument designed to promote the foreign policy interests of one or a group of countries.

This is undoubtedly true in their completely biased and lopsided work related to the Ukrainian and Georgian elections–the so-called “revolutions” of 2004 and 2003 respectively. 

Mr. Putin’s speech is an early warning alarm and, I think, an attempt to make Washington see reason.  That the speech is, of course, self-serving to some degree and coming from the mouth of an elected authoritarian populist with rather dubious moral authority is really neither here nor there.  Putin was saying what most allied governments have been saying in less direct ways and what most friendly (or formerly friendly) nations have been thinking and saying about our government for years. 

The question is not, as the incredibly overrated Tom Friedman puts it, “why do remarks like these play so well in Russia today?”  (Anyone could answer that question, as Friedman does by discovering that Russians are not all together happy about being encircled and threatened by NATO expanion–you don’t say!)  The question is: how, beyond the last round of NATO expansion in 2002, has Mr. Bush managed to so profoundly alienate the government that was the first to offer its support to us after 9/11, and how is it that the appropriate and mutually beneficial cooperation between our two countries has been so grievously jeopardised by six years of pointed confrontation and insults? 

The U.S. pursuit of setting up pro-American satellites and attempts thereby to gain access to oil and gas resources outside Russia have undoubtedly exacerbated Russian resentment over NATO.  These things have made that expansion appear to be one part of a larger plan of encirclement and power projection into Asia.  The introduction of the anti-missile system into NATO states that joined in the 1996 round would be a basic violation of the assurances given to Moscow that made that round of (unwise) accession possible, and it represents yet another needless provocation.  American meddling in Ukraine, Georgia and central Asia has contributed to Russia’s sense of being hemmed in.  The tacit encouragement given to the Chechen cause by the U.S. government in the past and Washington’s indifference to Chechen terrorism against Russian civilians have helped convince the Russians that Washington would like to see Russia weakened and divided.  Harping about Russian internal political affairs, as Vice President Cheney insisted on doing on Russia’s very doorstep, was a slap in the face. 

Having poked and stabbed the bear in its cage, the bear-baiters are outraged that the bear has become angry and combative–even though the only goal of such bear-baiters is to make the bear angry.  Naturally, the solution of the bear-baiters to these displays of combativeness will be to squeeze it into a smaller cage, put more chains on it and stab it some more.  This approach to Russia encourages all of the worst tendencies in Russian politics. 

Anyone familiar with Russian history, or indeed the history of any large territorial state, could tell you that the presence of a credible foreign enemy encourages the consolidation of power in the center and the strengthening of authoritarian rule.  Those who claim to despise Putin’s authoritarianism and who therefore want to isolate and bludgeon Russia until it embraces an “acceptable” kind of liberalisation are even sabotaging their own supposed goals of “reform” (not that I believe these are the goals of those who want “liberalisation” or “reform”).  They are simply strengthening the desire in Russia to have a strong authoritarian nationalist leader who will resist perceived foreign depredations against that country.  Americans would respond and have responded in much the same way to perceived threats, so it should hardly be beyond our understanding to grasp this basic idea.  Putin will leave office in a couple years, but the damage the interventionists and Russophobes will have helped to do to the future of Russian politics will last long after he is gone.  Then, after they have finished doing their destructive work, these neo-Orientalist Slavophobes will look skywards and wonder aloud, “Why do the Russians always keep returning to authoritarianism?  What is wrong with them?”

There are two other reasons why Putin’s speech has especially aggravated some Americans, primarily those in upper reaches of Republican and conservative media: first, it was Putin who said it, and there is a desperate need to perpetuate anti-Putin sentiment to make confrontation with Russia more popular; second, Putin’s speech represents the biggest rhetorical backlash yet against the world of the “unipolar moment” celebrated by the likes of Charles Krauthammer.  Krauthammer chirped back then that there was no coalition of opposing forces combining against the American hegemon–we were enjoying an unprecedented unipolarity that had not called forth a countervailing set of forces to balance our supremacy.  That brief moment of consequence-free supremacy has come to an end.  Putin’s speech represents both a warning and the first signs of pushback.  Russians do not want a confrontation with the West, and neither Russia nor the West can afford to waste our time and energy rehashing old rivalries (indeed, the fact that most of us still feel comfortable treating Russia as if it were not a part of the West is a good sign that we are a very long way from burying these old rivalries).