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Gorbachev Drinks Putin's Cold War Cool-Aid
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
November 8, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Warning the
world about a new Cold War, 83-year-old former Soviet Premier Mikhail S.
Gorbachev shows that he’s drunk Russian President Vladimir Putin Cool-Aid,
blaming the U.S. for restarting the Cold War.
Once considered a reformer while serving as Soviet Premier March 11, 1985
to Aug. 34, 1991, Gorbachev worked with the late President Ronald Reagan on
Glasnost and Perestoika, the opening up and restructuring of the former Soviet
Union. Putin’s Russian Federation
not only ended Glasnost and Peristroika he lowered the Iron Curtain back over
Russia. Reversing most of the free
market and human rights evolved under Gorbachev and his successor, free market
reformer Russian President Boris Yeltsin, Putin has returned Russia to its dark
period when Stalin’s purges, mass deportations and executions seized
totalitarian control of the Soviet State.
Blaming the U.S. for “triumphalism,” boasting about winning the Cold War,
Gorbachev praised Putin’s management of the Russian State, now more isolated and
outside international norms than it was during the Soviet Union. While pointing fingers at the U.S.,
Gorbachev fails to mention that all of Europe, including former Soviet States,
agree wholeheartedly that Putin has turned Russia into a pariah state. Citing conflicts in Yugoslavia,
Middle East and Ukraine, Gorbachev blamed U.S. foreign policy, ignoring Putin’s
role in isolating Russia. Gorbachev
and Yeltsin worked hard to open Russia’s doors to the global economy with
necessary free market reforms to encourage foreign investment. Putin’s reversals have put back the Iron Curtain, sending global investors to the exits,
plummeting the Russian ruble and stock market.
Putin’s Russia blames the West for all of Russia’s problems.
Meeting for the 25th anniversary of the Nov. 9, 1989 fall of the Berlin
Wall, Gorbachev warned the world about a new Cold War. “The world is on the brink of a new
Cold War. Some are even saying that it’s already begun,” said Gorbachev at the Brandenburg Gate. He urged the West to lift the
sanctions against Russia for seizing Crimea March 1 and invading Ukraine with
Russian troops. “I am absolutely
convinced that Putin protects Russia’s interests better than anyone else,” said
Gorbachev, defending Putin to European leaders.
Long retired and no longer in the mainstream, Gorbachev doesn’t see how
much Putin’s recent moves in Crimea and Ukraine have alienated Russia as a world
power. Ejected from the G8 March 24, Gorbachev can’t possibly believe that Putin’s Russia has
gone in the right direction. Seizing land from a sovereign state violates every known U.N. principle.
Once objective about Russia and world affairs while he lectured widely,
Gorbachev showed he doesn’t want to rock the boat with Putin. “Russia agreed to new relations [and] created new cooperation structures. And everything would be great, but
not everyone in the United States liked it,” referring to the U.S. backing NATO
support for former Soviet satellites. Gorbachev echoes Putin’s objections to the rules governing the break-up of the Warsaw
Pact July 1, 1991, requiring foreign powers, primarily in the U.S. and Europe,
to not sign states into NATO. Gorbachev insists U.S. and EU “have different plans.”
[T]hey need a different situation, one that would allow them to meddle
everywhere. Whether it will be good
or bad, they don’t care,” talking vaguely about the U.S. role in the Feb. 22
coup in Kiev. Putin blames the coup
on U.S. meddling in Ukrainian affairs.
However Putin controls public opinion in Russia, Gorbachev knows that
re-installing the Iron Curtain can’t be good for the economy. Seizing Crimea March 1 made Russia
into rogue state, discouraging foreign investment, and pushing Russia out of the
G8. Gorbachev won’t admit that Russian’s economy has lost untold billions of rubles because
of Putin’s Stalinist ways. Whether he’s popular with the Russian public or not doesn’t deny that he’s driving
foreign investment out of the Russia.
“Without freedom between nations, without respect of one nation to
another and without strong and brave disarmament policy, everything could start
over again tomorrow,” said French Foreign Minsiter Roland Dumas in East Berlin. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has
been blunt with Putin about his current actions in Ukraine causing the EU to
strongly reconsider doing business with Moscow.
Whatever fears exist about a new Cold War, President Barack Obama will be
pushed by newly minted Senate Armed Service Chairman Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
to stand up to Putin. Letting Putin
seize more parts of Ukraine play directly into Putin’s belief that the “soft
societies” of the West are no match for Russia’s socialism. Newly energized Republicans won’t
sit idly by while Obama capitulates to Putin’s threats of a new Cold War or
nuclear confrontation. Many
conservatives on Capitol Hill believe Obama should have done more to confront
Russia’s aggression in Ukaine.
Whatever the former Bush Administration didn’t do to defend Georgia in 2008
against Russia’s invasion, they won’t let Ukraine go the same direction. Gorbachev doesn’t see how Putin has
squandered the cooperation and goodwill he and Yeltsin created so Russia could
profit from the global economy.
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