For those of us in our fifties and sixties, when we hear the word, "Russia," many images crawl out of our brains. Nuclear drills in grammar school, Sputnik, Stalin and Lenin and on and on. Russia was the great enemy of the East that was our antagonist in what became known as the Cold War. I never really understood the meaning and implication of that strange term but I knew it was not good. I vividly remember a sense of dread and fear about anything that sounded like Russia. As I lived in Europe and worked in Poland for nearly a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I learned the degree of fear and hate the Russians generate in the Poles. Working with Russians during that time, I never felt them trustable but rather argumentative and arrogant on a grand scale.
We have watched from afar the Russian revolution that led to the Empire of Russia breaking apart painfully shortly after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 all spurred by the Reagan / Thatcher / Pope trifecta of leadership that exploded the decade of the 1990s. Russia saw her major wealth generator, oil, collapse and she faced major debt issues, internal strife and dissension. Then there was Mr. Putin! We had all watch the drunks in leadership, the massive military weaponry parades through Red Square, knew the Black Sea Fleet was supposedly in shambles with the nuclear capability in some state of disrepair and nobody knew how nor who was controlling the key to it all. Russia through all of this faded into the mist of time as 9/11 exploded onto the global news and attention was shifted farther East and the terrorist networks, Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet, we learned, after the fact to a degree, that Russia was fighting its own War on Terror with some of her breakaway republics such as Chechnya even after their debacle in Afghanistan for a futile decade. Still the Russian Bear was seemingly in hibernation and clawless; seemed as such but ... !
Last night I watched the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympiad with all its grandeur, homage to Russia and her march through history and the beautiful expose of the landscape and scenes of this massive, ancient nation that ran before the ceremonies began. Threading through it all was, what seemed to me, was a "speech" with cheerleaders on the greatness, power, drive, leadership of Mr. Putin. It was even called "Putin's Games." Then when he entered the stadium I found my memory of films of the Berlin Olympics and watching Hitler and the ovation that ensued on his appearance. Then when the Russia Olympic team entered the stadium and the ovation ensued and I watched Putin standing, you could tell he felt he had taken his place among the great leaders; perhaps the greatest leader on the earth today.
Then I watched the POTUS interview with Bob Costas; wish now I had not watched it. I saw our POTUS in the context of the greatness of the Games and where they are being played being rather "cute" and aloof about no real US leadership at the Games, poking fun at Putin's public persona, etc. I felt this sense of quiet embarrassment for my nation, frankly. I saw all those national presidents both major and minor countries, sharing the lights with Putin but not an American in sight. I found that, well, disappointing.
And as I told my wife during all of this amazing architecture, choreography, execution and with the billions of dollars spent by Russia to get the Games and the grandeur they displayed, that all that had been done during a period of relatively cheap crude oil; the mainstream of Russia's Gross Domestic Product. I add that little point to make a point. Imagine, now, Russia in her glory under the lights of the Olympics and Putin elevated in stature as never before, should oil prices spike high and Russia's oil wealth escalates dramatically ... then which nation will exact strategic direction and reaction for a generation? That would be Russia as I view it as America sinks more quickly into the sunset of history as the global power.
Perhaps that is a good thing. Perhaps, as some of my readers indicate in comments to my posts, that it is time for somebody else to be the Beat Cop for the global village. Perhaps the BRIC, Brazil Russia, India and China actually will be the confederation of global power projection and dominance in the 21st Century. Perhaps the key cog in the BRIC will not be Russia and, oh by the way, where did America go? All of this can happen very quickly and as I watched the young girl walking through the history of Russia into the future in the great stadium, my mind projected to this which I have written.
For me I saw a weak, uncaring, disconnected President of the United States on a global news feed basically joke and laugh about something that carries a much deeper and darker implication. Please remember that I am the great optimist when I write that. I believe Russia a corrupt, Godless nation with a powerful nuclear force with a cold leader that is not bashful about taking any step to insure Russian government control over the economy AND maintaining "influence" still over all the republics that broke away just a few years ago. These are now more scary times with Russia's new found spotlight.
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