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America is helping deice the homo sovieticus  Give us a break, Mr. Putin, sharing a radar station in Azerbaijan, US and Russia? You were joking, we assume, but the truth is that our august leader has made a calculated decision from which there is no backing away. Although that decision likely originated with the pea-brained ideologues advising him – who hold the reins at the Pentagon – it’s a sure bet he’ll stick with it during the remaining months of his presidency.
After hearing about Putin’s comment at the G8 Summit, whether or not his proposal to Bush had been made in jest, I needed to be briefed as to what this “compromise radar station” was all about. And who better to brief me than Anar Orujov, my young journalist friend from Azerbaijan who heads the Caucasus Media Investigations Center in Baku. Anar quickly convinced me that Putin’s suggestion was, as he puts it, “unreal and ironical.” But it was my friend’s thorough analysis of the Azeri-Russian ever-changing relationship (post breakup of the USSR) that zeroed in the possibility of a new era of collective security in that part of the world, particularly in light of what is happening in the other former Soviet republics – with the exception of the three Baltic states which were really never willing partners in the communist fold… even with their large minority Russophone populations. What’s becoming more obvious, and something likely to be reaffirmed during Putin’s visit to Bush’s vacation digs in Maine this July, it’s the assertive posture by the Russian leadership of their readiness to call any poker hand the US might hold, whether based on legit cards or a bluff. And in this cat and mouse chase of a renewed but more subtle cold war, it’s the European Union that appears to have the most to lose, not just militarily, its cities programmed in Russian nuclear missiles, but economically as well. The possibility of sharing the radar facilities in Azerbaijan was just a way for Russia to tell the United States diplomatically: “don’t corral us; let’s work things out together, but whatever you decide in the omnipotence of your power, don’t tread on us.” It has been stated in a language leaving no room for doubt; not just by Russia’s head of state at the G8 Summit, but by his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov; the deputy foreign minister, Sergei Kislyak; and the chief of Russia’s general staff, Yuri Baluyevski. And it has been said for the entire world to hear within a span of barely two weeks. Can the Russians make themselves any clearer without resorting to the theatrics of four decades ago that had Premier Khrushchev banging his shoe on a table at the United Nations? It probably feels good to America’s elitist leaders to display their cocky feathers around in an unanswered war dance. It’s been sixteen years since the informal and unwritten armistice between capitalism and communism took place; thus, there’s little reason to continuously remind them who got the upper hand. Wasn’t it enough that America’s strategy of economic “shock and awe” to the changeover was unnecessarily harsh and painful for the Soviet population? That the American government, directly or indirectly, helped create a capitalist society where the communal wealth of the nation ended up in the hands of a few former Soviet apparatchiks and opportunistic thugs and oligarchs in a privatization process that was little more than a joke – much like what took place in Iraq? And that in both cases the US could have influenced a more just outcome? And, not considering it enough, America had to make sure that the breakup of the “empire” was thorough; also influencing internal dissension in the republics to distance them from Russia… all done under the banner of “democracy and freedom” which often was found to be but a cover-up for the CIA to claim its prey. And so it went with the US influencing “color revolutions,” separatist conflicts and even regional organizations. America was able to bury the homo sovieticus under a glacier of ice with little or no resistance. But now, it seems that an awakening is beginning to take place, not just in Russia but in many of the sister republics as well; a regional warming of sorts that aided by our arrogant hot air is melting the glacier, thawing back to life the homo sovieticus. For several years now these former Soviet states have tried to play the US-against- Russia card to obtain favorable resolution to issues of both freedom and historical national significance, such as the dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Garabakh. And although that level of “mild extortion” still exists, it’s becoming more evident to these republics that they may be overplaying that card, given the makeup of the US economy as an addicted borrower-nation, and a weak conventional military that after four years has been unable to subdue a small nation of fewer than thirty million people. So it’s a safe bet most of these republics will rethink their status, and aim at even closer ties to Russia. Putin is wising up to the idea of how the West measures wealth and productivity to achieve its ends. And the IMF (International Monetary Fund) figures listing Russia’s 2006 gross domestic product as 20% below Spain’s (with a population less than one-third of Russia’s) – as an example – brings to question the validity of how products and services are being measured; and the meaning of currencies and exchange rates. Russia and the now politically-detached eleven neighboring republics (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan) may only comprise just over 4% of the world’s population, but likely possess over 15% of the world natural resources, even if the former Soviet block is only shown to account for 2.6% of the world’s GDP. Maybe the homo sovieticus will need to be re-baptized, given another name. Maybe its tender socialist beginnings can bring about a more humane and gentler type of capitalism, allowing us all the option to molt the callous skin of predatory capitalism. © 2007 Ben Tanosborn
 Ben Tanosborn an editor of MWC News, after completing graduate studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), set out for a career in international business that would take him to five continents, expose him to several cultures and make him realize the importance for any and all Americans to become goodwill ambassadors for the United States.
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