An Independent Foreign Policy

• 8 years ago

By JUDE DOUGHERTY

Addressing an assembly of the Russian Federation of ambassadors and permanent envoys on June 30, President Putin had this to say: “Russia follows an independent foreign policy and seeks to develop open and honest relations with all countries. . . . We do not wish to impose our will or our values on others.”

He then went on to say, “Some of our partners continue stubborn attempts to retain their monopoly on geopolitical domination . . . , intervening in other countries’ internal affairs, provoking regional conflicts.”

Under the headline “How to Crash Putin’s Brexit Party,” we are told something different by Robert D. Kaplan in an opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal the following day. Kaplan fears that Brexit may trigger a cascade of desertions from the European Union, with adverse effects on NATO. For decades NATO and the European Union have silently worked in unison to defend Central and Eastern Europe against Russian subversion and aggression. “Putin, who yearns for European disintegration, must see Brexit as a victory.”

Kaplan then suggests, “Never since the early days of the Cold War have NATO and Europe so required American leadership. . . . Washington should allow no space between it and London, between it and Berlin. Guiding Europe means guiding these two countries.”

Informed readers may subscribe to an entirely different scenario. It was the United States that instigated and continues to support the rebellion in Syria, in opposition to the legitimate government of Assad, and similarly, it was our intervention that supported the tragedy we know as “Maiden Square” and brought about the collapse of Ukraine’s legitimate government.

Putin obliquely refers to Washington’s meddling in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe. He knows that he does not receive fair treatment by Western media. “We are living in an information age, and the old saying that whoever controls information controls the world unquestionably sums up today’s reality. Sometimes you get the impression that an event has not taken place at all unless the media reports on it. Former French President Jacques Chirac said to me once, ‘You must call in the cameras; otherwise it may look as if we never met’.”

Western media continually at war with Christianity and biblical, commonsense morality will misconstrue any action on Putin’s part. This is especially true when Putin speaks of the religious heritage of the Russian people. At least since the time of Charlemagne, Christianity has been the source of Europe’s unity — not the treaties entered into by nations.

Europe’s repudiation of its Christian past has had many effects in the common law and culture of the people who comprise the UK. The Brexit vote may be taken as a modest attempt to recover British tradition undermined by Brussels’ dictates.

Putin understands the importance of cultural unity and has in his person, and as head of state, looked to the Orthodox Church as the unifying faith of the Russian people.

Acknowledging the diversity of religions found within Russian borders, he is on record saying, “Despite all their distinctive features, the basic, common, moral, ethical, and spiritual values of the Russian people are based on Russian Orthodoxy, Buddhism and Judaism [namely,] compassion, truth, justice, respect for elders, and the ideals of family and work.”

Patriotism, he believes, depends on an awareness of national identity, and depends upon a sense that one belongs to an identifiable whole in which one can take pride. In a remarkable speech of a few years ago, he declared his intention to advance civic unity and patriotic allegiance by promoting instruction in Russian history and literature. In an effort to stimulate a sense of Russian identity, he called for a Russian version of Mortimer Adler’s Great Books of the Western World. “Let us conduct a poll of our cultural authorities and form a list of 100 books that each graduate of a Russian school will have to read. Not memorize in school but on their own.”

This is heresy from the standpoint of Western media that unremittingly foster a cosmopolitan or internationalist view, suppressing important differences between peoples, militating against national autonomy. The Brexit vote must be welcomed news to Marine Le Pen of the National Front in France and Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party in Austria, who are leading a populace revolt against Brussels’ hegemony.

A popular American journalist has recently called for European leadership reminiscent of de Gaulle and Churchill. Perhaps it will come in the image of Putin, ever conscious that national identity matters. Scholars such as Remi Brague and Pierre Manent have laid the intellectual foundation for such leadership, but they lack the political clout to be effective. In the meantime, we can only admire Putin’s initiative and hope that with respect to the future of Europe, in the words of Leon Bloy, “God writes straight with crooked lines.”