Good post.
Good post.
I've given this some thought and find myself uncertain about the paradigm that suggests support for Russia in its fight against ISIS is bifurcated between the myopic, "short-termers" and the long term, "visionaries."
When I look out at the horizon I don't see Russia's offensive as a minor actor in a grand geostrategic move to alter the balance of power in the world. I see a nation that says if you hit me I hit you back, harder. It's binary. Furthermore, when one looks beyond the fight against ISIS and Islam it's a hard sell to think that after everything is over we will find ourselves in a position where Russia, China and the remaining BRICS nations will have reduced the United States to a second or third world power. If that does happen, it will be our own doing.
Secondly, if one wants to consider long term I think the existential threat that Islam poses to civilization the fight to be had. There seems to be this suggestion that Russia is fundamentally at odds with Western civilization in much the same way Islam presents. I haven't seen that case presented here. Sure the Russian people and culture seems hardwired for authoritarian forms of governance but that doesn't equate to being diametrically opposed to us.
Which is why I don't necessarily agree with the position held by those who ask, "and what happens after?" This is a war of peoples and cultures, not so much governments. So I find the references to recent history i.e., Post-WWII and the Cold War to be lacking. Particularly for the times we find ourselves.
So the short-term fight is the long-term fight. What will occur in the "mid-term" will be determined by what we do. Not what Russia does. And right now the mid term calculus doesn't look good for us. If one takes a 15-20 year time horizon and looks at a variety of categories, whether it be demographically, socio-culturally, politically, morally etc., the prognosis is not good. 2016 is not going to fix these things. We might get a reprieve but its doubtful that it will alter the trajectory.
We all talk about a return to Judeo-Christian principles and constitutional governance. The thing that is not often asked, "is that likely?" If we fall it will because we, as a nation, have abandoned those ideals. Of course, there will be some who will refer back to a narrative that goes along the lines of something like, "this is all because of KGB infiltration and subversion of a whole generation of 60's kids on the college campuses." It might even be true, but are we prepared to hang the hat of national survival on that? Did the Russians actually deliver a fatal blow and did we actually lose the Cold War and our nation as a result?
If that is the case all I can say is, "well played." And if so, then we better pray that the mid-term view is that Russia rises with its autocratic nominally Christian society.