You present the most coherent view. A lot of people see the world in black and white, rather than understanding the interests of leaders and their nations, or the histories and cultural differences that shape the policy of those nations.
Is Putin trying to rebuild the USSR? No. Probably not. He lived through the Soviet Union as one of its adherents, but saw what even the ardent members of the Russian Communist Party are aware of. It is just not a viable governing system. Comapared to all the other forms of government in history, communism ranks among the least sustainable. It didn’t even last a century, despite the fact it was engineered by very smart and academic people, much like the Third Reich was.
No, I’d say Putin sees the world through a more hyper-reactionary lens. For all the alarm bells about Dugin, I doubt his influence over Putin is as grand as some claim. This being said, Putin certainly has a backward looking ideology. He prefers the way things worked before the fall of monarchies. He wants to resurrect the Russian Empire, not the Soviet Union.
Obama called Russia a ‘regional power’. Clearly lunacy. Its a world power, but militarily, it is a ‘regional player’. That is, it is concerned primarily with the countries around it. Russia is not about to launch a war in Africa for example.
With regard to Christianity, Orthodoxy is an ancient tradition, as close as you will get to the old Apostolic traditional way of worship. I am not a member of the protestant-supremacy caucus on FR who regard all Catholic and Orthodox countries as ‘not Christian’. Looking at the track record of protestant countries, most of which outside Africa now have open celebration of sodomy among other issues, if this is true then Christianity is in an even more dire state than we realize. Those who criticize the Russian Orthodox Church do so with little knowledge of the church’s history going back to the Imperial and Soviet eras. Were there spies and infiltrators during Soviet times? Yes, but the vast majority of Christians in Russia were persecuted and many were killed, including priests. The communists in Russia absolutely resented the role the church had played in court life during the Czar’s reign.
Now that the Soviet Union has collapsed, the church is re-assuming its centuries old post as part of the state, involved in matters of moral choice. This is not absolute as of yet (Russia still has a long way to go on abortion for example), but as new converts and a growing church-attendance strengthen the power of the Patriarch, the church becomes a competing interest in the political arena.
For those who do not like this, bear in mind that in a much more diffused way, we also had this be the case up until recently. Churches were heavily influential in political life and one’s affiliation was a big political factor. Its why such a huge deal was made out of Kennedy’s Catholicism. Religion only becomes a non-factor in political life when it ceases to exist in any meaningful way.
This is now occurring in Western Europe and our own country, with few exceptions.
Am I interested in defending Ukraine from Russia? I have yet to hear a particularly good reason why I should be.
1) There is no popular appetite for such a thing
2) I can see little threat to America itself here
3) Ukrainians elected in what was deemed to be a fair election, a corrupt leader, they threw him out and elected someone else, but has anything changed? Ukraine is likely to remain as corrupt as ever. Meet the new boss.
4) Historically, Ukraine is a badly drawn country in the first place with regard to ethnic groups.
5) Do I really want to aid the cause of the European Union which is just as dictatorial as Russia yet twice as decadent? Not really
6) I can’t see any improvement in living standards for Ukrainians as a result of turning west. Just a massive population outflow.
When we have a real problem, the actively neo-Marxist Democrat party destroying America one court decision, one executive order, one mandate at a time, are we really expected to be concerned by an imperialist power’s geographic expansion an ocean away? The Founders did warn against such ventures.
Yes, they have interests. And we have interests. As for me, I believe America has an interest in suppressing Russian revanchism.
And the Orthodox Church was originally suppressed, but was eventually co-opted into the Soviet systems of control. There is ample evidence out there of the modern Russian Orthodox Patriarchs having had careers in the FSB and the KGB before becoming Patriarch.
Well written. If someone can possibly show a case for how a resurgent Russia is somehow a threat to vital US national interests, then maybe I would be more concerned, but I just don’t see Russia as a threat to us. Like you wrote, I see the decadent West as a greater threat. We are literally creating an Orwellian state here in the US, and I’m supposed to be worried about Russia? The Oceania superstate is characterized by perpetual war (or threats of war), omnipresent government surveillance, and public manipulation by propaganda. Yeah, sounds like US.