DEMOCRACY is the most humane, inspiring and productive form of government in history.
| A couple thousand years ago the Greeks practiced democracy. One day they all got together and somebody made a motion that Socrates drink hemlock and die. Somebody seconded the motion and it was duly carried. A hundred years later the Greeks were studying Macedonian. Inspiring, ain't it? Democracy is what a people makes it, and sometimes it amounts to the population getting together and voting on how best to screw each other. |
The problem is that many people don't want it. At least, not badly enough to fight for it. Other concerns take priority, from economic well-being to security. When given a chance to vote, hundreds of millions of people around the world vote to make themselves less free.
In Russia, President Vladimir Putin cynically exploited the Beslan massacre to eliminate elections for regional governorships, as well as to restrain parliamentary democracy at the national level. It's a huge step backward for freedom. And if a new presidential election were held today, the Russians would overwhelmingly re-elect Putin. They're disgusted with his government's performance in the recent hostage situation, against terrorism in general and in Chechnya. And they realize he's out to limit their political freedom, just as he's muzzled the media and concentrated the nation's wealth among his political supporters. But the Russians still view Putin as a strong leader, if less capable than he appeared even last month. It's a cliché to say that Russians want a czar. But the cliché exists because it's painfully true. This is not what Americans want to hear. We want to believe that every human being longs for democracy.
| To kinda sorta paraphrase Maslow, every human being longs for groceries, a roof over his head, and to get laid. Once he's got that, he longs for security for his kids and to provide for his family. Only once he's got that — conditions we've routinely had here for a couple hundred years — does he worry about "democracy." The "democracy" he (she or it) longs for is actually "freedom," which is a slightly different creature: the right to be left alone. The Russers are in a position where their individual freedom is actually enhanced at the moment by Putin's statist approach. He's promising to protect the law-abiding and hard-working from a lawless liesure class. Keep in mind that Basayev's hard boyz don't have to work for a living; they get their money from Soddy Arabia. |
Personally, I believe that we should miss no opportunity to foster democracy around the world and that we must be willing to fight for it. But we have to get past our emotions and accept the cold reality of this world: At least a substantial minority of humankind prefers strict order to the uncertainties of freedom.
| I think most people realize that there are degrees of freedom, ranging from the license of anarchy to the regimentation of North Korea. Americans tend toward the license side, the Euros are a little more regimented, and the Russers still more regimented. But Russian regimentation is still a far cry from North Korean or Salafist regimentation. I'm actually not worried at this point. |
If we cannot look reality in the face, however little we like what we see, we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the Pentagon ideologues who believed that, once Saddam was removed, Iraq would turn into Nebraska overnight.
| Nebbah hoppen, GI. First, Iraq had a long tradition of bloody-handed dictatorship. They're schooled into thinking of guns and mobs as methods of enforcing opinions. Second, prior to Sammy they couldn't manage to build a governmental system that was stable. One of Sammy's predecessors was not only shot to pieces by the new regime, but his corpse was abused on the teevee for a few days, just so the public would be sure he was titzup. Going into Iraq was a matter of liberating a loony bin. What's surprising to me is the number of people in Iraq who don't seem to be nutbags. |
Democracy must be learned — and earned. The process, as our own history instructs us, is long and often hard. Democracy is incomparably magnificent. But it isn't easy. Putin knows his people. He offers them social freedom and economic improvement in return for accepting limits on political freedom. Many Russians think it's a fair deal.
| It is a fair deal. Genuine democracy is an expression of individual liberty. When the political system starts becoming oppressive, there'll be pressure to relax it. |
Another cliché that's indisputably true is that Russians fear disorder, a result of their turbulent history and, if Russia's greatest writers are to be believed, of the Russian character itself. Beslan wasn't really Russia's 9/11. The terrorist attacks on our soil galvanized America. The schoolhouse massacre terrified Russians. We struck back. Effectively. But the Russians have no idea what to do next.
Among the absurd punditry in the wake of the Beslan slaughter, the goofiest remark came from a "military analyst" who said, in a pompous, confident voice, that the Russian mistake was that they didn't bring in a special operations unit from nearby Chechnya. Anyone who knows anything about the Russian military and security services — or who simply reads Cyrillic characters — could tell from the news clips that the Kremlin had poured in its top special forces units from around the country. The problem wasn't that Moscow didn't care enough to send the very best: Putin sent the best he had — and their performance was abysmal.
There's the real story: Russia's military sux. But that's a conclusion we came to here probably a couple years ago. Under the Sovs there was a small proportion of the officers' corps that was well-trained and professional. The MoD had the bad habit of putting them into the elite areas, where a lack of brain would show up, which is why there weren't more subs sunk or civilian airliners shot down. The KGB grabbed off the best of the lot before they got into the military, and the GRU had first pick of what did. The navy and the air force were smarter than the ground forces. The border guards were smarter than the ground forces. The strategic rocket forces were smarter than the ground forces. The air defense forces were smarter than the ground forces. The airborne troops were actually a separate branch, controlled by the General Staff, and they were smarter than the ground forces.
Then, within the ground forces, the creme was sent to the Groups of Soviet Forces in Europe. The bulk of the Soviet forces within the Soviet Union consisted of time servers and hacks, a problem which showed up glaringly when they moved 40th Army into Afghanistan. And all of the Soviet forces, keep in mind, got their enlisted men from a 2-year draft, with mobilizations and demobs occurring every six months. That meant at any one time one quarter of the enlisted force was made up of greenies. And as a matter of military culture, the class next up for demob — the "makaronchiki" — used the greenies to do any actual work that was required. That's the system the Russers inherited, and that Putin's stuck with reforming. It hasn't been done yet, and may never be. |
The incompetence was typically, horrifyingly Russian. With all of the nation's top anti-terror and special ops units on the scene, no one took charge. Units failed to coordinate with each other. No one took control of the local civilians. No one had a reaction plan in case things spun out of control. And when that terrorist bomb went off, the result was the chaos that Russians simultaneously dread, expect and bitterly accept. As the Russians themselves would put it, Beslan was a polni bardak. Which translates politely as an "utter bordello."
| On the other hand, the very best troops in the world haven't been trained to rescue 1300 people from a school occupied by terrs when the bombs start going off and the shooting starts without warning. |
What should concern us most as democracy advocates isn't that Putin's pulling off his sleight of hand to extend his power. What should appall us is that the great majority of the Russians shrug it off. Where are the pro-democracy demonstrations? Where is the hunger for freedom that supposedly lives in every human breast? Where is the courage?
| I dunno. But I can see where the desire to be secure in one's home is, and the desire to have one's family protected is. |
Experts and émigrés will make excuses: The Russian people are weary, they've experienced too much disorienting change . . . they want security, they've lost hope. Inevitably, we'll hear the charge that the West has let them down. Pundits will continue to mock President Bush's remark that he looked into Putin's soul and found it good. The real problem is that Putin looked into the soul of the Russian people and found it weak and willing to be subjugated. Freedom may be contagious, but entire populations appear to be inoculated against it.
| The Russers are enjoying more personal freedom — individual liberty — than they've ever had, and some segments of the population veered unerringly toward license. They spent 75 years harping on the evils of plutocracy. When they stopped being commies they "knew" how plutocrats acted, so the commies became what they thought plutocrats were. And the government still managed to remain democratic, with dozens of parties, ranging from liberals to nutjobs to commies. Places like the Russian Far East made Chicago at its worst look tame. It was the threat to the man in the street, or more specifically to his kids, that brought about the tightening. |
The truth is that Putin's initial reforms were necessary after the madcap corruption of the Yeltsin years.
| I just said that, I think... |
Just as Boris Yeltsin had been necessary to put the old regime's apparatchiki in their place, a man like Putin had to follow to prevent Russia from becoming nothing but the scene of the wildest looting orgy in history. But, like so many "presidents" around the world, Putin has become addicted to power. As a former KGB officer, it was probably too much to expect him to put much trust in democracy.
| Bush the Elder used to be head of the CIA. I guess it was too much to expect him to put much trust in democracy. Putin's revulsion isn't toward democracy, though it's not something he loves more than chocolate. His revulsion is toward disorder. |
On top of Russia's other problems, from the thorough ineptitude of its military and security forces to its abysmal health conditions, the country suffers from another terrible blight that has ravaged one developing country after another: Natural-resource wealth. The "unearned" income from Russia's oil and gas reserves has not only financed Putin's consolidation of power, it has allowed Russia to avoid difficult choices, serious structural reforms — and plain, old hard work. So the old question returns: Whither Russia? The answer appears to be that Russians are determined to be Russians. We will be allies in the War on Terror — but must be wary of the Kremlin's brutal excesses. Beyond that, we cannot force democracy on the Russian people if they are not willing to fight for it themselves. |