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Is a “Resurgent” Russia a Threat to the United States? 
November 3, 2008
Ivan Eland

The Russian military was clearly superior to that of a small country in its “near abroad”—Georgia—but is a “resurgent” Russia a threat to the United States? If the United States insists on expanding its informal empire into Russia’s nearby sphere of influence, it has to expect some pushback from a Russia that is no longer as weak as it once was and is resentful at having been trampled on during the 1990s and early 2000s.

At the end of the Cold War, the United States pledged verbally to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that if the U.S.S.R. allowed Germany to reunite and embed in NATO, the U.S. would not expand the alliance, which the bear perceives as hostile. The United States, however, violated this promise and repeatedly expanded NATO—inducting former Soviet Warsaw Pact allies in Eastern Europe and even former Soviet republics (the Baltic states). (Incredibly, even after the U.S. and NATO were proved impotent in helping Georgia during its recent war with Russia, the Bush administration is still pressuring its reluctant European allies to admit Georgia and the Ukraine, an even more important former Soviet republic on Russia’s border). Further showing that the U.S. foreign policy elite never ended the Cold War have been repeated acts by both Democratic and Republican presidents to thumb their nose at a weakened Russia—for example, winning U.S. access to military bases in former Soviet Central Asia, rerouting energy pipelines from the oil-rich Caspian Sea around Russian territory, and planning to build missile defense installations in the territories of former Soviet allies Poland and the Czech Republic.

But the bear is now coming out of a long hibernation a bit rejuvenated. Using increased petroleum revenues from the oil price spike, the Russians will hike defense spending 26 percent next year to about $50 billion—the highest level since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet as the oil price declines from this historic high, Russia will have fewer revenues to increase defense spending and rebuild its military.

Even the $50 billion a year has to be put in perspective. The United States is spending about $700 billion per year on defense and starting from a much higher plain of capability. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian military fell apart and was equivalent to that of a developing country. Even the traditionally hawkish U.S. military and defense leaders and analysts are not worried about Russia’s plans to buy modern arms, improve military living standards to attract better senior enlisted personnel, enhance training, and cut back the size of the bloated forces and officer corps. For example, Eugene B. Rumer of the U.S. National Defense University was quoted in the Washington Post as saying that Russian actions are “not a sign, really, of the Russian military being reborn, but more of a Russia being able to flex what relatively little muscle it has on the global scale, and to show that t actually matters.”[1]

In addition, the Russian military is very corrupt—with an estimated 40 percent of the money for some weapons and pay for personnel being stolen or wasted. This makes the amount of real defense spending far below the nominal $50 billion per year.

U.S. analysts say, however, that increased military spending would allow Russia to have more influence over nations in its near abroad and Eastern Europe. Of course, throughout history, small countries living in the shadow of larger powers have had to make political, diplomatic, and economic adjustments to suit the larger power. Increased Russian influence in this sphere, however, should not necessarily threaten the security of the faraway United States. It does only because the United States has defined its security as requiring intrusions into Russia’s traditional sphere of influence. By expanding NATO into Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the United States has guaranteed the security of these allied countries against a nuclear-armed power, in the worst case, by sacrificing its cities in a nuclear war. Providing this kind of guarantee for these non-strategic countries is not in the U.S. vital interest. Denying Russia the sphere of influence in nearby areas traditionally enjoyed by great powers (for example, the U.S. uses the Monroe Doctrine to police the Western Hemisphere) will only lead to unnecessary U.S.-Russian tension and possibly even cataclysmic war.

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[1] Quoted in Thom Shanker, “Russia Is Striving to Modernize Its Military, the U.S. Notes With Interest, Not Alarm,” New York Times, October 20, 2008, p. A8.

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Ivan Eland
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Ivan Eland is Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute. Dr. Eland is a graduate of Iowa State University and received an M.B.A. in applied economics and Ph.D. in national security policy from George Washington University. He has been Director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, and he spent 15 years working for Congress on national security issues, including stints as an investigator for the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Principal Defense Analyst at the Congressional Budget Office. He is author of the books, Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty, The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed, and Putting “Defense” Back into U.S. Defense Policy.
Full Biography and Recent Publications

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New from Ivan Eland! THE EMPIRE HAS NO CLOTHES: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed (Updated Edition) Most Americans don’t think of their government as an empire, but in fact the United States has been steadily expanding its control of overseas territories since the turn of the twentieth century. In The Empire Has No Clothes, Ivan Eland, a leading expert on U.S. defense policy and national security, examines American military interventions around the world from the Spanish-American War to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Learn More »»

Here we go again - triggered and angered by the television.

I was watching one of my favorite shows - Life on Mars (new U.S. version of a BBC program).  The plot very quickly went in a direction I didn't expect.

The main character, Sam, ends up being drugged and raped by a woman.  She, like my rapist, presented herself as a "damsel in distress".  He, like I, informed her that nothing but sleeping was going to happen as he, like I, was in love with someone else.

She then drugged him, restrained him and raped him while he was barely conscious or unconscious - that part is unclear.  His memories of the night were shown in a drug addled haze of confusion and hallucinations meant to be both humorous and bizarre.  While he was shown as disturbed (at least on some level) by the event, it is unclear whether he viewed it as rape.

Of course, the show didn't treat it like a rape in the slightest.   His fellow cops - both male and female found it funny.  Yes, getting drugged, restrained and then forced into sexual contact is just hilarious.  While it was a plot device and not the focus of the show, it was still completely mishandled.  This was an opportunity to make an important point, but it was instead used cheaply and badly.

Sadly, this is a recurring theme in movies and television.  Recent examples include the rape of men by women in the movies "Wedding Crashers" and "40 Days and 40 Nights".  All three examples ("Life on Mars", "Wedding Crashers" and "40 Days and 40 Nights") treat the actual rape like a joke.  Why should I expect anyone else to treat it like the crime it is when that is message Hollywood sends? 

Strangely enough, I was less triggered than angered by it.  It so closely resembled my own rape that I very quickly connected to it.  How could I not?  To top it off, some of the reactions from other characters on the show mirrored some of the responses I've received. 

Folks, possessing a vagina does not absolve a person for their actions where unwanted sexual contact is involved.  Having a penis does not mean you can not be raped.  Erections do not = consent.  A woman forcing herself on a man does not = getting lucky.

WHY IS THIS SO DAMNED HARD TO UNDERSTAND?????

Mongers of Fear 
October 31, 2008
Robert Higgs

Our evolved psychological and physiological makeup predisposes us to fear actual and potential threats, even those that exist only in our imagination. . . . The people who have the effrontery to rule us, who dare call themselves our government, understand this basic fact of human nature. They exploit it, and they cultivate it. Whether they compose a warfare state or a welfare state, they depend on fear to secure popular submission, compliance with official dictates, and, on some occasions, affirmative cooperation with the state’s enterprises and adventures. . . . Without popular fear, no government would endure more than twenty-four hours.

The fear need not be of the government itself and indeed may be of the danger from which the government purports to protect the people. Of course, some of the threats that induce subjects to submit to government in the hope of gaining its protection and thereby calming their fears may be real. I am not arguing that people who look to government for their salvation act entirely under the sway of illusory threats, although I do insist that nowadays, if not always, many public fears arise in large part if not entirely from stimulation by the government itself. If the people’s fears may be (1) of the government itself, (2) of real threats from which the people look to the government for protection, and (3) of spurious threats from which the people look to the government for protection, we must admit that the relative importance of each type of fear varies with time and place. In every case, however, the government seeks to turn public fear to its own advantage.