In “Trump, Putin, and the New Cold War,” Osnos, Remnick, and Yaffa assert that Putin seeks “to damage American confidence and to undermine the Western alliances” through cyberattacks and other measures. The authors include the perspective of Sergey Rogov, academic director of the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, in Moscow: “Not in a generation has the enmity run this deep . . . ‘I spent many years in the trenches of the first Cold War, and I don’t want to die in the trenches of the second,’ Rogov said. ‘We are back to 1983, and I don’t enjoy being thirty-four years younger in this way. It’s frightening.’” Having read Osnos, Remnick, and Yaffa’s analysis, do you think Rogov’s fear is warranted? Is he right to say that “We are back to 1983”? Why or why not?
3 thoughts on “Week 13 Day 1 Discussion Question 1”
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Overall, I believe Rognov’s fear is warranted, but perhaps is a bit overstated due to the apparent difference in proof and political climate between the 1983 Soviet “active measures” vs Soviet medaling in the 2016 election. First off, the investigation regarding Soviet influence and interference in the 2016 election has not yet come to a concrete conclusion, it is ongoing and has not resulted in any tangible consequences for Russia. Whereas, many years after the fact, we know exactly what the KGB planned to accomplish in 1983 and exactly how they did it. Although they were largely unsuccessful because Raegan was reelected by a landslide margin, it is very clear what actions were taken and with what intent they were carried out. Whereas during the 2016 election, it is largely believed that Russia certainly interfered with fake news stories and Facebook posts that were read by millions of Americans, but the exact concrete details of involvement and the possibility of collusion with the Trump campaign is still under investigation. Therefore I believe it would be a bit premature to compare allegations of 2016 election medaling with a concrete plan to disrupt American politics carried out in 1983. It could very well turn out that the 2016 Russian interference was a far greater crime than that of 1983, but with the current state of the investigation, it is irrational to experience the same fear that was present during the Cold War. The political climate in the United States was also incredibly different in 1983 than 2016. The 2016 election was incredibly controversial and raised political tensions to record highs, therefore it also is important to consider the possibility that Russia had almost no influence at all, but it is easier for many Americans to put blame on Russia rather than to accept their countries incredibly controversial President.
Even though the tensions between the West and Russia has escalated in last cople of years, they definitely can’t be compared to what was happening in the beginning of 1980s especially after Donald Trump took the office. The opposing sides do not threaten each other with a nuclear attack; however, the mindset of having influence over weaker countries has strengthened). We can see this pattern when we look at what’s going on in Ukraine (Russia), or middle eastern countries (USA) for example. Donald Trump during his speech at the UN assembly claimed: “As President of the United States, I will always put America first, just like you, as the leaders of your countries will always, and should always, put your countries first.” He sees international community as a gathering of different players who compete against each other with the goal of self interest. Putin has similar strategy; he does not want to destroy the US, he just wants to regain the old glory of Russia. At the same time, it is not like they would want to destroy each other; there is a lack of ideological clash as well.
Trump’s speech is also an interesting contrast to the Trudeou’s speech where he claims: “And we can’t build a better world unless we work together, respect our differences, protect the vulnerable, and stand up for the things that matter. “
To use the metaphor of the two editions of The Manchurian Candidate, I would argue that the current geopolitical situation is not a remake of the world of 1983 so much as a reinterpretation, a more modern recasting of the original source material that 1983 was adapted from. I’m being slightly facetious, of course, but I do argue that there is a striking usefulness to my semi-serious characterization. The “original source material” may not exist for real life in the same way that a novel does for the two Manchurian Candidates, but in a sense, both in 1983 and today, the US and Russia/the USSR seek to prove that they can handle the mantle of superpower, perhaps even only power, in the aftermath of a major shakeup of established roles. I’m reminded of the theory of the “Long War,” which proposes that we should periodize the 20th century from 1914 to 1991 or so. The logic is that the 19th century represents the era of revolution and liberal republicanization in Europe while European society generally maintains the same class system, as well as a scramble for colonial possessions and a relative balance of power in international relations; and the Short 20th Century is the era of the collapse of imperial systems and of the old class structure, in which the central question that the Soviets, the Nazis, the suddenly-hegemonic US, the declining Britain, and post-colonial regions like Korea and Vietnam all try to answer is: “how do we replace 19th-century imperialism and forge a new identity?” Of course, that’s massively reductivist and ignores a lot of steps along the way, but the idea, I think, is worth examining.
Applying the concept on slightly smaller timescales, I believe, makes it easier to avoid generalizations and paint a more accurate picture. The reason I bring all of this up, then, is to think about how we could ask the same question of 1983 and of now. After the upheaval of the Second World War, the question would be modified to: “how do we prevent the rise of totalitarianism and expansionism again?” for the US, and “how do we protect ourselves from other countries’ aggression?” for the USSR. Those are two massively hypocritical questions, but they must be to reflect the feeling of both new superpowers that they had won the war with the mere assistance of the other. That general sentiment is calmed for many by the social revolutions of the ’60s in the US and by Khruschev’s thaw at the same time in the USSR. However, in part due to backlash against those new norms, by the 80s, Brezhnev’s clampdown and Reagan’s reinflamation of fears of the Soviets brought those two questions back to the forefront. The post-WWII sentiments resurface. And to a large extent, although the particular people may be different, and although the particular role of each character in the narrative may be modified, those questions are still at the heart of it. Ben Marco may be the brainwashed assassin now instead of Raymond Shaw, and Russia may have partially achieved its goal of destabilizing the US, but in the same way that both Manchurian Candidates ask similar questions about just how possible infiltration of the political process is and from where, we are asking the same questions today as in 1983.
There is one key difference: the US now the declining power. Russia still asks itself how it can fight off what it sees as Western aggression, but within the US, we are split. Many Americans still ask the old question of how to prevent dictatorships abroad and at home, but for many others within the US, it seems as though a second question, one that influenced Reagan’s election but was not central to it, has become more important. That question is: “what am I supposed to do when threatened with being left behind?” As middle-class white Americans recoiled from what they saw as the excesses of post-60s culture, with the upheaval of older social norms, and fretted over their economic woes in the recessions of the 1970s, they began to look for a way to express their dissatisfaction. Today, that dissatisfaction is stronger than ever, and Donald Trump has poured gasoline on the fire with his slogan of “Make America Great Again.” In promising the return of jobs to the US, and in offering a simplified value system of us-vs.-them, Trump aims directly at the voters who, like those in 1983, wanted to do away with all of the social and economic changes of the past years. The irony is that Trump is, in fact, in the pocket of those who would seek to make the economy worse for their poor constituents, and in the hotel room of those who aim to diminish American influence abroad. In terms of policy, we may not be back in 1983, but in terms of the emotions that citizens of Russia and the US feel and in terms of the contest between superpowers, we never left.