The Globalist

Assessing Putin

Ron Tang — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0500

What will Putin’s legacy amount to? For starters, let us dispense with a giant "red herring" that too many Western commentators have pursued for far too long.

What I am referring to is the question of whether Putin is a “democratic reformer” -- or a “Soviet authoritarian.”

An authoritarian reformer

The answer, of course, is that Putin is an authoritarian reformer. He is profoundly committed to reforms intended to make Russia into a successful modern state. But at the same time, he is profoundly skeptical of his society’s capacity to undertake such reforms without strong control from above -- at least… more

Dining With Putin

Ron Tang — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0500

Our meal with President Vladimir Putin took place at the presidential villa at Novo-Ogaryevo in 2006.

The drive to the presidential village was a short tour of the world of the new Russian elite -- which is now not so very new anymore, given the years that have passed since the Soviet collapse.

The new Russian elite

The road led through the former village of Zhukovka, now containing enormous villas -- some almost as large as that of the president.

We rode by a “Luxury Plaza” featuring shops and signs for Armani, Gucci, Dolce and Gabbana, Bentley and Maserati. The “Dream… more

My Visit To Khanti-Mansiisk, Part II

Ron Tang — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 22:00:00 -0400

The museum of the Khanti and Mansii tradition is intelligently and attractively designed, with vaguely New-Ageish references to Khanti and Mansii religion, but also genuinely interesting and informative about their beliefs.

Among these, following the Russian conquest of the 17th century, was a conflation of Jesus Christ with their traditional principal object of worship, the bear.

Hopes for Khanti-Mansiisk

For anyone with a sense of Russian history, Khanti-Mansiisk has a certain heartbreaking quality. This was the dream of the Soviet reformers under Gorbachev -- a Russia whose immense natural resources -- freed from the crushing burden of bloated military spending, insane… more

My Visit To Khanti-Mansiisk, Part I

Ron Tang — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 22:00:00 -0400

Last autumn, I found myself by invitation of some very respectable investors in a high-class Moscow night-club shaped like an amphitheatre. The rake-thin, huge-eyed “models” perched in the tiers above me, and under the flashing strobe-lights, adopted in my inebriated imagination the forms of exquisitely beautiful, slightly predatory roosting birds.

My previous, sober after-dinner speech on Russia’s economic prospects to these international investors had been succeeded by a line of can-can dancers clad only in feathers and led by a bear waving a Russian flag.

Reminders of the Past

The moment reminded me of a British journalist colleague, who a few… more

The British Empire's Lessons for Its U.S. Brother

Ron Tang — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0500

In contemplating a future world in which U.S. power is used more effectively, but in more limited ways -- indeed, more effectively because of these limits -- Americans can draw upon the example of British strategy in the century before 1914, when its global power was at its zenith.

This experience has been used by writers such as Niall Ferguson and Max Boot as an example for the exercise of American global power today and in the future.

Such recommendations too often ignore the fact that British power, even at its height, was in certain key respects limited. And it… more

The Conflict In Iraq And U.S. Elites

Ron Tang — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 00:00:00 -0500

What has failed in Iraq has been not just the strategy of the administration of George W. Bush -- but a whole way of looking at the world.

This consists of the beliefs that the United States is both so powerful and so obviously good that it has the ability to spread democracy throughout the world; that if necessary, this can be achieved through war; that this mission can also be made to advance particular U.S. national interests -- and that this combination will naturally be supported by good people all over the world, irrespective of their own political traditions,… more

The United States in the Global Concert of Powers

Articles — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 15:48:00 -0400

Lind's new book, The American Way of Strategy, explores this issue in greater detail. Please click here for additional information.

* * *

Theodore Roosevelt was in favor of it. So was his cousin Franklin -- and his rival Woodrow Wilson. “It” was an alliance or “concert” of peace-loving, law-abiding great powers that would cooperate to maintain international security.

Ending the cycle of world wars by establishing a great-power concert was the goal of Americans in World War I and World War II and underlay the foundation of the League of Nations and later the United Nations.

After the… more

Dean, Yankee of Vermont

Articles — Fri, 09 Jan 2004 00:00:00 -0500

The values of America's Yankee Puritans were forged in the religious and political conflicts of 16th- and 17th-century Britain. Puritan opposition to Catholicism and Anglicanism translates, among their descendants, into strong support for the separation of church and state.

Puritan values = New England values

The Puritan belief that the community of "saints" as well as the individual is a moral actor lives on in a strong sense of civic spirit and support for social reform. New Englanders were over-represented in the campaigns to abolish slavery, to end segregation -- and to provide equal rights for women.

The Puritans'… more

The Multipolar World Vs. The Superpower

Articles — Fri, 05 Dec 2003 00:00:00 -0500

A grand strategy, such as it is pursued by the Bush Administration, ultimately rests on the simple idea of a unipolar world -- the notion that the United States is the only power that counts in the world today.

France's Envy for Power

Coincidentally, that is also why neo-conservative advocates are so critical of France's avowed goal of creating a multi-polar world, attributing it to France's superpower "envy."

Yet for all practical purposes, a multipolar world already exists. On a global plane, the United States may appear to be the world's only superpower, spending more than the… more

Middle East Democracy -- A Reality Check for U.S. Policy

Articles — Mon, 10 Nov 2003 00:00:00 -0500

There are three reasons to question the emphasis of a U.S. mission in the Middle East. The first relates to whether the United States can overcome the deep legacy of distrust -- and even hatred -- past U.S. policies have created in the region.

U.S. empire for the common good

Neo-conservatives in and around the Bush Administration like to believe the United States is a different kind of hegemonic power.

They assert that the country does not seek imperial advantages and that it uses its power for the common good. In some parts of the world, it… more