Putin and the New Age of Nationalism

Today brought the alarming news of Vladimir Putin's moves towards Ukraine. He is recognizing and occupying the two breakaway republics essentially established by Russian invasion. He justified this aggression with a speech laying out a historical narrative essentially claiming that Russia has a right to reconstitute its empire no matter what the people in former Soviet republics think about it. Hopefully, anyone stupid enough to think this was merely about NATO has been thoroughly disabused of that notion. Putin in so many words said that Ukraine has no right to exist. 

The older I get the more I stress the continuities of history over the changes. The Tsars, General Secretaries and now Putin might wild diverge in ideology but all of them sought to preserve a sprawling Russian empire.

I am feeling similar in regards to other continuities. When I was in grad school back in the oughts many people -especially in British Empire studies- found it fashionable to say that nations did not matter anymore. This conceit coincided with the so-called "end of history" and growth of globalization in the 1990s. While global capitalism has been drawing the world together, the result has been to bolster rather than eat away at nationalism. It is the continuous thread that refuses to go away.

Putin's nationalism has been particularly imperialistic, but it is but one manifestation of a larger phenomenon. From "make American great again" to Xi's appeals to Chinese nationalism to Modi's attacks on Muslims to Boris Johnson and Brexit we are living in the new dawn of nationalism. 

While Putin is not alone, his brand of nationalism points to that ideology's most dangerous manifestations: expansionism and war. For the first time since World War II Europe is under threat of general conflict. Lives hang in the balance. Ukranians are being threatened both with death and with imperial subjugation. The international systems built to keep this at bay are faltering in the face of nationalist strongmen. I fear a new age not only of nationalism, but of wars fought over borders and refugees trapped when no one offers them asylum. 

History did not end thirty years ago, and what history is to come certainly looks grim. 

The Cold War Is Finally Over (Both Sides Lost)

We tend to think that the Cold War ended in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, or in 1991, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. I tend to think nowadays that it finally ended with the ascension of Donald Trump to the presidency.

The Cold War was, in many respects, a conflict destined to destroy both of its participants. It just so happens that the Soviets lost the war of attrition first. Their stagnant economy could not sustain its military and imperialist commitments as belief in communism eroded. While America claimed to emerge victorious, its society was already crumbling into steep inequality and cynicism in the 1980s. Those trends have only continued to the point of absurdity to the present day. The Cold War demanded a massive level of spending and multiple wars. As America's military might increased, the standard of living for its people took a dive. America may have "won" the Cold War, but people are drinking poison in Flint, and parts of cities across this country still look like they've been bombed. Much like Britain after the two World Wars, victory does not save the empire.

Meanwhile, in the international arena, America tried to extend the life and reach of Cold War institutions, rather than replacing them. Hence NATO moving into Eastern Europe, for example. The post-1989 presidents still maintained America's commitment to a global projection of power, changing the enemy from communism to Islamism after the 9/11 attack.

As awful as the United States behaved during the Cold War, it at least had a somewhat idealistic self-conception of its behavior. Trump has set about shredding the institutional webs of the Cold War world, not out of ideals, but out of craven nationalism. Beyond that, of course, he was supported in his quest for power by Vladimir Putin. The ex-KGB agent got the last laugh, avenging the end of the Soviet Union by helping to install a destructive idiot at the head of America. Obama tried to repair the damage done by Shrub to America's standing in the world, Trump has torn that work to shreds. Now that damage will be permanent. I don't think there's any going back from this.

In 2018, that aforementioned idiot is driving the nation into the ditch. Despite this accomplishment, Putin's Russia is still economically weak and irrelevant. The USA and USSR both managed to bury each other, making way for an ascendant China. The Cold War is finally over, and both sides lost.