(no subject)
LA Times:
Russians blame the U.S. for 1990s corruption and economic bullying.
THE BUSH administration's imposition of sanctions on two Russian companies this month for selling military technology to Iran certainly sends the Kremlin a message — but it won't be the one the White House has in mind. The penalties will only deepen the hostility that Russia's political establishment feels toward the United States.
That attitude came through loud and clear in many discussions I had with Russian academics, foreign policy specialists and senior officials during a recent trip to Moscow.
The anti-American nationalism so palpable in Russia today is rooted in the 1990s, the decade of Boris N. Yeltsin, whom many Americans credit with ending Soviet totalitarianism and introducing the country to democracy. Russians have a different take on those years. They remember the chaos; the economic contraction; the extreme poverty; the robber barons who, with the connivance of the government, made billions after taking over state-owned industries at bargain-basement prices; and the Yeltsin family's rampant corruption. Rightly or wrongly, they associate these bad experiences with the United States.
NATO's expansion also feeds Russian anti-Americanism. During the debate here, U.S. experts confidently predicted that Moscow would adjust to the induction of its former Soviet republics — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — into the alliance just as it had when Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic joined. They were wrong.
It's folly to assume that a new, post-Soviet generation will seek greater harmony with the U.S. or that Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization (certain to occur) and market forces will necessarily integrate it into the West. When I asked the U.S.-educated Russian whether he shared the anti-American nationalism that I'd heard during my talks with Russian academics and officials, he said he did. What's more, he added, his circle of friends was, if anything, even angrier at the United States for what he regarded as its arrogant foreign policy and disregard of Russia's interests.
Russians blame the U.S. for 1990s corruption and economic bullying.
THE BUSH administration's imposition of sanctions on two Russian companies this month for selling military technology to Iran certainly sends the Kremlin a message — but it won't be the one the White House has in mind. The penalties will only deepen the hostility that Russia's political establishment feels toward the United States.
That attitude came through loud and clear in many discussions I had with Russian academics, foreign policy specialists and senior officials during a recent trip to Moscow.
The anti-American nationalism so palpable in Russia today is rooted in the 1990s, the decade of Boris N. Yeltsin, whom many Americans credit with ending Soviet totalitarianism and introducing the country to democracy. Russians have a different take on those years. They remember the chaos; the economic contraction; the extreme poverty; the robber barons who, with the connivance of the government, made billions after taking over state-owned industries at bargain-basement prices; and the Yeltsin family's rampant corruption. Rightly or wrongly, they associate these bad experiences with the United States.
NATO's expansion also feeds Russian anti-Americanism. During the debate here, U.S. experts confidently predicted that Moscow would adjust to the induction of its former Soviet republics — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — into the alliance just as it had when Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic joined. They were wrong.
It's folly to assume that a new, post-Soviet generation will seek greater harmony with the U.S. or that Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization (certain to occur) and market forces will necessarily integrate it into the West. When I asked the U.S.-educated Russian whether he shared the anti-American nationalism that I'd heard during my talks with Russian academics and officials, he said he did. What's more, he added, his circle of friends was, if anything, even angrier at the United States for what he regarded as its arrogant foreign policy and disregard of Russia's interests.
