Paul
Goble
Staunton, September 30 – Moscow has
already assembled “a multitude of allies around the world” in its campaign to
oppose American hegemonism and globalism, but in its “struggle to create a
multi-polar world,” Russia must “seek to acquire allies within the United
States,” first and foremost among American isolationists, according to a Moscow
blogger.
In an article posted on the “Telegrafist”
site today, Maksim Sigachyov suggests that there are “two possible directions”
Moscow could pursue in its effort to find “enemies of American globalism within
the US” – focusing on separatists within the US or joining forces with “patriotic
isolationists” in the Republican Party who oppose the “neo-conservative
imperialists” (telegrafist.org/2013/09/30/89858/).
The latter which
some call “isolationist paleo-conservativism” is more powerful, Sigachyov says,
dominating as it does the right wing of the Republican Party including figures
like Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Patrick Buchanan, and Paul Weyrich and with deep
roots in the Tea Party movement. Thus,
it is a better ally for Moscow in its campaign for a multi-polar world.
In support of his argument, he cites
the September 16th article by Mikhail Shevlyakov on Robert Taft (terra-america.ru/ludi-obolgannih-principov.aspx)
and as well as the conclusions found in a September 3rd commentary by Bret
Stephens in the “Wall Street Journal” (online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324432404579050821624966890.html).
According to the Russian blogger,
now is the time for Moscow to form an alliance with these American “patriotic
isolationists” because, he says, “the overwhelming majority of Americans are
against a military strike on Syria and more generally are against their country
being drawn into new conflicts abroad when nothing is threatening the security”
of the US.
“Ordinary Americans” no longer
support “humanitarian intervention” and thus have views like those of Robert
Taft (1889-1953), who as a leader in the US Senate opposed American entry into
World War II and opposed American involvement in Europe after the war which prompted
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., to describe his ideas in 1952 as “the new isolationism”
(theatlantic.com/past/politics/foreign/asiso.htm).
Taft’s views,
Sigachyov says, were based on the idea of a “Fortress America” capable of
defending itself if attacked but otherwise largely uninterested in what is
taking place elsewhere in the world. And
those ideas, the Russian blogger argues, are now to be found throughout the
United States, to the consternation of liberal internationalists and American
financial interests.
According to Sigachyov, who bases
his argument on Shevlyakov’s article, there are four basic principles
underlying American isolationism: “the US must built a ‘fortress America,” its
strength willguarantee that no one will attack it, “the US must not interfere
in foreign conflicts in ways that undermine its defense capabilities, and “involvement
in wars threatens” to create “a dictatorship” in the US itself.
One can see certain “parallels,” the
Russian blogger says, with Russian Eurasianist and geopolitical writer
Aleksandr Dugin, who writes about “’another Europe,’ as an alternative to the
liberal-Atlanticist” variant in that American isolationists oppose the idea of “another
America” to liberal internationalism of almost all kinds.
It is clearly in Russia’s interests,
he suggests, to promote these “isolationist tendencies of Amereican
continentalism.” Indeed, he argues, there
may even be possibilities to conduct “a dialogue of Eurasian continentalism and
American continentalism.” But even before that, the American isolationists will
help “destroy the Global Wall Street.”
Reaching out to American
isolationists, Sigachyov says in conclusion, has ideological value within Russia
because “right Republican isolationists” in the US and Russian nationalists both
rely on “entrepreneurial forces” to oppose banks and global financial
players. And the American example, he
says, will help Russians develop “an absolutely patriotic ideology.”
