Window on Eurasia: American Isolationists Can Help Moscow Create a Multi-Polar World, Moscow Blogger Says

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 16^th article by Mikhail Shevlyakov on Robert Taft (terra-america.ru/ludi-obolgannih-principov.aspx) and as well as the conclusions found in  a September 3^rd 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.”