War Party Won Out in Russia Because of Miscalculations of West and So-Called ‘Liberals,’ Verkhoturov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 4 – The war party in Moscow has won out and for a long time, Dmitry Verkhoturov says, because of the miscalculations of those who are mistakenly called “liberals” but who in fact were working with the West to diminish Russia’s standing in the world and who prompted those opposed to them to concentrate their efforts in the defense structures.

            According to the Russian commentator, the end of the Cold War left Russia in an unusual position. On the one hand, it was defeated and was being weakened by an alliance of Western governments and those within Russia who were prepared to help them in their goal of reducing Russia to the status of a weak third world country (apn.ru/index.php?newsid=41836).

            But on the other hand, he argues, “Russia preserved for itself certain very important attributes of a major power,” including nuclear weapons, an enormous territory, and large reserves of natural resources. Consequently, those who wanted Russia to recover its former status concentrated in the defense sector, while others dominated other areas.

            Not surprisingly, Verkhoturov says, much of the population fed up with being humiliated by the West and its allies increasingly looked to the military, the defense industry and other security services as their only defenders; and when a leader emerged in the person of Vladimir Putin who agreed with them, the country was militarized.

            Had the West not humiliated Russia or had it been more consistent and deprived Russia in some way of its resources, this would not have happened, the Russian analyst says; but the West and its “liberal” allies within Russia miscalculated. They assumed that Russia could be kept in a box of their design even while retaining nuclear weapons and the like.

            That was a fundamental miscalculation: either Russia had to be recognized as a major power or it had to be stripped of the resources it did retain. Because neither of these things happened, Russia was fated to return as a military-oriented power. What is happening in Ukraine and what will happen elsewhere are the results.