Can a Deeply Provincial Empire Run the World?

Either some demented McCarthyists who see Reds under their beds, or foreigners. Polish Canadian Brzezinsky, or Irish Samantha Power, or Czech Albright, who, having said plenty of stupid and obnoxious things, has declared when Czech Republic joining NATO: “This is the happiest moment of my life.” Why? For Czechs maybe, even though I dare to doubt, but for an American Secretary of State?

Consequently, with foreigners each of whom has their own ax to grind (Ukraine, Poland, Israel, you name it) and with neocons who listen only to their own paranoia, there are hardly people in the top echelons of foreign policy establishment who really understand how the world operates.

The case in point, is the sanction euphoria, followed by a very deep and debilitating hangover.

Did they consult any specialist on world trade before imposing these avalanche of sanctions? Or did they simply ask Obama, who’s assured them that “Russia does not make anything.” Or maybe they’ve conjured up the spirit of McCain who dismissed Russia as “gas station masquerading as a country”? In any case, it turns out that plenty of African countries use 80% of grains coming from Russia and Ukraine. And most of the world countries use Russian fertilizers. In other words, plenty of serious people who work at all sort of world organizations are predicting serious hunger. All of this is innocently reported by BBC, which could have reported it months ago, had they decided to interview the serious people rather than another Halyna from Lviv complaining about the evil Ivan that destroyed her dream of shelling people in Donbass with impunity.

Thousands of children would starve just to satisfy Biden’s and Blinken’s need to “weaken Russia.” Can anything be more reckless, arrogant, selfish, and cruel?

I am not talking about right and wrong here, nor do I discuss the need to “punish” or “encourage” Russia. But you don’t cut off your nose to spite the face. You don’t punish your neighbor by starving the children’s of another neighbor.

And surprising thing –and another sign of deep provincialism and infantilism– is the inability to admit one’s mistakes. I am sure that nonsense will continue because you see, “We need to send a message to Russia.”

What kind of message? That our sanctions can starve Africans and Arabs? That our sanctions can kill Russians and Ukrainians? If Russia is an authoritarian country, as its Western critics claim, can starving Russians lead anywhere? Authoritarian Stalin starved plenty of Ukrainians, Kazakhs, and Russians, and then went on ruling the country for thirty years. People have very little say in “authoritarian regimes.” So why punish people? Unless it is again a deeply provincial trait of projecting upon Russia some sort of American reality: when people starve they vote for another party. But it does not work this way in many parts of the world.

In short, the law of contradictions works here as well. You can’t introduce freedom by enslaving people, you can’t promote equality by setting up the system that awards inequality, greed, and cynicism. You can’t save the climate by allowing military to stink up the atmosphere, and by excluding the largest country on earth from negotiating table. And you sure don’t run the world on some deeply provincial and parochial principles. The rest of the world understands it well. Except the provincials themselves, who persist in their smug and self-congratulatory ways till the very end.