The “no Cold War” crew is distracted by the absence of an extravagant ideology. It is true there are no more missile parades under banners of Lenin and Marx. Communism, however, and especially Marxism-Leninism is simply highly rationalized violence, and little else. As history conclusively demonstrates, no actual Communist leaders were as concerned with the “workers paradise” part as they were with the “kill all the bourgeois, priests, old regime, counterrevolutionaries, intellectuals, and recalcitrant peasants” part. “Communism” is not strictly necessary. Pan-Slavism works in some situations; simply intimidation works in others; in most, subversion and infiltration work. The Marxism-Leninism of the USSR was also a strategic burden, focusing the attention of adversaries who would otherwise be unfocused – as you now see. Above all, Moscow can count on the ignorance and indifference and fear of most Americans, who after all are far away. Has the Olympics-obsessed media even made one mention of the cynicism of one Olympiad-participating nation launching an attack on another during the very opening ceremony dedicated to world comity? Not one that I heard.
Unfortunately for analysts, Moscow has always been an enigma in the exact way it functions and in its exact intentions. It is wrapped in a maya’s veil of Asiatic intrigue, mystique, and occlusion. But its essence has always been Awe. And it does not necessarily require a big, overt, flamboyant ideological costume to pursue hegemonic goals that Americans ought to be concerned about – at least enough to become acquainted with a kind of thinking that really is both alien our own and very effective in its native lands. I’m not saying we should invade Georgia, I’m only saying we should at least recognize what such an event wants so badly to teach us. The interceptors in Poland is a good idea, though.
