For the outsiders, it seems like Gorbachev ‘made’ Putin. Gorbachev had destroyed the Soviet Union and, thus, had set the scene for Putin to take over.
I’m afraid things are a little more complicated than that.
Gorbachev – at that time, the best informed decision maker in the whole USSR – had been smart enough to understand that no matter what he might had tried to do, the corpse was already rotten. That everything but a major ‘upheaval’ could not accomplish anything more than prolong the agony. What he had done was nothing more than allowed the things to happen according to their nature.
I’ll make a short break here and remind you that all ‘imperium’ had eventually ended in failure. The tighter the control exercised by the ruler, the more abject the eventual failure. Check your history book.
So. Gorbachev had taken the appropriate steps. What he had done was in step with the natural flow of history.
Eltsin and Putin, on the other hand, had done the exact opposite. Eltsin had tried and Putin had succeeded in regaining the ‘reins’ of the government. The reins, the whip, ever stronger control over the barn where the whole stash of hay is deposited…
Why things had unfolded like this? Because they – Eltsin and Putin, had chosen this venue and because nobody else had been able to do anything about it.
OK, Gorbachev, Eltsin and Putin had made their respective calls in basically the same social and political environments. The economic situations were ‘somewhat’ different but this doesn’t change what I want to stress out. Each of them had done what had crossed each of their individual minds. Each had been able to do whatever each of them had wanted because… Because that particular ‘social arrangement’ allows the ruler to make whatever decisions they may see fit. Because that particular ‘social arrangement’ – dictatorship, no matter how much window-dressing had been slapped on it, allows the person who happens to clamber ‘on top’ to keep making mistakes until the whole ‘carriage’ disintegrates.
1. Sow doubt. 2. Drop a loud fact. Or two… This will simultaneously ‘water’ the previously planted seed and act as a ‘foot in the door’ for your next move. 3. ‘Miss-interpret’ another fact. 4. Mention an universal human emotion, inviting your audience to identify itself with the ‘victim’. 5. Squarely state what you want your audience to believe.
1. ‘The Soviet Union didn’t crumple under its own weight. It was dissolved by Yeltsin so that Gorbachev’s position would disappear. Leaving Yeltsin as the top dog of the day. Even if at the helm of a little smaller empire…’
2. ‘After the Cold War had ended, the West should have treated the ‘defeated’ as Germany, Italy and Japan had been treated after WWII. The West should have helped the Soviet Union to overcome the transition hurdles by extending to it an equivalent of the Marshall Plan. Instead of that, the Americans had come up with the Wolfowitz – later Bush, Doctrine.’
3. ‘Gorbatchev was told by James Baker that NATO will not move an inch eastward’
4. “…1998, Yeltsin, late Yeltsin: ‘you promised not to do this! So, how do we trust you, if you make a promise?’ “
5.1. Vladimir Putin has been created by the United States. 5.2. The so called free media in general – and New York Times in particular, cannot be trusted to provide honest information.
Pozner’s discourse is far more ‘byzantine’ than the ‘stream-lined’ version I used to illustrate what skillful propaganda looks like. Skillful maskirovka, more likely?
This post has become long enough. Let me wrap it up.
The main question here being ‘did he actually say it? Did Baker actually promised Gorbachev that “NATO will not move an inch eastward” ‘?
The Soviet Union is long gone, all the states which have been admitted into NATO are ‘in’ because they had asked themselves to join – and are now extremely glad to be protected by the famous 5th article – … while the only (frustrated) ‘agent’ who ever cried foul was Putin. Not only cried foul but eventualy acted out his frustrations!
nicichiarasa 