Department of Outlandish Hypotheticals
I’ll admit that I’ve really slacked off in terms of reading New Republic editor-in-chief Martin Peretz’s blog. And now that I have a chance to glance at it, I think he’s deliberately being dumb to keep me on my toes. For example, yesterday he wrote “Imagine for a moment that the United States has mounted an attack on Mexico or Cuba, truly an unimaginable act.”
Unimaginable indeed. Except the United States has invaded both Mexico and Cuba in the past, multiple times each. Indeed, at this very day the United States maintains a large military installation on Cuban soil despite the objections of the Cuban government. And that installation is the legacy of decades of colonial domination of Cuba by the United States. And when America’s preferred proxy ruler of Cuba was overthrown by a new dictator, we tried several times to overthrow his government — once sponsoring an invasion — and have subjected the country to a devastating embargo for decades in an effort to keep him out of power.
Now nothing in America’s fairly long history of shabby acts toward our “near abroad” comes close to justifying Russia’s bad actions in its near abroad. But they do provide the necessary context of fairly banal great power politics rather than terrifying and unprecedented expansionism.
43 Responses to “Department of Outlandish Hypotheticals”
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August 22nd, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Imagine that Russia were to put missiles in Cuba . . .
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Bust out the capital hill connections.
Ask them Mr. Yglesias. Or at least credit TNR readers that post questions 15 hours before you post them to your blog.
Isn’t everything relative?
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:29 pm
In the 19th and and 20th centuries it just was not acceptable for one nation to invade another . . . oh.
Even Andrew Bacevich falls victim to this mythology. In his interview with Bill Moyers the otherwise astute Bacevich said that 70-100 years ago Americans looked upon British occupations of present-day Iraq and Afghanistan as things that would be unimaginable for the US to do . . . except that at that very moment the US also occupied countries around the world, in the Pacific and the Americas.
The power of myth allows Putin to get away with convincing Russia that he was on a humanitarian mission in Georgia, though that seems laughable to Americans. But the same power of myth allows Bush and Rice and far more honest and knowledgeable people to say equally oblivious things and egt away with it.
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Would those be nuclear tipped missiles or the defensive variety that lack offensive capabilities?
They’re all the same thing right?
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Nice analysis. I do agree that Russia’s intervention in Georgia likely isn’t as ominous as the usual alarmist suspects have proclaimed.
I would note, however, that the last time we moved significant troops into Mexico (apart from the pursuits of Geronimo or Pancho Villa) it was quite an expansionist endevor.
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Now imagine the truly impossible: America invading Russia.
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:47 pm
You couldn’t find something better to attack Marty on? He’s talking about invading Cuba or Mexico today. What would are current House Speak do. What would are current Senate Majority leader do.
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:49 pm
U.S. invade Russia impossible? Nope. Already been done around 1918 – 1919. Part of a joint effort with the Japanese and the White Army.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Yeah…
and imagine if you can, America torturing prisoners, or imprisoning people without trial or spying on its citizens or…
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:48 pm
I use Guantanamo as an analogy to So. Ossetia.
Them: “But Russia attacked Georgia. Georgia was only acting w/in its territory.”
Me: “Imagine we move all of the prisoners out of Gitmo, so it is just on abandoned base. Imagine Cuba moves its army in. America would just let it, right?”
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:51 pm
O but that was even back before John McCain was a POW.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Imagine if we ceded a county in New Mexico, with a 95% white non-Mexican population, back to Mexico. Sure it would never happen, but that’s what the Russians basically did with South Osettia. Imagine that after we cede this county, the Mexicans proceeded to shell its main city, killing hundred or thousands of civilians as well as American military forces stationed there.
Do ya think we’d appeal to the UN?
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:36 pm
I’ve been reading Kenneth D. Ackerman ’s Young J. Edgar: Hoover, the Red Scare, and the Assault on Civil Liberties. Not only did the US send troops into Russia in 1918-1920, it turns out that US troops dying in Russia was a part of popular support for suppressing radicals in the US. Large parts of public opinion identified domestic radicals with Russian communists that our troops were being killed by, with 424 deaths from all causes. Once US troops came out of Russia fighting Reds at home suddenly seemed less urgent.
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:05 pm
We also invaded Canada more than once… quite unsuccessfully. We expected to be greeted as liberators and couldn’t understand why that didn’t happen…..
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:27 pm
You don’t include the best part where the US forced Cuba to put in its constitution the right for the US to invade it if the US didn’t like its rulers.
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:31 pm
I’m still trying to imagine the unimaginable. Just can’t wrap my head around it.
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Re: Imagine if we ceded a county in New Mexico, with a 95% white non-Mexican population, back to Mexico. Sure it would never happen, but that’s what the Russians basically did with South Osettia.
Not entirely a good analogy either, since the Ossetians are not more Russian than they are Georgian, and if Russia had kept Ossetia under its rule, the Ossetians might well be rebelling against Russian rule. Perhaps your anaology might work a bit better (but still be far from perfect) if you hypothesized a county that was 95% native American, and not very enthusiastic about being ruled from either DC or Mexico City.
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Georgians make up a lot more than 5% of South Ossetia’s population, or at least they did until they were ethnically cleansed by the Ossetians and Russians last week.
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:17 pm
The Spanish translation of “near abroad” is extrajero vecino. Which works quite nicely, because then the United States becomes the “vecino extrajero” or “foreign neighbor.”
Anyway, must you go back to the days of dollar diplomacy? It’s a wise thing to do, I’m writing a book about it, but we invaded Panama as recently as 1989 and Haiti twice in the last fifteen years.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:39 pm
One thing I myself forgot in the barage of Russophobia this week.
The Russian’s didn’t end up in the Caucasus out of sheer adventurism.
There were drawn into the area through competition with another imperial power, the Ottomans, and, to a lesser extent, Persia.
They saved the Georgians from Turkish subjugation, which would have been vastly less to their liking – just ask the Armenians, who would have gladly opted for Russian saviors.
The Russians must be doing something right – they have over 80 languages spoken on their territory, and have ruled Muslim populations since the 16th century.
They have a genius for integrating elites and allowing local cultural diversity which the British and Spanish, with their ruthless mono-cultural policies would have been wise to emulate.
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:57 am
JonF: “if Russia had kept Ossetia under its rule, the Ossetians might well be rebelling against Russian rule.”
Ever heard of North Ossetia – which IS in the Russian territory? And to which 70,000 South Ossetians fled when Georgia abolished the status of South Ossetia? Face it, the Ossetians prefer Russia over Georgia by a wide margin.
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Re: Ever heard of North Ossetia – which IS in the Russian territory?
You did not address my point at all: Ossetians are an Iranian (in the broader sense) people, possibly descended from the acient Skythians who once dominated the Eurasian steppe. They aren’t Russian or even Slavic. What they want (we can take them at their word, right?) is independence, not to be part of Russia. If they are turning to Russia it’s only because Russia is a bigger fish then Georgia and the Russians are willing to back them for their own reasons. Once upon a time after all georgia itself petitioned for help from the Russian Empire to gain protection fronm the Ottomans. Should Russia gobble up Ossetia, I predict within a few years the Ossetians will be agitating against Russia instead.
I have nothing against the Ossetians at all– but I don’t see that the Russians are being any more noble in this business than the US was when Teddy Roosevelt backed the Panamanian separtists to get the prospective canal region away from an intransigent Columbia.
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:31 pm
How about a comparison of Ronald Reagan’s invasion of Grenada and what the Russians are doing in Georgia.
August 23rd, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Yep, Grenada and Panama.
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:37 pm
@ 22 Jon F
See my comments @20.
Also – All these “proud little people” are at each others throats.
I heard of an Ossetian woman asked if the Georgian villagers should be let back. She said “I’d rather cut off my head.”
You can’t blame the Russians for that. Many of the smaller people rely on on a “big brother” to save them from centuries of bloodshed with their neighbors. The Georgians used the Russians to save them from the Turks, but now choose to pin their hopes on the US.
The Ossetian bond with the Russians has been solidified for decades, if not longer through this action.
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