by Lance Thompson
Barack Obama is the most authentically anti-war president since Jimmy Carter. While a student at Columbia, he wrote a paper called “Breaking the War Mentality” which favored a unilateral nuclear freeze, advocated shifting spending from military to social needs, and supported other campus anti-military organizations. During the presidential campaign, he advocated immediate withdrawal from Iraq, and was widely known as the anti-war candidate of his party. Upon taking office, his administration has cut funding for new jet fighters, missile defense systems for the United States and Eastern Europe, and Obama himself has pledged never to “weaponize space.” Obama is completely against war and the military.
Except for the war in Afghanistan. Even during the campaign, Obama accused George Bush of focusing on the wrong war in Iraq. Obama advocated increasing our forces in Afghanistan, and since taking office has supported continued efforts to attack the Taliban in that desolate region. I have not understood why until Obama’s recent Russian visit with Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev.
True to his background, Obama pledged to cut our nuclear forces by a third, thus giving the Russians a diplomatic victory beyond their wildest dreams. America will voluntarily disarm in the face of rising threats from Communist China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia itself. Obama returned trumpeting his achievements. One of those, perhaps little noticed, is the Russian agreement to allow American re-supply flights through Russian air space to our forces in Afghanistan. Again, I wondered why.
Russia has a long and nearly unbroken tradition of denying over-flights to other countries, ever since the Communists took over. During daredevil aviator Wiley Post’s round-the-world flight in 1931, Russia at first refused over-flight privileges and then relented at the last minute, only to furnish Post with inaccurate charts so as to give no information to a foreign government. It has been much the same ever since, up to the 1983 shooting down of KAL 007 by a Russian interceptor. The unarmed civilian jumbo jet went down with no survivors. Russia ordinarily does not consider requests to cross its borders to even private aviators, let alone military flights. Yet now, the Russians are granting that privilege to American military aircraft to re-supply our troops in Afghanistan.
Another long and consistent tradition is Russian expansionism. During the colonial period, when Great Britain established coaling stations around the world to service the Royal Navy and protect its global empire, most other powerful nations followed suit. This is what resulted in the Dutch East Indies, German possession of New Guinea and other Pacific islands, and French Guyana, to name a few. The Russians, however, never went in for far-flung colonies they would need fleets to defend. With the exception of some remote fur-trading outposts on the North American coast, Russia always expanded at its own borders. In the 11th Century, Russians absorbed the lands of the Upper Volga, from the Urals to the Baltic Sea. In the 16th Century, Russia expanded to the Caucasus and Black Sea, into Turkestan and Siberia. Russians clashed with China and Japan, and in the 20th Century, brutally subjugated most of Eastern Europe, including bloody takeovers of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and half of Germany. In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and became mired in a punishing guerilla war with enemies who included the Taliban. The Soviet Union withdrew ten years later, having suffered tremendous losses. But they never relinquished their claims or ambitions in the region.
Which brings us back to the present day. American troops have succeeded where the Soviet forces failed. Americans have defeated the Taliban repeatedly, cleared areas of the enemy, destroyed terrorist training camps and hideouts, and stabilized the national government and economy. When the Taliban attacks in strength, they are decimated. When they disperse, we hunt them down. When they attempt to terrorize the population, they are exposed and captured or killed. American troops have demonstrated resourcefulness, persistence, and courage. And they have prevailed.
The American pattern for this kind of war is to defeat the enemy, establish a fledgling democracy, and withdraw our troops. In the past, American presidents have always offered support and protection for the emerging democratic government, lest it be set upon by enemies during its infancy.
However, it is evident to the world that Obama is a new kind of president. He criticizes our staunchest ally in the Middle East–Israel. He withholds official support for Iranian protestors who stand up against the oppression of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the risk of their own lives. He supports a Honduran dictator and condemns the legal measures undertaken to remove him from office. He bows to the Saudi King, makes overtures to Hugo Chavez, and allows North Korea to fire missiles at United States territory. Obama has clearly demonstrated that he is not the champion of democracy or freedom, as previous American presidents have been. Obama more often sides with the tyrants rather than the oppressed.
This fact is not lost on the Russians. They know that the American military, after defeating the Taliban, will some day leave Afghanistan and its infant democracy to its own devices. And that is when Russia, with its chief Afghan opponent–the Taliban–destroyed by the United States, will return to claim Afghanistan for itself. The Russians know Obama will not defend a struggling democracy, that Obama would rather placate a powerful opponent than challenge one, that he will abandon any ally to avoid confrontation.
Thus, the Russians are only too eager to help with our pacification of Afghanistan. While our troops do the heavy lifting, the Russians will plan their takeover. As soon as we’re gone, the Russians will sweep in behind us and swallow Afghanistan in a matter of days. There will be no organized guerilla force to oppose them, as there was in the 1980's. There will only be a free people, weakened by years of war, unable to defend themselves.
It’s impossible to know whether Barack Obama foresees this eventuality or not. One can ascribe many errors in judgment to simple incompetence. But rest assured that Russian foreign policy is not trusted to neophytes and community organizers. Their expansionist strategy is long-term, consistent and ruthless. And they know an opportunity when they see it.
