Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia, Updated Edition

by Stephen F. Cohen

Release Date: 22 October, 2001

Edition: Paperback

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A Russia specialist fights back

"Failed Crusade" is a sharply-observed critique of American foreign policy towards post-Soviet Russia. Cohen, and many other Russia specialists like him, are justifiably angry. After all, their advice regarding the best way to ensure a successful transition to democracy and a market economy was largely ignored by Western policymakers, who instead favoured the "transitologists" who thought they knew all about transitions from authoritarian rule based on the experience of Latin America and Southern Europe. For economic advice, they turned to the neoliberal evangelists of the so-called Harvard School. They believed that initial conditions counted for nothing, and that Thatcherite economic policies would soon put Russia on the road to prosperity.

Nowadays all of us - from America's Republicans to Russia's Communists - concur that the last 10 years have marked a "transition" to near-total collapse, poverty and anarchy. This provides the opportunity for Cohen and his long-serving colleagues in the field of Russia studies to hit back, and say "I told you so".

This book sets out to do just that. Cohen seeks to demonstrate that he was right all along, partly by citing entire articles written by him over the last 10 years. Indeed, he can claim quite justifiably that he was largely right on the mark, and even his earlier articles stand the test of time.

However, I have a few minor quibbles with this otherwise fine book. For a start, it gets tiresome to read all these articles, since they tend to include whole passages which have already been used in an earlier article. There's nothing wrong with a writer quoting himself, unless later on in life he's going to draw his articles together into a book and not bother editing out the repetitions. The motif that I grew most annoyed by was the constant mention of Russia's nuclear arsenal as the single most important reason why we can't let the country go down the drain. As if a Russia without nuclear weapons could go to hell.

Still, this is a worthy addition to the recent batch of hand-wringing books on Russia. Let's hope that in this new century Russia will stop having to endure all the stupid experiments it endured in the Twentieth.

Thoughtful book, wrong hypothesis

Mr. Cohen in his sharp and insightful book argues that American overenthusiastic attitude in the 1990's actually weakened Russian camp of liberal reformers. Russian reforms stalled and the danger of nuclear proliferation increased because of American policy of the unconditional support of Boris Yelstin's regime. Crusade failed. However, for me the question is - was it a Crusade? To my point of view Mr. Cohen spends too much time citing himself instead of analyzing the realities of the US policy vis-�-vis Russia in the 90's. And these realities were created by people; and mostly by three powerful American policy makers: M. Albright, J. Helms and B. Clinton. Lets do a quick reality check.

Powerful Secretary of State in the 90's, Madeline Albright was the most likely crusader out of three. Straightforward and hawkish, she was suspicious of any regime that didn't have a hallmark of American market democracy. However her crusade was siphoned out (luckily for Russia) to the Balkans. That was partially because of her personal attachments to the region. Escaping Nazis, as a daughter of the Jewish refugees from Czechoslovakia, Madeline Korbel for some time found home in Belgrade, capital of Serbia.

Jesse Helms was a chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a sponsor of legislation that tightened the American embargo against Cuba and withheld US dues to the United Nations. Mr. Cohen didn't even mention him in the book, but Mr. Helms was one of the most prominent figures in American foreign policy in the 90's. Actually Ms. Albright was not only Mr. Helms' personal friend and a soul mate, but also pretty much his prot�g�e for the Secretary of State position, as she was a Clinton's choice. A man of integrity, Mr. Helms however was a conservative Cold War "warrior", who didn't trust anybody (besides probably North Carolina farmers), let along Russia. Isolationist who kept blocking dispatching of the American troops, he was an unlikely supporter of any crusade.

Bill Clinton despite his friendship with "Tsar" Boris and few good laughs together didn't trust Russia either. Educated in Georgetown University he used to be fascinated by the lectures of the late professor Carroll Quigley. Irish Catholic from Boston and a genius, Mr. Quigley was very suspicious of Anglo-American Establishment, but every bit as much conservative. His main idea about Russia (unfortunately erroneous one) was that Russia is a separate and alien civilization, Russian "Orthodox" Civilization. He borrowed, but modified the ideas of Arnold J. Toynbee who thought that Russia was just a branch of the Western Christian Civilization.

Ironically, with new Bush administration in the office Christian tradition may have found a new role to play in the relationship between two countries. Most ethnic Russians are Christians and that may be one single fact that brings Russia closer to the White House. However lets not forget the sad lessons of the history. Sacking of the Christian Constantinople by the Forth Crusade (and the fellow Christians) in 1204 arguably contributed to the eventual demise of the Christian Byzantium and conquest of the Byzantine Empire by the Muslim Ottoman Turks. Started out as a grand enterprise with a moral dimension the medieval crusade ran out of steam and ended up being pure conquest and looting. To tell you the truth, I am awfully glad that the 1990's Russia Crusade has failed if ever happened. May be we finally learned something from the sad story called history.