An Estonian member of parliament, Marko Mihkelson, was quite miffed by a recent Stephen Cohen column in the International Herald Tribune, and has a strongly worded letter to the editor in response. ...and here I was thinking that the expression "neo-imperialist Russia" could only be found on the La Russophobe blog...
From Marko Mihkelson:
Neo-imperialist RussiaStephen Cohen presented a dangerous misreading of Russia ("Russia: The missing debate," Views, May 3).
Cohen argues that Russia's resurgence during the presidency of Vladimir Putin was caused by active U.S. support of democracy and free markets in Central and Eastern Europe. He adds that Russia's backlash was caused by the collective view in Washington in the post-Soviet period that "America was entitled to Russia's traditional sphere of security and energy supplies, from the Baltics, Ukraine and Georgia to Central Asia and the Caspian."Cohen calls for a stop to NATO enlargement and for the U.S. to soften its position on building missile-defense units in the Czech Republic and Poland.
The article reflects a rather old way of thinking. Apparently, Cohen has a difficult time recognizing that the Soviet Empire is history and that the free nations on the Russia's borders have the right to decide their own future.
Over the last 17 years, my country, Estonia, where I serve as a member of Parliament, has rebuilt a stable and prosperous society, which was destroyed by Soviet occupation after World War II.
If the promoting of democracy and the rule of law by Russia's neighbors is seen as threat in Moscow, then the Western world should be seriously worried.
Russia's current foreign policy tools reflect 19th-century thinking. Cohen is worried that the U.S. presidential candidates are not paying enough attention to this challenge, but John McCain has been quite clear in how the West should deal with neo-imperialist Russia.
Marko Mihkelson Tallinn, Estonia
Bravo to the Estonians for once again leading the way in standing up to neo-Soviet Russia!
Your readers might like to know that the article you cite by Stephen (not Roger) Cohen was originally published in The Nation magazine, which is edited by Cohen's wife and is an extreme left-wing partisan screed.
Professor Cohen is a dangerous neo-Soviet collaborator and his views are a carcinogenic reminder of the battle we face with neo-Soviet Russia.
Speaking of my blog, La Russophobe has previously taken Professor Cohen to task for his outrageously inaccurate and irresponsible statements about Putin's Russia.
http://russophobe.blogspot.com/2006/06/saint-cohen-on-warpath.html
It looks for all the world as if he's trying to ingratiate himself with the Kremlin for personal gain.
As for the term "neo-imperialist," Grigori Yavlinsky used it as early as 1994.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9506E4DB113DF93AA35753C1A962958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
A Google search indicates it's been used over four dozen times by others
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22neo-imperialist+Russia%22+&btnG=Search
but doesn't indicate it's ever been used on my blog, however, and if it has I don't recall it. Maybe you were thinking of the term "neo-Soviet"?
Thanks for the correction - I have changed to Stephen Cohen.
Could've sworn that neo-imperialist was a regular expression over there.
As for Katrina vanden Heuvel, in fairness she's not quite just up and down about Russia... Right/Left politics don't really line up with Putin, just try reading those guys over at the National Interest.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/?pid=254264
I certainly didn't suggest that criticizing Putin's Russia is an act of the right rather than the left. To the contrary, any true leftist should be more outraged by the barbaric crackdown on civil rights in Russia than the right, and many leftists ought to be ashamed for remaining silent. Indeed, I've argued many times that opposition to Putin's Russia is a point all Americans should be able to agree on, and Cohen seems to be acknowledging that all thinking people, and all three of the candidates, do agree. Just lunatics like him are left braying at the moon of appeasement.
My point about the Nation is that it is wildly and irresponsibly ideological, something nobody can deny, and hence hardly a trustworthy source of information about anything. And that's why hardly anybody reads it.
Moreover, any hint of liberal criticism of Putin's Russia is absent from not just this piece by Cohen but all his work. So to the extent his wife disagrees with him for omitting it, she's clearly having no effect -- which only digs a deeper hole for this hopeless, calculating, treacherous idiot.