In what year did World War II end? The answer is 1990. Although hostilities came to an end with the Japanese surrender signed on September 2, 1945, the Cold War got in the way of a formal settlement. All the Allies except the U.S.S.R. signed a treaty with Japan in 1951. Germany was divided between the Western powers and U.S.S.R. and no peace treaty was signed with what emerged as the German Democratic Republic in 1949. So the celebration of German reunification on October 3, 1990 marks the official end to World War II. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, the Russian Revolution was flung ‘on to the dust-heap of history’ in a spirit of vehement national rejection. It amounted to a wish to forget the Revolution as well as the Soviet era. Through the Revolution Russia became an international leader. Now overnight all that was gone. It fell out of ‘the vanguard of history’ into its old posture of recumbent backwardness.
The Cold War was part of the legacy of the Russian Revolution, as well as a back-handed tribute to its continuing symbolic power. It was an arms race between the Eastern and Western blocs. While both the blocs never fought directly, high tensions erupted in crises and proxy wars in Cuba, Korea and Indo-China. Cuba’s receipt of military and economic support from the U.S.S.R. led to the serious situation in 1962 when Soviet Russia made a stock pile of nuclear missiles in Cuba. President Kennedy demanded the immediate removal of the missiles which was refused by the Soviet General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev on the basis of the American missile base in Turkey, which was within the reach of the Soviet cities. The U.S. imposed a naval blockade around Cuba. The situation grew intense and the world was on the brink of a nuclear war. At the last moment the U.S.S.R. withdrew their missiles and the United States dismantled their weapons in Turkey.
Today, though the Putin regime and the Russian society are no longer revolutionary, the Russian politics and bargaining tactics still remains as the keystone in Russian national tradition. Putin thrives on that design and strives to fill the strange emptiness in Russia’s historical consciousness. Russia’s attempt to divide the world into socialist and capitalist has failed. But the age old design of “grand bargain” still works. Convinced that Hillary Clinton incited protests against him in Moscow in 2011, Vladimir Putin is using cyber-weapons to help Donald Trump beat Hillary. Trump’s Russia connection is not without basis. His wife Melania Trump was born in Slovenia , a principality which remained under Russian control since 1944. She entered the United states as a visitor and did not have to go out to apply for citizenship. All his campaign chiefs seem to have undergone a Russian vetting. Trump himself had to pass the fidelity test by Putin to prove himself worthy of his blessings. Even Rudy Juliani, a trump supporter, traces his origin from Italy which has common border with Slovenia. Russian athletes were ostracized by the Olympic Committee in the 2016 Rio Games for doping. Russia retaliated by hacking the medical records of the Para-Olympians. In Syria, Bashar al-Assad became a Russian ally because Washington wanted him out. Putin has won the bargain and the Obama Administration has had to give serious concession to Putin on Syria’s civil war, legalizing Russia’s role in the Middle East.
Putin waged the second war in Chechnya in 1999 with savage brutality, committing war crimes such as the use of concentration camps. He invaded Georgia in 2008. But he is frustrated by the ongoing sanctions that were imposed following his invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. Fuel accounts for more than two thirds of Russian exports. For few years since 1999 oil prices tripled . Then they plunged, and so did Russia’s economy. Putin now seeks a ‘grand bargain’ with the West. On offer is a mutually accepted end-game in Syria, creating an international accommodation on Ukraine, recognizing Russian sovereignty in Crimea, freezing the expansion of NATO, and, lifting economic sanctions on Russia. To this, the West’s strategic approach may be: First, solidify the bonds with NATO allies, engaging with Eastern partners; Second, maintain the sanctions regime; Third, Condemn Russia’s cyber -attacks, doping and incursions in Ukraine. The United States, the leader of the free world, will have to steer through this Russian puzzle and find a modus- vi-ven-di with Putin. Settling issues with Russia is not a matter of appeasement or hero worshipping as Trump fondly imagines. It is a practical question which needs to be answered by ripe political sense and wisdom. Hillary Clinton has the capability to handle it competently . Donald Trump can not be trusted with this job because “this is no time for a novice”. Putin mania and the strange intimacy and chemistry of politics and business are not enough to lead America at this crucial juncture when China’s Xi Jinping has launched “One Belt, One Road”, a 2400 km network of roads, rail and pipeline from Xinjiang to Gwadar port on Arabian Sea, and the United States has signed a defense deal with India allowing both countries to use each other’s military bases . China insists on exclusive domination over the South China Sea and North Korea has carried out its 5th and largest nuclear test.
There are a host of other reasons for which Hillary Clinton is most qualified to be the President of the United States. She is calm under pressure and is astutely diplomatic and statesman like. Donald Trump loses control on himself at the slightest provocation. Clinton is a decent orator and skillful negotiator. Trump is an apprentice demagogue. Clinton pledges to unite America-working together. Trump revels on disunity and divisions, chaos and confusion. Clinton has constructed a public identity from scratch. Trump has no public identity. Their political projects are radically dissimilar. Clinton shares the same ‘progressive values’ as President Obama and has the same faith in government initiative such as fiscal stimuli. Trump wants to bring down taxes from 35 percent to 15 percent to benefit the rich like him. Clinton synthesizes charisma, optimism, and gushy rhetoric. Trump is depressingly unimpressive, most unscrupulous, unpredictable, “dangerous and irresponsible”. He has stooped so low as to demand that Hillary Clinton’s body guards be disarmed. “Let’s see what happens to her,” Trump said, in a feat of insanit and wild frenzy. He has been openly inciting violence for some time provoking assassination of Hillary Clinton, which is a shame. Russian leader Putin, Trump’s idol, also uses similar technique. He routinely murders his opponents. Collin Powell has described him as a ‘national disgrace’ and an ‘international pariah’. The ‘evil mind’ like Trump and the great ‘universal nation’ like the United States go ill-together. Clinton’s omnipresent visage will bolster America’s international reputation and make America safe. Trump, if elected, will install Vladimir Putin in the White House, instead of himself, offering him the greatest prize in his ‘grand design’-defeating Hillary Clinton .
[Writer was an MP in the 7th and 8th Parliaments of Bangladesh]
