The Russian Bear and the Israeli Ant

About a year ago, I saw a Russian television broadcast in which Vladimir Putin, riding a noble steed, reaches the edge of a lake, deftly removes his shirt and in an impressive display of muscle, leans over and washes his face in the crystal clear water.

That is when I began to worry. The leader determined to restore the great nation's lost honor and days of glory was playing the macho worship card. It reminded me of an old Italian propaganda film in which Il Duce - Mussolini - is riding in his official car when he sees a farmer struggling to load bundles of wheat onto his wagon. Il Duce descends from his car and - just like Putin - takes off his shirt and with an impressive display of macho and muscle, quickly loads the wheat onto the wagon of the grateful farmer. Both Hitler and Stalin also played the macho worship card.

Thus, the Russian invasion into Georgia did not surprise me at all. Whoever thinks that the latest Russian offensive is in retaliation against Georgian provocation does not - in my opinion - understand Putin. When Hitler annexed the Sudetenland, some pundits thought that he would be content. And in truth, millions of Germans did live in the "separatist regions" of Czechoslovakia and the Western world was eager to 'understand' the Germans. After all, what did everybody want? A second World War? So the Sudetes were sacrificed to appease Hitler, and in Churchill's words, "You chose disgrace instead of war. You got disgrace and war as well."

It would have been easy then to stop Hitler. The Czech army alone was larger than the German army and its Skoda factories produced top notch weapons. But the post World War I world craved quiet. It chose to give Hitler what he wanted in the hopes that he would just leave well enough alone. Hitler got what he wanted and the world got a brief respite. The rest is history.

Putin will not suffice himself with Georgia. The Georgian test case has provided him with all the incentive that he needs. We do not yet know exactly where or when the next eruption will occur. But if Obama wins the US elections and the process of disintegration there continues, the new Russian bully will feel confident enough to initiate more wars.

The Syrians have explicitly invited the Russians to man both their ground and naval bases. It is possible that Russia will begin to expand in our direction. That is a most undesirable eventuality - but if it happens, it will not be the first time. Israeli pilots have already waged air skirmishes against Soviet pilots who defended Egyptian skies during the War of Attrition. The Israeli pilots even downed a number of Russian piloted planes.

Israel is not Georgia and the Russians know that. But Israel today is not the Israel of the War of Attrition. Today, Israel displays weakness, enticing every neighborhood and international bully to come in for a piece of the action.

The restoration of Israel's deterrence factor is not a matter of increasing the security budget, as the security lobbyists would have us believe. Just two years ago, Israel's army collapsed in the face of an enemy the size of a mere division - in a war that Israel itself initiated. The problem was not budget. The problem was a loss of our sense of justice and common goals that create our cohesiveness and national might. Our lack of deterrence is not due to a lack of tanks or fighter jets. Our lack of deterrence is due to the fact that our enemies think that our society is disintegrating and that the State of Israel is "weaker than spider webs," in the descriptive words of Nasrallah.

I would not invest one more shekel in security. The huge sums that the security lobbyists are demanding should be funneled to Israel's social needs. A just society understands what it is doing in its land and can produce the power of deterrence that Israel used to have - when it believed that it was right.

Just remember that a spy is an expert in espionage. Do not equate that for a minute with the ability to run a country. They are very different skills.

Historically Russia relied on the “three legged stool” idea of government. In the days of the Czar, the three legs were the nobility, the bureaucracy, and the major landholders. Towards the end, the nobility and landholders were so weak that there emerged instability, because of their reliance on the secret police.

When the communists took power, Lenin tried to abolish the bureaucracy, and Russia shut down for a short time. Then with Stalin a new stability emerged. The communist party, the military, and the KGB. Again, the three legged stool emerged. When one of the legs became too powerful, the other two would gang up and cut it down to size.

But today, Russia has again returned to instability. The first power to arise were the oligarchs, powerful businessmen who restored the economy. Then Putin brought back the secret police, now the FSB, to a position of governmental control, while downplaying the democratic parliament and other democratic institutions.

Putin left the presidency with these two powerful factions running things. And even though he was from the FSB, he saw them as too powerful, so he chose an oligarch successor. This still left the third leg of the stool unoccupied. By his actions in Chechnya and Georgia, it is obvious that Putin wants this to be the military.

The position of Prime Minister is actually better than the presidency to restore the military. And right now, most anything the military wants that Russia can afford, Putin will try to provide. Unfortunately, the one thing they need above all else is skilled manpower. Nobody is particularly interested in joining the Russian military and their national demographics, their birthrate, is awful.

So does Putin want a cult of personality? Probably not, for his direct goals. But if one emerges and helps him achieve his other goals, he is not going to frown on it. Stalin literally tried to run the Soviet Union by memo, from his desk. Putin realizes this is impossible, yet wants his program completed while he can still control things.

His terrible miscalculation about Georgia is a major setback, however.

Diplomatically, militarily, and economically, it is an international disaster for Russia. It shows how weak their military, military technology, and foreign policy is, it has also reunited Russia’s enemies who now remember that they are Russia’s enemies.

It also shows that spies and oligarchs are not necessarily adept at running military affairs. The critical thing is whether the spies and oligarchs realize how badly they screwed up, and try and fix things, or if they are unaware of their mistake and will continue blundering.

Eventually Putin will be out, and some type of three legged stool will emerge. Putin might have been wrong that the third leg will be the military, however. As much as the Russian people might want a strong military, because of xenophobia, in truth there really isn’t a threat to Russia. So an evolution of their national system might propel some other institution into its place.

Hopefully, it will be democracy reasserting itself. It would be better for Russia in the long run.

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