Russia vs USA

Ioannis Andris on the character of Russian and American culture, the geopolitical roots of their conflict and their eventual fatum.

Но скажи мне, американец, в чем сила?

But tell me American, wherein lies the power?

In the grand coliseum of history, a relentless, albeit as of yet cold, battle is being fought for almost a century — Kvass vs Coca-Cola, Balalaikas vs Electric Guitars, Danila Bagrov vs Rambo, Orthodoxy vs Satanism, Cheburashka vs the Avengers and soon, Armatas vs Abrams.

The global crowd stands in awe, as the victor, or even the prospect of this battle becoming hot — truly hot, as in the temperatures reached when atoms split and mushroom clouds rise over cities — could well decide its fate. But are the two combatants, Russia, and the United States, destined to be eternal enemies, or is it perhaps an accident of history, a misunderstanding of similarly colossal proportions, perpetuated by short-sighted leaders on both sides who pitted them against each other? Was it because Bill Clinton found Boris Yeltsin’s drunken dance figures underwhelming, was it perhaps that when George W. Bush looked into Putin’s eyes and peered into his soul, he saw naught but a black pit of evil and cowered away in fear and awe, that the two countries are toe to toe, when instead a merry future was just round the corner if only their leaders had tried just a little bit harder?

In this article we seek to explore the reasons that led Russia and the United States to be adversaries for the better part of the 20^th and the first quarter of the 21^st century, with sadly little prospects of a meaningful détente being reached anytime soon. We divide our treatment of the subject on two different, but intertwined aspects — the aspect of geopolitics, the cold logic of geography, competing alliances and massive power struggles raging in the jungle of history, and the aspect of national character, the way these two great nations view the world, the other countries and cultures, and themselves, their Weltanschauung.

Geopolitics

“Geography is the most fundamental factor in the foreign policy of states because it is the most permanent. Ministers come and go, even dictators die, but mountain ranges stand unperturbed. George Washington, defending thirteen states with a ragged army, has been succeeded by Franklin D. Roosevelt with the resources of a continent at his command, but the Atlantic continues to separate Europe from the United States and the ports of the St. Lawrence River are still blocked by winter ice. Alexander I, Czar of all the Russias, bequeathed to Joseph Stalin, simple member of the Communist party, not only his power but his endless struggle for access to the sea...”¹.

We begin with a harkening back to better times between Russia and the United States — yes, indeed there were these as well — when both nations were still relatively young, and the modern era was only about to usher in. If we seek an early example of the good relations between the current rivals, we may look no further than when the United States fought its most decisive war, the one that it fought for independence and the one that formed it as a nation. It was then that Imperial Russia, under the Empress Catherine the Great, supported the nascent American nation’s aspirations by putting the weight of its diplomacy behind the struggling rebels, recognizing the foundational text of the US, the Declaration of Independence, and helping the young republic to be accepted as a legitimate part of the chorus of nations. Had the Russians chosen to support the British, the ramifications could have been dire for the American rebels. Similarly, during the American Civil War, when the French and British flirted with the idea of helping the secessionist South so as to undermine the rapidly growing power of Washington, Russia stood firmly in support of the Union.

Few Russians and Americans today are aware of the fact that for the better part of the 19^th century, the view of Russia was quite positive amongst the educated public in the young American republic, and in parallel the view of the United States was similarly positive amongst the educated public of Imperial Russia. Each viewed the other as a young nation trying to find its way amongst the established colonial powers of Europe and chart a more optimistic future for all, beyond the destructive policies of old Europe, perpetually plagued by major wars. In short, Russia and the US considered each other as kindred spirits of sorts. Perhaps a great deal of naïveté and wishful thinking — the kind one can exercise when enjoying the benefits of distance — was behind such an amicable relationship, but the fact is that it was neither short in historical terms nor inconsequential for both.

But when the age of steam and their respective expansion brought the two vast nations physically closer, frictions begun to appear, particularly regarding trading rights in the Pacific Northwest, though an understanding was reached, and even a mutually beneficial treaty was signed in 1824.

During the Crimean War of 1854 (ah, the ironies of History...) the American public was generally supportive of Russia, with US newspapers condemning the colonial powers of Britain and France as aggressors. In 1867, the Alaska purchase was concluded smoothly, an affair that could have been a source of tension. Throughout the 19^th century many American engineers travelled to Russia to help with the creation of its first railway network and its broader industrialization. In general, until the First World War, relations between the two nations were mostly amicable but, alas, the inexorable realities of geopolitics were working against this friendship lasting.

The United States’ power rose exponentially during the passing of the century, abandoning any prior isolationist constraints, establishing itself as the master of the American continent and with no adversaries but only two Oceans on its flanks — the march to Empire had begun. Russia had similarly expanded to the Pacific and Central Asia, though the focus of its foreign policy was undoubtedly Europe. But the fundamental differences between the reasons for their mutual expansion and growth of power were now becoming evident and they were to set them on a collision course ever since.

Russia expanded towards regions from where major invasions had been launched upon it, the United States invaded regions that had never suffered a major invasion, nor threatened it. The United States expanded to become stronger, Russia expanded to prevent other nations become strong enough to threaten it. For the United States it was a matter of choice and almost a luxury, while it becoming a major power came naturally. For Russia it was a necessity stemming from its security needs and it becoming a great power, the result of trying to get on top of its numerous adversaries.

The October Revolution of 1917, bringing into power the Communists, bearers of a messianic banner — Western in nature and conception though it would eventually acquire a distinctly Russian form — brought Bolshevik and US forces into direct confrontation. A brief respite ensued when during the 20s a mixture of introspection and rampant hedonism over the miseries the Great War had brought, took over most of the West, while the Soviet state was still in an embryonic state, too preoccupied for any notion of Empire-building of its own, followed by the economic woes of the early 30s, brought by the cascading Great Depression. An even briefer respite was during the Second World War where they fought as allies, but when the dust had settled and only the two emerged as victors, a new confrontation was about to ensue — the Cold War.

For the United States, control of Europe today is as essential to maintain its Empire as it was during the Cold War. NATO and the European Union project are vessels by which this subservient relationship is solidified. For Russia, an independent Europe, or at least one not servile to such a degree to Washington, was and is a vital security concern. Again, the dichotomy of luxury and necessity come to play. The United States can survive as a nation by losing control of Europe — though in a diminished and altered form. Russia is existentially threatened by a hostile Europe that is directly controlled by the United States.

Geography matters. The United States is the predominant naval/air power. Its primary symbol militarily is the aircraft carrier. Russia is the predominant land power. Its primary military symbol is the main battle tank. The United States controls the world’s oceans, with very few contested zones, and not by accident one lies in the South China Sea, the other in the White Sea. Russia controls the largest landmass on earth, the entirety of its Heartland and a good part of its Rimland. Heartland and Rimland are two terms describing geographical zones in Eurasia coined respectively by Halford Mackinder, a British geographer and one of the founders of the science of geopolitics, and Nicholas John Spykman, the American political scientist and founder of the school of realism on international relations, also known as the “godfather of containment”. Spykman’s axiom, which still dictates a large part of US foreign policy, was that he “who controls the Rimland rules Eurasia, who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world”. As such, preventing a single power from controlling the Rimland is essential for the US and it so happens that Russia is in a very advantageous position geographically in doing that. Moreover, Russia and China acting in tandem can effectively negate any outside power from gaining a foothold in Eurasia and by exploiting modern technologies of fast land travel and communication, render a great part of maritime trade as obsolete, thereby further eroding the United States prime advantage. The New Silk Road is exactly such a project, passing straight through the Rimland and by-passing the world’s oceans as trading routes.  

As long as the United States wishes to retain its mantle of empire and global aspirations of hegemony (and why would it want to give them up as some naïve politicians in the Kremlin, perhaps projecting their own self-destructive act of the 90s, believe?), then for the simple fact that Russia exists, it will be a direct obstacle to that goal and thus an adversary. The only potential way out for Russia is full capitulation, though one can argue that this was already tried back in the 90s. The main prerogative of United States foreign policy is a desire to exercise control over the global norms it set, and perpetuate the system it created on the eve of the Second World War, what is euphemistically called the “rules-based order”. The entire machinery of the State Department, the 3-letter agencies, and the comprador press both inside the US and in Europe are acting in unison and agreement towards that.

Then there is the issues of alliances and the commitments these entail. US and Russia might be thousands of miles apart (Alaska and the Bering Strait notwithstanding) but the client limitrophe states of Europe are next door to Russia and abandoning even some minor commitment is tantamount to beginning to unravel all — that is the way all Empires think and rightly so. It is the law of the jungle — if you show some minor weakness, you are seen as fair game by those that were reluctant so far. Moreover, US elites derive internal legitimacy by presiding over an Empire, and can use their duty as caretakers of an Empire to deflect internal disputes and discontent.  

In realist terms, the only thing that could untangle the nexus of competing interests between Russia and the United States would be the appearance of a competitor credibly threatening both. But the only such candidate — China — is hardly a threat to Russian interests in the way that it is for US ones. Rather, China seeks, in a so far more subtle way than Russia, to reform the global norms in a fairer manner, one more accommodating for rising powers, the same US-dictated norms that are used as an arsenal against Russia. Why would Moscow choose to side with the US against China — would it not be shooting itself in the foot by doing so? And in any event, US foreign policy has done everything this past decade to bring the two closer and closer, short of signing a formal alliance.

National Archetypes

The answer to the question posed in the beginning of this article is indicative of the differences between the two national characters. “Wherein lies the power” can also be phrased as “wherein lies the ideal”, what is that towards which a nation strives for? For each people there is an answer, one that is to most subconscious, usually requiring an outside observer to discern and articulate, but ever-present in all their endeavors and toils.

The American

               “the American conviction of the present day, which wants also more and more to become a European conviction: whereby the individual is convinced that he can do almost anything, that he can play almost any role, whereby everyone makes experiments with himself, improvises, tries anew, tries with delight, whereby all nature ceases and becomes art”.

              “There is an Indian savagery, a savagery peculiar to the Indian blood, in the manner in which the American strive after gold: and the breathless hurry of their work - the characteristic vice of the New World - already begins to infect old Europe, and makes it savage also, spreading over it a strange lack of intellectuality”.²

              “He lives on, yielding day by day to the desire at hand. Sometimes he drinks heavily while listening to the flute; at other times, he drinks only water and is on a diet; sometimes he goes in for physical training; at other times, he’s idle and neglects everything; and sometimes he even occupies himself with what he takes to be philosophy. He often engages in politics, leaping up from his seat and saying and doing whatever comes to mind. If he happens to admire soldiers, he’s carried in that direction, if money-makers, in that one. There’s neither order nor necessity in his life, but he calls it pleasant, free, and blessedly happy, and he follows it for as long as he lives.”³

The American is the inheritor and progeny of the Western Civilization, forged by an amalgam of Enlightenment ideas and belief in divine providence, but all in all a genuine child of the concept of Progress. From his Anglo-Saxon ancestors he inherited the economic and financial thought, the view of the world as a market, and Nature as a means to an end. From his Germanic ancestors he inherited the aptitude for engineering and industry, for the crafting of machines that bind this very Nature to his will. From both, he inherited their crusading zeal, manifested in a need to do exactly what he was warned not to do — “go abroad in search of monsters to destroy”. He was born old, the youngest member of an aging civilization, he is the perfect optimist, ultimate individualist and post-God humanist with a fervent desire to transform the world to his image. The American is the last bearer of the White Man’s Burden.

For the American, power lies in the optimal exploitation of material means, the accumulation of wealth — he is the quintessential capitalist, master of money-thinking, a concept totally alien to the Russian well into the 20^th century. He is a settler, transforming the land he inhabits and pushing the frontier ever further — to the stars. In Spenglerian terms, the early 20^th century German philosopher of history, we could say that the American is the last manifestation of the Faustian Archetype — a Russian civilizational archetype has not yet been fully formed.

The American has an unwavering faith in the superiority and global applicability of his liberal individualist civic model, one that can and must be accepted by all people and cultures — and if not, forced upon them. The only unwavering faith the Russian has is directed towards metaphysical categories, the unity of the people as a brotherhood of equals, its global mission today being the rise of a multipolar world, a concept that under scrutiny appears a bit nebulous but is in agreement with this idea of brotherhood, projected on a pan-anthropic scale.

Creating the super-human, taking Nietzsche’s call to bring forth the superman literally (who is the best known American “mythological” hero, one might ask), is the drive behind this most progressive and most American of ideas — that of Transhumanism, which is actively financed and propagated by the American elites. This playful transformation and experimentation with oneself which Nietzsche described, one not at all foreign to the first democracy, the Athenian one, as Plato illustrated, now becomes a real drive to alter human nature — the cyborg, the uploading of consciousness to a nexus of interconnected machines, the overcoming of man. At its core, this undertaking is the apogee of hubris, truly Mephistophelean, Satanic — it is the renouncing of God’s creation that was made in His image, the abjuration of reality itself in an attempt to overcome its limitations, chief amongst them, Death. It is a perversion of Truth.  

The Russian

                 “There can be no doubt: a new Russian people is in the process of becoming. Shaken and threatened to the very soul by a frightful destiny, forced to an inner resistance, it will in time become firm and come to bloom. It is passionately religious in a way we Western Europeans have not been, indeed could not have been, for centuries. As soon as this religious drive is directed toward a goal, it possesses an immense expansive potential. Unlike us, such a people does not count the victims who die for an idea, for it is a young, vigorous, and fertile people.”⁴

               “I think the most important, the most fundamental spiritual need of the Russian people is the need for suffering, always and unquenchable, everywhere and in everything... The Russian people even have a part of suffering in their happiness, otherwise their happiness is incomplete for them.”⁵

The Russian is a contradiction, seemingly older than the American, tracing his history back over a thousand years, but having spent a good part of that millennium suffering from foreign invasions and even the direct and merciless rule of the Mongol Horde. This created a stillborn culture, its creative potential kept in bay by far more pressing matters — that of survival against a host of enemies, and in a very unfriendly land in terms of climate and geography compared to the continental United States or the rest of Europe. But in contrast to the American, whose religion was a European transplant, the Russian had his own Pantheon, the Slavic one, rooted in his native land, while the subsequent Christianization of Rus was an organic process, fashioning a particular branch of the Christian faith inside the broader Orthodox churches. Still connected with a strong bond to his native motherland, a bond the European has let wither for too long, and amongst Americans can be found almost solely on the rural populations of what are disparagingly referred to as the fly-over states, the Russian also has been a nomad, a trait today exhibited in a thirst to travel and experience other cultures.

The precarious circumstances in which the early Russians found themselves, getting by in a harsh climate and with numerous enemies threatening their lands, helped generate a very strong sense of brotherhood amongst their people.

The Russian brotherhood is not a brotherhood of pity or humanism in the Western sense. It is a brotherhood bound by the acceptance of suffering as a necessary and indivisible part of the human experience, with salvation found in serving something greater than the individual. Joy is found in wry humor and irony, dispelling with healthy satire the morosity of an unforgiving life fraught with risks. The endless Russian plain, virtually unbroken by mountain ranges, forces the soul to an introspection begetting pessimism, and even a lethargy of sorts, malleable to servility perhaps, but imbued with wisdom over the perils of arrogance and hubris, these common sins of the human condition. The Russian also has many of the qualities of the mythological Ulysses — perseverance against impossible odds and a knack for improvisation. Like his mythological Greek counterpart, he easily mingles with peoples of other cultures, without — in contrast to the Westerner — trying to enforce his model upon them or appropriating and exploiting their culture. In large part, because he is not quite Western himself. But while the Greek hero is irreverent, defying the Gods, the Russian is spiritual and God-fearing. 

There is a deep yearning for Truth in the heart of the Russian. But this is not the truth of the cold, logical, scientific facts, but rather a spiritual truth, one encompassing the wholeness of the human experience. The Russian scientist and the Russian philosopher have an aptitude for unorthodox solutions and treating obscure themes, with their methods often not being rational in the western, positivist sense, but one could argue, even irrational in comparison, though this lack of systematic treatment is marked by flashes of brilliant insight. The Russian likes to speak in aphorisms and metaphors, in absolute terms, reflecting that yearning for an absolute truth perhaps, even in seemingly — or deceptively — mundane things. The answer to the question wherein lies the power, for the Russian is — in Truth, an all-encompassing, civilization-defining truth. This a priori puts him at odds with the post-modern Westerner of fluid identities, never ending varieties of genders, kaleidoscopic points of perspective and willfully irreverent, deconstructive relativism.

These were the fundamental traits of the Russian man, bearing the promise of the creation of a particular worldview, unique to him. But the nascent Russian culture’s path to naturally developing to a mature civilization was interrupted — or unnaturally rushed — by the reforms of Peter the Great, reforms that attempted to westernize the entire country, overnight transforming this diverse populace to a typical European people. This process, though outwardly successful, resulted in the creation of a caste of aristocrats that were in their manners, and often in their ethos, more European than their European counterparts, and created a deep rift in Russian society, one persistent till today. This manifests in variations of the confrontation between the progressives and the traditionalists, the latest manifestation being between liberals and patriots, a confrontation that has prevented Russia realizing its fullest potential. The current war, or “Special Operation”, in Ukraine may settle the debate because it has become a struggle for self-determination for Russia as much as for Ukraine⁶.

Conclusion

The rift between the psyche of the Russian and the American, though wide, is by itself neither irreconcilable, nor condemns them to eternal conflict. But combined with the structural realities of geopolitics, formed by the inexorable forces of history and held together by the actions of a multitude of actors, exacerbates the standoff to a critical (potentially nuclear-critical) point. What will it be then — never-ending confrontation until one of the two gladiators falls exhausted?

Let’s finish with a note of optimism, as we started. It was during the most intense period of confrontation, during the early Cold War, that the two rivals achieved the impossible — they broke the barrier keeping humans on this lonely overgrown rock and began exploring space, a defining milestone if there was any in history. That drive to explore the final frontier has subsided but, in all likelihood, if there is to be a continuation of human history, it must be rekindled. It was in Russia that an amalgam of spirituality and scientific thought combined with the calling for conquering the stars in the form of Cosmism first appeared at the turn of the 19^th century, but many similar trends were present in the United States as well, allowing us to also speak of an American Cosmism⁷.

It is our belief that the next major civilization to be born will merge elements of both traditional metaphysics, aimed at the great beyond of the infinite space around us, and technological advancements aimed at allowing man to cross it towards new worlds and adventures. The first is closer to the ever truth-seeking and truth-affirming Russian psyche, the second closer to the indomitable American innovative spirit but both can contribute to it. Thus, the United States and Russia can complimentarily set the stage for a new world-spanning civilizational idea, or even become its birthing place, building the path to humankind’s shared space future. Or they may well ensure that the next civilization will be too busy building huts to cover from radioactive dust.

1. Nicholas J. Spykman, America’s Strategy in World Politics: The United States and the Balance of Power, with a new introduction by Francis P. Sempa (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1942).

2. Friedrich Nietzsche, “The Joyful Wisdom”, (Delphi Classics, 2015).

3. Plato, “Republic”, Book 8 561c, 561d.

4. Oswald Spengler, “The two faces of Russia”, From the introduction to “Selected Essays” by Oswald Spengler, translation and introduction by Donald O. White Chicago, Illinois: Henry Regnery Company, 1967

5. Dostoyevsky, “A Writer’s Diary”.

6. Fyodor Lukyanov, “Why the Russia-Ukraine Conflict is Existential for Both Sides”

7. Albert A. Harrison, “Russian and American Cosmism, Religion, National Psyche and Spaceflight”.

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Ioannis Andris is a mathematician and computer scientist with an interest in geopolitics and the philosophy of history.