When Crises Become Permanent – Russia vs. Ukraine

Paul Goble, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com

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            Staunton, December 31 – Man is not a pig, Dostoyevsky observed; he can get used to anything.  But the process of adapting to something new changes him in ways he may not even be aware of. That is what has happened in Russia and Ukraine, albeit in different ways, as each nation has adapted itself to the idea that the crises it faces are not temporary but permanent.

            Two commentators, Vyacheslav Inozemtsev and Kseniya Kirillova, explore what this adaptation to the sense of a permanent crisis means for Russia and Ukraine respectively (gazeta.ru/column/vladislav_inozemcev/7996685.shtml andnr2.com.ua/blogs/Ksenija_Kirillova/O-nashem-samom-strashnom-vrage-114305.html).

            In a “Gazeta” column, the Moscow economist argues that the Kremlin has succeeded in accustoming itself and the Russian people as well to “live in a permanent crisis.”  A year ago, everything was different. Both the regime and the population feared that unless something was done and quickly, there would be disaster. But such feelings have largely disappeared.

            Any crisis, Inozemtsev points out, may be viewed as logic or unprovoked, but in both cases, “it looks temporary and a passing phenomenon.”  But after a time and with the effort of the authorities, people get used to it and conclude that “nothing extraordinary will occur in our lives.”

            The opposition continues to point to the disasters all around, but the population doesn’t respond. “Citizens who during recent years could allow themselves vacations in Turkey and Egypt joyously greet the president’s decision about Russian participation in the operation in Syria and the government’s ban on flights to the same Egypt and Turkey.”

            “Nothing from this,” the economist continues, “elicits not only a reaction but I would even say much interest among the majority of Russians.” And the same is true of other things as well, including bans on imports, rising prices, emptying shelves, the falling ruble, and all the other features of Russian life today.

            “This means only one thing: in contrast to 1998 2008 or 2014, the crisis is viewed in Russia as something ordinary.”  And that represents “an enormous success of the Russian authorities: “the people have been finally transformed into a silent mass” and the powers that be are thus free to act as they want.

            The Russian population has ceased to pay much attention even to things it focused on in the past, and “the authorities are acting in exactly the same key: for a long time already, they haven’t been struggling with the crisis. They have accustomed themselves and taught the people to live in the conditions of crisis” and to accept that this situaiton will last for some time.

            It may very well be, he suggests, that “all this is part of a genial ‘Putin plan’ carried out by United Russia,” something suggested by the symbol of the party, the Russian bear, “the only major animal in our country which when it encounters unfavorable climatic conditions and a shortage of food simply goes into hibernation.”

            In 2014, Inozemtsev says, “Russia passed through two mobilizations, an imaginary one and a real one.”  The imaginary one involved Crimea and Ukraine, conflicts which affected few people directly but gave the population the sense that something great would have “in the nearest future.”

            “The second occurred at the end of [that] year” when Russian founds that there was less in stores and when foreign currency cost more, a situation which “touched the majority of the population of the country and was much more ‘real’ than the first.”  But in 2015, “there wasn’t any mobilization at all.”

            Instead, almost all Russians have become accustomed to the crisis and do not expect it to end or the situation to change fundamentally anytime soon.

            In a commentary for Novy Region-2, Kirillova, a US-based commentator, considers the way in which 2015 differed from its predecessor and why what has occurred casts a potentially dark shadow on the future of Ukraine.

            Most of the problems of 2015 began the year before and were not solved during the last 12 months, she writes.  As a result, Ukraine shifted from a heroic period in which it had to face immediate threats into a more dangerous one in which “our main enemy” became “not so much Russia as indifference and weariness.”

            Ukrainians are “beginning to avoid beautiful words and to be ashamed of their former naivete. [They] are tired of hopes and disappointments … and have suddenly discovered that [they] must not trust anyone.”  Moreover, they are increasingly weighed down by the sense that their “struggle will be eternal and lonely.”

            Ukrainians are “ceasing to believe those who live in neighboring countries and even in apartments next door,” Kirillova writes. And those who had displayed enthusiasm for the task ahead now display disappointment and anger and “in place of unity a lack of faith and loneliness, in place of faith in victory, weariness.”

            Kirillova says she would like to be contradicted and believes that consideration of Ukraine’s achievements, especially on the international front, over the past year provides a basis for greater optimism.  But many Ukrainians feel otherwise and “the year just passed shows that no external enemy can bring as much evil” as a despairing population can bring itself.

            There should not be any basis for panic. Ukraine has held out against enormous odds.  “But our task today,” she writes, “is to help hold up those around us who do not have the strength to continue the struggle and those who do not have the faith” needed to do so successfully.

            And thus, Kirillova concludes, “our most horrible enemy besides weariness and disappointment is inattentiveness and indifference. In order to survive as a nation, we must constantly look at those who are fighting and suffer alongside them and especially at those who already cannot fight.”

The World According to Russia

via AH on Facebook; theatlantic.com

A documentary on state television gives a glimpse of Vladimir Putin’s philosophy.

Vladimir Putin at his end-of-the-year news conference in MoscowMaxim Smeyev / Reuters

 
 
 
 
 
 

• JEFFREY TAYLER
 
•  DEC 30, 2015
 
•  GLOBAL

“Do you realize what you have done?” Vladimir Putin demanded at the United Nations in September. The question was a rebuke to the American-led bloc of countries that initially viewed with optimism the Arab Spring, which began five years ago this month, but has since given way to chaos and Islamist violence across once-stable parts of the Middle East and North Africa. Those events, and much else, look different when viewed from Russia than they do from the United States, and a documentary that aired recently on Russian state television helps explain the worldview behind Putin’s question.

The two-hour-plus film, Miroporyadok (World Order), explores, in the words of its narrator Vladimir Solovyov, “what is happening with us [Russians], what sort of world we have inherited from our parents, and what sort of world we will leave to our children.” Partly through interviews with the Russian president himself, it also offers a window on Putin’s own realpolitik perspective, one that I’ve found to be widely shared throughout Russia over many years of living in the country—a worldview according to which international relations consist of competing blocs of nations pursuing their interests, and the violation of sovereignty is a recipe for instability. This stands in contrast to Obama’s own position, which he stated at the UN two years ago, that “sovereignty cannot be a shield for tyrants to commit wanton murder, or an excuse for the international community to turn a blind eye to slaughter.”

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“I believe,” Putin tells Solovyov, “that no one should ever impose any sort of values he considers correct on anyone. We have our own values, our own conceptions of justice.” Putin doesn’t name names here, but the implication is clear throughout: World Order endeavors to incriminate American foreign policy and place the blame for the current chaos in the Middle East on the United States. The film’s anti-Americanism is subtle but relentless, and the spin comes mostly from omission of relevant facts. And though it originated within the Russian state propaganda machine, some of its criticisms of wrongheaded U.S. policies and blundering interventions in the Middle East since September 11, 2001, would give American liberals, centrists, and even a few conservatives little cause for dispute. Yet the documentary goes further, leaving the strong impression that greedy, bungling, incorrigibly myopic conspirators “from across the ocean” (a phrase Putin uses repeatedly in the film to describe the U.S. leadership) bent on world domination are to blame; Russia comes off as unjustly demonized and Russians themselves forced to suffer economically as a result.

The last point is not stated, but is implied, and gives another clue about how the world looks from Russia. For Russians, to a degree unthinkable in the United States, foreign policy is also domestic policy, not least because their Near Abroad includes Ukraine, with which their ties of blood, history, and culture remain intimate. And thanks to multiple invasions of Russia during the 19th and 20th centuries, a preoccupation with national security and national pride figure strongly in Russian politics, with the possibility of war not at all remote. A philosophy of realpolitik—and not, say, values promotion—would come naturally under the circumstances.

For Russians, to a degree unthinkable in the United States, foreign policy is also domestic policy.

Indeed, as the film tells it, the root of all international evils is the American penchant for democracy-spreading, both subtle (via U.S. support for “color revolutions” in the post-Soviet sphere) and overt (as in overthrowing Saddam Hussein). Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declares that the Arab Spring was fomented from abroad, disregarding the Middle Eastern region’s widespread popular discontent with official corruption, political stasis, and lack of job opportunities. The United States intervenes despite bitter experience within living memory; the American director Oliver Stone appears onscreen to tell viewers that “America didn’t learn the lesson of Vietnam, which is you shouldn’t go around invading other countries.”

But Putin denies chiding Obama directly at the UN for the consequences of the Arab Spring. “I wasn’t saying this [to President Obama]” Putin tells Solovyov, but to the constellation of leaders, both American and European, who have been meddling in Muslim lands since 2001. “I have always been telling [these leaders] that they have to act carefully. It’s wrong to impose one’s scheme ... of ideas concerning good and evil, or in this case, good and democracy,” on countries “with differing cultures, a different religion, with other traditions. But frankly, no one listens, because they apparently consider themselves infallible and great.”  No one, he adds, holds those leaders accountable, whatever the outcome. When an “operation” produces the wrong results, Putin says, the (again, unnamed) leaders in question just say, “Oh well. Next!” After all, “They’re great and sitting across the ocean, the dollar is the world’s currency, they have the biggest economy in the world.”

The “operations” to which Putin refers include, of course, the 2003 Iraq war, which Russia, France, and Germany opposed. Then-French President Jacques Chiraq, Putin claims, even foresaw that terrorist attacks in Europe, resembling those that occurred in Paris this year, could grow out of the anarchy that would result from Saddam’s overthrow. Another is the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya in 2011 (to prevent the regime from using its air force to stage a massacre—a fact that goes unmentioned). The film replays video of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s remark, delivered with a callous laugh, about Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi’s subsequent death—“We came, we saw, he died!”—followed by footage of the tyrant’s brutal murder, which drives home the real-life consequences of the intervention and its bloody aftermath. (Eerily, the film also shows Qaddafi addressing Arab leaders at a 2011 Arab League summit, and asking, after Saddam Hussein’s execution, “Who among you is next?”)

As the film, and presumably Putin, have it, the problem is not the rise of ISIS but the breakdown in relations between Russia and the West.

The Wikileaks founder Julian Assange also makes an appearance, citing cables revealing U.S. efforts to undermine the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—though American officials continue to maintain that Assad must go eventually, the cables in question most likely concern Wikileaks revelations made in 2006. The film shows Syrians lamenting the chaos the presumably American-backed terrorists have unleashed. No mention is made of Assad’s murderous crackdown on the demonstrations that set off the revolt, or of the barrel bombs deployed against civilians to this day at great cost to civilian life, or of the U.S. air campaign against ISIS.

But the message of World Order, as the title implies, extends geographically wider and historically further back than America’s post-September 11 policies in the Middle East. As the film, and presumably Putin, have it, the real problem today is not the rise of ISIS but the breakdown in relations between Russia and the West. A key cause of this conflict has been the eastward expansion of NATO since the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, which has brought with it the stationing of troops on Russia’s border with the Baltics, plans to one day admit Ukraine (and Georgia), and, as an eventual result, Russia’s intervention in Ukraine.
“Why did [the West] support the coup?” Putin asks, using his term for the uprisings that brought the ouster of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. He cites Western fears that Russia was trying to recreate the Soviet Union. “I think many of our partners see they made a mistake, but just don’t want to admit it. They took advantage of popular discontent not just with Yanukovych, but going back to independence. ... Does anyone think things are better there now?”

Few would dispute Putin’s damning description of Ukraine’s post-Maidan straits: “The standard of living has fallen catastrophically. ... What have they gotten in return? Possibly [Ukrainians] will be allowed to travel to Europe without a visa. And possibly not.”

But Putin emphasizes that he does not blame Europeans for the policies of the United States, since, in his view, they are nothing more than “vassals” taking orders “from across the ocean,” at least as far as foreign policy goes. He surely understands the relationship to be more complicated than that, but such an approach places the blame for standoff between Russia and the West on America, and lets him makes a direct overture to Europe. “We don’t expect our European partners to give up their Euro-Atlantic orientation” but they would do well to “unite with Russia” to resolve “economic, political, security, and economic problems. ... We are ready to work with them and aren’t about to pout about the sanctions,” he says.

Significantly, though he never rules out cooperation, Putin makes no such overture to the United States. Rather, the film closes with Solovyov asking him the question used to tease viewers in the intro: Will there be war—World War III, in particular?

Probably not, Putin responds, as long as no crazy individual decides to use nuclear weapons and start it. But just in case, “Russia will continue perfecting its [nuclear] weapons. The nuclear triad forms the basis of our security policy. We have never brandished our nuclear bludgeon, and never will, but it retains its proper place and role in our military doctrine.”

The upshot, according to World Order: Putin considers possible a renewed relationship with Europe, but sees no such likelihood with the United States. This is one area where the views from Washington and Moscow aren’t so different—and that is bad news.

Goodbye to 2015, a year of absurdity and overreach

In 2015, Americans learned that eggs were no longer bad for them. (Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press)

By George F. Will Opinion writer December 30 at 7:54 PM Washington Post 

E.B. White reportedly said “the most beautiful sound in America” is “the tinkle of ice at twilight.” In 2015’s twilight, fortify yourself with something 90 proof as you remember this year in which:

We learned that a dismal threshold has been passed. The value of property that police departments seized through civil asset forfeiture — usually without accusing, let alone convicting, the property owners of a crime — exceeded the value of property stolen by nongovernment burglars. The attorney general of New York, which reaps billions from gambling — casinos, off-track betting, the state lottery — moved to extinguish (competition from) fantasy footballbecause it is gambling. Florida police raided a mahjong game played by four women aged between 87 and 95 because they allegedly were playing the game for money. A Michigan woman was fingerprinted, had her mug shot taken and was jailed until released on bond because she was late in renewing the $10 license for her dog. New Jersey police arrested a 72-year-old retired teacher, chained his hands and feet to a bench and charged him with illegally carrying a firearm — a 300-year-old flintlock pistol (with no powder, flint or ball) he purchased from an antique dealer.

George F. Will writes a twice-weekly column on politics and domestic and foreign affairs. He began his column with The Post in 1974, and he received the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1977. He is also a contributor to FOX News’ daytime and primetime programming.View Archive

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The University of Georgia said sexual consent must be “voluntary, sober, imaginative, enthusiastic, creative, wanted, informed, mutual, honest.” Imaginative consent? Connecting climate change to sex, the National Bureau of Economic Research warned that hot weather leads to diminished sexual activity. Elsewhere in “settled science,” the government’s dietary rules were revised, somewhat rehabilitating red meat, sodium, eggs and other good stuff. Undaunted, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee produced a 571-page report calling for “bold action” and “dramatic paradigm shifts” until mother-hen government yet again says, “Well, never mind.” Since federal food police dictated changes in school lunch programs, food tossed in the trash is up 56 percent, salt shakers are being smuggled into schools, and there are black markets in potato chips.

The Internal Revenue Service persecutes conservative advocacy groups but does not prosecute IRS employees who are tax cheats: An audit revealed that over the past decade, the IRS fired only 400 of the 1,580 employees who deliberately violated tax laws, rather than the 100 percent required by law.

New York’s City Council honored the “bravery” of Ethel Rosenberg, the executed traitor who spied for Stalin. Declaring her candidacy, Hillary Clinton said she will fight for, among many others, “truckers who drive for hours.” Yes, hours . Elsewhere, she rejected the presumption of innocence, a.k.a. due process: Those alleging sexual assault have “the right to be believed,” which she did not believe when her husband was the accused. 

A 9-year-old Florida fourth-grader was threatened with sexual harassment charges if he continued to write love notes telling the apple of his eye that her eyes sparkle “like diamonds.” A Texas 9-year-old was suspended for saying his magic ring could make people disappear. A young girl was sent home with a censorious note from her school because her Wonder Woman lunchboxviolated the school ban on depictions of “violent characters.” An Oregon eighth-grader, whose brother served in Iraq, was suspended for wearing a T-shirt that depicted an empty pair of boots representing soldiers killed in action. The school said the shirt was “not appropriate.” A Tennessee boy was threatened with suspension from elementary school because he came to school with a military-style haircut like that of his stepbrother, a soldier. A government arbitrator prevented the firing of a New Jersey elementary school teacher who was late to school 111 times in two years.

A suburban Washington high school promoted self-esteem by naming 117 valedictorians out of a class of 457. Two Edina, Minn., elementary schools hired “recess consultants” to minimize “conflict” — children saying “Hey, you’re out!” rather than “Nice try!” The principal of a San Francisco middle school withheld the results of student elections that did not produce properly “diverse” results. When some deep thinkers in academia decided that yoga, like ethnic food, constitutes “cultural appropriation,” a clear thinker wondered whether offended cultures would send back our polio vaccines. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni reported that 48 of the top 52 liberal arts colleges and universities do not require English majors to take a Shakespeare course.

This list of 2015 ludicrousness could be lengthened indefinitely, but enough already. The common thread is the collapse of judgment in, and the infantilization of society by, government. Happier New Year.

Note for a lecture, "Reinventing Oneself in America"

Roger Cohen, New York Times:

image from

I had been reading D. H. Lawrence, who lived in New Mexico in the early 1920s. He wrote: “That’s why most people have come to America and still do come. To get away from everything they are and have been.”

No vehicle for reinvention as powerful as America has ever been or is
likely to be created. The vast emptiness of New Mexico, an invitation to the imagination, is a reminder of the space here to forget and begin anew. Those who would “make America great again” by building walls are in fact closing America down.

Lawsuit claims teaching assistants at Amherst were told to sleep with students to boost enrollment

By Susan Svrluga December 29, Washington Post

Amherst College (Adam Grim/Amherst College)

Teaching assistants at Amherst College were encouraged to sleep with and socialize with students to boost enrollment in the Spanish department, according to a lawsuit filed by a former faculty member.

Dimaris Barrios-Beltran, a former lecturer in the Spanish department at Amherst, claimed discrimination, retaliation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and wrongful termination in a lawsuit against Amherst and her former supervisor, Victoria Maillo. The suit describes her as becoming concerned soon after she was hired in 2012, which is when Barrios-Beltran claims Maillo told her she liked to find “pretty faces” online to hire as teaching assistants in order to attract more students to Spanish classes and spoke disparagingly about some students and Barrios-Beltran’s Puerto Rican accent.

Early in 2013, Barrios-Beltran’s teaching assistant called her in tears, according to the lawsuit, saying that Maillo was treating her like a prostitute. The teaching assistant claimed that Maillo was angry that she was dating a student at the University of Massachusetts and told her and other teaching assistants to go to parties with students and sleep with them to encourage them to take Spanish. Barrios-Beltran claims that in frustration, the teaching assistant asked Maillo if she wanted her to sleep with a different guy every night like another teaching assistant was doing, and the teaching assistant told Barrios-Beltran that Maillo responded, “that is what I brought you here for.”

Barrios-Beltran spoke with other teaching assistants in the department who confirmed this, according to the lawsuit: “These young T.A.s believed they were being asked to prostitute themselves in order to increase enrollment in the Spanish Department.”

Peter Mackey, a spokesperson for Amherst said there was little he could say because of the active litigation, but he sent this statement by email: “In March 2015, following a careful assessment of enrollments in the Spanish Department, the College decided that it would not renew Ms. Barrios-Beltran’s short-term contract when it expired June 30, 2015. 

“This decision was made with no knowledge of the allegations Ms. Barrios-Beltran now raises, and which she brought forward only after she was told that her short-term contract would not be renewed. The College’s decision was based solely on declining enrollments, and any claims otherwise are not based in fact. The College is confident that the court, upon reviewing the facts of this matter, will reach the same conclusion.”

Maillo’s lawyer declined to comment because of the pending litigation and said Maillo would not be able to discuss the case.

Sarah A. Ornelas, one of the lawyers representing Barrios-Beltran, said several people supported her claims. “When you have allegations of these sorts I want to speak to all the witnesses before I go and lodge such a complaint. I did even more background investigating on my own.

“It is incredible what was going on over there.”

Amherst, a small private, highly selective liberal-arts college in western Massachusetts, has not yet filed a legal response to Barrios-Beltran’s lawsuit, filed in Superior Court in Massachusetts and first reported by the Daily Hampshire Gazette.

[Amherst a leader among elite colleges offering grants to needy students]

Barrios-Beltran is now a Spanish lecturer at Mount Holyoke College, according to one of her lawyers.

Through Ornelas, Barrios-Beltran declined to comment at this time.

Maillo is also no longer working at Amherst, according to Ornelas.

Ornelas said the teaching assistants have returned to Spain, their native country, and are hesitant to speak publicly now, but they are willing to serve as witnesses if the case goes to trial.

According to the lawsuit, after speaking with the teaching assistants Barrios-Beltran complained to  the chair of the department the following day, and then Maillo’s behavior to her became “hostile and retaliatory.” She continued to complain about Maillo’s comments, which she found inappropriate, about Jewish people, Puerto Ricans and people with disabilities, and about some of the content Maillo chose for class, such as a radio program about how watching pornography would help your sex life. 

A complaint was jointly filed in May with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.

Barrios-Beltran contends in her lawsuit, filed earlier this month, that Amherst College did not respond to her repeated complaints despite meetings with a dean, a Title IX coordinator and the human resources department.

In March Barrios-Beltran was informed she would not be reappointed. The reason given, according to her lawsuit, was low enrollment in her classes.

The two nations of America - Note for a lecture, "E Pluribus Unum? What Keeps the United States United"

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The two nations of America; via LH on Facebook

The Trumpists are worried the Obamaists are about to destroy the America they had known, while the latter warn that the former are trying to obstruct their road towards change

By Leon Hadar

In a way, the liberal mainstream media covering Mr Trump has been gradually entering the fifth stage of grief, "acceptance" of sorts.

DEC 31, 2015

EARLY on in the Republican presidential primary campaign this year, The Huffington Post - an online news aggregator and blog that is considered to be a major American media outlet supporting the Democratic Party - posted a "note about the coverage of Donald Trump's 'campaign'".

"After watching and listening to Donald Trump since he announced his candidacy for president, we have decided we won't report on Trump's campaign as part of The Huffington Post's political coverage," its editors announced. "Instead, we will cover his campaign as part of our Entertainment section."

The reason was simple, they explained. "Trump's campaign is a sideshow. We won't take the bait. If you are interested in what The Donald has to say, you'll find it next to our stories on the Kardashians and The Bachelorette."

Since that announcement in July 2015, publisher Arianna Huffington as well as editors and columnists of other liberal news organisations have experienced what could be described as their five stages of grief covering the Donald.

First came "denial" as echoed by The Huffington Post's announcement. It just wasn't possible, it just didn't make sense; NO WAY that the loudmouth real estate magnate from New York - hey, the guy is just host of a reality show! - would win the Republican presidential nomination. And forget the White House.

And then the liberal mainstream media (MSM) went on to predict that Mr Trump's candidacy would collapse any minute - after he referred to Mexican illegal immigrants as "rapists"; after he made crude sexist remarks; after he mocked senator and war hero John McCain; after he called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States - only to see Mr Trump winning ever more support and emerging as the leading Republican presidential candidate.

Then came "anger". How was it possible that an American politician who espouses extremist right-wing positions - some liberal columnists and bloggers compared Mr Trump to Mussolini and Hitler - could do so well in the polls?

That was followed by "bargaining", with the liberal media speculating that some of the other Republican presidential candidates would pick up the votes of Mr Trump's supporters. And then came "depression". This just cannot be happening. If Mr Trump wins, that would mark the decline and fall of America. We're finished!

Now flashback to the 2008 presidential election campaign, switch to Fox News or browse through the right-wing blogosphere.

"NO WAY", states a pundit on the cable news channel favoured by conservative viewers as he ponders whether Senator Barack Obama, a Democrat from Illinois, would be elected as the next US president. "Are you out of your mind," he insists. "A young and inexperienced black man whose middle name is 'Hussein' and who subscribes to ultra-liberal positions. Hey, the guy is just a community organiser. Beating Hillary Clinton in the primaries? Occupying the White House? Not in our lifetime, man."

And then the conservative editors and columnists have their own four stages of grief covering candidate Obama, from "denial", "anger", "depression" and "bargaining", followed by "acceptance" of sorts. Well, Mr Obama was inaugurated as president. He'll be there for four years. But then maybe everyone else would discover that he was actually a Muslim and a communist born in Kenya and he won't be re-elected for a second term (that didn't work).

In a way, the liberal MSM covering Mr Trump has been gradually entering the fifth stage of grief, "acceptance" of sorts. The Huffington Post has decided to relocate its coverage of the Donald from the entertainment section to the news area of the site. Some of the liberal pundits now accept the idea that Mr Trump could win the Republican presidential nomination but are confident that he would lose - BIG - in the general election. And if he does win in November? Well, they would be ready to move to Canada or France.

Or maybe they could remain in the United States after all. It's still possible that Mr Trump would end up losing the Republican presidential primaries; and it's more than likely that presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton could beat him in the general election.

But even then the Republican Party's electoral base will still continue to be dominated by voters who share much of the nationalist and traditional cultural agendas that the Trumpists are advancing: deporting the 11 million or so illegal immigrants from Mexico and building a wall on the southern border to prevent more of them from coming; imposing restrictions on the entry of Muslims into the US and carpet-bombing the areas controlled by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria; levying tariffs on Chinese imports and preparing for trade wars with the emerging economies that are "stealing" American jobs; opposition to legalising same-sex marriages and to restrictions on gun control and support for criminalising abortion; and let's not forget the notion that climate change is nothing but a hoax.

No wonder that the majority of liberals in the media and Democratic voters in general sometimes feel that while they and the conservatives and the Republicans may all live in the same US, they are residing on totally different political planets, and are warning that a President Trump would usher in an era in which racists, xenophobes and fascists would rule America.

And the feeling is mutual as members of the Tea Party movement bash the current Democratic president as an un-American if not as an anti-American leader who is in cahoots with radical Islamists at home and abroad while working together with atheists, feminists and gay activists to destroy the traditional Christian foundations of American society.

Indeed, numerous public opinion polls indicate that America is now divided along political and ideological lines which in turn reflect different demographic groups. Some would argue that America is split now into two nations that have totally different visions about the future of the country.

There is the Obama Nation, concentrated in the large urban centres of the country, in particular in the East and West Coast, and consisting of young voters, and educated professionals joined by blacks, Hispanics and Asian-Americans, and who subscribe to a more secular, progressive and internationalist set of values.

And then there is the Trump Nation, with electoral bastions in rural areas, especially in the South and Midwest, made up of mostly white, older and religious voters who endorse a more nationalist and culturally conservative policy programme. They are worried that the Obama Nation is about to destroy the America they had known, while the Obamaists warn that the Trumpists are trying to obstruct their road towards change.

Hence a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll indicated that while 70 per cent of Republican primary voters see themselves as adhering to the traditional definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman, among Democratic primary voters, it's only 25 per cent. A clear majority of Democrats - but only 17 per cent of Republicans - want Washington to pursue policies to combat climate change. Only 6 per cent of Republicans - but more than 50 per cent of Democrats - believe that the police are mistreating black men. And while 60 per cent of Republicans are strong supporters of the right to carry arms, only about 10 per cent of Democrats share that view.

Most Republicans place the issue of terrorism and national security on the top of their agenda and want the US to project its military power around the world, while the majority of Democrats regard the economy as the main priority and believe that Washington should focus on resolving domestic social and economic problems.

If anything, the existence of a 24/7 news environment, which includes politically charged cable new programmes and blogosphere, tends to accentuate the ideological polarisation in the country and explains why even centrist political figures such as Mrs Clinton and Republican Jeb Bush are under pressure to embrace more extreme positions, why the political centre is gradually disappearing from the political discourse, and why the split between the Obama and the Trump nations only continues to grow.

Lack of Russia experts has some in U.S. worried

By Karoun Demirjian December 30 at 4:33 PM, Washington Post; via MVH on Facebook

President Barack Obama (L) meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the G8 Summit at Lough Erne in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland June 17, 2013. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

While the international war against the Islamic State and a multilateral nuclear deal with Iran underscore Russia’s growing influence in major foreign policy challenges around the world, there are growing concerns that Washington’s lack of understanding of its one-time chief adversary is proving to be a critical national security risk.

Top intelligence and national security officials — including the top general of NATO — have warned that the United States’ depth of knowledge and capacity for collecting information on Russia is not up to snuff, given the stakes of the conflicts at hand and the threat an unpredictable Kremlin poses to U.S. interests.

Experts, lawmakers and former administration officials describe a national security apparatus that, once teeming with experienced Russia specialists, including at the highest levels of decision-making, now relies on looser regime of more junior experts who lack the reach to directly influence policy. The result, they say, is a series of missed opportunities to anticipate Moscow’s recent moves in areas such as Ukraine and Syria, even when clues were readily available.

“We’ve been surprised at every turn,” said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.). “We were surprised when they went into Crimea, we were surprised when they went into Syria.”

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said there has been some “atrophy” in the government’s Russia expertise since the Cold War, a trend that needs to be reversed.

“We’ve gotta double down on re-looking at Russia,” he said.

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Over the last several months, military and intelligence officials have repeatedly pointed to Russia as posing a potential existential threat to the United States, but the amount of resources dedicated to the expertise needed to gain a better understanding of Moscow and its plans does not reflect that reality.

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“After Sept. 11 there was a focus, rightly, on trying to increase focus on the Middle East and it’s had consequences,” said Michael McFaul, the previous ambassador to Russia and a former senior adviser to President Obama on Russian and Eurasian affairs. Compared to 15 years ago, he noted, the government’s bench of experts and the quality of Eurasia analysis is “shallower.”

“Trying to figure out decision-making in Russia on foreign policy requires a great deal of qualitative depth… and that requires new investment and knowledge,” McFaul continued. “We’re going to disagree with the Kremlin and with the Russians on certain issues over time, but what we can’t have is disagreements based on misperception and bad information.”

It is difficult to quantify the exact abatement in Russia expertise since the end of the Cold War, as the knowledge of individuals occupying certain key positions varies and line-items in the budget often apply to a broader range of activities rather than a single country.

But there are noteworthy examples of how the federal impetus to create and sustain a highly-capable, Russia-focused workforce has fallen away.

Since the end of the Cold War, there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of troops and support personnel stationed in Europe, who were tasked with understanding and responding to threats emanating from Moscow.

On the home front, experts point to a lack of funds for foreign language instruction at universities, a reduction in funding for cultural exchange programs with former Soviet states and the recent evisceration of a grant program for advanced research on Russia and its neighbors as signs of why the government is having trouble developing a corps of Russia specialists.

Experts also note that except for a few figures — such as Celeste Wallander, senior director for Russia and Eurasia on the National Security Council and Victoria Nuland, assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs — it is difficult to find senior government officials grappling with Russia who intimately understand the country and its leaders.

“When senior administration officials go up to the Hill, it’s presumed they have expertise. The dirty secret is that our capability is terrible, it stinks,” said Matthew Rojansky, director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center. He said he has conducted Belarus briefings where “nobody in the room has gone to Belarus” and noted there are parts of NATO in which “we don’t have anyone who can read the Russian press.”

“Almost any metric we might choose to assess capacity, we just don’t have it: it’s weak, and it’s spotty,” Rojansky said.

Some lawmakers excuse such attrition as normal in a government of limited resources and argue that gathering intelligence and an understanding of what the Kremlin is up to has never been easy.

“When Russia was less of a threat, they were less of an intelligence priority and that’s really as it should be,” said House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence ranking member Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). While changes are “certainly necessary,” he added, expecting expert intelligence on Russia overnight is foolhardy.

“Russia’s a very hard target in just about every way: they’re sophisticated electronically, they have good operational security and the decision-makers in this very authoritarian regime are a very small circle [around Putin],” Schiff said. “It makes predicting difficult.”

But that rationale doesn’t sit well with experts outside government.

“That’s actually jut a way of saying because he hasn’t told us his strategy, we can’t figure it out — when it takes some time and effort, and some expertise,” said Fiona Hill, director of the Brookings Institution’s Center on the United States and Europe and a former intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council.

When NATO officials in Brussels can see Russia moving military equipment toward Syria, but can’t properly predict an impending offensive, she reasoned, the problem isn’t so much intelligence-gathering as having the frame of reference to understand the intelligence you have.

“Why are we constantly surprised? They do all these things, and sometimes they do signal quite clearly, but we missed a lot,” said Hill.

Yet grasping that elusive understanding of Putin’s Russia is no easy task. An ongoing diplomatic and sanctions standoff between the United States and Russia has already winnowed opportunities for educational and business exchanges, while Russian laws against “foreign agents” and “undesirable organizations” have made the business of getting Americans time in the country more complicated.

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And with little funding available for new Russia positions at think tanks and universities, the pull toward a career in Russian studies is weak. While the recent Eurasian crises have sparked a slight uptick in Russian language enrollment, it is coming only after a significant decline. Enrollments in Russian courses plummeted as a percentage of students taking foreign languages between 1960 and 2013, only German suffered a greater drop in interest, according to a study published earlier this year by the Modern Language Association of America.

As a result, experts say, it’s inevitable that until the country can make up for lost time and build back up a corps of Russia experts, the United States is going to be at a strategic disadvantage.

“The mistake that was made 20 years ago was assuming Russia’s a weak power, a declining power,” McFaul said. “Whether they’re a great power or a middling power, we can argue about. But they are a major power, in the top 5 or 10 economies in the world, a top nuclear country in the world and now, given the investment Putin’s made in the military, they’re one of the major military powers in the world. Those trends are not changing in the next 20 or 30 years.”

Karoun Demirjian covers defense and foreign policy and was previously a correspondent based in the Post's bureau in Moscow, Russia. Before that, she reported for the Las Vegas Sun as its Washington Correspondent, the Associated Press in Jerusalem, the Chicago Tribune, Congressional Quarterly, and worked at NPR.