NO BLUE RIBBON FOR LOSERS

No Blue Ribbon For Losers!
Whatever happened to both sides of the American-Russian propaganda divide when the Soviet Union fell?!
As far as the Russians were concerned, theirs was a story of national Repentance on a Dostoyevskian scale, only as if seen in a crooked mirror, except that it was not the mirror’s fault: the act of repentance itself was crooked, like all those beggars at the side of a Russian church, feigning ecstatic psychosis to solicit an extra ruble from the parishioners.
As I watched those spasms of national contrition for the sins of the Soviet era, they never failed to make me sick. Firstly, there was not that much to apologize for, and most definitely not for the ‘sin’ of socialism, as if capitalism were a virtue, particularly in such a repulsive, utterly abhorrent form, which it had taken from the start in Yeltsin’s Russia.
And then, even more bizarre and degrading was the incredible extent of the most disgusting groveling, what the Americans rudely call ‘ass-kissing,’ which the Russian officials of the Yeltsin era displayed toward their new idol, the "Yellow Devil" himself, their new mentor and paragon of super-human values: the United States of America.
Why was this not only allowed, but most shamefully encouraged, I'd like to ask? The answer is very clear to me, but I can see that America still does not get it. It was a deliberate policy, aimed at stirring the flames of bitter anti-American hatred that could not have engulfed Russia otherwise, hatred of the Enemy, which was to become the key objective of the new Russian propaganda, just as an exorbitant amount of pro-American fawning had been encouraged in Japan in the few decades preceding the typhoon of anti-American backlash, culminating in Pearl Harbor and showing itself in the particular acrimony pervading the Japanese-American conflict in World War II.
In the meantime, what was the American reaction to the fall of her main adversary, the Soviet Union? In one word, there was so much gloating and, to add a couple of words more, dismissive condescension toward her erstwhile greatest enemy that there was really no extra effort needed for the Russian nationalists to stir up an unprecedented firestorm of anti-American hatred, as such a firestorm had been sparked up and fed for them by none other than the Americans themselves.
Here is what I wrote a long time ago in my big Russia Article about this new American attitude toward the Russians, which can be best described by my well-chosen title for this entry: No Blue Ribbon For Losers:

"…Incidentally, whatever happened to that proud achievement of Western Civilization known as “political correctness?” Where was all that “win-win” gibberish when America needed it? In our super-sanitized age of mandatory pseudo-virtues, where everybody-gets-a-blue-ribbon, it is quite remarkable to find a textbook example of "good behavior" (on Russia’s part) rewarded with the so-taboo title of "loser!"
But let us get very serious now: The story of Russia losing her superpower glory as the result of ending the Cold War is truly astonishing in the way how thoughtlessly America has treated this highly sensitive issue.
It was indeed a terrifying mistake of historic proportions to tell the Russians that they had deserved their superpower parity and superpower respect only as the enemy of the United States; while as a friend, their lot was to be America's benevolent condescension. Any serious scholar should know that the Russians are an authentic Great Power with a well-developed national superpower mentality, an extraordinary "Manifest Destiny" dating back five hundred years, and, in short, a giant national Ego to match the geographical size of Mother Russia. They are a rational people, but do not suffer humiliation gladly; and the fury which they are capable of unleashing against those who have insulted them with disrespect, can far surpass that of Japan and Germany of the World War Two infamy. Only in Russia’s case, there is no need to go to war directly..."  (From this point I start explaining to the article’s reader the meaning of the phrase “a war by proxy.”)

And finally, the self-evident verdict on America’s thoughtless and reckless reaction to the collapse of the Soviet Union is that it was politically and morally wrong, and quite unseemly. But I will go much further than that, insisting that America has made a terrible mistake, for which she will be paying dearly in the many years to come.

Say No To Cold War.
Staying with the subject of American and Russian propaganda, why do the Russians keep saying no to the resumption of the politically prestigious state of Cold War of the two superpowers that was interrupted by the collapse of the Soviet Union, but that can easily become reinstated these days, if only the Russians agree to say yes to it?
Cold war was not a particularly bloody era in world history, and it brought universal international respect to the Soviet Union at least by virtue of its perceived parity with the United States. That respect seemed all but gone as the collapse of the USSR was taking place, and the cold war era was declared over.
Considering all this, it appears quite reasonable for the Russians today to use their newly recovered might to restore their world status as the other superpower and proclaim: not so fast, cold war is not over, here we are again!
Why then is Vladimir Putin’s Russia so reluctant to accept the lost laurels of "the other superpower," and why is she so adamant to dismiss ‘Cold War’ as an unpleasant vestige of the past, no longer an adequate political science term, to describe the state of a perpetual confrontational tension in Russian-American relations (the invigorating Nietzschean “tension of the bow”)???
The secret to such false modesty can be capsulated in one single word: realignment. The critical drawback of the cold war era for the Russians was the alignment of Western democracies, alongside the United States, on the anti-Soviet side of the Iron Curtain. With much respect, cold war was much of a liability! The world was officially bipolar, and the actors were obligated to take one of the two established sides. (An American can get an adequate sense of it by comparing this international situation existing during the cold war period, to the complementary distribution of the two ruling political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, in America. The concept of an independent party can only gain a significance if the two controlling forces are interested in its temporary emergence, as was the case with Ross Perot’s flash-in-the-pan independence. As we project this situation onto a larger screen of the world stage, we can easily recognize the same pattern, as the so-called neutrals, or independents, of the cold war conflict were allowed their neutrality/independence only because the two superpowers found it convenient for their own purposes.)
The new era of the so-called multi-polarity broke the cold war bond between the United States and its free world allies. Whereas it had been quite impossible for the Soviet Union to weaken the Western Alliance in any considerable way, it has become not only possible, but even easy, under the New World Order (in view of the asinine policies and the insensitive bullying rhetoric of Washington, intoxicated by its assumed cold war victory), for the Russians to manipulate world affairs to an extent unimaginable in those bygone years. And I might also add that while America’s respect for the Russians had plummeted in the post-Soviet years, there never was a similar markdown made in the psyche of Old Europe or in the rest of the world. Nobody seemed to pay attention a decade ago when Europe’s senior and well-respected politician and scholar Mark Eyskens of Belgium matter-of-factly called post-Soviet Russia a “superpower,” while several others jumped to “second the motion.”
Today, thanks to the wonders of multi-polarity, the free world has no need to rally behind the United States as it used to during the bipolar era. Psychologically, the heavy mantle of the only superpower of the world weighs down and wears down the American part of the trans-Atlantic relationship, and demonstrably, makes the Europeans feel less comfortable with the overly possessive attitude of their formerly undisputed leader than with the new Russia, unassuming in her rhetoric, but gaining enormous advantages where it matters, in the bare realities of the new world politics, or what the Europeans have been calling Realpolitik…
That is why the Russians shun the return of their superpower status, and say no, very sincerely, to a return of the “cold war.”

A Noble Duel And A Dirty War.
While we are still able to hear the echo of our previously discussed subject of the mutually respectful Cold War and of its shameful post-Soviet aftermath, it would be well worth our while to revisit it yet again, as a kind of "one more for the road," with the benefit of a most pertinent passage from Nietzsche’s Why I Am So Wise, Section 7, of Ecce Homo.
“The strength of those who attack can be measured by the opposition they require: every growth is pointed out by the search for a mighty opponent. The task is not simply to master what happens to resist, but what requires us to stake all our strength, suppleness, and fighting skill: opponents who are our equals.
Equality before the enemy is the first presupposition of an honest duel. Wherever one feels contempt, one cannot wage war. Where one commands, where one sees something beneath oneself, one has no business waging war.”
The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was, more or less, such an honest duel. It is true, as I myself have observed on several occasions, that there had been serious misconceptions: plenty of them. But contempt had never been a part of that equation. America feared Russia, and fear brought respect. (A respect for your peer-- this is what Nietzsche means, when he talks about the equality of opponents in an honest duel!) Today, and actually ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, America has lost her former fear of Russia and, with that fear, her respect for the noble enemy.
Contempt for the other, that is the real name of the game, called America’s friendship. But the superpower war is by no means over! Only its nature has dramatically changed . Instead of a noble war, such as the Cold War was, we have entered the morass of a very dirty war, in which the Russians openly hate America for her contempt, whereas America, because of her contempt for Russia, is incapable of fighting this war properly. As Nietzsche puts it so well, “Wherever one feels contempt, one cannot wage war.” In this particular case, “cannot” does not mean “unwilling,” but, as the Germans say it so well-- Nicht Imstande!