REGIONAL POWER

(I interrupt my wife’s Bulgakov postings on my blog to bring the reader my two comments on current events: Regional Power and Ukraine.)

So, we are told, Russia is a “regional power”?

Now, then, what exactly is her “region”?

Is it Eurasia? At least, that would be a “region” that matches her size… Just follow her pipeline tentacles reaching East and West, and yes, South too…

But wait, what about the Arctic “region”? Russia today is by far the most powerful power in the Arctic… yes, region… A recent international legal decision has given her another large chunk of it. Yet nobody wanted to notice that, while the Russians do not like to brag…

But wait, what about the Middle East? They say there can be no discussion of Iran without Russia. They say there can be no peace in Syria without Russia. They say there can be no peace in the Middle East as such (we are talking about Israel and her neighbors) without Russia… And in case you do not read the elusive news reports, check out the shockingly unanticipated triangle of Mr. Al Sisi’s Cairo, King Abdullah’s Riyadh, and Mr. Putin’s Moscow…

But wait, what about the “region” of Central and South America. The shaky dominoes theory for South-East Asia of the twentieth century is steadily becoming the soupe du jour for America Latina in the twenty-first century…

But wait, what about the high seas? The wet region is becoming home to more and more Russian ships, and as every A-student in middle school knows, the geographic area of their presence far exceeds the landmass of the terra-firma world.

But wait, what about the “region” of outer space? It is no secret to those who want to know that today Russia is by far the dominant power in the upper regions, at least if we add to the physical presence up there the means of getting there.

So, when we are told that Russia is a “regional” power, I can buy that, with a few clarifications, to be sure.

But still, when the President of the United States calls Russia a “regional power,” one has to listen and to try to understand. What is the meaning of this phrase, coming from the mouth of the leader of the free world? There has to be a meaning there, of course. Even the emptiest rhetoric is full of meaning if we treat it seriously enough…

Well, stripping the politics of the day and the empty rhetoric pinned to it away, the meaning is simple. When the sun is in the sky, nobody sees the stars, as the late Maestro Arturo Toscanini used to say. In modern world, there is only one world power, no matter what, and that power is the United States of America. Moscow who? Peking who? BRICS who? SCO who? EU?.. well, let’s skip the quote from Ms. Victoria Nuland…

Reader, please do not mistake my irony for sarcasm. I, for one, will never call the United States anything but a great world power. And I do not expect Washington to call anybody “You’re the man!” That would be somewhat unbecoming for a great power. As Schopenhauer said, “familiarity breeds contempt.”

But by the same token, I do not like Washington to keep repeating the same thing over and over again, in the course of the last twenty-plus years:

“I am the man… and all of you are… well… regional powers.”