Apocalypse Now?

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Oct 30, 1998

'Tis the season for scary stuff, so I thought I might as well address some of Peter Weber's questions on why I tend to play up the scary items about Russia.

One thing to keep in mind right off the bat: I am always emphasizing what may happen, not necessarily what will happen. Not unlike a fire marshal who inspects to make sure there's a working fire extinguisher and hallways free of obstructions, who isn't necessarily saying there will be a fire, just insisting that it could happen and that people must prepare for it.

Also, do note that I ended my observations on Primakov's new government on a guardedly optimistic note: that this could be Russia's big chance to avoid disaster.

But, I have indeed consistently maintained, since I started here in December 1997, that Russia is quite possibly becoming a rabid tiger, and that she is indeed accelerating down that road. Repeated cabinet reorganizations, in particular the firing of Anatoly Chubais after repeated promises not to, the failure to pay pensioners, workers and others, the utter volte-face from Chernomyrdin to Kiriyenko back to Chernomyrdin and now Primakov, and now the banking crisis, "moratorium" on foreign debts and worst of all inflation, are destroying public and official confidence in the government. Its leaders may feel impelled to embark on a dangerous adventure not for the sake of the adventure itself, but rather to use the adventure as proof that it should be taken seriously again.

Thus, I believe the ruinous character such an adventure may take would be somewhat beside the point: the leaders wouldn't be fighting for Moscow's preeminence in the world so much as their own preeminence in Moscow.

Whether or not other people - the masses and/or regional leaders - would support such a move is another question. I do know that historically, the Russian people have looked on foreign conquest as a compensation for lack of liberty. And, even apart from distinctively Russian culture, the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher Adam Smith, in his An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations over 200 years ago, remarked that people tend to favour a bellicose policy, even when they stood to lose economically by it, for the sheer excitement. And this, remember, was before CNN and the soundbite. Certainly Russia - which did not win one-sixth of the earth's surface in a church raffle - has never been known as the World Peacenik.

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