Russian President Medvedev Should Come Up With Smart Ideas Similar To Those Of Ex-Soviet Dictator Mikhail Gorbachev
By: Jordan C. Fan, Prophet of Environment.
The last entry of this discussion was about the SALT Treaty of nuclear reduction. The following are some extremely intelligent ideas dreamed up by Ex-Soviet Dictator Mikhail Gorbachev which should also be implemented by Medvedev:
(1) Make sure his name sake Michael Jackson could receive address in Russia so that Mikhail can regain his power and live in that address.
(2) Tatooed his own forehead with the map of the Philippines Islands thinking that could make that nation unite with the Soviet Union.
(3) Put Boris Yeltsin on top of his military tanks thinking that could make (Bor)is Yelt(sin) confessed to his (sin)s and a(bor)t his Revolution.
(4) Invited Osama bin Laden to his Opium smoking party in Afghanistan because he thought whoever has a name starting with an "O" could increase his opium production there.
(5) Invited Barack Obama to swim with him at his Black Sea resort so that no one could see or rescue Obama when he was drowning.
(6) Didn't believe in the possible success of Reaganomic because Gorbachev thought Reagan was just acting.
(7) "Tear down that (Berlin) Wall!" so that Russian tanks could roll into West Berlin.
(8) Gorbachev thought China are only cups and dishes for drinking and eating. He was perfectly comfortable when China was rising and even enjoyed it thinking it was an act in the "Mary Poppins" movie.
(9) Supported Soviet boycott of the Los Angeles Olympic anticipating earthquakes would destroy California. It would certainly save him money by not using nuclear missiles.
(10) Replace Russian Black Market with his own "Free Market" to put African-American spy network in the Soviet Union out of business. Or is it really a "Flea Market"?
(11) Endorsed the SALT Treaty thinking it was just a requisition for condiments. As a result all his nuclear missiles were destroyed.
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All Sound, No Fury
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As truly pressing issues kept dropping from the reset agenda, U.S.-Russian relations drifted into the more comfortable realm of nuclear disarmament. Nukes are a safe virtual reality, since neither side can even think of ever using them—everyone feels comfortable moving them from one pile into another while ignoring actual problems, like last year's war in Georgia and Russia's stab at regional hegemony.
Actually, even disarmament is to some extent a chimera. The START-1 treaty assumes that all missiles, planes, and submarines are currently loaded to their full capacity with warheads. But this is not the case for either side; both the U.S. and Russia have been futzing with their arsenals and removing warheads unilaterally since ratification. So even though both sides pledged today to slash their stockpiles by roughly a third, the real reduction will be much more modest.
In fact, the final figures may never be announced at all; some government experts in Moscow believe that Russia didn't need a replacement for START-1, which expires Dec. 5. They argue that the aging nuclear arsenal would inevitably have shrunk to levels well below those set by the new deal. And without the checks that START demands, the U.S. may never learn how small the Russian stockpile has become. The nukes will be gone, but the threat will remain, the experts insist.
Still, it will be extremely hard for the Kremlin to abandon nuclear reduction outright, since it is the only remnant of Russia's superpower status. Unlike in America, it's a matter of domestic importance: when government TV shows Russian leaders fishing or picnicking with their U.S. counterparts, ordinary Russians know their country still matters. But if Russia is no longer a priority in Washington, they'll start asking questions. At the same time, too much friendship with the U.S. can also sap a leader's popularity at home. Anti-Americanism is a pillar of Russian ideology. Without it, Russians would need a new enemy to blame for the economic crisis and the confrontations with their neighbors.
It's not that Washington and Moscow have bad relations—by some accounts, they have almost no relations at all.
Leonid Ragozin and Igor Prokopyev write for NEWSWEEK's Russian partner, Newsweek Russky.
© 2009
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