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August 02, 2009Russia to Biden: Thanks, Joe, We'll Be Fine
Vice President Biden’s recent statement about US-Russia relations struck a raw nerve in Russia. It's one thing to discuss Russia’s internal situation behind closed doors – it’s a whole different matter when such a high profile American political figure throws such facts in your face. And even if a country faces internal difficulties that may threaten its long-term future, being “poked in the eye,” so to speak, by Biden’s statement was far from pleasant. Russian political establishment responded right away, but the country’s cultural elite was not far behind.
Kirill Benediktov is a popular and best-selling author, historian and policy analyst who concentrates on writing about Russia's harsh reality and its uncertain future. His books topped Russia’s best-selling lists, and were being made into popular TV series. As a man who constantly checks the cultural pulse of his country, Biden’s Wall Street Journal description of Russia’s future merited a response. Benediktov focused on Biden's statement that "... they have a shrinking population base, they have a withering economy, they have a banking sector and structure that is not likely to be able to withstand the next 15 years, they're in a situation where the world is changing before them and they're clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable." Benediktov wonders: “But why bury the Russian economy? Perhaps Biden has other sources of information, some insider sources? Otherwise, why would he so confidently predict the death of the Russian banking system? Russia, it must be recalled, is one of the largest U.S. lenders, as Biden certainly knows that very well.”
The following is a direct translation of his op-ed in the daily “Vzglyad” paper:
"... And yes, goddamit we are going extinct. We must have the courage to acknowledge this - Russians are dying as a nation. Maybe for some ethnic groups, which are part of our multi-ethnic state, it is not true, but Russian women give too few births, while Russian men are dying too early - too little and too early for the people to survive. I do think about this "15-year factor” that Biden measures us by. No matter what sources he used - the National Intelligence Council or some other secret institution. But even according to open-source UN projections, in 2025, Russia will live only 116 million people, and by 2050 - no more than 100 million. Now, according to official population estimates, there are 142 million people in Russia. In the United States, by the way, there are now 300 million and by 2050, there will be 400 million people. This means that we will lose 26 million people in 15 years. As if all these years we would have been fighting a grueling, endless war, a war in which we are doomed to defeat in advance.
And if we do not understand this, if we are trying not to think about it, if we prefer to live one day at a time - then we owe U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and should say a great personal “thank you.” Because he honestly said what America expects from Russia. We should not hide behind beautiful words about Russia being a "great power" which has a "strategic partnership" with America. He said the god-honest truth: you may meander for the next 15 years. After that - well, then, sorry. And it does not matter what will happen next - whether smiling black-skinned sergeants will decommission our rusting ballistic missiles; or our last nuclear submarines will be finally decommissioned to serve as a photo-op for housewives from Kentucky; or our education reform will be brought to an end, and today's children playing in the sandbox will take the final exams in high school, choosing the correct color picture of the five proposed; or our difficult-to-understand Russian will be replaced by the Latin alphabet, in order to easier integrate us into the global economy.
But where Biden is wrong - and wrong, in my opinion, globally - it is in his regret that in the face of a changing world, we Russians are clinging to our past. It would be wrong to blame him for this - Biden grew up in a country with a very short historical memory (true, we should note that even with its short history, Americans are actively clinging to their own past).
So, we are advised not to cling to the past and to courageously face the changing world.
- As if the world is changing for the first time.
- As if Russia has never before stood on the edge of death.
- As if its towns and the churches did not burn during the Mongol invasion.
- As if the great Russian land never before lay in smoking, bleeding ruins during the times of the great chaos of the 16th and 17th centuries.
- As if the Russian people were not driven under the German rule during the 18th century.
- As if Napoleon never entered the vaults of the Moscow Kremlin.
- As if our gene pool has never been diminished before by the ruthless and fratricidal Russian Civil War.
- As if Guderian's tanks (WWII panzer divisions commanded by German general Heinz Guderian) did not stand where many Muscovites today go for their weekend barbecues.
- As if during the year that celebrated democracy - 1992 - our engineers and scientists, the pride of the nation, who designed spacecraft, did not go to the clothing market to sell cheap Chinese jeans.
We can also remember the defeat in the first Chechen war, and the financial default of 1998, and humiliation in the Balkans, when the Americans bombed our brothers, the Serbs, for an imaginary genocide of Kosovars, and we were powerless to raise our hands.
This is our past. Some will find shame in it, some - pride. But the main lesson that we can - and should - learn from our past, is that Russia has always survived. No matter what it faced.
And if we do not forget our past, if we do not deny our history, we will survive this time as well - to the great disappointment of the Vice President of the United States."