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Vladimir Putin occupies so much political space in Russia than healthy, democratic, political competitors cannot take root. Like a great tree, Putin shades out lesser saplings. Unfortunately, poisonous weeds are creeping in the place of normal political fauna. The latest piece at HNN from Dr. Andreas Umland:

“The Great Danger If Russia Stays on the Path It’s On”

The roots of Russia’s currently rising nationalism are threefold: pre-Soviet, Soviet and post-Soviet. The idea of Moscow as the “Third Rome,” i.e. of a special Russian mission in world history, goes back several centuries. Russian nationalism had been – contrary to what many in the West believed – an important element of Soviet ideology ever since the 1930s. Like in the early 19th century when Moscow’s so-called Slavophiles applied German nativist thought to Russian conditions, ideas of various Russian nationalist movements today are often imported from the West.

….The main difference between Russian and Western forms of nationalism is that, in the contemporary West, the intellectual and political mainstream of a given country usually more or less clearly distances itself from that country’s – sometimes, also rather strong – nationalist movement. While the Russian mainstream is quick to condemn racist violence, its relationship to the world view standing behind such violence is, in contrast, more ambivalent. Thus, authors who, in the West, would be regarded as being far beyond the pale of permissible discourse, such as the ultra-nationalist publicist Aleksandr Prokhanov or ideologue of fascism Aleksandr Dugin, are esteemed participants in political and intellectual debates at prime-time TV shows. The bizarre, pseudo-scientific ideas of the late neo-racist theoretician Lev Gumilev are required reading in Russia’s middle and higher schools. Gumilev teaches that world history is defined by the rise and fall of ethnic groups that are biological units under the influence, moreover, of cosmic emissions.

Russia has always had a deep streak of xenophobic, romantic, mysticism as part of it’s character; a part that comes from it’s Pre-Petrine heritage but one that  has continued to resurface despite the best efforts of Westernizing modernizers or Soviet commissars to extinguish it. This latest resurgence is reminiscient of the wildest rhetoric from the racial lunacy of the 1920’s Volkish far Right in Weimar Germany in which the nascent Nazi Party incubated amidst Freikorps paramilitaries, Bavarian separatists and ultranationalist conspiracies.

In comparison, the siloviki do not look too bad.

TRY YOUR HAND AT BEING NIXON’S ARCHIVIST

Dr. Maarja Krusten, the fomer archivist for the Nixon tapes collection at The National Archives and Federal historian, has an excellent article up at HNN, “How Hard Is the Job of Nixon Archivists? You Decide.“. Her article is worth reading for two reasons:

First, Krusten explains the dilemna faced by archivists trying to do their job when faced with political pressure from influential public figures:

“Former U.S. Archivist Robert Warner once told me that “The Archives faces enormous political pressure but never admits that it does.” Whether they deal with stand-up guys or bullies, archivists face them alone.

It was not the only recent loss of a file. As the Senate prepared to hold hearings on the nomination of John Roberts to be Chief Justice, White House lawyers in 2005 screened files at NARA’s Reagan Presidential Library. They were left alone with documents at the Library because, as Berger also had said, they needed privacy while making phone calls. Soon, thereafter, archivists discovered that a Roberts file about affirmative action was missing. The IG was unable to establish whether the affirmative action file had been removed from the Library or merely misfiled by NARA staff.”

Secondly, she offers a test to readers to try to correctly classify a memo that is, I can attest, vintage Richard Nixon:

“How would you classify the December 4, 1970 memo? (If you wish, you first may look at a couple of paragraphs about NARA’s statutes and regulations in a brief description here.)

(3) document is governmental, relates to Presidential duties, and should be released during the President’s lifetime.”

Read the whole article here.

APPLIED HISTORY

Last week, HNN ran a somewhat critical piece by John Elrick on Colonel H.R. McMaster and Frederick Kagan entitled “The Two Historians Who Are Playing a Key Role in “The Surge“. The primary hook for HNN’s readers was the aspect of two historians (albeit one a serving military officer) playing an influential role in developing administration policy:

“Like Kagan, H.R. McMaster holds a PhD in military history, earning his from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Col. McMaster was commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in northwestern Iraq from 2005-2006 and is currently an advisor to the head of US forces, General David Petraeus. McMaster belongs to a group of “warrior intellectuals” who, according to Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post, “make up one of the most selective clubs in the world: military officers with doctorates from top-flight universities and combat experience in Iraq.”

Both Kagan and McMaster have taught history at West Point. The former was a Professor at the US Military Academy from 1995 to 2005, while the latter taught there from 1994 to 1996.”

Traditionally, relatively few historians have been deeply engaged in shaping current policy or political affairs. Bernard Lewis, the eminent Mideast scholar, is frequently cited as having been a deep influence on the Bush administration policy makers who favored the invasion of Iraq. Sean Wilentz was a vigorous defender of President Clinton during impeachment hearings and leading historians like Richard Pipes have sometimes quietly served tours of duty on the staff of the National Security Council. Few have ever gone so far as did the recently deceased Arthur Schlesinger, jr. and become members of a President’s White House inner circle. Most historians though, keep their distance from current policy.

The acclaimed scientist, environmentalist and futurist Stewart Brand, whose ideas presaged the internet-based information revolution has called on historians to practice “Applied History“

“All historians understand that they must never, ever talk about the future. Their discipline requires that they deal in facts, and the future doesn’t have any yet. A solid theory of history might be able to embrace the future, but all such theories have been discredited. Thus historians do not offer, and are seldom invited, to take part in shaping public policy. They leave that to economists.

Done wrong, Applied History could paralyze public decision making and corrupt the practice of history — that’s the danger. But done right, Applied History could make decision making and policy far more sophisticated and adaptive, and it could invest the study of history with the level of consequence it deserves.”

Brand has a solid point. Historians have a useful skill-set to offer policy makers. As a discipline, history requires the cultivation of a very large cognitive map that serves both as a knowledge base as well as a starting point for recognizing patterns and analogies. Historians spend much time assessing the validity and reliability of data and discerning cause and effect. Like scientists ( perhaps the only time when historians are like scientists), historians attempt to isolate causation from mere correlation. When policy makers have to deal with uncertainty, historians can reduce that uncertainty at the margins by providing the context in which to make logical extrapolations or to apply the specfic skills of psychologists, economists, game theorists or other specialized analysts.

Historians, of course, are just as liable to bias as anyone else, so no pretensions to omniscience should be aired. However, all things being equal, historians at least can provide a better-informed bias than if their contribution were absent from the policy process.

MUSINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

A hectic day. There will not be much blogging tonight as I am preparing the third installment of my Military Theory series at Chicago Boyz, hopefully will put it up tomorrow. The rest of the evening was devoted to gathering some of my material for Sean and Tom and, most importantly, helping my daughter with her dinosaur diorama. An effort that involved large amounts of colored clay, toothpicks, a shoebox and crayon drawings of Megalosaurus in action.

Two unrelated recommendations to read:

shloky is in fine form today: “Private Militaries and Market States” and “Super Empowered Individuals + Elections“

“Hiss Was Guilty” By John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr

Haynes and Klehr, two historians who know the documentary evidence of Communist espionage and subversion in America like few others in the field, deserve thanks for their tireless vigilance in countering attempts by Leftist activists to engage in denial and obfuscation of the historical record regarding Soviet spy Alger Hiss.

Once, defending Hiss was a cottage industry among American intellectuals; today it is a sign of kool-aid consumption.

A CONSERVATIVE LOOK AT BLOGGING HISTORIANS

At HNN, arch-Cliopatriarch Ralph Luker has collected a formidible honor roll of conservative historians who are bloggers (and perhaps some conservative bloggers who like history) to which he has added yours truly. Never knew so many were out there. Much appreciated Dr. Luker!

Special thanks to blogfriend Nonpartisan of ProgressiveHistorians for the nod. It’s a pleasure when a spirit of comity exists across the partisan divide. All too rare these days, unfortunately.