The august British institution known as Chatham House has a reputation for deciphering the strange ways of foreigners and explaining them to the common person. Its new pamphlet on Russia does this by employing the device of myth-busting. It identifies several myths about Russia, its interests, and its policies which are, according to the authors of the pamphlet (who seem to include a couple of Russians), false and dangerous. The authors do not specify whether the falsehoods have attained a mythical status because they are mainly believed by Russians or by non-Russians; their subjective truth matters little, although the way in which the myths appear does suggest that tu quoque is a pernicious abstraction promulgated largely by Russians and their useful idiots.
For the most part they are dangerous myths because Chatham House says so. How times have changed since the reign of dear Professor Toynbee, who, in spite of his faults, paid ecumenism the occasional compliment, with the occasional bit of empathy. In that spirit, let us restate each of the points, paired not with a red herring but with a translation for the common person:
Myth 01: ‘Russia and the West are as “bad” as each other’
Translation: One is better than the other.
Myth 02: ‘Russia and the West want the same thing’
Translation: The aims of one are more virtuous than those of the other.
Myth 03: ‘Russia was promised that NATO would not enlarge’
Translation: Russians have made a mountain out of a molehill. NATO did a better job humiliating Russia during the Kosovo War anyhow.
Myth 04: ‘Russia is not in a conflict with the West’
Translation: Neither one will ever be satisfied, or admit that the real choice, as a wise man once said, is to ‘live with the system or become part of the fertilizer program’.
Myth 05: ‘We need a new pan-European security architecture that includes Russia’
Translation: Russia is not, and never will be, European; or, ‘Europe whole and free’ is another dangerous myth.
Myth 06: ‘We must improve the relationship with Russia, even without Russian concessions, as it is too important’
Translation: Russia is not very important.
Myth 07: ‘Russia is entitled to a defensive perimeter – a sphere of “privileged interests” including the territory of other states’
Translation: Russians are delusional about their security interests.
Myth 08: ‘We must drive a wedge between Russia and China to impede their ability to act in tandem against Western interests’
Translation: Russia and China are both permanently hostile to Western interests but are too disorganised to do much more than dividing and conquering on their own.
Myth 09: ‘The West’s relations with Russia must be normalized in order to counter the rise of China’
Translation: Same as above. With the codicil that Russians do not make better converts than Chinese.
Myth 10: ‘The Eurasian Economic Union is a genuine and meaningful counterpart to the EU’
Translation: Integration for some but not for others.
Myth 11: ‘The peoples of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia are one nation’
Translation: Same as above. With the corollary that the peoples of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia are better off divided, internally as well as externally.
Myth 12: ‘Crimea was always Russian’
Translation: ‘Nos ancêtres les Gaulois’ is a perverse, Russian concept.
Myth 13: ‘Liberal market reform in the 1990s was bad for Russia’
Translation: The Soviet economy was worse for Russia.
Myth 14: ‘Sanctions are the wrong approach’
Translation: Blockade (sorry, ‘embargo’) is a better one.
Myth 15: ‘It’s all about Putin – Russia is a manually run, centralized autocracy’
Translation: We’re really not that obsessed with him. Stalin had his helpers, too.
Myth 16: ‘What comes after Putin must be better than Putin’
Translation: This judgement, like nearly all the others, cannot be left to the Russian people to make.