By David K. Shipler
Most
Americans during the Cold War would probably have been stunned to learn that
the Soviet Union, also known by Ronald Reagan as the Evil Empire, saw itself as
a highly moral enterprise. It regarded its economic and political systems—centrally-planned
socialism and the order brought by one-party rule—as the most beneficial for
other countries, and it sought global influence not only to enhance its
national security but also to spread its ideas of social justice.
It goes
without saying that the Soviet system of dictatorship and state-owned
production was unjust in the extreme, especially for the little guy. But the Russians’
sense of righteousness was as fervent as the Americans’ reverence for free
enterprise and pluralistic democracy. So, pursuing their mirror images of what
was best for the world, both Moscow and Washington propagated their beliefs
abroad with missionary zeal.
The
evangelical streak in Russian foreign policy ended with the collapse of the
Soviet Union in 1991 and the death of Marxism as a state ideology. True communism,
never achieved, withered as a goal at home and abroad. Today, Vladimir Putin’s
Russia seems driven only by a non-ideological impulse to protect its
borderlands militarily, promote itself economically, and expand its international
reach to recover its reputation from the humiliation of decline.
The United
States has also become less ideological in foreign policy, it seems, since
President Trump took office. Defense of human rights and the spread of
democracy—and even the promotion of capitalism abroad—have taken a back seat to
an inchoate campaign of counter-terrorism. To that end, Trump finds no fault
with his chums in the authoritarian regimes of Saudi Arabia and Turkey, for
example, but cites human rights violations in rolling back relations with Cuba.
