Hide & Seek

As this issue was going to press, our American media was focused on the so far fruitless effort to find Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Iraq. Recently unembedded journalists were incredulous that our intelligence community and political leadership could have embellished information or even (gasp!) lied. Apparently the garden paths leading to Vietnam, Grenada, Chile, Nicaragua and other exotic locals have become a bit overgrown with age.

This all got me thinking about another military “something” that for a decade has been as elusive as WMD, but which has gotten much less attention: the so-called Peace Dividend.

In the early 1990s, diplomats, economists and politicians began speculating that the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War would lead to huge cuts in the US military budget, resulting in a declining national debt and more money for social programs and education, to say nothing of a safer world.

The fact is that, while US military spending did decline from the late 1980s (when there was an unusual spike under Ronald Reagan) to the mid-1990s, it never fell below the Cold War levels of the post-1950s (measured in 1998 dollars). In fact, since 1998, US defense spending has increased every year. The coming year’s proposed defense budget represents the largest single year increase in spending since the Vietnam War and would put spending at 14% above Cold War averages. Over half of every dollar we send to our government in taxes still goes to support the “military-industrial complex” (Eisenhower, 1960).

Well, at least Russia, which “lost” the Cold War, should be seeing a Peace Dividend, right? No longer a superpower, it ought to be able to slash its military and focus on retooling the remnants of its socialist economy.

Wrong again. As Alexander Golts writes in this issue (page 30), reform of Russia’s military has foundered in the face of the general staff’s boundless self-interest. Meanwhile, as Nabi Abdullaev reports (page 34), the army’s anachronistic system of conscription is perpetuating an inhumane system that most Russians neither want nor like.

Thankfully, the end of the Cold War has brought some changes in non-military hearts and minds. The rest of this issue reflects that. We take you to three very different corners of Russia – the Kurile islands, Buryatia and Pskov – all profoundly changed by events of the past decade. For one, the beautiful Kurile Islands were a military zone during the Soviet era and off limits to foreigners and many Russians.

Perhaps not all Peace Dividends should be measured in dollars.

Enjoy the issue.

Paul Richardson