Dear Community of CCI Friends,
Following the February 2016 trip to St. Petersburg, Moscow and Volgograd, I took time out to restore my energy systems––they were near depleted from the past year of travel and 70-hour work weeks. Next was to re-examine how to best use CCI’s resources in the coming months. And last, to determine what was behind my totally unexpected and bizarre “pick-up” and detainment during the Volgograd Rotary meeting on February 18th––and to assure my Visa status for future travel in Russia.
In this April 2016 President’s Report, I want to share with you the extreme seriousness of the current situation between Washington and Moscow. It has been an extraordinarily dangerous game of international wits and high stakes since the beginnings of the Maidan protests in 2014. Yet U.S.mainstream media have provided little coverage of the grave standoff between the two nuclear Superpowers.
I’m particularly concerned about how our current Washington policy makers appear to be following the 1990’s Wolfowitz Doctrine. The Doctrine basically says that America has the right to take out, or take down, any nation that might compete for resources needed by us, the one remaining Superpower––or might threaten America’s hegemony (our #1 place in the world).
I believe Russia is perceived as a “Wolfowitz-level threat” because of its potential to rise as a world competitor for international trade and resources, not to mention that it holds some of the world’s largest oil and gas fields. Is there a possibility that the powers that be are interested in neutralizing Russia or making it subservient to our future needs and circumstances?
During the 1990s Russia was considered unimportant when it was lawless, corrupt and run by a sick and inebriated Boris Yeltsin. In 2000 when Vladimir Putin was unexpectedly pushed into prominence, everything changed. In 2013 I asked a seasoned US diplomat, “When did Washington’s elite decide to turn against Russia.” He answered: “The minute it became known that Vladimir Putin would succeed Yeltsin, the knives were drawn.”
Although I didn’t realize it at the time, my book “The Power of Impossible Ideas: Ordinary Citizens’ Efforts to Avert International Crises” chronicled this turn of events from year 2001 forward. Only looking back on Part II of my book did I comprehend what was becoming obvious in real time.
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on which side one is standing, Vladimir Putin is a fierce patriot of Russia. He has been since he was a teenager, as told to me by a Russian friend who went to school with him. He will do whatever necessary to preserve the right for Russia to have an equal seat at the table with the world’s nations. I’m totally convinced that Putin does NOT aspire to Russia being the world’s #1 power, but I do believe he is dedicated to the multipolar world concept where the major nations find ways to cooperate in an environment of mutual respect. This in effect would nullify the Wolfowitz Doctrine. Putin clearly stated his case in 2007 at the Munich Security Conference where Heads of States from around the world were gathered.
Is this why Putin is vilified and continually accused of endless crimes––none of which have been verified? Is this why Russia’s 2014 Olympic games at Sochi were boycotted? Is this why Russia’s role in Ukraine and Syria has been subjected to so much biased reporting?
For honest news regarding Russia one must go to the investigative journalists of the world. I believe the most reliable source is America’s Robert Parry of Consortium News, an Internet news service. Parry was presented Harvard University’s prestigious I.F. Stone Award of 2015––the top Journalistic Award of the Year for investigative journalism. However, he is blocked from contributing to America’s mainstream media. Other excellent investigative journalists are writing continuously on Internet, but are seldom read or heard about by most of us throughout America.
Only with the Russia’s recent success in Syria fighting ISIS, ISIL, Al-Nusra, etc., has the western narrative about Russia’s motives given hints of possible change.
As March ends, it appears that President Obama, John Kerry and a few others are beginning to balk at the Wolfowitz supporters and are trying to re-introduce diplomacy into the U.S.-Russian relationship. Still there are many in Congress, the Pentagon and NATO who are very much into war mode. One wonders if they would rather risk WWIII than to give up their decades of mistrust for all things Russian?
The next year will reveal whether those Washington voices will choose a negotiating path––or continue to push forward with the Wolfowitz Doctrine. The world’s future hangs in the balance …. albeit with a glimmer of hope on the horizon.
We must break through the lack of knowledge that exists throughout our country. We need a radically new “public awareness campaign” that supports an agenda for cooperative relations between the two nuclear Superpowers.
Sharon Tennison,
CCI Founder and President