Through all its five acts the drama has run its course; the light of history is switched off, the world stage dims, the actors shrivel, the chorus sinks. The war of the giants has ended; the quarrels of the pygmies have begun- Churchill, The Aftermath 1929
Fukuyama, in a seeming play off of Churchill wrote:
What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government
Of course, he asserted that this did not mean the end of events nor that dictatorships or tyranny would not again raise their heads. His purpose was to anoint liberal democracy as King of the Mountain. Or, if we prefer, "The Shining City on the Hill".
The problem for most is that they ignored the actual meaning and asserted the supremacy of liberal democracy to mean that it would remain largely unchallenged. That, in the words of Churchill, we would now enter a long period of eternally sleeping giants with nothing but the quarrel of pygmies to entertain us. Quarrels we could and would maneuver to our benefit or ignore with limited peril.
In the decade after the collapse of the Soviet government of Russia, the US spent a considerable amount of time and energy developing a relationship with emerging China. Post Tiananmen Square, China had spent a considerable amount of time rebranding it's image as a liberalizing nation, open for business.
The old Soviet Union, now broken into pygmy states, was no threat and full of exploitable resources. Russia's internal situation was now known. Their manufacturing and economic base had been slowly strangled and so had it's population. The Soviet Man Behind the Curtain was shown to be mostly a Carnival Act, but with Nukes.
The United States and others took their cue from these findings. Secure the nukes, mine the resources and let the Russians sort out their own affairs. It would keep them busy for awhile.
The first clue that this was a short lived reprieve was the resignation of Yeltsin. The second, the flattening of Grozny, 1999-2000. Finally, the emergence of Putin, known KGB, as the President and Prime Minister for the next 20 years. Chechnya was the straw that broke the camel's back. The Chechen, Dagestan and Ingushetia region defends Russia's underbelly, but also guards Russia's largest and most productive oil and natural gas producing fields on the Caspian Sea.
Dagestan as a separate state would have effectively cut off Russia from the majority of it's income producing resource. Like Georgia, it would have sought protection from NATO. The Chechen Rebellion was bleeding into Dagestan and Ingushetia. The US and NATO seemed to be supporting the rebels. If not materially, politically.
In Putin's mind and those with him, this was not just the business of freeing resources, but the purpose was the utter ruination of Russia. The whittling of the state to a defenseless and economic weakling with all the power of the neighboring state of Mongolia.
A veritable Pygmy in a Giant's body.
The problem for Russia was that the US did not see the Soviet government's collapse as the end of efforts. Russia had played a stalling role in the Bosnia-Serbia Affair and the US and Russia had several tense moments that resulted in Russia backing down.
The loss of the Balkans, their resources and their ports was a significant blow to Russia's viability. It's greatest fear was being cut off from the Mediterranean once again. The Russians considered this to be a deliberate effort of the US and NATO towards it's ultimate destruction. The reach into Georgia and then seemingly into the Volga region with the Chechen rebellion was part of that planned destruction. Or so it seemed to Putin et al.
As opposed to what now seems to be the stumbling, bumbling of a Giant reaching for as many resources as possible.
