26 The Nation. May 28, 2018
coincidence to establish causation.
This kind of argumentation occurs
throughout The Road to Unfreedom. “The
first order of business for Russian foreign
policy in the United Kingdom,” Snyder
tells us at another point, “was actually
Scottish separatism.” Again, he supplies no
evidence whatsoever that the independence
referendum was the product of Russian
plotting; nor does he discuss why the Scots
themselves may have conceived the idea
of splitting from Great Britain. Instead,ah mulato tu dedo
dónde lo dejaste
enredado en qué helice en qué fauce
quién lo conserva de recuerdo en un frasquito de cristal
quién lo usa para carnada con qué pescar tiburones
quién lo apoya en su barbilla para otear pelícanos y
murallas.
acaso, mulato
fue alimento de alguien que se moría de miedo en una
balsa
vadeando algún río
trepando alguna verja
cruzando algún desierto
para cambiar de identidad.
lo tiene acaso algún niñito moribundo que quiso
respirar por tu piel
mientras caía al fondo
—mantarraya de sal
las aguas andaban vivas por tu dedo.
las aguas ardían de huellas dactilar
mulato
quién te besó el dedo de cuajo
quién te lo arrancó tierno...
los guardacostas te levantaron casi ahogado
para meterte en el corral
y el documento ausente de tu dedo te traiciona
traspapelado
quién te toma huella ahora mulato
ah?MAYRA SANTOS-FEBREShe details the Russian media’s false reports
about the potential ill effects of Scotland
remaining in the UK and describes Rus-
sia’s post-referendum attempts to promote
the idea that the vote had been rigged. It
is disturbing, of course, that Russia was
trying to spread false information and sow
doubt about the legitimacy of Scotland’s
democratic processes; but the majority of
Scottish voters rejected separatism, and the
referendum results stand.
Snyder takes a similar approach to Brexit
and Trump, downplaying the role of home-
grown political forces and exaggerating the
decisiveness of Russian propaganda cam-
paigns. “In 2016,” he writes, “the British voted
to leave the European Union, as Moscow had
long advocated, and Americans elected Don-
ald Trump as their president, an outcome
Russians had worked to achieve.” But just
because Russia may have desired or attempted
to contribute to these outcomes doesn’t mean
Russia caused them. To make that argument,
one needs evidence of an organized plan of
action, as well as proof that this plan exerted a
decisive effect on voting behaviors.
Snyder rails against Russia’s blanket
rejection of facts and objectivity and writes
that Western journalists, by contrast, are
“taught to report various interpretations of
the facts.” But despite his many footnotes,
he does not seem to follow this practice
himself, even when presenting interpreta-
tions that are widely disputed by reputable
scholars and journalists. This one-sided-
ness is particularly glaring in his depiction
of Russia’s attitude toward the EU, NATO,
and the United States. His book’s time
frame is curiously short; he makes it sound
as if Russia “turned against the European
Union” in 2013, in some kind of instant
about-face, because “its success might
encourage Russians to think that former
empires could become prosperous democ-
racies.” But Russia’s relationship with the
EU, and especially with the US and NATO,
had been deteriorating for some time. Rus-
sia certainly uses these “external enemies”
as foils in its domestic propaganda, but
there were specific geopolitical reasons for
its growing hostility, notably the eastward
expansion of the EU and NATO after the
end of the Cold War, as well as NATO’s
1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, which infuri-
ated Russia. These factors would be clearer
with a wider time frame and a fuller consid-
eration of the actions of the West as well
as those of Russia. But Snyder is unwilling
to make the slightest effort to imagine that
Russia might have any strategic concerns
that go beyond its plot against freedom.