Letter from Washington: Star-struck and intrigued

The following is the letter I wrote for the Fulbright Australia’s Minds and Hearts Magazine (Winter 2023 edition), after completing my Fulbright Fellowship in Australian-American Alliance Studies at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. in 2023.

The Heart of a Nation

For the last three months I have been on a crash course to understand America.

It’s only the beginning of what I hope will be a long ride to learn about a country as vast, diverse, and complex as the United States. But I am committed–to use an Australian expression–to give it a crack.

I am conscious that I am joining an army of amateur writers depicting their “unique” impressions of places they have “discovered”. So, I won’t be offended if nobody will read mine. It’s simply a record – of an experience that I will forever cherish.

I have been in Washington for almost three months on a Fulbright Scholarship – an opportunity of a lifetime, a reality that I often have to pinch myself to acknowledge.

Boys from Sabaneeva – a rough, working-class suburb of Vladivostok, on Russia’s Pacific coast – do not usually get Fulbright Scholarships or live in Washington. But when they do, they are often star-struck and intrigued. I am.

Star-struck by the understated beauty of the city, its hidden energy, its intellectual life, and its symbols of power. Intrigued and baffled by the contradictions and divisions across political, racial, and socioeconomic lines.

Washington may come across as a bubble within which power, politics, money, and privilege are gained, leveraged and distributed, but as any capital – it’s a reflection of a nation, a beautiful mirror placed in a prominent space with good light, but which stubbornly reveals both beauty and ugliness.

Washington’s beauty shines in spring. I am lucky to be here in the best season, as locals keep telling me. The cherry blossom trees gifted to Washington by Japan are in bloom, transforming the city and drawing huge crowds from around the country.

Ohio Drive Bridge near the George Mason Memorial almost looks like it has been transplanted from Tokyo. I am also fascinated by tulips, appearing everywhere – in backyards and public parks, on the side of pavements and in outdoor pots. It’s exhilarating to see real spring day by day making everything greener and fresher.

After almost twenty years in an evergreen Australia – you come to appreciate the change of seasons.

Gentle and transient blossoms provide a striking contrast to Washington’s colossal and imposing buildings – government headquarters, historical monuments and political and judicial institutions designed to impress and intimidate. They are icons of power reminding visitors and locals alike that they are in the capital of the world’s most powerful nation.

I find striking similarities between Washington, Moscow, and Beijing. The sheer bulk of the buildings, the symmetry, the omnipresence of military and war symbols, the wide boulevards, the flags on every spear and gateway, the constant visual references to history – from ancient Rome to America’s own more recent path to global pre-eminence. The signs of imperial glory.

You are in danger of offending your hosts if you refer to America as an empire. After all, its history is a struggle against empires. But there is no better term to describe what America has become since the end of World War II.

An idealistic, messianic, yet ruthless and self-interested leader of a global network of states bound by the sheer weight of American power, interdependence, shared values, and shared fears.

A dynamic economy unrivalled in recent history, which took capitalism, the industrial revolution and a culture of hard work and turned them into a global financial and economic behemoth that even its fiercest rivals are struggling to challenge or escape.

A colossal military power projecting its force around the world, yet with a trackrecord of defeats against much weaker opponents.

To paraphrase Zhou Enlai’s remark on the impact of the French Revolution – it is far too early to write a definitive story of the United States of America. It’s truly a history in the making. And Washington is both its main writer and protagonist.

We are doing a lot of walking, crisscrossing Washington by foot. It’s the best way to see a city. It’s liberating not to have a car and use your legs to explore the place – feel its pavements and grass, underestimate its distances, get lost without google maps, and find surprising spots and corners.

While Washington is painstakingly orderly and neat, as the weather gets warmer a strong undercurrent of street life emerges. Rowers in Georgetown drying their boats and homeless tent cities at the edge of Foggy Bottom. Street artists at Logan Circle and vendors selling knickknacks at Columbia Heights. Nightclubs in Shaw spilling over the pavement, filling the streets with beats and rhymes. The omnipresent smell of marijuana (legalised in the District of Columbia in 2014) on Washington streets is almost mocking the propriety and conservatism of its architectural exterior and elite culture. Aggressive, horn-happy driving. Every capital city is a contradiction, and Washington is no exception.

To the north of the city – another Washington – still edgy and gritty but going through rapid gentrification. We catch my favourite British band – Sleaford Mods in Washington’s legendary 9.30 Club. Their post-punk, electronic beats and hard-hitting lyrics depicting life at the edge of society is a powerful soundtrack to Washington’s northern suburbs.

I am drawn to the city’s museums and galleries – the custodians of richness, depth and authenticity of American culture and history. I grew up in the old world of Russia and China. For reasons of ideology and false cultural superiority, we were never taught America had a history. Yet, American culture has profoundly influenced many Russians and Chinese, especially in the twentieth century as America’s rise was reshaping the world. For me it was music and literature. Salinger and Lou Reed. Iggy Pop and Allen Ginsberg. Jim Morrison and Walt Whitman. I always wanted to see the land that gave birth to them, and in Washington I can finally get closer to the source.

I am most deeply affected by two of Washington’s sources of wisdom. The National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Museum of the American Indian are monuments to the dark sides of American history – slavery, racism, and dispossession.

NMAAHC is one of the best museums in the world. It accomplishes the impossible by pushing you into the depth of America’s history of slavery and discrimination, brutally and brilliantly depicted in the underground bowels of the Museum, only to drag you to the air and light of its upper floors to celebrate the power, diversity and resilience of Black American culture, politics and people.

NMAI takes a different, less dramatic approach to telling a no less bloody and depressing story of indigenous North Americans and their systematic removal by European settlers. You are taken on a tour of major milestones and events of recent American history and how they forever upended the lives of the continent’s original inhabitants.

Both museums are powerful reminders of how central violence has been to our human story, how recent and raw many of our tragedies are, and how fragile and hypocritical many rules and norms that govern our civility and peace remain.

But above all – these museums speak to the honesty of America. They are confronting and sad, yet optimistic and hopeful. Truth-telling is the best remedy against complacency and amnesia. Truth gives us hope that we have learnt from our past and are committed not to repeat it.

My mind turns to Russia. We have never completed, not even properly started our own truth-telling about what we did to each other and the many nations around us during the 1917 revolution, the civil war and Stalin’s atrocities. We are now facing another, no less confronting reckoning in Ukraine, adding a fresh bloody layer to the traumas of the last century.

Perhaps, not confronting our past explains why we find ourselves at war with the world and with ourselves.

The Life Within

Behind the grand facades of Washington beats a pulse of another life – of intense policy debates and ideation. As an outsider just starting to learn about America, I am lucky to be able to meet some of the best minds in the American foreign policy community.

It’s a captivating and rich intellectual world that is hard to find anywhere else on the planet. After all, this is the epicentre of global power. And Washington is naturally hungry for ideas to shape and grow its power and counter its many challengers.

The focus of my time in Washington is think tanks – those strange beasts operating across boundaries of government, academia, media and civil society. With astonishing pace, they are churning out reports, papers, comments and insights on everything that matters to those who rule the country and by default many parts of the global system. Some institutions are hard to penetrate, but most have been incredibly welcoming and open.

I hope one day to write about the Museum of the Soviet Repressions and the Museum of Russia’s War on Ukraine, standing proudly alongside the Hermitage and the Tretyakov Gallery.

And I hope they will be just as unapologetically honest, but also full of hope and empathy as the museums in Washington.

As an outsider on borrowed time, I am grateful for their hospitality and generosity.

I am also rediscovering the sheer joy of listening. After eight years as the spokesman of an institution in Australia, I cherish every moment to stop talking and just listen to others. A friend notes that Washington’s policy circle is like an intensive mini-PhD on the United States of America, with its foreign policy as a foundational subject. It’s impossible to capture the wealth and diversity of viewpoints on where America is or should be headed.

There are threads and subjects that catch the collective attention and then lose it as the next wave of events and ideas come along. It’s easy to be sceptical about Washington’s intellectual life – its egos and motives, the use of expertise of its most vocal inhabitants for their hidden political or career-advancement agendas.

But I am struck by the sheer size and depth of Washington’s policy ecosystem. The flow of experts between government, business, think tanks, academia and media ensures a cross-pollination of ideas and talent. America’s hyperactive and combative partisan politics often descend into circus and shallow posturing, which is harmful to long-term policymaking that is required for the 21st century.

America Changing the Rules

My three months in Washington are punctuated by the ongoing bloody grind of the war in Ukraine and the ratcheting up of tensions between China and the U.S. The spying balloon incident, Xi’s visit to Moscow and the start of America’s election season creates a cascading pressure on Washington to lead globally, without sacrificing an imperative to rebuild the American economy and society after the havoc of the Trump and pandemic years.

The domestic and global challenges facing America are formidable. An uneasy balance of local and international responsibilities has been a constant feature of the American story. This time America is facing two competitors at the same time: Russia is threatening European security in Ukraine and China is challenging America across all domains of power in Asia and globally.

But it also injects a necessary scrutiny and contestability of ideas which keeps policymakers and experts on their toes.

The competitive nature of America is manifested as much in Washington’s foreign policy ideation as in the rowing contests on the Potomac River.

The confrontation with Russia and competition with China has galvanised the American system. Perhaps having a worthy adversary, let alone two is a shot in the arm America needed to reclaim its mojo. Cold war comparisons are again en vogue across Washington. But history does not really repeat, and defining the contest is as important as drawing swords. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the rivalry with China push Washington’s interpreters of the present and predictors of the future towards historical references that can easily catch the attention of the capital’s informed public.

I was struck how alive the memories of the confrontation with the Soviet Union are, and how strong the influence of policy ideas that shaped it – from Churchill’s Iron Curtain to Kennan’s containment.

But behind the bravado, America and much of the rest of the world also mourn the loss of the two biggest hopes of the late 20th century – the emergence of a democratic or at the very least a benevolent Russia and China. The fact that both China and Russia so decisively have turned against America shows Beijing and Moscow’s own trap of history, the tragedy of great power competition, and the limitations of American primacy. It is undoubtedly hard for America and many of its friends to accept. Yet the world is slowly learning to live with this new reality of fragmentation and conflict.

Yet while America has not been able to shape Russia and China in its image and curtail their ambitions – the future of American power is far from bleak. In fact, some argue that by most measures of power, America’s global pre-eminence is as unchallenged as it has ever been. If this analysis is correct, Washington’s concerns about China are about the changing balance of power, especially in Asia and the emerging multipolarity that both China and Russia are advocating, rather than a reflection of the real erosion of American power. It’s about the rise of others, or more precisely of China, than a decline of America.

And so, Washington’s policy machine is powering on all cylinders. Strategies and reports are flowing. Alliances are formed and reinforced - with India, Australia, Philippines, Japan, Korea and Europe. Politicians, diplomats and generals are on the front foot and marching to defend American-led order. French President Macron’s theatrics aside, America has managed to galvanise transatlantic relations around the cause of Ukraine. America is finally turning its attention to its own capabilities and strengths – from semiconductors to basic manufacturing. Creativity and innovation – fuelled by an open and competitive system – are thriving. Democracy for all its faults and despite many dire predictions is working. One can almost feel the renowned American confidence bursting to the surface in Washington, even as the nation is facing its many internal divisions and the world beyond its borders is far more dangerous and less predictable that what America had hoped for.

To get ahead, America is changing the rules of the global order it created in 1945. The order that served America and its partners so well, but which has also enabled the rise and vengeance of China and Russia.

I was lucky to be a spectator of the speeches by American leaders driving this change. Nothing beats the energy of the room and the orators’ power of conviction. The political speeches are Washington’s soundtrack and its greatest hits.

In Brookings, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman is speaking after the balloon incident, outlining how America will deal with China. She’s careful not to raise the temperature but clear on America’s commitment to compete with Beijing across all domains of power. In Georgetown, one of the Administration’s best performers – Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo presented by far the most ambitious element of Washington’s policy for China - the Chips Act – a generational undertaking to bring the research and manufacturing of semiconductors back to America. A week before I leave, I am back in Brookings to listen to Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor, who brings together most of the pieces of the U.S.China competition puzzle.

The Administration’s formula - invest, align and compete – is a combination of grand strategy, industrial policy and domestic politics. To compete with China and to rebuild the potency of the American industrial base and its working class, the U.S. is willing to step back from its long-held belief in the untamed power of markets, trade liberalisation, open technologies and globally distributed supply-chains. To win the contest with Beijing, the ultimate geoeconomic power, Washington is reinforcing existing and creating new defence and economic alliances, cutting off access to its key technologies and investing in its own capabilities. It’s “America and allies first” strategy that – in its authors’ conviction – will maintain and extend America’s competitive edge over China.

Only time will tell if this is the right response to China’s rise. In the meantime, U.S. - China relations are spiralling into an unknown by the near absence of dialogue, mechanisms to prevent miscalculations and routine communications between leaders.

Neither side seems to understand, let alone accept each other’s red lines. “Black swan” events and actions by other states, beyond U.S. and China’s control, add another layer of unpredictability.

Whether America and China can compete without sliding into an unnecessary and catastrophic war, dragging its allies and the world at large is a bracing prospect. The stakes for Washington, Beijing, and the rest of the world could not be higher.

To Be Yourself is All You Can Do

I often forget that I speak Chinese and Russian – only to be reminded when I see an incorrect or incomplete translation taken out of linguistic, political or cultural context going viral on social media, wreaking havoc on facts, only to be forgotten when our collective attention spans crater.

Unexpectedly, Washington has made me reflect on my own identity. What does it mean to be an Australian of Russian heritage? My two homes sit on opposite sides of America’s spectrum of adversity.

Since the cold war, Australia and the U.S. have never been closer, Russia and U.S have never been further apart. In between them - China, challenging America and aligning with Russia. This three-way relationship fascinates me because it creates such a unique mix of borrowing and rejection, confrontation and reliance, interdependence and dissociation, distrust and obsession. As I shake off my philosophising, I promise myself to use my experiences and skills to understand and explain this triangle of nations, intimately connected yet light years apart, openly or covertly confronting each other yet unsure if either of them can prevail. I feel almost responsible to help make sense of it all. Perhaps my identity is an asset. To be yourself is all that you can do, as the lyrics go in my favourite Chris Cornell song.

On my way to America, I was expected to be questioned about my heritage and allegiance. It’s only natural – with my accent and surname and given the volume of horror Russia is exhuming daily.

Yet my interlocutors are polite and interested. Everyone I spoke with distinguish between the Russian state and people. I hope Russians can reciprocate this generosity when thinking and talking about America. I am also struck how pervasive Russian culture is in the U.S. In the sparkling and imposing Kennedy Centre, I watch Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov and conductor Stanislav Kochanovsky performing Scriabin, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky with Washington’s brilliant National Symphony Orchestra. Kandinskiy and Malevich are on prominent display at the National Art Gallery. Have they all spawned from the same land that now dominates the news for entirely different reasons? They have. Countries have many faces.

As I count my days before departing Washington, I am soaking up memories, spending as much time as I can in Georgetown that has become my home here. It is an old, almost medieval-looking neighbourhood in the west of the city. Georgetown University where I am based is the heart of the district. Its magnificent Healy Hall dominates the landscape. Students are rushing between buildings or chilling out in wooden chairs on the lawn. The residential area around the University is a grid of tree-lined streets with immaculate brick, stone and weatherboard townhouses, showing off colours and ornaments of their facades and doorways. Tulips in tiny front yards.

Our final chance to see a concert at the Kennedy Centre. We’re lucky – it’s Abdullah Ibrahim, a jazz legend, and a South African icon. He delivers a world-class performance for this worldly city. I will miss this place.

In conclusion, some words of gratitude. To all I have met in Washington who were so generous with their time and wisdom. To the city that was so welcoming and absorbing. To America that I am so looking forward to discovering.

To the Fulbright Program for making it possible. I have always believed in the power of scholarships. On more than one occasion scholarships have changed the course of my life.

I would not have been able to study and stay in China, find my life partner and a new home in Australia 7 years later if it was not for a scholarship to study in China from my Russian university.

I would not have witnessed how China trains its education leaders and later contribute to Australian diplomacy if it was not for the Endeavour scholarship –the brainchild of Australia’s first female prime minister Julia Gillard.

Fast forward to 2023 and I would not have been able to discover America, if in 1945, U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright did not introduce a bill in the Congress that – in the best tradition of American idealism, pragmatism and creativity – proposed to use surplus war property to fund the 'promotion of international good will through the exchange of students in the fields of education, culture, and science.'

80 years later as the world is again facing wars and calamities, scholarships keep generating good will, bringing people, nations and perspectives together –quietly but persistently, outside media headlines and Twitter battles.

And those of us who are privileged to receive them will have a lot to give back to the communities and countries we serve.

I, for one, am ready to give my best.