I lie Vladimir Putin-he seems like a man who has the interests of of his country at heart. Russia should be a natural ally of the USA-so why are we povoking them? Why is NATO being extended to eastern europe? Putin made it clear he didn’t want that. and the anti-missile shield-Putin told us that if we went ahead, he would develp a counter system. Russia has vast oil resources-and uranium as well-so it should be a partner, not an adversary.
So what if the guy is a bit fascistic-is he any worse than Gen. Musharraf?
There are a number of factors at play here:
- Putin trying to show that he’s in charge in a Russia where a great deal of the populace have this absurd “romantic” image of their “glorious” past
- A huge military-industrial complex in the U.S. that is kept alive by absurd projects such as the missile shield, etc
- An idiot U.S. president who is surrounded by chicken hawks and others who have their pockets lined by the oil and defense industry
- A desperate need in the Russian military to show that it is still, somewhat, relevant, even though its mostly a bunch of rusted out junk
did I miss any others?
My impression of Putin is that he is trynig to consolidate personal power for himself. If anything, I would pose the question in the reverse.
Vladimir Putin is “a bit fascistic” in the same way that water is slightly wet. The only thing that trumps Putin’s despotic behavior is his bald avarice. Despite the impression that the o.p. has of him, as “a man who has the interests of of his country at heart,” Putin has dismantled what remained of the ex-Soviet industrial infrastructure, selling or giving bits and pieces to friends with cash and influence, making him one of the richest men on the planet. There’s considerable speculation that he manipulated the “Rouble Crisis of 1998” intentionally to displace Yeltsin, and the Russian government has engaged in a suppression of press and inprisonment campaign since the beginning of his reign that was unseen since at least Brezhnev’s days. The SVR–Russian Foreign Intellegence Service, or the successor to the KGB’s First Directorate–has gained increasing control and a larger presence in Russian governmental affairs in the late Yeltsin and Putin administrations (this was of course Putin’s formative service) and the number of assassinations and other unsavory events with which they’ve been either admitted or suspected involvement makes the CIA’s forays into Latin and South America during the Cold War look like schoolyard play. The saber rattling between former superpowers is just that; a dance to make each look impressive to their respective constituants while making the residences of Europe feel around for their wallets and wonder what new and crazy shit is going to come down the pipe this time. Putin understands how to appeal to the Russian people–i.e. via their insecurities and fear of being left behind culturally and technologically–while making off with the baker’s sugar and selling dearly what was built on the torn knuckles and weary muscles of GULAG prison labor like the skilled robber barron that he is.
The proposed European anti-ballistic missile system is a fop; even without countermeasures it could easily be overwhelmed by the (presumably still somewhat operational) Russian ICBM fleet, and in fact only exists as an exercise to increaase American presence in Europe where it is otherwise not needed, and keep this program–which is near operational fulfillment–going for another five years. (Don’t talk to me about Iranian ICBM’s threatening the US or Northern Europe unless you’re prepared to demonstrate that their capabilities are substantially more than a decade ahead of where the most optimistic estimates have them.) And if the nations of Eastern Europe want to join NATO–certainly a more powerful alliance and mediating organization than the UN will ever hope to be in the European theater–they’re doing so at their benefit of security and economics, not because of some paranoic scheme that the US has for surrounding Russia.
The ship for making Russia an economic and political partner in world affairs sailed long before Yeltsin left office; Boris was essentially left to sink or swim with his economic reforms, which in hindsight were ill-informed if well-intentioned for how weak they left the Russian economy in challenge to privateers willing to take–sometimes by force–government industries and run them into the ground at their own profit, then stash the cash in off-shore banking and run to the IMF and World Bank claiming hardship. Had Yeltsin been well supported–fiscally and politically–from the beginning, Russia today might be very different. But the prospect of cheap labor and high technology frightened the then dominant economic powers in North America and on the Pacific Rim, and with the exception of waffling help from Europe Russia was left to be stripped like a Cadillac on a Harlem street at midnight.
The comparison with Pervez Musharraf is disingeneous; despite our current association with this man and his militaristic regime, this isn’t an example of something we should be affiliated with. At any rate, the Russian government no more wants cooperation with the US than vice versa, and the pretense (whether it is feigned or felt) of adversary serves both ends to the middle. I think gatorman has it mostly right, except that I wouldn’t be too disparaging about Russian military hardware; while it’s true that must was left to linger and rust in the past decade and such, Putin has made military development a top priority, receiving a lion’s share of what monies the government has collected, and if the missile system they’re developing isn’t quite as capable as they’ve claimed, neither are American defenses. In any case, their legacy systems, while almost certainly past design lifetimes, are still more than a complementary threat to our own dramatically scaled back systems. We would not want to get into a duel with the former Soviet Union, and no one would come off from such a thing unscathed. Putin doesn’t really give a screaming fuck about the future of Russia, however, except insofar as it makes him more money or influence, in the same way that Stalin devestated the Soviet economy and military with his own particular brand of megalomanical crazy.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn would weep of what has become of post-Soviet Russia.
Stranger
Interesting read, Stranger. Do you see any chance for a “grass roots” political movement not involving a return to Communism breaking the grip of the new Oligarchs, and putting Russia on the path of something resembling economic development?
If you call Russia a natural ally of the US, I’d love to see the list of powerful countries that you do not think are our natural allies. What do Russia and the US have in common, besides a shared hate of Nazis (after June 22, 1941, that is)?
And you might want to ask yourself why so many of the countries on the periphery of Russia want to join NATO. It’s not like we put a gun to Hungary’s head and forced them to join.
To protect Eastern Europe from Russia. All of Europe has started feeling Russia’s muscles flexing, not just former Soviet bloc countries, whether it be the UK and Norway being buzzed by Russian aircraft, Estonian computer networks being bombarded by [presumably government backed] Russian hackers, Russian involvement with election fixing in the Ukraine, shady assassinations in London, gas and oil pipes being shut off etc. etc.
Russia isn’t our friend. Expanding NATO is the best thing that could possibly happen.
Wow. What a terrific load of nonsense.
First - Solzhenitsyn is alive! **Doh! ** :eek:
Further, he is a Putin supporter!! Double Doh! :smack:
You can catch excerpts of his interview with Spiegel Magazine earlier this year on my blog.
Secondly - you can not point to a single Putin policy or action that could be characterized as fascist. Try to find them - there are none. Under examination they evaporate. There are many problems in Russia, but Putin being a fascist simply is not one of them. Russians are free to demonstrate and protest within the limits of the laws on public assembly, just as they are within the US. For instance, with most of this police business with Kasparov and the political party he and Limonov formed, Другая Россия (Other Russia) was nonsense. Other Russia had obtained a permit from the city to assemble and hold their protest and speeches. However, they were required to do this within a certain square in the city and were prohibited from marching. They went ahead and marched anyway, basically to make headlines in the West and get more attention. In Russia, Kasparov is admired as a chess player, but panned as a politician.
This is not to say there is no suppression of dissent in modern Russia. However all modern states, including the U.S., suppress dissent with various methods. You could more easily make a case of the U.S. rising towards fascism than Russia these days (and I don’t think the U.S. is becoming fascist either). In general, if I had to characterize what is going on in Russia, I would call it a plutocracy.
I have the sense that you know nothing about Russia other than what you read in some Western newspapers. Clearly, our newspapers are doing their job in misinforming the populace and stirring up animosity.
Now, to get to the point of this thread, yes, I would say that the United States and NATO have done many things to provoke Russia. Chief among these I would say are:
- The combined Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty and expansion of NATO. If you make a study of this, it becomes clear that NATO currently has Russian outgunned by a ratio of between 2 to 3 to 1. The CFE treaty encourages this. Further, NATO outflanks Russia and Russia is in violation of the treaty at any time if it consolidates its forces in any region of the European half of the country to meet an outside threat. Due to the nature of the CFE treaty and its division of Europe into concentric zones, Russia is the only nation that is not permitted to move its forces within its own borders.
If you dig a little deeper into the CFE it is even more bizarre than that, as NATO nations haven’t yet signed off on the CFE treaty anyway, although Russia had. NATO nations have made their ratification contingent on the closure of Russian military bases in Georgia, and the evacuation of Russian weaponry from Transdneister. This would be like Russia making signing of the CFE treaty contingent upon the closure of NATO bases and removal of forces from Kosovo.
So Russia was essentially self-limiting themselves by conforming to the CFE with no agreement from NATO.
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The anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system we’ve proposed for Poland and the Czech Republic. From a Russian military point of view, we are completely enveloping their country with advanced radar systems (which do more than monitor ballistic missile launches) and ABMs. The only country that has ICBM systems that can be targetted is Russia. Russia is fully aware of this, and any talk of Iran having ICBMs capable of targeting Europe and the U.S. is premature. Surely Iran would target Israel long before that in any case, and the proposed system doesn’t provide protection for Israel from such an attack.
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Foreign funding of NGOs. Prior to recent changes in Russian laws, foreign governments were free to channel money into NGOs in Russia. We don’t permit this in the US and most European nations also prohibit this. Russia changed their NGO laws to match this and the West had a collective fit, calling it a crackdown and suppression of freedoms, etc. Hardly.
Essentially we were complaining about being no longer able to meddle in Russian domestic affairs or use NGOs as a cover for creating and manipulating dissent within Russia.
- Kosovo, Transdniester, Abkhazia and other disputed regions. Basically, the US and Russia are completely opposed on how to resolve the status of these territories and we are content to attempt to ram our version of how they should be resolved (independent or not) down Russia’s throat. Our viewpoint is inconsistent, as basically US policy is that Kosovo should be independent and Transdniester and Abkhazia should not (both regions are largely pro-slavic/pro-Russian).
There are other topics and areas as well, where we appear to want to unilaterally push our policies upon Russia.
None of this is to say that I think all Russian foreign policies are without flaws or designed to manipulate or advance their economic or international status. Certainly they are becoming more aggressive at advancing their position, particularly through using gas and oil and control of its distribution as leverage.
But U.S. policies are definitely tweaking Russia’s nose and they were bound to notice eventually. It is funny, because it generally appears that Putin and Russia would like to have closer relations with the United States, but our policies and actions really prohibit this. His actual words, which were edited out of his recent Times Man of the Year interview (or censored if you wish to take that point of view) were as follows:
The underlined sections were edited out of the Times magazine interview.
Thread from last year, based on an article by Stephen Cohen in The Nation, arguing that U.S. relations with Russia have been veering toward a new Cold War for some time, and this time the U.S. is the clear aggressor. Key points of the article:
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Since 1991 the U.S. has insisted on treating Russia as a defeated enemy, even though it never was actually defeated in war and its armed forces, though pared down, remain intact.
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U.S. leaders have been bent on acting as if America is now the “world’s only superpower,” disregarding that, by common consensus of historians, Russia, by virtue of its human and material endowments, has always been destined to be a great power.
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U.S. leaders have consistently denied Russia has any legitimate interests outside its own borders, while aggressively pursuing U.S. interests all over the world, including in the former USSR.
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In military terms, the U.S. has been steadily encircling Russia – expanding NATO eastward, and establishing bases in former union republics.
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The U.S. has aggressively interfered in the politics of former union republics. One could argue we have been serving the cause of democracy by doing this; OTOH, we have simultaneously made alliances with remarkably loathsome dictators in Uzbekistan, etc. (just like we did throughout the Cold War).
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American political and economic “missionary” work in Russia in the early '90s did the country more harm than good. “Economic shock therapy” gave the Russians a privatized economy – mostly, privatized into the hands of former Communist Party officials, plus plain gangsters and thugs; and until the past few years it wasn’t working at all well as an economy.* We supported Yeltsin when he shelled Parliament, ushering in absolutist presidential rule. The authoritarian Putin (almost the only popular person in the Russian government right now, perhaps because the people perceive he’s the only thing holding it all together) is a monster of our own making.
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And now (July 2006) we’re making noises about establishing “democracy” in Russia itself, threatening to boycott the G-8 summit in Russia, etc.
Russia isn’t concerned about world peace or the state of the planet Russia is concerned about Russia.
Putins main objective appears to be promoting the power of Russia regardless of serious problems in the world rather like a school bully who just wants to be noticed for any or no reason at all.
And this is different than the United States of America … how? For all our talk about being a world leader, time and time again we’ve demonstrated we only care about our self-interests.
This sounds good, but you might try citing some facts to support this. Actually you have no leg to stand upon.
The US approach to international politics in recent years has been all stick and no carrot. That is bullying. The Russian approach has been more pragmatic, and is not always bent on directly promoting its own power.
Consider the case of Iran’s development of nuclear power. Our own intelligence reports show that Iran has abandoned nuclear weapon development since 2003 and the evidence is this was at the behest of Russia. It appears to be a case where diplomacy worked. The Russian government sees nuclear power as something nations have a right to develop; the US suspects anyone other than our closest allies having nuclear power as a threat. It’s as if in American politicians minds, nuclear power plant = nuclear bomb.
In those areas where Russia seeks to exert its influence upon its neighbors, in the sale and distribution of gas and oil, for example, it appears the examples they are following are entirely capitalistic. They have learned to maximize the value of a product they need to be in control of its distribution as much as possible.
Any complaints about this would appear to be a teacher scolding a student for learning the lessons all too well.
Soviet policy in that area was no different, AFAIK.
So how much credence do folks around here put into the suspicions that Putin has been having political opponents and prominent critics murdered?
Nah its just a coincidence that the people murdered just happened to be opponents of his,just as it was coincidental that the recent electoral reforms have made it all but impossible for the current opposition parties to get elected into office.
The physical attacks on demonstrations about such serious threats to his country as Gay Libbers by NeoFascist militias without seemingly much opposition from the Moscow police are only youthfull high spirits and not suppression of freedom of speech.
And the Russian warplanes making probing flights into Britains airspace are doing it because there is obviously a very good chance of the U.K. declaring war on Russia (for reasons that for the moment escape me. )in the near future.
The Russian agitating in the Balkans is obviously motivated by Humanitarian concerns,either that or the strategic threat to Russia posed by a few Kosovan goatherds.
The U.S isn’t perfect but trying to portray it and Russia as two sides of the same coin displays a deep level of credulity to say the least.
Uh, NATO does not equal the ‘US’. The US is a part of NATO. The largest part for sure, but still only a part.
If those countries bordering Russia choose to be a part of NATO instead of allying themselves with Russia, or at least remaining independant, then maybe Russia should take a look at what makes its neighbours feel more trusting of NATO and not of them.
Well, no. The full interview was available on the Times website (I know, I read it). Perhaps the print version didn’t carry those words, but the website did.
BTW, did you read your own cite - an article detailing anti-Western propaganda within Russia?
A terrific load of nonsense yourself. I “can’t point to a single Putin policy or action that could be characterized as fascist”? Let’s take his subordination of the Russian Orthodox Church to the service of the Russian government as an example. It’s well known that advancement in the Church is strongly tied to the holding of favored political positions, and the ROC holds a favored place within Russian law. Putin has tied the Church to increasing nationalism, and has penalized dissenters within the Church clergy. There is an article in last Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal regarding Putin’s manipulation of the Church to his own ends.
In general, Putin is establishing a cult of personality about himself, and makes no bones about continuing his hold on power after his presidency expires by dint of placing a figurehead as President and having himself appointed Prime Minister. Posters and figures of Putin are a regular sight around Moscow, reminiscent of other despotic figures of the past, and state-sponsors “youth groups” like Walking Together and Nashi are distinguishable from the Hitler Youth only by the language that they speak and the uniforms that they wear; they should similiar propagandistic slogans and the same sputtering hatred of Jews, Communists, and labor unions as the children of Nazi Germany. Certainly, modern Russia is a plutocracy, focused on funnelling as much hard currency out of government coffers and into private bank accounts as possible, but Putin is after even more than that.
The notion that “Russians are free to demonstrate and protest within the limits of the laws on public assembly, just as they are within the US,” is baldly untrue. Oh, Russian laws may permit such, just as they recognize the merit of a free press…which doesn’t prevent peaceful demonstrations from being disrupted or journalists from being harassed, their stories spiked, and in many cases, being threatened or killed under highly suspicious circumstances. And attempting to deflect these criticisms with a defense that the U.S. does this as well–even when this is somewhere near reality–is no defense of Russia, but a condemnation of actions past and present where the U.S. has not lived up to its own standards.
Stranger