Here is the opposite theory: It is precisely the familiarity with the modern West on the elite level that emboldened Putin. His aggression in Ukraine is likely to go on.
I would put the emphases a bit differently, but I think his is a plausible theory as well. My chief corrective to Ben Judah's piece is that the Putin circle in RF is culturally unable to see past their cynicism, so their conclusion that Europe is all wimps and Obama is incapable of rational action is on a shaky ground because they assume their own cynicism to prevail with everyone else.
What do you think?
Ah , Stalin murdered all the Smart People ?
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It seems that the longer the article, after a critical legnth, the more propaganda is in it
likely, there’s a one word, one name, answer to the question
I grew up in the Cold War so I have an innate distrust for the Russians. I believe Putin, ex KGB, measured the resolve of his enemies and determined it lacking. He / the Russians probably engineered the turmoil in Ukraine as a pre-fab excuse to invade. After seeing how Iran and North Korea BSed the US, he gambled that the worst that will happen to him is a strongly worded statement. I suspect he’s right
Our government can't even balance a budget or control it's own borders...No doubt Russia sees us not only as irrational inept wimps, but now an immoral country which stand for little or nothing except for government insatiable appetite for more punitive control of it's own people.
Just the opposite of what America was supposed to be.
THE WEST IS WEAK.THE WEST IS DECADENT.
Sanctions against Russia will only be modestly effective if and only if Germany is an enthusiastic participant. Highly unlikely. Germany will tire of subsidizing its debt ridden non productive Western and Southern European partners. It will revive the German Russian economic trade sphere which between 1870 and 1914 was one of the world’s most dynamic. Russia for all its faults still has boundless resources and potential. Russia will reincorporate Crimea the way China took Tibet. The West which is in decline cannot prevent it. Ironically Ukraine and Poland will be at the center of this prosperous Central European economic axis.
Because Putin recognizes Obama hates the West more than he does.
I think it sounds like the same trash talk from Russia I heard from them 30 years ago. Maybe it’s just me.
I think the Russians started to to transition from Rule of Man to Rule of Law in 1993, and have made a little progress.
They must be curious as to why the United states transitioned in 1789 and then back again in 1992.
Nature abhors a vacuum. And the US (under Obama) has left one within the sphere of global power.
I think it’s possible he will take his winnings and go home in order to make our fearless leader look good. Reform in Ukraine will appear to be working at least for the short term. The levers of control for Russia will remain ready to be picked up when needed.
I’ll be interested to see how this pans out with respect to the European currencies and the Dollar. It appears on the face that this could accelerate divesting from them.
One third of Moscow is moslems. They pray in the streets and shut down traffic on holidays. Only one mosque and the fight is on to make sure there are no more. Europe is drowning in moslems which are seen as no real threat by the academic elite who know no religon save $$$$$
The dechristianized west ignores how Orthodox Russia plans to deal with the rising tide of moslems. The Clintons created a hell hole in Kosovo when they destroyed Christian Serbia in the name of social justice for moslems (payoffs to the Clintons are ongoing - old story - corruption at the top to sell out the Christian peasants). Without the Orthodox Serbs allied with Russia, you have an open corridor to Europe for an ancient evil - the moslem hordes:
The Kosovo Liberation Army is an Albanian-based Islamic mujahideen force which is listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization. They are funded by European Islamic charities, the Shi'ite theocracy in Iran, al-Qaeda, and the sale of heroin. According to the Geopolitical Observatory of Drugs in Paris, "The KLA has built a vast heroin network that reaches from the opium fields of Pakistan to the black-market arms dealers in Switzerland. They transport $2 billion worth of illegal drugs annually into the heart of Europe.".
Excellent — but depressing — analysis. Thanks for the flag.
We are fighting like hell to make sure some homo can get a wedding cake while our military is putting on cross dressing caberet shows and the author asks why Russia doesn’t fear the west?
I think Putin will posture about the future of Ukraine... But for now will settle for the Crimean peninsula. And he’ll get to keep it, without firing a single shot in anger.
Because that’s what he wanted.
We are being taken to school, gentlemen. Best we at least learn something.
“Europe is all wimps and Obama is incapable of rational action”
Fully agree with this part of your point.
Not much with the rest.
The West is intelectually incapable to get off the manichean scheme “we good, Soviets bad”. If you could have watched the political shows in Europe, you’d be astonished at the number of times politicians and journalists said “Soviet Union” instead of “Russia”, even though, the new generation of Russians, born in the late 80ies, NEVER lived in Soviet Union.
There is NO agression on Ukraine.
It’s highly ironical that the West and the putschistes from Kiev rely on the gesture of a communist drunkard like Krustchev, who attached Crimea to the SSR of Ukraine in 1954, to talk about “legitimacy”. Crimea has NEVER been truly ukrainian, since its conquest by Catherine the Great army in 1774, it belonged to Russia and later to SSR of Russia.
Anyway, the will of the people of Crimea will be known on March 16, when they decide by referendum on the future of their autonomous republic.
Ten days more to wait.
Demos - people, Kratos -power; that’s what the democracy is about. No to EU, no to NATO, no to UN, all non-elected entities; enough with them to make the law and oppose the peoples’ will, like they did also in Bosnia and Serbia and now in Ukraine.
The West is Weak.