Posted on 03/08/2014 5:12:50 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
What is Vladimir Putin up to? The crisis in Ukraine, brought to a boil when Russia’s president sent troops into the Crimean peninsula, has created almost a cottage industry of guessing at the autocratic leader’s intentions from one day to the next.
When it comes to Putin’s long-term strategy, however, there is at least one concrete plan that offers some insight, and one specific date that Russia observers are looking ahead to. That date, Jan. 1, 2015, is expected to mark the birth of an important new organization linking Russia with an as-yet-undetermined constellation of its neighboring countries—an alliance Putin has dubbed the Eurasian Union.
Currently, only two nations besides Russia, Belarus and Kazakstan, have signed on. A number of other post-Soviet states, including Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, have signaled interest in joining. It’s expected to build on an existing regional trade pact to establish common policies on labor migration, investment, trade, and energy.
But from the moment Putin announced his plan, experts have believed he sees it as the linchpin of something much larger: a new geopolitical force capable of standing up to Russia’s competitors on the world stage in a way it hasn’t been able to since the fall of the Soviet Union. “We suggest a powerful supranational association capable of becoming one of the poles in the modern world,” wrote Putin in the 2011 op-ed in which he first described his vision...
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...
How long before China makes something similar?
Territorial ambition to reassemble the old Soviet Empire, using the carrot-and-stick approach. Carrot in the form of available energy (at whatever price the Russian Federation oligarchy wants to charge to the recipients), and stick in the form of physical coercion to get the “vote” desired, mostly by locking the legislative bodies up in a building until they come out with the “legal” authorization for the desired outcome.
It might be noted that both the Current Regime now squatting in the White Hut in Washington, acting capital of that territory once known as “the United States of America”, and the Putin Regime in Moscow, are playing the same general game, but the Russians are infinitely much better at this game than The Won. He is hopelessly outclassed in this confrontation. A game of chess against a game of marbles is perhaps a very appropriate assessment of the relative strengths of the players.
Yeah, Vietnam, Korea, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, New Zealand, Oceania and Australia.
Putin’s a globalist? Some might get upset with that . . . .
The Great Game goes on, thar’s all.
Since we have no one competent to play it the media must pretend otherwise.
The idea of rebuilding Soviet economic and sociocultural links is a long-term project.
Putin’s mistake is in dragging a resistant Ukraine into his pet project. To many in Kiev, its just a rebranded Soviet Union.
Its premature and maybe one day its time will come. But I don’t see Ukraine getting on board with it as long as Putin is on the scene in Moscow.
The Axis of Nogoodnick.
Rush has been saying Putin is trying to reconstitute the Soviet Union but something much bigger could be at stake that probably includes China and the rest of Asia. Keep the powder dry.
And just exactly how do they propose to make money and compete in the world economy? Putin is basically selling oil and gas, and importing food and finished goods from the west. That is an economic model that has many perils.
I the meantime, the Russian population is steadily shrinking, as ‘immigrants’ start to move in. This cannot be good.
Long term, I don’t see how Russia can build and sustain a “Eurasian Union”. They have nukes and natural gas, but their birth rate is far below the replacement rate, so eventually there won’t be enough Russians around to back up the bluster of the Kremlin.
It’s been tried. It was called the Soviet Union.
You’re correct. That’s why we need to take the steps necessary to export LNG AND cut Russia off at the knees. Putin will be sucking win when we take the cheap natural gas cleaver to his Euro sales. The EU would happily help.
To understand what’s behind the Russian takover of Crimea, google:
Skifska Natural Gas Field
Arguably, China has already done this. The Ruskies are trying to recreate the Tsarist empire, while the Chicoms want to recreate the Manchu empire - and the Chinese have already succeeded mostly — the only places they haven’t recaptured are Mongolia, Arunachal Pradesh and Taiwan
That would be the Shanghai Cooperation Organization created in 2001 which is China, Russia, and central asia. There are a number of countries(excluding the US) with observer status and Iran and Pakistan being sponsored for full membership.
In the 3rd paragraph it mentions an existing pact which is the Collective Security Treaty Organization.
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