21 Comments

1. Terrye:

I like the Russian people. I like their literature and music and I think they have nerve.

But they can be so dumb. I think Putin is getting even for the Ukraine. Two wrongs don’t a right make honey.

Feb 18, 2005 - 5:55 pm 2. Final Historian:

Putin’s imperial dreams threaten us all. Hopefully he can be undercut before his schemes come too far along.

Feb 18, 2005 - 6:05 pm 3. JB:

“I think he may be mired in a paranoid Byzantine mindset that sees the world as continuous East-West struggle. He cannot envision other.”

Russian mentality was, is and likely shall remain a lose-lose mentality. Not win-win, not win-lose, but precisely lose-lose. Classic “bite your nose to spite your face”.

Feb 18, 2005 - 6:13 pm 4. JB:

“Two wrongs don’t a right make honey.”

If Ukraine was wrong, we shouldn’t want to be right.

Belarus would be nice as well.

Feb 18, 2005 - 6:23 pm 5. Knucklehead:

Fascinating link – thanks, Roger. If we’re headed back to the future and the counsel of Meternich, I recommend Kissinger’s book, Diplomacy.

Feb 18, 2005 - 6:50 pm 6. JPS:

JB:

“Russian mentality was, is and likely shall remain a lose-lose mentality. Not win-win, not win-lose, but precisely lose-lose.”

Maybe. This reminds me of an old joke–if memory serves it may be a self-deprecating joke from Russia–roughly:

An Englishman, a Frenchman, and a Russian are visited by [insert here whatever being with supernatural wish-granting powers], who tells them they can each have one wish, anything they want.

The Englishman says, “I want the English to be the world’s greatest writers!” The Frenchman says, “I want the French to be the world’s greatest lovers!” The Russian says, “I want my neighbor Ivan’s mare to drop dead.”

Probably unfair. The Russians I know are mostly wonderful people. But even the most easygoing and Americanized among them can get their hackles up in a hurry if they detect a slight to the Motherland. In the case of a close friend of mine, I used to refer to “Proud Russian explosions”, since they occurred with some frequency.

Feb 18, 2005 - 7:19 pm 7. Kevin P:

Roger:

I think Putin has seen his country go from being one of the greatest powers in the world to being a second tier power and just as France cannot except the truth that they can’t bend the will of the world at a snap of a finger Putin somehow thinks they can get back to the #1 or #2 spot again. Instead of concentrating on his economy and setting up a Democratic structure that would give them a chance of becoming a mover and a shaker again he is trying the old KGB method of power by intrique. Unlike China who are making themselves an economic superpower knowing that world influence will follow Putin is trying to do it on the cheap and although they will be able to cause trouble Putin will bring even more ruin upon that troubled land. They will piss off the economic powers that could help them and their economic infrastrucure will continue on it’s current downtrend. Russia is a basketcase and isn’t in the position to challenge anyone but Putin is dreaming of the glory days and is living in the past.

Feb 18, 2005 - 7:27 pm 8. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):

In this case, I think Putin has screwed up badly. Internal Russian polls show that also. For whatever reason, he has taken the path of evil – playing against the US in a deadly game.

Perhaps one goal is to defuse Chechen and other Muslim terrorists by making Russia neutral, or an ally to their allies. If so, it won’t work.

Another goal is to reduce US hegemony, but if he had any sense, he’d do that with Europe.

I think the guy is underqualified for the job. How he gets replaced should be very interesting.

Feb 18, 2005 - 8:22 pm 9. mudmarine:

Kevin P

I think you have pretty much nailed it.

OTOH, I think Mr.Putin could use a visit from Ms. Rice. The positives and negatives of his present actions need to be carefully explained to him.

Changes for the better to follow?

Feb 18, 2005 - 8:25 pm 10. Katherine:

ìRussia is a basketcase and isn’t in the position to challenge anyone but Putin is dreaming of the glory days and is living in the past.î

He is no different than the rest of Europeans. Problem is, such countries like Germany and France managed to establish relatively high standard of living and have (still) functioning economies, so they will decline slowly. Russia started at a muddy bottom, lifted itself to glimpse the blue sky and sun and promptly started sinking again.

Feb 18, 2005 - 8:37 pm 11. Barry Dauphin:

“I think the guy is underqualified for the job.”

I think John Moore nails it here.

Whatever roll-my-eyes reaction I have to the likes of Chirac or Schroeder, I have some comprehesnion of what they are trying to accomplish. Putin behaves so erratically that he seems to have little in mind other than reamining in power. I suspect that much of his peculiar behavior is for internal consumption. But he does not seem like a smart player. His only card is the possession of nukes (and unspoken promises to keep them away from terrorists)and he had nothing to do with obtaining them (gifts to him from the fallen regime). Don’t get me wrong, he’s dangerous and thus important. But I would not give him much credit for having a “vision” of much of anything. He’s probably not a drunkard though, and maybe that’s the best we can hope for at the moment.

Feb 18, 2005 - 8:57 pm 12. Katherine:

Thibaud once wrote that Putin is so weak that it is only matter of time before he is ousted and when this happens the only thing we will be wondering about is why we did not see it coming. Only I do not think that the replacement will be much of an improvement, whoever he may be.

Feb 18, 2005 - 9:12 pm 13. Yehudit:

The new issue of the Atlantic has an article on Putin. Title:

“The Accidental Autocrat”

Subtitle:

“Vladimir Putin is not a democrat. Nor is he a czar like Alexander III, a paranoid like Stalin, or a religious nationalist like Dostoyevsky. But he is a little of all theseówhich is just what Russians seem to want.”

I haven’t read it yet.

Feb 18, 2005 - 9:15 pm 14. JB:

“I think the guy is underqualified for the job.”

In a cosmic sense, maybe. But, again, this IS Russia we’re talking about here. My parents have lived in the US for nearly 25 years, voted for Bush in ‘04, support the democratization of the ME and they still have their “the people need discipline” moments.

What if, as Jack Nicholson’s famous character said, this is as good as it gets?

Feb 18, 2005 - 10:50 pm 15. Steve M:

On a lighter note (same topic), this should amuse:

Putin Sells Effort to Halt Iran Nuke Production

Feb 19, 2005 - 3:12 am 16. charlotte:

A few years ago, after being warned it wasn’t a good idea by friends there, I took a picture of what was supposed to be exKGB building in Smolensk. My camera was stolen a few hours later.

The silent men who tagged along with our group in Moscow and St. Petersburg couldn’t have been minders, since our guide told us that domestic surveillance was no longer the new Russia’s policy. But the men were ever-present and wouldn’t say who they were.

It’s disappointing but not much of a surprise that Putin is vying for client states and leverage in the Middle East, just as the Soviets did this past century. Ditto regarding his clamping down on the “free” press and jailing oligarchical rivals. Even the mysterious offing of Ukranian opposition is not altogether shocking.

Old totalitarian habits die hard for some, especially for ex?KGB with an East-West bi-polar disorder. Choosing a Soviet expert as Secretary of State may have been an extra auspicious decision.

Feb 19, 2005 - 7:34 am 17. richard mcenroe:

Putin is no Rasputin. But he is something out of Maxim Gorky. Maybe the lockmaker from The Lower Depths…

Feb 19, 2005 - 9:46 am 18. Kyda Sylvester:

Secular Blasphemy says: Russia and China’s cooperation in blocking sanctions on the genocidal Sydanese government is no doubt pointing to what may well become the most prominent political conflict of the 21st century: the return of the cold war.

A cold war waged over what exactly? The Cold War was an ideological battle pitting freedom, democracy and Capitalism against repression, totalitarianism and Communism/Marxism. The former won. Freedom and democracy may not be bustin’ out all over just yet but Capitalism certainly is and individual freedom and some brand of democratic rule necessarily follow in the wake of a successful free market economy.

So, then, what? Does it deteriorate into a variation of the old kid’s game King of the Hill? Should we all don foam fingers and shout in one another’s faces “We’re No. 1″, “No, we’re No. 1″? Like it or not, for better or worse, the market is global and our economies are interconnected.

Russia wants influence in the Middle East to counter that of the US. Why? Still looking for that warm water port? Is not a stable, democratic, peaceful ME as much to Russia’s advantage as ours? I don’t get it.

China is another story of course. Having close to 1.5 billion people within its borders, China must import food. And its appetite for oil, already voracious, increases every day. One can certainly picture China attempting to become the Japan of the 20’s and 30’s except for the fact that Japan in the first half of the last century was not an economic powerhouse.

Won’t it be a kick in the butt if it turns out to be all about oil afterall.

Feb 19, 2005 - 9:55 am 19. Kyda Sylvester:

Yolanda in the comments section at Secular Blasphemy has two interesting links. The rest of world it would appear is hellbent on “checking” America’s “ambitions”, its “geopolitical offensive”.

Is the rest of the world really that ignorant of America’s “ambitions”? Is it actually deteriorating into a dangerous game of “We’re No. 1″? Or is it that power remains the greatest aphrodisiac? We have the evidence before us that individual and economic freedom and cooperation among nations to secure such for its citizens is the only road to peace and prosperity for all. But I guess all that is secondary to knocking the United States off its perch.

Feb 19, 2005 - 10:51 am 20. Robert Schwartz:

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/world/10868322.htmHealth of men in Russia is rapidly decliningBy MARK MCDONALDKnight Ridder NewspapersST. PETERSBURG, Russia – A 90-pound chunk of masonry breaks off the facade of a high-rise building and crushes a man on the sidewalk below. Another man, stumbling home from a late-night party, falls in the street, passes out and freezes to death. Two men break into a railroad yard and die after drinking several quarts of industrial solvent from a tanker car.There are so many odd and horrible ways to die in Russia that it’s almost no surprise that the average Russian man isn’t expected to see his 59th birthday. Men in Bangladesh live longer.”Normally only during wartime do we see the kind of decreases in men’s longevity that we’ve seen recently in Russia,” said Vladimir I. Simanenkov, the head of the department of internal diseases at the St. Petersburg Medical Academy and a senior official with the city’s Public Health Committee.Government statistics show that the average Russian man lives 58.6 years, compared with 73 years for the average Russian woman. In 1990, life expectancy for men was 63.4 years.The reasons sound simple: Russian men drink too much, smoke too much, live with too much stress and go to the doctor too rarely.The consequences are anything but simple, however. Russia’s erupting men’s health crisis could trigger major social or political unrest in a nation with huge stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.Russia one day could even become incapable of patrolling its borders or policing vast expanses of rural emptiness, creating new havens for smugglers, terrorists and others. Military leaders already complain that most new draftees are so unfit, drug-addled or psychologically damaged that only about 10 percent are capable of withstanding boot camp.Death rates are soaring for stroke, lung cancer, stomach cancer, TB and heart disease, the nation’s No. 1 killer with a rate double that of American men.Murray Feshbach, an expert on Russian health and demographics at the Smithsonian Institution’s Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, says the situation will grow worse.He said the country’s HIV/AIDS infection rates rival those of southern Africa, and that Russia is undercounting deaths from the disease by attributing many of them to secondary infections such as tuberculosis. By 2020, he said in a telephone interview, HIV/AIDS alone is projected to kill 250,000 to 648,000 Russians a year.Hepatitis C, mostly caused by intravenous drug use, also is poised to explode, Feshbach said.In the next 20 years, according to Goskomstat, the state statistics agency, the Russian National Security Council and the United Nations Population Division, Russia’s population of 144 million could drop by a third.Russian women would have to have almost twice as many children (2.4) as they’re having now (1.3) just to keep the population from declining, but Russia has one of the world’s highest abortion rates. Some surveys suggest that there are more abortions than births.============================================

http://www.thepublicinterest.com/archives/2005winter/article1.htmlWinter 2005Russia, The Sick Man of Europe By Nicholas EberstadtThe Russian Federation today is in the grip of a steadily tightening mesh of serious demographic problems, for which the term “crisis” is no overstatement. This crisis is altering the realm of the possible for the country and its people — continuously, directly, and adversely. Russian social conditions, economic potential, military power, and international influence are today all subject to negative demographic constraints — and these constraints stand only to worsen over the years immediately ahead.Russia is now at the brink of a steep population decline — a peacetime hemorrhage framed by a collapse of the birth rate and a catastrophic surge in the death rate. The forces that have shaped this path of depopulation and debilitation are powerful ones, and they are by now deeply rooted in Russian soil. Altering Russia’s demographic trajectory would be a formidable task under any circumstances. As yet, unfortunately, neither Russia’s political leadership nor the voting public that sustains it have even begun to face up to the enormous magnitude of the country’s demographic challenges.

Feb 20, 2005 - 8:03 am 21. Robert Schwartz:

A sane man confronted by such troubles would not play around with more problems, but would look for friends who could help him.

Feb 20, 2005 - 8:05 am

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