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It's pretty freaking crystal clear to the WORLD just what happened in Ukraine in 2013 and 2014. Only nutjobs, political hacks getting a pay check say and believe otherwise.
The sad thing is that, for all the millennia of civilization veneer, humans are still primitive animals, they respect and fear power.
Imagine the same situation if instead of mighty Russia, on the other side there was a country like Serbia which got a taste of NATO humanitarianism....
If this thing does in the right direction it's not another Putin geopolitical victory but everybody win when war is avoided.
You are the rare sane voice on C-D, fighting Nazis (DKM and alike), but here I might want to argue with you.
Putin is first of all president of Russia. His job is to care about Russia - first and foremost.
Yes, Ukraine needs to be de-nazified. Yes, Donbass needs help - as well as other Russian people stranded in the Ukraine by the USSR breakup. Yes, it would be quite an easy job for Russian army to do that.
Question is the economy. In 90s Russia became too dependent on the West - thanks to "democratic" rhetoric that basically destroyed Russian economy. Putin took office in 2000; it took him about 10 years to just weed out oligarchs from the power; economy is really building up only in last 10 years. There is still some time needed to become fully independent from the West. Major milestones already achieved:
1. Rebuild army - check. Now Russian army is #1 in the world.
2. Rebuild agriculture - check. 100% food independence achieved for 3 years already.
3. Rebuild roads infrastructure - almost there. About 80% of roads has been totally renewed.
4. Rebuild energy infrastructure - check.
5. Rebuild manufacturing - still in process. It'll require about 4-5 more years to achieve full independence.
6. Rebuild electronics - this is the most painful point. A huge amount of money are now being poured there (starting this year), but still about 10 years behind the West (and actually, it's a great success because just 10 years ago Russia was like 50 years behind). It'll require about 5 more years to close gap to be no more than 2-3 years behind.
You see, Russia rarely had enough time between big wars to really grow its economy to proper level. Putin is buying as much time as he can. If Russia can manage to stay out of any war that West starts on it for another 5, or better 10 years, then it can safely afford to really protect Russian people everywhere, and for sure wipe out any Nazi regime backup up by the West.
Yes, Russia can do it right now too, but the price for the economy would be quite high. Yes, there is always China that Russia can now safely rely on for any products that it would no longer be able to buy in the West, but China itself is not yet fully self-sufficient in this regard. Yes, work is being done right now as we speak to remove any and all dependencies, but it cannot happen overnight.
But overall, this is just my estimate, based on open data. Putin is known for being best political poker player, so may be the weaknesses that we see are only there as a strawman. Like, for example, nobody expected Russian army to be is that good shape when operation in Syria started; or when ultrasonic weapons were pulled out of seemingly thin air; or when agriculture - a hundred years pain point of Russia - skyrocketed in just 4 short years. You see, rhetoric is drastically changed in last few weeks - Russia is no longer going to back up. Every attack of the West started to get the response it deserves. This can't happen without Putin's approval, so something must have been changed that we just don't see. May be Russia is already prepared.
I think we will know this in less than a year.
You are hitting all the points of Putin's talking heads, but when pulled apart and scrutinized, these points start failing practically one after another. So I will start with the most obvious ones, the rest will follow.
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Question is the economy. In 90s Russia became too dependent on the West - thanks to "democratic" rhetoric that basically destroyed Russian economy. Putin took office in 2000; it took him about 10 years to just weed out oligarchs from the power; economy is really building up only in last 10 years.
Putin himself was one of those "democrats" ( or "liberals" as they are identified in Russia) back in the 90ies.
Not only that; his ORIGINAL idea when he came to power was to continue the fusion with the West, encouraging the oligarchs to buy/invest in Western business entities and expecting the foreign investments in Russian economy in return. That's how he saw the path to "success of Russian economy."
He was talking about it himself officially only ten years ago, but by now the videos with such speeches of his are removed from Youtube, so that no one would remember.
And as you understand the oligarchs were not "weeded out" by him. They kept on flourishing under him as ever; he only weeded out the ones that could challenge him politically out in the open or in covert ways.
Now that we are clear on that, let's move to the next points.
He didn't "rebuilt agriculture" per se, but let the oligarchs make money on agroholdings, which is another way to say that that industry was taken over by the big corporations, while Russian peasantry was left without jobs and means to exist.
Roads infrastructure - yes it's there, since it's necessary to develop commerce.
"Rebuilt manufacturing" - yes up to a certain point, after he realized what a mistake he was making in his previous approach relying on the West. You can say "too little too late" by now, but OK, let's think that at least something is done in that direction.
Quote:
6. Rebuild electronics - this is the most painful point. A huge amount of money are now being poured there (starting this year), but still about 10 years behind the West (and actually, it's a great success because just 10 years ago Russia was like 50 years behind). It'll require about 5 more years to close gap to be no more than 2-3 years behind.
Of course it is.
Why wouldn't it be?
Creative jobs in tech sector require not only cash infusions, but a painstaking job from the ground level up, starting with the elementary schools - the kind of approach they've had back in Soviet times, when all children were given the same opportunities from the start line, and then the system of education was screening all of them for the future potential.
This can't be done any longer in the cut-throat capitalist society that Putin's Russia is, and what is even worse, whatever they can harvest in terms of talents on the finish line, can be easily bought off by more wealthier countries, like America, that might not be producing enough of its own talents any longer, but it can afford to buy it from elsewhere.
Russia doesn't have such luxury, so of course "electronics" (and the wider variety of inventions) will remain the "most painful point" for Putin's Russia.
One thing I have to admit though, is that Putin took care of rebuilding army, which serves the purpose of protecting the interests of his ruling class first of all, but simultaneously covers a lot of ground when protecting the national Russian interests too. Sometimes these two ideas coincide, and sometimes they don't.
And in this case, when it comes to the army specialists, to people who are specifically dealing with development of military technology ( "electronics" including,) - there you will always find die hard Russian guys, that can't be bought for any money by other countries.
They feel Russian down to the core, and you can pry that Russian land out of their cold dead fingers.
And they are the ones that move the military technology forward. From this point of view Putin is lucky, because these people will be always there, "serving their motherland," Putin or not.
And the last but not least; if we'll use the broad, generic phrase that Putin's job is "to care about Russia - first and foremost," - what was he doing taking over Crimea, but not Donbass, since BOTH territories were *supposedly* not Russian?
Ukrainians just want to develop their country along the central European model. They are against the authoritarian model of Belarus and Russia. It's that simple. Russia cannot stop them. They can use "officials" to bark all day long, take up domestic TV time and flood social media with trolls calling for this and that, but it isn't going to change this desire.
Go back to inventing events that you can declare victory over. I can't wait to hear what's next that Russia supposedly stopped or made us do.
Enough, DKM! I'm running out of my third pack of popcorn.. I have already torn my stomach ache from laughing and don't have the strength to watch this comedy series of the collapse of your world of dreams and fantasies.
Have you ever thought about the fact that America itself has already turned into an authoritarian gerontocratic state with senile old people in the "politburo", with censorship and shutting of mouths, with the repression of the objectionable who oppose the regime, with the impoverishment of the population, with the decline of industry, the loss of technologys,with monstrous corruption.. you need only to ban the Republican Party and it will be exactly like the late USSR with the great "DP/SS" at the head.. As they say, "за что боролиÑÑŒ - на то и напоролиÑÑŒ" Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, history repeats itself..only in the opposite direction and it is no longer the USSR and America is rolling into the abyss of disintegration..
At what cost? Russia can't influence nearby countries through fear of force. You really can't find a person under 40 anywhere west of Donetsk who wants Russia to run their local region. That used to not be the case. You think Biden is going to reward Putin for this? This will push more countries towards NATO if anything. For example Sweden recently passed a law giving them the option to join NATO in the future and it will definitely be discussed sooner than later.
Perhaps it will lead to a beneficial agreement though. We're living through interesting times.
And in the NATO army,in addition to 54 genders, a new type of unit "Swedish family" will appear " ))))) We are looking forward to it ))))
You are hitting all the points of Putin's talking heads, but when pulled apart and scrutinized, these points start failing practically one after another. So I will start with the most obvious ones, the rest will follow.
Putin himself was one of those "democrats" ( or "liberals" as they are identified in Russia) back in the 90ies.
Not only that; his ORIGINAL idea when he came to power was to continue the fusion with the West, encouraging the oligarchs to buy/invest in Western business entities and expecting the foreign investments in Russian economy in return. That's how he saw the path to "success of Russian economy."
He was talking about it himself officially only ten years ago, but by now the videos with such speeches of his are removed from Youtube, so that no one would remember.
And as you understand the oligarchs were not "weeded out" by him. They kept on flourishing under him as ever; he only weeded out the ones that could challenge him politically out in the open or in covert ways.
Now that we are clear on that, let's move to the next points.
He didn't "rebuilt agriculture" per se, but let the oligarchs make money on agroholdings, which is another way to say that that industry was taken over by the big corporations, while Russian peasantry was left without jobs and means to exist.
Roads infrastructure - yes it's there, since it's necessary to develop commerce.
"Rebuilt manufacturing" - yes up to a certain point, after he realized what a mistake he was making in his previous approach relying on the West. You can say "too little too late" by now, but OK, let's think that at least something is done in that direction.
Of course it is.
Why wouldn't it be?
Creative jobs in tech sector require not only cash infusions, but a painstaking job from the ground level up, starting with the elementary schools - the kind of approach they've had back in Soviet times, when all children were given the same opportunities from the start line, and then the system of education was screening all of them for the future potential.
This can't be done any longer in the cut-throat capitalist society that Putin's Russia is, and what is even worse, whatever they can harvest in terms of talents on the finish line, can be easily bought off by more wealthier countries, like America, that might not be producing enough of its own talents any longer, but it can afford to buy it from elsewhere.
Russia doesn't have such luxury, so of course "electronics" (and the wider variety of inventions) will remain the "most painful point" for Putin's Russia.
One thing I have to admit though, is that Putin took care of rebuilding army, which serves the purpose of protecting the interests of his ruling class first of all, but simultaneously covers a lot of ground when protecting the national Russian interests too. Sometimes these two ideas coincide, and sometimes they don't.
And in this case, when it comes to the army specialists, to people who are specifically dealing with development of military technology ( "electronics" including,) - there you will always find die hard Russian guys, that can't be bought for any money by other countries.
They feel Russian down to the core, and you can pry that Russian land out of their cold dead fingers.
And they are the ones that move the military technology forward. From this point of view Putin is lucky, because these people will be always there, "serving their motherland," Putin or not.
And the last but not least; if we'll use the broad, generic phrase that Putin's job is "to care about Russia - first and foremost," - what was he doing taking over Crimea, but not Donbass, since BOTH territories were *supposedly* not Russian?
Let's try those points one by one.
1. Fusion with the West - I still see it as the main mistake of early Putin. Things changed in 2007 (his Valdai speech), but I still don't get how it was possible to be so naive to ever trust West on anything before then. On another hand, we would never know by now whether that was what he was really thinking, or he just had to say that for time being.
2. Seems like there is misunderstanding. He did not weed out oligarchs from existence; he did weed them out of power. That's a big difference. What it looks like to me - and more so every year - Putin decided to go the same route as Japan and South Korea: to allow existence of a few (ten or so) chaebols (that's what those oligarchs are really being converted to) on a condition of them being totally loyal to Russia and never play political games at all. It makes sense, actually, from economy point of view (we can talk about that separately - that's interesting topic by itself).
3. Agriculture. Here is the thing: for quite some time Russian agriculture was a synonym of inefficiency. Now - it flourishes. I suspect that's exactly due to the enormous size of agroholdings - only big company can invest a lot of money to something that does not bring immediate (like withing a year) payback. Again, this is not my area of expertise, and I still don't understand how all of this was achieved, but the fact remains: for the first time in a hundred of years Russia is not only fully self-reliant on domestic food, but also exports a lot of it.
4. You don't understand the electronics pain point. It's not the absence of talents; it's absence of empty markets plus absence of a huge company that made electronics its business. Electronics is driven by economy of scale due to the huge R&D costs and huge initial production cost. For example, you can create best CPU of all times, but if you sell only million of them - well, you just lost money and got bankrupted. Remember - markets are already flooded. To get even miniscule share you need either totally best product - head and shoulders above the competition (like recent AMD cpus over Intel), or you need to build your own market - year after year, percent by percent (like the very, very long road of ARM). And even then - your road can be blocked by politics - see Huawai example.
5. "what was he doing taking over Crimea, but not Donbass, since BOTH territories were *supposedly* not Russian?". Crimea was actually an autonomous republic; it's constitution allowed secession. Legally, they had the right to get out, and they exercised it. Donbass - unfortunately no. Putin still plays by the rules - although it doesn't make sense in the world where West changes rules as it sees fit.
May be now it's time for Russia to make the rules, for a change?
You are hitting all the points of Putin's talking heads, but when pulled apart and scrutinized, these points start failing practically one after another. So I will start with the most obvious ones, the rest will follow.
Putin himself was one of those "democrats" ( or "liberals" as they are identified in Russia) back in the 90ies.
Not only that; his ORIGINAL idea when he came to power was to continue the fusion with the West, encouraging the oligarchs to buy/invest in Western business entities and expecting the foreign investments in Russian economy in return. That's how he saw the path to "success of Russian economy."
He was talking about it himself officially only ten years ago, but by now the videos with such speeches of his are removed from Youtube, so that no one would remember.
And as you understand the oligarchs were not "weeded out" by him. They kept on flourishing under him as ever; he only weeded out the ones that could challenge him politically out in the open or in covert ways.
Now that we are clear on that, let's move to the next points.
He didn't "rebuilt agriculture" per se, but let the oligarchs make money on agroholdings, which is another way to say that that industry was taken over by the big corporations, while Russian peasantry was left without jobs and means to exist.
Roads infrastructure - yes it's there, since it's necessary to develop commerce.
"Rebuilt manufacturing" - yes up to a certain point, after he realized what a mistake he was making in his previous approach relying on the West. You can say "too little too late" by now, but OK, let's think that at least something is done in that direction.
Of course it is.
Why wouldn't it be?
Creative jobs in tech sector require not only cash infusions, but a painstaking job from the ground level up, starting with the elementary schools - the kind of approach they've had back in Soviet times, when all children were given the same opportunities from the start line, and then the system of education was screening all of them for the future potential.
This can't be done any longer in the cut-throat capitalist society that Putin's Russia is, and what is even worse, whatever they can harvest in terms of talents on the finish line, can be easily bought off by more wealthier countries, like America, that might not be producing enough of its own talents any longer, but it can afford to buy it from elsewhere.
Russia doesn't have such luxury, so of course "electronics" (and the wider variety of inventions) will remain the "most painful point" for Putin's Russia.
One thing I have to admit though, is that Putin took care of rebuilding army, which serves the purpose of protecting the interests of his ruling class first of all, but simultaneously covers a lot of ground when protecting the national Russian interests too. Sometimes these two ideas coincide, and sometimes they don't.
And in this case, when it comes to the army specialists, to people who are specifically dealing with development of military technology ( "electronics" including,) - there you will always find die hard Russian guys, that can't be bought for any money by other countries.
They feel Russian down to the core, and you can pry that Russian land out of their cold dead fingers.
And they are the ones that move the military technology forward. From this point of view Putin is lucky, because these people will be always there, "serving their motherland," Putin or not.
And the last but not least; if we'll use the broad, generic phrase that Putin's job is "to care about Russia - first and foremost," - what was he doing taking over Crimea, but not Donbass, since BOTH territories were *supposedly* not Russian?
Hi) Oh, this nostalgia for your youth )) And of course, we need red flags, slogans, nationalization, civil war, and then heroic restoration of the destroyed.Well, it's okay that a couple of tens of millions of Russian people will die again. But you can be happy watching the process from a distance of several thousand kilometers. But, in any case, not participating in the promotion. And it is strange why you have not yet organized a revolution in your current place of residence? How is that? You will live under solar communism or socialism, or how you want the Russians to build it in Russia. Show an example with an action )))))
But however. Terrible Putin's Russia, only recently paid off the debts of the beautiful USSR.Really?
Only recently have roads,bridges,and infrastructure been built to places where nothing has been built in the 70 years of the beautiful USSR.Isn't it?
Food security, which is now in fact, was inaccessible to the beautiful USSR.
Remember, when the last time oil prices dropped to zero, in the beautiful USSR there was food on coupons.In peacetime. Yeah?
So, there is no need to tell fairy tales about the terrible Putin's Russia, which all the time owes you something.
Let's try those points one by one.
1. Fusion with the West - I still see it as the main mistake of early Putin. Things changed in 2007 (his Valdai speech), but I still don't get how it was possible to be so naive to ever trust West on anything before then. On another hand, we would never know by now whether that was what he was really thinking, or he just had to say that for time being.
2. Seems like there is misunderstanding. He did not weed out oligarchs from existence; he did weed them out of power. That's a big difference. What it looks like to me - and more so every year - Putin decided to go the same route as Japan and South Korea: to allow existence of a few (ten or so) chaebols (that's what those oligarchs are really being converted to) on a condition of them being totally loyal to Russia and never play political games at all. It makes sense, actually, from economy point of view (we can talk about that separately - that's interesting topic by itself).
3. Agriculture. Here is the thing: for quite some time Russian agriculture was a synonym of inefficiency. Now - it flourishes. I suspect that's exactly due to the enormous size of agroholdings - only big company can invest a lot of money to something that does not bring immediate (like withing a year) payback. Again, this is not my area of expertise, and I still don't understand how all of this was achieved, but the fact remains: for the first time in a hundred of years Russia is not only fully self-reliant on domestic food, but also exports a lot of it.
4. You don't understand the electronics pain point. It's not the absence of talents; it's absence of empty markets plus absence of a huge company that made electronics its business. Electronics is driven by economy of scale due to the huge R&D costs and huge initial production cost. For example, you can create best CPU of all times, but if you sell only million of them - well, you just lost money and got bankrupted. Remember - markets are already flooded. To get even miniscule share you need either totally best product - head and shoulders above the competition (like recent AMD cpus over Intel), or you need to build your own market - year after year, percent by percent (like the very, very long road of ARM). And even then - your road can be blocked by politics - see Huawai example.
5. "what was he doing taking over Crimea, but not Donbass, since BOTH territories were *supposedly* not Russian?". Crimea was actually an autonomous republic; it's constitution allowed secession. Legally, they had the right to get out, and they exercised it. Donbass - unfortunately no. Putin still plays by the rules - although it doesn't make sense in the world where West changes rules as it sees fit.
May be now it's time for Russia to make the rules, for a change?
Rules don't matter in the Western world (read the NATO bloc), but it's not the whole world, is it ? Do not be like a hero who has killed a dragon,but has become a dragon himself.
Let's try those points one by one.
1. Fusion with the West - I still see it as the main mistake of early Putin. Things changed in 2007 (his Valdai speech), but I still don't get how it was possible to be so naive to ever trust West on anything before then. On another hand, we would never know by now whether that was what he was really thinking, or he just had to say that for time being.
This is not just "naivite." He was one of those people back in the 90ies that were personally profiting on these ties to the West.
Quote:
2. Seems like there is misunderstanding. He did not weed out oligarchs from existence; he did weed them out of power. That's a big difference. What it looks like to me - and more so every year - Putin decided to go the same route as Japan and South Korea: to allow existence of a few (ten or so) chaebols (that's what those oligarchs are really being converted to) on a condition of them being totally loyal to Russia and never play political games at all. It makes sense, actually, from economy point of view (we can talk about that separately - that's interesting topic by itself).
Not really. Not a "big difference."
The problems that the "privatization of the nineties" created in the long run remained unresolved under Putin, and creation of oligarchy was a big part of it.
Quote:
3. Agriculture. Here is the thing: for quite some time Russian agriculture was a synonym of inefficiency. Now - it flourishes. I suspect that's exactly due to the enormous size of agroholdings - only big company can invest a lot of money to something that does not bring immediate (like withing a year) payback. Again, this is not my area of expertise, and I still don't understand how all of this was achieved, but the fact remains: for the first time in a hundred of years Russia is not only fully self-reliant on domestic food, but also exports a lot of it.
As I already explained, those "agroholdings" is what contributed to the stranglehold of the rural Russia and brought down the quality of food in the country.
But I guess you can say the same about the US, as far as food quality goes.
Quote:
4. You don't understand the electronics pain point. It's not the absence of talents; it's absence of empty markets plus absence of a huge company that made electronics its business. Electronics is driven by economy of scale due to the huge R&D costs and huge initial production cost. For example, you can create best CPU of all times, but if you sell only million of them - well, you just lost money and got bankrupted. Remember - markets are already flooded. To get even miniscule share you need either totally best product - head and shoulders above the competition (like recent AMD cpus over Intel), or you need to build your own market - year after year, percent by percent (like the very, very long road of ARM). And even then - your road can be blocked by politics - see Huawai example.
What "empty markets"?
Are you talking about the consumer electronics that flooded the world market with all kind of junk lately after China took over?
And you expect Russia to compete for the "empty markets" with something like that?
Unrealistic, to say the least.
If we talk about the "electronics" ( and development of any other technology) here Russia has to come up with its own ideas, instead of being a copy-cat, emulating America ( or China for this matter.)
But as I've already said - as soon as Russia will come up with something new in consumer department, those specialists will be easily bought off by someone else.
Quote:
5. "what was he doing taking over Crimea, but not Donbass, since BOTH territories were *supposedly* not Russian?". Crimea was actually an autonomous republic; it's constitution allowed secession. Legally, they had the right to get out, and they exercised it.
Amazing how the rest of the world doesn't see it this way and still considers Crimea to be legally the "Ukrainian territory."
Quote:
Donbass - unfortunately no. Putin still plays by the rules - although it doesn't make sense in the world where West changes rules as it sees fit.
By the rules that he creates in his own head and is trying to convince the rest of the world in his logic.
Crimea is something that he was dearly interested in for a number of reasons - strategic and economic reasons first of all. Donbass was none of his interest from this point of view.
That's why the desires of Crimeans with referendum and all mattered a big deal; the desires and interests of people of Donbass didn't matter a bit. And that's why they've been murdered with impunity for the last six years.
Quote:
May be now it's time for Russia to make the rules, for a change?
That's the whole point.
If Putin were not a shrewd hypocrite that he is, being interested in money first of all, and he wouldn't listen to his "financial advisers" back in 2014, ( the likes of Gref and Nabibulina admired by the Wall Street,) he would have done what was only logical - took over BOTH Crimea and Donbass, and protected people there that didn't want anything to do with Ukrainian nationalists, encouraged by the West.
It could have been easily done back THEN.
But by now, when Putin realized what kind of problem he has on hands with Donbass that he (and his financial advisers) betrayed because of his own *shrewdness,* he'd like "to change the rules," but it's a bit too late.
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