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How policy blunders under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush helped bring about a post-communist Russia hostile to democracy, free markets, and the West
History is the sum total of things that could have been avoided.
—Konrad Adenauer
Quote:
Vladimir Putin is at least as serious a menace to the United States and Western democracy as Soviet communism ever was. Soviet leaders mixed the promotion of a global ideology with the advancement of Russian national interests. They failed—ideologically, geopolitically, and economically. Putinism is far more insidious, and more successful. Putin combines authoritarian rule with corrupt klepto-capitalism and hybrid warfare, functioning as a role model to autocrats and a lethal destabilizer of liberal democracy.
The 40-year Cold War was a well-ritualized dance of armed restraint based on the logic of mutually assured nuclear destruction and spy-versus-spy tradecraft, with clear norms of conduct. The West, in line with George Kennan’s theory of containment, merely needed to limit peripheral conflicts like Korea and Vietnam, resist launching a nuclear war, and patiently wait for the USSR to collapse of its own weight. The old Cold War offered a brand of stability that played to America’s advantage. But Putin has devised new forms of covert warfare with few rules, in which an open society is the weaker party. The new cold war is both more volatile and more tilted toward Russian strengths.
Putin has adroitly worked to undermine American democracy, a goal that pathetically eluded his communist predecessors. The recent best-seller The Spy and the Traitor tells the true story of the most damaging anti-Soviet mole of the Cold War era. Oleg Gordievsky, the London station chief of the KGB, turned out to be an asset of Britain’s MI6. Putin went the MI6 one better. His personal asset is the president of the United States.
Today, liberal democracy is under siege almost everywhere. Contrary to the hopes of 1989 that liberal capitalism linked to democracy would triumph with the U.S. as exemplar, capitalism is increasingly tied to autocracy and corruption. The U.S. is becoming more like Russia rather than vice versa. Much of this outcome could have been avoided.
From what I understand Syria and Turkey don't want those terrorists in Idlib province on their respective soil, that's a big part of the problem. Syria has been attacking all along the front in order to secure the M-6 highway going to Aleppo and has largely succeeded these last few weeks in doing so.
The rebels have been harassing the Russian bases in the area with drones for a long time so Russia doesn't want them there either. A big problem is all of the refugees in the area. Idlib is a hellhole filled with terrorists and the moderate head choppers that wanted to oust the legitimate government of Syria and regular inhabitants just trying to survive this mess. You usually can't tell the difference.
What needs to be done is for somebody to get control of the bad guys in that pocket so things calm down. What Russia is going to do is still up in the air but it appears Turkey and Syria may fight. Syria is in the right here, that land is theirs.
OK, I kinda looked into it, and the problem is - it's not that Russia can't stomp Turkey out for insubordination in Syria - it certainly can and certainly would, but Kremlin already made deal with Turks regarding that "Turkish stream" and now Kremlin has to dance very carefully between its interests in Syria and its interests in Istanbul.
So Lavrov is doing hell of a job there.
He is doing A LOT of behind the scene negotiations when in Munich too, from what I see.
(This was yet another interesting and important event judging by Russian news ( had to cross-reference it in English, Deutche Welle in this case.)
Europeans were definitely irked by the whole "gaspipegate" and the way Americans threatened them with sanctions.
The mood in Munich indicated the growing rift between Western powers ( as it already has been expected for some time.)
In fact Europeans are talking about the West losing its game all together. (Germans mostly, but now Macron clearly wants to re-orient France ( at least) to Russia I think, to be more independent and to "keep up with world's current trends.")
Why is Russia so poor and undeveloped in comparison to the west? And why do so many Russians move here to the United States, and work as construction or delivery drivers (as well as other Eastern Europeans)?
Why is Russia so poor and undeveloped in comparison to the west? And why do so many Russians move here to the United States, and work as construction or delivery drivers (as well as other Eastern Europeans)?
We bought your president and populate your country. All is good.
Eastern Europeans (including Russians, Yugoslavs, etc) are scene on the same level as Mexicans and Latinos in the United States.
Of course. Best talents stayed at home.
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