Ukraine (closed; covers till August 2014)

[OUTLAW 09]

This is not surprising if we accept the narrative I presented earlier of the Russian state as an imperial one as opposed to a Westphalian one. Does that make Moscow elites "[lose] a sense of reality" or does that mean that the West does not understand 'reality' as seen from the Russian perspective? Frankly, I think dismissing Russian actions and statements without critical analysis leads to a "[loss] of a sense of reality" on the part of Western commentators.



Putin is a "stable and reliable" partner. He's actions are very predictable when one actually attempts to understand the incentives to which he responds with the greatest sensitivity and the mechanisms through which he exercises his responses. The fact that Washington, et al is constantly surprised is not an indicator of Putin's reliability or stability but a condemnation of the narrow ideological lens through which the West views Russia.



I think it is more surprising that it is assumed Putin is so ignorant as to "just [forget] how the Russian economy is tied into globalization".

American Pride---if Putin is not so ignorant of globalization then why would a leader knowingly drive his own economy deeper into recession and especially a potential recession that will last for up to five years if further sanctions are imposed.

Putin who is an ethnic nationalist---at what point does the personal nationalism overtake reality? Putin has four pillars he has to work with 1) the military, 2) the security services, 3) the oligarchs, and 4) the Russian mob and they all have competing wishes and desires---getting a unified message out is becoming difficult for him.

Note: He has not called Merkel since his "promise" of pulling troops back from the border was revealed to be basically false and he has not called Obama in awhile---silence for him is unusual as I think everything he is proposing to the West is not gaining traction and he needs traction---there is an old communist saying out of the 30s---"if we are not moving forward even in millimeters then we are failing".

Yes one is rich and has constant income due to raw resources ie gas and oil---but as the West goes to more sanctions even that income cannot be counted on to continue in the same amounts for the next five years especially when they are actually pushing the EU to get out of the Russian oil and gas business. Russia cannot build enough pipelines to China to compensate the loss of the EU besides the Chinese tend to bargain better and never pay more than 120 USD vs the 485 USD Russia is trying to get from the Ukraine.

Russia has throttled back their move to privatize a number of industries due to their current bank financial problems and capital outflows and Russian companies are finding it harder to get foreign financing as American banks are now double and triple checking their own liabilities under the sanctions.

Russia has today now started asking all overseas foreign banks to let them know what Russians citizens have stored in their foreign accounts---kind of sounds like they are chasing money now.

Which is unusual for an economy that claims to have over 500B in foreign currency assets.

So I still question the "sanity" behind the ignorance---we an take the economic conditions a step further and argue that there has been a series of products banned by Russia under alleged agricultural disease control measures while others will argue it is in fact due to Russian counter sanctions designed to hurt the former eastern countries, but again in the end Russian consumers are facing an extreme shortage of potatoes and pork and or the prices are at levels not seen before in Moscow.

So again does Russia/Putin fully understand the deep hole economically they have dug themselves into?

I would argue that Putin or better yet Russia does in fact tends to hold to legally binding contracts but Putin has been at first threatening to change those and or has changed those contracts or outright argued they no longer exist and or he will not hold to them ie shut gas off then suddenly late this afternoon he backtracks and changes his original statement when he is reminded of the legality of those contracts.

Goes back to the Comrade Stalin comment he is reported to have made in the 30s---"there comes a time when a country's and or a person's life that they will have to change/cancel/ignore contracts if they no longer fit."

Or do they in the "sanity" of the moment judge the gaining via imperialist moves of new territory far outweighs the potential destruction of their own economy.

It is interesting that all the economic threat comments coming from both Putin and the Russian Foreign Minister are actually being met with a "ho hum" from the EU---as the first wave of fear of losing gas shipments has turned into we can overcome the issue so let's see what else Putin can manage to come up with. The economic fear is gone from the EU side--the Russia side seems to be in panic mode if one reads their constant stream of press releases for internal consumption.