Bill--you seem to always find critical points--this is really interesting as it also goes to the heart of Putin and his inner circle--his former circle was what one would call "liberal by Russian standards" and globalists from an economic perspective-meaning they foresaw the deep need to modernize Russia's economy and increase the well being of the Russian population ie all Russians in all regions of the RF.Originally Posted by Bill Moore
If one takes the total oil/gas earnings since say even 1998 until 2014 and if they had been invested into rebuilding the economy and industrial base Russia today would be an European economic powerhouse capable of "influencing Europe" without the use of force and fear---ie the "superpower status" Putin strives for.
That "liberal" inner circle has been slowing swapped out since Georgia in 2008 and now they are ultra nationalists ie "fasicists" surrounding him and he tends to agree with them simply from his KGB past. I would go so far to state the current inner circle around Putin is either active members of the FSB or past officers of the KGB and all legal changes in the last eight months have centered power in one hand--Putin's. we often overlook the statement---a country can become a fascist state via democracy.
At the heart of Putin's three core strategic end states he wants to achieve that I have written over and over about is the deep fear of US "values"---regardless of how one wants to define them.
Robert would again repeat the mantra "rule of law and good governance".
Putin's hates these "values" simply because if you look at the total collapse of the Soviet Union---yes it was driven by economics and poor governance but at it's heart it "lost the battle of values".
Believe me when I say Putin "got the message".
We the US all sit back and claim Reagan drove them into the ground economically with his arms race---but it was the internal true contradiction's of Communism coupled with the massive Soviet style corruption built on a system of lying from the bottom to the top and back down that "killed" the Soviet Union and discredited Communism forever as an ideology.
So in some ways Putin is trying to "restore" Communism without calling it "Communism".
But in the end he is refighting the battle of "values" ---as an example look how he distains the West's drive for equality even in the question of homosexuality, women's rights in work and education, free and fair elections--he distains what we have for elections and their crazy processes and the list goes on forever.
The fear of the "Maidan" springing over to Moscow is his greatest fear---the fear of a population awakening and demanding changes for themselves not for the oligarchs---that is his fear and he is doing his best by beating up on the Ukraine to discredit the "Maidan".
The constant global press coverage of the current Ukrainian Rada decisions with large crowds outside demanding more money for education, social projects for the poor, more energy saving projects, creation of new industrial jobs of the 21st century ie IT, and down to the demands that local police should be well trained, polite and not corrupt---- is what he fears most---again it is all about "values" regardless of how defined.
His fear is interesting in that it does if one listens to the average Russian Joe Vodka on the street they voice the same things privately and under their breath.
So again Robert is totally correct it is all about "the rule of law and good governance" as and this is the main point as determined by the population themselves.
My complaint is that the US civilian leadership has now decided that "soft power" is the way forward and some how is side stepping the historical past that dictates that sometimes just sometimes "force" is needed to parallel "soft power"---in some ways "soft power" as a principle is valid but the hidden stick of "hard power" must always be present as a "perception".
AND this current government cannot seem to get that---it is all about perception which goes to the comment in your article---the world wants American hegemony without "apparent" hegemony---that goes to my concept of "perceptions being created and maintained".
Example--had Obama after issuing his "red line in the sand" on Syrian chemical weapons actually released the air force for the strikes however limited---the entire ME and the rest of the world would have maybe "complained" a bit but in the dark shadows they would have respected the decision and the fact that the threat was in fact carried out and for a "humanitarian reason---protection of the civilian populations of the ME"--they would respected the decision and understood in the future if the US stated they would defend a "global value" --the perception would be "they are serious about defending that stated value".
BUT-- what does the ME see today---the US air strikes on IS while ten kms to the left of those air strikes the Assad is dropping barrel bombs on their own civilians killing even more children and women and those photos and videos come out at the same time CENTCOM releases their bombing reports---does that make sense to the global population? What is then the perception of the US---we do not really care.
BUT--we talk a great game on the Ukraine and what does the world see---an Ukrainian Army struggling to rebuild itself initially overrun with large numbers of tanks asking for anti-tank weapons ie defensive weapons and stating we will fight ourselves and want no outside troop support and we say no---but on countless islamist battlefield videos coming daily out of the ME--we seem to be supplying tens of TOWS does that make sense in the world of "perceptions"?
By the way it is easy to do if the civilian leadership truly "sees and understands" the various problems but we are way to busy fighting our own demons of 9/11 to "see" that. IE did one see an intense internal debate on the simple fact---we knew the 9/11 attacks where coming BUT did we simply ignore them or did we want them to occur?---that debate has never been carried out in front of the American population in an open, unrestricted and unclassified fashion--yes we had eventually a "Commission" but did we get the answers---never.
Would it be politically hard to reach out to the IS--a massive yes---but they are here to stay and are not leaving the ME anytime soon, how do we reengage with the Egyptian population that so looked up to the US and then was run over by the Egyptian Army--the very Army that we claimed our military had such a great relationship with, how do we support a struggling Ukraine militarily to show their population we truly respect their decisions on "the rule of law and good governance"---how do we engage back into Africa that we to a degree destroyed during the days of the "Wars of National Liberation"-how do we actively support the slowing down of corruption there, or how do we slow down the human smuggling there as well--in our condemning of the use of barrel bombs on Syrian civilians mainly women and children do we do something about it or ignore it as we are now doing, do we truly stop the use of starvation as a weapon by the Syrians or just stand by and the list goes on and on and on.
That is what the world wants to see-- nothing more nothing less---meaning are we defending "our values" or just as we usually do lately---utter just "words".
Again it is all about perception and we are with this current civilian leadership failing and or have actually already failed--and this is what Putin has picked up on and is fully exploiting.
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