[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #10

The problem is that, to Putin, all these are good excuse to revert back to an old Soviet way.

With natural resources as its main income generator, Putin more or less follow What oil-rich Arab states did. That is, refusal to change old way, expand state control, do it in an old way he is comfortable with, just as oil Sheiks are comfortable with Sharia.

Putin is driving Russia in a wrong direction. Bukovsky may have been right about his concern for re-Sovietization, which I was not sure of when I first read his words in an article.

[Rooivalk]

During the spring and summer of 1969, U.S. government officials watched the ideological and political split between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China escalate into fighting on Sino-Soviet borders

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB49/

Under the right conditions this could happen again. Russia is playing a dangerous game attempting to dance with the Chinese dragon