Ralph Peters: A Czar Is Born...

The New York Post ^ | August 14, 2008 | Ralph Peters

[2ndDivisionVet]

THE Russians are alcohol-sodden barbarians, but now and then they vomit up a genius.

Prime Minister - and now generalissimo - Vladimir Putin is Mother Russia's latest world-class wonder.

Let's be honest: Putin's the most effective leader in the world today.

That doesn't mean he's good news for anybody - not even for the Russians, in the long run. His ruthless ambition and gambler's audacity may end terribly.

But, for now, give the devil his due: After a long string of successes, from his personal mastery of Russia's government and media to his coldblooded energy brinkmanship, Putin has capped his performance with a stunning success in Georgia.

Not a single free-world leader currently in office can measure up to Czar Vladimir the Great.

Following his turnaround of Russia from bankrupt kleptocracy to flush-with-cash autocracy, he's now openly determined to restore Moscow's old empire.

And he's getting away with it.

As a former intelligence officer, I'm awestruck by the genius with which Putin assessed the strategic environment on the eve of his carefully scripted invasion of Georgia.

With his old KGB skills showing (he must've been a formidable operative), Putin not only sized up President Bush humiliatingly well, but precisely anticipated Europe's nonreaction - while taking a perfect-fit measure of Georgia's mercurial president.

Putin not only knew what he was doing - he knew exactly what others would do.

This is intelligence work at the hall-of-fame level. (For our part, we had all the intelligence pieces in our hands and failed to assemble the puzzle.)

On the military side, the months of meticulous planning and extensive preparations for this invasion were covered by military exercises, disingenuous explanations - and maskirovka, the art of deception the Red Army had mastered. The Russians convinced us to see what we wanted to see.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Ouch!

[Da Coyote]

Putin wouldn’t have the Obamalon for lunch.... heck, he’d not even consider it a snack.

[Daveinyork]

What is it about the Bushes that makes them naive about their enemies, foreign and domestic?

[LoneStarGI]

Some of those lines are word-for-word identical to those in Michael Reagan’s article discussing Putin.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Peters is right. Putin’s ruthlessness and grand strategy have been first-class.

[Mariner]

Peters is correct.

Putin ran circles around the west, including the USA.

If he decides to confront the US over the long term, it'll be a dangerous time for all of us.

"Evil Genius" is apt.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

I like Ralph Peters in general but ...

This piece is a bit like Chris Matthews saying Obama makes his leg tingle in its gushing admiration for Pootie-pute.

We weren’t going to fight a land war in Asia over a place whose name most Americans associate with peaches and a baseball team.

And sizing up the Georgian leader? Just what the hell was HE going to do when faced with the Russian tank columns?

Putin is ruthless and all the rest, but do we have to call him an “evil genius”? Can’t we just say he’s an opportunist and ruthless and leave it at that?

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Reagan was following Peters' article.

As the always-perceptive Ralph Peters wrote in the New York Post, Putin’s latest venture “not only sized up President Bush humiliatingly well, but precisely anticipated Europe's nonreaction -- while taking a perfect-fit measure of Georgia's mercurial president.”

[Constitutions Grandchild]

Watched him last night, among highly qualified others, on C-Span. I was mesmerized I listened. You can find the broadcast on cspan.org and scroll down to the show hosted by the American Enterprise Institute. It's worth a viewing for those of us who have lived in blissful hope that the world had changed. Boy! Was I a dope and, once again, my mother was right. Wish I could let her know that for all the joshing she took at our hands, she was a better analyst than 95% of those making a living at it.

When the Berlin wall came down and we had a new openness, she said “Don't buy it for a minute. This is the beginning of a new era of misery. They just let the dogs loose.”

[balls]

Putin would use Obama as a toothpick!

[villagerjoel]

de·ni·al Listen to the pronunciation of denial Pronunciation: \di-ˈnī(-ə)l, dē-\ 1: refusal to admit the truth or reality 6: a psychological defense mechanism in which confrontation with a personal problem or with reality is avoided by denying the existence of the problem or reality Been to a psychologist lately Obama? It's all fun and games, until the shit hits the fan. Yeah, we can give up our nukes, and maybe it will seem like it worked for a while...if we're lucky, but someday, history will come back around as it always does, and the gentle people of North America will be speaking Russian or Chinese for the next few hundred years.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Very perceptive - others said this at the time, but not very many!

[LibLieSlayer]

We can economically cripple pootie and his thugs... all we need is the will to do so... therein lies the problem.

LLS

[jim35]

I’ve often wondered this myself. Especially after Bush senior was betrayed so malignantly by his own domestic enemies.

[Constitutions Grandchild]

You'll find that addressed in the broadcast I mentioned above. It was a panel of four men, one of whom was the Commander in charge of training the Georgian troops for their assistance in Iraq. He left a week before this broke out. Additionally, the strategists said Russia still can't hit the broad side of a barn with a cannon, but make up for it with overwhelming numbers. It really is worth a watch.

[autumnraine]

This is painful, but true.

[Daveinyork]

Bush junior never seem to get it that his enemies would go to any length to destroy him. He actually thought they would work with him.

[SittinYonder]

Putin ping, if you ever look here any more.

[AdmSmith]

Citing sources inside the president's administration, Belkovsky claims that after eight years in power Putin has secretly accumulated more than $40bn (£20bn). The sum would make him Russia's - and Europe's - richest man.

In an interview with the Guardian, Belkovsky repeated his claims that Putin owns vast holdings in three Russian oil and gas companies, concealed behind a “non-transparent network of offshore trusts”.

Putin “effectively” controls 37% of the shares of Surgutneftegaz, an oil exploration company and Russia's third biggest oil producer, worth $20bn, he says. He also owns 4.5% of Gazprom, and “at least 75%” of Gunvor, a mysterious Swiss-based oil trader, founded by Gennady Timchenko, a friend of the president's, Belkovsky alleges.

Asked how much Putin was worth, Belkovsky said: “At least $40bn. Maximum we cannot know. I suspect there are some businesses I know nothing about.” He added: “It may be more. It may be much more.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/dec/21/russia.topstories3

Even if he has 10 %, or 1 %, of the above it is serious money.

[autumnraine]

I think they are like alot of people, they assume that people are generally good. Or since it isn't in their nature to con and lie, it's not the first thing they think of when meeting others. I get suckered alot, but mostly because I can't believe someone would have to nerve to lie outrageously in my face. But they do and I just have to hope there is a such thing as karma.