Posted on 04/02/2014 12:18:09 AM PDT by No One Special
Sergey Karaganov breaks into a broad smile when asked why his two-decades-old ideas about Moscow protecting Russian speakers abroad are suddenly the centre of his countrys foreign policy.
Because almost everything I have said, happened, Mr. Karaganov said in an interview in his high-ceilinged office in the historic Kitai-Gorod district of Moscow, a short walk from Red Square.
Its Vladimir Putin who has made defending the rights of Russian-speakers wherever they live into a foreign-policy principle for the Kremlin. But in setting this interventionist new course, the Russian President borrowed heavily from the ideas of Mr. Karaganov, whom Mr. Putin has frequently consulted regarding foreign affairs.
Mr. Karaganov hypothesized two decades ago that the Russian speakers living in newly independent countries such as Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states would become the prime guarantors of Moscows political and economic influence over its neighbours after the fall of the Soviet Union. In a 1992 speech that laid out what became known as the Karaganov doctrine, he prophesied that Moscow might one day feel compelled to use force to protect them, and thus its interests, in the former USSR.
As such a scenario now unfolds in Ukraine, Mr. Karaganov sees Russia and the West locked in a clash of models Western-style democracy versus Moscows authoritarian capitalism, a struggle he believes could take on a military element. But hes confident Mr. Putin will not back down.
My belief is that Russia has nothing to lose and has had nothing to lose for a while. It will either win or collapse. Thats my judgment. And Putin, from what I understand, will fight to the end, he said, leaning forward for emphasis. We are in a blind alley, or worse in a crisis that will have terrible human and...
(Excerpt) Read more at theglobeandmail.com ...
I figure it provides him with an excuse to go international, sort of like protecting the rights of the proletariat was for the USSR.
Agree. Whereever beef Stroganoff is served, Putin will reserve a right to intervene. Putinistas will want that too.
He says Westerners are concerned about wealth and material comfort. Those things don’t concern the Russians - and they have far higher levels of tolerance for pain than Westerners do.
The West believes in nothing. I think that’s an accurate assessment.
There is nothing that Putin says that you don’t agree with him on. You would be his most loyal servant if you could.
The man has got a point. We wouldn't have wanted Mexico as a member of the Warsaw Pact.
Based on his philosophy all the Russian speakers in the “Little Odessa” section of New York need liberation too
With the words changed to forget the guilty.
So it's not like Mexico joining Warsaw Pact, more like Mexico joining Mercosur (Southern Common Market) or Andean Community of Nations...
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