Sergey Karaganov: The man behind Putin’s pugnacity

The Globe and Mail ^ | March 30, 2014 | Mark Mackinnon

[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 country’s 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.

It’s 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 Moscow’s 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 Moscow’s authoritarian capitalism, a struggle he believes could take on a military element. But he’s 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. That’s 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...”

[No One Special]

A Putin ally tells us what Putin's like and why he's threatening war.

[elhombrelibre]

It's all a scam to protect Putin's military industrial complex. Putin's worth $75 billion; he didn't get that money by faithful government service. He's also helping Iran get a nuclear weapon. I don't see what that has to do with oppressed “Russian speakers.”

[No One Special]

I figure it provides him with an excuse to go international, sort of like protecting the rights of the proletariat was for the USSR.

[Berlin_Freeper]

Putin's Next Moves - Latin America and Alaska?

[elhombrelibre]

Agree. Whereever beef Stroganoff is served, Putin will reserve a right to intervene. Putinistas will want that too.

[goldstategop]

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.

[elhombrelibre]

There is nothing that Putin says that you don’t agree with him on. You would be his most loyal servant if you could.

[Berlin_Freeper]

Soviet Union National Anthem

[Berlin_Freeper]

Russia sought a new anthem in 1990 to start anew after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The lyric-free "Patrioticheskaya Pesnya", composed by Mikhail Glinka, was officially adopted in 1990 by the Supreme Soviet of Russia[4] and confirmed in 1993[5] by President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin. The government sponsored contests to create lyrics for the unpopular anthem because of its inability to inspire Russian athletes during international competitions. None of the entries were adopted, resulting in President Vladimir Putin's restoration of the Soviet anthem.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

Mr. Karaganov said Mr. Putin was pushed toward his nationalist new line by the West, which ignored Kremlin protests over the past two decades as NATO and the European Union expanded towards Russia’s borders and into Moscow’s historic “sphere of influence.”

The man has got a point. We wouldn't have wanted Mexico as a member of the Warsaw Pact.

[Jimmy Valentine]

Based on his philosophy all the Russian speakers in the “Little Odessa” section of New York need liberation too

[No One Special]

With the words changed to forget the guilty.

[Grzegorz 246]

You would have a point (from Russian point of view of course) If NATO was a real military alliance... In fact it became a useless political club, without any facilities in post cold war new member states and even without plans how to defend them in case of aggression. Additionally, Ukraine joining NATO was not an issue, they wanted to join EU (in ~10 years) the same European Union Russia has excellent relation with or at least had, until very recently...

So it's not like Mexico joining Warsaw Pact, more like Mexico joining Mercosur (Southern Common Market) or Andean Community of Nations...