The article states what I have been criticized for years for saying by the tried old FReeper cold warriors.
Putin’s job is to save a dying mother Russia. She’s better but still not well
Read
Excellent. And accurate.
Vladimir Putin’s job is to do the best he can for his country.
Xi Jinping is trying to do the same for China.
I don’t think there is anything evil in this, they are looking out for their countries’ best interests, just like we are.
It’s kind of baffled me why we, Russia and China don’t get all in the same room, agree that all 3 countries benefit when they use their collective efforts to enforce peace and stop terrorism and Islamic crazies.
“This is something that really aught be read in its entirety.”
I second that.
Bump for later.
Rose, see if you can get through this without fainting.
“Christopher Caldwell is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard.”
The Neocons there must hate him, and will likely expel him for writing this piece.
If you listen to Putin speak, in any of the many interviews or press conferences or panel discussions, you’ll see that he isn’t anything like he is painted by establishment politicians here. Good, bad, or otherwise, he is nothing like them. He speaks clearly, frankly, knowledgably, and whether you agree with what he says or not, he means what he says and doesn’t mince words. There isn’t really another politician on the world stage like him, except maybe Trump.
Which is why, though they come at things from very different perspectives and purposes, they seem to see kindred spirits in one another.
I remember one discussion, a foreign college girl (if I remember correctly) asked him about his role as a world leader on the world stage. He said, I am not here to be a world leader (or something to that effect), I am here as the leader of the Russian people; That is my job, to represent them. Sounds familiar.
Good read. From article, regarding new capitalists that sold Russia resources while enriching themselves...
“” Putin came to call these people “state-appointed billionaires.” “”
In the US, these people are The Swamp.
ping for later.
The last two paragraphs had the most objective observation; “Today’s biggest threat to the U.S. isn’t Vladimir Putin.
So why are people thinking about Putin as much as they do? Because he has become a symbol of national self-determination.”
The uniparty hates Trump because he has no interest in the new world order and neither does Putin. They won’t accept that national self interest need not be colonial and expansive. Like the Soviet oligarchs the NWO crowd wants to control and loot the world’s resources using government powers.
To understand Putin is not to necessarily like him, but it is more honest - seeing Putin in an appropriate Russian “nationalist” light, than seeing everything about Putin and Russia as “out to get the U.S.”, as much as we may remain rivals geopolitically in many areas.
I would add that in my view we lost out in Syria by attempting regime change on it.
The civil conflict (between Assad and the “Syrian opposition”) would have ended not too long after it started and with far less bloodshed and destruction (and refugees and ISIS expansion) if the west, some of the Gulf States and Turkey had not attached themselves to that opposition in what was actually their own regime change ambitions against Syria. All the states opposing Assad did was create a dysfunctional state, as much as invited the Islamists in to tear it apart and left Assad no choice but to massively change the Syria-Russia-Iran relationships.
Had none of that happened, the regional security situation vis-a-vis Syria would have remained for us in the manageable state it was in before the so-called “Arab spring” and neither Iran nor Russia would have been given the opportunities Assad had no choice but to give them in Syria.
I guess I am saying that the situation in Syria was to me NOT manufactured by Russia. Putin just accepted an opportunity our blunders there opened up.
And as for what Obama did or didn’t do? Conservatives like to complain that Obama didn’t do this or didn’t do that. I can only say that no U.S. president in 2008 to 2016 was going to get away with adding another flash point with American “boots on the ground” and without it the west was never going to command the situation in Syria and in fact the winning opposition - if we helped them succeed - was going to be another Islamist regime like Morsi and no friend of the U.S.
No. Syria is a gift from the west to Putin, because we were never going to take charge there in the fist place and those who would have (the majority in the “opposition”) were not really our friends.
Another insightful analysis from Hillsdale College.
He saw them as a conduit for looting Russia, and sought to restore to the country what had been stolen from it. He also saw that Russia needed to reclaim control of its vast reserves of oil and gas, on which much of Europe depended, because that was the only geopolitical lever it had left.
What did we just have happen here under the Obama administration in collusion with the Clintons? National assets/security being sold for what amounted to private gain .... $145 million at least going to the Clinton Foundation. Additionally, the Russians were trying to corner the market on uranium in the world ... and increase their geopolitical lever.
Thanks for posting this. It is very good.
I’m a little disappointed in the author’s short shrift given to Ukraine. I’m always hungry for more info about what Russia did there, since it was my area of “study” in the army, and I have a Ukranian girlfriend.
It seems that all the news about Ukraine is hopelessly slanted one way or another. When I read the opening to his only paragraph regarding Ukraine I was hopeful for a learned summary on these events.
But the author’s “Both of these accounts are perfectly correct...” bailout disappointed me greatly.
Russia Announces 26 Year Old Military Spokeswoman - NATO Surrenders
In short - Putin is Czar!
Putin = MRGA
I have no problem with the above as long as the American POTUS is smarter and more effective than Putin.
Yo! Caldwell! You're not exactly making the case for the guy.