Posted on 08/12/2008 8:14:54 AM PDT by average american student
“Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has taken a giant step backwards into its Soviet past, and nowhere is this more evident than in the realm of energy politics. Modern Russian politics and energy sources, first oil and then both oil and gas, have been inextricably connected in a way unmatched by any other major power in the history of the world.”
That’s how Michael J. Economides and Donna Marie D’Aleo open their book, “From Soviet to Putin and Back: The Dominance of Energy in Today’s Russia.”
Central to the Russian psyche is its preference for strong leadership and, after what the Russians considered to have been the embarrassment of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, it was Putin who tapped into this centuries old desire for a Tsar. Secondary to that was the massive feeling of wounded pride when the old Soviet Union collapsed. Imagine being raised to believe that Communism was a superior economic and social system, only to discover that it was no match for the capitalism of the West?
The Soviet Union fell because, in the end, it was heavily, if not entirely, dependent on the sale of that nation’s vast oil and gas reserves. The fall in the price per barrel did in the Soviet Union and you can thank Ronald Reagan for that because it was he who hatched the plot with the King of Saudi Arabia to make it happen. Cheap oil thanks to Saudi production in the 1980s kept the price low. Soviet revenues declined.
Pride and the price of oil are surely part of the reason Russian troops are in Georgia today. The Russians want Georgia back under their control and are not unmindful that control of the pipeline that runs through Georgia would increase the power...
(Excerpt) Read more at stiffrightjab.com ...
He unveils (this is part book review on a new oil book) that Reagan entered into secret pact with Arabs to bring down price of oil and thus bring an end to oil dependent Soviet Russia.
Wonders what Obama and Democrats are thinking as they push hard to the socialist left, and this in the middle of an energy crisis, refusing to develop our own resources.
This too with a remilitarized Russia gobbling up oil, providing guns to oil rich Venezuela, recozying up to Cuba.
Are we paying attention? Or are we about to be blindsided by our political apathy and ignorance of history?
Wonders what Obama and Democrats are thinking as they push hard to the socialist left, and this in the middle of an energy crisis, refusing to develop our own resources.
This too with a remilitarized Russia gobbling up oil, providing guns to oil rich Venezuela, recozying up to Cuba.
Are we paying attention? Or are we about to be blindsided by our political apathy and ignorance of history?
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Oh no, never happen here in America. Apathy? Ignorance? Political blindness? No, no way the great USA could ever suffer from those downsides -——
Look, this is all one big global struggle for power, influence and natural resources.
Look, this is all one big global struggle for power, influence and natural resources.
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