mai said:
Wall of text incoming...
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Branko2166 said:
There seems to be a very misguided view which is held by many that somehow democracy solves everything and that democratic nations are natural allies. A democratic Russia will still pursue it's own national interests as all other countries do and should.
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Let's keep these talks where they belong, it's more ideology than anything else. We both know that Russia will never get approved of 'democratic state' rank keeping it's sovereignty at the same time, while the US would never lose one even if the nation will celebrate every election of a new Emperor by eating unborn babies of families voted for the wrong candidate alive. At least as long as current global political system is intact.
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Branko2166 said:
The west had a 10 year window of oppurtunity from the dissolution of the Soviet Union to truly engage and embrace Russia while it was weak. Instead, the US continued expanding NATO and even started accepting former Soviet republics into the military alliance. All this served to reinforce Russia's greatest fears. That the west was talking about engagement while it was more than happy to box Russia in. This situation allowed the hardliners including Putin to come to power.
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He never was Washington's puppet, though always tried to play by the rules of generally accepeted politeness. But what you seem don't quite understaned is how pro-Western Putin was when he came to power. He just got much more pragmatic through the time. I'm not even ruling out the idea that he might have shared certain wishful thinking on part of KPSS nomenklatura bosses, who downed USSR, about the West embracing Russia or smth along those lines. (Why people never learn history lessons?!)
The things got ugly in 2008, when Crisis has officially struck, just after he've assumed Prime Minister's post, so he had a lot of time to recosider his position. The attempts of financial centers to solve the issue by regular monetarist methods didn't give results, so in the end we see two conflicting trends: 1) keep all the power in hands of current global oligarchy; 2) ressurect much-talked multipolar world order where all global powers will be more or less even. Have you noted the recent 'currency war' among global players? Basically they've refused to play by the rules, rocking the boat of 'globalized world', in what btw Russia didn't take part thanks to Kudrin, Minister of Finance (probably one of the most highly acclaimed Ministers of Finance out there... the reason? The indirect message is "you play by our rules - get your cookie").
What I expect to happen. Putin finally said farewell to any ides of keeping current liberal (a tad different from what is considered 'liberal' elsewhere) politikum in power, Russia just don't have much of a chance to survive the incoming storm without serious losses if they stay. And what smart person does when he sees that he can't win the game following the rules? He makes it's own rules. Administrative reform have started with Kudrin's dismissal from the office, which was scandalously done by Medvedev live on TV, and will go on sort of the Great Purge, though without brutal scenario this time, but your never know.
Things you should know about Kudrin to understand the situation: 1) he officially confirmed his plans to refuse any post in next goverment if Medvedev will become a Prime Minister (meaning if Putin will become a President); 2) he is a prominent member of old liberal team, keeping Kudrin in power has been always a point of criticism of Putin, since Kudrin always was more supportive to global financal elites (see above) rather than national, or at least perceived as such.
These actions are pretty much in line of both Medvedev's words on recent Davos forum and latest Putin's remark at the UR party congress on'reformating' global finance system. Add to the mix Putin's attempts to accumulate various unaffiliated social organizations, groups and famous persons around UR party by founding ONF (National Front) as a force that suppose to 'support' UR party on next parliament elections (though I'm thinking about 'replacing' eventually), while Medvedev surpsiginly is going to take care of UR party leadership instead of Putin on next elections. As we see it now despite certain hopes coming from inner and external political forces that've tried to make an alternative to Putin out of Medvedev, those hopes have been proven futile.
Final step of administrative reform is a reform of Central Bank of Russia, and eventually a repatriation of gold and foreign exchange reserves from the US to Russia, which means an open conflict with the US regardless of results (a hard decision only three years ago, but possible in current situation). I'm not talking about direct military conflict, but a massive blowout of local conflicts for multiple reasons not always connected to Russia is a given: Near East, Karabakh, AfPak, Central Asia etc., including intensified info war on all fronts (if Putin wins, expect the results to be declared unlawful or smth).
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Branko2166 said:
That last paragraph of yours has me worried. Seems to me that you think if a government isn't supportive of globalisation it automatically makes them bad. While in theory it benefits all, as we can observe there are always many negative aspects as well. I believe that any country should have the right to uphold their sovereignty, unfortunately we live in an age where we have countries talking one way and acting another way.
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Globalisation ain't something natural force that's impose onself on the world by itself. Globalisation is an US way of how to rule the world, in a sense there were several globalizations in history of mankind, the last alternative have died with USSR which encompass 500M+ people at the time. It didn't had a chance to grow bigger, in fact the main reason it've died it's beacause it has stopped growing. Well, there was communist China near the border that could have entered Comecone globalisation, but for the reasons not discusses here China has become economically a part of the West since 70s (btw the main reason they cannot oppose the US, simply because they're the biggest advocates to keep US-led system alive).
With that being said Putin's mid-, long-term plan here is waiting for crisis in EU and chaos in Muslim world to hit harder to take control of politically, economically and military ex-USSR or even some ex-Comecon countries, since the bigger market you control the better chances you have to survive the storm, current 140M+ (not even exclusive to domestic companies like it was in USSR) is just not enough for that.
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Branko2166 said:
What you are basically advocating is precicely the mistake that I have said the west has made. If you had your way, Russia just like Japan and Germany would be a nation under American military occupation/control. There are also countless cases of the west supporting dictatorships where it suits them. Best examples being Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
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Speaking about occupation. Not that they didn't try last time in 1918, I believe there were Australian troops as well. It didn't work out. But in today's world of permanent nuclear threat it's just way too risky, so they've opted for soft power (Chechentelekom, Movladi Baysurov, Boris Berezovsky etc.).
//Must admit the thread is getting better than typical Joel-like crapyness we usually get here on VGC whenever politics is discussed :D
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