The Future of FR-US Relations

[Ronnie]

I see Britain is calling for Russia to be kicked out of the G-8.  I seriously hope that doesn't happen.  It will just make things even worse.

Roy,  Do you believe that when a person behaves badly in the community that he should go unpunished for fear that punishment will worsen his behavior?  I ask the question seriously because if you do believe that, you are certainly not alone.  There are indeed times when a bad actor is looking for attention and his acting out is a cry for help.

But we are not talking about a reformable entity here.  We are talking about about what Ronald Regan saw as the "evil empire."  It's not that way because the people are evil or bad, though the top to bottom corruption is certainly disappointing. 

The evil is because of a group of men who are the "cosa nostra" godfathers of crime who have no one to investigate their evil deeds but themselves.  Putin and his goodfellas make Gotti, Giancana, Luciano, and Capone look like choir boys.  But the Italian mafia never had control of an army and nuclear arsenal.

This is a frightening situation indeed.  Russia has a growing malignancy in it's core and it may very well, at this advanced stage, be inoperable.  The question is, will the Russian people have the courage and strength to beat the incidious disease?

[msmoby_ru]

I had an interesting debate about this whole issue with my fiance' today.  I've never known her to be interested in politics, but she was lamenting the fact that the world seemed to be against Russia, and the fact that our country was meddling in the situation to prop up our Presidential candidates.  I told her not to believe everything she reads in the Russian newspapers.  I then told her it was my belief Russia shouldn't be meddling with Georgia (or the U.S. in Iraq for that matter), and she said the only reason they did was because Georgia slaughtered their peacekeepers.  I said "occupying forces aren't peacekeepers."  It was a debate neither of us were going to win.     We left it at that and concentrated on other topics.   

Hi Roy, it is sad that Russian media is so tightly controlled - Russians within Russia are mostly hearing what their govt wants them to hear. Mr Putin has been a VERY clever man - it has taken a fragmented society - and managed to make ex-Soviets proud to be Russian and New Russians proud of the Soviet past ( exceptions being leaders like Stalin - particularly now - as a Georgian who made traditionally Russian leading region part of Georgia ( Abkhazia and S.Ossetia !)

During last years presidential elections, the TV stations had photo opportunities galore with Mr Putin's heir apparent  - grooming him before the election hype - and when I observed this and pointedf in out to my wife and friends in Cyprus - they finally realised how they were being "manipulated"..

Putin didn't want the OSCE to observe the elections - and govt workers were told how to vote, but most importantly - most folk WANTED the Putin - Medbedeyev ticket to win - as they saw how Putin had improved the economy and "reduced" corruption ! Russians felt better about themselves.


Now we have a situation whereby, from a Russian perspective, Georgians  - who have been portrayed as criminals, importing bad food products and "attacking Russian citizens" have got what they deserve..

Russians believe NATO is out to surround them and is behaving aggresively. They are told and believe the "defence missile" system to be located in Poland and Czech Republic is an aggressive act.

Ironically, *I* think the breakaway republics should be allowed to cede from Georgia, but it would be better if Russia allowed third party country peace-keepers take over - they haven't exactly been "unbiased" ...

Russia is only too keen to show NATO "screwing up" in Kosovo - yet it made reporting very difficult in the regions they controlled - because it was "too dangerous"...

IF we were dealing with a true democracy, this would be so much easier - and I don't think the US and UK are helping matters much. Russia shouldn't be appeased, but we should recognise that despite their objections to Kosovo's independence - the people's of the breakaway republics in Georgia have a historical right to choose their destiny.

BOTH sides have miscalulated badly, here. Saakashvilli had turned his country around economically, but I was always concerned that he insisted that the breakaway states can back under his control. His actions during protests - closing down TV stations and now banning viewing Russian Internet sites is not the actions of a wise man.

Although we can be sure Georgians saw a huge build-up of Russian backed aggression in the breakaway republics - I'm a long way off seeing his response during the Olympic Games as an appropriate response. Russia wants him gone, which is actually the way he will stay longer, as the west cannot be seen to push a democratically elected leader.

I think teaching Georgia a lesson was signal from the Kremlin to other neighbours ( Ukraine) that joining NATO and seeking increased western ties is not going to be "allowed" - there are so many Ethnic Russians in Eastern and Central Ukraine that this would make Georgia seem "insignificant" ( which by the way - is exactly how the Russian leaders hoped - and correctly guessed most western people would feel )

I'd like to less rhetoric from Washington, London and Moscow and a way to seek some points that can be agreed.. welfare for the people displaced would be good.

If anything this has set back Georgia's and Ukraine's EU / NATO bids - so Russia has "won" ! ... BUT the President's own words will be ringing in his ears if Republics who AREN'T so keen to remain in the Federation all decided to leave at once..and we still don't see countries rushing to join Russia in recognising the "new" states - so may be this might be a pyrrhic victory ... 

[Ronnie]

If anything this has set back Georgia's and Ukraine's EU / NATO bids - so Russia has "won" ! ... BUT the President's own words will be ringing in his ears if Republics who AREN'T so keen to remain in the Federation all decided to leave at once..and we still don't see countries rushing to join Russia in recognising the "new" states - so may be this might be a pyrrhic victory ... 

Yes Mark, it is a pyrrhic victory for Russia, if you can call it any victory at all.  Setting back Georgia's and Ukraine's admission to NATO?  Hmm I think NATO now understands the urgency of their joining and admission will be accelerated instead of set back. 

I'm not sure what Russia gained, a minor military victory?  Only because they stopped before attacking Tbilisi.  Such an attack would have been met with great resistance and Putin's generals had to know that....so take a few undefended cities and declare yourself in control...that was Putin's victory.  Other than that, all else was a disaster that Russia will not recover from. 

I know people get tired of me ragging on Putin but here's another point of fact.  When he was placed at the head of the FSB, people within that organization were shocked.  Putin was regarded as not the brightest bulb on the tree by his colleagues. 

You put power in the hands of a dull-witted thug and given enough time he'll destroy his own country.  I believe the Russian Constitution allows for a former president to serve more than two terms as long as they are not successive..  He'll be around long enough.

[Ronnie]

So Olga, let me see if I understand your point.  Putin's actions are right and defensible because 2/3 of American kids (who must learn 50 states and state capitals in high school) can't find Iraq or Iran on the map?  I don't see the connection.  Sorry.

[msmoby_ru]

Yes Mark, it is a pyrrhic victory for Russia, if you can call it any victory at all.  Setting back Georgia's and Ukraine's admission to NATO?  Hmm I think NATO now understands the urgency of their joining and admission will be accelerated instead of set back. 

Here we "differ" .. I think Georgia's leaders did it's people no favour by responding to Russian backed "games" within the areas beyond their control - I just can't figure WHAT they expected would happen..

 

I'm not sure what Russia gained, a minor military victory?  Only because they stopped before attacking Tbilisi.  Such an attack would have been met with great resistance and Putin's generals had to know that....so take a few undefended cities and declare yourself in control...that was Putin's victory.  Other than that, all else was a disaster that Russia will not recover from. 

Ronnie, the whole point is most Russians don't view the saga as a disaster .. YET !  If Russia had wanted to push southwards - sure the casulatly rate would have gone up, but they had the kit and manpower to achieve "success" - but STAYING there - where they were not wanted - is much harder...

I know people get tired of me ragging on Putin but here's another point of fact.  When he was placed at the head of the FSB, people within that organization were shocked.  Putin was regarded as not the brightest bulb on the tree by his colleagues. 

He is a very shrewd operator..  can't you see how he has united a previously split Russia?

You put power in the hands of a dull-witted thug and given enough time he'll destroy his own country.  I believe the Russian Constitution allows for a former president to serve more than two terms as long as they are not successive..  He'll be around long enough.

I don't know if the constitution allows this, but I'm sure someone will put you straight

Any great leader that stayed around too long - normally has a bumpy ending - ask Mrs T !  

[msmoby_ru]

I see Britain is calling for Russia to be kicked out of the G-8.  I seriously hope that doesn't happen.  It will just make things even worse.

I can't help but wonder if the UK govt - which is so far behind in the Polls-is looking for some sort of "diversion"... most folk aren't that interested in what is happening in Georgia.

The swift solution is for us to recognise Abkhazia and S.Ossetia, and for Russia to recognise Kosovo... this is dangerous poistering

[roykirk]

Roy,  Do you believe that when a person behaves badly in the community that he should go unpunished for fear that punishment will worsen his behavior?  I ask the question seriously because if you do believe that, you are certainly not alone.  There are indeed times when a bad actor is looking for attention and his acting out is a cry for help.

But we are not talking about a reformable entity here.  We are talking about about what Ronald Regan saw as the "evil empire."  It's not that way because the people are evil or bad, though the top to bottom corruption is certainly disappointing. 

The evil is because of a group of men who are the "cosa nostra" godfathers of crime who have no one to investigate their evil deeds but themselves.  Putin and his goodfellas make Gotti, Giancana, Luciano, and Capone look like choir boys.  But the Italian mafia never had control of an army and nuclear arsenal.

This is a frightening situation indeed.  Russia has a growing malignancy in it's core and it may very well, at this advanced stage, be inoperable.  The question is, will the Russian people have the courage and strength to beat the incidious disease?

I understand what you're saying.  I guess I'm just worried that doing anything that is going to force Russia in to a more defensive posture is something we want to stay away from.  Putin is a madman, and the Russian people think he's George Washington in a black leather jacket and Ray-bans.  That combination is dangerous for the region and unhealthy for international relations.

I suppose part of it is selfish too.  I've seen how Russia is already tweaking visa requirements to make it more difficult for Americans to visit.  I don't want this thing spinning out of control so quickly that I'm going to have trouble getting my girl out before next summer, or visiting in the meantime. 

[I/O]

Roykirk: Word of advice. For the most part (There is exceptions, some of those exceptions frequent this board) Russians are politically entirely ignorant. To suggest they have the slightest clue on world affairs is stretching the imagination. I talk to and associate with quite a few. Your lady will defend the blatantly ridiculous on this Georgian thing. Not worth even going there.

I/O

[Shadow]

Russia is playing a very interesting game here.
The world is blaming Putin (as nobody looks at Medvedev) which means that when the situation gets out of Russian control the only thing they have to do for re-entering negotiations is to let Putin step back.
In the puppet show of the visible lead in Russia, like always, the true leaders are not seen. This provides a great opportunity of changing puppets when changing needs. As Putin has become the international face of Russia, he is kept in sight to take the blame for Russian politics. This keeps open the road for Medvedev to, after goals have been reached, meet the new US president and declare a new era of peace and cooperation.

The next step could be an election of Putin vs Medvedev to show Russia as a country returned to democracy. It will also kill any other opposition, and keep the control to the current powers.

While the world is trying to grasp at straws for who is wrong or right, the reality is that the real politics are already  a step ahead aiming at the next need for political uprise to take people's mind of things.

[dispozo]

Your line of thoughts lack logic, Jack! Not even Putin could go out and order a massmurder of opponents! If it was such a massive opinion against Putin, even he could not hide it!

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10029798-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

[Ronnie]

List of Journalists murdered in Russia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia

[BC]

List of Journalists murdered in Russia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia

Ronnie,

No doubt investigative journalism is a risky business...

but just like many folks that ask me 'how can you feel safe with the mafia all around you?' (and a couple of bodies are found in the olive groves each year) I just tell them that as long as I don't have business with the mafia, I have absolutely no worries.

Journalists are paid to stick their noses in places where they don't belong.. and please don't interpret this to say that it is the complete fault of RU government that all these men and women met their demise.  Big business is probably as much, or even more at fault.

A few thousand in any country will permanently shut a mouth.

[Ronnie]

Ronnie,

No doubt investigative journalism is a risky business...

but just like many folks that ask me 'how can you feel safe with the mafia all around you?' (and a couple of bodies are found in the olive groves each year) I just tell them that as long as I don't have business with the mafia, I have absolutely no worries.

Journalists are paid to stick their noses in places where they don't belong.. and please don't interpret this to say that it is the complete fault of RU government that all these men and women met their demise.  Big business is probably as much, or even more at fault.

A few thousand in any country will permanently shut a mouth.

Brian...where do you live, Sicily?  Calabria?

[Ronnie]

Journalists are paid to stick their noses in places where they don't belong.. and please don't interpret this to say that it is the complete fault of RU government that all these men and women met their demise.  Big business is probably as much, or even more at fault.

Big Business vs Government.  In a fascist state, they are one and the same.

[Misha]

He is a very shrewd operator..  can't you see how he has united a previously split Russia?

Well, let's not forget that he had the good luck of being in power when the price of a barrel of oil went through the roof. Remember that at the beginning of his presidency reign, pensioners were taking to the streets because of the reforms Putin was pushing through. He had to backtrack somewhat, and then oil prices took off making it that much easier to manage the country as he could claim credit for an improving economy. Much easier to rule when your main export (oil) is selling at well over $100 a barrel than the $8-10 a barrel that was the going price in the late 1990's when Yeltsin was in power.

[wxman]

Unfortunately, when one bases their entire economy on one commodity, eventually it will collapse and lead to unrest once again. Oil probably will have another good 10 years before other technologies begin to kick in. Oil is a 20th century energy, not long for much more life in the 21st century.

[BC]

Brian...where do you live, Sicily?  Calabria?

Way down south, will pm if you would like to know exactly.

[BC]

Big Business vs Government.  In a fascist state, they are one and the same.

The differences lie only in degree.  Some have À la carte versions like Haliburton and such with an army of lobbyists enticing politicians to follow big business agendas.  Just look at how many times big business has been either supported economically or bailed out by governments around the world when they screw things up.

If separation of church and state is a good thing, might want to also separate business.  If that is possible, I will agree with you that what is happening in RU is wrong.  At the moment though it looks quite the same for all practical purposes.

[Ronnie]

Way down south, will pm if you would like to know exactly.

Basta sapere la provincia..e' soltanto la mia curiosita', niente di piu'

[Ronnie]

From the New York Times..

Op-Ed Contributor
From Russia With Loathing
 
By CATHY YOUNG
Published: November 21, 2008
SHORTLY before the presidential election, at a discussion about Russian-American relations I attended in Cambridge, Mass., speakers from both countries voiced the hope that the election of Barack Obama would signal the renewal of a beautiful friendship. These hopes were chilled the day after Mr. Obama won. In an address to the Russian Parliament, President Dmitri Medvedev welcomed President-elect Obama with a threat to deploy Russian missiles on the Polish border if the United States put anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe. While some conciliatory signals followed, it seems clear that the Kremlin intends to keep the “new cold war” going.

Just three days before Mr. Medvedev’s speech, the state-subsidized youth movement Nashi staged a Halloween-themed rally in front of the American Embassy in Moscow. Nearly 20,000 young people held pumpkins marked with the names of “America’s victims,” among them the casualties in South Ossetia. In an amateur film shown at the rally, an actor portraying a drunken George W. Bush bragged that the United States had engineered both world wars and the rise of Hitler to expand its power.

Leonid Radzikhovsky, a Russian journalist, has said that “the existential void of our politics has been filled entirely by anti-Americanism,” and that to renounce this rhetoric “would be tantamount to destroying the foundations of the state ideology.” There is a notion, popular in Russia and among some Western analysts, that this anti-Americanism is a response to perceived threats to Russia’s security — above all, NATO expansion and missile defense in Eastern Europe. Yet top military experts like Gen. Vladimir Dvorkin, a former high-level official in the Russian Defense Ministry, are convinced that neither the missile shield nor NATO expansion pose any military threat to Russia.

Russia’s post-cold war humiliation is real. But as the human rights activist Elena Bonner, widow of the great scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, told me recently: “Nobody humiliated Russia. Russia humiliated itself.”

In the post-Soviet era, many Russians are angry because their country has neither the stature nor the living standards that they believe it deserves. Polls shows that most Russians actually favor a Western way of life. Nearly two-thirds would rather live in a well-off country than in one that is poorer but more powerful and feared by others. Unfortunately, most also believe their country will not reach Western levels of well-being any time soon, if ever. As frustrations mount, it is often easier to blame an external force than the country’s own failings. It doesn’t help that the 1990s, when pro-Western attitudes were at their peak, are remembered as a time of poverty and insecurity.

The result is an inferiority complex toward the West and, in particular, the United States, as the pre-eminent Western power and cold war rival. This widespread sentiment combines admiration, envy, grievance, resentment, and craving for respect and acceptance as an equal. Most Russians viewed the recent conflict in Georgia as a victory over the Americans — a matter less of strategic self-interest than of psychological self-assertion.

In his Nov. 5 speech, President Medvedev asserted that “we have no inherent anti-Americanism.” True enough, but in recent years, anti-Americanism has been carefully cultivated by official and semi-official propaganda, especially on government-controlled television, which manipulates popular insecurities and easily slides into outright paranoia.

In 2005, Sergey Lisovsky, then the deputy chairman of the Committee on Agricultural and Food Policy of the upper chamber of the Russian Parliament, said that the avian flu was a myth created by the Americans to destroy Russia’s poultry farming industry. This year, Russian television commemorated the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, with a prime-time program promoting the conspiracy theory that the attacks were engineered by American imperialists in order to unleash war. A staggering 43 percent of Russians agreed in a poll last year that “one of the goals of the foreign policy of the United States is the total destruction of Russia.”

Today, the government may be especially anxious to ratchet up anti-Americanism in response to the election of Mr. Obama, who is likely to make it more difficult for Russia to exploit animosity toward the United States in Europe and even the Third World.

Mr. Obama and his administration need to respond with both firmness and flexibility. He should indicate that we will help the democracies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to resist Russian bullying while also making it clear that we do not seek confrontation with Russia for confrontation’s sake.

One of Mr. Obama’s top Russia advisers, Michael McFaul, has suggested offering Russia a path toward membership in NATO. The current Russian leadership would, of course, reject any such offer, because it would entail democratic reforms that Russia is not willing to undertake. But the offer would give Russian reformers a tangible goal, and make it harder to convince ordinary Russians that America will always treat Russia as the enemy.

Mr. Obama should make the offer in person, during a trip to Russia. Ronald Reagan’s visit to the Soviet Union in 1988 went a long way toward dispelling anti-American stereotypes in the minds of many Russians during the twilight of the cold war. Mr. Obama, the object of a great deal of curiosity and fascination, is one American politician who could repeat that feat. Cathy Young, a contributing editor for Reason magazine, is the author of “Growing Up in Moscow: Memories of a Soviet Girlhood.”

[thompsongunner06]

Sad to say but me and my wife will not be going back to see Russia. As of last night on the BBC news,,Big companies( a metal plant was shown) are closing down and jobs are being cut. Young Russians who are loosing jobs and are in debt(to poss Russian Mafia) are hanging them selfs to save family,,,shelves are full of stuff and not selling,,flour,sugar and salt are selling very fast. Russians are saying the US is causing this(cant blame Putin or be killed).We(US& Russia) need to stop  acting like children and become friends and work together.

[GoodOlBoy]

We(US& Russia) need to stop  acting like children and become friends and work together.

As long as former KGB agent (Putin) runs the Russian government, there will never be any "trust" possible. Until this changes, relations will always suffer between the US and Russia.

IMHO, there is a very big difference when you are dealing with another president who is an elected politician (even if they are corrupt) and dealing with a blood thirsty former KGB agent (dressed up as a President/PM) .