Is Putin rallying the US' enemies in a bid to improve Russia's geopolitical position - Political Forum

Sebelius for VP, not Hillary · 02-27-2007, 12:03 PM

Putin denounced the US for being a superpower or hyperpower, and it seems that Putin misses the days of being an equal to the United States in world influence.

Actually, I don't blame the Russians for their contempt for the United States. We broke our word about not expanding NATO east of Poland. I believe it has been US foreign policy to encourage the states of the former Soviet Union to create governments that are friendly to the West and undermine parties that are friendly to Russia.

So, have we forced Russia into allying with our enemies? Have we caused Russia to hate us?

washingtonpost.com

Quote:

The Putin Doctrine
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, February 16, 2007; Page A23

Vladimir Putin -- Russia's president, although the more accurate title would be godfather -- made headlines last week with a speech in Munich that set a new standard in anti-Americanism. He not only charged the United States with the "hyper-use of force," "disdain for the basic principles of international law" and having "overstepped its national borders in . . . the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations." He even blamed the spread of weapons of mass destruction, which the United States has been combating with few allies and against constant Russian resistance, on American "dominance" that "inevitably encourages" other countries to acquire them.

* snip *

And we know how Putin, who has called the demise of the Soviet Union the greatest political catastrophe of the 20th century, yearns for those superpower days. At Munich, he could not even disguise his Cold War nostalgia, asserting that "global security" was ensured by the "strategic potential of two superpowers."

Putin's bitter complaint is that today there remains only one superpower, the behemoth that dominates a "unipolar world." He knows that Moscow lacks the economic, military and even demographic means to challenge America as it did in Soviet days. He speaks more modestly of coalitions of aggrieved have-not countries that Russia might lead in countering American power.

Hence his increasingly active foreign policy -- military partnerships with China, nuclear cooperation with Iran, weapon supplies to Syria and Venezuela, diplomatic support as well as arms for a genocidal Sudan, friendly outreach to other potential partners of an anti-hegemonic (read: anti-American) alliance.

Is this a return to the Cold War? It is true that the ex-KGB agent occasionally lets slip a classic Marxist anachronism such as "foreign capital" (referring to Western oil companies) or the otherwise weird adjective "vulgar" (describing the actions of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which infuriated Putin by insisting upon a clean election in Ukraine). He even intimated that he might undo one of the unequivocal achievements of the late Cold War era, the so-called "zero option" agreement of 1987, and restore a Soviet-style, medium-range ballistic missile force.

Nonetheless, Putin's aggressiveness does not signal a return to the Cold War. He is too clever to be burdened by the absurdity of socialist economics or Marxist politics. He is blissfully free of ideology, political philosophy and economic theory. There is no existential dispute with the United States.

He is a more modest man: a mere mafia don, seizing the economic resources and political power of a country for himself and his (mostly KGB) cronies. And promoting his vision of the Russian national interest -- assertive and expansionist -- by engaging in diplomacy that challenges the dominant power in order to boost his own.

He wants Gromyko's influence -- or at least some international acknowledgment that Moscow must be reckoned with -- without the ideological baggage. He does not want to bury us; he only wants to diminish us. It is 19th-century power politics at its most crude and elemental. Putin does not want us as an enemy. But at Munich he told the world that, vis-à-vis America, his Russia has gone from partner to adversary.

Brother Oz · 02-27-2007, 12:20 PM

I think Putin wants to be an adversary of the west, but his nation is too dependant on American capitalism at the moment. I think he could become an adversary.

francois60 · 02-27-2007, 12:20 PM

Russia has been paranoid for centuries, with good reason. It's not our fault, they are just seeing us the same way they saw the Germans and Mongols and Japanese.

george.d · 02-27-2007, 12:21 PM

In looking at the Russian economy, a complete turnaround from the late '90s with more potential strength than most of the EU or the US, I'd think Putin is following some very sage economic advice. Russia's dependency on natural resources offers the typical instability of any world commodity without participating producers controls. OPEC showed the way to eliminate that instability, though now hampered by the USD subject to US foreign policy, and I'd think any effort for a natural gas consortium won't be tied to USD.

Sebelius for VP, not Hillary · 02-27-2007, 12:28 PM

george, how does the USD hamper OPEC's economic interests?

Brother Oz · 02-27-2007, 12:34 PM

Because they get paid in dollars, which everyone knows are over-valued.
If Putin does manage his ambition of creating a gas consortium, I expect he'll either want payment in Euros or Roubles.

george.d · 02-27-2007, 12:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brother Oz

Because they get paid in dollars, which everyone knows are over-valued.
If Putin does manage his ambition of creating a gas consortium, I expect he'll either want payment in Euros or Roubles.

Correct. US military enforced requirements that declining USD be used for all oil transactions are a tax on the world to support our debt requirement. Russia is already accepting Euros for oil and they aren't a nation we can invade or intimidate like Iraq (Saddam switched from USD to Euros) or Iran (threatening to start their oil bourse using Euros for oil exchange).

Be interesting if Russia contracts natural gas to China and refuses China's bundle of USD for exchange.

Sebelius for VP, not Hillary · 02-27-2007, 01:36 PM

I don't understand. Arab oil states can accept payment from whomever they choose and in whatever currency they want, can they not?

francois60 · 02-27-2007, 01:55 PM

They can, they just choose to accept dollars becuase it's the most stable currency. They certainly won't be accept rubles, that's for sure, or whatever the Russian currency is now.

Brother Oz · 02-27-2007, 02:11 PM

Quote:

I don't understand. Arab oil states can accept payment from whomever they choose and in whatever currency they want, can they not?

OPEC has to work together, so they all had to agree on one currency, and they chose the dollar as it was the most stable. But now there are worries it may collapse, so this is a risk for them.