Russian Bear Eats as Western World Sleeps
From news reports of the indiscriminate killing of civilians and looting by Russian troops, it is clear that the Russians invaded Georgia the same way the communists have always done it — the way my grandmother and mother experienced it in 1945 when Russian troops rolled into the German city of Breslau where they lived, and the way my Russian father saw it when he fought the Bolshevik takeover of his homeland. The Russian Army today still wages war the same way the Mongol hordes did — they rape, pillage, loot, and kill everyone in their path, civilian or military.
Where are all of the protesters in Europe and America who were so angry over our going into Iraq? We got rid of a murderous dictator who had defied the United Nations for years in a war in which American lives have been lost in order to avoid civilian casualties whenever possible. The protesters can’t be bothered about the Russians taking apart a democratic Georgia and killing innocent civilians. Why no, it is really Georgia’s own fault for being too aggressive in trying to get uninvited Russian “peacekeepers” (occupation troops) out of its country. The Russians have taken our full measure, too. They know now that not only will the West do nothing substantive for fear of confronting the Russians militarily or economically, but the Russians also see that the Europeans are so lacking in will power and incapable militarily that they will do nothing when the Russians make their next moves over the coming years — such as reoccupying the free countries that used to be behind the Iron Curtain, from Moldava where they already have Russian “peacekeepers” to the Ukraine to the Baltic republics, or turning them into puppet states to avoid military occupation.
In fact, in some ways things are even worse today than they were in the 1930s. The United States, Britain, and France eventually went to war against Hitler’s aggression. But they did so at tremendous cost in human life and resources — something no one in Europe, and perhaps even the United States, seems willing to do again. When the Serbs were committing genocide in the 1990s, the Europeans stood by and let it happen, despite their repeated assurances that they would never allow what happened to the Jews to ever happen again in Europe. It took us coming across the Atlantic Ocean when we finally could no longer stomach the Europeans not lifting a finger to stop wholesale massacres and rapes occurring in their back yard. At that point, the Europeans finally gave some halfhearted support to our efforts. I have absolutely no doubt that if the Russians reoccupied the Baltics, the Europeans would wring their hands but not be willing to fight to stop it. Putin knows he can do just about anything he wants and that the Europeans will not be willing to confront him militarily to stop him, and not economically either given their addiction to Russian oil.
I once asked my grandmother how Hitler, who initially represented a very small political party, had taken control of Germany. We lived at that time in an old southern home, the kind that had a screen door in the kitchen that opened into the back yard where we played. My grandmother looked at me and pointed to that door. She said sometimes you can leave the screen door unlatched and turn your back, and before you know what has happened, a thief has come into your house and taken control.
Well, the screen door is unlatched and Putin has taken Georgia. Will the West have the courage to punish him for his partial dismemberment of a democratic ally of the West and prevent him from taking the rest of the house? It depresses me greatly to say that I don’t think the Europeans — and even most Americans — have the will to take the potentially painful steps necessary to stop the reestablishment of the evil Russian Empire.
Ten years from now I fear that there will be a number of former democratic republics in Europe and that the Caucasus will again be behind a new Iron Curtain. Let us hope that the prison, labor, and concentration camps will not be brimming once more.
There’s a reason Switzerland has been, relatively, free of invasion, despite being surrounded by much more powerful neighbors…
Each nation in Eastern Europe needs to start emulating CH’s traditional militia model PDQ, if they don’t won’t to return under the Soviet boot…
It would have been a better article if the author would have at least attempted to present some viable counter moves. While I agree with his sentiment, it is essentially a hand-wringing piece.
Sanctions don’t work when you need what they have more then they need what you have. Europe needs to put down the butter and pick up the gun. Puttie is a for real, dead serious Tyrant. Another Stalin or Hitler type. All those sort understand is the gun. Waving a tub of butter at him won’t do more then make him laugh.
“A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”
Joseph Stalin
Georgian Soviet politician (1879 – 1953)
“The only real power comes out of a long rifle.”
Joseph Stalin
Georgian Soviet politician (1879 – 1953)
“…obstacles do not exist to be surrendered to, but only to be broken.”
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
German Nazi dictator, orator, & politician (1889 – 1945)
What do you mean we, Kemosaba?
Why doesn’t Germany send a Panzer Division to Georgia for training? T-62, meet Mr. Leo!
Will anyone stop Putin from constructing a new Iron Curtain across the Caucasus and Eastern Europe?
No
He has arrived in our backyard, giving nuclear weapons to Hugo.
Will anyone stop Putin from constructing a new Iron Curtain encirling the US?
No
Under Obama, we’ll be Putin’s buddy. Change we believe in is peace with Russia. Hope they will eat us last. Republicans, not the Russians, are the greatest enemies against humanity.
Aglifter:
absolutely agree with you.
Unfortunately Swiss Army was reduced and marxists promote the idea of referendum to cancel the Swiss Army all together
Jeez, who cares? Let them screw around in Europe. The Euros all hate us anyway. They’re proud of their “great economies”? Then let them spend more money on the military instead of us. Tell Putin to stay the hell out of our areas of great concern (oil country, Israel, western hemisphere) and tell him in exchange to deal with the Euros in Europe. He’ll love that!
I’m tired of us trying to defend everyone everywhere, only to be reviled in return. The Euros think they’re so great? Well, let them handle Russia. It’s their job, anyway. But what about Georgia? They lost my support when I found out that they’d gone in and busted up the opposition TV station owned by foxnews. They’re not a democracy!
You are correct that Switzerland is invasion free becasue of it’s militia and they are called AIG AG. If the enemy threatens they mass as the border and chant “We are nuetral!, “We are nuetral!”
Maybe Georgia should try that model.
The Serbian reprisals against the KLA and civilian population in Kosovo were not genocide by any stretch of the word, but a nasty civil war with atrocities against ethnic Albanians now replaced by the ethnic cleansing of Christian Eastern Orthodox Serbs. The Kosovo War set a horrible precedent that Putin exploited to teach Georgia a lesson and draw a red line against further quasi-imperial NATO expansion into Ukraine – a policy Obama and McCain both endorsed that a majority of Ukrainians oppose, hence the repeated collapse of the Orange Government and talk of Russian speaking, Russian Orthodox Ukrainians in the east and Crimea seceding from Kyev.
People talking here about “the Soviet boot” need to get a grip…they seem to be conservatives whose understanding of the world stopped evolving sometime in 1984. McCain isn’t much better, and he’s in the pocket of the New Cold War lobby, seeking to justify toys that aren’t much use for clearing caves in Afghanistan or the Northwest Tribal Areas of Pakistan. All of these people seem to forget that NATO is a bureaucracy not terribly unlike the UN and so far has shown itself to be completely ineffective in fighting our real enemies in Afghanistan.
The Soviet Union no longer exists, and the Russian army remains a shadow of Soviet military might. It’s much ballyhooed arms buildup mainly involves buying a handful of basic upgrades on early 90s designed Sukhoi jets and T-80 tanks. It was a good thing that Saakashvili’s men, in spite of their excellent U.S.-provided training and GPS equipment, were so incompetently led, as the Russian commanders found themselves chatting on easily intercepted cellphones when their radios failed. The Russian T-72s and BMPs that rolled through the Roki Tunnel were more or less of the same vintage and probably came from the same Soviet factories as the Georgian tanks. But the Georgians had night vision scopes on their guns and radios that worked -thanks to the American taxpayer – which makes their refusal to stand, fight and die even more embarassing for Saakashvili.
Russia’s falling demographics mean that it cannot maintain a huge army like it once did and its economy remains fragile and in no shape to support an arms race. Neither Putin nor Medvedev is going to take the bait that the Russians took in the 1980s when we pushed them with Reagan’s defense buildup and bankrupted them with the Saudi-conspired oil glut. In fact, I suspect one of the reasons there is so much fear and loathing of Putin among conservatives is the horror that he might try to return the favor and bankrupt the U.S. with sky high oil prices the way we pushed the USSR over the edge with cheap oil.
And yet, liars like Kim Zigfeld love to have it both ways, sneering at Russia’s weakness while trying to scare people with the spectre of renewed Russian aggression. Kind of contradictory to try and have it both ways. In any case, Russia would only invade eastern Ukraine or try to secure the Crimea if the people on the ground there seceded and were violently suppressed by a deeply unpopular Ukrainian government. Timoshenko, who made a fortune stealing gas from pipelines transiting her country, seems to have too much to lose for that scenario to play out, and Yushenko wants to avoid it as well. Explaining how all of this, at a time of enormous U.S. deficits and economic problems, is any of our business or requires our intervention is the real thing unexplained. Instead, we just get the usual Hitler…Munich…appeasement…Stalin…bla bla bla. Did it ever occur to you that based on sovereign democracy a lot of people in Moldova, Latvia, Ukraine and Belarus would choose to rejoin Russia? Why not let them vote or vote with their feet by creating a true customs union instead of planting the seeds for war? Russia won’t fight because of honor or a desire to reconstitute the USSR. It will fight because it NEEDS THOSE PEOPLE (as the Asia Times Spengler pointed out) and because it feels it has been backed into a wall by NATO.
“a budding democracy” my ass. georgian regime is every bit as fascist as russian. this canard is long dead, stop bringing it up.
Spakovsky – Putin’s invasion of Georgia is little different from Hitler’s occupation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, which the Europeans failed to stop. Putin has even used the same justification that Hitler used, except it is to protect “Native Russians” in Georgia instead of “Native Germans.”
What absolute drivel. Austria went to join the Reich in the wildly popular Anschluss Plebiscite, which was a legitimate democratic vote. The Sudetanland, like the Rhineland, was ancient majority German territory, taken away from Germany by the victors of Versailles. 90% of the inhabitants wildly cheered as Germans, being returned to sovereign German status and ability to have self-determination again and be freed of what they thought was persecution under French and Czech occupiers.
As was the case of the Free German City of Danzig, which was sent by the WWI victors into falling under brutal Pole rule.
Germany’s revanchism and determination to allow self-determination was little different than the Muslims of Bosnia and Kosovo.
As Defense Secretary Gates said, making every instance of ethnic dispute into a clarion call for US aggressive intervention on the Munich=Appeasement meme the Neocons use – is beyond stupid. The need exists, he said, to balance intervention that causes a war no one wants (the UK-French guarantee to Poland) with WWI type-interlocking alliances that bind parties to war well outside their vital interests…with need to nip aggression that clearly crosses lines – Germany’s absorption of the Bohemian Plain, repulsing the China-NORK aggression into S Korea.
Putting Poland and the Baltics into NATO made sense because they were never historically in the Bear’s sphere of influence, but always European. Not so Georgia, and especially, the Ukraine.
Extending NATO to them simply because they proclaim themselves “freedom-lovers!!!!” and demand it be so is reckless. What vital interest do you think will get Belgians to rise up and die for noble ethhic Ukrainians battling ethnic Russians in Ukraine? None. They hope to get Americans and Brits to die there if it comes to blows. And what sense is there for Americans to slug it out with the Red Army on soil they fought invading Nazis over?
We must recognize those countries, like Tibet is with China, lie within Russia’s sphere. That the West can have good relations with those countries and demand they not be reabsorbed into a new Russian Empire – but not at the price of fighting a general war over that most Euros would duck anyways…And we can insist that the provocations – against ethnic Russians in Ukraine, Georgia, and the Balkans – will receive no American or European support.
Like the American Neocons did with their campaign for unlimited resources and wars devoted to “saving” noble freedom-lovers and democracy-hungry savages the world over after 9/11 – the Russian Bear received a bloody nose from pushing too far with Georgia – as the rest of the world saw them taking a just cause and then over-meddling, pushing their national interests too aggressively.
Bush and his advisors spent our blood and treasure elsewhere. There was nothing left; no troops, no money, no mana; when Russia pounced. Blaming the Russians for taking advantage of our self-inflicted weakness is like blaming water for flowing down hill.
I am one of the millions of Eastern Europeans who suffered under the brutal oppression of the Russian barbarians which gave the world the Gulag of which Putin was a devoted supporter as KGB agent.
It’s sad and outright revolting to see this unbridled shill for a brutal Asian despotism which contributed questionable value to humanity during their history.
Russia was never part of the European family of nations: it remained a distant, exotic, idiosyncratic despotism which strove to be respected but deeply down in their subconscious they suffered a chronic inferiority complex that often resulted in vicious aggressiveness: they butchered more of their own people in the Gulags and in the infamous Lublanka prison than the Nazis did.
They were unable to internalize and implement the concept of individual freedom – the leading spirit of the West, instead they supplanted it with a strong man: whether it be the Tzar, the Party Secretary, or the ex-KGB apparatchik.
Only the Russian displays the ability to hold two, completely contradictory world views at the same time. Publicly they display the world view they would like to have, or the one they think you want them to have. Then there is the one they really believe; that one is the one that has Putin in power for life and the one where they are nostalgic for the greatness if the USSR: nostalgic for that murderous era of national psychosis, when they were all starving and waited for the “worker’s paradise” that remained as elusive as it gets.
To be an appeaser and apologist for this country which only achievement was the dog named Laika and unable to manufacture anything of value on the world market is shameful for an American.
Russia was always a stalwart enemy of the West and remained the worshiped demigod of the most putrid regimes ever like Castro, Chavez, Ahmadin. and other assorted Islamist scumbags.
I foresee both China and Russia taking more “liberties” with our weakened state. They’ll do whatever they like whenever they feel they can. Will anyone do anything about it? Nope. Not a damn thing.
Human history is full of buildups that can be seen coming but no pressing need or desire to do a darn thing about it. Besides, most of the time when you’re going THROUGH those times there isn’t a damn thing you can really do about it anyway.
Cedarford, I agree with much of what you write. But, regarding the Anschluss Plebiscite, if in fact it was so popular — why did Hitler earlier that year invade two days before Schuschnigg’s own scheduled plebiscite on the future of Austria? (Schuschnigg, BTW, seems to be one of the real unsung heroes of the 1930′s.)
And you’re wrong to dismiss Spavovsky’s assertion about Czechoslovakia. I’m sympathetic about the Sudeten Germans. But Hitler’s decision to humiliate Chamberlain and everyone else who welcomed the Munich Agreement by only five months later establishing the “Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia” was genuine evidence of his mania and untrustworthiness. After the Czech move, Poland was justified in believing that an agreement with Hitler would not have been worth the paper it was printed on.
I more or less agree with you about the Russian sphere of influence too. But, as with Hitler, you can tell a lot about a leader and a people by the way that they choose to assert claims that may be valid in the abstract, but are completely destabilizing in the real world. If Putin starts agitating for an “Anschluss” with Crimea next year, this is a good sign that the world is dealing with a lunatic.
I do not draw the same line with South Ossetia. For whatever reason, that is an inhabited by Russian who don’t want anything to do with Georgians. Georgia has no valid claim.
Hans A. von Spakovsky says:
The Russian dictatorship is destroying and occupying a country that had established a budding democracy….
….The protesters can’t be bothered about the Russians taking apart a democratic Georgia and killing innocent civilians…
Firstly, is Russia a dictatorship, Hans? No, Hans. Read some of political science, man to learn what a real dictatorship is.
Secondly, Abkhazians and Ossetians are not ethnic Russians. By their physical features, their customs, their culture they are closer to Georgians than to Russians, yet they prefer to be with Russia, and hate being a part of Georgia. They ask for Russian citizenship, passports… So, why Russians may not help them?
Thirdly, you are writing about “Russian barbarians killing innocent women and children in Georgia”… Aren’t you ashamed? How about Georgians killing Ossetian women and children in the first place? How about Americans killing civilians in Iraq and Afganistan?
Than the concerned Hans, goes: Yet we are doing almost nothing to stop it — other than sending humanitarian and economic aid — and the presidential debate shows that is not likely to change…
And what do you suggest, smart ass? You wanna war with Russia? Bring it on…
THE VERDICT The material is a rather shallow, amateurish writing by a narrow minded, stereotypingly thinking author.
Russia not a dictatorship, Russian Bear? What is it than? A democracy like Iraq was? Of course! And Putin won elections just like Hussein with 100% of the people’s vote Do you remember that? Well, there were some dissenters somewhere in the north I think, but their dead so who cares.
I live in Maine but I prefer to be a part of Canada. I want Canadian citizenship and passport. Do you get where I’m going Bear? If these Georgians want to be Russian so bad why not pack up and move there. Do you think Russian would welcome them or do you think they are being manipulated? Never mind you won’t be honest with the answer.
And then of course you use the typical argument of everybody does it or everybody did it to excuse killing, so it just continues on and on on and on.
Suggestions on what to do next or what can be done are started by these articles but of course you don’t want to THINK.
Georgia invaded Ossetia.
Russia responded to protect its citizens.
You have been brainwashed.
Enjoy your American Slavery. I’ll be watching your image on TV as you are carted off to a reeducation camp some time in the future.
The GLOBALIST CORPORATE FASCIST CABAL that is in the final stages of it’s long term
plan for the destruction and enslavement of America is in the process of encircling Russia because they want the largest country in the world with vast natural resources under their control.
THEY murdered the people in South Ossetia to provoke Russia.So when Poland and whoever else
would be dumb enough to put their missiles in their country,it would look totally justified.The attack buy Georgia was a ruse to this end.All the rest is naive or propaganda.
Well, Lynn, I guess you could use the same rationale for Kosovo. If the Kosovars hate the Serbs so damn much, why don’t they pick up and move to Albania? And if the Palestinians hate the Israelis so much, why don’t they pack up and move to Jordan?
Russian Bear — I’ll support your efforts against Cold War II. But keep your hands off Finland and Baltics! (and everywhere else with little or no Russians.)
Markus, I won’t speak to Kosovo (yet). Now, do you mean the Arabs who fled to Jordan because they were told that they could return after the Israels were wiped off the face of the earth? Do you mean those Arabs, and do you mean they should move to other areas of the Middle East where they will be treated as second class citizens?
Your getting close though. Just like the Palastinians are being used by their brothers in the Middle East, the Georgians are being manipulated by Russia.
“Now, do you mean the Arabs who fled to Jordan because they were told that they could return after the Israels were wiped off the face of the earth?”
That’s not a factual account of what happened 1947-48. Read Benny Morris, one of the most hardcore zionists around. The refugees left for all sorts of reasons. (And Israel should thank God every day that they did. Can you imagine what the Israeli demographic balance would be today if the Arabs hadn’t attacked and the Palestinians hadn’t left?)
Markus, I can only speak to what happened, and with the United Nations granting right of return to them and their offspring it gives the other middle east countries all the more reason to treat the Palastinians as second class people. It’s so nice to have others fight you battles for you and at the same time you can treat them like dogs kicking them again and again. You want to talk about the demographic balance between Israel and the rest of the Middle East? Look at a map and not on CNN where they magnify Israel to fit their agenda. Interesting that you brought God into it.
Back to Georgia. I stand by what I wrote.
Lynn, on Georgia you drew a strained analogy with Maine, saying if some of its people wanted Canadian citizenship, they should move to Canada. Analogy only valid if it were just a few Ossetians clamoring for Russian passports…in fact just about all of them do. If every Mainer wanted Canadian passport, they should have that right. There are few if any Georgians in South Ossetia and Ahkhazia and the reason for this and the question of who cleansed whom first is lost in the mists of time. As a result, Georgia is left with two choices: convince those peoples to become a part of Georgia, or let them go.
Good article here on faux Democratic Georgia: http://www.amconmag.com/article/2008/sep/22/00008/
To Marcus
Finland? Why? Why are you talking about Finland whatsoever?
The USSR (RIP) got everything it needed from Finland as long ago as in 1940. It could get even more in 1944, when was advancing towards Finnish territory in WWII, and Finland (then a Germany satellite)decided to get out of the war, but said enough is enough. Since then Finns and Russians are getting along pretty well, and I never heard about any outstanding issues between them other than custom taxes on the Russian timber imported by Finns.
There was a proposal in 90-th by some Russian liberals to return the territories the USSR extorted from Finland in 1940, but that was not discussed seriously, and moreover, Finns unofficially refused to accept them because the territories ethnically and economically were too different, and it would take a hell of money and efforts to make them like the rest of Finland. In fact, Russians respect Finns for being a neutral nation, not brining anything like NATO in the Russia’s neighborhood, for their capability to drink vodka even with Russians, for their love to banya (sauna or a steam sauna).
The Baltic States are not an issue either. Russia abandoned any appetite for them. It is not realistic to subdue them again. What for? To have hostile population inside the country? Not prudent. As far as they respect the ethnic rights of the Russian speaking people living there, they will not have any problems with Russia.
The Crimea in the Ukraine is an issue. 60% of its population are ethnic Russians, 18% Crimean Tartars. It was given to the Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1954 as a gift for the 300-th anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine union. That did mean nothing at that time, just an administrative border, something like between New York and New Jersey. In 1992, when the USSR was disbanded, the Russia’s president Yeltsyn did not claim the peninsula back on the condition that the Ukraine would stay a friendly and neutral nation and the rights of the Russians living there would be respected. Now the Ukraine is heading to the NATO which means possible NATO bases or radars 400 mi from Moscow and Russian Black Sea fleet incapacitated. The Ukraine government is pursuing “ukrainization policy”, closing Russians schools, banning Russian language on TV, limiting Russian language media, trying to induce anti-Russians sentiments among the younger generation of Ukrainians. They want Russian ships to pay them for sailing through the straight from the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea because the passage is closer to the Ukrainian cost of the received as a gift Crimea peninsula than to the opposing Russian cost. You see a lot of bad behavior from the Ukraine. So we can now come up with the claim.
I do not understand you guys… Well, the Georgians asked for troubles and got them. That happens most of the time when somebody asks for troubles… Why does it mean that Russia is going to take over Finland next? Stupid. If you are interested in politics, you are supposed to understand how all it works, to see the whole picture, the underwater currents and rocks. Russia could easily get Belarus back as a part of a new Russian Union. A few years ago Lukashenko was literally begging about getting Belarus united with Russia. Both Russian and Belarussian people wanted it too. And what happened? Nothing. Russian political elite refused to unite with Belarus. They were afraid of the possible economic impact and Lukashenko possible influence in “the would be Union”. They did not want a strong competitor. So, all this talks about Russia is trying to restore the former USSR republics under its rule, and even to go after Poland and Finland is just dilettantism…
About citizenship problem in Georgia.
After the USSR was disbanded, Russia became a legal successor of the USSR. They adopted the law that any former USSR citizen, regardless of his or her ethnicity is eligible for Russia’s citizenship. Armenian, Georgian, Latvian or Ukrainian-whoever…
Even before the USSR collapsed, Abkhazians and South Ossetians had conflicts with Georgians and wanted out of Georgia. They just hated Georgians for some genocidal acts in the past and for their arrogant attitude in the present. Same, like Chroats or Kosovo’s Albanians vise Serbs. So, when Georgia became an independent nation the Abkhazians and Ossetians being inhabitants of their own ancestral land did not accepted Georgian citizenship and choose the Russian one. In fact, they never been Georgian citizens.
Georgians should built better relations with their minorities…
Russian Bear, I thought it was clear that I more or less agreed with you. In the present crisis, I’m anti-Georgian, for instance. I bring up Finland only because I’m a Finn, and we had to fight the Soviet Union like hell not to wind up on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain. My point was, I’m fairly sympathetic these days to Russia, even given its imperial past as “the prisonhouse of nations.” All I was saying is: don’t mess with countries that don’t have Russians in them. I’m not saying Russia is doing this, but I will note that some in Finland are fearful and as a result are trying to put NATO membership on the agenda. I don’t agree with such a move right now.
On Crimea — go slow, and look at the world as it, not the way it should be in the abstract. Any attempt to take back the Crimea would be horribly destabilizing, engendering a much more dangerous world. That is a fact.
Markus, We Hungarians remembering well how Urho Kekkonen, the Lenin Prize Winner scumbag, sucked up to the Soviets while they shot or incarcerated everybody approaching the Iron Curtain. No wonder your reflexive infatuation with the barbarians and hostility towards Georgia. Your loss of Karelia to Russia is a divine justice you well deserved.
Soviet-Russia is the most hated nation ever;- from the Nordics all the way down to the Black sea and the Caucasus: ask the Poles, Hungarians, Baltics, Romanians, Chechens….
Putin has the classic dictator’s dilemma – no dictatorship has been good at running the economy. And he’s tolerated a lot of corruption to boot (or used it as rewards). So, he’s got to do something to justify having a bad economy and a police state, and being mistrusted by all. Invading puny neighbors and declaring that everyone’s out to get you is a standard response. Unfortunately, Putin just isn’t smart enough to come up with something new – he’s just a great example of what was called “the banality of evil”.
So, I would expect him to foment trouble in Ukraine, and anywhere else he can do it.
I read once that a Russian said that “The Russian people will tolerate bread and no empire, or no bread and an empire, but will not tolerate no bread and no empire”.
Sadly, it’s a whole lot easier for Putin to provide empire than bread.
At least Hitler was creative enough to get Austria and Czechoslovakia without a shot (and at the time, the Cz army was bigger and better than Germany’s), and bribed industrialists to put everyone to work. Putin only got part of Georgia, lost a number of planes, and got his stock market to tank and investment to flee, while oil prices dropped and his economy continued to slide.
Markus,
I got it. Do not worry about Finland. Russia is not going to restore the Soviet Empire. I know for sure. The fact that strategically valuable and industrially developed Belarus was denied to get united with Russia is a good illustration of that. Or Russia-Kazakhstan relations. Kazakhstan is a very independent state, which has ties with the USA and allowed the USA companies to invest a lot in its economy. There are some regions in the North, West and East of Kazakhstan populated by ethnic Russians almost 95%. The areas are rich with oil and rare metal ores, yet Russia is getting along with Kazakhstan pretty well, and is not having any claims or grievances. Because Kazakhstan is nice to Russia. The conflict with Georgia, the tensions with Ukraine, Estonia and Lithuinia is just implementation of the “Be nice to us and we will, be nice to you” principle. Russia has her own security interests, and the NATO at the door is certainly not in her interests.
And the Ukraine is getting really nasty…
Ken,
Urho Kekkonen was a wise politician, a real statesman. He cared about his nation and made right decisions. Finns are reasonable, prudent nation. Unlike Hungarians they fought their own war, not for others, they proven to be brave soldiers, did not smear themselves with killing Jews and sending them to Aushwitz. Being defeated by an overwhelming force, they came out of the war with dignity, not allowing enemy on their territory, saved the lives of their soldiers and wellbeing of their civilians. They managed to stay independent and to benefit from their position between the USSR and the Western Europe. In the result, Finland now enjoys one of the highest level of life among the other countries. Finns can work hard and still have time to relax.
The Hungarians volunteered to fight for Germans and than tried to betray them, they were not very good on the battlefield, committed a lot of atrocities on the occupied territories (ask Ukrainians who survived the occupation, they will tell you that Hungarians were cheap marauders and crueler occupiers than Germans). They were defeated by Soviets, bombed, raped, lost a hundreds of thousands of lives, their economy was ruined. The country was occupied, lost its independence for more than 40 years, and, yes, had “to suck up to the Soviets”. The lost territories of Transylvania, Transcarpathia and Voyevodina is a divine justice you well deserved. As well as the greed and consumerism that makes Hungarian to slave and to moonlight without sufficient vacations unlike any other nation in Europe, and still be well behind Finland, you are trying to teach.
Ken
What is wrong with Russia? I do not see any “dictatorship” around. There is dissent, opposition, freedom of speech, elections… People do not have any fears of government. They do approve Putin’s course. It is just a little bit authoritarian… But this is the Russian political tradition. To run a huge country with such diverse and law non-obedient population is not easy. A traditional Western style parlament is not going to work in this country. They need a LEADER.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-483321/Putin-vilified-West–great-leader.html
Says Mikhail Gorbachev: Major changes are underway, changes that are moving ahead in Russia. Not everyone understands those complexities,”… “Putin salvaged the country from the ravages of Boris Yeltsin, whose rule as president of Russia from 1991 to 1999 set the country careening toward capitalism at the cost of great economic and social turmoil”… “Now Russia is having a resurgence, not for the first time in its history,”…. “We need your understanding that we are halfway in our transition to a free and fully democratic state.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/04/AR2007120402218.html
Says Henry Kissinger: I do not consider Russia a dictatorial state. A vote of 64.3% shows that there is a significant part of the population that did not vote for Putin…. “Of course we have our preferences, and of course we have our sympathies, but we also have to deal with a government in Russia that exists. And we need some understanding for the adjustments required by a country in a period of transition”… He (Putin) is extremely intelligent, very focused on the subject under discussion and very familiar with the issues in foreign policy. He does not try to sweep you away with personal charm. It is a combination of aloofness, considerable intelligence, strategic grasp and Russian nationalism.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/personoftheyear/article/
“Russian Bear eats,”&etc.I would rather see the Russians enslave Europe than the Moslems.Bon Apetit,ursus putinus! Just don’t forget the pepto bismol;if you eat europeans,you eat rotten meat!
If you want a perfect example of Western media bias when talking about Russia, look at this simpleminded, ah hominem editorial from the Wall Street Journal (Oct. 9, 2008) in response to Dimitri Medvedev’s speech in Evian. Basically, they compared Medvedev to Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadenijad. When did La Russophobe aka Kim Zigfeld start writing for the Wall Street Journal? And how can the WSJ be so anti-protectionist on China, and Saudi money but have a completely hypocritical and different attitude towards Russia? Perhaps it is politically and financially more expedient to make Moscow the bad guy than Beijing and Riyadh, even among conservatives? You know what I’m talking about. There’s a Prince Bandar wing at the George H.W. Bush Library at Texas A&M in College Station, TX but not a Roman Abramovich wing of the George W. Bush Library in Dallas.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122350982199217341.html
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev dumped a truckload of vitriol on the United States yesterday in Evian, France (so much for the water). Mr. Medvedev said that after 9/11 the U.S. missed a chance to build a “truly democratic world order” and instead chose to “consolidate its global domination.” He urged Europe to work instead with Russia to “unite the whole Euro-Atlantic region on the basis of common rules of the game.”
Let it be noted that in the past year Russia’s stock market has lost almost 70% of its value. Insofar as his predecessor Vladimir Putin’s success rests mainly on delivering income growth to Russians, this dim moment must have struck Messrs. Putin and Medvedev as a good time to blame any financial trouble on forces outside Moscow.
In a particularly intriguing passage, Mr. Medvedev in Evian noted NATO’s plans to expand, and “quite naturally,” he said, “we regard these actions as directed against us.” Then, perhaps anticipating criticism, he said, “Sovietology, like paranoia, is a very dangerous disease, and it is a pity that part of the U.S. Administration still suffers from it.”
Some thought Mr. Medvedev would lower the volume on former President Putin’s anti-U.S. outbursts. Instead, it appears he is joining such other anti-American stalwarts as Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in concluding that international forums are mainly venues for ranting about the U.S. One wonders if somewhere in this Kremlin, Nikita Khrushchev’s famous banging shoe from the 1960 U.N. visit isn’t kept nearby as a lucky charm.