Nothing expresses Putin’s determination to humiliate Obama as much as the kidnapping an Estonian intelligence officer in Estonia and abducting him to Russia only hours after the president assured the Baltics of Western protection. Max Fisher at Vox says: “This is bad: Russia ‘abducts’ Estonian officer after Obama says US will defend Estonia”.
On Friday morning, less than 48 hours after President Obama delivered a speech in Estonia warning that Russian aggression against Estonia could trigger war with the US and NATO, Russian security forces have seized an officer with Estonia’s state security bureau at gunpoint and taken him into Russia.
Estonia says the officer was kidnapped (or “abducted”) on Estonian soil and taken across by force. Moscow says the Estonian officer was on Russian soil and detained with a gun, 5,000 euros and “materials that have the character of an intelligence mission.” Nearby Estonian police radios were reportedly jammed during the incident.
Investor’s Business Daily writes, “less than 48 hours after President Obama vowed to “defend Estonia,” Russian goons kidnapped an Estonian cop to demonstrate just what U.S. red lines are worth. Any questions as to the nature of the threat?”
The Daily Beast adds, “the incident comes at an extremely delicate moment, just as the United States and NATO try to convince the front-line members of the Alliance that have solid protection from Russian territorial ambitions.”
The sleight-of-hand invasion of non-NATO Ukraine over the last several months has raised fears that Russian President Vladimir Putin will claim in the Baltic States, just as he claimed in Crimea and the Donbass region, that the large Russian-speaking population needs to be protected, separated and inevitably annexed to a reconstituted Russian Empire.
The Estonian statement implied the alleged abduction is an intentional slap in the face to the Americans. “The incident comes two days after a visit to Estonia by U.S. President Barack Obama and in the middle of NATO’s summit in Wales,” it said. Apparently there have been “airspace violations” reported as well, including over Finland, which is not a member of the Alliance.
Russia’s strategy has been malevolently brilliant, psychologically at least. Faced with an occupant of the Oval Office who lives by words, Putin is screening a silent movie. The Ukraine is being invaded by stealth. Estonia is being attacked by subterfuge. Finland is being intimidated in pantomime. Putin is riding dirty without making a sound. The visuals are unambiguous, but since there’s no dialog, no musical score — because there’s no words — the president is unable to respond.
And this is intentional: Obama’s boundaries are all on paper and Putin refuses to cross the lexical frontier.
Katie Zezima, writing in the Washington Post captures the contrast between Obama and Putin’s styles. She writes, “president Obama brought back ‘hope and change’ this summer — and exported it to Estonia”. Like a one-trick orator you can almost see president Obama rising to his full height and reaching a peroration that has served him so well in the past.
“We’ll be here for Estonia. We’ll be here for Latvia. We’ll be here for Lithuania. You lost your independence once before,” Obama said. “With NATO, you’ll never lose it again.”
Splat. That was the kidnapping. The rotten tomato is all over the great speaker’s face. And in the audience, Vladimir Putin sardonically asking, “who threw that?”
Putin has drawn a Red Line he reckons Obama won’t cross. By speaking pointedly of Russia’s nuclear weapons and boasting his armies could reach Kiev in a couple of weeks, he’s made it clear he wants to mix it up. He’s rolled up his shirt and cut himself a few times across the abs just to demonstrate he doesn’t mind bleeding. He has all but dared Obama to cross the line from words to risky action.
Putin is betting, with the calm calculation of a professional thug, that he’s dealing with a tenderfoot unused to getting hurt and losing teeth, who may squeal as he strips him of his possessions, but who will acquiesce anyway — out of fear, out of civility, out of unfamiliarity with pain and the astonishment of someone actually laughing at him.
Like a tiger who’s tasted blood, Putin has lost his fear of Obama. Unless that caution can be reinstated, and unless that dangerous animal is caged, a very great danger faces the world; for now the tiger, who earlier could have been cowed with but a little effort, must now belatedly be forced back at grave risk and possible injury or death.
Recently purchased by readers:
Via Spiga Women’s Soft-Shell Anorak Jacket with Gold Hardware, fall outerwear.
Conair Soft Bonnet Hair Dryer, Bonnet is large enough for jumbo rollers
The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery
SEOH Glassine Weighing Paper, used measure out small quantities
Survivor Outdoor Fixed Blade Knife with Fire Starter, full tang knife, make fire without matches
A Blacksmithing Primer: A Course in Basic and Intermediate Blacksmithing, meant to be lying open on the workbench and not closed in the bookshelf
No Bone Unturned, “A curator for the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Doug Owsley painstakingly rebuilds skeletons, helping to identify them and determine their cause of death. He has worked on several notorious cases — from mass graves uncovered in Croatia to the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon — and has examined historic skeletons tens of thousands of years old. But the discovery of Kennewick Man, a 9,600-year-old human skeleton found along the banks of Washington’s Columbia River, was a find that would turn Owsley’s life upside down.”
Recommended:
Journey into the Whirlwind, eighteen years that a communist party activist spent in prisons and labor camps under Stalin’s rule
The Complete Bladesmith: Forging Your Way To Perfection, put yourself on the cutting edge of the custom blade market
The EC Archives: Frontline Combat, old time comics archive
Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality, Einstein’s belief in objective reality pits him against the daringly agnostic Bohr
Sangean ATS-909X BK AM/FM/LW/SW World Band Receiver, off the network. There’s still shortwave
Did you know that you can purchase some of these books and pamphlets by Richard Fernandez and share them with you friends? They will receive a link in their email and it will automatically give them access to a Kindle reader on their smartphone, computer or even as a web-readable document.
The War of the Words for $3.99, Understanding the crisis of the early 21st century in terms of information corruption in the financial, security and political spheres
Rebranding Christianity for $3.99, or why the truth shall make you free
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99, reflections on terrorism and the nuclear age
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99, why government should get small
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99. Fiction. A flight into peril, flashbacks to underground action.
Storm Over the South China Sea $0.99, how China is restarting history in the Pacific
Tip Jar or Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the Belmont Club
Join the conversation as a VIP Member