The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

[skhara]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Occasionally I check news sites while at work. Man Putin made the headlines on just about all the major western news outlets.


By the way, why don't these idiots spell nuceelar properly? Are they really going to challenge the leader of the free world?

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Putin calls on U.S. to set pullout date in Iraq



Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday called on the United States to set a date for withdrawal from Iraq, saying the U.S. military campaign had become a "pointless" battle against the Iraqi people. Putin used a live Russian TV and radio broadcast to criticize U.S. policy in Iraq, which he said was aimed in part at seizing oil reserves. The Russian leader's latest broadside against U.S. foreign policy came during his annual question-and-answer session with the Russian people. Putin said the American battle in Iraq was "useless" and "totally counterproductive" because it was against the Iraqi people. Putin said he agreed with President Bush that U.S.-led coalition forces should only withdraw once the Iraqi government was in full control of the country.

However, he said the lack of a deadline for withdrawal meant there was no impetus for the Iraqi leadership to take control of the security situation. "It's totally unacceptable to keep occupation forces there forever," he added. He also repeated his warning against U.S. efforts to put elements of a missile defense system in Eastern Europe and confirmed his plans to step down from the presidency next year.

Broadcast on state-run television, the annual "call-in show," as it was termed in the Russian media, featured Putin answering questions put to him by Russians citizens. Putin was asked about comments attributed to former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright suggesting that Siberia had too many natural resources to belong to one country. Putin called those remarks "a kind of political erotica" and compared the situation with Iraq.

"It's a small country which is not quite able to protect itself but which has tremendous oil reserves. So what's going on there? We see perfectly well that they're good at shooting but not too good at establishing order," he said. The broadcast was well-received in Russia, where Putin has used the call-ins to project the image of a leader responding directly to voters' concerns. One Muscovite said: "I've watched the news, and I liked what Putin said. I think he's a brave and noble man."

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/eu...raq/index.html

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Putin goes live on TV phone-in to escalate nuclear war of words



President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that Russia was developing a new generation of nuclear weapons as part of a "big, grandiose" plan to boost the country's defences against the US. Speaking during his annual live question-and-answer session, Mr Putin said Russia was upgrading its nuclear arsenal, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines and strategic bombers. It was also developing "completely new strategic [nuclear] complexes", he said.

"Our plans are not simply considerable, but huge. At the same time they are absolutely realistic. I have no doubts we will accomplish them," Mr Putin said, during a three-hour phone-in programme shown across Russia on state-run TV. Mr Putin said Russia would defend itself if the US goes ahead with its plan to install elements of its missile shield in central Europe. "I can assure you that such steps are being prepared and we will take them," he said. His comments follow unsuccessful talks last week with the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates. Mr Putin began their meeting in Moscow by signalling that Russia might dump the intermediate-range nuclear missiles treaty.

Mr Putin fielded 68 questions yesterday from ordinary Russians living in nine time zones across the world's biggest country. Beginning in Vladivostok, where it was dark, he discussed the price of milk, IVF treatment, and the fate of Russia's provincial towns. One caller was so stunned to speak directly to the president she forgot her question. "Is it you?" she said. "Yes," Mr Putin said. "Is it really you?" she asked. "Yes," he repeated. "Thank you very much for everything, Vladimir Vladimirovich," she gasped. She then hung up.

Mr Putin also congratulated Russia's football team for its 2-1 win against England in Moscow on Wednesday. Mr Putin said he had been too busy to watch the game in person but had followed Russia's second-half comeback on TV. Nobody appeared to ask about Mr Putin's personal intentions. Mr Putin is obliged to step down as president next year. He has hinted he may carry on running the country as prime minister. He confirmed merely: "In 2008, in the Kremlin there will be a different person."

Analysts said Mr Putin's latest remarks were designed to reassure his public that Russia still had an effective nuclear deterrent. But they were also a message to Washington: that its new and costly missile shield was effectively useless against the latest Russian technology. Mr Putin did not spell out details of his new weapons, which he hinted at in 2004. They are believed to be equipped with manoeuvrable warheads, which detach from the main missile during the final stage of descent.

Predictably, Mr Putin took several swipes at US foreign policy. The US-led invasion of Iraq had been a failure, he said, as was its strategy of confrontation with Iran over its alleged nuclear programme. Mr Putin, who met Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Tuesday in Tehran, declared: "Direct dialogue with the leaders of states ... is the shortest path to success, rather than a policy of threats, sanctions, and a resolution to use force."

Yesterday's annual Q&A session is Mr Putin's sixth since becoming president in 2000. More than a million people sent questions by email, text or phone - all of them screened by the Kremlin. The newspaper Novaya Gazeta published its own list of questions, which the president failed to answer. It wanted to know who had killed its star columnist Anna Politkovskaya. It also asked about corruption, the Beslan massacre, and why politicians from the pro-presidential United Russia party kept appearing on state TV.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/art...ticle_continue

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Putin the Puppet Master



by Oliver North

Sioux Falls, South Dakota -- Vladimir Putin is on a roll. Last month he made it clear that he intends to become Prime Minister -- and keep the reigns of power in the Kremlin -- when his second presidential term ends in March of 2008. Last week in the midst of a bravura “mini-summit” with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Mr. Putin wowed the fawning European press by shrugging off a carefully-leaked rumor of an alleged assassination attempt and by speaking fluent German -- a language he mastered as a KGB officer in Dresden during the Cold War. All this apparently took U.S. diplomats and intelligence agencies by surprise. But wait, there’s more.

While in Germany, the macho Mr. Putin baldly told reporters -- and therefore all those who might contemplate military action against Tehran, “threatening someone, in this case the Iranian leadership and the Iranian people, will lead nowhere. They are not afraid, believe me.” And just to make sure everyone got his point, two days later he went to Tehran for a “Caspian littoral” summit and reiterated to the world that Russia would block any moves to stop Iran’s nuclear program. And to ice Mr. Putin’s cake, reputable polls show that more than 70 percent of Russians approve of his leadership. Officials in Washington, London and Paris don’t seem to be worried – but they should be.

Mr. Putin’s Tehran gambit is much more than a rhetorical affront to the Bush Administration’s efforts to keep the Iranians from acquiring nuclear weapons. After meetings with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Russian president said, “Iran and Russia are now cooperating on a wide range of issues such as aviation industry and Russia will continue its contribution to Iran’s peaceful nuclear program.” Most of the U.S. and European media “sound-bites” focused on the “nuclear” issue. Some news reports cogently noted that the Russian-built Bushehr light water nuclear reactor is capable of producing weapon’s grade plutonium -- but ignored the arrays of gas centrifuges Iran is using to assure a dual-track approach to building nuclear weapons. Almost no one noticed that the new strategic synergy between Moscow and Tehran goes well beyond Bushehr.

First, with petroleum soon to be at $100 per barrel or higher, both Iran and Russia have a financial interest in controlling how Caspian Sea oil makes its way to market. Messer's Putin and Ahmadinejad have now made it clear that they will dictate the terms by which Caspian crude will flow to the highest bidder.

Second, Moscow and Tehran share a strategic interest in bad outcomes for the U.S. in Iraq. An American collapse in Mesopotamia gives Iran the kind of regional hegemony that Persians have sought for centuries. And a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would confirm Moscow’s assertion that the U.S. is an unreliable partner -- thus undermining NATO’s eastward expansion.

Finally -- if the joint statement issued after the so-called Caspian littoral summit is to be believed, Tehran and Moscow have now coerced their neighbors into what amounts to a collective security agreement. According to Mr. Putin, “We are saying that no Caspian nation should offer its territory to third powers for use of force or military aggression against any Caspian state.” Just in case anyone missed the point, Mr. Ahmadinejad added, “The Caspian Sea is an inland sea and it only belongs to the Caspian states, therefore only they are entitled to have their ships and military forces here.” So much for any NATO plans to use air bases in Azerbaijan to launch, recover or re-fuel aircraft striking Iranian nuclear weapons facilities.

None of this was forecast by U.S. or allied intelligence agencies. Nor do we know what Presidents Putin and Ahmadinejad discussed in private. We can only hope that Mr. Putin’s “aviation industry” reference doesn’t mean that Iran is about to acquire hundreds of Bal-E anti-shipping missiles or that Tehran is planning to replace its ancient F-14s with a fleet of new Russian-built Su-27s. All we know for certain is that Iran, awash in petro-dollars, can easily afford both and that Moscow is in a selling mood.

Importantly, Putin the puppet-master timed all of this to coincide with meetings among U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and their Russian counterparts in Moscow. According to our State Department, the ostensible purpose of these meetings were to “review security issues of mutual concern in Europe.”

To underscore how much we have “misunderestimated” Mr. Putin, President Bush, when asked by reporters what all this might mean to U.S. interests, responded, “I’m looking forward to getting President Putin’s read out from the meeting.” So much for U.S. intelligence and diplomacy.

Source: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=22930

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Although the following article requires quite a bit of reading between the lines I, nonetheless, found it very illuminating. The article essentially deals with the political dynamics of a unique group of power brokers ruling within the Russian Federation today. After seventy somewhat years of communism Moscow is being run today by what many people are beginning to call a corporate elite, many of whom hail from KGB backgrounds. In this scheme of things, Vladimir Putin is essentially the face, the spokesman, for this Kremlin based board-of-executives, so to speak. In my opinion, this corporate elite, made immensely wealthy as a result of Russia's efficient exploitation of its vast natural resources, will prove to be a more formidable adversary than the ideologically driven but bankrupt Soviet Union.

Armenian

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Inside The Corporation: Russia's Power Elite



In his mission to restore Russia's pride and prestige, President Vladimir Putin has repackaged the Soviet national anthem, reinvented patriotic pro-Kremlin youth groups, and revived the cult of the suave KGB officer. But despite bringing back these old archetypes, Putin isn't interested in a Soviet restoration. This time around, Russia's path to greatness lies in a modern authoritarian corporate state. Some Kremlin-watchers have even dubbed the country's Putin-era ruling elite "Korporatsiya," or "The Corporation."

"I like using the term 'Kremlin, Inc.,'" says Russia analyst Nikolas Gvosdev, a senior fellow at the Nixon Center. "I think there are a number of boardroom strategies that apply to how policy in Russia is developed."

Since coming to power nearly eight years ago, Putin has carefully crafted an image of himself as the undisputed master of Russia's political universe: a strong, stern, and solitary leader calling all the shots. His most recent moves -- unexpectedly naming the heretofore unknown Viktor Zubkov as prime minister and announcing that he will lead the pro-Kremlin Unified Russia candidate list in December's parliamentary elections -- have only served to solidify this impression.

But in reality, Russia is run by a collective leadership -- the Kremlin Corporation's board of directors, so to speak. Putin is the front man and public face for an elite group of seasoned bureaucrats, most of whom are veterans of the KGB and hail from the president's native St. Petersburg. Together, they run Russia and control the crown xxxels of the country's economy. All key political decisions in Russia, including Putin’s most recent bombshells, are the result of deliberation and consensus among members of a tight-knit inner sanctum many analysts have dubbed "the collective Putin.”

"These are people who have been with Putin from the very beginning," says Olga Kryshtanovskaya, director of the Center for Elite Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Sociology. "Together they thought up this model of the state and government that is in place now."

The Inner Sanctum

Most Kremlin-watchers place four people with Putin at the epicenter of power: two deputy Kremlin chiefs of staff, Igor Sechin and Viktor Ivanov; First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov; and FSB Director Nikolai Patrushev. All are KGB veterans, all are in their mid-50s, and all are St. Petersburg natives. Moreover, Kryshtanovskaya says, this group is ideologically "completely homogenous" and its members view strategy for Russia's development "in exactly the same way."

At the heart of that strategy is the establishment of an enduring political system -- a centralized, authoritarian, vertically integrated and unitary executive that can manage a thorough and comprehensive modernization of Russia.

"They want an authoritarian modernization. They want a strong authoritarian state of the Soviet type without the Soviet idiocy," says Kryshtanovskaya. "The idiotic Soviet economy and the idiotic Soviet ideology were minuses. All the rest they want to bring back and preserve: a state system without a separation of powers."

If they succeed, the West and the world will be dealing with an even more undemocratic, assertive, and aggressive Russia for a long time to come. Such a Russia would probably cease to even pretend to adhere to democratic norms at home, and would most likely abandon any facade of being a reliable partner of the West in international affairs. It would become more brazen about bullying neighbors, using their dependence on Russia's energy resources as leverage. The Kremlin would continue to try to undermine democratic reform in places where it has taken hold on Russia's borders, like Georgia and Ukraine, and strenuously oppose such liberalization elsewhere in the former Soviet space.

But to establish their vision of modern superpower greatness, the "collective Putin” first must make sure they remain in power after the March 2008 presidential elections. And this means keeping the group cohesive, managing personal, political, and commercial conflicts among its members, and preventing any one faction in the ruling elite from becoming too powerful. For Putin, this means a delicate balancing act -- and one that he seems singularly equipped to perform.

The Indispensable Putin

As his presidency winds down, Putin isn't acting like somebody who is preparing to go quietly into retirement. Speaking to a group of Western academics in September, Putin said he planned to remain influential in Russian politics after his presidency ends next year. And in a speech to the pro-Kremlin Unified Russia party on October 1, he gave the clearest indication yet about how he plans to do so.

Putin announced plans this month to lead Unified Russia's candidate list (RFE/RL)Putin told cheering delegates that he would head the party's list of candidates for December's elections to the State Duma and that he would consider becoming prime minister in the future. The move sparked a wave of speculation that a new, powerful, super-prime minister's office would soon displace the presidency as Russia's key power center. Whether or not this is indeed the plan, analysts agree that Putin is the indispensable man in Russia's political system. If Putin wants the system he created to remain in place and develop according to his wishes, he has little choice but to stay in the game -- if for no other reason than to prevent open clan warfare from breaking out in the ruling elite.

"It is clear that some of the prerogatives Putin enjoys are because of who he is as a person, not because of the presidential chair," says Gvosdev. "The worry is that there will be someone else sitting in that presidential chair who doesn't have the same level of trust, isn't able to mediate," he adds. And there is quite a bit to mediate.

Corporate Power, Political Clashes

In addition to wielding near-absolute political power, Putin’s inner circle, or board of directors, also controls the commanding heights of the Russian economy. Sechin, for example, is chairman of Rosneft, Russia's massive state-run oil company. Sergei Ivanov heads the newly formed aircraft-industry monopoly United Aircraft Company. Viktor Ivanov chairs the board of directors of both Almaz-Antei, a state missile-production monopoly, and Aeroflot, the national airline. Patrushev's son Andrei is an adviser to Rosneft's board of directors, and his other son, Dmitry, is vice president of the state-run bank Vneshtorgbank.

Just below the top tier of the Putin elite is a group of leading officials who, while not enjoying the same influence and access as the president's inner sanctum, are nevertheless considered key players in the system whose interests must be taken into account. Among them are Vladimir Yakunin, the chairman of Russian Railways; Viktor Cherkesov, the head of the Federal Antinarcotics Agency; Sergei Chemezov, general director of the arms export monopoly Rosoboroneksport; and First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who is also chairman of Gazprom’s board of directors.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is among Putin's key players (ITAR-TASS)Other key figures include Yury Kovalchyuk, chairman of the board of directors of Bank Rossiya; Aleksandr Grigoryev, director of Gosrezerv, the state reserve agency; Dmitry Kozak, the regional development minister (and former presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District, which includes Chechnya and the remaining North Caucasus republics); and Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Naryshkin, who is chairman of the board of the Channel One television station and deputy chairman of Rosneft.

[...]

"They have problems among themselves," says Vladimir Pribylovsky, head of the Moscow-based Panorama think tank. "They are afraid of each other. They are seeking somebody they can trust with the throne. Everybody trusts Putin. They don't know what will happen with his successor," Pribylovsky adds.

Top-Down Governance

Putin’s Moscow-based team sits atop what Russians call the power vertical, a sprawling pyramid of political and economic might that stretches deep into the country's far-flung regions and republics. Provincial governors are appointed by the president, and confirmed by elected local legislatures -- which in turn are dominated by Unified Russia. Presidential representatives with sweeping authority keep governors and local officials loyal to the Kremlin line.

Those who cross "The Corporation" can expect to feel the full weight of Russia's heavily politicized law-enforcement bodies. For those who are ready to play ball with the Kremlin, however, there are spoils. Through the governors and presidential prefects, the Kremlin controls a vast network of patronage that Kryshtanovskaya calls "a hierarchy that resembles the Soviet state nomenklatura," in which the Communist Party would dole out coveted posts, privileges, and favors to loyal members.

Putin’s emerging nomenklatura has a distinctive KGB flavor. According to Kryshtanovskaya's research, 26 percent of Russia's senior bureaucrats and business leaders are siloviki -- veterans of the security services or military structures. If the 1990s were dominated by robber-baron oligarchs, then the reigning figure of this decade, according to political scientist Daniel Treisman, a Russia expert at UCLA, is the "silovarch."

Putin’s authority, his inner circle's preeminence, and their common plan to remake Russia all rests on the savvy management of the corporate, political, and personal conflicts inherent in this vast power pyramid, and on Kremlin Inc.'s board of directors remaining cohesive. If any of the current schisms escalates into open conflict, the system could descend into crisis.

Putin "has created a situation that functions poorly without him. And he needs to continue with this system because are no alternatives," says Moscow-based political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin. "In the framework of this Putin consensus, he now needs to make sure nobody becomes too strong, so that nobody gathers sufficient resources to seize control of the vertical."

Andropov's Children

Shortly after becoming president in 2000, Putin saw to it that a plaque honoring Yury Andropov was restored to the Moscow house where the late Soviet leader and KGB chief once lived. And in June 2004, to mark the 90th anniversary of Andropov's birth, Putin arranged to have a 10-foot statue of him erected in Petrozavodsk, north of St. Petersburg.

That Putin should take such care to honor the last KGB man to become Kremlin leader is not surprising. In many ways, Putin and his inner circle are Andropov's children. Putin, Patrushev, Cherkesov, Sergei Ivanov, and Viktor Ivanov all entered the KGB in the mid-1970s when Andropov was at the spy agency's helm. They were strongly influenced by his ideas.

"They thought he was simply a genius, that he was a very strong person who, if he had lived, would have made the correct reforms," Kryshtanovskaya says.

Andropov, who led the KGB from 1967 until 1982 when he became Soviet leader, sought to modernize the Soviet economy to make it more competitive with the West, while at the same time preserving an authoritarian political system in which the KGB would have a leading role. The authoritarian modernization he envisioned, Kryshtanovskaya says, resemble the one that carried out by China's Communist leaders.

"Andropov thought that the Communist Party had to keep power in its hands and to conduct an economic liberalization. This was the path China followed," Kryshtanovskaya says. "For people in the security services, China is the ideal model. They see this as the correct course. They think that Yeltsin went along the wrong path, as did Gorbachev."

Andropov died in 1984, less than 15 months after becoming Soviet leader, and was never able to implement his modernization plan. But two decades after his death, the group of fresh-faced KGB rookies he once inspired are poised to implement it for him.

Operation Successor And Beyond

Speculation is rampant over how Putin’s power will manifest itself next. Will he step straight from the presidency into a new, more powerful prime ministerial post? Or will he temporarily hand over power to a weak and loyal president before reclaiming the post at a later date? No matter the formula, analysts agree that the current elite will remain in power beyond 2008 -- and the current elite along with him.

Putin, says Andrei Ryabov of the Moscow Carnegie Center, "is the undisputed leader of this team, and since there are no serious independent candidates to compete for that role, this means that he will be the main director and architect of the new composition" of political power. Beyond 2008, analysts say Putin and his team are considering major changes in Russia's political system to minimize the risk of succession crises in the future.

"The dilemma of the succession of power is one of the main problems facing the authorities since it always causes a crisis," says Kryshtanovskaya. "They find troublesome direct elections in which all the people vote. They need either indirect elections through some kind of electors or assembly, or a change in the character of the power structures."

This, of course, would require a major constitutional overhaul. But Dmitry Oreshkin notes that, given the dominant position Putin’s board of directors enjoys, that would not be much of an obstacle.

"Right now this group of people can do anything," he says. "In this situation, who has the resources to oppose them or to disrupt their plans?"

Source: http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle...629005FB2.html

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

The Russian option: Some Serbs dream of a Russian alternative to the European Union



DOTTED across the Serbian north of the divided city of Mitrovica are pictures of its hero: Vladimir Putin. Russia, Kosovo's Serbs believe, has saved them from the independence demanded by its Albanians (Kosovars), who make up 90% of Kosovo's 2m people. It is too early to be sure they are right. But Western diplomats are worried by Serbia's dalliance with Russia.

Marko Jaksic, a member of Serbia's Kosovo negotiating team, helps to run northern Kosovo. He is a deputy leader of the party of Vojislav Kostunica, Serbia's prime minister. If America and many European Union countries recognise a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo, he expects Serbia to offer Russia military bases “in Serbia, and especially on the border of Kosovo”. He adds that Serbia should abandon its bid to join the EU, and claims that Mr Kostunica thinks similarly but has less freedom to talk openly. Such talk is meant to send chills down Western spines. If Serbia gave up trying to join the EU, not only would it return to the isolation of the 1990s but it could also drag the whole region down with it. How serious is the risk? Mr Kostunica's party is aligned with Mr Putin's United Russia party, and its official position is that Serbia should be neutral. Mr Kostunica has disparaged a potentially independent Kosovo as nothing but a “NATO state”.

A source close to President Boris Tadic, whose party is in uneasy coalition with Mr Kostunica, concedes that, if Kosovo's independence is recognised, it will be hard to instil “European values” in Serbia. Even Serbs who would secretly like to be shot of their troublesome southern province fear that full independence would be disastrous. They predict that Mr Kostunica would, if not formally end the country's bid for EU membership, at least slow it down, as well as trying to punish countries that recognise Kosovo and companies that trade there and in Serbia.

Yet the Russian alternative does not look appetising. The prospect of Russian bases in Serbia is “very unlikely”, says Ivan Vejvoda, who heads the Balkan Trust for Democracy, a big regional donor to good causes. Serbia is surrounded by the EU and NATO. “The Russian thing is a temporary, opportunistic thing, a balloon which will burst once we are over Kosovo,” he says. There is much excitement in Serbia about Russian companies moving in. On the list for privatisations that may interest them are JAT Serbian airlines, Belgrade airport, a mine in Bor and NIS, Serbia's oil company. Alexei Miller, head of Russia's energy giant, Gazprom, met Serbian leaders to discuss potential pipelines on October 9th. But so far Russian companies (except for Lukoil) have been notable by their absence. Russia is only the 18th-biggest investor in Serbia; the country's largest single exporter is owned by US Steel. The EU has poured lots of money into rebuilding Serbia. If Serbia kept on track, a lot more cash could come—and Russia offers little.

On October 15th Montenegro signed a “stabilisation and association agreement” with the EU, normally a step towards membership. Serbia could soon do the same. But a negative report to the EU from Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor at The Hague war-crimes tribunal, means that it must first be seen to do more to catch the fugitive Ratko Mladic. Ms Del Ponte will visit Serbia soon to check progress (the government has posted a reward for the missing general, 12 years after he was indicted). This suggests that the Russian option is, as one diplomat puts it, “loose talk”—for now. If many EU countries recognise an independent Kosovo next year, it will be their turn to call Serbia's bluff.

Source: http://www.economist.com/world/europ...ory_id=9993395

[Illuminator]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Well if you can sift the the usual Economist crap, it's no secret that most Serbs want to be part of Russia which is the best solution. They want to join CIS.

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

When reading news reports that are produced in the West, specifically in the English language, you always have to read between the lines and juxtapose the information to the bigger geopolitical picture.

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Putinism in the Balkans: The Russian president tries to recover another lost sphere of influence



RUSSIAN TYRANT-IN-WAITING Vladimir Putin's plan to restore a one-man dictatorship in Moscow has caused anxiety in the thin ranks of Russian liberals as well as among partisans of secure independence in the former Soviet republics. It should also stimulate concern in Europe, the United States, and the Far East, since it is clear that Putin desires recovery of Russian spheres of influence, temporarily lost with the collapse of communism. Mostly unnoticed, Putin has resorted to a weapon that served his absolutist predecessors: pan-Slavic ultranationalism with the pretext of solidarity among Christian Orthodox peoples. The sharp point of this blade is visible in the troubled ex-Yugoslav successor states. Russia is reestablishing itself as a regional power in the Balkans.

Putin and his cohort in the Russian business mafia have adopted Serbia as a surrogate, and continue to obstruct the full and legal independence of Kosovo. In Kosovo's neighbor Montenegro, which gained independence from Serbia last year, Putinite investors have bought up a considerable share of attractive beachfront properties, intending to revive the local tourist industry on a betting-and-brothel basis. Russian banking and other commercial operations are expanding in the so-called "Serb Republic" that occupies north and east Bosnia- Herzegovina. Twelve years after the Dayton agreement to stop the fighting in that mutilated country, the "Serb Republic" continues to rule almost two-thirds of Bosnian land.

Serbs use the continued existence of the Bosnian "Serb Republic" against U.S.-E.U. proposals for Kosovo independence. The arguments from Belgrade and Moscow are simple and brutal: if Kosovo becomes independent, the Bosnian "Serb Republic" will demand the same status. Meanwhile, the Serbs and Putin paint the Kosovo Albanians as potential al Qaeda recruits, with Serbian propaganda at home as well as inside the Beltway emphasizing that the Albanians are, in their majority, Muslim. This demographic fact is well known, but Kosovars and Albanians in general are not exclusively Muslim. And they have shown little propensity for Islamist ideology, notwithstanding Serb claims that independent Kosovo would become a "Muslim rogue state."

Catholics account for 10 to 15 percent in the Kosovo population of two million. Catholic churches are found in most larger (and some smaller) towns, and Catholics were victims of Serbian violence before and during the U.S.-led intervention of 1998-99. Catholic clergy and intellectuals possess influence among their co-ethnics far beyond what their numbers might suggest. It is not by accident that the main street in Prishtina, the Kosovo capital, was renamed after 1999 for Mother Teresa, an Albanian from neighboring Macedonia. And Albanians remain so non-sectarian in their national sentiments that even if the West were to abandon them to the Serbs, it is almost impossible to imagine them turning to radical Islam as a solution to their frustrations. Albanians want to be accepted as Europeans, and not viewed as Middle Eastern intruders in the continent.

Serbs and their sympathizers--including a lobby of former U.S. diplomats and functionaries--also threaten a serious upheaval if the Kosovo Albanians are granted complete freedom. The Serbs and their enablers warn belligerently that their defiance of Albanian majority rule will begin with seizure of the northern tip of Kosovo, which has a Serb majority as well as significant natural and other economic resources.

Russian meddling in this trouble zone is not mere posturing for the benefit of the Slav and other Orthodox publics. Russia is joined by China in using Kosovo as a foil. Beijing says it will use its U.N. Security Council veto to forestall a free Kosovo, because of its problems with Tibet and Eastern Turkestan, both regions where local non-Chinese claim their historic tenancy has been diluted by massive Chinese immigration and politico-economic domination. The Russo- Chinese anti-democratic pair in the U.N. is supported in their anti- Kosovo position by Spain, which cites nationalism among the Basques and Catalans as its worry.

Cyprus backs Serbia because of its own partitioning between Orthodox Greeks and Muslim Turks, and Slovakia also opposes Kosovo's liberation. Why Slovakia? The Slovaks have a considerable history as Russian pawns--they commandeered the process of repression in the former Czechoslovakia after the Soviet intervention of 1968. But their leaders additionally play on fears, among the Slav majority, of their Hungarian minority of some 10 percent.

To most Westerners, the fate of Kosovo is eclipsed by the challenges in Iraq and Iran. Amazingly, however, Washington policy gadflies claim that nation-building in the Balkans--including the disastrous division of Bosnia-Herzegovina--has succeeded and provides a fruitful example to be imitated in Baghdad. Bosnian Muslims as well as Croatians and Kosovar Albanians say otherwise--that their confidence that outside intervention would benefit them has vanished as they witness UN and EU incompetence or worse in dealing with them.

Failure to respond to Putin's intrigues in the Balkans will only encourage the new Russian imperialism elsewhere. Russia also blocks common international policies on Iran and Burma. Russian parliamentary elections will come on December 2, 2007, followed by the deadline for the U.N. negotiations on Kosovo December 10. U.S. policy must be consistent and principled, and must not give way in the face of Putin's machinations in Kosovo, lest a reinvigorated foreign offensive by Russia undermine the trend toward freedom in places far from, and far more prominent, than the small states of the former Yugoslavia.

Source: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Conten...4/237aemai.asp

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

There are definite signs today that some form of a Neo-Soviet Union is currently evolving in Eurasia

And there are clear signs that the current leadership within CIS states are aware of this agenda and are more-or-less going along with it. And it is further obvious that the West is attempting to undermine this effort before it finally matures by implementing various countermeasures. However, my personal feelings is that the situation we are referring to has gradually evolved as a result of post-Soviet geopolitical and economic necessity and circumstance and was not planned by longterm strategists within the Kremlin during the 1980s.

What's more, if the Russian Federation continues its shrewed geopolitical strategies, tight social control over its geographic territories, military buildup and monopolizing of the region's vast natural resources - there is no stopping Moscow from realizing whatever plans it may have for the future. The aforementioned potential of the Russian Federation is greatly increased if they somehow find common ground with the Chinese. And the ultimate longterm danger here is the severe risk the western establishment, the Global Order if you will, faces as the East advances.

It's not a secret that the stability of the western world is highly dependent upon eastern derived gas/oil, eastern manufactured products, and the stability of the mighty US Dollar - which in essence has made the world go round for many decades. It's also not a secret that prosperity of the western world is directly dependent upon the economic/political dependence of non-western nations upon the West. In addition to Moscow slowly monopolizing the vast gas/oil distribution networks of central Asia, and forging strategic alliances across the globe, there has also been serious talk about moving away from the US Dollar who's presence has thus far been ubiquitous in the financial world. If, for instance, the Russian Federation, China, Iran and Venezuela, stops dealing in US Dollars other nations will do so as well. There is a great chance that the United States and its vast global network will collapse as a result.

Thus, in essence, Russia's and China's strategic policies, and to some extent the actions of Iran, Venezuela and various other lesser nations, are directly threatening the long established global elite of the West and its mighty financial system. This threat is a looming crisis taken very seriously by western policy makers and it is somewhat similar to the one posed by the Third Reich during the 1930s and 40s and the Soviet Union during its seventy years existence.

For the financial elite in the West, in other words the western establishment, the Third Reich for all its military might was more-or-less an easy target to destroy for they were inevitably isolated geopolitically and utterly self-destructive in their strategic policy formulations. As a result, there was a temporary alliance, a convergence of interests between East and West, that brought the Soviet Union and the western allies together in order to destroy an urgent problem in Berlin and Tokyo. After the Nazi matter was resolved, the East and the West resumed their hostilities. Nonetheless, the Soviet system, even from its inception, was an utterly hollow power relaying greatly upon sheer force and idealogical propaganda to survive. In the eyes of western financial experts, the Soviet Union would collapse sooner-or-later. Thus, the West merely had to wait for the inevitable. And this expectation was finally realized in the late 1980s when the Soviet Union began to fall apart.

However, the gargantuan potential that the current Russian Federation and China have has had no global precedence. From their control of vast amounts of natural resources, land and manpower to their abilities in the technologies sector; from their immense industrial production capacity to their presence in the global market; from their geopolitical impact in Eurasia to their military capabilities; Moscow and Shanghai can potentially and quite literally control the global order within the Twenty First century.

As a result, there will definitely be a major war waged by the financial elite in the West against the emerging East as they previously did against the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. And this new global war may be as nasty if not more than the previous ones. The current battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan are already the initial stages of this war and the other battlefronts that we most probably will get to see in the near future may very well be the Balkans, the Caucasus, the south Pacific, the Levant and south America. Of course all this is strictly contingent upon Moscow and Shanghai maintaining geopolitical independence and self-sufficiency and not allowing themselves to accept the current geopolitical and geoeconomic status quo of the West.

Nevertheless, the bottom line is: It's all about money and power. It's about the West attempting to maintain the current global/financial system and the East trying somehow to create a new system under its terms.

Armenian