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Putin Says Russia is the "Guardian of Christianity"

Russia is "the guardian of Christianity," President Vladimir Putin said Monday, following a visit to a monastery in the Solovki islands, in the White sea, Russian agencies reported. Recalling that his country was traditionally known as "Saint Russia," Putin said the "country is bestowed with a special role as the guardian of Christianity." Without the Orthodox religion, "Russia would have difficulty in becoming a viable state. It is thus very important to return to this source," said the former head of the KGB -- which massively persecuted the clergy and faithful during the Soviet era. But Russian leaders have once again given prominence to the Orthodox church, after decades in which atheism was imposed by the Communist rulers. Putin rarely misses an opportunity to make public church appearances. The Solovki monastery is famous not only as a place of pilgrimage, but also for housing one of the Soviet Union's first prison camps. According to the president, the Orthodox church, unlike the Roman Catholics during medieval times, has always insisted on the equality of all peoples before god. "Our spiritual prayers have taught us over the centuries to respect all peoples. It is important to remember that today," said Putin. Human rights activists have denounced Moscow's discrimination against minority groups, particularly those from the Caucasus. Russia forces have fought two wars against Chechen separatists. People from the Caucasus are frequently labeled "black arses" by the population. Putin is currently on holiday in the north of the country. ((c) 2001 Agence France Presse)

Source: http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b82fce1464b.htm

Russia's Orthodox church regains lost ground

As its influence grows, the church seeks to retake Bolshevik-seized property. More than 6,000 sites have been returned, but hundreds more are in dispute.

Ryazan, Russia

Ryazan's dazzling kremlin, the ancient town fortress considered a gem of Russian architecture, seems like an unlikely venue for a bitter social conflict. But for the past three years a subterranean battle has raged here over the 26-hectare complex seized by the Bolsheviks last century. The increasingly powerful Russian Orthodox Church is pressuring political leaders in Moscow to return the property to church stewardship, and public passions are running high. "Society is split over this issue," says Sergei Isakov, a deputy of the regional legislature. "We need more time to listen to the people about this." It's a struggle taking place across Russia. Since the Soviet Union collapsed, about 6,000 sites nationalized by the communists have been returned to the church, but hundreds more remain under dispute. Critics say the church's appetite exceeds its ability to restore old buildings, or fill them with worshipers, and its aims are increasingly politicized. "Lately the church's ambitions have grown, and clericalism is creeping into state institutions and public organizations," says Anatoly Pchelintsev, editor of Religion and Law, a journal published by the independent Slavic Center for Law and Justice in Moscow. "We have elections coming, and the state finds it convenient to actively court the Church's embrace and seek its support."

Church's campaign for influence

The Orthodox Church has been – and remains – closely linked to the Russian state. Even before the Bolsheviks nationalized all its property and took full control over the priesthood, the church acted as the main ideological support for Russian czars. And since the fall of communism, Russian leaders have sometimes turned to the church, which has baptized some 60 percent of Russians, to boost their legitimacy. "The Russian state is undergoing a crisis of values," says Alexander Dugin, who heads the International Eurasian Movement, a nationalist group that favours stronger church influence. "Soviet ideas have been destroyed, while the democratic values of the West have been completely discredited in post-Soviet Russia. The only real source of [spiritual] support for the new Russian state is the Orthodox Church." In addition to seeking the return of its property and assets, the church has mounted an active campaign to raise its profile, lobbying for – among other things – mandatory "Orthodox culture" classes in schools. In addition, a newly formed wing of the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi has held several rallies recently to "propagate religious values" among young people. "The greatest achievements of Russian history were made in the name of Orthodoxy," says Boris Yakimenko, head of Nashi's Orthodox section. "Society needs a clear spiritual orientation, and this is our calling." Though President Vladimir Putin has frequently stressed that Russia remains a secular state, he and other state leaders prominently take part in Orthodox festivals and he is often seen in company with the patriarch, the head of the Orthodox Church. In a press conference on the reunification earlier this year of the US-based Russian Orthodox Church Abroad with the mother church in Moscow, Putin equated Russia's "traditional faiths" with its nuclear missile shield as "components that strengthen Russian statehood and create necessary preconditions for internal and external security of the country."

Roots of the battle

Ryazan's hilltop kremlin, a favorite local spot for promenades and picnics, has been a national park for decades. The workers at its five museums, backed by a community group that's gathered 26,000 signatures opposing the church's takeover bid, say the struggle is not just over who gets the real estate. The church already has use of two cathedrals, but few worshipers come, they say. They argue that the real goal is to evict the museums and turn the palace into a residence for its regional head, Archbishop Pavel. "The kremlin is the heart of Ryazan, the place our city sprang from, and it has great historical meaning for all citizens," says Alexander Nikitin, spokesperson for the Public Committee in Defense of Ryazan Kremlin, which lobbies against the transfer. "If you hand it to the church, the character of the place will change from a historical monument that belongs to everyone into a functioning center for a particular religion." In a telephone interview, Archbishop Pavel didn't deny that the palace is earmarked for his residence, but said the public would be welcome to continue visiting the kremlin. "We are going to open it and restore the cathedrals," he said. "People are the foundation of our Church, so regardless of nationality or religious persuasion, people may all come." Vladimir Vigilansky, head of the press service of the Church's headquarters in Moscow, says that returning property to the church will address a "moral dimension" as well. "Over the years many things were stolen or confiscated from the Church, so many museums are really just storage places for stolen items."

A struggle for Russia's soul?

The museum workers insist they are willing to cooperate with the church, whose records indicate about 60 percent of Russians are Orthodox, but oppose granting it full ownership. Some say they see themselves on the firing line in a wider struggle for Russia's post-Soviet soul. "We definitely perceive a threat to the secular state, to civil society and democracy," says Vladimir Sokolovsky, deputy director of the museum. "The church wants these buildings because it seeks a return to its traditional place as the upholder of the state, with a monopoly on the meaning of patriotism and spirituality." Giving the Church a bigger ideological role may not be a bad thing, say others. "The church can bring positive influences," says Nikolai Bulicher, a deputy of Ryazan's city council. "Our country wasn't ready for the democracy we were dreaming about. Instead we got crime, corruption, and drug abuse. Only the revival of our spiritual traditions can reverse that, and this means we must put the church back at the heart of our lives."

Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1114/p06s02-woeu.html

Putin's Reunited Russian Church

The Russian Orthodox Church was torn in two by revolution and regicide, by the enmity between communism and capitalism, nearly a century of fulmination and hatred. That all formally ended on Thursday in Moscow. Thousands of the Russian Orthodox faithful — including several hundred who flew in from New York — lined up under heavy rain to get into the Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior. There, they witnessed the restoration of the "Canonical Communion and Reunification" of the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), which claims more than 70 million adherents, and the U.S.-based Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCOR), which is believed to be 1.5 million strong. Many among the clergy and laity wept at the end of the 86 year-old schism brought about by the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, and the ensuing murder of the dethroned Tsar and the forced emigration of hundred thousands Russians defeated in Civil war. While the sumptuous ritual was clearly an emotional and pious event, the reunification has political resonance as well because the Russian Orthodox Church is increasingly a symbol and projection of Russian nationalism.

Indeed, rather than first give thanks to God in his speech, the head of the ROC, Patriarch Alexy, paid homage to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Patriarch emphasized that the reunification could happen only because the ROCOR saw in Putin "a genuine Russian Orthodox human being." Putin responded in his speech that the reunification was a major event for the entire nation. Nationalism, based on the Orthodox faith, has been emerging as the Putin regime's major ideological resource. Thursday's rite sealed the four-year long effort by Putin, beginning in September 2003, to have the Moscow Patriarchate take over its rival American-based cousin and launch a new globalized Church as his state's main ideological arm and a vital foreign policy instrument. In February press conference, Putin equated Russia's "traditional confessions" to its nuclear shield, both, he said, being "components that strengthen Russian statehood and create necessary preconditions for internal and external security of the country." Professor Sergei Filatov, a top authority on Russian religious affairs notes that "traditional confessions" is the state's shorthand for the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Church's assertiveness and presence is growing — with little separation from the State. The Moscow City Court and the Prosecutor General's Office maintain Orthodox chapels on their premises. Only the Orthodox clergy are entitled to give ecclesiastic guidance to the military. Some provinces have included Russian Orthodox Culture classes in school curricula with students doing church chores. When Orthodox fundamentalists vandalized an art exhibition at the Moscow Andrei Sakharov Center as "an insult to the main religion of our country," the Moscow Court found the Center managers guilty of insulting the faith, and fined them $3,500 each. The ROC had an opera, based on a famous fairy tale by the poet Alexander Pushkin, censored to the point of cutting out the priest, who is the tale's main protagonist. "Of course, we have a separation of State and Church," Putin said during a visit to a Russian Orthodox monastery in January 2004. "But in the people's soul they're together." The resurgence of a Church in open disdain of the secular Constitution is only likely to exacerbate divisions in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious Russia.

Source: http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...622544,00.html[/QUOTE]

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The Russian Bear Awakes

PARIS – As Washington and Moscow exchange increasingly angry accusations and rebukes these recent weeks, it is hard to avoid a sense of Cold War déjŕ vu. Last Tuesday, Russia launched with great fanfare a new RS-24 intercontinental ballistic missile that it claimed could penetrate new US anti-missile defenses. President Vladimir Putin warned the Bush Administration’s plans to deploy anti-missile radars and missiles in the Czech Republic and Poland would turn Europe into a "powder keg."

Moscow accused the Bush Administration of violating international law, following double standards, and being a major violator of human rights. After crushing the life out of Chechnya, Russia was hardly in any position to lecture the US about human rights. Washington fired back, accusing Putin of extinguishing democracy, silencing political opponents, and bullying his neighbors. The US, with 150,000 troops in Iraq, even had the nerve to accuse Russia of "meddling" in the Mideast. The American pot was calling the Russian kettle black.

Behind the barrages of invective, what’s really going on is that Russia is finally returning to being Russia, as this writer has long predicted it would. Russia the lap dog is gone. The Russian bear has awakened from a hibernation of two decades and is both hungry and ill-tempered. In the 1980’s, the reforming Mikhail Gorbachev sought to humanize and modernize the crumbling Soviet Union. Gorbachev ended his nation’s confrontation with the west and sought accommodation with Washington – far too much, claimed Russian critics. Gorbachev’s well-intentioned efforts failed. The once mighty Soviet Union collapsed, leaving bankruptcy and massive social suffering in its wake.

Boris Yeltsin, Gorbachev’s successor, allowed criminals and shady financers to plunder Russia. In a story that has yet to be fully revealed, his shaky, financially destitute government was propped up by billions in secret US payments. Washington more or less managed to buy up Russia’s government. In an outrageous, shameful act, the Yeltsin Kremlin even sold the Pentagon the crown xxxels of Russia’s military technology. Everything and almost everyone was for sale. During this period of weakness and corruption, bankrupt Russia allowed the US pretty much a free hand around the world, particularly in the Mideast. Russia’s defense spending plummeted. Washington hailed Moscow’s "cooperation."

In 1999, the KGB, renamed FSB and SVR, staged a palace coup. Former FSB director Vladimir Putin became Russia’s new leader. President Putin and his hard men set about re-nationalizing Russia’s industrial and resource assets, crushing the robber barons, and restoring Kremlin political control over the nation. Ironically, George Bush’s invasion of Iraq caused worldwide oil prices to surge, bringing Putin’s "new Russia" a huge financial windfall. Russia, which exports more oil than Saudi Arabia, is flush with cash from its current oil, gas, and mineral bonanza, which has revitalized the nation’s defense budget.

Putin long made clear his desire to rebuild the Soviet Union – minus communism – and restore his nation as a world power. This means asserting Russia’s historic interests in Eastern Europe and the Mideast, using energy exports to advance foreign policy, and increasingly standing up to the United States. There is nothing sinister about this development. The last 20 years of Russian history were an anomaly, rather like the feeble Kerensky government just prior to the 1917 revolution. Russia is off its knees and back on its feet. The days of Moscow’s unnatural accommodation with Washington are past.

The US has become too used to Moscow as a compliant vassal. Washington will now have to resume treating the Russians as a great power with legitimate international interests. The first step is reversing the Bush Administration’s contemptuous and dangerously reckless repudiation of major arms control treaties with Moscow. The White House’s provocative plan to build anti-missile systems and open military bases in Eastern Europe should be cancelled. Pushing NATO all the way east to Russia’s borders has been another dangerous provocation.

Infuriating and humiliating Moscow in order to create a preposterous, technologically iffy anti-missile defenses against missiles and warheads which Iran does not even possess is the latest folly of the Bush Administration’s ideological crusaders. The US is going to have to eventually share some of its world power with a renascent Russia and surging China. Treating both great powers with dignity and respect is a good way to start.

Source: http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis78.html

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The West Lost Russia

In contrast to the purported global warming, Russian-Western relations are undergoing a real cooling. The mounting frigidity in the relationship was symbolized in Moscow's surprise rush to the Arctic. The aim of this expedition was to gather scientific evidence to support a legal territorial claim to the Lomonosov Ridge. But this was just one salvo in a summer flurry that underscored a new, resurgent Russia. Others include:

• A diplomatic offensive across the Middle East and Asia that included hints of forming a natural gas cartel.

• President Vladimir Putin's moves to withdraw from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe.

• The resumption of long-range strategic bomber flights that will patrol areas bordering European and U.S. airspace.

• An announcement to expand the Navy's global presence, including basing once again some of its forces in the Mediterranean Sea.

• The militarization of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as members and Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia as observers.

In short, Russia is back as a global player, and it is no longer a starry-eyed admirer of the United States. These are the bitter fruits of the West's -- and in particular the United States' -- mistaken policies toward Russia since the end of the Cold War. Instead of treating Moscow magnanimously, as historian Richard Pipes once urged, the West declared victory.

Unlike the victory in World War II over Nazi Germany, however, no Marshall Plan was forthcoming. Instead, the West promised but did not deliver timely economic assistance in the early 1990s. It also backed a disastrous and broadly unpopular privatization and economic reform program. Worst of all, it alienated the entire Russian elite by expanding NATO to include Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Baltic states. Further rounds of expansion may very well bring Georgia and Ukraine into the alliance. The NATO and European Union expansion, which did not include a substantive role for Russia, effectively locked Moscow out of a Western orbit that the Kremlin thought it was joining.

Early on, U.S. President Bill Clinton wondered aloud to his top Russia hand, Undersecretary of State Strobe Talbott, about how long they could continue to shove things down Moscow's throat. U.S. President George W. Bush followed Clinton's lead by declaring initially that Russia was no longer a major player in global affairs or a major focus of U.S. foreign policy. Shortly thereafter, Bush announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the expansion of NATO closer to Russia's borders. Now Moscow's bitter disappointment with the West has taken the form of harsh anti-Americanism. It has also translated into a burning desire among the Russian elite and public to finally show the West that it would regret its policies once Russia "got up from its knees." That time has surely come.

Some analysts warned that this would be the inevitable result of NATO expansion and other flawed U.S. and Western policies. Only a partnership with Russia and a firm policy of drawing it into the West would prevent Moscow's turn to the East. This also would have prevented the revival of traditional Russian suspicion -- if not outright antagonism -- toward the West. Finally, a closer cooperation with Russia may have prevented Moscow's disenchantment with democracy, which it has interpreted as being no more than an insidious and cynical Western ploy to weaken Russia. The cost of NATO expansion is that Russia has been lost in the medium term -- and perhaps in the long term as well -- as a powerful, committed democracy and Western ally. Moreover, the West has pushed Russia closer to China and Iran.

If these are the costs of NATO expansion, what are the advantages? Few, if any. The alliance received from its new member states: a few thousand additional troops that are stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq, a three-jet Latvian air force and five Estonian nurses. Compare these benefits to Russia's vast military and intelligence resources and experience -- particularly in Afghanistan. Moreover, Moscow has helped to track down global jihadists, prevent the proliferation of weapons and materials of mass destruction and reconstruct Afghanistan. As a true ally, Russia could contribute much more to the Western alliance than the small new NATO members. All opinion polls now show that a plurality or majority of Russians regard the United States as the greatest threat to Russia and the world. Putin has repeatedly decried the U.S. impetus for a "unipolar" international structure -- which is to say, global hegemony.

The Russian elite's consensus is even harsher. Alexander Solzhenitsyn recently said the United States seeks to encircle and weaken Russia. This statement is highly symbolic, coming from the esteemed writer who once took refuge in the United States as a political refugee from the Soviet state. It also underscores how cold U.S.-Russian relations have become. One hopes the next U.S. administration will not repeat Clinton and Bush's mistakes of insulting and underestimating Moscow. Even in the best of circumstances, the next U.S. president and his or her Western allies will face the daunting task of piercing through the unfortunate and unforgiving perceptual lens through which resurgent Moscow views the West, especially Washington.

Source: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/storie...08/29/006.html

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Russia is Back

Back in May 2001, Jeffery Tayler, of the Atlantic, wrote an Article titled "Russia is Finished." In which he chronicled the downfall of Russia since the collapse of communism. Its political corruption, its weak economy, its demographic problems, the problems in Chechnya. It seemed, back then, that Russia might be shoved into geopolitical obscurity.

How things can change in just six years. Russia is once again flexing its muscles. Under the leadership of the uncrowned tsar, Vladimir Putin, Russia has emerged as a powerful nation that wants to be treated as a powerful nation. The country is awash in oil money, and President Putin has announced a 200 billion dollar military buildup. The question is, who is that military going to be aimed at? As far as Russia is concerned Iran and the other Muslim nations are no threat to them. After all, Russia supplies them with weapons and, in the case of Iran, nuclear material. It's highly unlikely that the European Union is planning a Napoleonic style offensive on Russia, and Putin has turned China into his best friend. So once again, who is this military build up targeting? There is only one answer. He's targeting the U.S.

The truth is this is probably music to the ears of most Russians. Russia wants to be taken seriously and if they have to threaten a new cold war that is just fine with them. Most like President Putin, who wants to create a non communist(Putin is no ideologue) Soviet Union. The Russians, for possessing so much territory, have always had claustrophobia. They need to push their borders outward or, at the very least, reduce the nations on their borders to vassalage, if they can.

If there is a second cold war it could be called the second war of miscommunication. Russia can't be convinced that a missile shield designed to thwart Iranian designs isn't secretly aimed at them. Are they planning to use nuclear weapons as a threat? That's the only reason I can think of for them being so angry at a missile shield, they consider missiles pointed at Europe and the States a major part of their military(who's restarting the cold war again?) So being the old paranoid Russia that we've come to know and love, they react to the United States defending itself from a rogue terrorist state(a rogue terrorist state that Russia is helping to become a nuclear threat. Maybe Putin ought to think of that when he shrieks that we're putting a missile shield so close to home.)

Russia has it's problems however. Its economy is reliant on raw materials, mostly crude oil. If the price of crude oil were to fall, or if the United States were to import less and start drilling for oil in America the Russian coffers wouldn't be so full. The next problem is demographic, there simply aren't enough Russians. It's gotten to the point that the Russian government has taken to paying women to have children. If Russias population continues to shrink they won't have anyone to fly those bombers and buzz American airspace. There's also the political problem. Putin is constitutionally barred from serving a third term and has insisted time and again that he won't try to do so. However it's no secret that he likes power and likes exercising it. Since he has been President he has increased to powers of his office, made Russia even less democratic than it was, and basically made himself Tsar Vlad.

He has only two options, the first is to change to constitution to give himself another term(think Hugo Chavez) or to step down and hand pick a successor, and try to run things from behind the scene. If he tries the latter he will most likely be disappointed. Leaders who try that find that their successors insist on being their own man. Regardless of the problems that Russia has today, and no matter what problems it faces in the future for the time being Russia is once again a strategic problem for the United States and that isn't going to change any time soon.

Source: http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/27507.html

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Russia's foreign policy under Vladimir Putin: achievements and failures

Achievements:

1. Russia regained its status as a leading world power. Economic revival and stable economic growth have increased Russia's international prestige. Some countries like Russia and other countries don't; some are helping it to spread its influence and others are resisting it. Its views now carry far more weight in the international arena than they did in the 1990s, when Moscow's opinion on international crises was generally ignored. This goal has been achieved without a substantial increase in nuclear or other capacities, or not only due to such increases. Russia's increased importance as an exporter of oil and gas also played a role, along with the inclusion of Russia in the group of the most rapidly developing emerging economies (the BRIC, comprising Brazil, Russia, India and China). One more important factor was the rehabilitation of the "sick man of Europe," which many people did not expect to see.

2. Restoration of Russians' self-confidence. A nation's well-being is a key element of its coexistence with other nations and a crucial goal of its foreign policy. Today all Russians, whether at home or abroad, from ambassadors to tourists, feel that they are citizens of a large, strong, growing and respected state. In the 1990s, it was said that Russia was governed from Spaso House, the U.S. ambassadorial residence in Moscow. Today every Russian and foreigner knows that Moscow may disagree with Washington, or other capitals, on foreign or domestic issues, and uphold its stance without facing negative consequences. Few states can do this now.

3. Resistance to the wave of color revolutions in neighboring states. When manipulations of public opinion during elections brought anti-Russian regimes to power in neighboring states, some people thought that this would provoke the dissolution of the CIS and an economic and political crisis in Russia. They were disappointed. A failed "tulip revolution" in Kyrgyzstan, accompanied by chaos and pogroms in the capital, frightened the local political elites and population but strengthened Russia's stance in Central Asia. The color revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia lost their appeal following subsequent negative events there. Russia's foreign policy emerged as the victor in these crises because it reacted calmly to them, proving that sometimes it is better to do nothing.

4. Preservation of integration mechanisms (CIS, CSTO, etc.) and establishment of new ones (SCO). Russia's policy towards the former Soviet states during the 1990s was unsustainable and bound to change, as became evident at the beginning of Vladimir Putin's first presidential term. The only question was what policy would replace it. It became clear over the last eight years that the majority of post-Soviet states need some CIS functions and mechanisms, and so they are being reformed. At the same time, the military union of several CIS states - the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) - was preserved, and Russia is changing the post-Soviet policy of supplying cheap energy to political allies. It is developing new relations with Kazakhstan and a new model of international cooperation in Central Asia, which involves not only the former Soviet states in the region but also China (the Shanghai Cooperation Organization). Foreign policy in the post-Soviet space is being increasingly split into a Western and a Central Asian policy, which are quite separate and, therefore, more realistic.

5. Restoration of lost positions in traditional zones of influence (Vietnam, the Middle East, India, China) and development of ties with new partners (Latin American countries). In the 1990s, Russia's foreign policy lost its global reach. Partner relations established in the Soviet era were broken and foreign trade shrank, while pro-market reforms in Russia put trade in the hands of private business, for the first time in decades. The Russian authorities in the 1990s did not have a clearly defined view of economic and political goals in different parts of the world. The situation changed under Putin, with state-controlled and private businesses establishing ties in nearly all countries, supported by a special policy of promoting their interests.

Failures:

1. Inability to become the top partner of close neighbors such as China and India. Russia's economy was not strong enough to become the leading influence even in countries that would have welcomed this. The era of unions formed for political reasons is over, and the ability of business to become a competitive leader in foreign markets is now crucial. Russian business has neither the experience nor the resources for attaining this goal. Russia is not the top partner for any of its main economic partners (such as Germany and China, as well as the CIS, notably Kazakhstan). At best, it is one of their 10 largest partners. This has weakened Russia's ties, including political ones, with these states.

2. Inability to become a global leader in lifestyle, culture and arts. This is not only a failure of Russian foreign policy. We must admit that Russia today cannot do what the Soviet Union did in the sphere of winning hearts and minds abroad. The territory in which the Russian-language is spoken is shrinking, and the prestige of Russian culture and arts abroad is declining. In this sphere Russia's foreign policy (or rather, related sectors) is lagging far behind many other countries, which have a multitude of technologies to promote their cultures beyond their national borders.

3. Inability to elaborate an effective policy of relations with the Russian diaspora abroad. New ideas appeared in that sphere in the early 1980s, but to this day the millions of Russians living abroad have not become drivers of Russia's development in economic and other spheres, unlike the Chinese and Indian diasporas.

4. Loss of influence in Georgia and Ukraine. Moscow proved unable to mobilize the seemingly huge resources of goodwill in neighboring states, including those with a large ethnic Russian population. Moreover, it has taken actions that worsened the position of its supporters in those countries, and the situation was further complicated by the successful actions of its opponents. It apparently caught the "American disease" - an over zealous feeling of righteousness and renewed strength. A stark example is sanctions against Georgia, which infuriated Georgians, even those who were dissatisfied with their government's policies.

5. Defeat on the market for military-technical cooperation (Algeria, India). During the 1990s, this sphere of international cooperation kept afloat nearly half of Russia's foreign policy, notably its relations with countries with which trade was lagging, such as China. It was seen as the core of a new model for foreign trade based on the export of technologies rather than raw materials. The volume of military exports increased in the early 2000s, but other arms suppliers also stepped up competition. However, this cannot be said to be the only reason that buyers of Russian-made weapons and equipment often refuse to take delivery of them and complain of unjustified delays. The never-ending reforms in the sector have not brought the desired goal of improving the prestige of Russian-made weapons any closer.

Source: http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080228/100269538.html

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Hunting the Russian Bear Why they're after Putin

by Justin Raimondo

At times it seems as though we've gone back in a time machine to the darkest, sub-zero days of the Cold War era, when Americans were frantically digging bomb shelters in their back yards, Godless Communism was on the march, and the jackboots of the KGB were just inches away from our waiting necks. Tony Blair, lecturing the Russian leader at the G-8 meeting, opined that the Western world, on behalf of which he presumed to speak, is "becoming worried, fearful about what was happening in Russia today, the external policy." These remarks echoed xxxx Cheney's sally last year against Russia's alleged attempt to use oil and gas as "tools of intimidation or blackmail, either by supply manipulation or attempts to monopolize transportation." That was said in response to Russia's threat to raise the price of energy previously sold at subsidized Soviet-era rates to Ukraine – a capitalistic act that was a bit too radical for the supposedly pro-free-market Cheney.

The Brits' beef with Putin also has to do with oil and gas. The Russian seizure of British oil assets in Siberia is being cited by free-market types as evidence that Putin is moving toward "corporatism," but is this any more "corporatist" than legislation currently on the books in the U.S. that forbids foreign ownership of key industries such as airlines and telecommunications? The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Who can forget the Dubai port-management brouhaha, when Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike demagogued the issue to score political points by conjuring the alleged threat posed by a Middle Eastern-based company having anything to do with maintaining our – rapidly decaying – "vital" infrastructure? The Dubai episode inaugurated a crackdown by U.S. regulators and inspired a host of economically disastrous yet politically popular measures in Congress that confirm "corporatism" is on the march in Washington at least as much as it is in Moscow.

Remember when Chinese investors sought to buy out the oil company Unocal? The uproar was deafening, and the deal was scotched. So it turns out that British Petroleum is no more badly treated in Russia than Chinese-owned CNOOC Ltd. is in the U.S. – which, come to think of it, is perhaps why the Brits are so irked.

According to the mainstream news media's pampered pet pundits, Russian President Vladimir Putin is the reincarnation of Josef Stalin, and Russia under his rule is rapidly "backsliding" into "authoritarianism." According to Andrei Illarionov, a former economic adviser to Putin and now a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, the resurgent Russian military is about to take out its neighbors and seal a reestablished Warsaw Pact in the blood of Georgian, Ukrainian, and possibly even Polish innocents. The British, in particular, have been hyping this "new Cold War" narrative for all it's worth – which, when it comes right down to it, isn't very much.

Is Russia embarked on a return to authoritarianism? The answer has to be an unequivocal no. After all, Putin has not closed down a single Russian "dissident" media outlet – instead, like their counterparts in the U.S., Russian media barons, at the head of vast corporate conglomerates, have bought up the major television networks and newspapers and imposed a Fox News-like unanimity on correspondents and pundits alike. While this may make for boring television and patently predictable punditry, it doesn't make Russia a fascist state, as all too many people who ought to know better are trying to imply.

I had to laugh when I heard the thrilling news that "hundreds of people" marched through the streets of St. Petersburg recently to protest Putin's supposedly repressive regime. This was one of a series of "dissidents' marches" being held by the "opposition" – a seriocomic coalition of chess champion Gary Kasparov and neo-fascist crackpot Eduard Limonov. Hundreds, eh? Hundreds of thousands of antiwar marchers over the years protesting America's policy in Iraq have failed to garner as much publicity as this little band did in record time – now isn't that odd?

Odder still is the nature of the "opposition" itself: Limonov is a punk-rock skinhead "idol" and sometime novelist whose crazed views are best summed up by his National Bolshevik Party's graphic incorporation of Soviet and Nazi symbols to create the single most repulsive party emblem in all of recorded history. Kasparov, aside from his well-known exploits in the game of chess, is a pawn of American neoconservatives: his real constituency isn't in Russia, where he remains an obscure political figure, but in Washington, D.C., where he stands amid such neocon luminaries as Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and James Woolsey as a member of the Center for Security Policy. The Center is a major neocon propaganda outfit headed by longtime neocon activist Frank Gaffney, whose name is virtually synonymous with the military-industrial complex. Kasparov served on the Center's National Security Advisory Council along with Woolsey.

The neocons, by the way, are deeply committed to the Chechen cause and have been in the vanguard of the movement to demonize Putin as a latter-day Stalin: the list of endorsers of the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya replicates the seating arrangements at the front table at an American Enterprise Institute awards dinner. It was Richard Perle, you'll recall, who averred that Russia ought to be expelled from the G-8 on account of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's arrest for crimes ranging from embezzlement to conspiracy to commit murder.

The neocons have allied themselves with the Russian oligarchs, who amassed fantastic wealth in post-communist Russia by means that might meet the approval of Tony Soprano, not the Better Business Bureau. These oligarchs seethe at their expulsion as they plot from abroad to return the country to their clutches. For years now, an unsavory popular front of Chechen terrorists, neoconservative hawks, and shady Russian oligarchs wearing Moss Lipow dark sunglasses and gobs of gold chains has massed at the gates of Moscow, demanding the ouster of the czar – and the clamor has now been taken up by Western governments.

"It would be funny if it wasn't so sad" was Putin's response to the U.S. insistence that Poland and Czechoslovakia put anti-missile technology in place in order to guard against the supposed "threat" from an attack… launched by Iran. The joke is that the Iranians don't have missiles that can reach either Warsaw or Prague. To pretend that these anti-missile systems are aimed at an "enemy" other than Russia is the measure of the West's disdain for Putin: like a schoolyard bully who "accidentally" shoves his victims on the playground, they don't even bother to convincingly conceal their belligerence.

Putin's counterproposal to help set up a missile-interception system in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan is a deft deflection of Western claims that Putin poses a renewed Russian threat to the security of Europe. If the U.S. and Britain are genuinely concerned about a possible Iranian strike at the former Eastern bloc, then they'll sign on to Putin's generous offer. Their hesitation, one has to conclude, speaks volumes about their real motives for putting up the missile shield in the first place. Just as the demonstrators in the streets of Russian cities are seemingly intent on provoking the Russian police into a violent response, so the Western powers – alarmed at the rise of Putin on the world stage as the Americans' chief antagonist and most eloquent critic – are engaged in a series of large-scale provocations, including but not limited to the Eastern European missile shield.

Another irritant to Russia's increasingly fractious relations with the West is the issue of Kosovo's independence. Again, the Western love of double standards comes into play here, with Kosovo's alleged "right" to nationhood being upheld by an American president while the corresponding "right" of Russian-speaking (or pro-Russian) areas of the former Soviet Union, such as Abkhazia and the Transdniester Republic, to independence goes unrecognized by the West.

The real evidence, however, of just how badly relations between Russia and the West have deteriorated is the strange case of Alexander Litvinenko and the mystery surrounding his death. Having covered this subject at length in previous columns, I won't elaborate on the arcane technical and other details of this downright weird episode, which seems like a story straight out of a Hollywood thriller, except to say that the "official" version of how Litvinenko came to be poisoned by a rare radioactive substance, polonium-210, stinks to high heaven.

This narrative, which holds that Litvinenko was targeted by the KGB because of his alleged status as a Russian "dissident" living in exile in London, doesn't hold up under even the most forgiving scrutiny. After all, why kill him with a rare and easily traced substance – and with such an overdose that the cost alone would seem to rule out this method – when a simple shot in the back of the head would suffice? The sheer amount of disinformation and propagandistic nonsense dished out by the British tabloids alone on the subject probably consumed enough paper to deforest half of South America. Nor is the British indictment of Andrei Lugovoi enough to paper over the huge holes in the "official" story. Lugovoi, at any rate, is fighting back, with revelations that the Brits and Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky tried to recruit him to root out the dirt on Putin.

In any case, the Litvinenko affair emanates the aura of a gigantic, somewhat sinister scam, perhaps involving the smuggling of polonium and the involvement of Islamic terrorist cells associated with the Chechens. What ought to worry us is that someone was possibly trying to assemble a "dirty bomb" of the type Jose Padilla was accused of masterminding – in the heart of London.

There seems little doubt the color-coded "revolutions," with Western material and moral support, targeted the former Soviet "near abroad" and aimed at reducing Russian influence and putting Putin on the defensive. The construction of a missile-defense system in Eastern Europe was the last straw. What had been primarily a propaganda campaign aimed at the Kremlin has now taken a decidedly military turn, one that bodes ill for the future and the cause of peace. There are those who never reconciled themselves to the end of the Cold War – that crucible in which the pestilential sect known as the neoconservatives was born and raised – and it seems a supreme effort is being made to revive it.

Today we hear endless stories about how the Russian leader and his country pose a threat to Western interests: Russia is "authoritarian," newly aggressive, "anti-Semitic," and, yes, even "homophobic." As the memory of 9/11 fades and the meaning of that historic disaster is increasingly disputed, the War Party needs fresh enemies whose alleged evil will thrill the popular imagination and satiate their hunger for villainy. Putin, flush with oil money and eager to regain Russia's place in the sun, fits the bill nicely.

The truth is more prosaic. Putin is no dictator, and Russia, far from backsliding into neo-communism, is in a better position than ever to create a middle-class-based liberal democracy with the rule of law roughly comparable to the system that prevails in the West. The general rise in the Russian standard of living, after a catastrophic post-communist decline, puts a brake on any backward-looking authoritarian movement (neo-communist or otherwise) making appreciable progress.

That this occurred under Putin is the reason for the Russian president's enormous popularity and accounts for the marginalization of his opponents. As much as Western liberals and neocons loathe Putin and the prospect of a resurgent Russia, it doesn't look like regime change is on the agenda in the former Soviet Union, in spite of millions being poured into the region by Western governments to aid the opposition. The endless provocations aimed at the Kremlin will only have the effect of irritating the Russian bear – and creating yet more anti-American and anti-Western sentiment. As if we don't have enough of that already…

Russia has come a long way from being the land of the gulags, and it is never going to go back to that – not unless the West succeeds in looting that country, once again, and creating a Russian version of the Weimar Republic. This is precisely why lunatics of Eduard Limonov's ilk have joined the opposition as its noisiest and most visible wing – because the rise of Putin, who created order out of mafia-inspired chaos, short-circuited the Weimar Russia scenario and diverted the Russians down a different path.

Source: http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=11115

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Putin’s Assertive Diplomacy Is Seldom Challenged

Inside the Kremlin last week, the executives of three major international companies — Royal Dutch Shell, Mitsubishi and Mitsui — heaped praise on the man whose government had effectively forced them to cede control of the world’s largest combined oil and natural gas project. “Thank you very much for your support,” Shell’s chief executive, Jeroen van der Veer, told President Vladimir V. Putin during a meeting that ended a six-month regulatory assault on the project, Sakhalin II, but only after the companies surrendered control of it to the state energy giant, Gazprom. “This was a historic occasion.”

It was also a telling one, with lessons that extend beyond energy policy to such disparate matters as the killings of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former K.G.B. agent in London, and Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent journalist. Mr. Putin’s Russia, buoyed by its oil and gas riches, has become so confident — so arrogant, its critics say — that it has become impervious to the criticism that once might have modified its behavior. And those who might have once criticized, from investors to foreign governments, have largely acquiesced to the new reality. The Kremlin is now dictating its terms with greater assertiveness than it has at any time since the collapse of the Soviet Union — which was 15 years ago Monday, to be precise. Many hoped that Russia’s presidency of the Group of 8 industrial nations this year would temper Mr. Putin’s diplomacy, but it has not.

Russia began 2006 by making good on a threat to cut off natural gas to Ukraine to get a higher price for Gazprom. The shutoff, though brief, provoked concern in Europe about dependency on Russian energy, and now Russia is ending 2006 by warning Belarus of the same fate. Vice President xxxx Cheney famously leveled the harshest criticism of the Kremlin to date when he accused it of using oil and gas as “tools of intimidation or blackmail.” That was in May, but since then American policy toward Russia has changed imperceptibly, with one significant exception: the Bush administration gave its approval for Russia’s long-coveted membership in the World Trade Organization. “Russia since last year has been enjoying some feeling of euphoria, that feeling that we have so much money, so many resources that we can do what we want,” said Fyodor A. Lukyanov, the editor of Russia in Global Affairs.

The United States and Europe have little leverage beyond persuasion. And persuasion no longer works, as the Kremlin’s campaign against Sakhalin II, the largest foreign investment project in Russia, showed. The campaign was so transparent that it seemed comical, beginning with surprise inspections by a little-known environmental inspector who threatened to fine the project’s developers for every tree they cut down. As the campaign unfolded, analysts issued warnings. Western diplomats and their governments protested. But in the end the Kremlin got what was clearly its goal: state control of a lucrative project that opens the gas market to Asia. The three companies with the most to lose said nothing critical as they sold 50 percent plus one share of Sakhalin II for what some analysts called a discounted price, $7.45 billion. Mr. Putin immediately declared that the project’s environmental problems could “be considered resolved.”

“Experience has disappointed many foreign investors in Russia,” said Valery Nesterov, an energy analyst at Troika Dialog, an investment firm in Moscow. And yet when it comes to energy or other investments, it does little to deter them. “The attraction is so large,” Mr. Nesterov said, adding that companies like Shell still held out hope of winning access to Russia’s other oil and gas fields in the future. The Sakhalin affair has revived memories of the government’s assault on Yukos Oil and its founder, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, in 2003 and 2004. When it all started, even Russia’s supporters worried about the potential damage to the country’s reputation, especially among investors.

If damage was done, it is hard to quantify now. The company is a rump of its former self, under bankruptcy receivership with its major assets now belonging to the state oil company, Rosneft. Mr. Khodorkovsky, once the richest man in Russia, remains in a Siberian prison on charges of fraud and tax evasion, and he is reportedly facing a new round of criminal charges. Although Russia’s stock market plunged 21 percent in the month after Mr. Khodorkovsky’s arrest, with the Russian Trading System Index dipping below 500, it is now above 1,800. The international response to the killings of two prominent Kremlin critics — Mr. Litvinenko in exile in London and Ms. Politkovskaya here in Moscow — also underscores the new reality.

There is as yet no evidence directly linking anyone in Russia to the killings, even if critics have been quick to say so, reviving some of the worst fears about the country Russia has become. In the wake of Mr. Litvinenko’s death, The Daily Telegraph of London declared flatly, “Russia is rotten to its heart.” A recent cover of The Economist showed Mr. Putin dressed like a gangster, holding a gasoline nozzle as a machine gun. The British government, by contrast, has said nothing so critical, even after British detectives who came to Moscow were confronted with strict limits on their ability to question witnesses. Wealth has emboldened Mr. Putin and those around him. At a roundtable interview this month, the first deputy prime minister and chairman of Gazprom’s board, Dmitry A. Medvedev, brushed aside questions about the company’s management, its corporate philosophy and its investments in newspapers and other ventures seen as political. He suggested that the Kremlin, perhaps, had been right, and all of its critics wrong.

“The value of Gazprom in 2000 was $9 billion,” Mr. Medvedev, often cited as a potential successor to Mr. Putin, said. “Today it is between $250 and $300 billion.” Others warn that Russia is ignoring the consequences of its behavior, that the monopolistic policies of Gazprom, the erosion of political competition and the easy dismissal of critics blinds the Kremlin to the dangers of the overly centralized system Mr. Putin has created. Mikhail A. Kasyanov, Mr. Putin’s prime minister from 2000 until 2004 and now one of his biggest critics, said the foreigners who rushed to join Russia’s boon were equally complicit. “Investors are very shortsighted,” he said in an interview.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/27/wo...0A&oref=slogin

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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

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Putin attacks West ahead of G-8 summit

President Vladimir Putin called himself the world's only "absolute and pure democrat" in an interview published Monday, and launched scathing attacks on the U.S. and Europe ahead of this week's Group of Eight summit. At the same time, the 54-year-old Putin hinted that he may not be ready to leave the public stage after all when his second term expires next year. "I am far from pension age and it would be absurd just to sit at home doing nothing," he told a group of reporters invited to dinner over the weekend.

Despite Russia's agreement last month to tone down the rhetoric, Putin's statements exposed vast gaps between Russia and the West ahead of this week's Group of Eight summit. He called Britain's decision to demand the extradition of the man suspected of killing former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko with a radioactive poison an act of "stupidity."

The interview touched on much that the rest of the world finds disturbing about Putin's Russia: the backsliding on democracy, the increasing assertion of military power, the general perception of a leader who feels immune to international criticism. To the many Westerners who say he has rolled back Russia's democratic reforms, Putin responded with the startling assertion that he is the world's one true champion of democracy.

"I am an absolute and pure democrat," Putin said. "But you know what the misfortune is? Not even a misfortune but a real tragedy? It's that I am alone, there simply aren't others like this in the world." The transcript noted that Putin laughed when making that comment, suggesting he was joking. A few moments later he added: "After the death of Mahatma Gandhi, there's nobody to talk to."

Sandwiched between his acid criticisms and ironic assertions was a brief but brutal criticism of the West.

"We look at what has been created in North America — horror: torture, homelessness, Guantanamo, detention without courts or investigation," he said.

"You see what's going on in Europe: harsh treatment of demonstrators, the use of rubber bullets, tear gas in one capital, the killing of demonstrators in the streets in another," he added, in an apparent reference to the death of an ethnic Russian in the Estonian capital during protests over the removal of a Soviet-era war memorial.

Rather than try to soothe nerves before the G-8 summit in Germany, Putin repeated, and even amplified, recent Kremlin criticism of the United States — including his allegation in February that the United States was engaging in a "hyper-use of power," and Russian officials' denunciation of purported Western attempts to destabilize Russia by funding pro-democracy groups.

The Russian president's comments came despite last month's agreement between Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to tone down the rhetoric on both sides. Much of the toughest talk from the Kremlin has focused on U.S. plans to build a missile-defense system in Europe, which Washington insists is aimed at preventing attacks by rogue states such as Iran and North Korea rather than Russia. Putin renewed the verbal offensive in his weekend interview, in chilling comments that evoked the balance-of-terror language of the Cold War.

"We are being told the anti-missile defense system is targeted against something that does not exist. Doesn't it seem funny to you, to say the least?" a clearly irritated Putin said.

"If a part of the strategic nuclear potential of the United States appears in Europe and, in the opinion of our military specialists will threaten us, then we will have to take appropriate steps in response," Putin said. "What kind of steps? We will have to have new targets in Europe." These could be targeted with "ballistic or cruise missiles or maybe a completely new system."

National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, asked aboard Air Force One about Putin's comments on the missile shield, said there has been "some escalation in the rhetoric."

"We think that that is not helpful. We would like to have a constructive dialogue with Russia on this issue. We have had it in the past," Hadley said.

Russia's relations with the West also are troubled by its refusal to turn over Andrei Lugovoi, the man whom Britain says it has enough evidence to charge in last year's fatal poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko. The case raised fears that Moscow has returned to its Soviet-era practice of killing dissidents abroad.

Russia refuses to turn over Lugovoi, saying its constitution forbids extradition of Russian citizens to face prosecution abroad. Putin called Britain's demand "stupidity." "If they didn't know (about the constitutional prohibition) it's a low level of competence and thus we have doubts about what they're doing there," Putin said. "And if they knew and did this, it's simply politics. "This is bad and that is bad — from all sides it's just stupidity," Putin said.

Putin, less than a year away from the end of his second and final four-year term in office, told reporters he believes Russian presidents should serve longer terms. But he did not say whether he believes his current term should be extended.

Over the years, he has consistently rejected suggestions that the constitution be amended to allow him to seek a third consecutive term, and during his annual address to parliament in April said it would be his last as president. But Putin's ambiguous comments seemed certain to feed speculation that he would seek to stay in power beyond the spring of 2008. At the very least, his suggestion could discourage other G-8 leaders from treating him as a lame duck.

"Four years is a fairly short time," Putin said. "It seems to me that in today's Russia five, six or seven years would be acceptable, but the number of terms still should be limited."

Russia is scheduled to hold presidential elections in March. Putin, who was re-elected in 2004 with more than 71 percent of the vote, has presided over one of the most prosperous periods in Russian history and enjoys sky-high approval ratings. Putin has not publicly said whom he would prefer to see succeed him — an endorsement that would carry immense influence, since that candidate could instantly expect the support of the Kremlin and its allies.

Some leaders in post-Soviet states have called referendums to approve extension of their terms. But these moves have been widely criticized abroad as naked power-grabs. While Putin seems increasingly to scorn his Western critics, the move would create an uproar that he might not want to face.

Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/...n2883535.shtml

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The resurgence of Russia

The collapse of the erstwhile Soviet Union also heralded the degradation of this nation’s status as a major power monger in what was called the Cold War era of yore. The Western bloc, spearheaded by the United States of America, continued without any competition thereafter and has generally secured for itself the title of the world’s sole super power in current international relations. The USA has gerrymandered in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Asia Pacific region with impunity and is presently busy trying to browbeat Iran. All this has been possible because there is nobody to present an effective opposing front to America’s dominance of most global sensitive spots. Russia’s problems were further exacerbated through two successive ineffectual Presidents. First was Mikhail Gorbachov whose glasnost and perestroika made hardly any difference either to his country’s standing or to the Western bloc’s attitude towards it. Next came Boris Yeltsin who took refuge in vodka whenever he found things were getting too complicated for him to handle. His performance during the Balkan crisis was deplorable. Consequently, Russia became somewhat of a loose ball without any direction and remained so till Vladimir Putin took over the presidency.

A dynamic person, Putin has firmly set his sights on two aspects of Russia’s resurgence ~ first of all, to positively address its faltering economy and second, to regain its place as an appreciable power centre. He appears to be on the right course for both his objectives. While the economy is taking its own path to betterment, President Putin is now trying to uplift Russia in global politics with the intention of relocating itself in a position from where Moscow can dictate terms in international relations again. His initial pronouncement in this context was strongly objecting to NATO’s expansion eastwards to within reach of Russia’s European border. However, the Western bloc with the European Union playing a leading part, paid little heed to his objections and is at present locked in a fresh controversy over a missile defence system that this bloc wants to set up in eastern Europe. Although the bloc’s leader to wit, Washington furnishes vague replies when queried by Moscow as to against which “enemy” is this shield being established, it is apparent that the bloc is pursuing a policy of sanitising its territorial entity from any visualised Russian threat be it real or notional.

Another factor that bothers Russia is the increasing membership of the European Union wherein former Russian states are being wooed to join. Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic set the stage for this entry and these states are now xxxxing a snook at their previous master! Russia today has virtually no influence in West Asia as all the Arab nations directly or indirectly enjoy a good equation with the USA. Making matters worse are periodic reports that Russia’s insurgency problem with the Chechen rebels is being fuelled by Wahabi ideology from some West Asian parties, egged on by the USA. The question now is, what steps should President Putin take in order to take his country to a position where the international community realises that Russia is becoming a political force to reckon with? The first practical move in this regard was Russia’s recent foray into the Arctic Circle and declaring this area to be under Russian control. A special metallic Russian flag has been driven into the Harris Ridge, a prominent sunken feature in the Arctic Circle, to prove the point. Expectantly, there were immediate responses from Denmark and Canada with both countries sending their respective cartographic teams to this area in order to assert their ownership of this extremely important geo-strategic cum geo-economic stretch of territory. However, it is doubtful whether either of these two countries would be in a position to physically challenge Russia’s claim. The Arctic Circle that covers a huge area has two principal assets: it holds a great deal of ocean wealth that would be a boon for any nation’s economic development and it provides a convenient politico-military pivot, especially for seafaring states. Russian main interest in the latter category would certainly be a capability to maximise on what is commonly called the North West Passage for moving from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific and vice versa. In fact Canada already fosters some unhappiness on this subject with the USA since American warships have been known to “trespass” through this pathway at will even as Canada asserts that the strategic shipping passage is its own.

Russia needs to establish a strong naval base as well as an air force station in the Arctic Circle without any delay. While Greenland that belongs to Denmark is not really of immediate concern, Russia has to exercise its muscle over the Queen Elisabeth Islands complex that lies north of Canada and quickly create an operational zone for its military in this complex. Russia must pre-empt the USA from bullying Canada to have its way, now that the Harris Ridge incident has occurred. A full-fledged Russian military base in the Mediterranean Sea, including units from all the three services, is another compulsive necessity for Moscow. There is no gainsaying the strategic value of this waterway and with a none-too-friendly Europe trying to reach out towards Russian mainland, Moscow can balance the odds by projecting a quid pro quo stance from the seaward side. Russia should get as close to Iran as possible. Teheran enjoys a high status in the Organisation of Islamic Conference and it would definitely be to Moscow’s advantage to build an effective friendly relationship with this major Islamic nation. Ideally, Russia should take the initiative to recreate the earlier Warsaw Pact group, this time with Eurasian states. As a leading member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Moscow could even toy with the idea of forming a multinational military force with members of the SCO, including India and Iran by upgrading the latter two to full membership from their current observer nation post. An appreciable military force thus formed would set the Western bloc thinking about further expansionism ideas.

Another suggestion would be to befriend Turkey. Ankara has been facing negative vibes from Brussels in its attempts to join the European Union, hence inviting it to join the SCO might be an acceptable option for Turkey. Lastly, Russia has to increasingly ensure that its presence is adequately felt in the Asia Pacific region. Moscow should counter the American influence in this region, an influence that encompasses pro-Washington nations like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and going south, Australia and New Zealand. A maritime component from the modified SCO should meet the requirement. Efforts are also needed to encourage the Asian littorals to look at the SCO as a “friend in need” and not as a suspect.

(The author is a retired Lt-Col of the Indian Army)

Source: http://www.thestatesman.net/page.new...ss=1&id=171156