Sunday, September 13, 2015
Simon Shuster — Inside Vladimir Putin’s Circle — The dangerous rise of Kremlin hard-liners
Read between the neoliberal lines of this propaganda piece and see why there is no chance of neoliberals regaining power in Russia either at the ballot box or through regime change. They had the chance and blew it chasing wealth without concern for the good of the nation.
This piece, although heavily biased, is a much more accurate picture of Russia than the rest of the nonsense and wishful thinking that is written in most Western media and especially US and UK media. Schuster's picture is fairly accurate when the spin is removed. The Yeltsin era is over and it is not coming back.
Get over it. Neither Alexei Navalny nor Mikhail Khordokovsky are in line to replace Vladimir Putin.
US strategists need to stop dreaming or they are going to continue getting ass-kicking. Their only tools are economic sanctions and military force, and they are getting out-maneuvered.
Time
Inside Vladimir Putin’s Circle — The dangerous rise of Kremlin hard-liners
Simon Shuster / Moscow
Also
Dreaming.
The Economist
Lonely but not lost
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24 comments:
There's too much wishful thinking that Putin is a hardline, uncompromising empire builder who imagine himself as a modern day Stalin. Like it or not, Putin is the *moderate* in Russia. He's the one holding back the hardliners. And let's not forget his democratic mandates would be the envy of any western politician. Even now, he's still extremely popular. Run an election tomorrow and he'll romp to victory again.
Tom Hickey,
you used to have a link on this blog to an old site explaining how the monetary system works. Really basic graphics and design. Not an MMT site. Do you know which one I mean?
If so, do you still have the link?
" they are going to continue getting ass-kicking."
Tom have you not listened to the President?
HE thinks HE is kicking THEIR asses.
Tom, the US is literally bragging about how the Russia economy is faltering and is looking forward to more of it from the sanctions, etc...
Tom the other thing is the "neo-con" angle... I never see Kristol tweet about Ukraine or Russia, etc...
He (and the neo-cons) is focused on Israel's security 99%...even his anti Hillary stuff leads back there as Hillary is Palestinian sympathetic... iirc Bernie is Jewish, yada yada...
I think Nuland is rogue in this Ukraine stuff or maybe just got caught up in it because of the job she was in, and she is incompetent and mis-handled it from the US perspective...
If Trump got elected I could see him getting new people in there and wrapping this Ukraine thing up with a new deal between the parties in short order...
rsp,
Tom with the neo-cons you always have to look for the Israel security angle...
What is the Israel angle with Ukraine? I dont see it.
I think this whole Ukraine thing has been mis-handled by the Obama admin and they wont admit it...
Bush admin was working with the Yushchenko admin and everything was fine on the back of high gas prices ... now gas price drops into the toilet and Democrats get in there and it all goes to hell as they dont know how to handle it...
The neoconservatives aren't solely about Israel, although they see Israel as more than just a strategically important asset in the most highly prized resource region.
They're hegemonic theorists who don't accept that there are limitations to US power, unlike the liberal realists who have come to the disquieting conclusion that the US has to pick the fights it can win, not live in the fantasy world of the neocons in which invading Iraq has been such an enormous success it should be repeated everywhere.
For the realist school (every US administration except the madcap incompetence of Dubya's), there probably isn't anybody better than Chicago University's Professor John Mearsheimer. A good example is a lecture here on the rise of China: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzlxl5wC1s4
As for neoconservative "thinking", there are so many examples of disastrous incompetence and unhinged sadism that some of the architects of neoconservative foreign policy have rebelled (Fukuyama, Adelman, etc) and rejoined the realists, leaving the wackier ones still preaching the demented faith.
I don't think neocons are all about Israel. A lot of the neocon supporters finds it's back up in the extremist Christian right, in fact many neocons are really antisemites. Is just an other 'unholy alliance' like the 'unholy alliance' between the Wahabbist regime of Saudi Arabia and the USA 'Deep State'. They are allied by convenience of geopolitical reasons and have been for decades.
God knows what will happen when the while region descends irreversibly into an even more chaotic state and all those alliances break down as they become unsutainable, probably a regional nuclear war. Maybe deep inside this is what some neocons and Israelis want.
literally bragging about how the Russia economy is faltering and is looking forward to more of it from the sanctions
Well, it was initially (GDP collapsing, inflation skyrocketing and exchange rate too), but the effect is fading as the economy stabilizes. The thing with price shocks is that are a one-time event, so as soon as the economy adapts to the new normal and absorbs them the problems are over. So falling oil prices hurt Russia, for a bit, then it stops being an issue as things normalizes.
The best governments can do in the situation is to keep spending and conducing competent policies to diversify and curve demand where it's hurting. Hopefully for Russia is nor running short of energy or food any time soon, so the western sanctions are laughable. You can live without a new iphone model, you cannot without food and energy. Russia is the biggest world reserve of the last two.
The West strategy of sanctioning all the world and isolating themselves is working "really well". It seems the currency has stabilized and is forcing diversification and strengthening trade between Russia and other parties (China). Looks like right now the best solution to a nation's problem is being sanctioned by the US and the EU, forces the locals to seek solutions out of the dominant payment system towards a more balanced economy.
However here in Europe things may end up backfiring, as we actually need to import a lot of raw materials and energy (food and medicine problems could be solved though with some proper policies). So in the end all the US subversive activity only ends up hurting Europe if we continue on this path.
Worst case scenario is we end up cut from energy supplies while in a recession (getting both bad inflation and deflation). But if it comes to this point I'm sure new negotiations will be open with Russia, which will probably end up being the reserve of Europe no matter how hard the neocons try. After all is a win/win situation.
Phillipe: "you used to have a link on this blog to an old site explaining how the monetary system works. Really basic graphics and design. Not an MMT site. Do you know which one I mean?"
Sorry, I don't recall it.
Tom with the neo-cons you always have to look for the Israel security angle...
What is the Israel angle with Ukraine? I dont see it.
There is almost never only only one factor involved, although everything reduces in the end to money in a capitalist environment.
Ukraine is about weakening Russia while at the same time picking up the lucrative Ukrainian farmland that neoliberals have been lusting over, as Michael Hudson has explained.
The reason that the neocons want to see Russia weakened is because it is the chief supporter of Iran and Syria, which the neocons and Israeli hardliners take to be the chief threat to Israel. So, yes, Israel is directly involved, although many other factors are operative.
"Maybe deep inside this is what some neocons and Israelis want."
Then they're even crazier than they appear to be, which is saying something.
The neocons and the Christian right are different. The Christian right are, as they always have been, virulently anti-Semitic; the only Semites the neoconservatives hate are the Arab kind, not the Jewish kind.
What'll be interesting is when the oil runs out in the next fifty years or so. The US will abandon Israel, as it will serve no more useful purpose, leaving the neoconservatives in a very curious position. The realists will have already, as they have now with the "pivot to Asia", positioned themselves in dealing with the challenge of the twenty-first century - China and the Asian economic miracle.
HE thinks HE is kicking THEIR asses.
Tom, the US is literally bragging about how the Russia economy is faltering and is looking forward to more of it from the sanctions, etc...
The US is believing its own BS.
TPTB really believe that sanctioning the people around Putin with get them to overthrow him and supporting opposition leaders like Navalny will result in an uprising against the government.
This is completely far-fetched.
As far as the sanctions go, as long as the Russian people feel that they are under attack by the US, they will dig in deeper. Their endurance is proven.
The US is generalizing about Russians as if they were Americans used to comforts. Those people have been to hell and back. America has never had to experience anything like this, except the South during the Civil War, and that is is still fresh in many Southerners memory as we see from the consequences today.
The only American experts that actually understand the situation are persona non grata in government and actually persecuted, like Stephen Cohen.
Tom,
It's not just that the Russians are not going to buckle, it's that they can't. And they won't. You can bet your balls on it. This is international politics played for the highest stakes. Other than an alcoholic idiot like Yeltsin, no Russian leader would give in to these ultimatums. The US tried this madness with Russia over Georgia a few years back, and look what happened there. The Russians are finished if they buckle, and they know it. So they'll hang in for as long as it takes, and turn up the heat when they must.
The US has bitten off more than it can chew. Nuland and co are goddamn idiots. The sooner they're replaced the better. Obama has to settle this before Clinton or Bush takes the hot seat - they'll fu*k things up three ways from Sunday. Obama's to blame for letting this spiral, but now he's going to have to come to a face saving agreement with Putin. Let's not forget, Putin is holding the hardliners back. It's staggering that anyone believes that the alternatives to Putin are better! The alternatives to Putin are those who countenance a full scale invasion and partition of Ukraine.
The fact is, NOBODY is winning. The Russians are losing. Their economy is shit. I have many Russian friends and when they go there they say it is totally chaotic. A shambles. You can't get basic shit: medicine, services, etc.
Russian nationals are being slaughtered in Donbass. The Russians have pretty much lost allies in Syria, Iran and now it even looks like Belarus is turning more "pro-Europe."
As for the U.S. we have made a mess of everything, everywhere, but the "neo's" (neocons, neoliberals) are still in control and their poliicies are still the policies of the day.
The Western media is either clueless with respect to Putin or just obediently putting out neocon propaganda as told. 99.9% of Americans are not cognizant of the truth.
Phillipe:
Here it is.
"Money, what it is, how it works."
By HF Hummel
Wikipedia has a good article on neoconservatism and its history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism
Thanks Mike.
Ignacio,
Neoconservatism comes *literally* out of Trotskyism. All the architects of neoconservatism back in the fifties were hardcore Trotskyists. That's why even now supposed Leftists find it so easy to go from one extreme (Trotskyism) to another equally abhorrent extreme (neoconservatism). And it's easy to see why. It's about controlling people. All good Trotskyists hate people. What they love is theoretical systems of control. One God failed (Trotskyist communism), and another took its place (Trotskyist American exceptionalism).
Christianity has nothing to do with it, nor does traditional conservatism or Republicanism. It is a revolutionary and ultra-reactionary system of thought based on elites controlling the stupid masses. In their literature, they talk about ways of controlling the people with propaganda and myths. For the neoconservatives, the US military is an instrument that must be used in remaking the world conform to their very narrow interests. It's very frightening stuff, not just for the world at large but also to the health of American democracy. Uniquely, it attracts totally incompetent fanatics. At least Trotsky was a competent fanatic. He's got a lot to answer for.
Good point about the morphing of Trotskyism (international revolution to improve workers' lot under socialism) into neoconservatism. Those folks got disillusioned with Marxism and converted to Western liberalism as the way to bring freedom to the world, but they kept the same methodology of global revolution and the use of violence as means justified by the end. As a result, the same modus operandi used by Communist revolutionaries back then has been enshrined as US policy under their aegis and those who came after.
It's ironic, but remember when the US was deep into rooting out the "red menace" and "pinkos" during the McCarthy era? Well, now Russia and China are going through the same thing as the US neoconservatives attempt domestic subversion to effect regime change from within by recruiting and financing Russian and Chinese operatives. Now there is a big hullabaloo in the US over Russia and China throwing out foreign-financed NGO's.
That's why even now supposed Leftists find it so easy to go from one extreme (Trotskyism) to another equally abhorrent extreme (neoconservatism).
Christopher Hitchens
I don't fault them much at the time. Leftists were sadly disappointed for good reason with developments in the Communist world.
Of course, that can be argued to be a result of Leninism, Stalinism, and Maoism. But Trotsky did cross over and join Lenin when his side prevailed. Trotsky was first sidelined by Stalin after Lenin died and then murdered in exile on Stalin's instructions.
Lastgreek: "Christopher Hitchens."
Indeed. The Hitchens cult has always been totally baffling. If you read his stuff now on any number of the extremely limited issues that he wrote about (and even then he made amateurish mistakes galore), almost none of it is particularly interesting. A great deal of it is total nonsense, and mendacious nonsense at that. How a half-decent literary critic and columnist suddenly became an influential political thinker and sometime social philosopher is an interesting question. Some of his books are embarrassingly bad, especially the two on Orwell and Paine.
As a friend of mine once noted, Hitchens only became a superstar after he joined the warmongers and bigots. Before that he was a highly florid writer with a plummy upperclass accent eking out a good life writing to order articles that rich Manhattanites claim to enjoy. Predictably enough, glossy magazine readers, warmongers and bigots deemed him a writer of great insight and near fainted when he opened his mouth. An upperclass accent and a contrived baroque prose style can hide any number of imbecilic and bigoted pronouncements.
Tom: "Those folks got disillusioned with Marxism and converted to Western liberalism as the way to bring freedom to the world..."
It was a perverted form of late Marxism, no matter what you think of Marxism, infused with a lot of elitist sadism. Their definition of freedom is no different.
Take a look at the kind of people who profess to be neoconservatives, and tell me you're not repelled, frightened or made physically sick by every aspect of their nature. Ordinarily, I would dismiss physiognomy as pseudoscientific rubbish, but having taken a good, hard look at the likes of John Bolton and Victoria Nuland I'm no longer so sure.
That's true, John, and that's why throwing Stalin and Mao at Marx is silly.
The present group of neoconservatives are different from the initial ones, who were the former Trotskyites. But the ideas and motivation are similar enough for continuity.
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