Putin's Russia: rich, powerful, unpredictable and malicious | 52 comments (52 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Reactions coming in on JRL (none / 1)

Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006
From: "Paul Starobin" <PStarobin@nationaljournal.com>
I wonder if followers of JRL would agree that, as I sense, we are at the dawn of a new era of Russo-phobia in the West? I take the Ukraine gas episode as a case in point. Yes, it can be argued that this is an instance of Kremlin bullying. But it can also be argued that surely a West-leaning Ukraine cannot expect Russia to subsidize its gas supplies. That point, however, is mostly glossed over in Western coverage. My own particular concern is that Kremlin-phobia or Putin-phobiaa measure of which iis justified, given the track record of the Putin regime"is in danger of turning into Russo-phobia. Thus Edward Lucas, in JRL #2006, is not content with saying that Putin "increasingly looks like a monster." He goes on to say that Putin has unleashed "the imperialist urge that lies deep in the Russian psyche." I don't know quite what to make of this kind of political-Jungian analysis. If something like a collective "imperialist urge" can be said to exist, is it absent from other nations' psyches? (The Germans? The British? The Americans?) Whatever might be said of the Russian national psyche it strikes me that we are back at a familiar and unsatisfying place for Western observers of the Russians: We want to like '"them," and we would like them, if they were more like us, but they somehow insist on being more like themselves. And so "they" provoke our fear. When it comes to our view of Russia, must we always be looking through the glass, darkly?
Best,
Paul Starobin
Contributing editor, Atlantic Monthly
Moscow bureau chief, Business Week, 1999-2003

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Tue Jan 10th, 2006 at 10:10:25 AM EST

Re: Reactions coming in on JRL (none / 1)

From: "Robert Harneis" <r.harneis@wanadoo.fr>
Subject: VLADIMIR PUTIN MAGICIAN MOUSE OR MONSTER?
Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006
Permit me to comment on 'Vladimir Putin. Magician, Mouse or Monster' by Edward Lucas, who ought to know his Russia. He writes,"Mr Putin is the first Russian leader since Peter the Great to have thesimple advantages of being punctual, efficient, fit, sober and concise."
He seems to have overlooked Catherine the Great, who did pretty well and reportedly often walked ten miles a day. As I understand it Peter the Great was not terrible famous for sobriety. More serioulsy he seems unable to grasp that attempting to re-establish strategic positions recklessly abandoned by his predecessors is not only normal but inevitable. The Russians are agressive he says but it is the United States that now entirely funds the Georgian army and is desperate to rush the Ukraine into NATO. How does he think the USA would react if the Russians constantly stirred up trouble in the former Mexican possessions in the south west of the United States? In addition it would help if he and others did not consistently refer to the Soviet Union and Russia as if they were one and the same thing.
Robert Harneis
European Correspondent

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Tue Jan 10th, 2006 at 10:12:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Reactions coming in on JRL (none / 0)

Nice to hear a voice of reason...

(Has he been reading ET?)

BTW, there was an interesting (and admittedly quite anti-Putin) article in the last Atlantic about Kasparov (yes, the chess player) mounting some opposition movement to challenge Putin. Worth a read, but I don't think it is online yet.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. -Voltaire

by p------- on Tue Jan 10th, 2006 at 12:45:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Reactions coming in on JRL (none / 0)

Politically Kasparov is Russia's Fischer. I don't think he has much of a chance.

by blackhawk on Tue Jan 10th, 2006 at 02:04:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Reactions coming in on JRL (none / 0)

Oh, he has no plans to run. He's just going around setting up town hall-type meetings and drumming up support for democratic reforms.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. -Voltaire

by p------- on Tue Jan 10th, 2006 at 02:22:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Reactions coming in on JRL (none / 0)

Well, well, well. That comment, coming from "contributing editor, Atlantic Monthly", just after AM put one of the most blistering pieces regarding Russia behind their subscription firewall:

Russia Is Finished: The unstoppable descent of a once great power into social catastrophe and strategic irrelevance, by Jeffrey Tayler, Atlantic Monthly, May 2001.

If Starobin is serious about his position, he should arrange to put one the sharpest ctitiques of Russia, published by his own magazine, in front of the firewall where it's been for years. Or arrange for permission to publish it where the world can still see it.

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The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.
W. Churchill

by US expat Ukraine on Tue Jan 10th, 2006 at 06:40:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Reactions coming in on JRL (none / 0)

Copy of the article can be found here: Russia Is Finished

Also noted downthread.

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The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.
W. Churchill

by US expat Ukraine on Tue Jan 10th, 2006 at 09:09:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Putin's Russia: rich, powerful, unpredictable and malicious | 52 comments (52 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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