Why Russia May Become A Big Problem for Barack Obama
The Kremlin is less inclined to make nice with the West, though the economic downturn may crimp Moscow's ambitions
Reader Comments
Blagojevich's Russian or Eastern European Heritage
Blagojevich's Russian or Eastern European Heritage
By: Jordan C. Fan, Prophet Of Environment.
When Obama urged Illinois Governor Blagojevich to resign, Oama is in a way declaring war on Russia and Russian's ally including China. Blagojevich is certainly of Russian or Eastern European descent and was elected y those people who are the majority in Illinois. It is an attempt for lack to steal the control of that state from those Eastern Europeans.
Black Got To Be Rich Illegally - Blagojevich and Obama Corruption Scandal. Even before Obama start office, his corruptions have begun. Just wait until Obama step into his office, he will rob all the White people of all they have. Blagojerich or "Black got to be rich" illegally or criminally should well be Obama's campaign slogan.
The Dream Never Dies
I hope our "no body", namely President-elect Obama will perform as good as Mr. Putin.
I sincerely hope our Leaders, for lack of better term, will support him full heartily.
Or we may see more native-borns are slipping across into Europa, Australia, Canada, and
other countries.
The West and the new powers
I've been to Russia and like most of the people. But particularly those better off tend to still have the traditonal Russian envy and mistrust of foreigners. They see the map and that they have a very large part of the world, especially for the [shrinking] population, so there's the long held perception that other's want their land; in fact many Chinese are slipping across into Siberia.
They also are Western in thought yet feel not accepted by Europe or the US. They often blame the West for their problems like the financial mess of the 1990's even though most of it clearly was of their own leadership.
In fact it's pretty clear that most of the old Soviet leader's, from the party, KGB, and industry managers, plotted with Gorby to let Communism fall apart. Why, so they could not just enjoy a better lifestyle than most Russians, but one like the West!
So they could have nicer homes, maybe one in the West, a BMW, vacations in France or London, and kids schooled at Harvard or Oxford. And as that group of 50 or so that runs Russia got consolidated they installed a "nobody", former KBG officer Putin.
They are very nationistic. They suckered BP and other large firms into helping to develop their natural resources and have forcefully "encouraged" them to get out now that they have learned their technology. Smaller firms or investors have literally been pushed out, threatened, even killed. So they thumb their nose at the West as long as they don't need us, or think they don't.
I do like the people but we must not cave into them or China. Both are much more powerful now, especially with the blunder of Iraq, and the borrowing, that has weakened the US.
But the West can easily regain it's power and leadership if it simply spends more wisely and invests in alternative energy, education, etc.; we should respect these new powers but remember that our democracies, as flawed as they can be, are ultimately the driver's of global culture and power.
Appeasing Russians ???
Russia needs to work with U.S. It is a failed country and it can only blame itself for it. Why is it that all Central and Eastern European countries have thriving democracies and Russia is becoming a third world country. The only think it has are the nuclear weapons. U.S. and Europe should not try to appease Russians as they did with Hitler in the 1930s. If Ronald Regan was about appeasement we would still have Soviet Union around. Do what is right and not what the Russians want.
The global commanding height
Hi, Pauline, may I?
I have to disagree with you almost totally. I'm sorry!
Bush is not an idiot or he would never be elected twice. This is not just about Repus, or just about Demos. This is neither about neo-cons or new-libs. Please image Russia, without the Warsaw Pact, is feeling insecure and vulnerable. Our leaders, for the lack of a better term, WANT the Russian, and the Chinese more so as a matter of fact, to believe WE WANT war with each of them! This "missile shield" is a very important part of whole matter. Don't you see how "distressed" they are over missile shield, without me try
to elaborate? Don't you see we have all the NATO allies totally behind us on this, even when they didn't go to Iraq with us?
Image we are facing Russia, with China on the side trying to overtake us, US and EU, the whole India Sub wondering around, NATO allies (?) and Japan behind us, and the problems of the American PEOPLE inside. Whoa, it is the worst time and it is the best of time! Who is there to take the global commanding height? Is this the only chance for human? Or I'm going crazy to think this is our leader's thinking?
We Americans have been arrogant and stupid
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia did all the changing (and suffering)...the Warsaw Pact is long gone, for instance, they also have established a real market economy.
As to the so-called "missile shield" of Bush-the-idiot, if Russia installed a puppet like Saakashvilli in Mexico, and armed him or her to the teeth, what the hell would we do? This "missile shield" is nothing but a very provocative act and completely unnecessary; sometimes I think that the Republicans WANT war with Russia!
Mr. Bush and the Republicans have blown this like they have blown everything else...although what Clinton did in bringing Poland et al. into NATO started the insanity.
Fortunately, it is not too late...we need to establish a real partnership with Russia, not a dictatorship over them. They beat Napoleon and Hitler, do you think we will fare better?
We also need to change; we need to stop this lunatic nonsense of mythology and virtual reality, and deal with our own internal problems, the problems of the American PEOPLE for a change.
US and the World
I was touched by Mr. Scowcroft's closing comment of "respect".
It is not just "Obama and Russia". It is about how to be an
empire, inside and out; It is about finding opportunities in
a chaotic world; Will we see many more swans, white, black,
and whatever shades in between that explode in front of us?
Credit and nucleon means have their limits. Please use respect
and mutual understanding properly.
Re: Russia's re-expansion?...
Randall got one thing right in his comment: Russia is feeling insecure. It has good reasons to feel insecure: it's military strength is still nowhere near what it used to be in, say, early 1980s; it is ill-prepared to fight a conventional war with NATO (or China); it's economy is still too dependent of export hydrocarbons and other natural resources. Despite its thousands of nuclear warheads, Russia is feeling vulnerable - both militarily and financially - because it is vulnerable. And so the Kremlin overcompensates with bravado.
Psychology aside, NATO was created to counter the Soviet Union. Even today, with the USSR long gone, NATO has no other purpose but to threaten Russia. It's no longer containment: the advantage of the combined GDP of NATO states vs. Russia is astronomical and the combined military budgets of NATO members vs. Russia is skewed beyond any reason. Why should the Russians be concerned with the expansion of an anti-Russian military alliance? Because they are not insane. Russia is still too big of a target for NATO to take on comfortably. And so NATO is slowly picking at Russia's weaknesses: a missile base here and a radar base there. It all adds up. It's designed to add up.
It would have been prudent for the West to use the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the USSR to draw Russia closer, to engage it politically and to integrate it economically. This would have given the West leverage. Instead, the US went on a winner-takes-all spree, trying to completely feel any geopolitical vacuum left after the Soviet breakup. Russia was surrounded by new NATO members and new military bases. At the same time, the West held and continues to hold Russia at an arm's length economically. Russia can't even get WTO membership - a questionable privilege enjoyed even by banana republics.
And so what was the result of this shortsighted approach by the West? When in August 2008 Russian army decided to give a certain puppet of Washington a much-deserved and long-asked-for spanking, the West found itself entirely without any leverage, without any means of influencing Russia's policies. The US - understanding it had no leverage - let the EU manage the situation around Georgia. And the EU proclaimed the "no business as usual" approach, but ended up crawling back to Russia less than three months later. Everybody got a nice egg on their face and Putin got all the encouragement he needed.
