While I took issue with Andrew Sullivan's idea that Vladimir Putin now "owned" the mess in Syria, Commentary's Jonathan Tobin evidently took the idea to heart and is terrified at the prospect. According to Tobin, it's quite possible that Putin could end up "owning" the Middle East with damaging results for the U.S. around the world:

The guiding principle of Russian foreign policy is twofold: annoy, humiliate, and defeat the United States every chance they get and thereby help rebuild the lost Soviet empire whose fall Putin still mourns. Russian adventurism in Syria won’t stop there. It will extend into Asia and cause havoc and diminish American influence there and everywhere else.

I think Tobin is utterly wrong in his premise that a loss of influence in one area of the world will lead to a loss everywhere (an argument that should have been put to bed after it was thoroughly discredited during the Cold War), but just for the sake of argument, let's accept that his framing is correct. Does it therefore make sense to overthrow Assad? Not even close.

First, let's look at the lay of the land. Russia has one client -- a regime that is battered by a civil war and that looks to be battling a fierce insurgency for years. It has a second, tepid ally in Iran. The U.S., on the other hand, can count on all the other major countries in the region. It's a chessboard that looks distinctly favorable to the U.S. even if Assad stays in power.

Second, for all of Tobin's breathless talk about "Brezhnev-era" diplomacy and Putin's scheme to reconstitute the Soviet empire (!), there is no chance whatsoever that Russia can re-assemble anything remotely like the Soviet Union again. It will never reclaim Central or Eastern Europe. Central Asia is independent and is as likely to tilt toward China as it is toward Russia. Ukraine, Russia's best hope for a pliable neighboring client, is also balking at Russian overtures, despite the election of Viktor Yanukovych, who was widely seen as in Putin's pocket. As Anton Barbashin and Hannah Thoburn noted recently, Russia's entire geopolitcal strategy for its near abroad is collapsing. The idea that saving Assad's bacon is an important building block in restoring Russian power makes sense only if you ignore almost every other development in Russia's Putin-era foreign policy. (It also ignores the strong evidence that Russia is in pretty bad shape domestically, too.)

Then there's the history. The last time the U.S. aided rebel groups to blunt the advance of Russian power, in Afghanistan, it ended in a transnational jihadist movement that killed thousands of Americans. Back then, the U.S. had the benefit of not knowing the danger of Islamic radicalism. Back then, Russia was a legitimate national security threat that warranted such risk taking. Today, there is no such excuse. Russia is hardly a large enough "threat" to the U.S. to warrant stoking a jihadist whirlwind in Syria just to give them a black eye.

(AP Photo)

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Russian President Vladimir Putin recently warned that his country will feel the effects of low birthrates and declining demographics of the 1990s. "At that time, our country faced a profound demographic crisis. The consequences of this crisis we have not yet felt ourselves, but they will be felt on the economic and social spheres, and in the industrial development," said the President. "We will, unfortunately, face this the coming years." He noted that demographics have vastly improved since then, with birth indicators at their best in the past 20 years.

The real demographic issue that Putin alluded to -- due in large part to a smaller female birth rate throughout the 1990s and steady migration -- was the declining quantity of women in the country reaching child-bearing age. Russia is not alone in this -- practically all European countries are facing a demographic crisis due to low birthrates among core populations.

In other news, Russian state oil company "Rosneft" inked a deal with the Chinese to deliver $270 billion worth of crude over the next 25 years. While economically beneficial for Moscow, this announcement nonetheless caused concern over potential price hikes of gas inside Russia, as consumers pay attention to oil outflows to the ever-demanding Chinese market.

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The use of dashboard cameras in Russia helped us see the amazing meteorite that exploded over Siberia in February. These dash cams have now brought us 'drug user' Sergei Kornev's joy ride in a stolen police car through the streets of Moscow.

The video ends with Kornev colliding into another car and then exiting the cruiser. What you don't see is that, seconds later, he was hit by an oncoming car. According to the Moscow Times, he was left with a "gaping head wound" and snarled traffic for four hours.

A cautionary tale if ever there was one.

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This image, published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (via Fortune), shows a computer model of what "Supra-Polar" shipping routes will look like if global warming proceeds as expected. As you can see, a melting Arctic will open up a vast swath of ocean, including the Northwest Passage, which is expected to shave 30 percent of the distance to and from North America compared to the current Northern Sea Route, which hugs the Russian coastline.

By mid-century, the shortest route to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific will be the North Pole.

The melting ice not only introduces unpredictable environmental variables, it also deals a blow to Russia's strategic position. As Jennifer Abbasi notes, Russia charges fees for vessels operating in its exclusive economic zone. As the ice opens up and more vessels can range beyond Russia's territorial waters, they'll lose out on their cut.

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Leonid Bershidsky argues that the recent meteor that exploded over Russia has revealed the country's "culture of mistrust." Shortly after the explosion, Bershidsky writes, Russians across the political spectrum began voicing conspiracy theories about the true nature of the blast. Some speculated it was an American weapon, others, a Russian. The widespread use of dashboard cameras that recorded the epic explosion are another testament to Russia's mistrust, he added. Russian citizens use these cameras because they cannot trust the police or other eyewitnesses during car accidents.

Bershidsky doesn't highlight why Russians may be particularly prone to distrusting their officials, but does offer some additional evidence about the lack of trust:

Why the trust deficit? Sociologist Lev Gudkov cited research showing that in 2008, only 27 percent of Russians agreed that people were generally to be trusted, while 68 percent were in favor of caution. In the U.S., 42 percent trusted their fellow citizens, and 57 percent believed them relatively untrustworthy.

Whatever the reason, it goes well beyond astronomical phenomena. Just today, Russia's central bank governor, Sergei Ignatiev, complained that $49 billion, or 2.5 percent of the country's economic output, had left the country illegally in 2012. Ignatiev speculated to a Russian newspaper that the money could have been used to pay for drugs, bribes or simply to avoid taxes.

(AP Photo)

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Over 500 people in Russia have been injured by an exploding meteorite that exploded over the skies of western Siberia this morning. Most of the wounded appear to be hurt by breaking glass. The story is still fluid, but the video above gives you a sense of what it looked like from the ground.

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According to Bloomberg, Russia has become the world's largest buyer of gold. The Russian central bank has added 570 metric tons of the stuff to its reserves, mostly to defend against the collapse of the dollar or euro, which their buying habit suggests is a real possibility.

Not everyone's buying, though:

While Putin is leading the gold rush in emerging markets, developed nations are liquidating. Switzerland unloaded the most in the past decade, 877 tons, an amount now worth about $48 billion, according to International Monetary Fund data through November. France was second with 589 tons, while Spain, the Netherlands and Portugal each sold more than 200 tons.

Even after Putin’s binge, though, Russia’s total cache of about 958 tons is only the eighth largest, the World Gold Council said in a Feb. 8 report. The U.S. is No. 1 with about 8,134 tons, followed by Germany with 3,391 tons and the Washington-based IMF with 2,814 tons. Italy, France, China and Switzerland are fourth through seventh. While gold accounts for 9.5 percent of Russia’s total reserves, it accounts for more than 70 percent in the U.S., Germany, Italy and France.

(AP Photo)

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Following the passage in recent days of two bills embracing full marriage equality in Britain and France, Andrew Sullivan reflects on the remarkable progress he has witnessed on gay rights in Great Britain:

In the crazed frenzy of this week’s transition, I realized last night that something truly profound had just happened. The country I grew up in – where I never heard the word homosexuality in my home and barely in the culture, except in hushes and shudders – is now on the brink of bringing actual equality and dignity to all its gay citizens. I remember touring Britain with “Virtually Normal” almost two decades ago and finding both Tories and lefties uncomprehending, if not actively hostile. The culture has changed beyond recognition. And undoutbtedly, clearly, unequivocally, for the better. And the argument was made even stronger by the fact that there are over a dozen openly gay Conservative members of parliament – an indication of how conservatism as a governing philosophy can and must include everyone in its ranks, or die a deserved and bigoted death.

Indeed, Andrew believes these recent steps may in fact signal a certain kind of inevitability in the Western world on marriage equality and gay rights. One problem: Russia:

Russia's State Duma is preparing a bill that will ban "homosexual propaganda," which even supporters admit will effectively criminalize almost any overt public expression of gay sexual identity.

The public battle over the draft law has highlighted two different visions of Russian "democracy" and pitted them against each other.

Supporters of the bill, which is strongly backed by the powerful Russian Orthodox Church, argue that Russia is a non-Western and "conservative" democracy that defends traditional values and shields the feelings of the majority from the aggressive encroachments of pushy minorities. They say they're not out to persecute gay people, but that they must not be allowed to bring their sexual orientation into the open, where it may influence the attitudes of minors and offend the beliefs of most Russians.

Russian political scientist Sergei Markov, a proponent of LGBT "private zones" in the country, reveals the Kremlin's thinking on this:

The idea that Russia is somehow more backward than the West is a typical error based on the linear understanding of progress that dominated in the 19th and 20th centuries. In fact, that notion also served as the basis for the initial, fairly primitive concepts of modernization and democratization in the West. According to this concept of linear progress, all countries are on the same path, and Russia is several decades behind Europe and the U.S. Russia's legislation on LGBT propaganda only reinforce that gap. But modern humanitarian science sees society as multifaceted and allows for different approaches to a single problem. Only time will tell which solution to the issue of minority and majority rights is more effective and humane: Russia's or the West's.

Much like everything else, the Kremlin appears to be looking at this, er, "problem" through a geopolitical lens.

(Photo courtesy of Wiki by way of Sully. Key is here ... notice the big gray blotch east of Europe.)

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One of the simmering fears provoked by the rise of emerging market economies is that the race for critical resources is being won by states that are not afraid to bend the laws of capitalism to advance strategic interests. (The Eurasia Group's Ian Bremmer wrote a nice primer on the rise of "state capitalism" which we reviewed here.)

Russia's state-run energy giant Gazprom shows us how it's done:

Bloomberg has estimated that Russia's Gazprom will beat Exxon Mobil this year to become the most profitable company in the world, and yet its shares are down 18 percent. Why? As well as being the most profitable, it is also the biggest spender, using its cash to finance large infrastructure projects that are also priorities of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Last year Gazprom spent $53 billion on capital expenditure projects, more than PetroChina's $46 billion or Exxon's $36.8 billion. The huge expenditure meant that just 7 percent of earnings remained to be paid out as dividends, the least amount of the top 10 largest energy companies in the world.

Anaylsts at IFC Metropol and Sberbank CIB have suggested that Gazprom's shareholders are basically paying for Putin's political priorities: building a pipeline to bypass Ukraine, and developing Russia's poor Eastern regions.

While the U.S. certainly puts a lot of diplomatic and military effort into making the word safe for U.S. firms to operate and win contracts, this kind of direct state control isn't yet the norm. Yet as the race heats up for strategic minerals and other resources, we'll likely see a sharper debate over which approach best secures a nation's interest. Will Chinese and Russian firms ultimately implode under the weight of state interference (or be propped up at a loss indefinitely) or will the U.S. begin to mirror their approach in bending (to an even greater degree than it already does) the operation of private firms?

(AP Photo)

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One Russian analyst thinks the Chinese have a lot more warheads than the U.S. assumes:

China has nearly 750 theater and tactical nuclear warheads in addition to more than 200 strategic missile warheads, a stockpile far larger than U.S. estimates, according to a retired Russian general who once led Moscow’s strategic forces.

New details of China’s strategic and tactical nuclear warheads levels were disclosed by retired Col. Gen. Viktor Yesin, former commander of Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces, during a conference several months ago. A copy of Yesin’s paper was translated last month by the Georgetown University Asian Arms Control Project and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Either way, the "consensus" appears to be that China has about 240 nuclear weapons (give or take a hundred).

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Russia continues to be one of the top weapons exporters around the world, having sold products worth $7 billion by September 2012, states official agency "Rosoboronexport." Yet when it comes to one of the largest global arms markets -- India -- historically active Russian sales have take a serious setback.

Moscow recently lost the fourth consecutive Indian tender for the supply of military aircraft -- the winner in the contest for six aerial refueling tankers was European A330MRTT over Russian IL78MKI. Previous Russian losers in the Indian market included MiG-35 fighter planes, as well as Mi-28NE and Mi-26T2 helicopters.

The defeat in four Indian weapons tenders, including recent attempted sales of refueling aircraft, cost Russia approximately $14 billion of lost profits. Such numbers point to the continuing importance of India -- and Asian market in general -- as the key area of military sales and acquisition. Russian military exports continue to do well on the global market -- second only behind the United States -- yet Indian refusal to purchase Russian equipment points to the changing technological and political priorities of New Delhi, which recently started prioritizing military purchases from the United States and Israel.

Such series of defeats in the Indian tenders indicate a systemic crisis in the military-industrial and arms export complex of Russia, states Lenta.ru. Part of it is ill-conceived export policy and Russia's actual marketing strategy. If the United States brings to the international exhibitions actual working samples of their products, Russia, as a rule, "teases" potential buyers with booklets and toy plastic models of its weapons. Even simulated air combat, which is so popular in the West as part of weapons marketing, is rarely seen with Russian equipment.

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The New York Times explains:

Vladimir V. Putin is the unquestioned supreme leader of Russia, known for his icy stare and steely ways. But now Mr. Putin has taken on a new, perhaps more tender, leadership role. He has guided a flock of birds — through the air.

Russia’s president piloted a motorized hang glider over an Arctic wilderness while leading six endangered Siberian cranes toward their winter habitat, as part of an operation called “The Flight of Hope,” his press office confirmed Wednesday.

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Josh Rogin reports that the Romney campaign isn't backing down on its tough rhetoric toward Russia:

"Russia is a significant geopolitical foe. Governor Romney recognizes that," Romney advisor Rich Williamson said at a Tuesday afternoon event hosted by the Foreign Policy Initiative. "That's not to say they are the same sort of direct military threat as they were."

Williamson, joined on the panel by top advisor Pierre-Richard Prosper, said that the Russian government under Vladimir Putin has made strategic opposition to the West and the United States in particular a premier plank of its agenda. A Romney administration would end the Russian "reset" and confront Russia on Syria, Georgia, Iran, and several other issues, he said.

"They are our foe. They have chosen a path of confrontation, not cooperation, and I think the governor was correct in that even though there are some voices in Washington that find that uncomfortable," he said. "So those who say, ‘Oh gosh, oh golly, Romney said they're our geopolitical foe' don't understand human history. And those who think liberal ideas of engagement will bend actions also don't understand history. We're better to be frank and honest."

So the Romney campaign is basically arguing that Russia's internal governance is going to be a matter of high priority for them and that Russia's lack of cooperation with the U.S. is a result of a failure of the Obama administration's reset policy. In other words, the Romney campaign seems to be suggesting that they will not only shame and excoriate Russia at every turn over their domestic shortcomings, but also extract more cooperation from them on matters vital to U.S. interests.

I wonder how this will work.

The only evidence we have to suggest this would work is Williamson reminding us that Reagan called the Soviet Union an "Evil Empire" yet still negotiated arms limitations treaties with them - ignoring the fact that these negotiations were almost universally opposed and derided as appeasement by neoconservatives.

It's obvious the Romney campaign wants U.S. relations with Russia to get worse. What's not clear - and where the campaign still needs to show its work - is how this deterioration is going to redound to America's benefit.

Update: Larison unpacks the campaign's thinking:

The thinking seems to have been something like this: 1) the “reset” is a signature Obama initiative; 2) Romney is therefore against the “reset” no matter what; 3) if that isn’t enough of a reason, Romney is against the “reset” because it represents appeasement and weakness; 4) Russia only respects strength and resolve, so Romney will undo the “reset” to show that America is “strong.” There is no evidence that Russia would respond well to being hectored over its domestic political and legal systems, and there is even less evidence that the Russian government and Putin in particular would respond well to direct confrontation of the sort Romney’s adviser Richard Williamson endorsed yesterday. There is a great deal of evidence supporting the opposing view...

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It was a strange Friday in Russia. The feminist punk rock group called Pussy Riot was convicted of hooliganism and faces two years in a prison colony for an anti-Putin performance in a Moscow cathedral. The very same day, a Moscow court upheld a 100-year ban on gay parades.

Russia has a long list of very serious problems. By 2050, the country may lose 25 million people. Having so few young people to care for an elderly population will place an enormous strain on the government. Also, Russia faces an epidemic of alcohol abuse. And large protests, such as those that occurred after Putin's election, show that the Russian people are growing weary of Putin's heavy-handed tactics.

As they did toward the end of the Soviet regime, Russians are once again openly mocking their government. During the Pussy Riot trial, the Moscow Times reports that "[e]ven court marshals and police guards couldn't hold back their laughter. It got so bad at one point that the judge had to throw several people out of the courtroom for chuckling, and one observer who dared to smile was escorted out by a security guard."

Indeed, Russia is facing many serious problems. Fortunately for Putin, the existential threat of angry feminism and gay parades have been eliminated for now.

(AP photo)

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Some dark humor out of Syria:

A Russian general met reporters at the Defense Ministry in Moscow on Wednesday to deny reports that he had been killed by rebel forces in Syria and was shown on television looking well. "I want to confirm that I am alive and well. I am in good health and I'm living in Moscow," Vladimir Petrovich Kuzheyev, a reserve general, was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass news agency.

Russian television briefly showed footage of Kuzheyev, in a blue shirt and no tie, at the Defense Ministry.

A Syrian rebel group said it had killed a Russian general working as an adviser to Syria's Defense ministry in an operation in the western Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus.

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After worms were found in a "McChicken" sandwich in a Moscow McDonald's, Russia's top health inspector Gennady Onischenko had a few sharp words for the international chain and for hamburgers in general:

He referred to the McChicken sandwich as "an excuse for food."

Then, Onishchenko turned his ire at hamburgers.

"I would like to remind our fellow citizens that hamburgers, even without worms, are not a good choice of a meal for residents of Moscow and of Russia. This is not our cuisine."

But Onischenko isn't a disinterested gourmand:

Onishchenko has a history of giving medical advice and issuing warnings about imported food and drink that assist the Kremlin's political goals.

Amid unprecedented anti-Putin protests last December, for example, Onishchenko warned Russians not to take to the streets lest they succumb to the winter weather and catch a cold.

In the past he has also ruled that Moldovan and Georgian wines were unfit for consumption and banned them, decimating one of the countries’ most lucrative export industries at a time when Chisinau and Tbilisi’s relations with Russia had hit a low.

He has also taken aim at Ukrainian cheese and Belarusian milk at times when Moscow's relations with those countries were strained.

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The diplomatic wrangling over Syria is steadily escalating:

Russian Human Rights envoy Konstantin Dolgov had expressed “great concern” about the situation in eastern Saudi Arabia following what he described as clashes between law enforcement and peaceful demonstrators in which two people were killed and more than 20 were wounded, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry website.

The Saudi interior ministry has said there were no clashes but that two people were killed by unknown assailants last Sunday in the east, where the country’s minority Muslim Shi’ite population is concentrated.

“The Kingdom learned with strong astonishment and surprise about the comment by the Russian Foreign Ministry’s representative on human rights which represents a blatant and unjustified intervention … in the internal affairs of the kingdom,” SPA quoted a Foreign Ministry statement, attributed to an “official source”, as saying.

Mark Adomanis thinks the Russians are "concern trolling." Certainly, the hypocrisy here knows no bounds.

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Via the New York Times:

Major Internet sites and human rights advocates sharply criticized a proposed law that would grant the Russian government broad new powers to restrict Web content, ostensibly to protect children from pornography and other harmful material. Critics said the law could quickly lead to repression of speech and a restrictive firewall like the one in China.

Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, shut its Russian Web site on Tuesday to protest the proposed measure, and instead posted a large warning on its home page: “Imagine a world without free knowledge.” The notice said the proposed law “can lead to the creation of extrajudicial censorship of the Internet in Russia, including the closure of access to Wikipedia.”

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Despite some hopes to the contrary, it seems Russia isn't moving the West's way on Syria:

Moscow lashed out on Thursday at the Western position on Syria, saying it could aggravate the situation to the point of war. “Their [Western] position is most likely to exacerbate the situation, lead to further violence and ultimately a very big war,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

The West has also distorted the Russian position on Syria by suggesting Moscow should offer Syrian President Bashar al-Assad asylum, he said.

“This is either an unscrupulous attempt to mislead serious people who shape foreign policy or simply a misunderstanding of what is going on,” Lavrov said.

He also warned that Russia will reject any UN Security Council peace enforcement resolution on Syria, since that would be “nothing but intervention.”

When it comes to intervention in Syria, none of the great powers are in much of a position to decry it.

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Last week, Kennette Benedict argued that NATO's contentious missile defense shield was actually a dud that didn't work. The gist:

Independent scientists and engineers in the United States and Russia have consistently judged past efforts to be failures, and they have written detailed reviews showing why the plans for such missile defenses are not technically feasible. Yet, in spite of these technical critiques and negative results, the US government has persisted in its claims of success. Until now.

A little-noticed report released in September 2011 by the Defense Science Board, an independent advisory committee to the US Defense Department, found three major problems with the Early Intercept Ballistic Missile Defense now being developed. Apparently, (1) none of the necessary radars in the European Phased Adaptive Approach defense system are powerful enough to work, (2) none of the existing missile defense sensors can reliably distinguish among warheads, decoys, and other debris, and (3) US intelligence already has observed foreign ballistic missile launches that can deploy decoys and other countermeasures. So, after 27 years of development and $150 billion spent, there still is no effective missile shield -- it is still a dream.

NATO says its missile defense system is flexible and adaptive and deployments would correspond to the ballistic missile threat from the south. (Because of Turkish sensitivity, NATO cannot explicitly label Iran as the threat.) It is this adaptive uncertainty, not today's capabilities, that most concerns Russia. US radars and satellites could be upgraded and integrated to work jointly with additional ally and partner sensors to seriously "beef up" the system's efficiency, Deputy Chief of General Staff Colonel-General Vladimir Gerasimov said PPT. Colonel Evgeny Ilyin added that the mobility of sea-based assets, the numbers of deployed interceptors, and their velocities were among the other factors that, if enhanced, could pose a threat to Russia. Moscow is unsure about the NATO system's parameters but knows what they should not be.

It's worth reading in full to get the full sense of Russia's concerns.

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To celebrate his inauguration, newly installed Russian President Vladimir Putin took to the ice rink. Amazingly, his ragtag group of amateurs defeated a professional hockey team, with Mr. Putin himself scoring the game-winning goal. Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, accompanied by a "blond female translator," was there to cheer him on.

The Telegraph goes on to report:

Within minutes of his first appearance, the legends' defence seemed to magically vanish into thin air, allowing Mr Putin through to deftly slot the puck into the back of the net and equalise.

...

The referee then decreed that the match be decided by penalties and Mr Putin had the decisive shot, flicked the puck past the mountainous goaltender - who somehow avoided getting in the way of the softly-struck shot - and his team had won.

Mr. Putin's list of achievements is indeed quite long. Not only is he a skilled hockey player, but he is also an F1 race car driver, an archaeologist, and a rugged survivalist who can brave the Siberian wilderness without a shirt. And as a 2009 ABC News report stated, he is also adept at "volleyball, skiing, blacksmithing. He rides in submarines and fighter jets. He bowls. He tranquilizes tigers."

Is there anything this man can't do?

Well, there is one thing: Term limits. He definitely can't do those.

(AP Photo)

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Sometimes international politics can be fun:

Speaking to journalists, Saakashvili reiterated accusations that the Kremlin wants to oust him from power.

​​On a more bizarre note, Saakashvili said he was even willing to sacrifice parts of his body that Moscow has "shown interest in" -- a hint at then-President Vladimir Putin's infamous 2008 pledge to "hang Saakashvili by the balls."

"In addition, I am ready to cut off and send them those parts of my body which they have shown interest in more than once," Saakashvili said. "I am really ready to do it, and I say this without a hint of irony, as long as they pull out their forces from here and give Georgia's people -- its multiethnic population -- an opportunity to develop within the internationally recognized borders."

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There is a catch, however: He only supports term limits for the next president. The Los Angeles Times reports:

...Putin made it clear that the two-term limit he was endorsing "wouldn't be retroactive," meaning it wouldn't apply to him.

And:

If Putin seeks yet a fourth term, as expected, he would be leader of the Kremlin longer than anyone since dictator Josef Stalin.

It is often said that Belarus is "Europe's last dictatorship." Unfortunately, that may no longer be the case.

(AP Photo)

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We know Mitt Romney thinks it's Russia and now the White House is on record giving al-Qaeda the dubious honor, but neither of these answers seems all that satisfying. Romney's answer, redolent of the Cold War, at least has the benefit of anointing a bona-fide geopolitical heavyweight. The White House's response has the benefit of identifying a group that is actually implacably hostile to the U.S., even if its power is negligible.

So who should get the top spot? China, like Russia, has geopolitical clout but isn't hostile to the U.S. across the board in the manner of an al-Qaeda. Beyond China, countries like Iran or North Korea (or even Pakistan) could earn a nod for their hostility to U.S. regional aims, but again, not for their power or geopolitical weight.

Even conducting this thought experiment usefully illustrates the fact that the U.S. is actually in a pretty nice geopolitical position in 2012: it has very few implacable enemies and none that are very powerful. There are very powerful states that, on certain issues, play a spoiler role, but the era of straight-up great power antagonism is gone. As James Joyner pointed out, the entire notion of the U.S. having a "number one geopolitical foe" is an "outmoded concept."

At least for now.

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Jennifer Rubin is discouraged by the Obama administration's reluctance to enter into Syria's civil war:

Not unlike the Green Revolution in 2009, the president nearly three years later is willing to allow an opportunity — to undermine Iran, support democracy, reassert U.S. leadership — slip away. Every now and then the president talks a good game on human rights, but his heart is never in it. In this case, even when coupled with an obvious and compelling national security objective, passivity rules the day.

Obama’s reelection objective, namely no more foreign conflicts, trumps decent policy. But the foreign conflicts don’t go away simply because we don’t participate. Instead, despots triumph, other powers (e.g. Russia) extend their influence and the United States’s credibility is eroded. When they ask, “Who lost Syria and Iran?” you’ll know the answer.

I commend the comments of Larison and Massie here on the dubious logic underlying the claim that either Iran or Syria were ours to "lose."

Instead, I will point out another curious concern of Rubin's - the supposed "extension" of Russian influence. Syria has always been close with Russia - they haven't suddenly become tight during Assad's crackdown. Russia is indeed backing Assad's brutal repression, but that's not an extension of anything, it's been Russia's policy to backstop the regime for years now. It's not like the Russians are suddenly "influencing" states not already allied with them...

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According to IBOPE Zogby, some results of a recent poll on U.S.-Russian ties:

Six in ten have an unfavorable opinion of Russia (61%)
Three quarters (75%) do not think Russia is a trusted ally of the US
Three quarters (75%) have an unfavorable opinion of Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin
84% are not confident in the legitimacy of the Russian election process
52% believe Russia is a nuclear threat to the US, with 14% saying Russia is a major threat and 38% saying it is somewhat of a threat
48% believe Russia secretly aids terrorist threats to the US

More here.

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Jennifer Rubin is outraged that President Obama didn't scold Russia on its recent election:

No condemnation. No rejection of the results as invalid. No protest over the arrest of an opposition leader. This sort of mealy mouthed suggestion is all we get…

One 2012 presidential candidate is unwilling to dissemble and to ignore not only a gross violation of human rights, but also a slap in the face of the U.S. administration that has dispensed one benefit after another (e.g., removing missile site for Eastern Europe, letting Russia into the World Trade Organization) with the lame promise that Russia would reform.

It's fascinating that what passes as a "conservative" foreign policy these days is the moral reclamation of various countries.

It's also wrong to claim that the "reset" was about reforming Russia. It was about reducing tensions with Russia and finding areas of cooperation. It needs to be judged on those grounds, not on whether Russia's domestic behavior conforms to our standards.

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Ahead of Russia's first round of presidential voting, Konstantin Sonin says that any overt ballot stuffing by Putin would be counter-productive:

In the past week, the country's leading polling organizations have issued one rosy forecast after another regarding Putin's chances of winning in the first round with more than 50 percent of the vote. But there are reasons to question the reliability of these polls.

Thus, there is a real possibility that Putin will receive less than 50 percent without falsification.

If only 45 percent of the people vote for Putin and the authorities announce that he received 52 percent of the vote, the resulting protests will probably be relatively small. But if Putin receives only 35 percent to 40 percent of the vote but declares that he won 52 percent, the protests might be so large that the authorities would be forced to hold new elections.

That might sound implausible at first, but large-scale electoral fraud in favor of the incumbent leader followed by massive peaceful protests that resulted in new elections has played out in dozens of countries over the past quarter century.

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Metaphorically, of course:

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has accused a leading liberal radio station of constantly disparaging him and serving foreign interests.

At a regular meeting with editors-in-chief of leading media, he told Moscow Echo radio's Alexei Venediktov: "You pour diarrhoea over me day and night."

He singled out a discussion of Russia's opposition to US missile defence plans in Europe as an example of Echo's bias.

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In two photos:

(AP Photo)

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Azerbaijan recently announced that it is purchasing Chinese-made JF-17 Thunder fighter jets. This is a bold move by China into what was, up until recently, a Russian-dominated military sales market, and the geopolitical space that Moscow considers its own and which Washington considers as vital to its interests both in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Given how sales of military equipment can solidify alliances between nations - such as between the U.S. and Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Israel and many other states - this purchase has the potential to alter security dynamics in the Caucasus and beyond. On its own, Azerbaijan demonstrated that it can reject a wide variety of military aircraft - such as American F-16 and F/A18, EU's Eurofighter, French Rafael, Swedish Gripen, Russian Mig-29 and Su-27 - in favor of a plane that is untried and untested in military combat.

This purchase binds Baku to Beijing's military industry, since supply parts, service, maintenance and training would have to be done by China, at least initially. At this point, only Pakistan operates JF-17, which is close to combat performance than Russian-made Mig-29 or American F/A-18 fighter planes. However, Azerbaijan may have simply been buying smart - the cost of a each Chinese fighter jets is only $20 million.

Continue reading "Azerbaijan Buys Chinese Planes, Russia Disses Own Tanks" »

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According to the Guardian:

The vast Siberian tundra holds untold mysteries, from once-secret nuclear installations to alleged UFO crash sites.

Now, a team of scientists say they are "95%" sure that Russia's wintry expanse is home to the mythical yeti, otherwise known as the abominable snowman.

More than a dozen scientists and yeti enthusiasts flew in from Canada, Estonia, Sweden and the US to exchange findings with their Russian counterparts at a day-long conference in the town of Tashtagol, some 2,000 miles east of Moscow in the Kemerovo region. Locals there have reported an increase in sightings of a creature in recent years.

A two-day expedition to the region's Azassky cave and Karatag peak over the weekend "collected irrefutable evidence" of the yeti's existence there, the Kemerovo government claimed in a statement. "In one of the detected tracks, Russian scientist Anatoly Fokin noted several hairs that might belong to the yeti," it added. Scientists also found footprints, a presumed bed and various other markers.

It's kind of reassuring to know that despite all the turbulence around the world, people still have time to be "Yeti enthusiasts."

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Putin’s return should serve as a wakeup call for President Obama and his advisers. The “reset” policy profoundly misreads not only why U.S.-Russia relations chilled in the first place, but also what is truly required to improve them. The problem was not U.S. rhetoric or actions, but the nature of the Russian regime. U.S.-Russian relations will not be on a firm footing until Moscow changes its strategic outlook and the Russian people are truly free to choose their own leaders. [Emphasis mine] - Jamie Fly and Robert Zarate

The U.S. arguably accomplished something similar to this during the Cold War. That took six decades to accomplish and still produced a Russian polity that outrages American conservatives. Could it be that Russia's "strategic outlook" is less malleable than Washington strategists would prefer?

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John Walsh:

The death is announced of Wilson Greatbatch, 92, the American inventor of the cardiac pacemaker, a revolutionary device which has, since the 1960s, pumped life into millions of people. And there's some news about Mikhail Kalashnikov, also 92, inventor of the AK-47 assault rifle, a revolutionary device which has, since the 1950s, done the exact opposite. A Russian newspaper reports that, although the Russian army is no longer buying his weapon – the most effective killing machine in human history – the company has told its staff not to tell Mr Kalashnikov about it, in case the shock kills him.

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Putin may be feeling flush:

According to numerous Russian media reports, addressing a meeting of the sixth media forum of the United Russia Party on 25 September, Russian Natural Resources Minister Iury Trutnev said that the preliminary forecast is that resources in the Russian Arctic shelf are comparable to those in mainland Russia, adding, “Speaking of long-term planning, these reserves could last 100, may be 150 years, but longer is unlikely. Humanity will eventually have to look for new energy anyway. Recently, we completed 40-year talks with Norway, delineated the gray zone, and now obtained another 5 billion tons of fuel equivalent there.” Trutnev’s new Arctic reserve claims are buttressed by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) 2008 survey, which estimated that 90 billion barrels of undiscovered oil and 1.668 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered natural gas lie beneath the Arctic’s waters and ice, representing 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil. Strong oil prices, more advanced offshore equipment and receding sea ice are leading to a growing interest in the Arctic.

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The 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly convened this week in New York City.

Libya’s ousted Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution Muammar Gaddafi dare not show his face due to an International Criminal Court arrest warrant upon his head for crimes against humanity. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez cannot attend either because of ongoing chemotherapy. But Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad intends to be there.

We will no longer be entertained and infuriated by scenes of Chavez sarcastically speaking about satanic sulfur in 2006 or Gaddafi disdainfully chucking the UN charter over his shoulder in 2009. Nonetheless, Ahmadinejad plans on yanking the West’s chain yet again. He will distribute a book on alleged atrocities committed against Iran and Iranians by American, British and Soviet forces during World War II, the semi-official Mehr News Agency reports:

Ahmadinejad will go to New York late this week, taking 1000 English copies of Documents on the Occupation of Iran during World War II. Iran’s occupation by the Allies during World War II is an international issue. This book contains many documents referring to the abuses inflicted by the Allies against the Iranian people.

The five-volume work is to be presented as evidence at the UN General Assembly, a parallel story in the Tehran Times notes:

to demand compensation from the Allies for violation of Iran’s neutrality during that world conflict.

So even though his comrades from the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party cannot be there, Iran’s chief executive will do his best to incite American, British and Russian emotions – and he is well accomplished at provoking negative responses. But unlike Alice, officials in Washington, London and Moscow should not respond in anger. Paying no attention to his theatrics will deny Iran’s president the pleasure he seeks.

Let’s not give Ahmadinejad a tale to spin for Chavez when he flys to Caracas after the New York visit.

(AP Photo)

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Potential presidential candidate John Bolton argues that U.S. allies are put in danger by President Obama's nuclear policies:

Within the administration, there are strong advocates for America pledging “no first use” of nuclear weapons. Although the nuclear posture review “only” expanded “negative security assurances” somewhat, there is little doubt that “no first use” is alive and well in internal administration councils. These self-imposed constraints on the use of nuclear weapons reinforce the allies’ concern that Mr. Obama has forgotten the central Cold War lesson about the U.S. nuclear deterrent. There was never any doubt that a Soviet attack through the Fulda Gap into Western Europe would have swept through NATO forces, possibly all the way to the English Channel. Thus, the threat of U.S. nuclear retaliation against such an attack - an unambiguous case of a U.S. first use of nuclear weapons - was precisely what was needed to keep Soviet forces on their side of the Iron Curtain.

Bolton then proceeds to undermine his argument that America's allies are feeling "increasingly insecure" about America's nuclear posture:

Accordingly, Europeans should be very worried that they are increasingly on their own to face the re-emerging threat of Russian belligerence. Because the New START treaty does not limit tactical nuclear weapons, Europe, simply because of geographic proximity, is most vulnerable to Russia’s advantage in that category. It is thus highly ironic that some NATO countries have recently called for removing the last U.S. tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, which will simply enhance Russia’s existing lead. [emphasis mine]

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From time to time, we all get offended by what we see on TV.

Recently, Russian World War II veterans were deeply offended by a television commercial that advertised model German tank assembly kits. In particular, this commercial advertised German "Tigers," a famous tank designed to stop Soviet T-34 tanks and which made their debut at the massive Battle of Kursk in 1943.

The veterans' association considered such commercials as "propaganda for Nazi military weapons." When the vets turned to lawyers for advice, they were told that since the kits feature no German or Nazi insignia, such commercials were perfectly legal. It's notable that Austria prohibited similar advertisements on the country's television back in 2010.

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Russia grants Venezuela $4 billion for military spending while China is lending Venezuela an additional $4 billion:

Venezuela is finalizing agreements for two separate credit lines of $4 billion each with Russia and China, with a portion of the financing earmarked for military equipment for the South American nation, according to Venezuelan state media.

With the world's largest oil reserves, Venezuela needs a well equipped military to defend itself from foreign aggression, President Hugo Chavez said during a broadcast phone call reported by the Venezuelan News Agency.

Chavez had to call in the news from Havana, where he is undergoing chemotherapy.

Readers of this blog may recall that Russia has financed over $6 billion worth of military equipment from 2005-2010.

On the other hand, Venezuela is borrowing at least $24 billion from China:

last year, Venezuela received a $20 billion credit line from the China Development Bank for housing

The housing construction has not started, but Hugo's betting on oil futures, so to speak, in a very big way.

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In the past, I've wondered just how U.S. sanctions could change Russia's internal behavior. So I was pleased to see the Washington Post editorial page tackle this head-on with a piece titled "Sanctions Can Promote Human Rights in Russia." After the Obama administration approved some travel bans, the Post argues, Russian behavior changed:

At first, Russian spokesmen issued vague, empty threats of retaliation. Then authorities announced that two prison doctors implicated in the death of the lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, would be prosecuted. Finally, government prosecutors said last week that they had reopened the case brought against Mr. Magnitsky that led to his imprisonment, mistreatment and death in 2009.

Most likely, the new investigation represents another cynical maneuver by the Russian Interior Ministry, which has managed to protect the police officials responsible for Mr. Magnitsky’s death for two years despite public promises of justice by Mr. Medvedev.

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AFP reports:

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday accused the United States of acting as a "parasite" on the world economy by accumulating massive debts that threaten the global financial system.

"The country is living in debt. It is not living within its means, shifting the weight of responsibility on other countries and in a way acting as a parasite," Putin told a group of pro-Kremlin youth in central Russia.

Meanwhile, Michael Schuman provides a more measured analysis of what impact the U.S. debt deal will have on the global economy.

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The White House touts its "reset" policy toward Russia as one of its key diplomatic successes. But the Russian authorities were caught off-guard when Washington quietly barred some of their officials from traveling to the United States this week, a move that threatens to undo some of the gains Washington has made boosting ties with Moscow.

The State Department blacklist targets those connected to a scandal that's drawn widespread international condemnation: the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer jailed in 2009 after accusing police of bilking the government of more than $200 million. A report commissioned by President Dmitry Medvedev himself concluded Magnitsky was denied medical care and probably severely beaten before he died. - Gregory Feifer

There seems to be a belief in some quarters that acts of Russian hostility abroad (i.e. toward Georgia) or internal violence somehow undermine the 'reset' - as if all that's needed to push Russia toward a true liberal democracy are more U.S. sanctions and hectoring. But the reset will stand or fall on how much cooperation the U.S. can get on important strategic matters. There are obviously people who are legitimately distressed about Russia's internal governance and their behavior toward Georgia, but ultimately the U.S. can only be the champion of her own interests.

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Ariel Cohen and Donald Jensen argue that the aim of U.S. policy toward Russia should be the latter's moral enlightenment:

When the Soviet Union fell in December 1991, Washington rushed to Boris Yeltsin’s assistance. The world expected that Russia would eventually grow to be more like the United States or Western Europe. By the late 1990s, however, Russia was rapidly regressing from Western political models. Beginning around 2000, the two sides returned to a relationship based on strategic security concerns resembling the old Cold War paradigm.

Moscow and Washington quickly exhausted this security agenda for U.S.–Russian rapprochement, however, and the pendulum swung back. During the rest of the decade, while Russia rejected American efforts to promote democracy in Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, and Iraq, Washington grew alarmed at the increasing authoritarianism of Vladimir Putin. George W. Bush’s proclamation of America’s duty to press for democratic values around the globe further alienated the Kremlin.

Then they take aim at the Obama administration's reset:

While the gains from the “reset” relationship have been exaggerated, the cost in terms of the U.S. moral authority has been high. The Obama Administration has explicitly disavowed linkages within its Russia policy components, such as punishing Russian misbehavior in one area by withholding concessions in another.

There is good reason to believe, moreover, that Russian leaders do not take White House efforts at promoting human rights seriously. They know that the U.S. Administration is chained to the “reset” and will do little more than verbally object to the Kremlin’s abuses of human rights and the rule of law.

The authors then argue that the U.S. should once again make a play for changing Russia's internal governance. Leave aside the unsupported assertion that the reset delivered "exaggerated" gains (it's hard to tell if they're exaggerated if the authors won't deign to tell us what they are) and focus on the practicalities here. The authors admit that - despite Western efforts when Russia was weaker and in need of external help in the 1990s - the U.S. was unable to make Russia "grow to be more" like us. So why now, in 2011, are the prospects so much better?

One need not think that the "reset" was a major win for the U.S. to conclude that picking fights with Russia's leaders over how they rule (or misrule) their people is actually going to be productive - either at changing the behavior we disapprove of or securing cooperation on geo-political issues.

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Ukrainian defense consortium Ukrspetsexport scored yet another victory in its global competition against the Russian military export machine - this time, it's Ethiopia that will purchase 200 Ukrainian-modified T-72E1 main battle tanks. This deal, worth about $100 million, is Ukrspetsexport's largest in the past eight years.

This is yet another instance when international buyers chose technology that was developed in the Soviet days, but is currently fielded by Russia's competitors like Ukraine. Such competition essentially offers technology that is identical to what Moscow offers, but at a cheaper price.

Earlier, RCW reported that Russia lost tank tenders in Malaysia and Thailand to Ukraine and Poland. This time, the Ethiopian purchase may have larger consequences, since the country sits in the unstable region of Africa where armed conflict may be inevitable - Ethiopia fought a war with Eritrea, invaded Somalia in a bid to bring stability to the lawless country, and is bordered by Sudan, which could erupt in a new round of civil war that may pull in neighboring states.

This could mean that Ethiopia may use its armed forces for military action, utilizing its tank corps and eventually needing more tanks, spare parts and expertise. For now, Ukraine has definitely established itself as a go-to place for heavy military machinery - a fact that is not lost on Russia.

Your move, Moscow ...

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Stephen Cohen charts the deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations:

Still more, expanding NATO eastward has institutionalized a new and even larger geopolitical conflict with Russia. Moscow’s protests and countersteps against NATO encroachment, especially Medvedev’s statement in 2008 that Russia is entitled to a “sphere of strategic interests” in the former Soviet republics, have been indignantly denounced by American officials and commentators as “Russia’s determination to re-establish a sphere of influence in neighboring countries.” Thus, Biden stated in Moscow in March, “We will not recognize any state having a sphere of influence.”

But what is NATO’s eastward movement other than a vast expansion of America’s sphere of influence—military, political and economic—into what had previously been Russia’s? No US official or mainstream commentator will admit as much, but Saakashvili, the Georgian leader bent on joining the alliance, feels no such constraint. In 2010, he welcomed the growth of “NATO’s presence in the region” because it enables the United States and its allies to “expand their sphere of influence.” Of all the several double standards in US policy-making—“hypocrisy,” Moscow charges—none has done more to prevent an American-Russian partnership and to provoke a new cold war.

I think the lingering distrust on both sides explains why the initial bout of NATO expansion was (from Washington's point of view) necessary and inevitable and (from Russia's point of view) threatening. It was unrealistic to expect two countries that had been locked in a decades-long struggle to instantly shed their habits and cooperate in previously contested geopolitical space.

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Richard Lourie argues that the U.S. and Russia may be heading towards a new arms race:

On May 20, Russia’s top generals made what Time magazine called “a startling admission of weakness.” In their opinion, by 2015 the NATO missile defense system would neutralize both Russia’s ICBMs and its submarine-based ballistic missiles. That could be devastating for Russia because, as defense analyst Ruslan Pukhov points out, for “relatively little expense, Russia’s nuclear forces support the country’s status as a great power, provide a military deterrent to other major powers and enable it to maintain moderately sized conventional forces.”

But Pukhov also demonstrates that the generals are wrong about the 2015 date — or were just making noises as part of the bargaining process. Russia’s nuclear arsenal will not be significantly stymied by the system NATO wants to put in place. But once in place, that system could provide an excellent base for a more elaborate system that could indeed neutralize Russia as a nuclear power. Since Russia has no leverage over the United States and NATO, its only choice would be to upgrade its own heavy, ground-based multistage missiles. In other words, Russia and the United States, without in the least meaning to, may be backing into a new arms race.

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RFL reports:

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, clad in a kimono, rushes to rescue a bus threatened by an Al-Qaeda bomb.

He narrowly manages to save the passengers with the help of his loyal, bear-costumed sidekick, President Dmitry Medvedev.

That's the plot of a new comic strip that has taken the Internet by storm.

"Superputin, A Man Like Any Other," has been viewed almost 3 million times since being posted last week on a specially created website, www.superputin.ru.

I'm more of a Silver Surfer guy myself.

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Over at Shadow Government, former USAID honcho Paul Bonicelli writes on Putin's latest movements:

But there is that other reason Putin is calling for a popular front and a uniting of every civic and social force he can collect under his banner: it is the way to take Russia back to the age and politics he is most comfortable with, that of czarist Russia, albeit with a twist. Putin has demonstrated after ten years in power that what he is really comfortable with is a Russia that looks and acts a lot more like that of the czars who practiced political and philosophical absolutism. The czars established control over the domestic scene by subjecting all societal groupings and activities to the service of the divine right state. Putin is not a czar de jure but he can be one de facto. This is a minor detail for one so determined to rule as he sees fit. So by defining the nature of the electoral system in terms of who can run and who controls the economy, he's got the electoral problem essentially solved. And this assured control at home means it is much easier to control the "near abroad" and exert influence over world affairs.

I find this to be an interesting point considering this news on Medvedev's latest comments criticizing Putin's lackadaisical attitude toward modernization. He goes on to state that imprisoned energy tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky would pose "absolutely no danger" to society if he were pardoned or released, while also sharing rare public criticism directed at Putin's oil czar:

As for Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, the country’s oil czar, Mr. Medvedev seemingly had him in mind when he lambasted the people involved in the failed Arctic exploration deal between BP PLC and OAO Rosneft.

“Those who prepared the deal should have paid more attention to the details of the shareholder agreements and other details,” Mr. Medvedev said at a televised press conference outside of Moscow. “They should have done a more subtle due diligence inside the government. They should have agreed in advance to have fewer problems.”

A thin-skinned leader might overreact to such criticism by reasserting the power he believes is his right. We shall see if there's a public response in short order.

(AP Photo)

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I recently had the pleasure of interviewing former journalist and expert on Chechnya Thomas de Waal for Coffee and Markets. He made several interesting points about the region - here's an excerpt:

de Waal: This is a place where the Russian Government has poured a lot of money into and basically bought itself some time by building up this like war lord, the troops have come home casualty figures down. But in the long term basically Chechnya now, from people’s description, no longer looks like Russia any more. Most of the ethnic Russians have left.

So, Russia is building itself up a long term problem by creating this place which really has not much in common with the rest of Russia. And in the meantime other places in this very complex mountainous region around Chechnya, the North Caucasus is a place of literally dozens of nationalities living in the mountains of the North Caucasus, has become more unstable. There’s been more violence. There’s a kind of low level insurgency carrying on, which is actually getting worse. So, there are on many levels, Moscow is losing this region, even though it’s not very much in the headlines at the moment.

Domenech: I wonder if you could outline for us how that’s happening when it comes to the ethnic transition. You talked about the largest mosque. I’m very fascinated to see sort of how much more Islamic it’s become over the past several years. What are some of the examples of the effect that that’s having?

de Waal: Well, I think what’s happening is that you’ve got a younger generation of people in these places, Chechnya, Dagistan, Ingushetia who have grown up and their whole lives have been shaped by war, by instability, and by unemployment. The State really hasn’t offered them much. The local leaders tend to be very corrupt. If they go work in the rest of Russia they suffer ethnic discrimination. Last December we saw basically race riots in the center of Moscow with white nationalists, skin heads, trying to beat up people with brown skins and from the caucuses in Moscow.

So, it’s a pretty miserable existence for this younger generation. They don’t feel much connection with the rest of Russia. Some of them probably want to feel more connection with the rest of Russia. But for some of them, not all of them, but there’s obviously the attraction of Islam as a creed which promises purity, promises justice, promises equality, and is, you know, a way of fighting back against these corrupt regimes. It’s a narrative we see all over the world and it’s certainly happening in the south of Russia although many people aren’t really seeing it.

I hope you'll listen to or read the entire interview, which touches on several additional points of interest.

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Why doesn't this surprise me all that much:

Members of the sect that has sprung up in a Russian village some 250 miles southeast of Moscow believe that the 58-year-old macho Russian politician is on a special mission from God.

"According to the Bible, Paul the Apostle was a military commander at first and an evil persecutor of Christians before he started spreading the Christian gospel," the sect's founder, who styles herself Mother Fotina, said.

"In his days in the KGB, Putin also did some rather unrighteous things. But once he became president, he was imbued with the Holy Spirit, and just like the apostle, he started wisely leading his flock. It is hard for him now but he is fulfilling his heroic deed as an apostle."

Reports from the sect's headquarters close to the town of Nizhny Novgorod say that its members are all women who dress like nuns and pray for Mr Putin's success in front of traditional Russian Orthodox Church icons that have been placed alongside a portrait of the Russian prime minister himself.

You can see our best Putin photos of 2010 here. And don't forget our list of some of the best Putinisms.

[Hat tip: Passport]

(AP Photo)

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Via Other Russia, this video (produced by Russia's Communist Party) lampooning Russia's ruling tandem is making the rounds.

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It's rising, according to a new paper. (pdf) However, most of the rise is being driven by China and Russia. In some of the richer nations, such as the U.S., consumption is leveling off or even falling (despite my best efforts):

[Hat tip: Felix Samon]

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Monetary policy gets testy:

“Look at their trade balance, their debt, and budget. They turn on the printing press and flood the entire dollar zone — in other words, the whole world — with government bonds. There is no way we will act this way anytime soon. We don’t have the luxury of such hooliganism,” he said.

Even as Putin blamed the U.S. for printing money — something for which Russia was criticized during periods of hyperinflation in the 1990s — other Russian officials said there is no alternative to the U.S. dollar and declined to discuss cutting the country’s dollar holdings.

This isn't hooliganism. This is using monetary policy in textbook ways. As it happens, U.S. monetary policy has a great effect on external economies, which is why Putin calls the whole world the "dollar zone", but let's be clear: those countries want the U.S. to pursue less expansionary monetary policy so they can free-ride on it. It's fine for them to have that preference, and as I've argued before, I think the U.S. should allow some free-riding. But the U.S. government has citizens to satisfy as well, so those countries can't very well expect the U.S. to pursue a contractionary policies while the economy is so weak.

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Heavy arms exports have been the mainstay of Soviet and now Russian military sales - for many decades, Russian tanks have competed successfully on the growing global market. Following the collapse of the USSR, Russia has maintained a leading position when it comes to heavy-duty military machinery. However, current trends point to Russia's potential decline in this lucrative market. According to Konstanin Makienko from the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, Russia is bound for weapons exporting decline unless it offers customers a wide range of modern and competitive products. On the one hand, Russia is the world leader in terms of sales of tank technology; on the other hand, over the past few years, Moscow has lost several tenders for the supply of tanks to foreign customers.

For the time being, India is the largest purchaser of Russian battle tanks - namely the T-90 model - purchasing hundreds of machines through 2019. But once this order runs out there may be no more customers willing to place such large orders, and the overall sales volume of MBTs may start to decline globally. What really irks Russia is the fact that it lost the Moroccan tender for 150 units to the Chinese VT1A main battle tank. The Chinese tank was based on the Russian T-72 MBT. Additionally, China is undercutting Russia on the tank market by offering more models to potential customers - from the cheaper Type-96 model, to more expensive Type-98 and Type-99. All these tanks were based on Soviet models, modernized by China over the course of the last few decades. This prompted Brigadier General Alexander Postnikov, Head of Russian Land Forces, to state that "today's military hardware produced by Russia, including heavy mechanized variants, are not compatible with NATO or even Chinese standards."

To add insult to injury, so to speak, was the selection several years ago by the Malaysian military - long a purchaser of Russian high-tech items like the Mig-29 fighter - of the Polish PT-91M battle tank, which is also based on the Soviet T-72 tank. And just a month ago, Russian T-90 MBT lost to its Ukrainian competitor T-84U during Thailand tender - Bangkok will purchase 200 Ukrainian main battle tanks, which, like the Polish and Chinese versions, is also based on the Soviet T-72 model.

Going forward, the picture mightn't be very bright for Russian exports of tank models and technology. Its mainstay customers in the Middle East - Libya, Egypt, Syria - are either embroiled in political upheavals and have more pressing matters to address, or, like Iraq, they are purchasing American and Western-made weapons. New customers like Venezuela, Azerbaijan and Uganda cannot make up for the drop-off in sales, and fierce competition from improving technology offered by China and other countries is further eroding Russia's once-dominant position. Add to that the growing trend of impending natural disasters, low-level insurgencies and the unlikely event of a large clash between state armies - and numerous countries may prioritize armored vehicles over heavy and expensive tanks if /when they decide to make that purchase. Russia may bounce back with modernized and high tech offerings, but it could only do so by closely following the emerging trends on the global arms market.

(AP Photo)

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Russian "Urlavagonozavod" tank production facility has showcased - although not publicly - its next generation T-95 main battle tank, also known as "Project 195." The new tank differs from the currently fielded T-90 by a low silhouette, remote-operated turret and a special armored compartment for the crew.

It is estimated that crew safety was increased with this new arrangement, which puts an additional armored plate between the turret and the men operating the tank. This also allowed the tank profile to be lower, which contributes to its low visibility on the battle field, an almost "stealth"-like characteristic.

So, take that, China or NATO! - and there is no word yet if this model will be offered for export.

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Russia' Ministry of Emergency Situations will send to Japan a squad of rescuers to conduct search and rescue operations in areas affected by the earthquake. According to RIA Novosti, Irina Andrianova, the head of MES, confirmed that Japan has already agreed to accept the Russian specialists who will work for two weeks in standalone mode.

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In yet another sign that Russia is serious about modernizing its ground forces with foreign help, the French company Panhard is in talks with Moscow to supply VBL 500 armored combat vehicles for the Russian Border service. The actual delivery of the vehicle is far from certain, given how long Russia has been negotiating with France to purchase the "Mistral" amphibious assault ship.

Another plan to purchase ground vehicles is sure to ruffle the feathers of the domestic weapons manufacturers, who are balking at their government's decisions to acquire Western military equipment instead of buying domestic fare.

This decision follows last year's announcement that Russia will purchase Light Multirole Vehicles (LMVs) built by Italian Iveco after the Italian company formed a joint venture to assemble 2,500 of the armored vehicles in Russia.

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In the last few months, Russia and Japan have been trading barbs over the Kuril Islands. This follows heightened tension between Japan and China over the Senkaku Island chain. These territorial dust-ups leads J.E. Dyer to issue the following warning:

Keeping our foreign-policy thinking on autopilot leaves our spokesmen giving narrowly conceived, legalistic responses that are inadequate to a changing situation. America’s core ally in the Far East is under real territorial pressure from both Russia and China — and the reflexive assumption that any given situation will stabilize itself, with little or no inconvenience to the U.S., is increasingly outdated.

If we're speaking about 'reflexive assumptions,' lets discuss Dyer's. I'll state up front that my knowledge of both the Kuril and Senkaku disputes is pretty topical and I couldn't weigh in definitely on which country has the stronger claim (hit the links above for the Wiki-versions of both disputes). But Dyer isn't litigating the cases either, just simply assuming that the U.S. must stand with Japan. Clearly the U.S. is obligated to defend Japan, but that does not mean that the U.S. should defend Japanese claims that have no merit.

(Photo of Kuril Islands via Wikipedia Commons)

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Richard Weitz provides some hair-raising stats:

- Russians 16 and older drink the equivalent of roughly four gallons of pure alcohol per capita each year, almost twice the amount of their American counterparts.

- Russia currently has 2 million alcoholics.

- The number of Russian children aged 10-14 who drink alcohol exceeds 10 million.

- Roughly 500,000 Russians die annually from alcoholic-related accidents, crimes, and illnesses.

- Alcohol poisoning kills more than 23,000 Russians each year.

In addition to heavy overall drinking, Russians are prone to binge drinking. It is also not uncommon for Russians to consume potentially toxic substances containing high levels of alcohol -- including lighter fluid, cleaning solution and even the ethanol fuels used in vehicles -- for the simple reason that they contain greater concentrations of regular alcohol but are taxed at only one-third the rate. During the Soviet period, MiG-25 warplanes were a particularly popular source, since their de-icing tanks contained almost 5 gallons of pure alcohol.

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One of the biggest impediments to China's rise to great power status is the fact that China is surrounded by powerful neighbors. This, for instance, is how Russia is handling it:

The Kremlin’s choice of stimulus package is a bit of a throwback, though—among other things, a new fleet of warships to challenge China. Last week Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced a whopping $678 billion package of new defense spending for the next decade, with a quarter of the money going to revamp Russia’s Pacific fleet. On the Kremlin’s shopping list: 20 new ships, including a new class of attack submarines, plus new missile subs, frigates, and an aircraft carrier.

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Richard Weitz argues in the Diplomat that the Obama administration's approach to China is much like the Clinton administration's approach to Russia:

Yet these policies should be seen less as an effort to contain China and more as a return to the kind of shaping and hedging policies that the Bill Clinton administration pursued on many security issues, especially relations with Russia. The principle behind this approach is that it will help shape the targeted actor’s choices so that it will pursue policies helpful to the United States and its allies. In the case of China, these policies would include not threatening to use force against other countries, moderating its trade and climate polices and generally embracing and supporting the existing international institutions and the global status quo. On the flip side, if these shaping policies fail, then the United States aims to be in a good position, thanks to its strategic hedging, to resist disruptive Chinese policies until China abandons them.

I don't think the two circumstances are really analogous. Clinton was able to "shape" Russia's choices regarding its immediate security environment because Russia was very weak and consumed with internal problems and the U.S. was not. And the end result of American policy toward Russia through the Clinton administration and into the Bush era was a sharp deterioration in relations between the two countries (a deterioration for which both nations share blame) and a war between Russia and her neighbor - not exactly an ideal we should be shooting for with China.

Furthermore, Weitz argues that the U.S. should try to shape China's choices to avoid a "destabilizing" arms race in Asia. But it's too late - arms purchases in Asia are on the rise and probably won't decline for some time. So has it destabilized Asia? Not yet and when you consider the environment, would Weitz prefer that all of China's neighbors were poorly armed and unable to defend themselves? It seems to me that that's an environment ripe for destabilization and Chinese adventurism. An Asia that's armed to the teeth is one in which China is not invading anyone.

(AP Photo)

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Now that the New START debate is over, attention turns to what's next in U.S.-Russian relations. While it appears the Obama administration will work on limiting shorter-range arms, conservatives want to focus on how Russia is ruled. Here's Robert Kagan:

Relations with Moscow are about to grow more challenging. This is partly because some of the easy pickings - including this treaty - have already been harvested. The problems that lie ahead are going to be a tougher test of the reset: what to do about Russia's continued illegal occupation of Georgia; how to handle Russia's increasingly authoritarian domestic behavior, its brutal treatment of internal dissent and its squelching of all democratic institutions.

Jennifer Rubin thinks the conviction of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky indicates the reset was "mostly spin."

I'm not sure why we're defining the "reset" as somehow hinging on whether the United States can successfully change the internal politics of Russia - as ugly as they unquestionably are. As I understood it, the goal was to improve U.S.-Russian relations and advance, to the extent possible, American interests in areas where Russia also wielded influence.

It's also not quite clear to me how the United States can go about changing Russia's political institutions (have public figures whine loudly about them?) or why such a complex and ill-defined effort should be the key priority going forward.

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Via Rasmussen:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 27% of Likely U.S. Voters trust Russia to honor the nuclear weapons agreement. Half (49%) do not trust the Russians, and another 25% are not sure. That level of trust is consistent with results found in July and March.

Still, 49% of voters wanted the Senate to confirm the nuclear weapons treaty. Thirty-seven percent (37%) think the treaty should have been rejected, while 15% are undecided.

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While everyone else is focused on the Korean peninsula these days, James Kirchick's reports from the Belarus election deserve attention. Kirchick previewed the election by asking why the West is cozying up to Alexander Lukashenko:

Earlier this decade, Lukashenko’s abuses led the United States and the European Union to impose a series of targeted sanctions on regime officials, which led the Belarusian government to reconsider a handful of its draconian actions. The sanctions were effective, in large part, because the U.S. and its European allies presented a united front. After all, unilateral sanctions don’t have the same bite as those implemented by several countries. (See the painstaking effort of the Obama administration to convince governments around the world to get on board with sanctions against Iran.) But, over the past year, that erstwhile front against Belarus has cracked. The EU has dropped many of its sanctions, and European leaders have even begun cozying up to Lukashenko. Meanwhile, the United States, while maintaining sanctions, has done little to press the Belarusian president on his abysmal human rights record.

Why has the West gone soft on Lukashenko? The answer, in fact, lies to the east: Belarus has increasingly become a pawn between Russia and Europe and the United States. And the winner of this geostrategic chess match has been the Belarusian dictator himself.

Last week, Lukashenko was re-elected to a five year term under controversial circumstances and a government crackdown on protests. Kirchick describes the scene:

A column of spetsnaz stormed past me, throwing an elderly man to the ground and beating people—all of them unarmed—mercilessly. Presidential candidate Vital Rymasheuski staggered past me assisted by supporters, his hands covering a bloody gash on his forehead. I witnessed one police officer repeatedly club a person who was trapped against a wall. The sound of truncheons slapping plastic shields was the clear signal that unrelenting violence was only a few seconds away—and that one should run.

Six opposition candidates were arrested by the authorities, and Lukashenko is now set to be the head of state for a full 21 years - essentially, president for life. Shouldn't the United States care about this? Should the U.S. remain silent simply as payback for the Belarus commitment to give up Uranium stores? Is this really worth any diplomatic utility gained by using him as a pawn against Russia?

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According to Gallup:

If given the opportunity to vote on the matter, 51% of Americans would ratify the START nuclear arms agreement with Russia and 30% would vote against it, while 19% are undecided.

The poll was conducted on December 3-6th.

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This kind of speaks for itself.

(Don't miss our Year in Putin photo slideshow.)

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It's not unusual for conservatives to lambaste Putin's Russia for its authoritarian backsliding. Just today, Jamie Fly excoriates the Obama administration's New START treaty on the grounds that, among other things, we really should be pressing Russia on human rights instead. So naturally, conservatives were horrified when authoritarian Russia made a not so subtle threat at WikiLeaks:

So far Russia has had no official response. But on Wednesday, an official at the Center for Information Security of the FSB, Russia’s secret police, gave a warning to WikiLeaks that showed none of the tact of the U.S. reply to the Iraq revelations. “It’s essential to remember that given the will and the relevant orders, [WikiLeaks] can be made inaccessible forever,” the anonymous official told the independent Russian news website LifeNews.

An outrage! Take it away, Charles Krauthammer:

We are at war - a hot war in Afghanistan where six Americans were killed just this past Monday, and a shadowy world war where enemies from Yemen to Portland, Ore., are planning holy terror. Franklin Roosevelt had German saboteurs tried by military tribunal and executed. Assange has done more damage to the United States than all six of those Germans combined. Putting U.S. secrets on the Internet, a medium of universal dissemination new in human history, requires a reconceptualization of sabotage and espionage - and the laws to punish and prevent them. Where is the Justice Department?

And where are the intelligence agencies on which we lavish $80 billion a year? Assange has gone missing. Well, he's no cave-dwelling jihadi ascetic. Find him. Start with every five-star hotel in England and work your way down.

Want to prevent this from happening again? Let the world see a man who can't sleep in the same bed on consecutive nights, who fears the long arm of American justice. I'm not advocating that we bring out of retirement the KGB proxy who, on a London street, killed a Bulgarian dissident with a poisoned umbrella tip. But it would be nice if people like Assange were made to worry every time they go out in the rain.

So is this what we mean by American exceptionalism: being a tad less ruthless than the KGB?

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The United States will agree to a demand by Kyrgyz officials that their impoverished country be given a share of lucrative fuel contracts for a critical transit hub here for troops headed to Afghanistan, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday.

Clinton's announcement, made during a five-hour visit to the fragile Central Asian democracy, appeared designed to assuage growing anger over Pentagon contracts that have been worth about $3 billion over eight years to Mina Corp. and Red Star Enterprises, a secretive business group registered in Gibraltar.

The new arrangement should also please Russia, which is expected to play a big - and profitable - role. Gazpromneft, part of Russia's state-controlled energy giant Gazprom, will probably supply much of the jet fuel.

Moscow has frequently used Gazprom to further its political and strategic goals, but the Obama administration is gambling that its efforts to "reset" relations with Russia - and the prospect of large profits for Gazprom - will help ensure that jet fuel keeps flowing to the U.S. air base in Kyrgyzstan, known as the Manas Transit Center. - Washington Post

Now the specifics of this seem rather pragmatic - if everyone gets to wet their whistle, no one complains. But it's worth pondering the contortions that U.S. policy must endure all so that we can stop under 100 al-Qaeda fighters from maybe someday crossing into Afghanistan.

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Arms Control Wonk Jeffrey Lewis digs around WikiLeaks and finds evidence that Italy, to his surprise, had pushed to have the U.S. remove tactical nuclear weapons from its territory:

As regular readers know, I have long supported the immediate consolidation of all US nuclear weapons in Europe to two US airbases — with Incirlik and Aviano being the obvious candidates. The surprise announcement that Italy wants the bombs gone too modestly complicates that proposal, although presumably Rome would welcome the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Ghedi Torre.

Does anyone know why the Berlusconi government might have shifted its position on forward deployed US nuclear weapons? Is it a function of some inexplicable Italian coalition politics?

A possible answer, I think, comes from another revelation in the WikiLeaks trove:

The official report that Mr Berlusconi “and his cronies” have been enabled to make money on multi-million pound energy deals concluded between Italy and Russia. Aside from alleged financial deals, the two leaders’ close ties were founded on Mr Berlusconi’s admiration of “Putin’s macho, decisive and authoritarian governing style,” the then US ambassador to Rome, Ronald Spogli, wrote in Jan 2009.

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Thomas Friedman asks what it would look like if WikiLeaks poached China's secrets. He does it to set up a faux cable highlighting America's domestic shortcoming, but it's a question I had been asking myself after reading Glenn Greenwald's defense of the organization:

Ultimately, WikiLeaks' real goal appears to me to be anti-authoritarian at its core: to prevent the world's most powerful factions from operating in the dark.

So has WikiLeaks targeted authoritarian powers like China or Russia? The WikiLeaks Wikipedia page says that one of its founders was a Chinese dissident so it's possible they've been poaching secrets from China, Russia and other authoritarian powers, but clearly not with the intensity that they've gone after the U.S. Or maybe they just have not had the good fortune (in their view) to hook up with the Chinese or Russian equivalent of a Bradley Manning, the alleged source of their U.S. material. But this just belies Greenwald's assertion about the organization's "anti-authoritarian" posture - real authoritarian states don't cough up their secrets that easily and truly "anti-authoritarian" organizations just don't scoop up the low-hanging fruit from flawed democracies and call it a day.

Then again, it's not clear that Greenwald has an accurate sense of international media freedom. He writes in a different post on WikiLeaks:

Simply put, there are few countries in the world with citizenries and especially media outlets more devoted to serving, protecting and venerating government authorities than the U.S.

Obviously this is just hyperbole. But still:

Of the 196 countries and territories assessed during calendar year 2009, 69 (35 percent) were rated Free, 64 (33 percent) were rated Partly Free, and 63 (32 percent) were rated Not Free. This represents a move toward the center compared with the survey covering 2008, which featured 70 Free, 61 Partly Free, and 64 Not Free countries and territories.

The survey found that only 16 percent of the world’s inhabitants live in countries with a Free press, while 44 percent have a Partly Free press and 40 percent live in Not Free environments.

The U.S. media can be servile, corrupt and biased but the idea that there are few other countries in the world whose media is more subservient to government power than America ignores a rather huge swath of world media that is actually run by the state.

(AP Photo)

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Via Mike Allen:

ADMINISTRATION PREPARES FOR WIKIDUMP OF STATE DEPT. CABLES, possibly Sunday – Could be seven times the October release – Jim Miklaszewski, on “NBC Nightly News”: “U.S. officials tell NBC News that the upcoming document release from the website WikiLeaks contains top secret information so damaging it could threaten Senate ratification of the START nuclear arms control treaty with the Russians. According to the officials, the information contained in classified State Department cables reveals secrets behind the START negotiations and embarrassing claims against Russian leadership – information that could provide ammunition to Republican opponents of the treaty on Capitol Hill. …. There’s also serious concern that some of the leaks could threaten U.S. counterterrorism operations on two fronts, Afghanistan and Yemen. In Afghanistan, where President Hamid Karzai has already come under fire for Afghan corruption and questions about his mental stability, U.S. officials say the secret cables reveal new and even more embarrassing claims about his personality and private life. Perhaps more troublesome, the leaks reportedly include top secret information about U.S. military and intelligence operations against al Qaeda in Yemen and some critical dispatches about Yemen’s President Saleh.”

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We're used to seeing Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin shooting whales, soothing polar bears or riding shirtless across Russian streams. But while in Bulgaria, Putin had a chance to show off his warm and fuzzy side when he was given a Bulgarian shepherd dog by Bulgaria's president (he also pocketed a gas deal). Now Putin is asking Russians to help name the pup. Given that Putin's other dog is named "Connie" it's not clear that the name has to be hyper-masculine, although it probably wouldn't hurt.

(AP Photo)

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I have been trying to wrap my head around why such an anodyne arms control treaty is provoking such opposition from the GOP. When you have wall-to-wall support in the U.S. military for the treaty and massive public support (including majority support from self-indentified Republicans), it just doesn't seem to make sense. Daniel Larison draws a lesson:

The death of New START is a useful lesson in just how irrelevant public opinion is to the shaping of foreign policy and national security. Relatively small numbers of activists that are better organized, more engaged and more intense in their views can wield disproportionate influence on policy debates. When they are allied with the relevant interest groups and some members of Congress, a small number of dedicated activists can determine policy to a remarkable degree, especially when their opposition is disorganized and largely passive. The side of the debate that has greater intensity and organization will certainly prevail when their opponents simply trust that the inherent worthiness of the initiative or policy will somehow trump political calculation and influence.

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Modern weapons of war are becoming more and more commonplace in all conflict theaters around the world. Russian "Interfax" news agency reports that an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle flew over the break-away province of South Ossetia and retreated after the South Ossetians opened fire. The break-away province complained that there have been many such flights over its territory originating from Georgia. Another former Georgian province, Abkhazia, also faces repeated surveillance by the Georgian UAVs.

Meanwhile, the spy row between Georgia and Russia shows no signs of abating. Last week, the Georgian government announced the arrest of 13 "Russian spies," many of whom were Georgian citizens allegedly spying for Moscow. This week, Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili addressed the nation on television. "Operation "Enveri" is the first stage in a massive counter-intelligence operations. There are many spy groups in Georgia still," said the minister. "But it's not the only operation currently conducted by the Georgian Counterintelligence services. At least three Russian spy agencies operate on the territory of Georgia - FSB, SVR and GRU - and each has its own networks."

Merabishvili also offered his thoughts on why the official reaction in Moscow to "spy scandal" was rather muted. According to him, in 2006, when Georgian authorities arrested four Russian soldiers and dozens of Georgian citizens in a counter-intel sweep, "Moscow still thought we were its satellite . . . And Moscow was psychologically wounded that a state it considered as unimportant was actually taking some action. Since then, much time has passed, and Georgia's image has changed. So now Russia's reaction was adequate, similar to the one when its spies were discovered in Europe. When we will identify Russian spies for the third time, there may not be any reaction from Russia at all."

For its part, Moscow considers the latest Georgian spy operation as a provocation and a "political farce."

(AP Photo)

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It looks like domestic pressure has finally gotten to the Russian military - recently, the Ministry of Defense tested 22 models of indigenous-produced UAVs and decided to purchase some of them for use in the armed forces. This does not impede Russia's earlier commitment to international UAV purchases, especially from Israel.

Meanwhile, Kazak firm Kazakhstan Engineering and French firm Sagem recently signed the memorandum of understanding to jointly produce UAVs.

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Following India's recent unveiling of a design for a cheap, mass-produced "people's" vehicle that could be affordable to multitudes of new consumers, Russian "Onexim Group," headed by Mikhail Prokhorov (who also owns the NBA's New Jersey Nets) presented the first images of two hybrid cars on Oct. 12 - prototypes of urban hatchback and a compact crossover, created under the "City Car" project. The vehicles were designed in only 180 days without any foreign support or contribution. Three prototypes are to be tested this December.

It is expected that the "people's" cars will be equipped with 70-horsepower electric motor, lithium-ion batteries and a 0.6-liter engine that can operate on natural gas and will produce energy to recharge the batteries on the move. According to preliminary information, the cars will be able to go 400 kilometers (about 250 miles) without refueling, at the maximum speed of 120 kilometers (75 miles) per hour. The base cost of these cars is about $10,000, but could rise to as much as $15,000.

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John Vinocur wonders if the U.S. is "losing" Europe to Russia. The framing of the question is a bit odd, because it presupposes that Russia is strong enough to "win" Europe away from the United States. What's really at issue is Europe's willingness to chart a slightly more independent course:

Rather, Germany and France, meeting with Russia in Deauville, northern France, last week, signaled that they planned to make such three-cornered get-togethers on international foreign policy and security matters routine, and even extend them to inviting other “partners” — pointing, according to diplomats from two countries, to Turkey becoming a future participant....

As for the Obama administration stamping its foot, what it came down to was a senior U.S. official saying: “Since when, I wonder, is European security no longer an issue of American concern, but something for Europe and Russia to resolve? After being at the center of European security for 70 years, it’s strange to hear that it’s no longer a matter of U.S. concern.”

Needless to say that Washington does not believe in "spheres of influence" or the ability of a great power to have a say in another country's foreign policy decisions. No sir.

(AP Photo)

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Investors Business Daily is outraged that Russia is helping Venezuela develop nuclear technology, demanding that someone remind Russia of the Monroe Doctrine.

Unfortunately, the U.S. doesn't have any leg to stand on with respect to the Monroe Doctrine given how it's become a bi-partisan staple of foreign policy establishment dogma that the U.S. does not recognize "spheres of influence." It would be self-evidently absurd for the U.S. to protest Russia's dalliances in Venezuela (a little under 2,000 miles from the U.S. border) when the U.S. is pushing to admit countries that border Russia into NATO.

That said, should we be dusting off the concept of 'spheres of influence' in an era of emerging great powers? Ted Galen Carpenter argues that we should:

Russia needs to find a graceful way out of its increasingly cozy relationship with Chavez, and the United States needs to stop talking about deploying missile defenses or expanding NATO eastward. Washington and Moscow must acknowledge that the concept of spheres of influence is alive and well, and that gratuitous violations of that concept will negate any prospect for a reset in relations.

U.S. leaders must also comprehend that cordial relations with China require a willingness to accept that East Asia’s rapidly rising great power will seek to establish a sphere of influence in its neighborhood. Beijing’s expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea and the recent spat with Japan over disputed islets in another body of water are signs of that process. China’s growing power and assertiveness means that the United States will need to tread softly regarding such territorial disputes, as well as the even more sensitive Taiwan issue, if Washington wants to avoid nasty confrontations with Beijing.

While I think avoiding nasty confrontations should be a key goal, I'm not sure how affording China a 'sphere of influence' would work in practice. China's prospective 'sphere' encompasses major economic powerhouses like Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, and some weaker Southeast Asian states. Unlike, say, Russia, where the U.S. ties to countries like Georgia or even Ukraine were historically relatively weak and economically negligible, American ties to Japan and South Korea are anything but.

(AP Photo)

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Helle Dale offers some suggestions for the Obama administration:

Reform the U.S. Visa Waiver program, which still means that Polish residents have to line up for visas to enter the United States, when travelers from other European countries do not;

Work with the countries of CEE on security cooperation and democracy promotion. Make U.S. officials visible and available to the publics of these countries and reestablish public diplomacy institutions, such as America houses, that have been allowed atrophy since the Cold War;

Reexamine U.S. decisions on international broadcasting into the former Soviet Union, where services have been cut even in the absence of local free media.

Support the exploration of gas shale, which Poland possesses in abundance, and which would provide an alternative to Russian gas as Sikorski suggested. There is currently only $2 billion in U.S. business investment in Poland. Gas shale could give Poland energy independence; perhaps even make it an energy exporter.

I think these are mostly sensible ideas in their own right, but Dale implies that this is all necessary to blunt malevolent Russian influence. But I don't think we should view - or treat - relations with Eastern and Central Europe as zero sum standoffs.

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UK Foreign Secretary William Hague is looking to shore up relations with Russia:

Hague, part of a coalition government which took office in May, will meet Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and President Dmitry Medvedev during his 24-hour visit which began on Tuesday.

Relations between the previous British government and Russia deteriorated badly after the 2006 murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London with a rare radioactive isotope.

Meanwhile, Arnold Schwarzenegger's getting job offers from Medvedev.

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If all these policies were aimed to achieve an effective sanctions package against Iran with Russian support, then the "reset" policy failed. The sanctions, as advertised, will not be able to stop the Iranian race to gain nukes.

The reported US capitulation on S-300 is the latest in the long list of unilateral concessions to Russia, which endanger US friends and negatively affect US national security. - Ariel Cohen, "If the S-300 Sale is Allowed, Obama’s Russian “Reset” Policy Has Failed"

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev issued a decree Wednesday banning all sales of S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran. - AP

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Earlier in the year, France was poised to sell its Mistral amphibious assault ship to Russia (negotiations are still ongoing). The U.S. was not pleased. Secretary Gates voiced his concern about the deal. In the media, the reaction was more robust. Writing in the Weekly Standard, Reuben Johnson went so far as to declare the NATO alliance itself was a threat to peace:

If Europe is now only for Europeans -- and NATO is a threat rather than guarantor of peace -- then the U.S. needs to rethink how it handles its own military sales arrangements with those European nations who express these sentiments either by words or deeds. If these deal goes through, perhaps it might be time to reset the U.S. military relationship with France.

So maybe Johnson cares to comment about this:

Israel and Russia made history on Monday, signing for the first time a military agreement that will increase cooperation on combating terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, but also could lead to the sale of Israeli weaponry to the Russian military...

Russia is particularly interested in acquiring Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In 2009, Russia bought 12 drones from Israel Aerospace Industries, following its war with Georgia, during which Georgian military forces used Israeli Elbit Systems Hermes 450 UAVs.

(AP Photo)

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According to Russian media, in the next few days, Russian GAZ-2330 "Tiger" armored car will be transferred for testing by the Rio de Janeiro police, which will use the vehicles to patrol the city suburbs.

According to Oleg Strunin, official JSC Rosoboronexport representative to the Brazilian state arms export agency, several Brazilian states expressed an interest in the Russian armored vehicle. Negotiations are also taking place on assembling "Tigers" in Brazil. "We believe that 'Tigers' have very good prospects in Brazil, and hope to soon conclude a contract for delivery of such machines to the country," added Strunin.

Bottom line: "Tiger" was conceived, designed and tested as a competitor to the American Humvee armored car. And while the American vehicle served with distinction for the past three decades in huge numbers virtually everywhere around the world in numerous conflicts, saving countless lives, the "Tiger" on the other hand is a new vehicle which hasn't undergone the same rigorous battlefield testing. Even as Hummers are being phased out from Iraq and Afghanistan in favor of a new breed of vehicles, it certainly can hold its own as a police patrol car.

So why did Brazil choose the untried and untested Russian car? Good question ...

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Simon Shuster thinks the wildfires crippling Moscow could spell political trouble for Vladmir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev:

According to opinion polls, however, the Russian public is not nearly so eager to pat its leaders on the back. In the last two weeks of July, state-run pollster VTsIOM reported that approval ratings for both Putin and Luzhkov had fallen to their lowest levels in more than four years, while Medvedev's numbers were at one of their lowest points since he took office in May 2008. At the same time, more Russians have started clamoring for the return of gubernatorial elections, which Putin canceled in 2004 when he handed the Kremlin the right to appoint regional leaders. In a survey released August 6 by the independent Levada Center, 59% of Russians now want to choose their own governors again, up by 5% since January.

But Michael Stott says that Russia's media manipulation will be able to overcome any short-term damage done:

Popular apathy, control over the media and a lack of potent opposition will ensure that Moscow's ruling duo do not suffer seriously from disastrous summer fires as president George W. Bush did from his administration's slow response to catastrophe.

Although a record-breaking summer heatwave found Russia's authorities ill-prepared to fight the fires and slow to react to the smoke pollution that has crippled Moscow, analysts said Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev would ensure that others took the blame.

Sounds like business as usual for a politico.

Personally I think the most absurd vignette of the entire Moscow fire was undoubtedly this, from Shuster:

But perhaps the most blatant attempts to downplay the disaster have come from the mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov. As the fires around his city choked the skies with smoke last week, Luzhkov was away on holiday. "What's the problem? What, do we have some kind of emergency situation, some kind of crisis situation? What's the problem in Moscow?" the mayor's spokesman told the LifeNews agency on August 6. Three days later, LifeNews reported that Luzhkov, an avid beekeeper, had ordered his prize-winning hives to be evacuated away from the smog. All the while, he has refused to declare a state of emergency for Moscow's human inhabitants.

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Dani Rodrik pushes back against the argument that autocratic systems make for good capitalism:

Democracies not only out-perform dictatorships when it comes to long-term economic growth, but also outdo them in several other important respects. They provide much greater economic stability, measured by the ups and downs of the business cycle. They are better at adjusting to external economic shocks (such as terms-of-trade declines or sudden stops in capital inflows). They generate more investment in human capital – health and education. And they produce more equitable societies.

Authoritarian regimes, by contrast, ultimately produce economies that are as fragile as their political systems. Their economic potency, when it exists, rests on the strength of individual leaders, or on favorable but temporary circumstances. They cannot aspire to continued economic innovation or to global economic leadership.

At first sight, China seems to be an exception. Since the late 1970’s, following the end of Mao’s disastrous experiments, China has done extremely well, experiencing unparalleled rates of economic growth. Even though it has democratized some of its local decision-making, the Chinese Communist Party maintains a tight grip on national politics and the human-rights picture is marred by frequent abuses.

But China also remains a comparatively poor country. Its future economic progress depends in no small part on whether it manages to open its political system to competition, in much the same way that it has opened up its economy. Without this transformation, the lack of institutionalized mechanisms for voicing and organizing dissent will eventually produce conflicts that will overwhelm the capacity of the regime to suppress. Political stability and economic growth will both suffer.

This is the basic message of Ian Bremmer's book, the somewhat erroneously titled The End of the Free Market. Bremmer argues that despite the threat posed by autocratic capitalist systems, they'll ultimately be undone by their own shortcomings. It might be hard to imagine after the recent debacles of democratic capitalism, but I suspect it's true.

[Hat tip: Nick Schulz]

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(Russia's Vladimir Putin attends an international bikers convention in Ukraine. AP Photo)

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No clever title necessary:

Police are apparently still looking for the donkey and its owner.

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An unsurprising poll from Angus Reid:

The revelation that there are Russian spies posing as American citizens in the United States did not shock many people in the North American country, according to a poll by Angus Reid Public Opinion. 77 per cent of respondents say they were not surprised about this situation.

The poll also found that:

Half of respondents (50%) think Russia should not be singled out for its espionage because many other countries keep active spies elsewhere. One-third of Americans (34%) disagree with this view, and believe Russia should be shamed for maintaining a Cold War mentality by keeping active spies in Western countries.

Two thirds of Americans (65%) think the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) should continue to train and send American spies into other countries, while only 12 per cent believe this activity is no longer necessary.

Full results here. (pdf)

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Martin Regg Cohn has an interesting column in today's Toronto Star on the fine line between espionage and soft power in Canada:

Forget the stagecraft of spy novels, or the make-believe machinations of those captured Russian sleeper agents. China targets Canadians with more mundane tactics ranging from sumptuous free lunches to package tours of China. Last month, a so-called “opinion leader” told me excitedly that he’d been invited on a tour of China. MPs go all the time. So do freelance journalists. All on China’s dime.

Call it soft power. But spying can be a deadly serious business when it tars entire communities. The canard of “dual loyalties” has dogged Canadians of Chinese, Japanese, Italian and Jewish descent over the years — with many innocent citizens unjustly detained in wartime.

It’s a mistake to single out diasporas. While the Chinese and other governments shamelessly target émigré groups to aid the motherland, they spend at least as much time and money trying to win over the “landed gentry” — the white folks who make up the Canadian establishment going back generations.

Read the whole thing here.

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Can a regime survive without any friends? We may be about to find out in Belarus:

It’s not often that Brussels and Moscow see eye to eye on the politics of the former Soviet Union. But both want Belarussian president Alexander Lukashenko gone, preferably after elections slated for early 2011. The EU has long criticized Lukashenko for abusing opposition activists and censoring local media. Now he’s alienated his onetime great protector, Russia, as well. His unpaid gas bills to the tune of $200 million led Gazprom to briefly cut off supplies last month. He called Prime Minister Vladimir Putin “the main enemy of the Russian people,” and refused to recognize Russian-occupied Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states in defiance of Kremlin pressure. He also offered asylum to former Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, whom Russia helped oust earlier this year.

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Via Angus Reid:

Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin could defeat president Dmitry Medvedev—the man who appointed him to his current job—in the next presidential election, according to a poll by the Yury Levada Analytical Center. 37 per cent of respondents would vote for Putin in the next ballot, up 10 points since April.

Medvedev is second with 17 per cent, followed by Communist Party (KPRF) leader Gennady Zyuganov with six per cent, Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky with four per cent, and Russian Federation Council speaker Sergei Mironov of A Just Russia with two per cent.

(AP Photo)

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Rasmussen Reports:

With the U.S.-Russia spy swap making headlines, 65% of voters say they are at least somewhat confident in the ability of the government to catch those from other countries who are spying on the United States.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 30% of voters lack confidence in the government’s ability to catch foreign spies.

These findings include 19% who are Very Confident in the government’s counterespionage efforts and five percent (5%) who are Not At All Confident.

Seventy-two percent (72%) regard the threat of Russian spying in this country as at least somewhat serious, with 31% who view it as Very Serious. Only 22% say it’s not very or not at all serious.

But 20% say the United States spies more on other countries that they spy on us. Seventeen percent (17%) think it’s the other way around, that other countries spy on us more than we spy on them. A solid plurality (48%), however, think the level of spying is about the same among all countries.

(AP Photo)

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At least in Russia, as Gregory Feifer writes:

To conceal its designs, the Kremlin relies on a dizzying web of shell companies nominally owned and operated by Europeans but in reality controlled by Moscow to attack by stealth. Among them, a gas-trading company named Vemex has taken 12 percent of the Czech domestic market since its establishment in 2001 to sell Russian natural gas. Although there's nothing on Vemex's website to indicate it, the company is Czech in name only. It's actually controlled by Gazprom through a series of companies based in Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, including Centrex Europe Energy and Gas, which has helped spearhead the Russian drive to buy energy assets across Europe.

Centrex is registered in Austria and, according to Gazprom's website, founded by its own Gazprombank. But the company's real ownership is impossible to trace. According to the European Commission, Centrex is owned by Centrex Group Holding Ltd., registered in Cyprus, a company controlled by Gazprom's German subsidiary, and RN Privatsiftung, a Vienna foundation whose stockholders are unknown.

Why go to the trouble of hiding the real owners of companies either already known or believed to be controlled by Gazprom? Vemex is just one of a large number of enterprises Gazprom has set up in countries across Central and Eastern Europe to jockey for stakes in European energy utilities. By disguising the real owners, Gazprom makes its actions more palatable to Europeans wary of expanding Russian influence.

Investigative journalist Jaroslav Plesl points the finger at his own countrymen for enabling Moscow. Czechs are "willing to sell anything," he says of the staggering corruption in his country, something Russian companies have been able to exploit by taking advantage of nontransparent tenders. They also lobby to prevent the development of regulations that would prohibit those kinds of activities, with the effect of exporting the kind of corruption that dominates Russia.

My question: does this kind of activity stand on its head the vision of globalization as channeling the contests between nations into the more peaceful economic realm, or confirm it?

(AP Photo)

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Here is something that should put China on notice - Russian military just tested the possibility of non-stop flight by jet fighters from the European part of Russia to the Far East. The test was conducted as part of the "Vostok-2010" (East 2010) exercises. According to Interfax news agency, Russian Chief of General Staff Nikolai Makarov reported on the flight at a meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

According to Makarov, Su-24M and Su-34 fighter-bombers participated in the flight, with Su-24M needing three in-flight refuelings, while the Su-34 was refueled twice.

The "Vostok-2010" exercises, running from June 29 through July 8, are the biggest maneuvers of Russian armed forces in 2010, involving the Pacific Fleet and two military districts, bringing together 20,000 troops, more than 5,000 units of military equipment, over 40 ships and 75 airplanes and helicopters.

The exercises involve defense against massive missile and air strikes, as well as possible counter-insurgency operations. "Vostok-2010" also provides training for joint action with the FSB border forces for the protection of maritime borders, as well as anti-piracy and anti-poaching operations. President Medvedev followed the exercises from aboard Peter the Great heavy nuclear missile cruiser.

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Stratfor has a comprehensive review of what we know about the Russian spies.

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An international military exhibition has opened in Zhukovsky, near Moscow. "Technology in Mechanical Engineering 2010" forum will last until July 4, 2010. This forum will include the exhibitions "UVS-TECH", "International Salon of Weapons and Military Equipment", "Intermash" and "Aerospace 2010."

The exhibition involves 314 companies. Russian Defense Ministry will showcase 23 units of military equipment and 25 models provided by the military manufacturers, such as Ka-135 and "Vulture" drone mock-ups and a new "Wolf" armored car.

Visitors can also see other modern armaments, including T-90S tanks; BMP-3M infantry fighting vehicles; newest KAMAZ and URAL heavy trucks; "Tiger" armored cars; and many other interesting technologies.

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Russia's "Svobodnaya Pressa" (Free Press) publication reports that China's growing infrastructure projects parallel to the border with Russia are a sign that Beijing could use such extensive infrastructure for a successful military thrust into the Russian Far East.

In the Tszyain county, Heilongjiang Province, two highways are being constructed - 114-km long stretch of Heihe - Tszyain road and 103-kilometer long Suybin - Tszyainong highway, to be open in October 2010. Additional roads are also built on the border with Russia. Alexander Aladdin, "Svobodnaya Pressa" China expert, is sure that such infrastructure development is preparation for war. Earlier, Aladdin asked Russian Constitutional Court to review the agreement with China on the transfer of Russian Amur Islands to Beijing. He believes that such transfer could be a strategic threat to the safety of Khabarovsk, the Far East and Russia itself in the future: "China is already building wide concrete roads toward Russia that could withstand the stress of transporting heavy equipment and weaponry. With the commissioning of such infrastructure, China can easily transfer troops and equipment along the entire border with Russia, and to conduct offensive operations in strategically important areas."

Aladdin laments the state of the Russian military today: "After undergoing modernization, the army has nothing left except the 85 untrained brigade-level formations. The massive reduction of troops and officers in the army has left the Far East and Eastern Siberia without protection from the external enemy." He predicts China's easy victory under such circumstances: "The beginning of large-scale offensive operations along the land border and landing in northern Russia will conclude with a full, quick victory for China and the loss of the Russian territory to the Ural Mountains. After all the territory to the Urals are captured, Russian citizens will be deported or destroyed."

Alexander Khramchikhin, the head of the analytical department of the Institute of Political and Military Analysis, agrees with this possible scenario: "The construction of the road along the Russian-Chinese border is very specialized - this road runs parallel to the front lines. China has a strong interest in the invasion of our Far East - the fact is that China cannot survive without expanding its territory." According to Khramchikhin, "China will try to do so without conflict, but in case of a crisis, it will launch a war without a second thought. The plan to take over our territories is designed, I think, over the next several decades. The first main task for China is to solve the Taiwan issue. After that, the Chinese will take Russia seriously. They do not even hide their intentions."

What is interesting is that neither expert mentions that Russia would use nuclear weapons in its defense if attacked first - a policy that is enshrined in its Military Doctrine.

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That's the word from a former KGB hand:

Oleg Gordiyevsky, a British-based former senior agent with the Russian Federal Security Service's (FSB) predecessor, told RFE/RL's Russian Service that he reckons Russia has hundreds of spies currently working in the United States.

A "conservative" estimate is that 400 or so spies are operating in the U.S. from embassies and other Russian governmental institutions, he said.

He put the number of deep-cover agents, or "illegals" like those in the recent case, at around 60.

Gordiyevsky estimated the number of U.S. spies in Moscow at 20-25, and said the British had two spies in the Russian capital.

He did not elaborate on how he arrived at such specific figures.

The U.S. side sounds a bit low, no?

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The U.S. is obviously not the only target of Russian espionage. Last week, the Czech Republic's intelligence service released its annual report highlighting the extensive efforts made by the Russians to spy on their country. And as Robert Coalson notes, it makes for interesting reading:

The BIS spent all (yes, all) its counterintelligence effort against Russia. “In terms of coverage, intensity, aggressive nature and quantity of operations, the Russian intelligence services have no rivals in the territory of the Czech Republic.” (The BIS's 2008 report puts this thought even more amusingly: "As to activities of other intelligence services in our territory, the risks they posed for the Czech Republic in 2008 were negligible.")

Here’s more from this NATO member state's main security agency:

“There were continuing efforts of Russian companies to establish themselves in the Czech energy market, both through supplies of relevant products and through firms owned by companies having their seats in European countries. It is highly likely the complex ownership structure is aimed at camouflaging links to the Russian Federation.”

“There has been an increase of intelligence capacities and intensity of intelligence operations in the Czech Republic, particularly in the field of research and development and in [the] economy….”

“Russian intelligence services have in some cases smoothly picked up where their Soviet predecessors left off.”

The Russian spy ring story is certainly interesting, if not terribly surprising. My initial reaction was to shrug it off and hope that our moles are more effective at prying away Russia's secrets. Daniel Drezner, however, is confused, particularly by the timing of the U.S. announcement and the fact that the alleged spies weren't actually charged with espionage.

I'm curious to see how the news will be processed - will people view it as indicative of Russian perfidy or just the normal course of rough-and-tumble international power politics? I incline toward the second camp, on the assumption that we're giving as good as we're getting.

(AP Photo)

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According to a new poll:

Russians like the U.S. government more than they have since before Boris Yeltsin ceded the presidency to Vladimir Putin, indicating Barack Obama’s “reset” is paying off, a poll published today shows.

Fifty-nine percent of Russians have a “good” or “very good” opinion of the U.S., up from 46 percent a year ago and 22 percent in September 2008, the month after Russia waged a five- day war with U.S. ally Georgia, the Moscow-based All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion said in a statement.

The percentage of Russians who have a “bad” or “very bad” opinion of the U.S. fell to 27, less than half the 65 percent recorded in September 2008 and the lowest since 1998, according to VTsIOM, as the Moscow-based center is also called. The poll of 1,600 people was conducted May 1-2, before President Dmitry Medvedev’s state visit to California’s Silicon Valley and Washington, and had a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.

(AP Photo)

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Russian President Vladimir "Top Gun" Putin steps into the cockpit of a Sukhoi T-50. AP Photo

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Brian Whitmore says that Moscow is reluctant to exercise its influence in its near-abroad:

Like Russia's 2008 war with Georgia over the pro-Moscow separatist region of South Ossetia, the crisis in Kyrgyzstan is emerging as a watershed moment in Moscow's relations with its former Soviet vassals.

But while the war in Georgia sent a loud and clear message that Russia is prepared to unilaterally use force against its neighbors to achieve its objectives in the region, the Kyrgyz conflict appears to be demonstrating the limits of Moscow's power.

And while the invasion of Georgia had Cold War undertones, pitting a resurgent Russia against a close U.S. ally, the crisis in Kyrgyzstan is highlighting a new spirit of cooperation between Moscow and Washington -- both of which have military bases and vital interests in the small but strategically important Central Asian country.

Russia wants to prevent chaos in its backyard, analysts say, while the United States wants to assure that its mission in Afghanistan, which is supplied via the Manas military base in Kyrgyzstan, is not disrupted. Both have an interest in the situation stabilizing.

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(Vladimir Putin reveals his soft side. AP Photos)

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Via Angus Reid, it looks like Putin's party enjoys quite a lead:

Most people in Russia would support the governing party in the next election to the State Duma, according to a poll by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center. 54 per cent of respondents would vote for United Russia (YR) in the next ballot, up two points since April.

The Communist Party (KPRF) is a distant second with eight per cent, followed by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) with five per cent, and the opposition movement A Just Russia with four per cent.

(AP Photo)

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Roger Cohen is frustrated by the Obama administration's reaction to the Turkish-Brazilian nuclear fuel deal with Iran:

Brazil and Turkey represent the emergent post-Western world. It will continue to emerge; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should therefore be less trigger-happy in killing with faint praise the “sincere efforts” of Brasilia and Ankara.

The West’s ability to impose solutions to global issues like Iran’s nuclear program has unraveled. America, engaged in two inconclusive wars in Muslim countries, cannot afford a third. The first decade of the 21st century has delineated the limits of U.S. power: It is great but no longer determinative.

Lots of Americans, including the Tea Party diehards busy baying at wolves, are angry about this. They will learn that facts are facts.

This strikes me as somewhat contradictory. Cohen laments the Obama administration's rejection of the fuel swap deal - which he concedes is an insufficient deal that fails to meet the Western demands put forth last year - because 1. You don't want to hurt feelings in Ankara and Brasilia, because they are emerging powers whom you might need down the road, and 2. this deal, while well short of the October arrangement, may have served as a "tenuous bridge between "mendacious" Iranians and “bullying” Americans."

First, the latter point: Spinning a deal for the sake of public perception and reaching a substantive deal are obviously two different things. Cohen asserts that this deal would've been a huge P.R. victory which, I suppose, it could have been. But if the administration is serious about nonproliferation it was necessary to knock this deal down right out the gate - which it apparently did.

And spin spins both ways. While Washington and the West certainly could have spun this deal to their advantage, so too could have the Iranians - as they already have. The whole point of this deal was not only to build trust between Tehran and Washington, but to assuage Western and regional concerns about Iranian enrichment. This week's trilateral deal fails to do that, and thus it fails to actually take time off the so-called Doomsday Clock.

In other words, accept this deal and you basically gave Iran seven months to set the terms of negotiation while rebuffing your own immediate concerns. Clenched fist, check.

As for Brazil and Turkey, what exactly was Obama to do? Accept the deal, and you accept the Turkish-Iranian argument that the deal represents the death knell of sanctions, which the U.S. never agreed to and never will. Cohen may view this deal as a beginning, but Tehran and Ankara are spinning it differently. And as Greg noted yesterday, China and Russia simply matter more than Brazil and Turkey do, especially on the matter of Iranian proliferation.

Will this hurt U.S. efforts down the road when, at some unforeseen moment, Washington needs Ankara or Brasilia? Perhaps. But that's the point: A multi-polar world doesn't guarantee a less divisive one where everyone gets along and hugs out their problems. Quite the contrary.

For much of the 20th century - and the first few years of the 21st - American power was rather easy: Either you're with us, or you're with the evildoer behind door #1. Make your choice. There was a kind of cold clarity in this arrangement, and in some ways the U.S. excelled at it. But as other powers emerge, they also come to the table with years - decades, even - of experience at playing a weaker hand inside global institutions like the UN. They know how to check the maneuverings and desires of other states, just as they too have been checked.

Washington isn't very good at this game, and it's going to take some time for the United States to rebuild capital and use its still preponderantly stronger military and economy to its advantage. This may require a more prudent, interests-based foreign policy designed to keep larger powers in your corner - which, in turn, will mean less peripheral meddling in said powers' backyards.

So will Ankara and Brasilia remember this? Probably. Welcome to the new world order.

UPDATE: Larison offers his thoughts on the matter.

(AP Photo)

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Just as Copenhagen was a visible demonstration of the rising clout of China, the recent nuclear diplomacy by Turkey and Brazil was still more evidence that the leadership role so coveted by the U.S. is being undermined by the rise of economic powers with divergent security interests. Unlike in Copenhagen, though, it looks as though the U.S. was able to rebuff this "rogue" diplomacy. Matt Duss, for one, is unhappy:

It’s clear that Iran saw the announcement of the deal as a way to head off international pressure. But that doesn’t mean that its acceptance of the terms isn’t significant — it is. In my view, it would have been smarter for Obama to acknowledge the deal as a potentially positive step, but make clear that more is needed, similar to how he pocketed Netanyahu’s sort-of-but-not-really acceptance of a Palestinian state last year. As it is, by scrambling to get the UN sanctions resolution finalized in the shadow of the Brazil-Turkey intervention, that resolution now looks much more like an end in themselves, rather than a means to arriving at a mutually acceptable agreement.

But that's the problem: there is no mutually acceptable agreement here.

It will be more interesting to watch how China and Russia move. The Brazil/Turkey gambit has given both China and Russia clear cover now to balk at sanctions, even watered-down ones. If they don't, it means the Obama administration has gone a long way in winning them over (invalidating Duss' fear of diplomatic blow-back). Not that it will do much good. But you take the victories where you can get them, and I think China and Russia matter more to Iran than Brazil and Turkey.

(AP Photo)

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Brian Whitmore reports:

According to a report in "Russian Newsweek," Moscow is planning to reorient its foreign policy in a more pragmatic and pro-Western direction. The story by journalists Konstantin Gaaze and Mikhail Zigar, which cites a recent Foreign Ministry policy paper, says the move is part of an effort to attract badly needed investment to modernize the country's crumbling infrastructure and diversify its economy to make it less dependent on energy exports:

The idea behind the document is that Russia intends -- not just in words but also in deeds -- to have a foreign policy in which there are not friends and enemies, but only interests. The country's economy needs to be modernized and foreign policy must also work to solve this problem. A senior official at the Foreign Ministry who participated in the drafting of the document confirmed that in place of a Cold War there will be Detente.

The policy paper's preamble, written by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, calls for "the strengthening of relations of interdependence with the world's leading powers," with the most desirable partners being the United States and the European Union.

According to the "Russian Newsweek" story, the "triumphant optimism of Russian leaders in a time of record-high oil prices is a thing of the past. In the post-crisis world, Russia is forced to look for friends and start a useful economic ties." It cites an unidentified Foreign Ministry official as saying that "the crisis has shown that Russia cannot develop independently."

Whitmore thinks that any outreach is the result of a pragmatic consideration on the part of Russia's rulers as to what will best preserve the political status quo. He then writes:

But sooner or later, the Kremlin is going to run into the same political-economic conundrum that has accompanied every Russian attempt at modernization. Modernizing an economy implies diversifying and decentralizing. It implies respect for property rights. It implies greater transparency. It implies respect for the rule of law as opposed to the rule of the gun.

But does it? China has thus far modernized without any of those things. It may not be sustainable indefinitely, but for now, if Russian rulers are looking for a developmental model that secures their hold on power, why would they look to the West? It's in China where they can find a model that gives them economic development and authoritarian rule.

(AP Photo)

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Via Reuters:

Fifty-five percent of respondents to a Levada Center poll of 1,600 Russians said they believed that "bribes are given by everyone who comes across officials" in Russia....

...findings by the Levada Center showed that Russians still pay bribes to obtain better medical services, prefer to "buy" their driving licenses, bribe police when caught violating traffic rules, or pay to ensure that their child can dodge the draft or get a place at the right school.

Ten percent confessed they had even paid to arrange funerals for relatives or loved ones.

Only 10 percent of those polled believe that only "cheats and criminals" bribed officials and 30 percent said that those offering "cash in envelopes" are in fact "ordinary people who have no other way to solve their problems".

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Dmitry Gorenburg makes the case:

First of all, countless studies have shown that greater ties between states reduce the likelihood of conflict between them. If France or Germany sell military equipment to Russia, they not only establish closer ties between their militaries, but they also make the Russian military more dependent on NATO military equipment. Cold warriors seem to think that the dependency argument only runs in one direction — Western states who sell to Russia wouldn’t want to lose sales, so they’ll do whatever Russia wants. But the road of mutual dependence is a two way street. If Russia starts buying certain categories of military equipment from abroad, its domestic defense industry will likely lose whatever capability it still has to produce that category of equipment. Russia will then depend on NATO states for the procurement (and perhaps maintenance) of its military equipment. In that situation, Russian leaders will have to think twice before undertaking any actions towards NATO that are sufficiently hostile as to result in it being cut off from access to such equipment.

I'm usually of the mind that the advantage bestowed by Western military equipment is something that should be jealously guarded and not promiscuously sold to the highest bidder. I see the logic in Goreburg's point: that it would deprive Russia of the domestic capacity, leaving them dependent. But I think the idea that Europeans would "deny access" to weapons systems should they begin to disapprove of Russian behavior is a stretch. They were, until recently, reluctant to do so with Iran. Would they really do so with Russia?

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(AP Photo)

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This one's a nightmare for anyone planning adequate and robust homeland security defenses - Reuters reports from Moscow that a Russian company is marketing a new cruise missile system which can be hidden inside a regular shipping container, potentially giving any merchant vessel the capability to wipe out an aircraft carrier.

The Club-K was put on the market at the Defense Services Asia exhibition in Malaysia for $15 million. At the exhibition, the marketing film showed the Club-K being activated from an ordinary truck and from an ordinary merchant vessel. The missiles, which have a range of 350 km (approx. 210 miles), are launched without further preparation and are targeting what looks like American ground and sea-based forces.

Defense analysts say that potential customers for the Club-K system include Iran and Venezuela – and, potentially, terrorist groups. Reuters quotes Robert Hewson of Jane’s Defense Weekly to say that “at a stroke, the Club-K gives a long-range precision strike capability to ordinary vehicles that can be moved to almost any place on earth without attracting attention. The idea that you can hide a missile system in a box and drive it around without anyone knowing is pretty new,” said Hewson, who is editor of Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons. “Nobody’s ever done that before.”

Hewson estimated the cost of the Club-K system, which packs four ground or sea-launched cruise missiles into a standard 40-foot shipping container, at $10-20 million.

“Unless sales are very tightly controlled, there is a danger that it could end up in the wrong hands,” he said.

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There's a debate swirling in wonkish circles about the status of U.S. missile defenses under the New START arms control treaty between the U.S. and Russia. Critics of the deal say the Obama administration had to neuter our missile defense plans to get an agreement, while supporters of the deal say no such snipping occurred.

Dimitri Simes, writing in Time, said the Obama administration did indeed give up the store to get the arms deal signed:

Russian experts and officials... believe that America made a tacit commitment not to develop an extended strategic missile defense. As a senior Russian official said to me, "I can't quote you unequivocal language from President Obama or Secretary Clinton in conversations with us that there would be no strategic missile defenses in Europe, but everything that was said to us amounts to this." In this official's account, the full spectrum of U.S. officials from the President to working-level negotiators clearly conveyed that the reason they rejected more explicit restrictions on missile defense was not because of U.S. plans, but because of fear that such a deal could not win Senate ratification. A senior U.S. official intimately familiar with the talks has confirmed that the Russians were advised not to press further on missile defenses because the Administration had no intention to proceed with anything that would truly concern Moscow.

Arms control expert Jeffrey Lewis reads the treaty and offers his take:

I think it is very hard to conclude that the treaty “limits” missile defenses. The treaty may have some implications for missile defense programs, but on the whole it is written in such a way as to create space for current and planned missile defense programs, including language that exempts interceptors from the definition of an ICBM and the provision to “grandfather” the converted silos at Vandenberg.

I can't parse the nuances of arms control arcana, but Simes' account of the negotiations recalls the ambiguity of supposed U.S. promises* to Russia regarding NATO expansion at the end of the Cold War. That's been a persistent sore point in U.S.-Russian ties. Will this become another?

*Mark Kramer has a definitive rebuttal of Russian claims that they were promised anything with respect to NATO expansion.

(AP Photo)

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This story is perfect for Hollywood - or better yet, Bollywood - screenwriters: a high-ranking Indian Commodore is embroiled in a Russian honeypot scheme that has created quite a stir in both countries.

According to British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, an Indian Commodore (First Rank Captain), tempted by a Russian woman translator in Severodvinsk, is suspected of inflating the price of the aircraft carrier "Admiral Gorshkov," which India bought from Russia. Commodore Suhdzhinder Singh led one of the Indian delegations that monitored the repair work on heavy aircraft carrier "Gorshkov" in the northern Russian city of Severodvinsk in 2005-2007. It was then that he met with an attractive blonde interpreter Masha.

"They met so closely that their photos are now studied very closely at the Ministry of Defence of India," writes Komsomolskaya Pravda. It is not known how these photos came into the hands of the Indian military, but there is now an official investigation against the Commodore.

Continue reading "Cherchez la Femme, Captain Nemo: Indian Navy Caught in Russian Honeypot" »

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Once again, the Obama administration is trampling over the wishes of its allies in an effort to appease America's enemies:

Fresh from signing a strategic nuclear arms agreement with Russia, the United States is parrying a push by several NATO allies to withdraw its aging stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons from Europe.

Speaking Thursday at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers here, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the Obama administration was not opposed to cuts in these battlefield weapons, mostly bombs and short-range missiles locked in underground vaults on air bases in five NATO countries.

But Mrs. Clinton ruled out removing these weapons unless Russia agreed to cuts in its arsenal, which is at least 10 times the size of the American one. And she also appeared to make reductions in the American stockpile contingent on Russia’s being more transparent about its weapons and willing to move them away from the borders of NATO countries.

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Bolivian President Evo Morales is holding a star-studded climate change soiree in Cochabamba, which he claims:

will give a voice to the poorest people of the world and encourage governments to be far more ambitious following the failure of the Copenhagen summit.

So concerned is Evo with the plight of the poor that he's buying himself a jet built for the Manchester United team:

Bolivia's Treasury Minister Luis Arce says the government is negotiating to buy a French Falcon 900 jet built for the needs of Britain's Manchester United. The price: $38.7 million.

The British soccer team declined to purchase the jet after it was finished, so Morales rushed to buy it, according to Agence France Presse, which also reports that Morales will have another jet, a $40 million Antonov BJ financed through a military credit from Russia.

Morales has been busy this month. While tightening his grip over the country following local elections earlier this month, Morales had recently accepted the third donation of military equipment from China.

Perhaps Evo will fly his Chinese friends and his celebrity friends to the inauguration of the Bolivian Space Agency's new satellite: China and Bolivia are working on a $300 million joint satellite project:

According to Bolivian Public Works Minister Walter Delgadillo, the satellite has a maximum capacity of the DFH-4 model that will enable it to cover not only Bolivia but also the whole Latin America.

China had previously helped Venezuela launch a satellite in 2008.

(AP Photo)

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Alex Alexiev writes in National Review about the wave of Russian terror:

As clear-cut a case of Islamist barbarism as it is, though, it is difficult to make sense of the spiraling violence in Russia without reference to Vladimir Putin’s disastrous anti-terrorism policies.

Unlike his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, President Putin from the very beginning of his tenure in the Kremlin showed himself completely unwilling to consider any negotiated settlement with the Chechens and pursued a strictly military solution and a puppet regime in Grozny instead -- an attitude characterized by his vulgar promise to the resistance to “rub them out in the latrine.” He had no interest in exploring let alone exploiting the deep gulf between the resistance’s hard-line, Saudi-supported Islamists and its secular nationalists, who had little in common except their vehement dislike of Moscow’s heavy-handed domination.

Could it be that National Review has succumbed to Papism? Or is realism only useful when it can be used to criticize Russia?

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If Russian views of the U.S. haven't improved much, the latest poll from Rasmussen seems to show a little positive movement from the American side:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 31% of voters now trust Russia to honor its new agreement with the United States to reduce its nuclear weapons stockpile. Forty-three percent (43%) still don’t trust the Russians to honor the agreement which President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev finalized on Friday...

Bleak as they are, the number who trust the Russians to honor the agreement is up nine-points from July when the agreement was first announced. Thirty-two percent (32%) of voters also think the United States should help Russia fight its terrorism problem, following the homicide bomber attacks Monday in Moscow’s subway system that killed 37 people and injured another 65. But 41% say America should not get involved in Russia’s anti-terrorism effort. Twenty-seven percent (27%) are undecided.

Fifteen percent (15%) now view Russia as an ally of the United States. Ten percent (10%) say Russia is an enemy. Seventy-one percent (71%) see the former Soviet Union as somewhere in between the two.

Still, only 17% think America’s relationship with Russia will be better a year from now. Eighteen percent (18%) expect that relationship to be worse, while 57% predict it will be about the same.

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Via Angus Reid:

Few people in Russia want their country to seek improved relations with the United States, according to a poll by the Yury Levada Analytical Center. Only 14 per cent of respondents advocate for closer bi-lateral ties, down 10 points since March 2003.

Conversely, 40 per cent of Russians think their country should maintain the same level of relations with the U.S. that it currently has, and 36 per cent would prefer to see Russia distance itself from that country.

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Our video of the day is an interview with NYU Professor Stephen Cohen on the Moscow bombings:

For a manipulatable data set on past suicide attacks you can look at the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism. There is also an old article on female suicide bombers, by Lindsey O'Rourke. (Full Disclosure: I am a fellow at CPOST, and an associate of Lindsay O'Rourke.)

For more videos on issues from around the world check out the Real Clear World videos page.

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As Russian security services hunt down the cell of female terrorists believed responsible for yesterday's metro bombings in Moscow, Brian Palmer delves a bit deeper into the role of women in Jihadist organizations:

Women in the al-Qaida family are frequently used as marriage fodder. Many top terrorists marry their daughters off to colleagues abroad as a way to strengthen ties between regional or international terrorists organizations, just as old-school European monarchs once did. Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar appear to be married to each other's daughters. Indonesian terrorist Haris Fadhilah gave his daughter to Omar al-Faruq, a major al-Qaida operative. These arranged marriages are thought to enhance collaboration and communication among terrorist groups, but there's little indication that the women wield any real power. (Many female Chechen fighters gained their status through marriage, as well. The "Black Widows" are a group of bombers who try to complete the missions begun by their martyred husbands, fathers, or brothers.)

There are a handful of role models for women looking to climb terrorism's corporate ladder, but they operated in a different era. Palestinian fighter and terrorist pin-up Laila Khaled planned and executed a plane hijacking in 1969. She captured the word's attention with her brashness, making the pilot fly over Haifa—the birthplace from which she had been exiled—and demanding that air traffic control refer to the plane as "Popular Front Free Arab Palestine" rather than TWA 840. But Khaled belonged to the Marxist-leaning Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and she didn't have to struggle with a patriarchal Islamic hierarchy to become one of the most famous terrorists of the 20th century.

Read the rest here.

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Bob Ayers offers his analysis on the culprits behind today's suicide bombings in Russia:

The use of women as suicide bombers or "Black Widows," is one way in which the struggle in Chechnya is different from al Qaeda and more analogous to the military campaign waged by the IRA in Northern Ireland, says Ayers.

"This war is politically motivated, it is not about a religious ideology as in the case of al Qaeda, so everyone participates and it is ultimately irrelevant if you are a man or a woman," said Ayers.

"They are not like al Qaeda who might say women should be hidden away and have no role in attacks."

The "Black Widows" are believed to be made up of women whose husbands, brothers, fathers or other relatives have been killed in the conflict. The women are often dressed head-to-toe in black and wear the so-called "martyr's belt" filled with explosives.

The subtle distinctions and differences in the Global War on Terror will no doubt be fodder for commentary in the coming days. Stay tuned to RealClearWorld for the latest updates from Moscow, and be sure to check out our Russia homepage throughout the week for the latest opinion and analysis on the attacks.

The UK Guardian is also running a live blog on the metro bombings worth checking out.

UPDATE: Charlie Szrom of AEI adds his own thoughts on the attacks, and counters Ayers.

(AP Photo)

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Russia has offered technology transfer and joint development of fifth generation fighter PAK-FA, also known as T-50, to Brazil, according to Alexander Fomin, Russia's Deputy Director of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation. Russia also offered to transfer to Brazil several Su-35 jet fighters, which already have a number of technologies used in the PAK-FA.

Earlier, Russia proposed similar joint development of fifth generation fighter to India. Russia's OKB Sukhoi Aircraft Company and India's Hindustan Aeronautics will participate in a joint project, the contract for which has not yet been signed.

And while Turkish political establishment may criticize Israel and give it cold shoulder, the military cooperation between the two countries continues. Israel Military Industries (IMI) delivered six Heron unmanned aerial vehicles to Turkey. Istanbul will get a total of 10 UAVs, with the remaining four Herons to be transferred before the end of April 2010. Heron UAV family includes a modification known as "Eitan", which was recently in the news for its capacity to fly as far as Iran.

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As she lands in Russia to haggle over the details of a new arms limitation agreement, Stephen Walt is not sure:

What I’ll be watching is whether Hillary can close the deal. In general, you shouldn’t send the secretary of state or the president to a big-time negotiation unless you’re pretty confident that the deal is ready and all that’s left are some minor details that will be easy to work out. You might also send the secretary if you needed someone with real status to make a final push, but you’ve got to be ready to walk away if the other side won’t play ball. Otherwise, your top people look ineffective, or even worse, they look desperate for a deal.

What worries me is the Obama team’s track record on this front. It was a mistake to send Obama off to shill for Chicago’s bid to host the Olympic games, for example, partly because he’s got better things to do, but mostly because the gambit failed and made him look ineffectual. Ditto his attendance at the Copenhagen summit on climate change. Attending the summit was a nice way to signal his commitment to the issue, but it was obvious beforehand that no deal was going to be reached and his time could have been better spent elsewhere

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Nikolas Gvosdev parses the results of Monday's regional elections in Russia where Putin's United Russia party suffered a few surprising setbacks:

So what we may be seeing is an attempt by the Kremlin to stabilize the long-term political landscape of Russia around United Russia as the dominant ruling party with three opposition parties permitted to function, to draw off steam and voter ire, and to help legitimize the system. Such an approach worked in Mexico for many decades. Will it be viable in Russia?

This seems to be the view endorsed (although not in so many words) by United Russia itself:

The speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament and top United Russia official Boris Gryzlov admitted that these local elections had been tougher than the last set of polls in October due to rises in utility prices.

"We need losses at a regional level so we recognise the causes of these losses and we correct them," he said in comments published on the United Russia website.

Of course, it's doubtful the party would countenance losses at the national level...

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Opponents of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have begun circling an online petition calling for his ouster. The letter, translated and reprinted at the Power Vertical blog, states in part:

We declare that no essential reforms can be carried out in Russia today as long as Putin controls real power in the country.

We declare that the dismantling of the Putin regime and the return of Russia to the path of democratic development can only begin when Putin has been deprived of all levers of managing the state and society.

We declare that during the years of his rule, Putin has become the symbol of corrupt and unpredictable country that is pitiless in its treatment of its own citizenry. It is a country in which citizens have no rights and are for the most part in poverty. It is a country without ideals and without a future.

If, as the Kremlin propagandists love to repeat, Russia was on its knees during the Yeltsin period, then Putin and his minions have pushed its face into the filth.

Robert Coalson at Power Vertical notes that by directing their criticisms directly at Putin himself, the signatories leave themselves open to a violent crackdown. While I think Russia would be better off without Putin, I for one would miss the Putinisms.

(AP Photo)

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Danielle Pletka laments the end of American civilization as we know it:

Consider that the president’s own staff can’t gin up a single special relationship with a foreign leader and that the once “special relationship” with the United Kingdom is in tatters (note the latest contretemps over Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s bizarre intervention on the Falkland Islands); that neither China nor Russia will back the United States’s push for sanctions against Iran; that Iran, it seems, doesn’t want to “sit down” with the Obama administration and chat; that the “peace process” the president was determined to revive is limping pathetically, in no small amount due to missteps by the United States; that one of the key new relationships of the 21st century (advanced by the hated George W. Bush)—with India—is a total mess; that the hope kindled in the Arab world after Obama’s famous Cairo speech has dimmed; that hostility to America’s AfPak special envoy Richard Holbrooke is the only point of agreement between Delhi, Islamabad, and Kabul; that there isn’t a foreign ministry in Europe with a good word to say about working with the Obama White House; that there is a narrative afoot that began with the Obama apologia tour last year and will not go away: America is in decline.

Too many of these problems can be sourced back to the arrogance of the president and his top advisers. Many of Obama’s foreign policy soldiers are serious, keen, and experienced, but even they are afraid to speak to foreigners, to meet with Congress, or to trespass on the policy making politburo in the White House’s West Wing. Our allies are afraid of American retreat and our enemies are encouraged by that fear. George Bush was excoriated for suggesting that the nations of the world are either with us or against us. But there is something worse than that Manichean simplicity. Barack Obama doesn’t care whether they’re with us or against us.

And that's in just one year! Imagine how much he'll have ruined by 2012!

Needless to say, I find all of this to be a bit exaggerated, and even a bit disingenuous. Keep in mind that many once thought it cute or tough to alienate and insult allies; designating them as 'old' and 'new' Europe, for instance. When the Bush administration ruffled feathers it was decisive leadership; when Obama does it it's the collapse of Western society as we know it. Pick your hyperbole, I suppose.

After eight years in office, did President Bush actually leave us with a clear policy on ever-emerging China? How about the so-called road map for peace? How'd that work out? Did President Bush manage to halt Iranian nuclear enrichment, or did he simply leave Iran in a stronger geopolitical position vis-à-vis Iraq and Afghanistan?

Pletka attributes many of these perceived failings to "arrogance." But it has been well documented that the previous administration was also stubborn, resistant to consultation and set in its ways. How then, if Ms. Pletka is indeed correct, has this changed with administrations?

Pletka scoffs at the president's insistence that policy is "really hard," but he's right - as was George W. Bush when he said it. Perhaps, just perhaps, the problem isn't what our presidents have failed to do, but what we expect them to do in an increasingly multipolar, or even nonpolar world?

(AP Photo)

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Nikolas Gvosdev writes:

Two years ago, Washington was abuzz once again with the prospects for a “League of Democracies” that would support U.S. global leadership. But in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, which devastated Burma/Myanmar, a very clear rift opened up between the democracies of the advanced north and west, which advocated an intervention on humanitarian grounds, and the democracies of the south and east, which proved to be far more receptive to China’s call for defending state sovereignty. In the Doha round of trade talks and in the ongoing climate change negotiations, the leading democracies of the south and east—Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, India and Indonesia among them—have tended to line up with Beijing instead of joining Washington’s banner.

The entire National Interest piece is worth a read, but regarding this snippet I would argue that if it's a "League of Pliancy" Washington had hoped for, then perhaps it should start viewing the world the way Vladimir Putin does. A key tenet of President Bush's so-called freedom agenda was that a more democratic world meant a safer world. I'm sure that's true. But it also means a more pluralistic world; one with many voices, and many interests.

This world could be a great place to live, if there were actually an international system to help guide and support emerging democracies alongside the already ensconced ones. But this is one of the freedom agenda's key failings: more democracy means more interests, which of course makes it harder for countries, such as the United States, that are used to dealing with more pliant actors.

Interests and emerging democrats will continue to overlap and conflict in the coming years, which is why it's imperative that our public officials learn how to lead in an increasingly multipolar tug of war around the globe. From what we've seen so far, I wouldn't hold your breath for such nuanced understanding in 2010 or 2012.

UPDATE:

Larison adds his own thoughts to the multipolarity vs. exceptionalism debate, and calls a bluff on Obama's neoconservative critics:

To take their criticism seriously, we would have to believe that his critics accept the reality and inevitability of multipolarity, and we would have to believe that they also accept the relative decline in American power that this entails. Of course, they don’t really accept either of these things. For the most part, they do not acknowledge the structural political reasons for resistance to Obama’s initiatives, and they recoil from any suggestion that America needs to adjust to a changing world. They locate the fault for any American decline entirely with Obama, because he fails to be sufficiently strong in championing U.S. interests. “Decline is a choice,” Krauthammer says, and he accuses Obama of having chosen it.

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France's decision to sell a Mistral class warship to Russia has raised some alarm bells at the prospect of a rejuvenated Russian navy that could potentially menace nations such as Georgia. Dmitry Gorenburg says not to worry:

...the Russian Navy is declining, and the Mistral, while a fine ship, will not suddenly turn it into the most formidable force in the region. Furthermore, despite ongoing reforms, the Russian military as a whole will also get weaker before it gets stronger, in part because of deteriorating equipment, in part because of a decline in available personnel, and in part because of the retirement of well-trained officers who began their careers in the Soviet period and their replacement by officers who made their careers in the 1990s, when money for training was scarce.

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Julia Ioffe takes you inside the surreal world of Russia's post-Olympic witch-hunt.

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This was coming - following Russia's poor performance at the recently-concluded Winter Olympics, President Dmitry Medvedev is calling for the heads to roll. At a meeting with the leadership of the United Russia political party, Medvedev proposed that those responsible for preparing for the Olympics should resign. "If they cannot do that, then we will help them," added the president. Experts think that this is clearly directed at Vitaly Mutko, Russia's Sports Minister, and head of the Russian Olympic Committee Leonid Tyagachyov.

"Whoever is responsible for preparing for the Olympics should be held accountable now. The responsible persons should take a courageous decision and write a (resignation) statement," said the President.

For his part, Mutko defended his actions. The Sports Minister has asked not to make loud statements about the Games and not to escalate the situation. "If we remove some official, will our skiers run faster?" However, he did add that "Vancouver painted the real picture in (our) sport." Russia spent an estimated 1 billion roubles (approximately $330 million) preparing for these games.

Given the current mood in the country after a poor showing in Vancouver, Russia intends to stop at nothing to recapture its pride at the 2014 Winter Olympics to be held in the southern Russian city of Sochi.

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Hillary Clinton goes there:

"We are always going to have differences between the executive and legislative branch, but we have to be attuned to how the rest of the world sees the functioning of our government, because it's an asset," the secretary told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on state, foreign operations and related programs.

"People don't understand the way our system operates. They just don't get it," she said. "Their view does color whether the United States — not just the president, but our country — is in a position going forward to demonstrate the kind of unity and strength and effectiveness that I think we have to in this very complex and dangerous world."

"As we sell democracy — and we are the lead democracy of the world — I want people to know that we have checks and balances, but we also have the capacity to move," she said.

This is a peculiar line of thinking from the secretary and, as my colleague Greg put it in private conversation, a rather "Cheney-esque" sort of comment to make.

I just finished watching all 19 hours of today's health care summit, and the feelings I'm left with resemble something closer to boredom, exhaustion and irritation; fear and despair haven't quite sunk in yet, at least not the kind that legitimate democrats (with a little 'd') like those in Russia and Iran must deal with on a daily basis. I'm guessing they'd love to have our tedious deliberation and onerous amounts of free speech in their respective countries.

Seems like little more than an inappropriate political jab by Clinton.

(AP Photo)

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By Ed Stein

Just as the IAEA released yet another report declaring the potential presence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, one story seems to be sneaking under the radar. This past week brought yet more signs of a growing rift in Russian-Iranian relations surrounding Iran’s illicit nuclear program. As Russia seems to be opening to the possibility of additional sanctions, it sent another resounding shot across the bow to Iran when it delayed, again, its delivery of S-300 air defense missiles. This decision followed a meeting between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which the Russian president reportedly acquiesced to Israel’s request to do just this.

According to Alexander Fomin, first deputy director of the Russian Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation, “There is a delay due to technical problems,” and “the delivery will be completed when they are solved.” In a response that could only further point out the obvious, Vladamir Kasparyants, head of the Russian arms company which manufactures the S-300s, responded, “there are no technical questions. It’s a political issue.” Thanks, Vlad. The S-300 issue has been at the top of the bilateral agenda between Israel and Russia for quite some time now, in addition to the believed subject of secret meetings between the two countries. And it’s no wonder: the presence of such a system would make much more difficult any military strike against Iran’s nuclear sites.

We should not be too quick, however, to conclude that Russia has fully come around on the Iranian nuclear issue, as this may be the result of some backroom horse-trading. According to the Russian press, Israel recently stepped-up its arms sales to Georgia, expanding beyond UAVs to include a variety of conventional arms, and already there has been speculation that the S-300s have been linked to Israeli-Georgian arms deals. Indeed, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has assured the world that the delivery will eventually be made: "There is a contract to supply these systems to Iran, and we will fulfill it.”

It has been hypothesized that an actual Iranian acquisition of S-300s could be an Israeli red line leading them to strike Iranian nuclear targets. One Russian analyst even went so far as to “give it a 100 percent possibility that Israel would strike Iran at the news of the S-300 delivery.” As enrichment continues, confrontation grows and the Iranian domestic crackdown intensifies, one has to wonder whether the moment of truth will come in the form of an IAEA report, or a ship carrying S-300s.

(AP Photo)

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A fire on a nuclear submarine K-480 "Ak Bars" (project 971) in the dockyard "Little Star" in Severodvinsk has been localized, but is still burning for more than seven hours as of Friday night.

Fire on the sub started about 3 p.m. Friday, when its cables ignited. RIA Novosti news agency reported that the submarine hull will be opened in order to alleviate pressure inside the ship. At this point, 70 firefighters are trying to put out the blaze. There is no nuclear fuel on board the submarine, according to the official sources, and no radiation hazards are expected.

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By David J. Kramer

KYIV, Ukraine—Contrary to earlier polls, Ukraine’s presidential election turned out to be much closer than expected. After the run-off held on February 7, opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych claimed victory over Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko—at last count, he had a 3 percent lead—but Tymoshenko was not ready to concede. She is expected to file court challenges over claims of fraud in individual poll­ing stations, but international observers across the board, including the delegation I led for the International Republican Institute, deemed this election generally free and fair and any problems not to have been systemic in nature.

Tymoshenko, of course, has every right to pursue her legal options, but it would be unfortunate if her efforts led to weeks of squabbling and political paralysis. Ukrainians have had enough of that over the past few years, when they grew disillusioned with those associated with the 2004 Orange Revolution. Based on the preliminary assessment of foreign observers, neither problems that may have occurred on Election Day nor a controversial change made to the electoral law three days before the election had an appreciable impact on the election itself.

Barring the unexpected, Ukraine will see Yanukovych assume the reins as presi­dent. There are some in the West who will be unhappy with the election outcome. They will see Yanukovych’s victory as the final nail in the Orange Revolution’s coffin and will want to keep their distance from Ukraine. This would be exactly the wrong approach to take. Leaders in the West need to engage the new president and his team immediately after he as­sumes office. Here are some things they should do in the near term:

* Invite Yanukovych to the West. U.S. President Barack Obama will be hosting a nuclear security summit in April, and Yanukoych’s participation in that would be a good start. EU countries should also reach out to him out of recognition that Ukraine is a vital neighbor.

* Visit Kyiv. Western leaders should make Kyiv a key place to visit, not on the way to or from Moscow but on its own.

* Strengthen bilateral commissions on a level comparable to what Obama established with Russia last year. Dealing with Ukraine can be frustrating, but the alternative of keeping a distance is even worse, especially when Moscow will be reaching out aggressively to the new government in Kyiv.

* For the European Union, move forward on finalizing a free trade agreement with Ukraine and visa liberalization. It should stress that future membership in the European Union, while not in the offing in the near-term, is a possibility. The door to the European Union must remain open to Ukraine if it undertakes the necessary reforms over the next few years.

* Avoid pressing on membership in NATO, especially since the majority of Ukrainians do not support NATO membership at this time. Injecting this issue into the political debate in Ukraine now would be distracting and counterproductive, but NATO should keep its door open, too.

* Push for resumption of International Monetary Fund (IMF) lending if Ukraine’s parliament and leaders stop their inflationary and unaffordable budgetary and fiscal policies.

Continue reading "Ukraine's Post-Election To-Do List" »

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Writing in the New Republic, Matthew Kroenig offers one of the sharper takes I've read on the strategic implications of an Iranian bomb and why those implications mitigate against Chinese and Russian cooperation with the U.S.:

The United States’ global power-projection capability provides Washington with a significant strategic advantage: It can protect, or threaten, Iran and any other country on the planet. An Iranian nuclear weapon, however, would greatly reduce the latitude of its armed forces in the Middle East. If the United States planned a military operation in the region, for example, and a nuclear-armed Iran objected that the operation threatened its vital interests, any U.S. president would be forced to rethink his decision....

Some analysts argue that we shouldn’t worry about proliferation in Iran because nuclear deterrence will work, much like it worked during the Cold War. But from Washington’s point of view, this is precisely the problem; it is more often than not the United States that will be deterred. Although Washington might not have immediate plans to use force in the Middle East, it would like to keep the option open.

This is, in a nutshell, the threat from Iran. Few people seriously believe Iran is going to use a nuclear weapon, but it is very reasonable to think that the strategic fallout from an Iranian bomb would be less American freedom of action in the Middle East. But is that conventional wisdom correct? Consider Pakistan. They have nuclear weapons and we nonetheless threatened them after 9/11 and invaded a neighboring country to depose a government Pakistan was allied with. Russia and China have nuclear weapons, but that has not stopped the U.S. from moving into Central Asia.

A nuclear weapon is certainly invaluable for saving your own skin (see North Korea), but it's not worth much to other countries unless you're willing to explicitly extend them the benefits of your nuclear deterrent, like the U.S. has done with some of its allies. Looking at the Middle East, there aren't too many likely recipients for an Iranian nuclear umbrella (and developing the capabilities to credibly offer one is extremely expensive). So about the best a nuclear bomb would do for Iran is prevent U.S. military action directly against them. (And consider too that the first Gulf War against Iraq saw the U.S. attack a country with WMD.)

In other words, it's likely that the U.S. would still be able to project power in the Middle East with an Iranian bomb. In fact, a nuclear Iran would almost certainly see a sharp increase in American power in the region (as we have already seen) as the U.S. moves to contain Iran.

But this just underscores the difficulty in enticing China and Russia to help: we can't tell them that a nuclear Iran is a threat to them, because it isn't. We can't say that a nuclear Iran would prevent their freedom of movement in the Middle East, because that's not something we want either. We can't tell them a nuclear Iran increases the prospect for regional instability, because from Russia's perspective, anything that puts pressure on oil prices is a good thing. We can't threaten military force because from Russia and China's perspective, the more we're bogged down policing the Mideast, the less we're paying attention to them.

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Walter Russell Mead takes stock of the post-election landscape:

The eclipse of the US project (based on NATO expansion that is no longer realistic) and the EU project (based on expansion) leaves the Russian project of re-integrating the Soviet space looking better, and there is hope in Moscow and fear elsewhere that the Empire of the Czars is once more on the march. It’s more of a lurch than a march; even with its oil and gas wealth, Russia isn’t rich enough to build a new empire where the czars and the commissars ruled. Russia’s influence in Ukraine will surely grow now, more because of commercial relations and deals as because of geopolitical power. But even if EU membership is a long way away, Europe is a much more attractive market than Russia and Ukraine’s new government is not going to give up the hope that trade with Europe can promote Ukraine’s recovery and growth.

And, from a US standpoint, there is not much that Russia can do in Ukraine that seriously threatens American security or vital interests. A Russian military takeover of all or part of Ukraine (Crimea is the most likely target) would not threaten the balance of power in Europe and, by forcefully reminding countries like Poland how much they need that NATO umbrella, would probably drive Europe as a whole toward a closer relationship with the US. Despite its new feistiness under Putin, Russia remains a country in decline. It’s population is declining; it’s economy isn’t gaining ground; and its relative position compared to the Chinese superpower in the east is getting dramatically worse. In the next few years Russia is much more likely to be worried about growing Chinese influence in Central Asia and the continuing Islamic insurgencies in the Caucasus than it will be busy plotting the entrance of its tanks into Kiev.

I think Mead identifies the important point, which is that we need to distinguish between Russian actions that we disapprove of (exerting influence beyond her borders) and Russian actions which pose a real threat to the security or economic well being of the United States. One of the dangers with the pursuit of global (or even just Eurasian) hegemony is that it is impossible for many people to actually make such a distinction, with the end result being that anything that offends our sensibilities is a wrong we must address or suffer a devastating loss of face.

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Republic of Georgia continues to spend big money on lobbying for its interests in the United States. The Hill reported that the small Caucasus country has signed former House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) to lobby for her in Washington. Gephardt Group Government Affairs signed a one-year contract worth more than $430,000 to represent Georgia. Gephardt, the former Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, heads the group. The firm will “provide lobbying and government relations services to Georgia,” according to the contract filed with the Justice Department.

According to The Hill, "Gephardt’s ties to Democrats and the Obama administration could be helpful to the Georgian government, which wants U.S. support for its effort to join NATO and U.S. support against Russia. The two countries fought a short war in 2008." Georgia is also hedging its bets with both political parties, and in November 2009, the country’s national security council signed Orion Strategies to a three-month, $10,000 contract. Orion is run by Randy Scheunemann, a foreign policy adviser to Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) presidential campaign.

The question remains on the effectiveness of such lobbying by Georgia. American interests in the former Soviet Union walk the fine line between cordial and friendly relations with Russia and support for small, vulnerable states like Georgia - especially if they present geopolitical advantages in the form of pipeline routes or proximity to areas of intense interest to Washington (Middle East, Iran, Iraq, etc.).

For Georgia, which offers small-scale assistance to the U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, membership in NATO is a major policy goal as a way to break free of Russian influence. For its part, Russia considers such NATO expansion as a threat to the state and voices strong opposition to the expansion of the Western alliance that will include countries in Moscow's "traditional sphere of influence." Gephardt's group is not the first firm retained by Georgia since the 2008 war with Moscow - and it probably won't be the last if not enough progress is made on the NATO issue, for example.

Ultimately, such lobbying efforts boil down to a zero-sum game against Russia's interests - and while the United States has been able to maintain its influence in the Caucasus, it has also tried hard to keep its relationship with Moscow on the level. So the question is - which lobbying firm will get Georgia's contract next year? The field is wide open at this point.

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Russian political establishment continues to criticize NATO's current stance and views NATO's possible eastward movement with concern. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen believes that the new Military Doctrine of Russia, in which the expansion of NATO to the East is cited as a threat, does not reflect the reality, and "is a contradiction to our attempts at improving our relations."

However, Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of Russian Security Council, responded that while Russia was not going to attack anyone, it wasn't going to fully renounce nuclear weapons either. For his part, Dmitry Rogozin, Russian Permanent Representative to NATO said: "NATO says that in a true partnership, it takes two to tango. And here it turns out that while we offer to dance tango, we are offered to dance lambada."

Earlier this Saturday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking at the Munich security conference, presented his country's concept of the Treaty on European Security. At that time, Lavrov stressed that Russia still considers as unacceptable the expansion of NATO to the east.

Moscow does not understand "how the NATO base, located in the newly adopted countries - members of the alliance, could strengthen Russia's security. "How, for example, NATO forces in the Black Sea will enhance our security?" questioned Lavrov.

Secretary Patrushev, in commenting on the new doctrine on Saturday, stated that the military concepts laid out by the Russian government allow his country to defend itself by all available means - including nuclear weapons, which are a means to deter potential adversaries. "We do not intend to attack anyone! But if Russia's existence as a state is questioned under threat of an attack, then, of course, we have no choice. We will conduct a peaceful policy, but at the same time, we will defend our national interests and will defend ourselves by any means at our disposal."

Patrushev also hinted that Russia will not wait until a strike is launched against her. "In view of the weapons that are now available to some countries, we will not be able to respond with a retaliatory strike. So, naturally, we will work hard to get information about any plans against Russia, and, naturally, we will work to ensure that no strike is carried out against my country."

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On Jan. 29, Russia officially tested its fifth-generation fighter plane - T-50 PAK FA. The video of the flight shows that the aircraft bears a strong resemblance to the American F-22 stealth aircraft. Russian official sources stated that it would take additional 4 to 5 years to finally test the plane before it would be in service by the country's air force.

Alexander Golts of Russia's "Yezhedenvniy Zhurnal" offers a stinging critique of what appears to be Moscow's slow path towards high-tech air force parity with the United States.

Meanwhile, Russia does not seem to have any luck trying to get its domestically-produced UAV's off the ground - its new plane, dubbed "Aist" - Flying Crane - could not take off properly during its flight test and crashed. "Aist" was supposed to be the base model for the creation of "Julia-E" UAV that would have provided data and information to the "Iskander" missile complex. At this point, any further development of the military "Julia" UAV is postponed indefinitely.

The article nostalgically points out that "30 years ago, USSR was an undisputed global UAV leader, having produced almost 1,000 Tu-143 "Reis" UAVs between 1972 and 1989."

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On Feb. 5, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made public his country's new military doctrine, where NATO is listed as the chief adversary. The doctrine cites growing proximity of NATO military infrastructure to Russia's borders as a threat to the country.

Some of the threats cited in the doctrine include basing of international military contingents on the territory of certain countries, as well as the basing of the ballistic missile defenses, which Russia sees as undermining its nuclear parity with the West. Other threats listed in the doctrine include attempts at a coup d'etat, violation of the country's territorial integrity and threats posed by the information warfare. The new doctrine is envisioned through 2020.

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Robert Coalson at Radio Free Europe's Power Vertical blog takes a look at the arguments, pro and con.

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The wide world of weird nuclear politics raises its head again:

It is interesting that a system completely incapable of withstanding a concerted assault by Russia should be so important not only to Russia, but to states like Romania and Poland. In this case it is not because of the capabilities, but the symbolism of the system. Eastern European states view the missile system, and presumably the troops that comes with it, as a clear signal of U.S. commitment in the region. Based on the reaction from the Kremlin, the Russians apparently agree - and they do not like it.

For more videos on topics throughout the world, check out the Real Clear World video page.

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Politico's Ben Smith takes us inside the Bush administration during the Russia-Georgia war. We learn, not surprisingly, that they contemplated using military force to aid Georgia but wisely rejected it. Smith then brings up the debate over whether the Bush administration should have pushed harder to get Georgia into NATO. Georgia's NATO bid was ultimately back-burnered during a summit in Bucharest because of European reticence, but not after the U.S. signaled its strong support for Georgia. Smith reports:

The message out of the NATO meeting in Bucharest was "as good a deterrence message as voting them into” a formal path to membership, said Hadley. Vladimir “Putin was under no illusions about our commitment to Georgia and our commitment to Saakashvili. We’d been sending Putin a message about Georgia ever since Saakashvili was elected president."

Let's unpack this a bit. First, we know from Smith's report that the Bush administration, including its most hawkish hawks, decided that Georgia was not worth fighting a war over. Yet despite the fact that Washington had no interest in courting World War III over Georgia, it nonetheless pushed to admit the country into NATO which would have legally obligated the United States to go to war over Georgia if they were attacked.

Am I the only one confused by this?

Now implicit in Hadley's quote is the idea that the very act of being admitted into NATO would have stayed Russia's hand. It's obvious that Hadley was wrong in his statement above, there was no deterrence for Russia after Bucharest (and perhaps just the opposite). Instead, they attacked.

This not only demonstrates the lack of understanding regarding Russia's intentions, but a casual, indeed reckless, disregard for the seriousness of NATO. We know, contrary to Hadley's erroneous belief, that Russia was not deterred by Washington's high-minded expressions of support for Georgia. But what if Russia was not deterred even after Georgia had been granted a path to formal NATO membership? What if Russia decided to roll the dice even after Georgia was admitted into the alliance?

We would then be in the crazy position of either having to fight Russia over Georgia for the sake of NATO credibility, or stand down and watch a 60 year old alliance crumble over a single foolish decision. You don't enter into mutual defense treaties because you're just hoping it will all work itself out and that you'll never be called on it. You forge them out of strategic necessity.

And indeed, the Russian invasion laid bare the cynicism and sheer recklessness of even contemplating NATO membership for Georgia. It was a cynical gesture because it subverts the original intention of NATO - which was to provide common defense for Western Europe and to give the U.S. a strong role in Western European security affairs. It's clear neither consideration led the administration to strongly push for Georgia's inclusion in NATO, but nonetheless, they used Georgia's membership as a means to hem in Russia.

It's reckless because it's obvious no one believed Georgia was vital to the security interests of the United States or even the West, and yet there were people who wanted to put the alliance's credibility (and the lives of NATO members) on the line on a gamble that Russia would grudgingly swallow Georgia's entry into NATO just as it put up with earlier rounds of alliance expansion. But it's worse than that: Either the Bush administration did not seriously discuss Georgia and its value to the United States before they publicly proclaimed support for the country (convincing its leaders and its people that Washington had their back when we clearly didn't), or they just didn't think they'd ever be called to account for their rhetoric.

(AP Photo)

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Ukrainian voters go back to the polls this Sunday for a runoff election between Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych.

Andrew Wilson at the European Council on Foreign Affairs looks at the hurdles facing Tymoshenko:

Firstly and most urgently, she has not been able to win the public backing of any of the major candidates knocked out in round one. At the moment, she has about as many friends as the troubled English footballer, John Terry. Arseniy Yatsenyuk (who won 7%) is still bridling at the way Tymoshenko trampled on his corpse when his campaign faltered in the autumn, and is urging his supporters to vote ‘against all'. President Yushchenko's ongoing vendetta against Tymoshenko has not been interrupted by his miserable 5.5% in the first round. Yushchenko is still determined to make waves; by making Stepan Bandera, the most controversial figure of Ukrainian nationalism's controversial 1940s, a ‘Hero of Ukraine', and encouraging lose and delusional talk of prolonging his rule if the elections results in deadlock.

Meanwhile, Tymoshenko has been threatening another "Orange Revolution" if Yanukovych attempts to rig the vote. Unlike 2004, the Russia vs. the West storyline in the Ukraine vote is considerably more muddied, with both candidates professing a desire for warmer ties with Moscow. Which probably explains why so few people are paying attention.

(AP Photo)

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Via Blake Hounshell, an interesting tidbit has emerged from former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's forthcoming memoir:

Russia urged China to dump its Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds in 2008 in a bid to force a bailout of the largest U.S. mortgage-finance companies, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said.

China rejected the idea, but some are still calling it an alarming case of "economic warfare" considering the Russian gambit was reportedly hatched during (or just before) the war with Georgia. Daniel Drezner cautions about reading too much into it before all the facts are out.

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"On the Internet 50 percent is porn material. Why should we refer to the Internet?" (Source)

Click here for more Putinisms.

On a more serious note, the source of the quote noted above is from a speech Putin delivered on Friday regarding government reform in Russia. Radio Free Europe's Power Vertical blog dissects its implications.

(AP Photo)

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This article from December 2009, published in "Nezavisimoye Voeyynoe Obozreniye" offers a strong critique of the Russian space program. The author states that a successful public relations campaign by the Russian government and the Russian space agency hid the actual technological deficiencies of the domestic space industry. "For example, the funds currently spent on planning a new "Vostochniy" space port and launching facility could be better spent developing innovative technologies and for the speedy entry of "Angara" rocket into regular use ("Angara" was developed as an ecologically clean alternative to the existing "Proton" rocket.) All television coverage and articles pointing to Russia's leading role in the number of space launches hide the fact that our carrier rockets - Proton and Soyuz - are entering the fifth and sixth decade of use, respectively."

The article draws attention to China, which is emerging as a serious competitor to Moscow in space exploration and space technologies. "... Our international partners took our best technologies and reverse-engineered them. We, however, have remained on the same development level, where our partners no longer need us. Russia's new piloted space craft, slated to enter service in 2020, could essentially "lose out" to the Chinese "Shenzhou" craft, which, by that time, will be in use for about 17 years - while the Russian craft will have to prove its reliability and effectiveness from the very beginning. Moreover, if it actually puts its own orbital station in orbit, China will, by 2010-2011, achieve actual parity with Russia in the quality of piloted space travel."

These are indeed strong words - China's quick emergence as the third country able to put a human into space makes Russia very uncomfortable. Both as a matter of personal pride and driven by the need to achieve fiscal responsibility for its massive investments into space industry, Moscow views China's steady progress as a challenge to its own place as the planet's primary space power. With the possible weaponization of space already on the agenda following successful anti-satellite tests by Washington and Beijing, Russia may feel compelled to achieve a massive breakthrough, or risk sliding further back behind the other space powers.

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Russia has a new reason to feel insecure; at least it thinks so:

If there were ever a country that embodies the security dilemma as described by John Mearsheimer, it is Russia. Every increase in capabilities by near or not-so-near countries causes them to feel threatened. It is worth noting that the Patriot Missile system is primarily defensive, and Russian airspace is well out of range when deployed 100km from the border. Nevertheless, the tension in the U.S.-Russian relationship highlights the strange dynamic of nuclear politics where increases in defensive capabilities also increase first strike incentives.

For more videos on subjects from around the world, check out the RCW Video page.

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This ought to make things more interesting:

The chief of Russia's state nuclear corporation said on Thursday that the country would start up the reactor at Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant by the end of this year.

"2010 is the year of Bushehr," Rosatom chief Sergei Kiriyenko told reporters after a cabinet meeting in Moscow.

We may well see if an operational Iranian nuclear power plant is a red line for Israel.

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Pew Research's Juliana Menasce Horowitz sees positive signs in the attitudes of young people in post-Communist societies:

In every Eastern European country surveyed, the post-communist generation is much more supportive of the move away from a state-controlled economy than are those who lived as adults under communism. As is the case with opinions about the change to democracy, the generational divide is greatest in Russia; about six-in-ten (62%) Russians younger than age 40 say they approve of their country's change to capitalism, compared with just 40% of those in the older age group.

A double-digit gap also exists in Ukraine, Slovakia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Poland, and a smaller gap is evident in Lithuania and Hungary. In Ukraine, where the overall level of support for the change to a market economy is lower than in any other country surveyed (36% approve of the change), nearly half (47%) of those younger than age 40 say they approve of the economic changes their country has undergone; just 28% of those 40 or older share that view.

The entire study is worth a read. Of note, Ukraine, which just concluded a first round of presidential voting, has the lowest approval when it comes to a country's move to multi-party elections.

(AP Photo)

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The daily Nezavisimoye Voyenno Obozreniye - Independent Military Review - published a scathing assessment on the state of Russian Army preparedness in the strategically-important Far East.

The data is crucial for several reasons: 1. The Russian military establishment views "eastern direction" as a source of potential threat (read, China, but don't say it aloud, as is the current modus operandi in Moscow); 2. Russia just inaugurated a major oil pipeline to feed much-needed energy for China's ever-increasing demand. Defense of energy networks that now criss-cross Eastern Siberia and the Far East are key to Russian economic security; 3. the criticism of the Russian military preparedness are becoming more and more public across the Russian Federation.

"Last week the MOD Commission checked the status of combat training in the Far East. The preliminary results are disappointing. According to the First Deputy Defense Minister of the Russian Army General Nikolai Makarov, the combat training of troops in the Far Eastern Region (DVO) and the Pacific Fleet (TOF) is assessed as unsatisfactory. Meanwhile, Far East and the Pacific Fleet in combat power and the number of troops make up almost 40% of the capacity of the Russian Army and Navy. General Makarov said that the final conclusions on the audit readiness of troops in the region will be made by the end of January. However, he said that during this test, "the high demand placed on a new image of the troops and their leaders do not allow individual military units and commanders to deliver a positive evaluation."

Continue reading "Russia in the Far East" »

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Daniel Larison offers his thoughts on the Ukraine election:

Late last year, a survey of post-communist countries showed that Ukrainians were one of two nations with abysmally low levels of support for democratic government and capitalism. Given the dire financial straits in which Ukraine finds itself and the disastrously dysfunctional government they have had over the last five years, it is not surprising that Ukrainians have soured on both. The absurdly high and unrealistic expectations for internal reform and charting a “pro-Western” course following Yushchenko’s victory have been dashed, and Ukrainians appear to be experiencing the acute disillusionment with Western models that Russians experienced during the 1990s. There is not much reason to expect that the regional and personal antagonisms that have done so much to cripple effective government in Ukraine will go away, but the good news is that tensions with Moscow are likely to be reduced and any disputes over gas pipelines, Crimea or the Black Sea Fleet are less likely to escalate into a crisis.

Interestingly, we haven't heard much from the "we're all Georgians now" crowd about the Ukraine election. Maybe they're not paying attention, or maybe they haven't figured out how to blame Obama for the results.

See also: Katya Gorchinskaya at the Kyiv Post offers a more succinct take on the Feb. 7 runoff in Ukraine.

(AP Photos)

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According to the daily "Izvestia", India is planning to purchase 250 Russian fifth-generation fighters, PAK-FA. The Russian equivalent to the American F-22 will be designated by the Indians as "FGFA."

Russian "United Airspace Company" (OAK) and India's Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) are currently moving closer to the memorandum of understanding for the production of the aircraft for the two nations' air forces. In November 2007, both nations signed an agreement to jointly produce this jet fighter, but it took two years to resolve questions regarding intellectual property rights. The total cost of this deal is valued between $8 and $10 billion. Russia is expected to receive the new fighter in 2015, India will get it in 2017.

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By Vadim Nikitin

This week was the Russian Orthodox Christmas. Twenty years after Communism and somewhat at odds with the newfound Christian ardour of Russia’s elites, it’s not a big stand alone holiday, falling relatively quietly in the middle of the 10 day vacation starting with the big Soviet milestone of New Year’s.

Yet at the same time, Russians are also not celebrating the centeniary of Leo Tolstoy’s death partly because, according to Luke Harding in The Guardian, “the writer’s criticisms of Orthodox religion and authority make him a dangerous figure for those in power – both in Tsarist Russia and also today."

The question of what to celebrate and why exposes a crucial open sore: After a decade of Yeltsin and a decade of Putin, Russia is still struggling to find an identity.

Continue reading "What Is Russia?" »

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Andrew Sullivan writes:

The obvious aim, it seems to me, of the Revolutionary Guards is not to nuke al-Aqsa, but to use a nuclear capacity to immunize their terrorism in the region, to balance Israel's nuclear monopoly, to scare the crap out of the Saudis and Egyptians, and to shore up their control at home. I see this as an inevitable coming-of-age of Iran as a regional power, and although there is an obvious and acute danger that nuclearization could entrench some of the worst elements of the regime (and they don't get much worse than Ahmadinejad), the brutal truth is: we do not have the tools to stop it. One day, a nuclear Iran, if led by men and women legitimately elected by the people of Iran, could be our friend, not enemy - and a much more reliable and stable friend than the Sunni Arab autocracies we are currently shoring up. I believe, in short, that in my lifetime we will see a democratic Iran, led by the generation that took to the streets this year. And I believe vigilant containment is the only realistic way at this point to get there.

Why is it that no one talks extensively about human rights in North Korea, or China or Russia? Why does it make sense that Burma's military junta would pursue a nuclear weapons program?

The answer is rather simple: security. As Andrew points out, the likelihood of Iran actually using one of these weapons should they even attain the capability is slim. The problem is that the very possession of these weapons allows Iran into an unspoken club of hush, hush humanitarianism. Sure, we all know bad things go on in the aforementioned countries, but what can we actually do about it?

If Iran acquires a nuclear weapon the regional dynamic, as Sullivan concedes, would immediately change. In order to offset a regional arms race, the United States would essentially need to cover the entire Middle East in its so-called nuclear umbrella. Strategy would shift from engagement to containment. And this is the important point: when you seek to simply contain, you are accepting losses within already compromised boundaries. In this instance, that lost territory is the Islamic Republic of Iran.

I hope--and pray--to see a free and democratic Iran in my lifetime, just as Andrew does. But the chances of that happening should this awful and rotten regime get a nuclear weapon would be rather slim. If the casual observer thinks this government is oppressive now, just wait until it is intoxicated with the impunity of the nuclear womb.

Moreover, any hopes of resurrecting nuclear nonproliferation can get kissed goodbye. As I wrote earlier this month, what Obama is trying to do here is admirable--that being, restore some semblance of international order and process for dealing with rogue states that seek nuclear weapons. If the policy toward nuclear Iran is mere containment, then Iran has already won.

What then will be the strategy for the next nuclear aspirant? Containment? War? Something else? The fact that there's no viable answer to those questions is the problem, and it will only get worse if Tehran gets the bomb.

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Ray Takeyh writes:

The modest demands of establishment figures such as Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, including for the release of political prisoners and restoring popular trust (via measures such as respecting the rule of law and opening up the media), was dismissed by an arrogant regime confident of its power.

Disillusioned elites and protesters who had taken to the streets could have been unified, or their resentment assuaged, by a pledge by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for the next election to be free and fair, for government to become more inclusive or for limits to be imposed on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's prerogatives. Today, such concessions would be seen as a sign of weakness and would embolden the opposition. The regime no longer has a political path out of its predicament.

I believe Takeyh is mostly right here. The problem however is that the Green Movement has lacked a political option from the get-go--hence the demonstrations and the unrest. Both sides have the option of violence, but that's a leap I don't think the Green Movement is prepared to take. As Takeyh notes, the regime has been mostly reserved and cautious in how it has handled the demonstrations, leaving it in a kind of uncertain limbo: it won't fully crackdown, nor will it capitulate.

He goes on to say:

The Obama administration should take a cue from Ronald Reagan and persistently challenge the legitimacy of the theocratic state and highlight its human rights abuses. The notion that harsh language militates against a nuclear accord is false. At this juncture, the only reason Tehran may be receptive to an agreement on the nuclear issue is to mitigate international pressures while it deals with its internal insurrection. Even if the regime accommodates international concerns about its nuclear program, the United States must stand firm in its support for human rights and economic pressure against the Revolutionary Guards and other organs of repression.

Let's keep in mind that Tehran, to date, has balked at even the most modest of uranium transfer arrangements, all the while withstanding demonstrations and internal unrest. These are men who cut their teeth during the war with Iraq, while at the same time fighting violent insurgents at home. None of this is new to them.

And "standing firm" requires a key commodity: leverage. Reagan had the leverage to simultaneously talk and talk tough because he had a stockpile of nuclear weapons and missiles to back up that talk. Were Obama to follow Takeyh's advice, and premise nuclear negotiations on human rights violations in Iran, then he'd essentially be removing all options but one from the proverbial table: attack.

Russia and China will not back a negotiating strategy intended to support the Green Movement. Thus, the United States will be left--once again--unilaterally lecturing a regime, and with only one remaining option to make good on that lecturing.

So are we prepared in 2010 to take that leap? Do we toss multilateral pressure on the scrapheap and ready for another war? This is the inevitable path if we lose sight of how fragile the international coalition is on Iran.

UPDATE: It's also, I would add, important to take note of the folks who are embracing Takeyh's suggestion. Some are what I would call the usual suspects, and they dragged us into one war based on false pretenses and then attempted to re-package it as a humanitarian endeavor. We know where they fall on the attack or talk question, but where then do their unlikely bedfellows reside?

(AP Photo)

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Russian daily "Izvestia" reports that China recently successfully tested the naval version of its modern J-10 jet fighter. According to the paper, "... for the first time, China has confirmed not only its ability to create an aircraft carrier fleet, but also the ability to independently produce carrier-based fighters. This event can be regarded as a direct challenge to Russia and the U.S."

According to Russian sources, the aircraft took off and landed on the deck of the aircraft carrier "Shi Lang", named in honor of the Chinese general who conquered the island of Taiwan in 1683. In another life, "Shi Lang" was a Soviet aircraft carrier "Varyag," sold by Ukraine to Beijing in the late 1990s. "Varyag" has been anchored in the port of Dalian since 2002. All this time, Chinese scientists have been actively engaged in its repair and modernization. Beijing made no secret that it considers the Soviet aircraft carrier as a platform for working out its own technology for building an aircraft carrier fleet. The only problem for the implementation of these plans was the lack of aircraft capable of landing on the deck of the ship, as well as lack of experience in training naval aviation pilots.

Russian military and industrial leaders are concerned that China's successful development of indigenous military aircraft will diminish Russia's position on the arms market. "Izvestia" earlier reported that China offered Pakistan the licensed production of the FC-1 fighter, which Russia considers as the closest competitor to its MiG-29 military jet. In the near future, Beijing is planning the production of at least 2,000 of the latest fighter planes for its own air force and for export. Possible buyers may include Bangladesh, Lebanon, Iran, Malaysia, Morocco, Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Algeria - all countries that traditionally bought Russian military aircraft. In Malaysia, for example, the Chinese are even willing to service Russian Su-30MKM planes delivered over the past few years.

This year, according to Mikhail Dmitriev, head of the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technological Cooperation, Russia earned $8.5 billion from weapons sales - a significant portion of this amount came from the sale of combat aircraft. If China continues to move forward with its own aircraft development and export, "these earning could become one of our last successes on the arms market."

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According to the New York Times, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is pushing back on the U.S. to make concessions on missile defense as part of negotiations surrounding a successor to the START Treaty:

“If we don’t develop a missile defense system, a danger arises for us that with an umbrella protecting our partners from offensive weapons, they will feel completely safe,” Mr. Putin told journalists during a working visit to Vladivostok. “The balance will be disrupted and then they will do whatever they want, and aggressiveness will immediately arise both in real politics and economics.”

To restore that balance, he said, Russia must develop new offensive weapons to counter the missile shield. Another solution, he said, would be for the United States to provide Russia with data on its missile defense plans in exchange for data on Russian weapons development.

Robert Coalson speculates:

The rhetoric Moscow is using in recent days is also similar to what it deployed when Medvedev was pushing his draft treaty on European security – namely, the idea that it was necessary to radically overhaul existing agreements which Russia argues are outdated and even counterproductive. Medvedev’s proposal seems to be part of a broader Russian strategy of undermining the post-Cold War institutions that it sees as propping up the unipolar world.

It will be interesting to see if the nuclear-arms talks break down because Moscow insists on a “radical” proposal that is as much of a nonstarter as Medvedev’s draft treaty. It would also be interesting if Moscow would spell out what the problems are with START-1 and why a “radical and unprecedented” departure is needed.

The Times quotes Sergei A. Markov, a political scientist and deputy with the ruling United Russia party, on the subtext of the negotiations:

“It’s not just about the START agreement, but about the status of the Russian Federation – whether Russia is a great power or not,” he said. “We have heard a lot from Washington that Russian interests should be limited to Russia’s borders. That means Russia is not recognized as a great power. And that’s why this negotiation is so difficult – because no one knows what Russia’s status is.”

This is the basic tension in dealing with Russia. We do not want to grant legitimacy to their dealings in the region, particularly if that involves exercising a veto (real or perceived) over the sovereign decisions of neighboring states. Fair enough. But yet we insist that we can exercise similar power in the Middle East in the name of defending our interests.

Ultimately, I think at least some of the post Cold War deterioration in U.S.-Russian relations can be chalked up to the fact that the U.S. insisted on treating Russia like the loser it admittedly was after the six decade confrontation. Such was our prerogative, but as we learned with Germany after the second World War, sometimes its better to try to reintegrate the losing party rather than lock in advantages at their expense.

(AP Photos)

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After years of developments and years of speculation, we may actually see, for the first time, what the competitor to the American F-22 looks like. Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov said on Wednesday that "We are not making any New Year presents, but flight tests will start in the very near future."

According to the official RIA Novosti agency, the aircraft trials would begin in 2010. Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Popovkin has said the fighter, which has been under development since the 1990s, will enter service with the Air Force in 2015. Russia only has one fifth-generation project - Sukhoi's PAK FA and the current prototype is the T-50. It was designed to compete with the U.S. F-22 Raptor (so far the world's only fifth-generation fighter aircraft) and F-35 Lightning II, but has yet to take to the skies.

The T-50's maiden flight has been repeatedly postponed since early 2007 for unspecified reasons. However, in August 2009, Russian Air Force Chief Alexander Zelin said that there were problems with the engines and research was ongoing. The PAK FA is believed to possess advanced avionics, stealth capability, a ferry range of 4,000 to 5,500 km, and endurance of 3.3 hours. It is armed with next-generation air-to-air, air-to-surface, and air-to-ship missiles, and has two 30-mm cannons. There is a lot of speculation as to how this plane will look like - these are just a few examples.

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Natalya Rogozina - Russia's most successful female super-heavyweight boxer -defended her title on Saturday night against Pamela London (Guyana). Rogozina knocked London out in the eighth round, successfully defending the WIBF title. The fight was held in Ekaterinburg, Russia, on Rogozina's home turf, and she improved her record to 22-0, with 13 knockouts.

Besides her perfect record, Rogozina combines her looks and skills to create a potent combination in and out of the ring. A knockout puncher and a mother, Rogozina has legions of female fans in Russia and is steadily gaining recognition around the world.

She claims to have been inspired by American Laila Ali's success in the ring.

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This has not been a good month for Russia. First, a boondoggle missile project caused further embarrassment. Next, China swoops into Central Asia to secure a massive natural gas pipeline deal with Turkmenistan. But now, a victory of sorts:

The tiny Pacific island of Nauru today became the fourth country to recognize the Russian-backed rebel Georgian region of Abkhazia as independent, in defiance of the West.

Russia has been trying to secure international recognition for the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which most of the world regard as part of Georgia, since crushing a Georgian assault on South Ossetia in a five-day war last year.

Win some, lose some.

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There's been a lot of focus on U.S. foreign policy in Russia's "near abroad." Well, move over America:

With one flick of a switch today, Russia's long-standing dominance and near monopoly over Central Asian natural-gas exports officially came to an end.

The massive Turkmenistan-China pipeline, which will carry natural gas from eastern Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan into China's northwestern Xinjiang region, went on line today during an inauguration ceremony attended by regional leaders. It marks the first time in more than a decade that a pipeline has been constructed to pump gas out of the region, and the biggest-ever effort to export Central Asian gas without using Russian routes...

...Observers see RWE's activities as the first steps in securing Turkmen gas for Nabucco. And for Nabucco shareholders and supporters, the example of the new Turkmenistan-China going online demonstrates with certainty that it is possible to build a high-volume pipeline that avoids Russia.

The great game is on.

(AP Photos)

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You may have heard about a weird light show in Norway during Obama's visit. Well, it wasn't celestial acclaim, but a Russian missile test gone wrong. According to Alexander Khramchikhin (translated by Dmitry Gorenburg) the missile in question - the Bulava - is destroying the Russian Navy:

[The Bulava's] effectiveness has turned out to be simply amazing. The missile has not entered serial production, and never will, but it has already destroyed the Russian Navy. Almost all the money allocated to the Navy’s development have been spent on this mindless dead-end program.

Any person who can see the real situation well understands that in a few years the Russian Navy as a whole, as well as all four of its component fleets, will cease to exist. This is already absolutely inevitable — the situation will not be changed even by mass purchases of ships from abroad.

I'm not in a position to know if it's that dramatic (although it could be) but at a minimum, this should put the fears of a neo-imperial Russia into some perspective.

[via Sam Roggeveen at the Intepretator]

(AP Photos)

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Strobe Talbot thinks so:

Here’s what seems to have happened: the Russians assumed (correctly) that Obama would like to have a treaty to sign with President Medvedev before his trip to Oslo this Thursday to receive the prize. A concrete diplomatic accomplishment would have helped blunt the criticism that the award is premature and, in that sense, undeserved.

The Russians may have overplayed their hand, figuring (incorrectly) that Obama was so eager for a deal that he’d grant them last-minute concessions to get it before he goes to Oslo. That’s the most likely explanation for why their military toughened its stance on some unresolved issues involving verification and monitoring. The Pentagon—in part to demonstrate that it isn’t going to be pushed around—hardened its own stand. Obama himself was miffed at the Russian squeeze play.

It's like the Cold War all over again.

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New evidence surfaces about the victims of the tragic Dec. 5 night club fire in the Russian city of Perm that killed up to 113 people. According to the local Perm attorney involved with the case, the "law enforcement elite of the city - members of the prosecutor's office, judicial staffers, member of police and even FSB (domestic and international intelligence agency) are among the dead and gravely injured due to the fire at the 'Lame Horse' night club." According to this source, "one of the deceased is a member of the regional FSB office."

An investigation into the identities of the victims continues by the Russian authorities.

See our Russia page for the latest news and analysis from Russia.

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Newly appointed Chief of Staff of the Russian Land Forces, Lieutenant-General Sergey Skokov, recently made a statement that caused a major sensation across the Russian Federation. Speaking about possible conflicts that Russia may face in the future, he outlined three distinct scenarios: fighting in the "western, southern" and eastern" directions.

In the west, Russia may face an innovative, high-tech enemy with "contact-less" modes of fighting - read, the NATO alliance. In the south, Russia faces "irregular formations that conduct guerrilla-style warfare." And in the east, "it could be a millions-strong army that fights along traditional, conventional tactics, with high levels of concentration of manpower and firepower at specific directions."

General Skokov did not actually name China in his speech, but it is important to point out that there is no other army in the "east" that can field millions of soldiers, except China's People's Liberation Army. In this light, the general's statements are nothing short of extraordinary. They mark the first time since the 1980s that China is singled out as a potential - and real - adversary by Russia.

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(Updated 12/8)

In the aftermath of a terrorist attack against a Russian train, Prime Minister Putin told the press that Russia would "break the spine" of the terrorist threat. It was an evocative phrase, and one that got me thinking about other "Putinisms." We've had "Bushisms" - those malapropisms where the meaning gets wrestled to the ground by the tongue - but Putinisms are different. They're hyper-virile, strikingly crude or, ideally, both.

So I gathered the top five Putinisms. This list is by no means exhaustive, so readers are encouraged to submit their own or quibble with the ranking.

6. "Russia doesn't negotiate with terrorists. Russia destroys them." - Nov. 2005.

5. "If they're in the airport," Putin said, "we'll kill them there … and excuse me, but if we find them in the toilet, we'll exterminate them in their outhouses." - Sept. 1999.

4. Such “rumors,” Putin said, “they picked from a nose and smeared onto their papers.” - Feb. 2008.

3. “You must obey the law, always, not only when they grab you by your special place.” - Nov. 2003

2. “I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls." - August 2008. Hat tip: MTW.

1. “If you want to become an Islamic radical and have yourself circumcised, I invite you to come to Moscow. I would recommend that he who does the surgery does it so you’ll have nothing growing back, afterward.” - 2002.

(AP Photos)

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Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin isn't exactly rapping here, but it's pretty awesome just to see him at this show. ABC News put up a solid summary of Putin's intentions, though their article title could use a little work ("Putin goes gangsta at rap contest"). I could say more, but you really should just watch:

Only Mr. Putin can rock a turtleneck at a hip-hop concert.

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It's tempting to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall with a reprise of Pink Floyd's The Wall. But in reality, this is the more appropriate tune from the Floyd catalog:

Ship of fools indeed.

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As we near the 20th anniversary of the collapse of communism, Justin Logan flags this post from the Weekly Standard's John Noonan heralding the arrival of a new Warsaw Pact:

Recently I was chatting up an Army Lt Col -- a West Point grad who started off as an Armor Officer in Cold War Germany and later moved on to Russian linguistics and intelligence. I asked what would have happened if the U.S. was drawn into the Georgian war of '08. "Ten years ago we would have kicked the Russians' ass," he said. "Last year they would have bloodied our nose, but we still would've won. Ten years from now... who knows?"

I find this thought experiment more than a little hard to believe. First, despite the adolescent posturing from some quarters, the U.S. is almost certainly not going to fight a war with Russia over anything and especially Georgia. The still substantial nuclear arsenals on both sides ensures that.

Noonan continues:

No one wants to be drawn into conflict with the Russians. But it's useful to remember that time after time, we've extended our hand to Moscow only to have it slapped away. Putin clearly has grand aspirations for his burgeoning CSTO, with Poland shaping up to be the new Germany in another round of US-Russian geo-political chess.

If it's really true that "no one" wants to be drawn into a conflict with Russia than why are we openly musing about going to war with them over Georgia? What vital interests are at stake there?

(AP Photos)

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The Internet is abuzz with the news that actor Andy Garcia will play Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in a film based on last year's war with Russia. Filming began this month for an untitled drama by "Die Hard 2" director Renny Harlin on the five-day August war, when Saakashvili's assault on separatists in rebel South Ossetia drew a devastating Russian counter-strike. The plot revolves around an American reporter who gets caught in the crossfire as war engulfs the country, testing his impartiality as a journalist.

So the question that everyone is asking: "When do we see the scene where Garcia eats his own tie?" (In case some forgot, here is why)

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From the "world without nuclear weapons" file, Nathon Hodge reports that Russia is updating its nuclear doctrine to include an option to launch a first strike against a range of potential states - including non-nuclear ones:

In an interview published today in Izvestia, Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Kremlin’s security council, said the new doctrine offers “different options to allow the use of nuclear weapons, depending on a certain situation and intentions of a would-be enemy. In critical national security situations, one should also not exclude a preventive nuclear strike against the aggressor.”

What’s more, Patrushev said, Russia is revising the rules for the employment of nukes to repel conventionally armed attackers, “not only in large-scale, but also in a regional and even a local war.”

Nothing has been officially approved by the Russian President. And before the predictable hysteria sets in, the United States contemplated the preemptive use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear targets as well in 2005. Nevertheless, unsettling.

(AP Photos)

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Shortly after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev gave a speech urging Russia to diversify its economy away from oil and gas exports, the New York Times reports that Eastern and Central Europe are concerned about the geopolitical impact of Russia's Nord Stream gas pipeline:

Currently, Russian gas has to be piped through Eastern Europe to reach Western Europe. If Russia shuts off the gas to pressure a neighbor in the east, it is felt in the more powerful, wealthier countries to the west, where it touches off loud protests.

The new Nord Stream pipeline will change that equation. By traveling more than 750 miles underwater, from Vyborg, Russia, to Greifswald, Germany, bypassing the former Soviet and satellite states, it will give Russia a separate supply line to the west.

As a result, many security experts and Eastern European officials say, Russia will be more likely to play pipeline politics with its neighbors.

“Yesterday tanks, today oil,” said Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, a former head of Poland’s security service.

It would seem that to the extent Central and Eastern Europe can diversify their energy portfolio, now would be a good time.

(AP Photos)

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Shortly after Russia invaded Georgia, John McCain rushed before the cameras to declare that "we are all Georgians." Now, McCain's former campaign staffer Michael Goldfarb cites - wait for it - Osama bin Laden for an authoritative interpretation of America's response to that war.

Goldfarb writes:

But the fact that al Qaeda is mocking America's shameful indifference to the invasion of Georgia should not obscure the real problem with abandoning our allies in times of crisis -- that bin Laden's interpretation of events is sure to ring true to America's allies in Eastern Europe and the rest of Russia's near abroad. When America fails to stand by her allies, it is a signal of weakness and a lack of resolve.

Whether al Qaeda's take "rings true" with America's other allies in Eastern Europe will almost certainly depend on whether those allies are interested in starting a war with Russia. If they - like Georgia - are interested in attacking Russia over long-disputed separatists enclaves, then yes, they should not expect America to court a nuclear war with Russia over their land dispute.

While Goldfarb finds room in his post to compare Russia's attack with - you guessed it - Nazi aggression, he's curiously silent on this bit of relevant news:

An independent inquiry ordered by the European Union has concluded that Georgia violated international law and triggered last year's war with Russia by attacking the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

In a report released Wednesday that could redefine public views of the five-day war, the European mission also found that Russia's invasion of Georgia after the attack was illegal and unjustified and that Russian-backed Ossetian militias conducted ethnic cleansing of Georgian villages.

"There is no way to assign overall responsibility for the conflict to one side alone," the report concluded. "They all have failed, and it should be their responsibility to make good for it."

So again, American allies who provoke fights with Russia should not expect America to go to war on their behalf. Is that such an unreasonable standard?

(AP Photos)

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Democrat Dennis Kucinich and Republican Tom Price have formed a Congressional Russia Caucus. The formation coincided with the arrival of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to the United States. According to the official press release, Representative Kucinich stated that "the relationship between the United States and Russia has influenced the path of global development and the course of world politics. We announce the bipartisan Congressional Russia Caucus to help make sure that the relationship we share with Russia is equitable and friendly." Representative Price stated that “few matters in the international arena can be discussed today without giving due consideration to Russia’s influence in global affairs. By opening a dialogue and engaging in diplomatic fact-finding, we hope to advance a stronger understanding of Russian policy and how it affects the United States and its allies."

This official caucus will make further conversation about U.S.-Russia relations that much more interesting in DC, as it will have Members of Congress willing to speak up on issues of concern to both states. Stay tuned - this is about to get very, very interesting.

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Even before President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. would not be stationing its ballistic missile defenses in Europe, than the Russians announced that they will be developing the newest version of its famed S-300 anti-aircraft system. This time, the S-500 would serve as a true "ballistic missile defense system," according to Russian experts. According to Alexander Zelin, Russian Air Force Chief of Staff, "the work is ongoing, specialists and the scientific community are been utilized, so I think this system could see the light of day in the near future."

According to the daily paper "Vzglyad," it is probable that what Zelin was referring to as the S-500 complex is actually a well-known system under the provisional name "Monarch," which will be able to intercept ballistic missiles of intermediate range of up to 3,500 km (2,170 miles). Its interceptor missile will have a range of 370-400 km (some publications referred to an interceptor range of 1,300 km). An important feature of the complex is that it initially will be adapted to engage objects in the near-space. This will allow it to target not just ballistic missiles, but other objects of choice - such as satellites.

What does the Russian political establishment think of the upcoming G20 meeting between presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Obama? Eugenya Voiko, an expert on foreign policy at the Center of Political Expediency of Russia, thinks defense will be a central theme in the upcoming talks. "I think we need to build on the latest developments with ballistic missile defense in Europe. Russia's leaders will keep this factor in mind. Naturally, for Barack Obama, it is important to maintain a partnership in Eastern Europe, especially with Poland and the Czech Republic, as they are U.S. satellites in the EU. Therefore it is important for Russia to see how United States really intends to revise its missile defense program and what it means in relation to Iran." When it comes to Afghanistan, which Voiko thinks will be discussed, it is important for the two countries to maintain the partnership and work together. Another topic of discussion should be the global financial crisis. At a recent international conference in the Russian city of Yaroslavl, President Medvedev reiterated that the origin of this crisis was the United States. Voiko drew attention to the fact that "it's not that Russia's opinion isn't considered during the ongiong financial crisis - it's just that the opinion of China is considered much more."

For his part, Medvedev stated prior to his visit to the U.S. that while he considers American steps in removing missile defense system from Europe a "positive development, there will be no quid pro quos or compromises from the Russian side."

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Like the tide, it's quite easy to predict neoconservative reaction to any foreign policy decision short of regime change. Here is Seth Cropsey delivering a calm, measured analysis of President Obama's missile defense decision:

The Obama administration chose an historic month to appease the Russians by reneging on the U.S. proposal to place ballistic missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic. September 1st of 2009 was the 70th anniversary of the Nazis' unprovoked attack on Poland. In the middle of the same month the Red Army invaded Poland--70 years ago to the day. At the end of this month is the 71st anniversary of the Munich agreement in which England and France agreed to allow Hitler to annex large portions of western Czechoslovakia.

And he concludes:

This capitulation is all the more inexcusable because, unlike the situation that Chamberlain faced at Munich in 1938, Russia, unlike Nazi Germany, is still a relatively weak power. The Obama administration has as little to fear from Russia's military as it has to expect that Russian goodwill or self-interest will have a moderating effect on Iran's plans to become a nuclear power.

The future damage, however, to international perceptions of American resolve is incalculable.

Incalculable. I guess we'll have to check back in a few years (if the Internet still operates in the ashes of civilization). But really, what is the point of such rhetoric other than to desensitize the public to legitimate security crises? And even if this does rise to the level of a world-historical miscalculation on President Obama's part, do we really think it's as bad as World War II?

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There seems to be a nearly pathological resistance to the idea that the U.S. should engage in deal-making with Russia, whereby the U.S. would "trade off" an item of lower priority (missile defense) in exchange for Russian help on an issue of higher priority (Iran). While I suspect the Obama administration would vigorously contest the charge that that is just what happened, it's hard to get around at least the appearance that this is the gambit.

And I think it's on that level that we judge the move: if it wins greater cooperation from Russia on Iran, then it will be a success. If not, then not. Although it's worth emphasizing that the entire logic of an Eastern European defense against Iranian missiles is somewhat strained. If Iran somehow got it into its head that it wanted to blow up stuff in Europe, why fire a missile? Smuggling explosives on a truck would be a lot harder to trace while delivering the same destructive force. Firing a missile all but guarantees massive retaliation.

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One of the overlooked elements of all the criticism of President Obama's decision to scrap missile defense installations in Eastern Europe is where this criticism is coming from. As a brilliant pundit once observed:

In other words, America is not merely a global cop. We don’t simply enforce rules. We make them. In the neoconservative formulation, America is a global schoolmarm, hectoring and punishing the recalcitrant and belligerent nations of the world. Just as a school teacher would never deign to discuss the rules of the classroom with an unruly student, so too the U.S. cannot sit down with the leaders of rogue states. To do so, Senator McCain warned, would “legitimize” them. “You will sit down across the table from [Iran] and that will legitimize their illegal behavior,” McCain said.

The conflation of American security with hegemonic privilege, and the corresponding obsession with perception, has had an enormously corrosive effect on the traditional (indeed traditionally Republican) understanding of American interests. Rather than identify a discrete set of issues that require resolution, the over-riding interest of the United States becomes the preservation of its global authority - wherever it is contested. It becomes correspondingly harder to resolve issues that require the U.S. to accept a sub-optimal outcome because any trade-off is seen as lethal admission that America’s will is not so implacable.

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I suspect a lot of people are going to echo Mackenzie Eaglen in dismissing Secretary Gates' rationale for scraping missile defense - that it was based on an updated assessment of Iran's long range missile capabilities - as mere spin. That's fine. But this strikes me as a fairly odd reason to worry about the development:

The implications of President Obama’s decision to dump the deployment of U.S. missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic reach far beyond Warsaw and Prague. Rather, this is “a decision on which the future of the transatlantic security alliance itself rests. If the United States chooses to abandon its Central and Eastern European allies as well as its obligations to NATO, it will hand the European Union a blank check to pursue an autonomous defense identity, independent of NATO, and will reduce America's influence within the transatlantic alliance significantly.”

I think fears of an "autonomous European defense identity" speaks volumes about the grandiose conception of American security in some quarters - how dare Europe think it can make its own decisions! Do we really think that the only thing that has restrained an "autonomous" European defense posture is our pressure? Maybe it has. Or maybe it has more to do with Europe's unwillingness to devote a greater share of their budgets to defense spending and a general unwillingness by the continental players to hand over that much authority to the EU.

Either way, I think fears about this move destroying the Transatlantic alliance are overblown. If Europe's uneven contributions to Afghanistan haven't done so, this surely won't.

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The Obama administration's decision to not move forward with missile defense installations in Eastern Europe will no doubt raise a huge outcry. Much of this outcry is rooted in the basic premise that these defense installations were never about securing the U.S. but about entrenching our geopolitical influence in Eastern Europe. Those who are upset about this development are framing it not so much as a blow to U.S. security, but as a concession to Russia, which is unforgiveable. Those who will be heartened by the move will also, no doubt, be glad by the signal it sends to Russia that the U.S. is ready to wheel and deal (whether Russia will reciprocate is another story).

But what about the ostensible purpose of the missile shield - the defense of the United States and its allies? The New York Times reports that the administration is not killing regional missile defense but is examining other options, such as installations in Turkey and the Balkans.

(AP Photos)

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This Thursday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez officially recognized Georgian break-away regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. According to daily Izvestia, the meeting between Chavez and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev was more than cordial. "I am glad to welcome you back to Moscow, it's been a while since you were here. I have missed you here," said Russian President. The paper emphasized that both men are addressing each other as "ti"- or a more familiar form of "you." In other words, both presidents seemed more like long-time friends than official heads of state.

Chavez did not hesitate to mention that Russia has always been and still remains a superpower. He has also hinted that his recognition of the break-away regions will send an "impulse" to other countries of Latin America. For its part, Georgia did not hesitate to comment. Vice-Speaker of Georgian Parliament Gigi Tsereteli made a statement: "I believe that the whole international community - members of the UN, NATO and the EU - will give an adequate response to Venezuela, if it begins to make some steps in this direction," - he promised.

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Radio Free Europe has a nice interview with Scott Anderson, an American journalist whose investigative story on the 1999 apartment bombings in Russia was spiked by Conde Nast's lawyers from appearing in the Russian edition of GQ Magazine and from the magazine's website. The piece - "Vladimir Putin's Dark Rise to Power" - still appears in the print issue of the American edition of GQ.

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China’s Central Television will launch a Russian-language channel, the TV’s Vice-President Zhang Changming told reporters Thursday. He indicated that the main objective for the international channel in Russian will be to consolidate mutual understanding, cooperation and exchanges between the People’s Republic of China and the former Soviet republics making up the Commonwealth of Independent States. Following the establishment of strategic partnership relations between China and Russia, the tendency towards a full-format, steady and healthy development of this relationship has taken hold, Zhang said.

The Russian channel will lift off on the background of gala events dedicated to the Year of the Russian language in China and the 60th anniversary since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the People’s Republic and the former USSR. Russian will be the sixth international language, in which TV programs will be broadcast from Beijing. At this moment, the Central Television has international channels in Chinese, English, French, Spanish and Arabic. Future plans indicate the opening of a channel in Portuguese.

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Some interesting news from the "reset" front:

The Obama administration has developed possible alternative plans for a missile defense shield that could drop hotly disputed sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, a move that would please Russia and Germany but sour relations with American allies in Eastern Europe.

Administration officials said they hoped to complete their months-long review of the planned antimissile system as early as next month, possibly in time for President Obama to present ideas to President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia at a meeting in New York during the annual opening at the General Assembly of the United Nations.

But they cautioned that no decisions had been made and that all options were still under discussion, including retaining the Polish and Czech sites first selected by President George W. Bush. The Obama review team plans to present a menu of options rather than a single recommendation to a committee of senior national security officials in the coming weeks. Only after that would the matter go to cabinet-rank officials and the president.

Andrew Stuttaford thinks this is "sending the wrong message." I'm not sure how that could be, considering no actual decision has been made. As we have seen with the Georgia, the administration talks the conciliatory talk about improving relations with Russia, but then went ahead and agreed to train Georgian soldiers - a move that will definitely rile Moscow.

This "review" could just be a diplomatic feint or it could be a down payment on a substantive policy shift. We'll see.

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As reported in the Russian daily "Izvestia", this past Thursday, Nikolai Makarov, Chief of General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces confirmed that Moscow is buying a French amphibious assault and helicopter carrier ship "Mistral." With this statement, he made clear whether Russia will be dependent on other countries when it comes to defense and military technologies.

The purchase of helicopter carrier became one of the most promising projects of the Russian Ministry of Defense's drive to acquire the most modern weapons and military equipment. According to "Izvestia": "Russia's military has already bought German and Austrian sniper rifles for special forces units. Our tanks are using French "Thales" thermal imagers. The sky over our heads will be protected by the UAVs which fought on the Georgian side in the past year. The approach towards defense procurement is very simple - take only what best guarantees the safety of the soldiers on the battlefield and what can deliver victory in the end."

According to Russian experts, such a drastic move away from purchasing only domestically-produced equipment should not be surprising. According to Ruslan Puhov, director of the defense policy center: "By buying a ship like the "Mistral," Russia is simply trying to act like China, which strives to adopt the most advanced technologies in the world. Following this ship, there should be a contract to build three similar vessels at Russia's shipyards. There is nothing to be ashamed of here - United States bought the French technology for bunker-busting bombs. The only question that needs to be asked here is: why there was no tender for this purchase? Such ships are also built in Spain and Holland."

The carrier ship is not the only major purchase of foreign defense technology by Russia - recently, the Defense Ministry announced that it was buying eight sets of French Future Combat Systems for the individual soldier: body armor, computers, navigation and control equipment. This decision effectively ends the development of analogous Russian system called "Barmitsa." According to Puhov, "this means that Russia's Defense Ministry does not care about the costs so long as it can show progress in the military modernization drive. Purchasing "Mistral" carrier effectively closes all other Russian naval shipbuilding programs."

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Russia is set to release a revision of its military doctrine in September 2009. The new doctrine will have two parts: open (describing various military-political aspects) and closed (outlining the possibility of using the army and navy, including the use of nuclear weapons as an instrument of strategic deterrence). According to General Anatoly Nogovytsin, Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and head of the working group developing the new doctrine, "the new version, developed with guidance from the Security Council, will differ from the existing one. We are carefully monitoring the governing documents of other countries, such as the position of the United States and NATO in military matters, that also have a 'closed' section in their doctrines. But that does not mean that Russia is trying to escalate tensions or consider Washington and NATO as the main threat."

As for the current threats to Russia and the need to revise the doctrine, and judging by recent statements made by the Russian military, the sources of concern for Moscow are missile defense in Eastern Europe and local military conflict near its territory. Russian Air Force Commander Alexander Zelin says that in 20 years (or approximately in 2030), United States and several other foreign countries will be able to strike anywhere throughout Russia with the use of air-space vehicles and weapons built on new physical principles. Consequently, Russia has to respond to such developments.

One possibility for technological deterrence and homeland defense is the establishment of the new generation of the anti-aircraft missile system - S-500 - which will be a further development of existing S-400 Triumph fielded in the country. This system can solve problems of air and space defense, such as destroying ballistic hypersonic targets flying at the speed of 5 kilometers per second. The closed portion of the doctrine will perhaps be describing such developments.

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Photo Courtesy Lenta.ru

If the American military establishment is still thinking if its manned aircraft systems will have to compete with anyone many decades from now, they should rest assured - Russia is not far behind in trying to field its newest fifth-generation jet fighter. "Sukhoi" Aircat Company has begun testing a second working prototype of the plane dubbed PAK FA - Perspective Aviation Complex of the Battlefield Aviation.

The aircraft - which looks similar to both American F-22 and F-35 planes - has been moved to Moscow for further evaluation. Russia begun developing the plane in late 2007. And just like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that will be built and fielded by a number of international partners, Russia is in talks with India and Brazil to possibly produce the aircraft for service with these countries. For the record, Russian aircraft manufacturers already consider F-35 Lighting a serious competition, "given a limited volume of sales that can be generated from exporting military aircraft around the world."

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For anyone viewing the deepening American military commitment to Afghanistan with worry, today brought excellent news: Georgia will be joining the fight.

Well, 750 Georgian soldiers will be joining the fight. In the Spring, maybe. After we train them. And equip them. And transport them to Afghanistan and feed them and provide them with weapons.

And all it will cost the United States, aside from the out-of-pocket expenses detailed above, is a further deterioration in our already frayed relationship with Russia. Win-win!

(AP Photos)

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Oh yeah, you read it right. Georgian break-away province of South Ossetia, recognized by Russia and Nicaragua as a sovereign state - and by no one else in the world - has hired an American public relations firm to "tell its side of the story" in the struggle against the Republic of Georgia.

In June, South Ossetia and Abkhazia hired San Fransico-based Saylor Company to do public relations in the US . Saylor Company will be engaged in image making of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in the West, Reuters reports, referring to Director of Saylor Company, Mark Saylor — former Chief Editor of the Los Angeles Times, and South Ossetia’s ombudsman David Sanakoyev.

According to Abkhazian and Ossetian officials, public relations experts will try to raise patterns of perception on both republics after August war. Contracts with PR agency were signed in June 2009. Abkhazia and South Ossetia will pay PR experts $165-550/hour (conflict zone is 50% as much). At that, Saylor Company will get no more than $30,000 a month.

Here is a real issue - will Saylor Company be brave enough to face Members of Congress, who regard Russia as more culpable in last year's August conflict? After all, Georgia itself spent hundreds of thousands of dollars so far to lobby its interests with the U.S. government. And if anyone will make any decisions about the perceptions of this conflict, it will have to face 535 elected officials in Congress and their counterparts at the State Department. So, will there be a knock on a Congressional door by the reps from South Ossetia? That remains to be seen.

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(AP Photos)

Relations between Russia and Ukraine look to be hitting a low ebb, as this statement from Russian President Medvedev makes clear. Full text below:

Continue reading "Medvedev Takes Shot at Ukraine" »

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This weekend marks the one year anniversary of the war between Georgia and Russia. With the post-conflict assessments varying differently in the West and Russia itself, both combating sides are reviewing the war and blaming each other for triggering the hostilities and its aftermath. Gleb Pavlobsky, one of Russia's leading policy analysts, told in an interview to the Internet publication Russia.ru that the events of August 8, 2008 war caused Russia to enter world politics as an independent player "for the first time in history." In his view, the country will need to re-learn how to behave professionally in this great game, especially in the context of the likely continuation of the Russian-Georgian conflict.

"Luck in war is elusive, no military victory is truly final, with the only exception of full unconditional surrender by Germany in WWII. This is now impossible to achieve in the modern world," said Pavlovsky.

The key point, according to political scientist, was "Saakashvili's monstrous stupidity": "If Saakashvili did not behave so stupidly in shelling Russian barracks with gunfire, killing Russian peacekeepers, the tensions may have continued further, 'till something more terrible may have taken place." Pavlovsky is sure that all subsequent events were a response to his country's military aggression by Georgia.

Continue reading "Russia Remembers Georgia War" »

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Elinor Mills reports that the massive denial of service attack that felled Twitter yesterday was aimed at one man who goes by the name of Cyxymu - for a town in Georgia. Apparently Cyxymu was a critic of the Russian government.

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A recurring theme in U.S.-Russian relations for nearly two decades now is that America does not recognize a Russian "sphere of influence" over the countries on its borders. But the Obama administration has seemingly reformulated this position into a more sweeping one: that we reject the very idea that other nations can seek to influence events beyond their borders. Vice President Biden said as much in Georgia, as did Secretary Clinton. During recent testimony to the Senate, the State Department's Philip Gordon said bluntly "We reject the concept of a sphere of influence."

Of course, the administration does not reject the "concept" of spheres of influence. It objects to other nations having a sphere of influence. The U.S. loves having influence over other countries - in the Middle East, in Asia, in Latin America. And there's nothing wrong with that! To the extent that countries have security and commercial interests in other countries, they are going to want to influence those nations. Nothing about this is nefarious. One of the enduring successes of America's Cold War strategy was that we kept key regions of the world (Europe and Asia) under our influence and not the Soviets.

But now that there's no ideology at stake, the situation is murkier.

What the Obama administration wants to say is that Russia's influence on its immediate neighbors is detrimental to U.S. commercial and security interests. But rather than say this outright, and then go about defending the various interests at stake and why we need to lock horns with Russia over them, they retreat to self-righteous platitudes about how they're trying to transcend "19th century" politics. I guess some people fall for this kind of talk, but it doesn't really bring clarity to the issues at stake.

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Vice President Biden, speaking in Ukraine. Photo credit: AP Photos

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Oh yes, you read it right. An African-born farmer is making an improbable run for office in Russia, inspired by President Barack Obama and undaunted by racial attitudes that have changed little in decades.

Joaquim Crima, a 37-year-old native of Guinea Bissau who settled in southern Russia after earning a degree at a local university, is promising to battle corruption and bring development to his district on the Volga River. In Russia, a black man running for office is so unusual that Crima is being called "the Russian Obama."

"I like Obama as a person and as a politician because he proved to the world what everyone thought was impossible. I think I can learn some things from him," Crima said, sitting on his shady veranda in this town of 11,000, where he lives with his wife Anait, their 10-year-old son and an extended clan of ethnic Armenian relatives. Read more in this AP story.

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James Downie's Kremlin sources have given us an invaluable look at Vladimir Putin's awesome powers.

UPDATE: The Times now heralds Putin as a "gay icon."

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The New York Times reports that Russia sent two nuclear-powered submarines to patrol along the East Coast of the United States in "a rare mission that has raised concerns inside the Pentagon and intelligence agencies about a more assertive stance by the Russian military."

Could this be a little muscle flexing by Russia as a down payment on renewed hostilities with Georgia?

Either way, this should serve as a good reminder that it is jarring when a not-quite-friendly nation brings military power right up to your borders. Food for thought.

Update: Daniel Larison offers his thoughts on commentary suggesting that Russia is acting aggressively:

Russia does not have an “aggressive stance toward the U.S.” I’m not sure what one can call this except delusional. Our government arms and trains the military of a neighboring state, which then uses its army to escalate a war with Russia and kill Russian soldiers, and it is Russia that has an “aggressive stance.” Our government bombards a nominal Russian ally for 78 days without just cause, but it is Russia that is the aggressive one. We try to bring every former satellite and province into our anti-Russian military alliance, and it is Russia that is the aggressor. When Russia has the gall to protest against these provocations and aggressive moves, or even dares to retaliate against attacks on its soldiers and the populations under their protection, it is Russia that must be acting aggressively.

See also: Benjamin Carlson.

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Photo credit: AP Photos

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Via Nikolas Gvosdev, this analysis from Brian Whitmore on the Obama administration's Russian policy is interesting:

Biden's remarks, seen in their proper context, seem to be a continuation of the message Obama sent before his departure for Moscow. In each case, the administration was appealing to the relatively progressive part of the Moscow elite (and in the Russian elite, progressive is always a very relative term) and sending a warning to the more retrograde elements.

Moreover, Biden was characteristically blunt in his remarks about Russia during his entire visit Ukraine and Georgia last week. He reiterated U.S. support for both country's NATO bids, said Washington would never recognize breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, and called on Russia to honor last August's ceasefire agreement and withdraw its forces from Georgian territory.

But Reset 2.0 goes beyond mere rhetoric.

Senior Georgian officials have told RFE/RL that behind the scenes in Moscow, Obama warned Medvedev and Putin in no uncertain terms against starting a new war with Georgia.

The officials said Tbilisi was informed by U.S. officials that Obama told Russia's leaders that any attack against Georgia would have "grave consequences" and that Washington "would not stand aside" in such a conflict as it did during last year's war.

A White House spokesperson declined comment on the claim (but did not deny it), saying only "we don't discuss private conversations."

One wonders what "not standing aside" really means in practice.

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Photo credit: AP Photos

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Vice President Biden’s recent statement about US-Russia relations struck a raw nerve in Russia. It's one thing to discuss Russia’s internal situation behind closed doors – it’s a whole different matter when such a high profile American political figure throws such facts in your face. And even if a country faces internal difficulties that may threaten its long-term future, being “poked in the eye,” so to speak, by Biden’s statement was far from pleasant. Russian political establishment responded right away, but the country’s cultural elite was not far behind.

Kirill Benediktov is a popular and best-selling author, historian and policy analyst who concentrates on writing about Russia's harsh reality and its uncertain future. His books topped Russia’s best-selling lists, and were being made into popular TV series. As a man who constantly checks the cultural pulse of his country, Biden’s Wall Street Journal description of Russia’s future merited a response. Benediktov focused on Biden's statement that "... they have a shrinking population base, they have a withering economy, they have a banking sector and structure that is not likely to be able to withstand the next 15 years, they're in a situation where the world is changing before them and they're clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable." Benediktov wonders: “But why bury the Russian economy? Perhaps Biden has other sources of information, some insider sources? Otherwise, why would he so confidently predict the death of the Russian banking system? Russia, it must be recalled, is one of the largest U.S. lenders, as Biden certainly knows that very well.”

The following is a direct translation of his op-ed in the daily “Vzglyad” paper:

Continue reading "Russia to Biden: Thanks, Joe, We'll Be Fine" »

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Responding to my piece on VP Biden's rhetorical bombshell on Russia, Daniel Larison wonders why we are even worried about a Russian sphere of influence in the first place:

If the tables were turned, it would be as if the U.S. were forbidden from wielding influence over the Caribbean and Central America while the Russians insisted that Cuba and Mexico be permitted to join a military alliance organized to defend against American imperialism. Then imagine that Russia and its allies around the world portrayed the routine exercise of regional power that most Americans take for granted as insidious aggression and sought to penalize America for doing what Russia does as a matter of course in its neighborhood. There would be a much less hazardous diplomatic minefield if we did not insist on having our maximal demands for projecting our power and influence met as the sine qua non of any relationship and simultaneously portray another great power’s natural exercise of regional hegemony as something perfidious and evil.

It seems lost on much of contemporary Washington that the original worry about Russia's "sphere of influence" circa 1946 was that it was on behalf of an ideology that envisioned further territorial conquests. Today, whatever else can be said of Russia, they're not bent on global conquest.

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Photo credit: AP Photos

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But will the Russians say "nyet?" Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon told U.S. lawmakers Tuesday during the House International Relations Committee hearing that the United States would consider Russian membership in the very institution that has given Russia so much headache over the past 18 years. Gordon added that "if Russia meets the criteria and can contribute to common security, and there is a consensus in the alliance, it shouldn't be excluded."

It's an interesting turn of events, one that is surely to be debated for a while in the halls of power here in D.C. What are the circumstances that can create such a move by Russia - after all, NATO was created to counter a threat, in this case, Soviet Russia itself. One scenario for such a drastic eastward expansion by NATO was once outlined by Tom Clancy in his political thriller "The Bear and The Dragon." In that novel, Russia is admitted to NATO in order to repel Chinese invasion of oil-rich Siberia. If the Americans and Russians are indeed serious about expanding NATO, let's hope it would be done under more peaceful circumstances. But is this idea fully viable, considering how some countries- such as Georgia and Ukraine - are eager to join the military alliance precisely to keep Russia off their back? We shall see.

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This week, US government officials are reporting to the US Congress on starting a new "era" in US-Russia relations. Yesterday, on July 28, House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing titled " The Reset Button Has Been Pushed: Kicking off a New Era in US-Russia Relations." The opening statement by Congressman Robert Wexler, who chairs the Subcommittee on Europe, is available, while the full transcript of the hearing should up on the Committee website in a few weeks.

On Thursday, July 30, House Armed Services Committee will hold its own hearing on the US security relationship with Russia and its impact on the transatlantic security structure. More details to follow.

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The Hudson Institute's Herbert London isn't happy with the Obama administration's approach to foreign policy:

But there is an underlying philosophical view that has become alarmingly apparent: preemptive declinism, a belief that the United States is not an exceptional nation and is not entitled by virtue of history to play a role on the world stage different from other nations. As Obama sees it, American is merely one of many.

That America is the balance wheel in an unstable world, creating equilibrium out of chaos, is an anachronistic position for this administration. It would seem that it is more desirable to envision a political vacuum or other world powers emerging than assert American influence.

Therefore the Obama administration acts as if it had less leverage in international affairs than it actually has. It appears timorous and fearful sending a signal, willy nilly, that the United States cannot be depended on.

I don't really agree with most of this but I do agree with the final sentence - and that is the perception of American reliability. One of the problems with America's promiscuous use of security guarantees and promises of support is that those on the receiving end of those promises are going to take you at your word. This was the unfortunate fate of Georgia in August 2008 when, after hearing the Bush administration loudly insist that they should be in NATO and are a vital interest of Washington, we did nothing when Russia invaded.

At that moment, Russia effectively called Washington on its rhetoric. But now we're in a position where we've already put our prestige on the line. We'll either have to back down and prove, as London says, an unreliable ally. Or we'll have to continue with the absurd fiction that the security of Georgia is so vital to the United States that it's worth alienating Russia over.

And I think the mixed messages coming from the Obama administration - with Biden poking Russia in the eye and Obama taking a more conciliatory tone - are reflective of the fact that it's not sure how to handle this situation.

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Photo credit: AP Photos

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Reading Vice President Biden's interview excerpts in the WSJ I think it's safe to conclude that whatever platitudes the administration may mouth concerning U.S.-Russian relations, the atmosphere of mutual distrust and antagonism is going to endure.

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Russia is on course to lower the official age of political participation to 18 - according to President Medvedev. At the meeting of the State Council on Youth Issues, Dmitry Medvedev proposed to reduce the minimum age for election to local government posts to 18 years and urged the governors to appoint those wishing to serve the state without waiting "until they reach retirement age." Russian Duma Deputy Svetlana Horkina got the special attention of President on that issue.

The President discussed civic engagement of young people. According to Medvedev, it is necessary to actively involve youth in political and public life, especially since 27% of the population is between 14 and 30 years of age. Medvedev called for the establishment of a uniform age for election to local government: "I propose to establish in all regions of the Russian Federation a single age for election to representative bodies of municipal government. I think that any citizen who has attained the age of 18 should have the right, should be allowed to be elected in this municipal body."

He recalled that, at present, the minimum age for such election is 19-20 years."This, to some extent, restricts the rights of young people. A person can move about the country alone or with parents. And it is understandable that under these circumstances it is desirable that the rules relating to the possibility to be elected to representative bodies of municipal formations should be standardized... This does not only relate for public office, but also concerns community-based organizations and business structures - we need to select the most prepared and well-educated young people to ensure that they get job placements."

In this regard, he drew the attention of the State Council to the participants invited to the meeting of the State Duma, including a 30-year old former Olympic athlete and champion, and now Member of Duma (United Russia party) Svetlana Horkina. (Clicking on the left side of Horkina's website takes you to her "social life." Clicking on the right side of the screen takes you to her official Russian Parliament page.) With a charming smile, Medvedev noted: "The meeting has traditionally official, attended by respectable-looking people, and many are probably surprised to see that we have in attendance two fascinating women. I am referring to Marina Zademidkova and Svetlana Horkina. You two are a natural fit here, may I appoint you to the post of governor?" Of course, the efficiency of such a young and attractive governor can be questioned, but if she could be appointed by Medvedev himself, surely her assets then are credible enough?

This past Thursday, the nuclear strategic missile cruiser "Dmitry Donskoy" again was unable to launch a new "Bulava" intercontinental ballistic missile. According to official recording, the missile self-destructed on in the 21st second of flight. Out of a total of eleven "Bulava" test launches - considered to be the most promising Russian ICBM - only two were found to be partially successful. This time, however, Russian authorities are taking a page out of a political thriller, calling this particular rocket failure an act of possible sabotage. Russian secret services are officially joining the investigation, according to RIA Novosti news agency. According to a source in one of the special agencies, the missile could fail due to a defective part, "because of the lack of effective control over the quality of either the manufacturer or with the direct assembly of missiles. In this case, given the state importance of adopting a new missile for maritime strategic nuclear forces of Russia, both possible factors could be regarded as acts of sabotage."

The source also noted that the reason for allowing the defective part into the production of missiles could be criminal negligence, and could also be considered as sabotage. Meanwhile Interfax news agency, citing sources in the Military-Industrial Commission, reports that a possible cause of the failed launch of Bulava "was a an internal fire inside the rocket itself. Because of this, the rocket's flight path has changed, prompting an on-board computer to issue a self-destruct command." The source also noted that due the failed missile launches, there could be changes made at the management level of the "Bulava" missile program. Intercontinental sea-based ballistic missile R30 3M30 "Bulava-30" was developed by the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering (MME) under the leadership of chief designer Yuri Solomonov. "Bulava" was to equip the next generation of strategic nuclear submarines "Yury Dolgoruky," "Alexander Nevsky" and "Vladimir Monomakh," currently being built and tested in Severodvinsk Yard.

In a step to further antagonize relations between Russia and its Baltic neighbors, former Estonian anti-Soviet guerrilla fighters - and German sympathizers during WWII - calling themselves "the former forest brothers and fighters for freedom of Estonia" appealed to the city of Tartu Town Hall to change the inscription on the monument to Soviet soldiers who died during Second World War. The monument in question has an inscription: "The Great Patriotic War. The City of Tartu is forever grateful to its defenders and liberators, the sons of all the peoples of the USSR." Authors of the appeal offered to change the inscription - in their view, the monument should say "The victims of Soviet occupation, rest in peace." Otherwise, the monument should be moved elsewhere.

However, the city administration did not support this proposal. Mayor of Tartu Urmas Kruuze opposed "starting a crusade against the monument, and thus creating tension in society." Estonia's Chief Inspector of the Department of the Protection of Monuments Myaesalu Alam said that the monument in the Raadi Park has artistic value, so "as an exhibit, it should remain in its present form." Over the past few years, many Soviet monuments in Estonia were vandalized. In some cases, nationalist appeals against these monuments were supported by local authorities. The worse case of this kind was the transfer of the monument to the fallen WWII Soviet soldiers and their graves from downtown Tallinn. The decision of the authorities to dismantle the monument and start early excavations at the site of the burial sparked riots in Estonia's capital.

Taking the page from their Japanese and South Korean counterparts, members of the Ukrainian Parliament started a big fight at the last day of their session. First, two members of the Regions Party wanted to prevent the Parliament Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn from leaving his office. The Speaker had to be escorted to the main hall by two security guards, especially trained for this sort of emergency. Then the fight moved into the conference room. The deputies belonging to the Regions Party tried to block Speaker's Podium, but Litvin entered not through the door - which was already barricaded with chairs - but through a secret entrance. As Litvin opened the meeting, he was immediately surrounded by representatives of the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko, since the "Regionals" wanted to pull him down from his official chair. Failing to physically remove the Speaker, the Party of Regions then occupied parliament seats, preventing other MPs from speaking. The "Regionals" repeatedly disabled Speaker's microphone and damaged electronic voting system. No one was clear as to the cause of the fight, which ended as suddenly as it has begun. Ahhh, democracy in action....

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This is one of those zen moments when you say to yourself - I wish I had invested in this venture back in the day ... Add a bit of globalization, and you have a powerful mix - Russian money invested in what is arguably one of the flagship industries of the Western world. Russia's Digital Sky Technologies said it will pay $14.77 a share for Facebook common stock, boosting its stake to as much as 3.5 percent and valuing the world's largest online social network at about $6.5 billion.

More from Yahoo Tech news: While that is below the $10 billion valuation set by Digital Sky's May investment in Facebook, which was for preferred shares, investors have been valuing the social network's common stock at less than $5 billion in secondary markets in recent weeks.

Digital Sky, a Russian investment firm, bought $200 million worth of preferred shares in Facebook in May and said it would buy another $100 million worth of common shares from Facebook employees and ex-employees.

A source familiar with the matter told Reuters that Digital Sky will pay $14.77 per common share. A representative for Digital Sky confirmed the terms, and said the tender offer begins on Monday and runs through August.

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Liz Cheney takes to the Wall Street Journal to denounce President Obama's speech in Moscow:

The basis of the Cold War was not "competition in astrophysics and athletics." It was a global battle between tyranny and freedom. The Soviet "sphere of influence" was delineated by walls and barbed wire and tanks and secret police to prevent people from escaping. America was an unmatched force for good in the world during the Cold War. The Soviets were not. The Cold War ended not because the Soviets decided it should but because they were no match for the forces of freedom and the commitment of free nations to defend liberty and defeat Communism.

It is irresponsible for an American president to go to Moscow and tell a room full of young Russians less than the truth about how the Cold War ended.

I agree that President Obama gave a highly sanitized version of the Cold War. But if Liz Cheney were President, would she stand before a lecture hall full of young Russians and tell them that their country was engaged in brutal repression at home and abroad and that they should be deeply ashamed of themselves and that they should forever go forth into the world carrying the heavy moral baggage of their Communist history?

And what would such a speech accomplish, other than alienating these young Russians?

I'm very doubtful that the president's solicitousness is going to truly transform America's relationship with the rest of the world or meaningfully advance international cooperation on the thorny issues like Iran and North Korea. But the conservative criticism of this approach is unmoored from any serious suggestion of an alternative. Other than giving us a momentary frisson of self-righteousness, what would denouncing Russia in Russia in front of young, impressionable Russians, actually accomplish?

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Russian political establishment is musing over what has and has not been accomplished at past week's summit. Colonel-General (Ret.) Leonid Ivashov, Vice-President of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, spoke to daily "Vglyad," insisting that interpretations of what the parties called "breakthroughs" and "steps to compromise" will vary greatly for the Americans and Russians.

Ivashov stated that the signing of a Framework Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms agreement "... was better than we expected. We feared that in the framework agreement each side would be allowed only 1,000 warheads, which would not be beneficial for us. The accepted bilateral communiqué demonstrates that a compromise was found between the administration of the Russian President, government and military community, with all sides is realizing that we must not achieve rock-bottom in numbers of armaments when it comes to these agreements."

On the allowed transit of American military transports bound for Afghanistan, Ivashov stated that: "... for us, this agreement is the continuation of previously chosen policy. After the tragedy of September 11, and under the emotional perception of attacks on the Twin Towers, we succumbed to the temptation to help America and accepted the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. And today, we are still tied to this commitment. As for how we will be affected as the country of transit of American goods, depends only on us - or under what conditions we will sign this agreement. In addition, this kind of an agreement must be followed by reciprocal steps. We provide the transit - so, Americans should limit the number of drugs that are entering Russia and CIS from northern Afghanistan, and to ensure that Taliban would not appear on the borders of our allies. Americans should also think about revising their attitudes towards Georgia. If we would be able to reach a number of such compromises, then for us, this Afghan transit issue will be very beneficial."

Asked whether Moscow shows solidarity to Washington on Pyongyang's and Tehran's nuclear programs by promising efforts to fight against nuclear proliferation and suppressing the activity of "nuclear" terrorists, Ivashov answered: "Thus-stated official language is an error of our foreign policy line -or maybe this is where we chose to compromise. The fact remains: neither Iran's nor North Korea's nuclear program is a threat to us. In both cases, these are bilateral conflicts. Iran conflicts with Israel, which has a capable nuclear capability. And North Korea is not satisfied with the presence of American nuclear weapons in South Korea. Its not worth it for us to intervene in these conflicts - they pose no threats to Russia. Moreover, both problems can be solved quite simply. Americans need to withdraw their tactical nuclear weapons from South Korea. And Israel should start the process of nuclear disarmament, or at least put its nuclear weapons under strict international control. After that, the problem of Pyongyang or Tehran will be off the table. And talking about the creation of a joint missile defense is absurd - we can put our money to better uses."

When asked what negotiating tactics work best with Americans, Ivashov remembered: "I sat a lot at the negotiating table with the Americans. And I can tell you: they do not react to any emotions, to any smiles. For them, there is only a factor of balance of forces and interests. When we created a new R-36M "Voevoda" missile, which they dubbed «Satan», Americans understood that they have nothing to oppose such a weapon. It could carry 24 warheads and 40 false targets. It was impossible to intercept. This missile was sufficient to cause a collapse of the United States and thus bring them to the negotiating table. When they see that we are quickly advancing in certain developments, they propose - let's stop and retreat to the original positions. So if we do not find solid arguments in politics or military strategy, the Americans will not negotiate with us on anything."

Russia is still working on entering the World Trade Organization, something that has been denied to it by the United States since the collapse of USSR in 1991. Currently, Russia is trying to create a Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan. Last month, Russia proposed that all three countries enter WTO as a block, but the idea faced massive criticism overseas and in Russia proper. Recently, President Dmitry Medvedev said that it was "more realistic" for Russia to seek WTO entry on its own. He added that Russia will discuss entry conditions with Belarus and Kazakh representatives of the Customs Union: "It is possible, by agreeing on some common standards and positions within the Customs Union troika, to act unilaterally, which, in my opinion, is simpler and more realistic, but subject, of course, to certain the rights and interests of other parties."

Controversial Russian ambassador to Georgia has been reassigned as ambassador to neighboring Republic of Armenia. Vyacheslav Kovalenko represented Russian Federation in Georgia from 2006 to 2008. Prior to that he held the post in Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs that dealt with former Soviet states.

Kovalenko's stay in Tbilisi was accompanied by a number of scandals related to Russia-Georgia conflict, as well as affected by his own actions. In September 2007, he was summoned to the Georgian Foreign Ministry for explanations in connection with his speech at a conference organized by the Foundation of Unity of Russian and Georgian Peoples. Back then, Russian Ambassador then reportedly stated: "You, the Georgians, are now only three million people, you have become a relic and an endangered people. Russia will be able to overcome its demographic difficulties, but you, Georgians, cannot not deal with this problem, you will vanish." Later, the Russian Embassy acknowledged that "this sentence was indeed pronounced," but that it has been allegedly "wrongly interpreted" by journalists and "taken out of context."

In September 2006, Kovalenko was recalled from Tbilisi, when Georgia detained several Russian servicemen on charges of espionage. The servicemen were later released, and the Russian side responded to their detention by winding down diplomatic contacts and launching economic sanctions against the republic, moreover, Russia also responded with an anti-Georgian campaign across the country Part of the sanctions were later lifted, and the Russian Ambassador returned to Tbilisi in February 2007.

Vyacheslav Kovalenko finally left Georgia in September 2008, after the Russian-Georgian war that was followed by official severance of diplomatic relations between two countries. Russian Embassy in Tbilisi and Georgian Embassy in Moscow are not currently working, and consular functions for the citizens of both countries are done the Russian and Georgian sections in the Embassies of Switzerland.

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Responding to official reports that officer-committed crimes in the Russian Army have reached a 10-year high, Gennady Gudkov, Assistant to the Chairman of the Duma Security Committee, told daily "Vzglyad" that no one should be surprised at this outcome: "The number of young officer who refuse to continue their military service, is increasing."

Gudkov stated that "Unfortunately, general military reforms undertaken by the government do not solve the main tasks: improving the quality of the officer corps and improving the general living conditions of our officers. It is sad but true.

... And today we are faced with the fact that we had to face for a while: the deterioration of the quality of the officer corps. This happened because the Army has long been neglected. All these recent years we have fought for an increase in military spending, I have twice made requests to the State Duma with a bill that would establish the best ceiling of expenditure on armaments and to the army in the amount of 3.5% of GDP. And all the time I was faced with resistance from within the Russian Federation Government, especially from the Ministry of Finance. We were always being told that everything is great and the Army is improving. As a result, today we see that the recovery is heading entirely in the wrong direction."

In answering a question about physical assaults by officers of their subordibnates, Gudkov commented: "The Army has remained 'made up of workers and peasants' in the worst sense of the word, including, let's speak frankly, the make-up of the officer corps. There is an erosion of quality of personnel in the Army ranks. I do not want to offend all: there are many honest, smart, intelligent, competent officers, but they do not have enough authority in the Army. The same applies to many senior officers. Our generals are often not promoted because of personal qualities, but because of some special devotion or ability to exercise it at certain points. In the end, 'the congregation is defined by its priest,' so to speak."

When asked about new ideas to improve the situation, Gudkov noted: "In my opinion, the Army needs to enhance the educational structures, it is necessary to give them more opportunities to influence the moral-psychological situation in Army ranks. Unfortunately, not everyone understands this. Additionally, we need public support and social control: if we have officers leaning towards corruption and crime, then someone has to monitor them."

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This commercial from an English-language school speaks for itself:

What better advertisement than Russian babushkas singing Britney Spears???

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AP:

A Russian TV channel has reportedly cut a segment of the ribald U.S. cartoon comedy South Park that appeared to mock Vladimir Putin.

The channel "2X2" reportedly cut material from the show that aired Tuesday, portraying Putin as a greedy and desperate leader — a decision that prompted criticism and furious discussion on Russia blogs.

It was unclear whether the decision, involving an episode that originally aired in the United States in 2005, was made by channel executives or regulators. Channel executives could not be reached for comment Friday.

A spokesman with Russia's broadcast regulator, Rosskomnadzor, said he knew nothing of the incident.

"We have never interfered with editorial decisions," Yevgeny Strelchik said.

And for proper context, I give you South Park:

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The prolific John Bolton is back in the Globe & Mail decrying the Obama administration's Russian diplomacy:

But the deterioration in relations came almost entirely from more belligerent and provocative Russian behaviour, not from a desire in Washington for confrontation. Thus, all the “new” directions emanating from the Moscow summit are all essentially reversals of recent U.S. policy. The Russians should be happy; most people are when they get their way.

To phrase this another way, Russia was belligerent when it wasn't getting its way on any issue but now they're happier that the U.S. has begun to accommodate them.

And this is the essential problem with U.S.- Russian relations. On the U.S. side, there is a basic unwillingness to acknowledge the legitimacy of Russian interests. We can proclaim from the rooftops that the Middle East - quite far afield from the territory of the United States - is of such vital strategic importance that we will project and sustain American military power in the region for as long as we see fit. Yet Russian interests in territory directly adjacent to their own borders is somehow beyond the pale and signs of renewed imperialism.

On the Russian side there appears to be no genuine interest in helping the U.S. with either Iran or North Korea because they enjoy having us distracted and tied down. And there's every reason to believe that Putin & co. will drum up nationalistic resentments at the West simply to divert attention from Russia's internal failings.

President Obama's gambit of trying to pick off some low-hanging fruit on the issues where there is agreement in the hopes of laying the groundwork for larger breakthroughs might fail. But declaring - as Bolton does - that any accommodation to Russia is ipso-facto unacceptable strikes me as intrinsically incapable of succeeding.

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Conservatives have been voicing their displeasure of late at President Obama's reluctance to denounce the internal governance of other countries. During his speech to the New Economic School, President Obama did key in on some of those themes:

By no means is America perfect. But it is our commitment to certain universal values which allows us to correct our imperfections, to improve constantly, and to grow stronger over time. Freedom of speech and assembly has allowed women, and minorities, and workers to protest for full and equal rights at a time when they were denied. The rule of law and equal administration of justice has busted monopolies, shut down political machines that were corrupt, ended abuses of power. Independent media have exposed corruption at all levels of business and government. Competitive elections allow us to change course and hold our leaders accountable. If our democracy did not advance those rights, then I, as a person of African ancestry, wouldn't be able to address you as an American citizen, much less a President. Because at the time of our founding, I had no rights -- people who looked like me. But it is because of that process that I can now stand before you as President of the United States.

So around the world, America supports these values because they are moral, but also because they work. The arc of history shows that governments which serve their own people survive and thrive; governments which serve only their own power do not.

How was this received in Russia? Russian dissident Gary Kasparov had this to say:

Ideally he would have named names. He made some strong statements about democracy being the solution and the failure of totalitarianism, far stronger than anything we heard from the last two administrations. But he avoided directly criticizing Putin and Medvedev, the core of our dictatorial system. Nor did Obama mention Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whose jailing by Putin and continued imprisonment by Medvedev symbolizes everything Obama was criticizing about authoritarian states.

But he was strong and gave a consistent message. He repeatedly emphasized that the important relationship between America and Russia is about the people, not their regimes. That got a very positive reception here. Obama opened direct lines of communication instead of dealing only with official Kremlin channels.

Joshua Keating has some reaction from Boris Nemtsov which is similarly positive.

However it's not all good:

The main question regarding Obama’s visit to Russia is whether the new liberal U.S. president will succeed in reaching out to the Russian people, as well as the government. But the Levada Center’s study found that public opinion is split almost evenly between those who believe that the U.S.-Russian relationship will improve after the meeting of the countries’ presidents (42 percent) and those who think that the meeting will not change anything (39 percent). Meanwhile, 71.2 percent of respondents to a poll on the Echo of Moscow radio station’s website said that the meeting would not improve relations between the two countries. These figures show the depth of ambivalence amongst the Russian public about the “reset.”

Much of that uncertainty may be a reflection of the contradictory portrayal of the United States in the Russian media. The media has recently moved away from traditional anti-American rhetoric to showing a Russia that is interested in building a relationship with the newly elected U.S. president. That in turn mimicked the Kremlin’s own rhetoric - prior to Obama’s visit Medvedev said that he was “cautiously optimistic” about the meeting in an interview to the Italian Raitalia TV channel and Corriere della Sera newspaper. But although the talks between the two heads of state on Monday were reciprocally friendly, it is unclear to what extent the Russian people will be affected by them.

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Writing in the New York Times, Nikolas Gvosdev puts Russia's interests on the table:

Moscow doesn’t want a nuclear-capable Iran, but it is an annoyance that Russia can tolerate. To get Moscow’s cooperation, therefore, there must be something on the table that alters the Russian calculation.

One potential concern for Russia is that if it joins in putting real pressure on Tehran, Iran could eventually negotiate a Libya-style settlement with the West, clearing the way for major new Western investments in Iran’s energy sector.

Right now, Moscow benefits from Iran’s isolation from the West. Not only are Iran’s formidable gas reserves not accessible to European users, preserving Russia as the Continent’s major supplier, but alternate routes for Central Asian energy that could traverse Iran are also not possible.

Yet resolution of the nuclear issue could open up the vast reserves of Iranian natural gas for use through the Nabucco line, the major pipeline on the drawing boards for getting energy to Europe without going through Russia. The project is currently nearly moribund because there isn’t enough supply to justify the huge investments. Iran would be a game-changer.

Hat tip: Christian Brose

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The Council on Foreign Relations' nuclear expert Charles Ferguson weighs in:

It can be summed up by saying they've made incremental progress. There's nothing revolutionary here and there really were no surprises, but on the plus side there weren't any ugly surprises, or any steps backward. Both countries and both presidents are trying to pick up some forward momentum so that they can build on this current statement on missiles and warheads, which is rather modest but still contains some substance.

I think Matthew Yglesias is right to note the significance of the move, particularly in the context with our relations with China. But, as Gideon Rachman notes, there is another context as well: arms control as a down payment on Russian cooperation on Iran. Now, there are those who clearly believe that pursuing arms control is a good (or an evil) in its own right, but we've heard from the administration's own supporters that Obama's "reset" with Russia is going to yield strategic gains across a wider spectrum than the number of warheads each nation possesses. Time will tell.

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RCP's Cathy Young keeps tabs on Obama in Moscow.

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The remarks of President Obama and President Medvedev at the Kremlin yesterday, after the jump.

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Photo Credit: AP Photos

Continue reading "Obama & Medvedev Press Conference" »

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Russian political establishment will hang on every word uttered at the US-Russian meetings in Moscow for the next three days. With so much being said and analyzed prior to Obama's visit, this particular commentary is worthy of notice. Aleksei Pushkov is the Director of the Institute of International Problems at the Diplomatic Academy of Russian Federation's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a Professor at MGIMO - Moscow State University of International Affairs (the most prestigious institution of its kind in Russia). In a lengthy commentary to the daily "Izvestia," Pushkov outlined major themes and thoughts prior to the U.S. president's arrival.

(Full text of editorial after the jump)

Continue reading "Russian Editorial: Can't Start with a Clean Slate" »

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Writing in the New York Times, Clifford Levy offers up some insights into post-Soviet Russia:

The Soviet Union’s end was more than a geopolitical breakup. It was also to some extent a familial one. Moscow was the dominant member of the household, and its dependents — the other 14 republics — went off on their own.

It is perhaps not surprising, then, that Russia reacts viscerally to what it sees as incursions by the West in the region. That sentiment was at the root of Russia’s war last year with Georgia, and will be the subject of heated discussion at the summit.

Russia may be the world’s largest country, but it believes that it is under siege, from the West on one side and China on the other.

“It is not just about imperial nostalgia, it is much, much deeper,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor in chief of the journal Russia in Global Affairs. “Russia’s perception of security is closely linked to what is going on in neighboring territories.”

Now, in the U.S. there is a tendency to cast Russia's interests in her near abroad as illegitimate or revanchist, rather than a function of logical security interests. That doesn't absolve Russia of anything, but it should provide a measure of perspective. The U.S. considers the Middle East a region of vital national interest such that we routinely project power there - yet it is geographically far more distant and less historically relevant to U.S. security needs than Central Asia is to Russia.

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"We do not assume strange postures - we stand firmly on our legs and always look to the future," said Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, commenting on the statement of U.S. President Barack Obama in his address that he stands with one foot in the past, and the other in the present. "This is a feature of Russia in that Russia was always moving forward, strengthening in the process, and will do so in the future, I have no doubt of that," he said. "If we stand with one foot in the past, and the other in front, you know, we have a vernacular saying - we bend over for no one, we stand firmly on our feet."

"If we see something new in other areas, such as our American partners renouncing the deployment of new combat systems in Europe, the ABM systems or the revision of approaches to expand the military-political blocs, or if they completely renounce the use of 'bloc' thinking - that would be a real move forward," added Putin.

Putin also said Russia expects changes in the economic sphere: "In the United States economy, some decisions have been adopted at the height of the Cold War, for example, the notorious Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which we were already promised would be canceled for the past eight years," explained Putin. "It has not yet been abolished. If this happens now, it is also a great way forward."

"We are ready for effective interaction, we really expect much from the new administration. Those signals, which are still presented to us from Washington - they point to a positive dialogue, positive mood," he said. "We are awaiting the arrival of the U.S. President. I express the hope that it will be a useful meeting, it will aim to strengthen our dialogue. We are in need of that, and the United States in need of it, for sure.

"We are the biggest nuclear powers, and therefore the world will closely monitor these meetings."

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As President Obama prepares for his visit to Moscow, RCP's Cathy Young will be keeping track of events on the RealClearPolitics blog, which we'll link to as well. Be sure to check out our Around the World page on Russia as well - which is update daily with the latest news, analysis and opinion on Russia.

One of the central questions facing the United States and Russia is whether the U.S. is willing to permit a Russian "sphere of influence" over the countries in her near-abroad. Such a competition would likely be costly for both the U.S. and Russia, but might work out well for the countries of Central Asia.

Consider the case of Kyrgyzstan. If you recall, earlier in the year, Kyrgyzstan said it would close down Manas air base, which the U.S. was using to support operations in Afghanistan. This news came the same day that Russia had unveiled a generous aid package to Kyrgyzstan. Well, that was then. Last week, Kyrgyzstan reversed its decision and said it will allow the U.S. to continue operating out of Manas, provided the U.S. pay three times as much for the privilege. Russia, in turn, lashed out at what it dubbed a "dirty trick" by Kyrgyzstan.

If you want to know what Russian President Medvedev thinks about U.S-Russian relations, well, he's video-blogging now:

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What is adding insult to injury between two close countries like Russia and Belarus? Never mind that a supposed allied union between the two is a long way from actual reality. What's probably irking Kremlin is the fact that Belarus, one of the most active users of Russian military technology, has decided to switch to European technology instead. The first AS 355NP Ecureuil 2 AS 355NP light helicopter was recently acquired by the Belarusian border patrol. At present time, Belarus is using Soviet-made used the Mi-8 helicopters - one of the most wide-spread helicopters variants in the world. Belarus Border Services stated that the current plan is to completely replace Soviet models with the European machines. Earlier, the border service did examine the Russian models as an alternative, but decided in favor of the European helicopters because of Mi-8's high prices and high fuel consumption rate. That's gotta hurt the Kremlin's feelings somewhat. ...

... but not too much. Leave it to the French to boldly expand their military-industrial horizons, all with the help of Russia. According to RIA-Novosti Information Agency, Russia's "Rosoboronexport" defense export conglomerate and France's Thales International Industrial Group will join efforts in promoting their joint production of weapons to the world market. According to Michael Bychkov, one of "Rosoboronexport's" executives, both sides signed a memorandum of cooperation on June 25, pledging to work together on naval developments.

It should be noted that an international industrial group Thales is one of the world's leading manufacturers of defense products. In 2008, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the company delivered its products to customers in the amount of more than $9.3 billion, taking tenth place among other top defense corporations in sales volume. Memo to Pentagon: Thales also actively participates in supplying technology and products to NATO countries, so how exactly will its cooperation with Moscow affect French military relationship with Washington? Especially given how much Russia and US compete on the global arms market? Anyone?

Key areas for Thales is the development and manufacture of aerospace information systems, as well as military and marine supplies. The company also participates in the modernization of weapons from different countries, providing high-tech components to its customers. Back in July 2008, "Rosoboronexport" has signed a contract with Thales for the delivery of French-made thermal vision technology for the Russian Army.

Remember the sinking of the Russian nuclear submarine "Kursk" back in 2000? The death of its entire crew, and the subsequent bungled rescue efforts forced Russia to seek Western assistance in trying to raise the ship from the bottom of the Barents sea. Russian military has recently frozen the construction of "Belgorod" nuclear strike carried, the same type of submarine as the unfortunate "Kursk," according to Russian Navy Chief Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky. Nuclear submarine "Belgorod" - or Project 949A Antey - was to be the latest in a series of similar ships for the Russian naval forces. The vessel was 70-80% ready when the construction stopped.

"While we have not precisely determined the appropriateness of this ship or the direction of funding for the construction of a new series of submarines, this boat will remain in its present state," noted Vysotsky. Nevertheless, an informed source in the main headquarters of the Russian Naval Forces reported of a possible re-equipping of "Belgorod" with the latest set of high-range cruise missiles. Here is a thought - would Thales have anything to do with this, since the first joint Russo-French defense cooperation will be with naval technologies? We certainly hope not. "Kursk" was one of 11 submarines of this type built by Soviet Union and later Russia from 1986 to 1996, some of which are still in service. It is the largest submarine in the world - at almost 470 feet long, it features a "double-hull," is twice as wide as the largest US nuclear strike submarine, and can go to the depth of more than 1,500 feet.

And speaking of large ships - the most successful and effective force projection around the world is done with aircraft carriers. United States operates the largest ships of this kind in the world, and its navy rules the seas and oceans with several carrier battle groups. Presently, China is reading for the construction of its own aircraft carriers to be able to project its forces and defend its economic interests globally. During the Cold War, Soviet Union operated several small aircraft carriers, though none of them was as large or carried as many aircraft as its American counterparts. Given the importance of this type of ship for any aspiring power, the competition for control of the seas would intensify - with a few caveats.

According to Admiral Vysotsky, in the near future, Russia will not build ordinary aircraft carriers, but will develop so-called "naval aviation units," since the establishment of the standard ships of aircraft type today "is dead." In particular, he reported that Russian naval doctrine envisages the construction of new aircraft carriers, which will include a "space component, air, marine and advanced technologies in other areas."

Vysotsky stated that this is a complex issue, which necessitates a thorough study of all the technical details: "We are at the very beginning of the path of a new image of the fleet. Navy is not built for two years. If we want to have a new fleet by 2050, it should have been built yesterday - and we have the capability for that." While such thinking is not new, it is questionable whether Russia can pull of a feat of this kind, given its slow pace of modernization of naval technologies, many of which are past the point of official retirement. Maybe France can give Russia a hand?

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Georgia is still experiencing wide-scale opposition unrest, while its government is not giving ground in a stand-off that is lasting several months. The opposition is now resorting to physical attacks on the members of Mikhail Saakashvili's government, though the attacks are not serious at this point. On June 12, a group of opposition activists - about few dozen people - attacked the car of David Bakradze, the Georgian Parliament Speaker. Some oppositioners shouted "Shame!", kicked and beat the car with sticks, while others pelted the automobile with stones and bottles. As police tried to clear the way for Bakradze's car, an altercation ensued, with several of the activists hurt as a result.

A day earlier, government opponents hurled eggs at the car belonging to the chairman of the Georgian Election Commission Levan Tarkhnishvili. According to the eyewitnesses, the incident occurred on Thursday evening at the Rustaveli Avenue when Tarkhnishvili came to the nearby theater. Interfax News Agency reported that one of the oppositioners grabbed the official's jacket and demanded an answer to the question as to why Tarkhnishvili "sold Georgia out.". Afterwards, the Georgian opposition activists threw eggs at the official's SUV.

June 12 marked the first time in the past two months that the Parliament of Georgia held an official plenary meeting. Starting in April, when anti-government protests commenced across Tbilisi, the deputies were working on a limited schedule, primarily conducting field meetings of parliamentary committees, so as not to provoke a clash with protesters in the capital. Acording to the Russian information agency REGNUM, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has been forced to change residences due to ongoing protests. He moved from the capital Tbilisi to the another residence, located in Adjara region (about 250 kilometers from the capital, on the black sea coast). He still refuses to reign his post.

Saakshvilki's opposition continues to blame him in mismanaging the country's politics and resources. On June 12, Georgian opposition leader David Gamkrelidze accused Mikhail Saakashvili that he sold to Russia the country's only main railroad. Speaking at a meeting held in front of the Parliament of Georgia, Gamkrelidze said: "What other crime can the country's main official do? We already have a divided territory, strategic objects are sold to Russia...the country lost investments because of President's actions...." Gamkrelidze also noted that the contract for the sale of the rail road has not yet been signed, due to the fact that protests continue in Tbilisi. According to the Interfax News Agency, Chairman of the "Russian Railroads" Vladimir Yakunin is due to arrive in Georgia, with one of the possible topics for his visit to be the discussion over the sale of the Georgian railway. The representatives of "Georgian Railways" Joint Stock Company, denied information on the planned visit by Mr. Akunin.

In a move sure to further shake up the tumultuous Russia-Ukraine relationship, by the special decree of the President Medvedev, Victor Chernomyrdin was released from the post of Russian Ambassador to Ukraine. He was appointed to another post - a special representative of President of the Russian Federation on economic cooperation with former Soviet States.

Chernomyrdin, speaking at a June 11 reception at the Russian embassy, dedicated to the Day of Russia, bid farewell to Ukraine: "I am finishing my stay in Ukraine ... Thank you for everything" - said the already former ambassador.

Chernomyrdin was appointed an Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Ukraine in May 2001. Prior to that, he was a deputy of the Russian State Duma, and president of the board of directors of Gazprom, Russia's mainstay energy giant. A seasoned and experienced politician, he served as Chairman of the government under President Boris Yeltsin in 1992-1998. In March 2009, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev awarded to Chernomyrdin the "Order of Merit" for his contribution to strengthening the international authority of Russia.

The Russian Ambassador was not always well received in Kiev - largely due to his sharp comments about the host country. For example, in February 2009, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs delivered an official note of protest to the Russian diplomat, because "he allowed himself to say unfriendly and very undiplomatic comments about the country and its leaders." In particular, Chernomyrdin said about Viktor Yushchenko - Ukraine's President - that "at first impression, he looks like a normal guy," but then expressed his hope that "more normal, sober people" will come to Ukraine;s government in place of its President. in Russia, Chernomyrdin is famous for his iconic quote: "We wanted to do better, but ended up as always."

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko has instructed officials to prepare proposals on the introduction of customs and border clearance on the Belarusian-Russian border, similar to that which exists on the Russian side. At present, there is no official customs structure in place between the two countries. The move is explained as a possible response to the fact that Russia has not provided a $500 million loan to Minsk, an act that triggered an angry reaction from the Belarusian president.

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Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sights an automatic weapon at a special forces training center while visiting the provincial capital Makhachkala, Dagestan, southern Russia, Tuesday, June 9, 2009. Second right is Chechenya's regional President Ramzan Kadyrov and third right is Dagestan's regional President Mukhu Aliev. Photo credit: AP Photos.

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The global crisis continues to affect Russia, including its premier economic forums, long held as indicators of the country's economic health. The mood is very different this year at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, the main economic and investment event in the Russian Federation, which draws the top commercial and political elites from all over Russia and the world. The Forum's budget is scaled back significantly, and even the entertainment for the rich and influential will be different - last year's "Pink Floyd" concert will now be replaced by the music group "Duran Duran." The guest number has been cut from 2,500 to just 1,500, and each will be fed by traditional Russian cuisine at 100 Euros per person. Last year, participants arrived on private yachts that barely fit on the embankment of the Neva River. Now, according to the St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matvienko, everything should be done "modestly, but with dignity." This year, instead of sailing to town on their yachts and private ships, the businessmen will arrive on their personal aircraft - St. Petersburg "Pulkovo" airport is prepared to accept 150 private planes.

At the opening of the Forum, Anatoly Chubais - former MP and Chairman of Russian Nanotechnologies State Agency - signed an agreement to create the largest production of solar cells in Russia, and commented on major economic issues and trends: "No one can say what will happen to the economies of China and the United States. It is now clear that Russia is fully dependent on them." Alexander Shokhin, President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, joked: "If we all stand on our knees and pray for the U.S. economy to revive, our country will also bounce back from the crisis."

Elvira Nabiullina, Minister of Economic Development, confirmed that the risk of the "second wave" of the crisis still exists, but in her opinion, Russia has all means to weather the troubles. According to Sergei Polonsky, chairman of one of the largest real estate companies, "this autumn in Russia, there will be a sharp increase in property prices - real estate will cost more than before the crisis."

Russian business was presented in the former imperial capital by the country's commercial elite, since the absence at the forum can be regarded as a sign that one's company is in trouble. Politicians and economists have also sought to reassure investors and businessmen - the Head of Russian Savings Bank German Gref said that the fall in GDP in Russia is slowing down every day: "In the second half of the year, we will see stabilization, after which the country will begin the economic revival."

At the forum, Minister Nabiullina met with Catherine Ashton, European Commissioner for Trade. Both discussed the possibility of Russia's entry into the World Trade Organziation. Nabiullina noted that this year Russia marks the sad date - 16 years of country's attempts to join the WTO. At the end of negotiations, it was stated that Russia may join WTO before the end of the year.

Belorussian President Lukashenko spoke to the Russian media about his country's relationship with the Russian Federation, noting that his republics's strategic support for Moscow is "priceless." With that backdrop, he noted that Russian economic assistance to Minsk during current global crisis is "inadequate." Speaking of the external threats to Russia (in particular, on the part of NATO), he said that "no tanks ever had an easy path through Belarus towards Moscow, and this will remain for the time being." The President urged Moscow to pay closer relationship to the strategic importance of Belarus to Russia: "You think that ten million people who are now a shield for Moscow - is that free? Is Belarus unimportant to you? Important. Who now performs an important function? Belarus - Air Defense, Army and so on. You that think that all of this should be pro bono?"

In the autumn 2008, Russia has agreed to grant Belarus a two billion dollar stabilization loan, but so far, Minsk has received only $500 million from this amount. Some observers believe that further financial support depends on the consent of the republic to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which was long sought from Belarus by the Russians.

In an interview, Lukashenko did hint that money was offered for the the recognition of the two break-away Georgian republics: "I said to the Russian leadership that we can solve this problem. But nonetheless, they said that if we recognize Ossetia and Abkhazia, there will be $500 million dollars." During the interview, Lukashenko gave no definitive answer whether his country will recognzie the provinces.

Ongoing opposition protests in Georgian capital Tbilisi are becoming more dangerous to the participants - on June 3rd, unknown individulas kidnapped two female activists of the youth wing of "Democratic Movement - United Georgia," headed by Nino Burjanadze, former Speaker of the Parliament. The criminal investigation has been launched into the event, but the Ministry of Internal Affairs has not officially commented about the incident. The victims reported that the kidnappers pushed them into the jeep, took to the outskirts of Tbilisi, and stopped near the cemetery. The young women were asked questions about their political party, and one of them was beaten. Both activists were released about six hours after the abduction.

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Some historical revisionism:

As the Kremlin presses a campaign to recast Russia's 20th century history in a more favorable light, a research paper published Thursday on the Defense Ministry's Web site blamed Poland for starting World War II.

The unorthodox reading of history appears to be the latest effort by Russian historians to defend the Soviet Union and its leaders, especially their role in what Russians call the Great Patriotic War.

Russia has angrily rejected claims that a Stalin-era famine in Ukraine amounted to genocide, and Russia's Supreme Court recently turned down an appeal to re-open an investigation into the massacre by Soviet secret police of Polish military officers and intellectuals in Russia's Katyn forest during World War II.

I don't think this marks the rise of Russia as a global autocratic menace, as some would have it. But it certainly doesn't bode well for internal liberalization.

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Lots of events took place at Russia's periphery recently that hid from the US mainstream media. In the Moldovan break-away (and de facto independent) region of Transdnistria, its pro-Russian and communist government seeks the adoption of Russia's tricolor flag as its own. Upon hearing the news, Russian diplomats were "in shock." On Friday, May 29, it became known that the flag initiative was endorsed a Transdnistrian parliamentary committee. According to the Head of the Committee Galina Antyufeeva, "we are still on course laid out in the 2006 referendum that called for unity with Russia, and our whole policy is based on that. We discussed the amendments to the law on state symbols of the Transdnistria Republic, which relate to the establishment of the national flag of Transnistria. We are planning on making it the exact copy of the Russian flag,"

And speaking of unity with Russia - it turns out that most Belorussians do not want to be in a unified state with the Russian Federation. According to the recent polling done by the Belorussian Institute of Strategic Studies, 54.8% of respondents are categorically against a joint Belarus and Russia state with a single currency, a single president and the parliament. Only 20.4% of people spoke in favor of such a union. It also turns out that there are more supporters of Belorussian accession to the European Union - 33.5% of respondents - than those who seek to join with Russia. The majority of Belarusians still expressed the hope that their republic would remain an independent state. Recently, Belorussian President Lukashenko lamented the lack of progress on such a unified state. Turns out, his dream may be even harder to implement if so many of his own people are set against it.

Pro-Russian sentiments can make one popular in states undergoing political turmoil. Viktor Yanukovich, former Ukrainian President and current head of the Regions Party of Ukraine, leads the list of his country's most trusted politicians. According to a survey conducted by the Center for Social Studies "Sofia," he has the trust of approximately 34.3% of those surveyed. Current Prime Minister (and until recently pro-Western hero of the "Orange Revolution") Yulia Tymoshenko has 29.3% of trust, while former heavyweight boxing champion and current politician Vitali Klitschko has 27.5% of such support. Current pro-Western President Viktor Yuschenko is disliked by more than 87.5% of the people. The survey was conducted nationwide, and revealed distrust of the people towards their government and lack of confidence in the Ukrainian economy.

The results should be surprising for those in the West who advocate for a closer US-Ukrainian relationship - pro-Russian Yanukovich was the catalyst for the famed 2004 "Orange Revolution" that brought to power the Orange coalition of Yuschenko-Timoshenko. His fortunes then ebbed and flowed - his Regions Party, which generally is more pro-Russian and is centered in Ukraine's industrial and populous eastern regions, then did generally well in elections, gathering the majority of parliamentary votes, but not enough to lead the government. Yanukovich then became Prime Minister in an uneasy coalition with rival Yuschenko, then again became political opponents. His party is projected to do well in the upcoming 2009 elections. If this poll is indeed accurate, then it speaks volumes about what the ordinary Ukrainians are thinking about their country's attempts to join the West politically and economically.

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This is a fun article - unless you are GM, Toyota, BMW or any other leading auto manufacturer. RCW earlier wrote about the ways that Chinese automakers are copying foreign car designs under its own labels - in some cases, bolt for bolt, curve for curve. This Russian entry from the internet daily "Kolesa" (Wheels) confirms this ominous fact - just take a look at the pictures, and you will clearly see BMW, Toyota, Bentley or Isuzu. The title of the article is "Copied the right way."

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According to Russian Information Agency RIA-Novosti, Egyptian authorities on Saturday released eight Russian students. The agency referenced the representatives of the consular department of the Russian Embassy in Cairo. 34 Russian students at Al-Azhar University in Cairo were arrested on the night of May 27. Egyptian authorities have not yet announced the cause of detention of students - mostly from the North Caucasus republics of the Russian Federation.

Four Russian nationals were released immediately after verification of documents, as confirmed by representatives of the consular department of the Russian Embassy. Eight Russians were released on Saturday, May 30. Another 22 people remain in detention.

In addition to students from Russia, several dozen citizens of other states, including Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, as well as France and Great Britain, were arrested on the night of May 27. Earlier on Saturday, two Tajik students and five citizens of Kazakhstan were also released. Russian diplomats sent an official note to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt, demanding an explanation. Embassy staff will seek a meeting with the detained Russians to guarantee their legitimate rights.

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Russian political establishment is brimming with rumors over possible "retirement" or "alternate promotion" for Anatoly Srdyukov, the country's Defense Minister. Currently, he took two weeks off for vacation, which he will spend in Russia. As reported by the daily "Izvestia", "according to experts, there are many formal reasons for the departure of Defense Minister Serdyukov. The main reason is the reversal of military reforms that he championed for a long time In fact, recently, Defense Minister admitted that the country will have to wait with the formation of the "new" Armed Forces. Even the redesign of the military uniform itself has been canceled - the army has no money. The ongoing reduction of all troops from 1.2 million to 1 million active personnel has not gone well - officers complained about lack of severance payments and lack of promised housing."

There are even predictions of possible successors to Serdykov - all of them with actual military experience and credentials. However, Kremlin officially refutes Serdyukov's possible resignation. "There is no reason for this - this is nothing more than unfounded rumors," a high-ranking source told "Izvestia." The paper notes that at a recent military panel, President Dmitry Medvedev publicly and fully supported Serdyukov's military reforms.

While Russian economists and politicians are battling the ever growing economic downturn across the country, Russian defense exporters are preparing for a brighter outlook for domestic military hardware. Russian helicopter industry is gearing up for the global growth in civilian, military and dual-use rotocraft. In order to gauge the global demand, Moscow launched in 2008 an exposition called "HeliRussia", in which domestic and international companies exhibit their products for an international audience. According to Andrei Reus, Chairman of "Oboronprom" Defense holding - which includes domestic helicopter producers - Russia is steadily gaining momentum in rotocraft production. This year alone, the holding company plans to produce 200 new helicopters, and by 2015 - to take 15% of the world rotorcraft market.

Heli Russia took place in Moscow for the second time, aiming to demonstrate the achievements in the design, construction and maintenance of helicopters. Chairman Reus is optimistic: the portfolio of orders for the helicopters produced in Russia is 400 units for the next few years. Oboronprom's ultimate aim - to bring sale profits to 400 billion rubles($13 billion). Given such a huge number, is such a prognosis realistic, with intense competition from American and European firms in the global rotocraft industry?

It appears Russian helicopter companies are not just banking on the new orders, but on the long-term maintenance of existing machines all over the world. This year, domestic designers have something to be proud of - they started serial production of two combat helicopter models - Mi-28N and Ka-52. There is also ongoing work on the new transport helicopter Mi-38, which will soon be presented to the international as well as the domestic market. The situation for the domestic helicopter industry is so optimistic that for the first time in many years, Russian engineers started talking about launching work on a fundamentally new class of high-speed next-generation helicopters. This project will be the joint work of "Kamov" and "Mil" companies, which are designing Ka-92 and M-X1 models. Both are still in the mock-up stage - however, according to the chief designer of "Kamov Helicopters" Sergey Mikheev, designers in both firms are actively working on the concepts. Both firms are trying to catch up and compete with American "Sikorsky" company, which is developing X1 and X2 high speed helicopters with reconnaissance and intelligence applications. However, even with the new and advanced machines up win the air, the world will still fly on older Mi-8 Soviet-made models for the next 40 years, according to designer Mikheev. Mi-8 helicopter was put in serial production in late 1960s, and is the most massively produced rotocraft in the world.

This past week, Prague hosted a forum titled "Dialogue of Civilizations", which brought together Russian ad European economists and policymakers to discuss current problems, such as economy and social development. The forum's president, Vladimir Yakunin, spoke at length about what awaits Russia and Europe in the next decade. According to Yakunin, "the wild disparity between the value of the real economy and paper money has long been clear. Once again, humanity - and Russia in particular - had received confirmation of the biblical commandment "do not make idols unto yourself to worship." First, there was an idol in the form of socialist theory, which, perhaps, remains the most advanced theory. Then we announced on the ruins of the socialist system that socialism is completely discredited - which is only partly true. And then we got caught hold of the neo-liberalism - the theory of post-modern or, as it is called, the information world."

Yakunin further explains: "The current crisis has proved that there is no absolute truth. And when we unquestionably accepted certain designs, which originated from seemingly safe sources - the United States or Great Britain - the negative result was predictable and straightforward. When we choose shrubs for the summer planting area, we are looking for plants that are adapted to the environment in which we grow them. If such plants are not adaptable, then we keep them at home in pots. Its the same with the economy - we can't blindly take anything and try to forcibly introduce into another society. This, I believe, is a very serious, cruel lesson - and not only for Russia."

Yakunin further echoed the growing sentiment in Russia, which advocates for the country's unique approaches to economic, social and internal problems: "During the conference, we devoted a lot of time understanding what is a natural process of interaction, and what is standardization and unification of norms. We are opposed to standardization. Even if there is a universally recognized human value, we must understand that what is "value" for Europeans, may not be the same for the Arab or African society." On the ongoing crisis, Yakunin was pessimistic: "Our Center for Problem Analysis and Public Management makes a pessimistic forecast, assuming that the crisis may come in waves and new wave could bring down the global economy in 2017. We are not able to predict the level of such a future crisis, but it is possible to reduce the the level of risk by making conservative decisions - because the errors associated with risk taking often manifest themselves over decades."

When asked to what extent Russia can consider itself to be a European country, Yakunin answered: "Europe - its not just about geography - its culture, religion, history, tradition. From this point of view, Russian people and people from Poland or Germany have much less in common, than we have with our neighbors from Kazakhstan, although they are not European. With Kazakhs, we share a common culture,common history, we have a large common ideology... When we talk about how Russia relates to Europe, we are primarily talking about the economic system. However, Russia has not yet determined who she is - Asian or European? My personal feeling is that I am a citizen of Russia, I am Russian - and that is enough for me."

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Yes, apparently these business rumors may indeed be true - a Russian Internet group, Digital Sky Technologies, has offered to invest $200 million in Facebook in a deal that would value the social networking site at $10 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Digital Sky Technologies, which owns a stake in Russia's Mail.ru Web site, offered an investment of $200 million in the company's preferred stock, which would value it at $10 billion, and an additional $100 million to $150 million investment in the company's common stock, which would value it at $6.5 billion, the report said.

Acording to the Yahoo Finance article, Facebook last got funding from Microsoft Corp in 2007, when the software company paid $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in the company. Facebook has more than 200 million active users. The company also ranks as one of the top photo-sharing websites, with more than 15 billion pictures uploaded onto its service.

Moer on the Digital Sky Technologies - its English-language website states that "DST was founded in 2005 when Yuri Milner and Gregory Finger pooled together their individual interests in Mail.ru and funded the first investments in young market leaders in the nascent Russian Internet sector. DST is controlled by its Founding Partners. DST is a leading global Internet holding company that originated in the Russian speaking world. We estimate that our companies comprise well over 70% of all pageviews in the Russian speaking Internet, targeting a potential audience of over 300 million people. Our companies hold the #1 and often also the #2 and #3 positions in all CIS states, including Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Armenia."

More on their international operations: "Between 2005 and 2009 DST raised and invested more than $1 billion in over 30 companies and gained support from Russian and Western funds. In 2008, Alexander Tamas joined DST from Goldman Sachs and established a presence in London to spearhead further international efforts. In recent years DST also expanded into the Baltic region and, through its portfolio companies, also into Eastern and Western Europe, and China."

So, comrades, this is the globalization at its best.

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According to President Medvedev, the ongoing Russia-EU summit in Khabarovsk is going well. This time, the meeting took place in Russia's remote corner of the Far East, a great distance from Western Europe and its EU member states. "I hope we will continue to have such meetings at various locations in my state. Russia is a large country, with lots of remote and unexplored corners," said Medvedev at a press conference."We talked about current issues of our time such as the financial crisis, the measures being undertaken in our countries to combat this problem, and concluded that the end of the crisis is not yet near, and no one has any idea when we will reach that stage. A similar incident took place in Januray. Perhaps this is a subject that is worthy of the highest attention," said Medvedev.

He noted that at the summit, participants discussed energy security. Medvedev believes that the leadership of the European Union has shown interest in the initiative of the Russian Federation to establish a new legal framework for international cooperation in the energy sector: "It seemed to me that our European partners showed an interest in this idea," as Medvedev expressed hope that the discussion of the Russian initiative will continue, stressing that its implementation is "manifestly in the interest" of European partners.

"At the summit there was also talk of a strategic dialogue. We returned to the subject of a new basic agreement," explained the Russian President. "We are satisfied with the pace of these discussions. The very conversation on this dialogue indicates the similarity of our positions. Hopefully, further harmonization of conditions will take place without undue delay," said the president. He noted that during the summit, the sides exchanged views on the unsettled situations in Europe, such as Cyprus and Kosovo, discussed the security situation in the Caucasus, and the conflict between Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. "We have talked about the situation in Moldova, discussed the Middle East problem, discussed the Iranian nuclear program, discussed the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan," said the president. "It was a constructive, candid conversation, which is very gratifying, since such candor is important to dealing with situations in different places," said Medvedev. "I am pleased with the outcome of our joint work," summed up the Russian president.

Meanwhile, official indicators painted a worrying picture for foreign direct investment in Russia - it fell by at least 30% in the first quarter of 2009, while direct investment has fallen by 43%. Foreign investors view Russia as unattractive because of the debt burden of companies and frequent intervention by the authorities. However, experts note that they expected greater drop in FDI in Russia. Now, given the devaluation of the ruble, investors are interested in import-substituting industries. The statistic notes that most of the money that came from abroad is of Russian origin.

According to Rosstat - Russian Statistics official agency - in the first quarter of 2009, foreign investments in the Russian economy fell by 30% to 12 billion dollars. At the same time, the number of direct investment fell to 3.182 billion dollars, which is 43% lower than in 2008. The most active investors in the Russian economy are companies from the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Greece, Great Britain, the United States and France. The share of these countries accounted for 76.2% of all foreign money poured into the Russian economy. One financial analyst who asked to remain anonymous noted that the list of these investment leaders are headed by Netherlands and Cyprus - countries with lots of offshore companies, so often what should be "foreign" investment actually turns out to be money previously withdrawn from the country by the Russian entrepreneurs.

The newest and most expensive US fighter planes - the F-22 Raptors - are getting their official workout. On May 21, they were scrambled to intercept two Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers off the coast of Alaska. The contact with American planes was confirmed by Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Drik, Assistant to the Chief of Russian Air Force. Tu-95MS aircraft performed air patrols over neutral waters of the Arctic Ocean and in the vicinity of the Aleutian Islands. The Russian crews were practicing their skills in flights over unmarked terrain. It should be noted that the Russian strategic aviation has begun to regularly carry out training flights of patrolling the neutral territory. Russian military insists that its aircraft are not violating the borders of other states, although NATO fighters often are scrambled to escort Russian Air Force bombers in flight. A similar incident took place in January of this year, when four American F-15 fighter plane escorted two Tu-95 bombers off the coast of Alaska.

The Trial Chamber of the Berlin Court ordered the German newspaper Bild to publish a retraction of the fact that Yuriy Lutsenko, the Head of Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, and his son Alexander, staged a drunken brawl at the Frankfurt airport, according to the Ukrainian agency UNIAN, with reference to the Ukrainian Minister's lawyer Genadi Lewinsky. "The court rendered a decision in relation to the Internet edition of Bild, which obliges it to publish a retraction," said Lewinsky. The German newspaper Bild reported that on May 4, German police detained Lutsenko together with his son after a supposed run-in with local law enforcement. According to the newspaper, the Minister and his 19-year-old son were under "severe influence" of alcohol and because of their "inappropriate" behavior, they were not allowed to board their flight to Seoul.

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This was bound to happen - with an ailing economy, lack of investors, diminishing confidence and a grim economic outlook for the next few years, Russia's most expensive construction projects are now on the chopping block. Naturally, all of them are in Moscow - Russia's mots developed and most Westernized city. Russia's Construction Portal website recounts the projects that are being stopped, delayed or cancelled alltogether:

"Moscow may be forced to shelve several of its megalomaniac projects which were planned during the period of high oil prices. The 612-meter (2000 feet) high Russia Tower in the Moscow City was intended to be the highest building in Europe, wrote Vedomosti Newspaper. However, the project is now not likely to see the light of day due to financial problems suffered by its developer, an entity controlled by local businessman Shalva Chigirinsky. Initially, the plan was scaled down and a 200-meter(about 650 feet) tower was mooted, however, the city council is now believed to be considering replacing the tower project with additional parking facilities for Moscow City visitors. Construction of the largest aquarium park in Europe on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow has been postponed until 2011, although city authorities insist that the project will go ahead. The reality, however, is that the project is still in the pre-planning stage. The largest European TV centre project is also struggling to attract investors. In addition, the chances of the largest aviation and space museum eventually appearing on Khodynskoye field are also rather low. Experts have claimed that these projects were unrealistic from the very beginning."

RealClearWorld wrote earlier on this blog about Moscow's problems with its constriction projects once the economic and financial crisis hit Russia. For now, the replacement parking project at least makes sense - Moscow sorely lacks parking - above and below ground - for its ever increasing fleets of passenger cars. As far as ambitious high-rises and skyscrapers - most of them are now been built in a country that, despite the global economic malaise, still has a sound economy, and backed by a government that is forging ahead towards great-power stardom - China.

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Russian military academies are busy preparing the next generation of gentlemen and officers, all the economic problems in their country notwithstanding. Russian daily "Izvestia" paid a visit to the most famous and elite academy - Suvorov Military School in Moscow (Moscokskoye Suvorovskoye Voennoye Uchlische), named after legendary 18th Century General Alexander Suvorov. There are now many Suvorov Military schools across the country, The first such academy was formed in Nizhniy Novgorod during WW2. During the war, many Soviet children were orphaned and left without parents, and the state assumed care of their future, establishing military-style schools for their education. In 1943-1944, seventeen Suvorov academies opened across the USSR. Since then, there have been more than 35 Soviet and Russian generals amongst the Suvorov graduates, together with numerous officers and high-ranking officials.

"Izvestia" talked with Major-General Andrei Nechaev, Head of Moscow Suvorov Military School, about his students' education. According to the general, "When the state created Suvorov schools in 1943, it had a major goal - to get children off the streets, to help the orphans. Today, the Suvorov schools have the following goal - to prepare an all-rounded graduate who is developed spiritually and physically, so that he could benefit the Russian state not only as a good soldier, but also by becoming a good teacher, engineer, biologist. We place an emphasis for our graduate on knowing two foreign languages, to be good in sports, so that you can speak with this young man on any topic, so that he could cite Pushkin's poetry or dance a waltz."

General Nechaev further told the newspaper: "We must be sure that our graduates are self-sufficient, so that they can get into any higher education institution without problems. Some people think that Suvorov school is only a military organization. But our students are studying 10 hours a day!. If a student does not learn his lesson, he automatically gets a bad grade. Afterwards, we are also punishing those officers who were supposed to oversee the students lessons."

Soon, Moscow Suvorov School will be admitting girls for the first time: "This year, we ordered a trial run to recruit girls to 8th grade, two platoons of 20 students in each. We are preparing a separate building for these 40 recruits. They will study together with the boys, and will only sleep in separate quarters. Some would say: "Why admit girls?" I say - so what? No problem, I do not see anything wrong with it! Our boys will do better as a result. When our female teachers go to school's sporting events - we have a lot of young teachers - the guys are always trying to show off in order to get the best result. And our boys will behave differently, too."

More info on the school - and its sister academies - can be found on this Russian-language site.

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Russian media is trying to figure out where the political opposition in Georgia is heading - and whether their present course of action is beneficial for Georgia and future Russia-Georgia relations. As reported by the daily "Izvestia," "any agreement between current belligerents that leaves in power the leader of the "Rose Revolution" is akin to political suicide for the opponents of the president. The resignation of Saakashvili, by contrast, guarantees them a long and comfortable existence. The dilemma stems from the social order - according to the opposition leaders, "we did not bring people to the streets, they brought us out. ...""

The Russian paper analyzes further: "Saakashvili himself is resented by most of the population. A month ago, his approval rating did not exceed 11%. It is said that now, it's even lower. We can argue for a long time why Georgians together traditionally choose a national leader, and then just as traditionally band together for his overthrow. But the situation with Saakashvili is a unique one. Giorgiy Gachechiladze, host of a live reality show "Camera Number 5," reads a long list of sins of the President under the title why he should go. The list is bloody, and not just because of the war in South Ossetia. The Rose Revolution of 2003 - with all its democratic trappings - in fact turned out to be "a revolution against the handkerchief." But Saakashvili-liberal was in the process transformed into Saakshvili-bolshevik, whose aim was to create a new type of Georgian citizen. Ideally, the result of this experiment should have been a satisfied, obedient, confident and selfish man. Looking at some of the government authorities, we are convinced that the president has succeeded in his aims on a certain level. But then the process stalled - either the Georgians did not want to give up their personal advantages and disadvantages, or they refused to give up their identity, history, culture - and freedom. That sounds, perhaps, a bit stilted, but this is indeed the case."

Citing past support from the West, Izvestia notes that "at this time the Americans are perceived to hold neutrality in Georgia. It is said that Washington banned the President of Georgia from using force against the demonstrators. Nevertheless, the level of anti-Americanism in the ranks of protesters is considerably high. Especially after the comments of Matthew Bryza,representative of State Department, and U.S. Ambassador to Georgia John Tefta. The protesters are chanting: "Bush is gone - they [diplomats] remained." And most of the protesters are just laughing at the Europeans, since a prominent British political figure blamed the Georgian opposition by saying that "... in the UK, such issues are dealt with in Parliament." Izvestia notes that today, the Georgian parliament consists of only two real opposition figures, a dozen representatives of the "so-called opposition" and some one hundred supporters of President Saakashvili.

For its part, the Georgian opposition is ratcheting up pressure on the current administration - starting May 14, a new wave of protest commenced in Tbilisi, calling for the resignation of President Mikhail Saakashvili. The new protests should conclude with a mass popular demonstration on May 26, Georgia's Independence Day. If that actually takes place, the Georgian leader, known for his passion for pompous activities, may "lose" the traditional yearly military parade on Rustaveli Avenue in the center of the city. Therefore, the authorities are trying to divide the ranks of the opposition. The opposition maintains that its main requirement is holding of early presidential and parliamentary elections.

Meanwhile, Sergei Bagapsh, President of Abkhazia (a Georgian break-away province), was recently asked by a journalist whether, in the near future, Abkhazia will turn to Moscow with a request to join the Russian Federation. Bagapsh retorted back: "How can we contact Russia on this matter in the near future, if Russia has recently recognized us as an independent state?" Russia has recently officially recognized Abkhazian and South Ossetian borders as official borders of independent countries. Georgia, United States, European Union and a host of other countries maintain the territorial integrity of Georgia that includes these two breakaway regions.

Russia is seriously banking on the emergence of Asia as a counter-weight to the United States in global affairs, and is making necessary preparations for such a reorientation. Daily "Izvestia" comments on this emerging trend: "Asia seems tired of looking U.S. "in the mouth", putting its well-being at the mercy of the world's largest economy. It is the Asian countries that are most interested in changing the existing world order. What was the situation like before? China was producing consumer goods, selling them mostly in the United States, lending America huge sums of money to stir up consumer mindset. China itself was running up huge dollar reserves. This might as well have continued, if not for the crisis."

The paper further reports that in early May, China, Japan, South Korea and ASEAN countries (Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and others) have agreed on the establishment of a regional foreign exchange reserve of $120 billion that would be allocating funds in the form of loans to countries - members of the pool- during financial crisis. "This is not just some Asian fund of Mutual Assistance - this smells like an alternative International Monetary Fund. In the near future, according to the experts, the Chinese yuan could be the leading currency for settlements in the Asian region. Then, given the enormous industrial and consumer turnover of Asian countries, they no longer will need to accumulate huge dollar reserves."

The argument for Russian role in this emerging economic reality is broken down accordingly: "So whats for Russia in all of this? At present, we stand on the sidelines of the revolutionary transformation of the economic world order. We pray for high oil prices. Why? So that once again we can accumulate dollar reserves and invest in the United States? What for? At the same time, Russia does not belong to any serious economic bloc."

"The world will be divided into three main regions: the Americas, Europe and the East, warn the economists. United States will lose some of its power, the leadership will shift towards Asia. That is why America is in a hurry to make friends with China, in order to prevent the creation of a powerful Asian bloc. Where is Russia in the new structure of the world? The East, of course, is closer to us. Already, 96% of Russia's far eastern exports are geared for consumption by the neighboring Asian countries. We need to unite with them - especially in an era of globalization."

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There is a brand new player in a game traditionally dominated by American and Western European players. Maria Verchenova has risen in rankings in the Womens Golf division. Like many of her fellow countrywomen, she brings talent, determination, stamina, and - yes, great looks to the game. Let these pictures speak for themselves- Maria has a website devoted to her game. Enjoy!

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This comes across as though it were published in the 1990s - Aleksandr Lukashenko, President of Belarus, is blaming Russia for the inability to create a unified Russian-Belarus state. Lukashenko spoke during his country's celebration of the May 9 victory over Nazi Germany in WW2:

"Today, we have friends everywhere: in Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. That's because Belarus conducts diverse foreign policy of peace." According to him, "we have a special relationship that has historically associated us with our brotherly Russia and Russian people."

According to the Belorussian President, the delays in implementing this federated state are not irreversible:

"We are working with the Russian side. There is an understanding - we will overcome the difficulties, now matter how hard they may be. We are being blamed now that we are drifting towards the West. None of what we do means we are leaning that way. We just want to have good partner relations with the West. I am confident that we will normalize these relations, despite those who do not want it."

However, Lukashenko criticized Russian counterparts for the fact that the 1996 Joint Agreement between his country and Russia is still not a reality:

"The fact that we have not progressed in constructing a federal partnership is not our fault. It is their (Russia) fault...Who does not fulfill the contract on the construction of the Unified State? We had to hold a joint referendum on that. Why didn't we? Because the Russians did not want to," - said Lukashenko, advising Moscow to "look at the internal causes of turmoil in our relationship."

Lukashenko made his latest appeal to Moscow because he thinks that Russians are put off by his initiative to organize in Belarus a meeting between the world leaders of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. The original agreement calling for a unified state was signed during 1996-1997 between Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Aleksandr Lukashenko. It called for the eventual federated union that would encompass the territories of Belarus and the Russian Federation, with one government responsible for the foreign, economic and military policies. Lukashenko was a big proponent of such a Union, since he would naturally be first in line to become its leader if Yeltsin would cede power due to his health and age. Unfortunately, with Yeltsin's pick of young and energetic Vladimir Putin to the post of the Russian President in late 1999, Lukashenko's hopes of succession were dashed. Putin resisted the actual implementation of the Union for various reasons, not the least of which was the fact that Russia already controlled Belarus' subsidized command economy through lower energy costs on oil and natural gas. This unrealized Union is still popular amongst Russian nationalists and communists, who seek to re-establish the Soviet Union in one form or another.

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The Heritage Foundation's Sally McNamara argues that the U.S. should "reset" relations with Russia only insofar as Russia makes all the concessions:

President Obama must also make clear that the United States will not bargain away U.S. support for NATO enlargement to include Georgia and Ukraine, or missile defenses in Europe in exchange for Russian cooperation on other issues, such as its negotiations to stop Iran's nuclear program.

This position doesn't seem quite tenable to me, it treats U.S. interests as an undifferentiated bloc that can't be prioritized. But isn't disarming Iran of greater interest to the U.S. than putting blood and treasure on the line to defend Georgia?

Writing in the American Interest (sub required), Michael Mandelbaum has a persuasive take on U.S.-Russian relations, acknowledging where our interests diverge, where we need to hold firm and which issues we need to be ready to concede - specifically, missile defense and NATO expansion.

--
Photo credit: AP Photo

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This past Friday, President Dmitry Medvedev held a meeting on budget preparation prior to his upcoming address to the nation. He said that by 2011, new anti-crisis measures adopted will incorporate the strengthening of social assistance. In particular, the President requested that the budget take into account the allocation of funds for pensions, benefits and pursuing an active policy of employment creation. Medvedev also stressed that recklessly spend money on assistance programs during a crisis is not allowed, as he called on the officials to be "very judicious" with the use of the treasury. The President also stressed that certain budget expenditures are being increased in order to deal with more pressing problems of regular citizens: "It is necessary to deal with the modernization of social networks, services, transport, communications, energy and financial infrastructure," said Medvedev.

In a parallel development, Russia may return to the practice of borrowing large loans from the World Bank, said Russian Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin on his recent visit to Washington. The Russian budget deficit would be such that a number of large projects could come under the threat of failure. In order to continue such projects, the Russian government is willing to take multi-billion dollar loans from the World Bank. If the crisis continues across the Russian Federation, such borrowing abroad will increase. According to Kudrin, "World Bank's lending tools are long-term in scope and are relatively cheap. They focus on infrastructure projects, which coincides with the objectives of the Russian budget." Kudrin further said that the WB's share in financing a project to reform the housing sector could increase. A 15-year, $200 million loan for such a project was already approved in February 2007.

Several years ago, Kudrin was stressing that Russia does not need IMF credit, which provides funding to countries experiencing problems with the financing of the budget deficit or balance of payments. But experts agree that today, Russia has no choice but to again borrow money. According to financial analytical group "Sovlinka", "the likelihood that Russia once again get in debts is there. According to the forecasts of Kudrin himself, the Russian Reserve Fund (money set aside from once-high oil and gas revenues) will be enough only until the end of 2010. If the economic crisis continues and the budget will be executed with a deficit, it is clear that the government will use various methods of financing, including the placement of Eurobonds, the increase in domestic debt, reducing inefficient budget expenditure - and external loans."

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko - a power rival to President Yuschenko and a possible candidate to her country's highest political post in the upcoming elections - visited her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow over the past week. This high profile visit was postponed several times before, and both sides pinned a lot of hopes on this face-to-face meeting between such key countries. Timoshenko announced that after meeting her counterpart, Russia will take part in the modernization of the Ukrainian gas pipeline grid, providing basic maintenance and spare parts, without taking any share or control of such system that is vital to Ukrainian energy policy: "Russian Prime Minister stressed that his country does not seek to manage Ukraine's gas transportation system."

Commenting on the Tymoshenko's visit to Moscow, Ukrainian experts say: "... this is the final casting call, a showcasing of Tymoshenko in the Kremlin before the start of the Ukrainian presidential election campaign." The experts did not rule out that Moscow may soon be visited by Viktor Yanukovych, the leader of the Party of Regions, who was once a strong Kremlin ally and whose refusal to cede power was the catalyst for 2004 Ukrainian Orange Revolution. "Yanukovych will follow Tymoshenko as another "candidate of the Kremlin," so that the major presidential candidates will compete not for the protection of Ukrainian national interests, but for greater or lesser commitment to the Kremlin's policies."

At the meeting, Russia and Ukraine have exchanged their draft intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in gas sphere. Russia hopes to sign an intergovernmental agreement with Ukraine as soon as possible in order to avoid another round of gas price wars. "I think that our meeting was effective, which gives every reason to assert that Ukraine and Russia are partners, good neighbors and states which base their relations on the basis of equality of national interests," summarized Tymoshenko at the end of the summit.

Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin stated that Moldova would seek the signing of an Association Agreement with the European Union: "We are interested in the fact that this would be an agreement that involves a free trade regime with the EU and free movement of citizens of the Republic of Moldova to the European Union," - said Voronin on Thursday at a meeting of the National Commission for European Integration. Moldova recently was hit by mass protests by opponents of recent elections, which brought to power Voronin's Communist allies, and which were considered fraudulent across Europe. The president's press service commented that "In the near term, the Moldovan authorities should focus on negotiations on the cooperation with the European Union."

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During early morning on Thursday, April 30, an assailant opened fire in one of the buildings of the Azerbaijan Oil Academy, located in Baku. According to local news, it all began with a dispute that broke out between students at the building: one of the participants in the debate took out a pistol and began firing at opponents, and then ran into the Academy and continued shooting at the students inside. As a result, 12 people were killed, including the assailant, and another 10 wounded.

Azerbaijan Ministry of Health has published a complete list of those killed at the Academy. According to this document, the attacker killed 12 people. All of them were citizens of Azerbaijan, the eldest of whom was born in 1940, the youngest - in 1990.

According to the Azerbaijan authorities, the assailant was a citizen of Georgia, Mr. Gadirov Ferdi Asad oglu, born in 1980. Previously, the media have repeatedly reported that the killer could be an Azerbaijani with Georgian citizenship. Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan has confirmed the information that the killer committed suicide. The authorities are saying that revenge against the school was the likely motive for the killings - the victims include several professors and Vice-Rector of the Academy.

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Russian defense exports have recently scored two major deals, further advancing Russian military technology around the world in new and familiar markets. Turkey has recently decided to purchase Russia's latest and most advanced air defense system, the S-400. Anatoly Aksyonov, the official representative of the "Rosoboronexport," Russia's official arms export agency, confirmed Turkey's intention during the ongoing international military exhibition in Istanbul: "Turkey has expressed strong desire to acquire the S-400 missile systems from Russia, and this issue was discussed during the talks with Murat Bayarom, Minister of National Defense of Turkey." Russia has so far beaten the competition from the US, China and Israel, which offered, respectively, Patriot, HQ-9 (FD-2000) and Arrow defense systems. The estimated cost of Turkey's purchase of such defense systems ranges from $1 to $4 billion.

Russia's "Rosoboronexport" also recently announced that it will be building six "Kilo" diesel-electric submarines for the Vietnamese Navy, to the tune of approximately $1.8 billion. The official negotiations between Moscow and Ho Chi Min City started a year ago. Vietnam has already purchased various weapons from Russia - in 2001-2002, Russian defense enterprises received orders to build eight gunboats, two frigates, and onshore anti-missile system for the Vietnamese military. "Kilo" submarine - or "Project 636" - is one of the quietest submarines in the world. It is designed to perform a wide range of tasks, including the destruction of enemy submarines and surface ships, protection of naval bases and communications, and gathering intelligence.

Until recently it was thought that the most likely buyer of these Russian "Kilo" submarines would be Venezuela, whose negotiations with the "Rosoboronexport" started in 2007. Back then, Venezuelan Navy announced that the country needed Russian subs to control its off-shore oil production regions. But gradually, talks with Venezuela got nowhere - the original order went form nine submarines to just six to just three or four. Yet the final nail in the coffin of this deal was hammered by none other but Hugo Chavez himself, who offered to shake US President Obama's hand at the April summit of the Organization of American States. Russians must have construed Chavez's behavior as reneging on his earlier pledges to arm his country against "American aggression" and the submarine contract with Venezuela was canceled in favor of Vietnam.

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Russian military reforms, launched by the new Minister of Defense Anatoly Serdykov, continue to rock the entrenched Russian military establishment. As a result of recent surprise appraisals conducted in the Armed Forces, 50 generals and colonels will be dismissed form active duty. All together, 249 senior military officers were subjected to such appraisals. According to the decision of the Central Evaluation Commission, only 66 of them will remain at their current posts, with 133 people to be transferred to other posts or to similar positions in other regions. The rest are awaiting their dismissal.

To date, 85% of officers and 79% of warrant officers have undergone similar "unplanned" appraisals, with complete results of the testing to be released later. The current military reforms in the Russian military include a reduction of approximately 250,000 officers from active-duty ranks. Following the reforms, many military positions will be taken up by civilian specialists. The total number of the Russian armed forces will be reduced from 1.2 to 1 million people.

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Russian media is continuing to actively cover anti-government protests taking place in neighboring Georgia. The opposition is currently picketing all across Tbilisi, the country's capital, with many people camping out on the streets in spite of government pleas. Moreover, many opposition groups have erected make-shift "jail cells", with people staying "behind bars" as a protest against government policies that they see as repressive.

On Thursday, several women from pro-Saaksashvili's "National Movement" party forced their way onto the opposition and cut the plastic covering such makeshift "jail cells" with large kitchen knives. According to the daily "Izvestia", the opposition did not resist such action from the "attackers"- who included Georgian refugees from Abkhazia in their ranks. The newspaper reported of the possibility of a real and serious clash between pro- and anti-government forces - "on the streets surrounding the central square, there stood a groups of intimidating looking men. Pro-Saakashvili's knife-wielding women - who receive unrecorded salaries for their work - were more than defiant. One of them even sought to clear the central Rustaveli Avenue of this "rural population, these cells and debris." Others called for new opposition arrivals from the provinces to return home, telling them not to pollute Tbilisi but to plow and sow in their villages. As always, the police did not intervene in the proceedings. Pro-Saaksahvili's people left as soon as the opposition leaders appeared on the square."

This stand-off shows no signs of abating. "Ivestia" further reports that "People no longer have fear in them - they do not pay attention to any restrictions, nor to the the machinations of the Tbilisi City Hall. And the City hall is trying to complicate the picketer's life to the maximum - there is no garbage collection, and there are no biotoilets available. However, opposition returns the favor - on Thursday, they cleaned "their part" of Rustaveli Avenue, Liberty Square, the Presidential Residence and the government areas, and brought all refuse and garbage to the main entrance of City Hall."

Meanwhile, President Mikhail Saakashvili is trying to show that there is nothing happening in the country. He recently held a meeting of government to discuss potato harvest, thus earning yet another nickname form the opposition - "Potato President." His "right hand", the Speaker of Parliament David Bakradze, stated that the issue of early presidential and parliamentary elections was not even considered.

Continue reading "Russia: Georgia and Its 'Potato President'" »

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According to the "News of Georgia" press agency, a group of ruling party officials said on Thursday's anti-government rally in Tbilisi that they are joining the opposition to demand the resignation of President Saakashvili.

Twelve government activists from the Nadzaladevsky region, headed by the chair of the ruling party branch, joined the opposition demonstrators. Opposition leaders consider this move as an "encouraging signal": "This is a big step for these people. The first step is very difficult," - said Giorgi Khaindrava. one of the leaders of the United Opposition. Ex-Speaker of the Georgian Parliament Nino Burjanadze expressed her belief that "others will join these individuals," and urged members of the ruling party to join the people "before it's too late."

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More and more indicators are pointing to the seriousness of the financial and economic crisis across Russia. They are similar to those that popped up across the West as well, though few Russians are finding solace in the fact their country's misfortune is not that unique after all.

Recently, it's not just the legal guest workers - Russians who came to Moscow for work - who are leaving the capital. The number of illegal guest workers from the former Soviet republics has decreased almost by half, according to the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda. According to Fedor Karpovets, Head of the Office of Federal Migration Service, "in January, 70,000 migrant workers arrived per week, but in April, only 40,000. Many do not stay long here, and go to nearby towns where there may be work. Some of them even go to Siberia and the Far East: There, foreign labor force is needed, and life is cheaper than in the capital. It is quite understandable - in the capital, life is no longer sweet. There is less work - many construction sites are frozen." Moreover, with the advent of the crisis, residents of the capital are taking up jobs that previously were considered solely for the guest workers: "There are many more Muscovites who are willing to work as taxi drivers, " according to Oleg Neterebsky, Head of the Department of Labor and Employment in Moscow. "People are actively looking for work and are learning new professions."

Even car thieves are now adjusting - there are more and more old Soviet and Russian-made sedans stolen on the streets than ever before. According to official statistic, the total number of auto thefts has dropped by 20 percent. Because of the crisis, the criminals are now preferring domestic "Lada," produced by the Zhiguli car company, as the most popular brand (23% of all car theft), followed by Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz and Audi. This year, more than twice as many older Russian cars were stolen in Moscow - 507 in all - than Toyotas (193 cars) or Hondas (179 cars). As the sign of the times, criminals stopped stealing super-luxury Maybachs and Bentleys, which in 2007 were stolen every month - because of the crisis, it's almost impossible to find a buyer willing to pay money for such expensive cars.

But, crisis or not, Russia's super-wealthy individuals are still at the top of their game, although with less actual money. The total monetary wealth of Russia's richest people has been more than halved from $380 billion to $142 billion. Russia now has only 32 billionaires - in 2008, there were 110. Mikhail Prokhorov (metals, gold, financial sector) heads the list of Russia's super-rich with $9.5 billion dollars, followed by Roman Abramovich (famous for owning Britain's Chelsea soccer club) with $8.5 billion. Former leader of the billionaire list Oleg Deripaska (aluminum and finances) now dropped to 10th place - he went from having $28.6 billion to only $3.5 billion. One thing is certain- this bunch will surely not trade their cars for Russian-made Ladas. But the year is not over, right?

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With all the talk in Washington, DC lately over the need to renew the application of America's soft power - diplomacy, economy, cultural and social attractiveness - nothing spreads American culture better than music. The entire world is already listening to U.S. pop music - rap, R&B, hard rock and other styles, and more and more groups and musicians are aspiring to be as cool and popular as American singers of various genres.

So it comes as no surprise that Russians decided to clone Britney Spears - her music, her style, her moves- and apply it to their own cultural benefit. In 2007, a new group called "Serebro" (Silver) won third place at Eurovision - a prestigious European annual song contest. "Serebro"s English-language entry - "Song #1"- was well received:

The similarities with our own Ms. Spears are all too apparent. The three female soloists do a great job singing in that all-too-familiar Britney style. And half-way through the song, the girls and their dancers break into a Michael Jackson-style medley.

So while the American audiences may be cooling towards their once-idols, the rest of the world still longs for the pop-culture that seems to define what is - or is not - cool. And isn't that the definition of soft power?

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There is an old Russian proverb - "Vsyo volka ne kormi, a on na les smotrit"- "No matter how much you would feed the wolf, he still looks at the forest." This applies to the existing and evolving Russian relationship with China - no matter how many public statements are made about the strength and mutual benefit of a Moscow-Beijing alliance, China is inching further and further ahead of Russia on all criteria that signify a great power - economy, high-tech development, international reputation. And military strength.

The last item already makes Moscow nervous, even if outwardly it shows no signs of concerns. This entry at a popular daily online magazine Lenta.ru discusses China's recent development of a ballistic missile, based on its Dong-Feng 21 rocket (possibly nuclear-tipped) that can sink a large moving target (presumably a US aircraft carrier): "It is easy to assume against whom, and for what purpose, this new Chinese weapon is fielded. First, the modern aircraft carrier is the only target that a given country would not mind using a nuclear weapon on. ... Secondly, only the U.S. military fleet has so many aircraft carriers that justify a creation of new types of ballistic missiles. And third, the American ships of this class are a deterrent to China, a country that does not conceal its aggressive intentions against, for example, neighboring Taiwan."

The analysis further brings up evidence that USSR has been developing a similar missile in the 1960s and 1970s - whose purpose was to presumably sink American carriers - but ended up not fielding the actual missile due to a variety of domestic and international factors. "In any case, Russia has abandoned the development of such weapons for the last several decades, and the U.S. did not seriously expect that ballistic missiles capable of striking major moving maritime targets may be fielded by a likely opponent. In short, while the two superpowers were flexing their muscles, a third power - while only gaining momentum - was looking far into the future."

Russia sold China mass amounts of modern military technology in the 1990s and even recently - everything from small arms to the modern Su-27 jet fighter to submarines and naval vessels. Given China's determination to develop and field its own modern military, these purchases from Russia went into further developing and modernizing one of the largest militaries in the world.

Given Russia's emphasis on its nuclear deterrent, Moscow so far avoided a "What If?" discussion about the time when China's military could eventually surpass its Russian counterpart. However, a sobering and realistic assessment is already necessary: "We cannot say with confidence if this weapon (anti-ship ballistic missile) was indigenously developed in China. Most likely Beijing has once again carried out a competent and quiet "information leak" with the purpose of demonstrating the potential of China's military power and its future development. But if this Chinese rocket is not pure propaganda, then it's not just the United States that would soon have to develop technology that can neutralize such a weapon."

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Russia's periphery is once again rife with unrest and dissatisfaction, but the Russian government tried to keep stability at home by reporting to the State Duma on its progress in 2008. This past Monday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin spoke before the full parliamentary session. Putin assured the deputies that "Russia will overcome the crisis," and characterized an anti-crisis program recently given to Duma for discussion as "the light at the end of the tunnel." Regarding the scope of growing difficulties in the country and the need to invest in numerous social programs, Putin assured the parliamentarians that "Many out there are simply jealous of Russia! I know what I am talking about!", hinting that the situation in other countries is more dire.

However, just a few days after Putin's address to the Parliament and his assurances that the government is handling the crisis, nearly 300 officer reservists held a protest on Saturday, April 11 in Vladivostok, in the Russian Far East region. The officers, belonging to the "Union of Officers of Vladivostok", protested against the recently launched military reforms. Demonstrators asked to repeal the Government's plan for the implementation of military reform, which, in their view, means "the deprivation of the defense capacity of the country through the dismissal and breach of the social guarantees of servicemen." Participants were asking for the salary and pension increase of military personnel to the level of civil servants, to provide apartments to the discharged officers in places of their own choosing, to pay the debt owed to military retirees, as well as to raise pensions to widows of dead officers. This action took place under the banner "People and army are one! Save the army - save Russia!", with participation from the Communist Party and local citizen's organizations. Last October, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdykov announced plans for major reform in the Russian military, and his actions immediately started running into serious opposition from the military's rank and file.

On April 10, Moldovan authorities reported that they have captured the main organizer of mass anti-government protests that swept the capital Chisinau this past week. The Prosecutor General's office announced that they have in custody Mr. N. Iordan, a Romanian citizen. When authorities searched him, they discovered in his possession maps of Chisinau, photos of administrative buildings and several bottles with "flammable liquids." Mass riots and clashes with police took place in Chisinau on April 7th, 2009 during the opposition protests, whose members were dissatisfied with the results of the April 5 parliamentary elections. The demonstrators stormed the parliament building and the Administration of the President of Moldova, and smashed, looted and set fire to the buildings. Shortly after the riots subsided, Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, leader of the governing Communist Party, said that neighboring Romania was to blame for the unrest. The Ambassador of Romania was quickly expelled from Chisinau. On April 9, the Moldovan Parliament deputies stated that the leadership of the country has evidence that Romanian citizens have participated in the "pogroms," and could be seen on the security videos. The government did not specify how it was able to find out the nationality of rioting persons just by looking at their faces. Meanwhile, Bucharest officially rejected Moldovan claims and stated that it had nothing to do with recent mass protests.

Russian government has so far supported President Voronin's rule in Moldova, as a "guarantor" of sorts against the West's advancing interest in Eastern Europe. Certain Russian commentators are calling for a sobering look at such a political entanglement. Sergey Kolerov, Chief Editor of the "Regnum" Information Agency, argues that when it comes to the question of getting rid of Voronin and Communists in Moldova , Russia and the West are in fact "situational allies": "The problem is that this matter is taking place without the participation of Russia, and since Moscow refuses to intervene in the current situation, it therefore cannot utilize the results of what is taking place in Chisinau. ... There is no doubt that once the opposition leaders take control of the situation in the country, they will then forget about so-called "unity" with their patrons in Romania."[ In late 1980s and early 1990s' Moldova experienced unrest and civil war after the majority of the people called for an actual union with neighboring Romania. A pro-Russian area called Transdniester Republic broke off from Moldova and remains an independent entity to this day.] Kolerov further argues: "The authorities in Russia should remember that by supporting Voronin - the "guarantor of democracy," who uses the Moldovan Constitution as he pleases - Moscow is in fact acting against the will of the overwhelming majority of the citizens of Moldova. If people follow through with the portrait of Voronin - which was thrown out of the windows of government buildings - by tossing the living Voronin out the window, the calls for "cleaning the asphalt of Chisinau with Russian blood" will ring again, just as in the early 1990's. If this is a reflection of public opinion in Moldavia, then this should not surprise Moscow - Russian diplomacy (but not Russia and its citizens!) deserves such an attitude."

Picking up where Moldovan actions left off, mass anti-government protest is taking place in Georgia's capital Tbilisi. "We will do everything to disrupt the work schedule of President[Saakashvili] and his entourage," - promised Levan Gachechiladze, the opposition leader. Gachechiladze was of the opinion that similar actions may soon begin across Georgia. On April 9, the leading opposition parties of Georgia began to protest, demanding the resignation of President Mikhail Saakashvili. Some carried slogans that said: "We will not disperse till the usurper will retire!" and "Misha, don't bite out neckties!"(in reference to this infamous video of stressed-out Saakashvili during last August's armed conflict with Russia.) Others openly shouted "We are so tired of Misha! Why do Americans love him so much?" The protesters gave the president till 4:00pm on April 10 to comply with their demands. Saakashvili did not accept the ultimatum, and expressed his willingness to "dialogue with the opposition", while confirming that he did not intend to leave his post before the expiration of his official duties.

Opponents of the president blame him for drawing Georgia into armed conflict with Russia last August, as well as the for the loss of break-away provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The April 9 rally drew, according to various sources, anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 people, and was peaceful. The participants have dispersed by Thursday evening. Next day, on April 10, a crowd of approximately 20,000-25,000 people gathered in the center of Tbilisi, to continue the protest. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev earlier remarked that he refused to talk to President Saakashvili, and will start dialogue with his eventual replacement.

The echoes of the Russian-Georgian war last year are still felt in Moscow. This time, the Russian Military has recognized one successful item fielded by the Georgians - their use of Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles against advanced Russian army. On April 7, 2009, "Kommersant" newspaper reported that Russia will purchase 3 types of Israeli UAV's to the tune of $50 million, with half the amount already been transferred to the supplier. The selection of foreign UAV's is explained by the fact that Russian developers have not been able to offer Moscow a competitive alternative. Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Popovkin explained this decision at the April 10 press conference - Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles will be used to develop principles for the application of such technology, and not for actual military combat. At the same time, Russian military intends to boost the development of domestically-produced unmanned aerial systems. In late February 2009, a senior source in the Defense Ministry announced that by early summer of this year, Russia should develop a new unmanned aerial vehicle for tactical intelligence purposes.

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The massive protests in Georgia should serve as a fairly good reminder that the West should be far more parsimonious with its security blanket.

During the Russian-Georgian war, we were frequently told that Georgia deserved our support because she was a democracy. Yet according to Gallop, many Georgians are disaffected with their democratic institutions:

None of this means that Georgia should therefore become a Russian satellite state. But just how much U.S. credibility and prestige should we be putting on the line?

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According to Russian daily "Izvestia," Molodvan protesters in Chisinau decided to take a more high-tech approach to challenge the government: "It is no longer enough or even modern to take over mail or telegraph stations. Young people prefer to use "modern toys." Organizers of the Chisinau disorder, and their "supporters," coordinated their actions through the Twitter social network. ... The user of this social network can easily find any information by "tagging it." Such tags were used for the communication actors in Chisinau, mobilizing those wishing to join in the protest."

Izvestia further reports that after the first night of protests it became clear that if the government is indeed resolved to disperse protesters, its police batons and water cannons are not enough - Moldovan President Voronin's police and army force is too small (it numbers only 6,000 people). Izvestia further reports that President's HQ was ready to start shooting at protesters Wednesday afternoon. According to Mark Tkachuk, Voronin's Head of the Election Headquarters: "What our political opponents did last night during the first night of protests is forcing them either to move forward to the end, or to surrender. ... For them, surrender is psychologically difficult, while it's also not possible to go to the probable conclusion of their actions."

Tkachuk further stated: "President Voronin made it clear that the government's refusal yesterday to use force was unprecedented, since we saw that children - school children and adolescents - were used as human shields by the putschists. Already yesterday, the government had every reason to use firearms. But today, we decided: there will be no mercy! If today's actions should worsen, will speak the language of military methods."

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Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was generally satisfied with his meetings at the G20 Summit in London, having covered a wide range of issues - from the economy to global security to relations with America and with Russian neighbors.

At a press conference after the summit, President Medvedev called the forum a major step forward compared to the previous one. "If the first summit in Washington was somewhat introductory - some of the things that we discussed were very general in nature - now, it is very different," said the Russian leader. According to him, the joint declaration that has just been adopted contains a very specific set of topics and decisions on overcoming the global financial and economic crisis. "In this sense, I believe that the work which was carried out, culminated in the proper result. This is a step forward, a step in the right direction," said Medvedev, admitting also that the attending parties have not been able to resolve all issues.

Medvedev also stressed that G20 members will get back to discussing the idea of a "supranational currency," which has been suggested by the Russian side: "No one expected that today we are going to take a decision on this subject. The challenge now is for our national currencies to feel normal, but that does not mean that we are satisfied with the overall situation of national reserve currencies," explained the President. Medvedev also remained positive on his meeting with the US President Barack Obama, calling him a "constructive man" who gave very specific answers to the questions raised: "I am glad that I got acquainted with the President of the United States. It was a good meeting. It seemed to me that we have been able to establish contact. There are many topics on which he and I see eye-to-eye - that I can say with absolute precision," said Medvedev, stating that there were still differences with the American side on many issues.

One common area with the US is the issue of financial bonuses at companies that are receiving government assistance. According to Medvedev, heads and CEOs of companies that get such assistance must "behave decently" and limit the size of their bonuses: "It is up to the companies whether to pay bonuses or not. But if a company is public or a company is owned by the state in whole or in substantial part, I believe that our dear managers, directors of the companies must practice self-restraint, even if they already have agreed to pay a high compensation," said Russian President.

At the summit, President Medvedev also spoke with the students at the London School of Economics, answering questions on Russia's relationship with the West and NATO. He briefly touched on the subject of protests in London, which led to some unrest in the city, saying that people should have the right to protest, but that he gets tense when talking about it: "I grew up in a country where there have been many revolutions, and I am always careful when referring to such popular expressions of discontent," joked Medvedev.

Russian president called on NATO to be more responsible when making decisions, not to create problems for themselves and not to exacerbate relations with its neighbors, including with Moscow: "NATO needs to think about that, to preserve the unity and not to create problems with its neighbors. Before you decide to increase the size of the alliance, think about the consequences," stressed Medvedev, adding that "... frankly I told all this to my new comrade Barack Obama." According to the Russian President, NATO should be responsible for making these kind of decisions and act on the principle of "do no harm": "You need to think about what would be the relations within the alliance, because the admission of new members brings new responsibilities and new challenges," said Medvedev, noting that "it's not easy to talk to all NATO members," although he declined to mention specific countries.

Turning to the issue of missile defense in Europe, Russian President once again called the possible placement of such a system an "error on the conscience" of the previous U.S. administration: "I think that all sorts of protective measures, such as missile defense - namely, a means of protection, including from threats that come from nations with unstable regimes - these kind of protective measures should be implemented together", said Medvedev, adding that many of his European colleagues share this stance. However, he encouraged those present at the London School of Economics briefing that "there is every chance that Russia would not need to deploy its Iskander missile systems in the Kaliningrad region in response to the deployment of U.S. missile defense system in Europe: "We had a conversation on this subject with the President of the United States. At least I can say that today, there is a desire from the United States to listen to our arguments. They do not try to cut us off and say that this issue is resolved."

Responding to the question from a Georgian student, Dmitry Medvedev stated that he does not want to have any relations with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, or to communicate with him: "Everything that happened during last summer in the Caucasus is on the conscience of the Georgian leadership. This is my official stance. If the power ... changes [in Georgia], I am ready to discuss any topic. Russia wanted to have kind and good relations with Georgia."

Meanwhile, Georgia would like to continue its security relationship with the United States, and recently offered to send its troops to Afghanistan. President Saakashvili announced this initiative at a briefing with the Deputy Chairman of the Joint Staff of the US Armed Forces General James Cartwright. However, experts are certain that Georgians will not receive special dividends even if a limited contingent of Georgian troops will get to Afghanistan. An example of such reasoning is the fact that no meeting recently took place between US Vice President Biden and the Speaker of Georgian Parliament David Bakradze. At the briefing with Saakashvili, when General Cartwright unexpectedly advised Georgia to maintain peaceful relations with its neighbors, the pro-government TV company "Rustavi-2" quickly interrupted a live broadcast.

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At his meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, President Obama spoke his first official Russian word. At the end, he said "Spasibo!" (Thank you!) to a surprised audience. Obama continued: "I am also learning the Russian language, but President Medvedev knows English better than I know Russian."

He also tried to joke about his upcoming July visit to Moscow: "It will be warmer in July than in January." For those who did not catch up right away, he explained that the relations between Russia and the U.S. will be warmer as well.

For his part, President Medvedev said that he and Obama even had time to talk about their respective legal education.

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This Monday in Moscow, Arkady Dvorkovich, the Russian President's Assistant for Economics at the G-20 Summit, presented the final program that Dmitry Medvedev will outline at the upcoming forum in London. The Russian proposal consists of the following: First, there should be a formation of a common regulatory system. Second, discussions should start on a new monetary system. And third, member countries should take firm commitment to reform the IMF and its recapitalization. "If these three components will be accepted and if there will be a promise to realize the economic incentives, we will be satisfied," declared Dvorkovich.

Moscow insisted that the additional funds be deposited to the IMF with the condition of reforming this international institution. To ensure that the IMF did not lose momentum for reform, Dvorkovich suggested the idea to provide such deposits not directly, but through the purchasing of bonds. Reform of the IMF in one form or another is supported by the UK, Germany, Indonesia, China, Canada, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.

Earlier, China and Russia had put forward the proposal to review the role of the dollar by accepting something similar to the "suprereserve" currency. But, as is acknowledged openly in Moscow and by Dvorkovich, the probability of establishing a global currency is "insignificant." "Our objective was to initiate discussion on this topic, because we understand that the current system is inadequate and contains in itself too many risks associated with the unilateral actions of a small number of countries that are responsible for the release of reserve currency," explained Dvorkovich.

Analysts and experts are alarmed at the lack of the initiative by Russians to combat protectionism. Earlier, Dvorkovich referred to the World Trade Organization, which came to the conclusion that "almost all countries over the past six months sought to implement measures that can be attributed to protectionism...But we are yet to see any serious global risks because of this," Assistant to the President added. "While many countries are insisting that the the London Declaration should include stricter rules on this subject, the debate on this issue will have to go on." Igor Nikolayev, Director of the Strategic Analysis of the Federal Budget Committee, stated: "By this statement, Moscow has demonstrated that it does not consider protectionism a threat, but rather will continue to refer to this issue. The irrationality of this is striking."

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There is a serious buzz in the Russian establishment following the statement by US Consul General Kurt Amend that Washington is not just deliberating the introduction of visa-free regime between Russia and the United States, but rather considers such move one of its foreign policy goals. However, according to Russian experts, such policy does not seem feasible in the near future, but rather reflects the desire of the United States to use this idea as one of the trump cards in the forthcoming talks between Presidents Medvedev and Obama. "We are discussing this issue with the Government of Russia, how we can move on this matter. We believe that it is necessary to do so gradually, step by step. This process must be mutual, and is our overall goal," said the American Embassy official this past Friday to "Russian News Service" radio station. Amend also pointed out the recent trend in reduction of number of refusals in visa issuance to Russians. "In 95% of all cases, visas are issued," emphasized Consul General and stated that in 2008, the U.S. Embassy had issued 170,000 visas for Russian citizens.

In October 2008, three former Soviet republics - Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania - as well as a number of Eastern European countries, were added to the visa-free travel regime with the United States. Maxim Minayev, leading expert at the Center for Political Studies, believes that this statement by Consul General fits the general trend of Russian-American relations, which the Obama administration recently dubbed "Reset": "I do not think that the representatives of the diplomatic mission of the U.S. can afford reckless statements. Their positions in large part must conform to the general views on the development of bilateral relations that are developed in Washington."

According to Minayev, visa-free regime usually characterizes a high degree of confidence on the part of America towards its allies: "Such a declaration for the United States is a demonstration of a high degree of allied relations. Plus, it is also the desire to obtain from those allies further dividends in the bilateral relations." Minayev noted that for the Eastern European countries, visa-free regime was a cost for participation of their military contingents in Afghanistan, while recent granting of such regime to South Korea reflects a long-standing military alliance with America.

"The introduction of visa-free regime with Russia means that we are either going to be strategic allies, or Washington is waiting for us to give significant concessions in addressing key international issues. This, obviously, involves Iran and support for actions in Afghanistan, including the inducement of Moscow to agree to the emergence in Central Asia of an alternative to the Manas military base," said the expert.

Eager to offset the effects of the global financial crisis on their economy, Russians are seriously deliberating the creation of an alternative reserve currency to the US Dollar. Recent proposals by Russians to establish such currency did not receive much attention until last week, when China put its support behind this idea. At one point the idea was also picked up by the most distinguished global economists. The world is now seriously talking about the possibility of the emergence of supranational Reserve unit, based on Special Drawing Rights - quasi-currency of the International Monetary Fund.

The dollar recently suffered another blow, inflicted by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Head of the IMF, who said that discussions about new global reserve currency are legitimate and could be held in in the coming months. According to Russians, Strauss-Kahn's haste is obvious - if a new reserve currency emerges that is based on the SDR, then the International Monetary Fund will be the most powerful entity on Earth - the issuer of the world's money. This attitude suits Russia just fine - now, the prospect of creating a new, non-dollar currency becomes short-term, rather than a long-term project.

Russia responded immediately to such developments - on Thursday, March 26, First Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Denisov suggested convening an international conference with the authorized representatives of governments and financial experts to discuss the creation of a single global currency. According to the diplomat, such conference should be the next step after the upcoming G-20 London Summit and after June conference at United Nations. However, the discussions, even at the highest levels, are not enough - there should be policy decisions agreed upon by all countries. "This is an issue that must be discussed in order to develop a consensus, its not enough to solve this by a simple majority. It must be agreed by virtually all participants of the international economic and financial exchange. Only then can this idea be realized," admitted Denisov.

In the ongoing public relations battle over Soviet history in the Baltic countries, Russian "Studio Third Rome" released a film called "Baltics: This History of so-called "Occupation." The film tells about the years when the Baltic countries were part the USSR. It tries to answer questions such as why Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were considered to be "showcases of socialism," were on a special account with the Soviet leadership and were receiving large investments into their economies. The film also asks why, after the proclamation of independence and accession to the European Union, people's lives there have not become better and richer.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Baltic countries decided to "cross off" the legacy of Soviet industrial development. The film showed the destroyed sections of the industrial plants, rusting piers at Klaipeda shipworks, deserted beaches of Jurmala, the "vacation pearl" of the Baltics. The directors and producers visited the Ignalina nuclear power plant, which the EU at the request of the Lithuanian authorities will have to close next year. The film asks if destruction of the Soviet economic legacy is worth it for the Baltic states. The picture also tries to show that the current financial crisis has already confirmed the "malignancy of non-Soviet economic inheritance."

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You know that economic news isn't all that bad when a major Russian investment bank "VTB-Capital" is contemplating entering the US market, according to the bank Chairman Yury Soloviev: "VTB-Capital is not against entering the American market, perhaps by way of purchasing a company in New York City. At the same time we are not going to buy a major asset, or even purchase a license. ..."

The bank is contemplating expanding in Asia, where it has a subsidiary in Singapore. According to Soloviev, the bank would like to stake a presence in Hong Kong. It already operates in London and Moscow. "VPB" focuses its activities on securities issues, business development, direct investment, trade in the global commodity markets, asset management, as well as providing consulting services to clients on transactions in capital markets and mergers and acquisitions in Russia and beyond.

So the news is not all that bad for the NYC professionals in the finance sector who recently lost their jobs. Just make sure that you learn to speak Russian, and an interesting job may await you.

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Der Spiegel has a bombshell on a European investigation into the Russian-Georgian war:

According to information obtained by SPIEGEL, the television appearance by [Georgian] General Kurashvili plays a key role in the investigation. His remarks indicate that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was not repelling "Russian aggression," as he continues to claim to this day, but was planning a war of aggression.

This is because Kurashvili may have been quoting directly from Order No. 2 from Aug. 7, a Georgian document that could shed light on the question of who started the war. When the commission questioned the Russian deputy head of the general staff, Anatoly Nogovitsyn, in Moscow, he quoted from the very same Georgian order. According to Nogovitsyn, the document also contained the phrase "reestablishment of constitutional order." If the order, which Russian intelligence intercepted, is authentic, it would prove that Saakashvili lied.

The Georgian government still refuses to show the controversial decree to the commission. Officials in Tbilisi argue that they cannot do this because the document is a state secret.

Perhaps it's no surprise that the government of Georgia is splurging on American PR and lobbying firms.

It's also worth remembering that before the dust had even settled on this conflict, many powerful figures in Washington had already decided that this was firm evidence of Russian revanchism and (what else) a replay of the 1930s with Putin in the role of Hitler, testing the resolve of the West.
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Mikheil Saakashvili, President Elect of Georgia, answers questions at a press conference at the Annual Meeting 2004 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 21, 2004. Via CC License.

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Georgian President Saakashvili's government is actively hunting for Russian spies - the timing of this operation perhaps coincides with the recent Hart-Hagel Commission report that recommends putting Georgia's NATO inclusion on hold in favor of better relations with Russia proper. In the Georgian city of Zugdidi, there was a massive operation to arrest a single person. Georgian special forces arrested a citizen of Russia Vladimir Vahaniya. During the search of his home, police discovered two grenades and automatic weapons. The court sentenced Vahaniya - a businessman, doctor, author of several books, a former member of the Russian prosecutor's office and a candidate for the State Duma in 2003 - to two months preliminary detention.

As the daily "Izvestia" reports, "today Vahaniya probably curses the day when Mikhail Saakashvili gave him a second, Georgian citizenship, which is granted to citizens of other countries only by the Presidential order, and only for services to the state of Georgia. Saakashvili signed the decree 11 months before Vahaniya's arrest in Zugdidi." According to "Izvestia," Vahaniya's arrest coincided with the promotional campaign of the Georgian authorities, who claimed that the planned large-scale anti-government protests to take place in April were planned by the Russian secret services. Vahaniya therefore suits the role of an "agent" - he lived in Russia for the past 30 years, and chaired a Union of the military and law enforcement officials of Moscow region.

Georgia is not the only country actively engaged in seeking out pro-Russian elements amongst its population. Life may get more uncomfortable for the Russian citizens of Latvia, a republic with the largest post-Soviet ethnic Russian population in the Baltics. According to the daily "Gazeta," Latvian nationalists proposed to their compatriots to photograph license plates of cars from the Russian and Soviet symbols, and send pictures to the police. Such a "Rolodex," in their opinion, will help to identify "the most aggressive colonists" of their country. Of particular interest are license plates with the Russian flag, Russian national emblem, the flag of the Soviet Union - as well as the actual plate numbers of cars with such symbols.

The Club of Latvian Nationalists announced on their website that: "It seems that in recent months, people are paying attention to the fact that on our streets there are too many cars with visible Russian or Soviet flags. It is clear that in this way, the car owners have demonstrated their loyalty to the policy that is hostile to Latvia. The collected information can be useful for identifying the most aggressive colonists, which is especially important prior to May 9 (Commemoration of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany), and prior to the upcoming elections." Latvian security forces have no intention to take any action, considering such actions only as a publicity stunt by the nationalists.

In order to counter real and possible threats to his country, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced that Russian army will soon be a totally new, modernized and battle-ready entity. "We have never had such favorable conditions to create a modern, efficient army," - said the President at the Annual Military Review in Russia. According to Medvedev, the country should see a "new look of our army and navy have by December 1 of this year."

Explaining the upcoming changes, Medvedev clarified that they will include "transfer of all military units to the category of permanent readiness." Such a force could have "peace-time composition" - without additional military units - and should be able to effectively counter the emerging military threat. "This is a key component of the new model, the new image of the Armed Forces," stressed Medvedev. He further pointed out that a "modern, well-trained and equipped army with the newest weapons is the best guarantee against any potential aggression or external pressure." Russian head of state further outlined specific threats that such army should confront: "The analysis of the military-political situation in the world shows that some regions retain the threat of a serious potential conflict. Such threats can spark local crises that are also exacerbated by the international terrorism. There are also continued attempts to expand NATO's military infrastructure near the borders of Russia."

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I guess this can be presented as "Sarah Palin, watch out! - you got a young, sexy competitor in Russia!" That is at least the gist of the Yahoo Buzz post by Mike Kumboltz about Marya Sergeyeva, a 24-year-old speaker for the Russian youth movement. No need to paraphrase here - this is what the post says:

"The U.K.'s Daily Mail writes that she is the "leading propagandist" of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Critics believe she is being used by Putin to drum up support from Russia's youth. She's certainly carving out a nice career for herself. Sergeyeva is widely believed to be on her way to a government ministry position. Her ultimate ambition, apparently, is to rule Russia.

The Daily Mail goes on to explain that Sergeyeva is "a leading light of the Young Guards, a youthful and growing band of zealots dedicated to resisting any efforts to stop Putin's inexorable Russian revolution." Not exactly a nonpartisan statement, but Sergeyeva isn't exactly nonpartisan herself. The Daily Mail writes that the rising star has called for immigrants to "go home." She also blasts those who criticize Putin and believes that the United States wants Russia to be "weak." The Kyiv Post compares her to Ann Coulter.

While her statements and speeches are debatable, we've noticed that many folks are more intrigued by her looks than her remarks. Searches on her name are up 454% this week, and "maria sergeyeva pictures" are also on the march. Some have labeled her "Putin's pinup," but others believe that focusing on her looks discounts the impact she may have on the world stage.

One thing is for sure: She's an attractive and controversial political figure who sometimes poses in revealing attire. Just one of those three components is usually enough to guarantee a person some buzz. Add 'em together and the possibilities are endless ..."

Do check out the links in this article - they give the term "interesting" a new meaning.

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Russian political establishment is reviewing the Hagel-Hart initiative on Russia, outlined on March 16 in Washington, DC. "The position outlined in the report is very sound - even more robust than might be expected of any American group," Fyodor Lukyanov, chief editor of the magazine Russia in Global Affairs told Izvestia daily paper. "Here, we have the opinions of the 'realist school,' the most 'pro-Russian' part of the establishment. It's not that these people are so fond of Russia - they simply believe that America needs a pragmatic approach to all issues.

"Their view contrasts sharply with the position of the previous administration, which combined ideology and arrogance, thus disrespecting the real value of Russia in world affairs. Its very important that what is recommended is the removal from the bilateral agenda the two issues of most annoyance to Moscow - the expansion of NATO in the post-Soviet space and the deployment of missile defense elements in Eastern Europe. But this is only one approach, and it will never be taken up in its pure form."

Lukyanov further states: "The U.S. foreign policy towards any country - including Russia - is a result of many intersecting interests. And even if Obama, Hillary Clinton and other 'interested parties' agree with the truth of these expert findings, they still have to adopt them in an ideological environment that is acceptable to the public, in order to avoid the impression that the new administration has 'retreated' on a given issue. In America, there are enough politicians, especially among the Republicans, who only wait for the moment to reproach Obama that he exhibited signs of weakness."

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Russian economy begun to actively respond to the needs and demands of the local population by drastically slashing the amount of food and agricultural imports to the country. That does not bode well for the Russian people nor for the import-export sector which rose in trade volume over the last few years. Before the advent of the crisis in 2008, many staple food products were imported, since the vast agricultural potential of the Russian Federation that has not been realized following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

In February 2009, Russia reduced food imports to 21.8% compared to February 2008, as reported by the Federal Customs Service: "Thanks to the devaluation of the ruble, foreign goods went up in price by more than a third, so domestic importers can not buy in the previous volumes. Additionally, local demand leaves much to be desired due to the crisis."

According to the official data, Russia imported less than half the alcohol as compared with last year - a first-of-a-kind reduction in the last 8 years. Import of fish and sea products fell by a third, import of milk products fell by almost 37%, while most felt are going to be reduction of meat and beef products by an estimated 11%. Russian domestic producers cannot yet satisfy the domestic demand with locally grown meat products, and general population still relies on foreign exporters.

Continue reading "Russia: Crisis Forces Food Reduction" »

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March 2, 2009 marked the one-year anniversary of President Medvedev's rule. Russia's ruling party, "United Russia" (Edinaya Rossia) held a forum titled "Strategy-2020," which was devoted to summaries and conclusions about the President's first 12 months. The current economic crisis took center stage during the party discussions. The most notable comment was delivered by Vladislav Surkov, First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration, who assured the audience made up of party functionaries, economists, journalists and political experts that while the Russian political system works effectively, calling for major changes would be an "extremely risky speculation."

The discussion revealed an interesting cross-section of the current Russian opinion about both the domestic policies and Russia's place in the international system. Valery Fadeyev, Chief Editor of the "Expert" magazine, stated at the meeting that the Medvedev-Putin tandem leadership has improved the political system of Russia, as "it has become stronger, since each of the leaders brings his own qualities into the system." According to Fadeyev, "policy is a difficult thing to begin with, and it's not logical to resist the current situation when Putin is still a strong leader." It is this political system, according to political expert Oleg Pavlovsky, that protected Russia from the fate of Iceland, Hungary, Latvia and Ukraine, "which is already not bad."

The latest Russian sociological studies also reveal a certain paradox: on the one hand, people are very realistic in evaluating the economic crisis and its aftermath, while on the other hand, they fully support the current government. According to economist Michael Yuriev, "there exists no political system that would be good at everything, each has its detriments." As for the economic crisis, Yuriev thinks that under the current circumstances, it is important that Russia's long-term strategic interests would not be affected by the current needs of the Russian economy. "If we begin to pursue policies that would limit our dependence on the global economy, we will pay some of the costs of this policy in the future, but they would be small - and we would obviously benefit in the short-term. Otherwise, we do not know what would be the future result from our total integration, but the fact that we could lose now is very clear."

The economic crisis may have irrevocably affected Russia's already gloomy demographic situation. The first months of the crisis put an end to governments talks on the expected demographic breakthrough, which was predicted by Russia's leaders over the last few years. The expected boom in fertility rates has been one of the most important discussion subjects for both President Medvedev and then-President Putin. The demographic issue even took center stage during Medvedev's election campaign. By the end of 2008, Russian Health Ministry still gave optimistic predictions on this issue. However, there has been no discussion of Russian demographic situation at the highest levels of power for the past several months, while the experts argue that the country faces a demographic decline.

Continue reading "Russia: Managing the Political System" »

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The Kremlin continues to battle the effects of the global economic slowdown on Russia, and this time, President Dmitry Medvedev is setting an example by planning to cut into his administration's budget and personnel. By March 1, all major administration departments must present the plan to Medvedev's assistant on how they will cut their expenses. There are also concrete plans to cut up to 100 staffers from the Administration's payroll. Earlier, the Russian President said that in tough economic conditions, "... we must start with ourselves; President's Administration is not a large organization, but it must lead by example." Currently, Medvedev's offices employ approximately 1,600 people across the country, and the outgoing 100 are most likely going to be staffers close to retirement or those working in various regional offices.

In order to stimulate its flagging economy, Russian Ministry of Economic Development has put forth a plan to Prime Minister Putin in order to support greater competition within the country. The plan, developed 'till the fiscal year 2012, will be supported by specific anti-monopoly legislation, which is being developed by both chambers of Russian Parliament. According to Putin, this legislation "should give the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service greater authority to interdict unsavory business practices and the abuse of monopolistic behavior on the market, but at the same time it should free entrepreneurs form excessive controls." The plan will devote special attention to so-called "natural monopolies" and should simplify taxation of Russia's financial systems in order to stimulate financial trading in the country. Until recently, "natural monopolies" included Russia's oil, gas, metals, energy and certain industrial and armaments entities that so far contributed the most to Russia's economic growth. The government plan also seeks to simply access to the natural monopolies' infrastructure, as well as lowering the cost of access to electric grids and small business participation in state orders.

While Russia struggles to steady its economy and come up with ways to instill confidence in its domestic market, many leading Russian policy experts put the blame on the ongoing crisis at the feet of the "global elites", emanating from America. Aleksei Pushkov, Director of the Institute of International Affairs at the Diplomatic Academy (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and Professor of the elite Moscow Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), states that the global financial elite feels the responsibility for the ongoing crisis, but refuses to talk about it. "At the recent Davos Economic Forum, many leading officials and managers of the global banks and financial institutions simply did not show up. There was a feeling that the very model of global capitalism developed over the last three decades is itself in crisis."

He further stated that "here, we are talking about the neo-liberal model of development. It was believed until recently that globalization and global economic integration will create conditions for the uninterrupted growth of economic well-being. In practice, however, it contributed to the spread of America's financial crisis all over the world. It was globalization that spread the virus that first struck the U.S. economy." Professor Pushkov also thinks that America's attempts at creating global hegemony and uni-polar world have crumbled: "The neo-liberal economic model manifested itself in politics after the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. In 1991, United States was saying that it remained the only global leader. Then-president George Bush was talking about the New World Order. Even in the United States, it is now acceptable to talk about this uni-polar "moment" that lasted 'till about 2003-2004, when America overestimated its capabilities and begun its policy of regime change in the Middle East, starting with Iraq. That "moment" lasted about 10-14 years and came to and end during the presidency of Bush Jr. Barack Obama is a president of universally accepted 'multi-polar world.' By electing him, America showed everyone that it is refusing to be the hegemon. If the country thought differently, then the next president would have been John McCain - the continuation of George W. Bush policies."

Russia continues its plan for decreasing economic and military-industrial cooperation with Ukraine. This was confirmed by the Vice Premier Sergei Ivanov, who remarked that Moscow is not able to unilaterally break its defense cooperation with Kiev. "We continue to depend on each other, since the Russian-Ukrainian cooperation in the defense industry was developed in the Soviet years," said the former head of the Defense Ministry. "But even before the Georgian aggression [in August 2008], there were adopted a number of measures aimed at ending the industrial and military-technical cooperation with Ukraine. This is an inevitable process, as we see what is happening with our neighbors. We cannot take risks, especially given the desire of the Ukrainian leadership to join NATO."

This past Wednesday at the Kremlin, President Dmitry Medvedev met with the President of Yemen Ali Abdullah Saleh. The outcome of the negotiations was Yemen's desire to assist Russian ships involved in the fight against piracy in the Gulf of Aden. "We would like to talk about what is necessary to continue providing the Russian warships with all necessary facilities in terms of countering piracy in the region," said Saleh. Yemeni President stressed that "the issues of countering the pirates are of great importance to Sana'a." For this purpose, Yemen will host a regional center dealing with anti-piracy efforts. President Saleh also remarked nostalgically that ".... we have longstanding friendly relations with Russia. I am talking about those long-standing relationships that bind the Arab world, including Yemen, yo the Soviet Union." Throughout the Cold War, Yemen was divided into a communist South Yemen and a pro-Western North Yemen. In the 1970s, Soviet Navy gained access to South Yemeni facilities and maintained military presence in the Gulf of Aden. The country was eventually peacefully unified in 1990, as the Cold War was coming to an end.

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In a sign of how serious the ongoing financial crisis is in Russia, the daily "Izvestia" published an article urging the readers not to panic or be depressed from the grim news about the state of the Russian and global economy. The article featured prominent psychologists urging people not to get emotional, but rather seek to analyze the gloomy data in order to truly discern what this crisis means to them personally. "Try to understand to what extent you are going to be touched by these changes," writes one such expert. "As your colleagues or friends lose their jobs or have their salaries cut, try to anticipate major changes to your lifestyle and try to adapt right away. If you think your salary will be cut, try to seek a part-time job. Also, you should know your rights as a worker - try to find out what you are entitled to in these uncertain times."

While this particular advice may be well-intentioned, the rest of the article does not contribute to lowering the already-high blood pressure of an average Russian citizen - it lists a dozen executives who have recently committed suicides by various means due to the effect of the worsening Russian economy. If there is ever a silver lining - if it can be called that - amidst this gloomy economic data, it's the fact that Russian citizens lived almost the entire decade of the 1990s in a perpetual economic, social and even personal crisis. As Russia continued to experience terrible after-shocks form the collapse of the Soviet Union, its people had to adapt to conditions and circumstances that most Americans would reject outright as unacceptable. Therefore, today's Russian people are somewhat better prepared to weather the economic storm than their American counterparts, if only because they are used to prolonged instability and economic uncertainty.

As US President Obama announced that he will hold American mayors responsible for proper spending of the massive economic stimulus, Russian President Medvedev announced that he will fire governors who are incapable of performing their job. Medvedev specifically stated the ongoing economic crisis could not be used by the governors in their defense. "This is your moment of truth," said Medvedev in his address to the heads of the regions. "And I hope you understand that." At the same time, the Russian president called on the federal officials to pay better attention to the needs of the regions, making it clear that not just governors could be held responsible. This past week, Medvedev already fired 4 regional heads. "We have no right to relax," stated the president. "Our economic situation is complicated, and we have to save federal funds on all levels."

Meanwhile, official government data gives more grim news for the Russian economy. Elvira Nabiullina, Economic Development Minister, stated that the "situation is changing - but not for the better. Main problems are lack of credit, lowered foreign and domestic interest towards Russian products, unemployment and lowered personal incomes in the population." According to Nabiullina, Russian GDP contracted at 2.4% in January 2009 alone.

Nonetheless, Russian armed forces would not suffer even in the midst of the ongoing economic crisis. "There are key areas where we have no right to cut expenses," said President Medvedev, "and they include the new look of our military, the ongoing modernization, and the social improvements amongst the military cadres." One such important reform will be the salary increase amongst the junior and senior officers in the military, making an average pay equivalent to $3,375 per month. Russian officials hope that such monthly salary will return prestige to the military service, with said reforms slated to take place after 2012. However, the economic crisis could postpone such reforms till 2016.

Russian military exports could increase even more with this week's visit to Moscow by Mustafa Mohammed-Nadjar, Iranian Defense Minister, who reminded his Russian counterparts that Iran has a robust domestic defense industry with a defensive purpose. While stating that Iran has not attacked anyone over the past 30 years, the defense minister also expressed great interest in Russian advanced military technology. He drew attention to the fact that Iran and Russia have common threats and opportunities in the region, "and when it comes to certain questions, our positions and interests completely dovetail. We are always ready to utilize advanced military technologies and equipment - Russia has such capability and we intend to use it, as before."

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Taking his cues form the Obama administration's current efforts and from FDR's "fireside chats" on the radio during the Great Depression, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev pledged to continuously update Russian citizens via TV about government efforts to combat current economic crisis. "It is important to tell the truth in our lives," said the head of state at the official announcement of this outreach, which should commence shortly and will be televised on all major Russian television stations. Medvedev is planning on meeting with chief anchors of each of the TV stations in order to talk about his government's efforts in a straightforward fashion.

" I am certain that the government must talk openly about the difficulties we are currently encountering and about solutions that are taken in order to overcome the crisis." Medvedev is convinced that such dialogue with the worried population of Russia should be held on a regular basis. The President also noted that Russia is hopeful about the "signals coming form the new White House administration, which is striving to cooperate on all current problems. We are counting on that."

Russian government remained satisfied by the work of the G8 group in finding solutions to the financial crisis, even though Russia was not actively participating in the final document that outlined efforts by the world's leading economic powers to combat the ongoing problems. "Russia is satisfied by the overall result," said Deputy Prime MInister Alexei Kudrin. "Of course, we would like the communication between Russia and other states to be much better, because the main discussion took place beyond the scope of this final document. This document reflects what we were able to compromise on." The key issues discussed by the G8 involved financial structure reforms, as well as reforms of the IMF and World Bank, such as increasing the resources of these institutions during the crisis.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov offered high praise to the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "She is an experienced politician, she has her own convictions and has a very strong team that is currently forming the the State Department," said Lavrov. "I think she will bring her style and her experience to the American foreign policy. We have already exchanged our points of view - by phone and on paper - and this exchange leads me to believe that she will, no doubt, serve the interest of the United States, but also taking into consideration the fact that such interests may benefit from a more equal and mutually-beneficial cooperation."

At the same time, Russian government and security experts remained critical of US President Obama's recent plans to reduce armaments, including nuclear weapons. Lieutenant-General Gennady Evstafiev (Ret.) of the External Intelligence Service (SVR), recently commented on the Russian view of such arms reductions to the daily "Izvestia." In particular, Evstafief noted a few issues that, in his opinion, are not getting due coverage by the White House. "Such deep reductions in Russian and American nuclear arsenals are impossible without involving other countries in the process. While such potential discussion may go well with France and the United Kingdom, questions still remain about the nuclear armament of China. Beijing's constantly growing nuclear arsenal is not limited by any international treaties, and does not allow for any transparency. Obviously, Russia and China are strategic partners, but the overall discussion on strategic nuclear armaments should not leave any questions."

General Evstafief also noted that any deep cuts in strategic nuclear armaments must be underpinned by a strong level of mutual trust between the two countries. "But currently, United States has not reversed any of its mistaken and destabilizing assumptions, such as NATO's advance to the east, placement of military infrastructure in eastern European countries, militarization of space and the Arctic, militarization of Ukraine and Georgia and the doctrine of offensive capability beyond the NATO zone." He further noted that "in order to move towards nuclear armament reductions, United States should show us and the entire world that it respects international stability and mutually-beneficial partnership. However, this hasn't happened yet."

Evstafiev also noted that in order for the nuclear armament discussion to truly have effect, US must be impartial and objective to the spread of nuclear technology in general. "America is very sensitive when it comes to Iran's nuclear potential, but basically looks the other way when it comes to Israel's, Pakistan's and now even India's nuclear arsenal, thus undercutting the International Non-Proliferation Treaty." The General also drew attention to America's "overwhelming superiority in conventional weapons - especially high tech. US is capable of concentrating massive offensive groups practically anywhere in the world, with support of a wide military infrastructure - which is getting closer and closer to Russia's borders. And now imagine how differently US may have behaved during Georgia's aggression against South Ossetia if it wasn't sure of the adequacy and guarantee of Russian nuclear response."

Underscoring Moscow's global reach in military exports, Russia and India recently agreed to jointly develop a fifth generation jet fighter. This announcement was made by Mikhail Pogosyan, Chief of "MiG" and "Sukhoi" aircraft design bureaus, and took place during the "Aero India-2009" international air show. For the first time, such joint fighter model will be fielded by both Indian and Russian air forces, and the first prototype of this plane is expected to fly this year. Previously, Soviet Union and later Russia supplied New Delhi with base export models that were a notch below those aircraft fielded by Soviet/Russian air force proper. Currently, India is a key customer of Russian avionics technology, including Su-30 multi-purpose combat fighter. Russia has been supplying India with military aircraft for several decades, while also remaining a steady seller of aircraft and air system to China - India's main competitor in Asia.

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Last Thursday, the Wall Street Journal ran an interesting analysis of U.S.-Russian relations:

On Wednesday, Russia announced a financial rescue fund for a group of ex-Soviet allies and won their agreement to form a military rapid reaction force in the region that it said would match North Atlantic Treaty Organization standards. That came a day after Kyrgyzstan announced, at Russian urging, that it planned to evict the U.S. from the base it has used to ferry large numbers of American troops into Afghanistan. Russia said the base may house part of the planned new force instead.

The steps mark Russia's most aggressive push yet to counter a U.S. military presence in the region that it has long resented. They pose a challenge for the administration of President Barack Obama, which sees Afghanistan as its top foreign-policy priority and is preparing to double the size of the American military presence there.

Kyrgyzstan said the U.S. must leave the Manas Air Base, which American forces use to send troops and equipment to Afghanistan.

The developments also underscore the difficulties for Mr. Obama as he seeks to build a closer relationship with Moscow. Russia is signaling that it will be a tough defender of its interests, especially in its traditional backyard of the former Soviet Union.

It was always going to be difficult for the United States to sustain a posture wherein it defined "vital" interests across the globe (interests that entitled her to use military force to defend) but that afforded no other nation a similar prerogative. That doesn't mean we don't have vital interests across the globe, but it does mean that we're going to have to be far more accommodating to the interests of other rising powers. It will also mean that we should start heeding Nikolas Gvosdev's advice and start choosing our rhetoric more carefully.

I find it interesting that the first post Cold War great power challenge to the United States is coming (albeit in a very mild form) from Russia and not China. Recall that during the 1990s, when neoconservatives weren't worrying about the dire threat from Saddam Hussein's Iraq, they were warning about a possible standoff with China. Instead, the threats to U.S. security came from al Qaeda and the great power challenge is coming from Russia. 0-2.

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Russian news this past week has been dominated by security-oriented content, starting with the ongoing discussions with the United States on reducing nuclear armaments. Vice-Premier Sergey Ivanov, representing the Russian side, stressed that when it comes to moving past nuclear-armaments agreement that expires at the end of 2009, his country would like a greater role for the United Nations, maintaining international security and stability and development of the strategy to combat emerging threats. Key issues for Russia at present are international agreement on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, prohibitions on nuclear weapons testing and prohibitions on chemical and biological armaments. Ivanov also stressed that Russia would like negotiating sides to agree on prohibition of placing nuclear weapons beyond the borders of US or Russia.

Russia's security in its near abroad got front page coverage when Alexander Golovin, Special Representative of the Russian President on issues of Demarcation of Borders with former Soviet states talked on determining Russian official border with "two newly created countries - Abkhazia and South Ossetia." Moscow held negotiations with Georgia on the status of Russian border in breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but "after Georgian aggression in August last year, both sides no longer meet. We are now preparing to hold such talks with Abkhazia and South Ossetia - as independent states, and as determined in our joint agreements on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance. This process is at the initial stages - we are still forming official delegations (for such talks)."

The key issue here is that Russia is willing to treat both former Georgian provinces as independent states - not as parts of Georgia, or constituent republics of Russia or even official Russian territory. Such stance puts it directly in odds with the United States and her European allies that call for the respect of territorial integrity of Georgia, which would include such breakaway provinces as parts of Georgia proper. "Abkhazia and South Ossetia are two countries that are allies of Russia," said Golovin. "During Soviet period, there were administrative borders between Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic and Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic in the Abkhazian and South Ossetian regions. Today, it is important for us to confirm such borders as official state borders between the Russian Federation, Republics of Abkhazia and Republic of South Ossetia."

Recently, Russia spearheaded the creation of the Collective Rapid Reaction Force made up of the militaries of the former Soviet countries that form the Commonwealth of Independent States. An analysis of such an alliance in daily "Izvestia" described such force with the potential to turn into "... a powerful military-political block. One just has to look at the map in order to see that countries making up such rapid reaction force - Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia - are essentially making up the rump Soviet Union. Even without Ukraine."

The analysis presented the strengths and benefits of such military alliance by country. "What do Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Uzbekistan have in common? They all have stable political regimes, which is very important in context of the ongoing global economic crisis. Russia and Kazakhstan have very strong economic footing - they have plenty of energy resources, most importantly oil and natural gas. This economic potential is enough for these two states - first of all Russia - to become the leading powers of this new block, bringing their allies to their (economic) level."

Other countries of this alliance bring major benefits as well - "Armenia should be considered as a strategic bastion of the Rapid Reaction Force in the South Caucasus region. Moreover, Yerevan can bring its partners other benefits- we must not forget how strong is the influence of Armenian diaspora in the United States, France and other Western countries. The opinion of such diaspora is not easy to ignore."

While Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have weak economies, small militaries and have recently be plagued by political instability, "... the time for color revolutions is over. the self-preservation instinct calls on people to consolidate, not to rock the boat. This instinct call on leaders of these countries to embrace their natural allies. For the United States, both Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are important so long as America is engaged in the war in Afghanistan. But it will not stay there forever- sooner or later, the US and NATO will leave the region. And then Bishkek and Dushanbe will again turn into distant periphery for Washington and Brussels. But for Moscow and Alma-Ata these states will never become unimportant - and this is they key to the long life of this new military-political block. We as countries need each other, and are willing to risk in order to keep our partners safe and sound."

Meanwhile, President Dmitry Medvedev made a major step towards relaxing official rules for registration of political parties. Until now, in order to be considered an official party in the Russian Federation, such party had to have 50,000 members. Medvedev's proposal lowered that number to 45,000. Another clause in his proposal calls on parties to continuously renew the party leadership ranks, and to let go "of eternal leaders." The majority of Russian Duma deputies consider this only the beginning of party reforms - there are indicators that more steps in easing of official party rules will be undertaken.

"Further benchmarks will lower the number of party membership to just 40,000 people - in our opinion, it is the most optimal number," said Vladimir Pligin, Chairman of the Duma Committee on Constitutional Legislation. "These initiatives have one goal - to strengthen the political structure of our society. Through such parties, various population groups should take part in government work and in official decision-making process," said Andrey Isaev, Chairman of the Duma Committee on Social Politics.

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For many months now, Russian private and public financial institutions have been trying to determine what will happen to the US dollar and the global economic regime it underpins. As the rubble swung to a new low following the collapse of the oil prices and as the dollar value keeps fluctuating, many in Russia are trying to figure out if the dollar will still remain the official currency for too long. Business daily "Fiansoviye Izvestia (Financial News) has recently published six possible scenarios about the fate of the American currency:

1. Most favorite "conspiratorial" scenario - United States will stop using the dollar in favor of an "Amero"- common unified currency of America, Canada and Mexico. The exchange rate of amero to dollar will be 1 to 10. All investments made with a dollar will lose most of their value.

2. The United States will print an entirely new "dollar," citing the concern that too many counterfeit dollars are in circulation. At the same time, it will refuse to accept dollars from beyond its borders, where the majority of dollar cash is circulated. Therefore, all cash in "people's mattresses" will become worthless.

3. America will stop printing a $100 banknote. The majority of such "Benjamins" are in global, not American, circulation.

4. America will announce a technical default. Many experts state that such is impossible for an economy of its size, because the American economy would lose much of the world's confidence. However, the United States changed the rules of the financial game many times before, thus becoming the principle global power in the process.

5. America will continue to print the dollars, causing greater inflation and the dollar's devaluation. The dollar will then crash, which will solve the problem of decades of borrowing cash from overseas.

6. The global financial system will be restructured entirely. Soon enough, many regional currencies will replace the dominant dollar. Some predict that within a decade there will be several such currencies, produced by countries united into economic and currency unions. The European Union has already started down this path, and there are similar deliberations among some Arab, Asian and Latin American states. Russia is currently looking at a plan to unite its rubble with currencies of other former Soviet states.

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Russian news has focused on alleviating country's growing economic hardships and on trying to determine the future course of US-Russia relations.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sent a major signal to the new American administration by stating at the Davos Economic Forum that a new chapter in US-Russia relations is only possible if Russia is removed from the Jackson-Vanik Amendment (JV). The Jackson-Vanick Amendment was passed by US Congress in the mid-1970s in order to limit and restrict trade with the USSR because of the way the communist superpower prohibited the emigration of Jews and other minorities. Following the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991 and the relaxation of all emigration laws- resulting in the outflow of millions of people to the West, Israel and America - all former Soviet states inherited the Jackson-Vanik Amendment in their bilateral relationship with the United States. Since 1992, Congress voted to remove the JV condition from practically all former Soviet Republics - except Russia. Ukraine was removed from the JV Amendment in 2006, Azerbaijan and other new American allies were removed in 2007 and 2008.

For Russia, the Jackson-Vanik Amendment is a political and personal - not economic - issue. Given the growing trade between the US and Russian Federation since 1992, every American president waived the JV clause every year in order to facilitate bilateral economic cooperation. But the US Congress refuses to graduate Russia from said Amendment, citing new reasons each year, including the need to protect US domestic poultry producers from unfair practices of their Russian competitors. At Davos, Putin spoke in no uncertain terms that the original conditions for this Amendment have long since expired: "Russia does not want an exclusive relationship with the world economic powers. We just want openness in return for openness. USSR no longer exists, and there is no restriction on Russian Jews' immigration overseas."

Putin's personal message to the Davos participants expressed years of frustration with the US Congress, when every year since the early 1990s, the Russian government and various groups and organizations arguing for greater US-Russia economic relationship were frustrated by yet another refusal to remove Russia from the JV Amendment. "When the US Congress yet again refused to remove Russia from the Jackson Vanik Amendment, citing the need to protect the market for the chicken wings, I got a letter from a powerful Israeli politician who told me that he did not spend time in Soviet jails because of poultry (possibly alluding to his time as a political prisoner in Soviet Union for his desire to leave the country), and it's not even clear what they are doing in their Congress," said Putin as the audience reacted in shock at his statement.

To further prop up the Russian economy, Prime Ministers of Russia and Belarus signed joint an anti-crisis plan. "This is a very good plan," said Belorussian Prime Minister Sergey Sidorski. "It will support the economies of our two countries, will not allow them to fall below the 2008 levels and will hopefully even allow for some growth." The plan was the main item of consideration at the meeting of Ministers of the "Unionzied State." Russia and Belarus signed the official charter in 1996 that called for a full union between the two countries, but the actual implementation and the eventual merger of the two states has been a very slow and arduous process, encountering resistance either from Moscow or from Minsk. (An important note - when then-President Putin announced that he would not run for his country's highest office in 2008, many in the international political establishment thought that he would be able to force the final union between the two countries and become the President of said new state).

In further deliberation about the fate of US-Russia relations, Viachelsav Nikonov, President of "Politica" Fund, cautioned against having too many expectations for the improvement in the way Moscow and Washington view each other. "United States remains the world's most powerful state despite the economic downturn. By the time Obama was inaugurated, two major crises resolved themselves - Israeli action in Gaza and Russia-Ukraine gas row. Nothing should have or could have cast a pall on the new President's first days in office." Nikonov cited a possible visit by President Obama to Russia in April of this year, but was not optimistic that there will be major shifts in US-Russia relations. "American foreign policy is geared towards US global domination. There are countries that interfere with that plan - whether they actually desire to do so or not. Obviously, Russia is one such country."

He also noted that the NATO eastward expansion plan that would incorporate Ukraine and Georgia was "hatched " by the administration of then-President Bill Clinton, whose former officials now fill the ranks of Obama's administration, including former first lady and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "That means both Ukraine and Georgia can remain areas of sharp geopolitical competition between America and Russia. Still, the overall competition between our countries may lessen also because Russia is not a priority for Obama's administration - the current economic crisis and the need to stabilize the Middle East are more important for the new American President."

Meanwhile, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev congratulated the winners of the prestigious global off-road auto race "Dakar" - the Russian team of KamAz auto manufacturers. Medvedev expressed his support for holding similar international auto races between Kazan (Russia) and Ashgabad (capital of Turkmenistan in Central Asia), traversing different terrain from forest to steppe to mountains to deserts. He also promised to personally conduct negotiations on this issue with presidents of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

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As Russia watched the historic inauguration of US President Barack Obama, there was plenty of commentary about the Jan. 20 event that took place in Washington - from positive and cautious optimism to pragmatic remarks about what the new American president means to Russia, its near abroad and Russia's relations with her neighbors.

Daily "Izvestia" published several opinions on the way Russian political observers saw the inauguration. Almost all of them commented on president-elect's mistake in saying the oath of office, as well as other interesting moments. Many writers quickly took the attention away from amusing moments to the grave concerns about the American economy and the fate of the global financial crisis. "The future is shrouded in darkness, and today's throngs of enthusiastic supporters screaming "Omaba!" will, once things turn for the worse, may be screaming something entirely different," writes political commentator Maksim Sokolov. He further remarked with skepticism that "emotions and effort are well-combined when it's clear how to use one's efforts for best results. But all that we now know about concrete plans of this new American President is boiled down to the slogan. "For all that is good, against all that is bad, and let no one be upset. Technically, he was elected as a wonderful, pleasant and harmless healer."

Turning to the on -going economic crisis, Sokolov writes that " ... in his defense, even more mature and experienced colleagues of the new president do not know the way out of the current economic hardship. The difference between them and Obama is that his colleagues were not elected to office on an emotional wave of hope and change and therefore are not really responsible to anyone for the results of their actions. But Obama is responsible."

Other articles also turned their attention to the Inauguration Day. An "Izvestia" article commented that "... in contrast to the overflowing streets of Washington on Jan. 20, one cannot help but think back to May 2008, when the the procession of the new Russian President Dmitry Medvedev moved towards the Kremlin on empty - almost dead - Moscow streets. But we should not compare the two events - after all, it [the Inauguration] is a typical American showboating. The harsh reality is already setting in - US Dollar, instead of rising on the wave of this presidential euphoria, instead fell against the Russian ruble - while our currency rose in the evaluation. Party is over, so to speak."

Russian political establishment continued to isolate Georgia and to limit any remaining trade with the Caucasus country. On Jan. 20, Russian President Medvedev signed a law that prohibited any deliveries of defense and dual-use materials to Georgia. Medvedev also requested the creation of official legislation that would limit or prohibit military-technical cooperation with countries that deliver Russian or Soviet military hardware to Georgia. The second initiative is clearly aimed at Ukraine, since Moscow accused it of aiding Georgian military during the August 2008 war. However, "it would not be possible to completely cut off military-technical cooperation with Ukraine, since the interdependence of military-industrial complexes of our two countries is too great, dating back to the Soviet times." In another not-so-subtle hint at Kiev, Russian daily "Vzglyad" accused Ukrainians of arming separatist Tamil Tigers movement that fought against the government of Sri Lanka. Quoting a former Tiger commander, the paper wrote that Tigers bought military hardware in Ukraine up until recently, at lowered prices. Such hardware included artillery systems, small arms and other equipment.

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Russian news devoted time and attention to the current problems and concerns in its near abroad. Daily Izvestia published a report from Abkhazia, a break-away region of Georgia that achieved independence together with South Ossetia in the early 1990s. Just like its former Georgian counterpart, Abkhazia is at the epicenter of the continuing stand-off between Russia and Georgia over the international legitimacy of the territory's status. Russia recently launched a massive campaign to award Russian passports to the resident of Abkhazia, and currently more than 80% of the people living in the province have Russian citizenship. The article describes Abkhazia's strong pro-Russian sentiment, and its hopes for common borders and a customs union with Russia and Belarus.

The province's Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba told reporters that Abkhazia already designated two plots of land in Sukhumi, the capital city, for the constriction of the Russian Embassy and Russian Ambassador's future residence, with "... construction to be undertaken by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs ... which should be completed in two years and the diplomatic mission will have 30 diplomats." Shamba noted that Abkhazia has a representative office in Moscow, staffed by 12 people and that "soon enough, our Ambassador will submit his credential to (Russian President) Medvedev. We were already offered several mansions for out future permanent embassy."

The article's description of fait accompli concerning Abkhazia's relationship with Russia is a cause of concern to the European Union and the United States. The international community has tried to resolve the status of Abkhazia for the last 15 years, with no apparent success. Georgia considers Abkhazia part of its territory, the international community - including the United States - supports the territorial integrity of Georgia that includes Abkhazia and South Ossetia (where war was fought in August 2008). On the other hand, Russia threw its full military and diplomatic support behind the breakaway states that are on track to joining the Russian Federation in one way or another - as a constituent republic, as a unionized territory, or a legal territorial entity. Given the fact that similar status issues regrading South Ossetia were settled by war, there is concern that Abkhazia may become another source of military conflict between Russia and pro-Western Georgia.

In Georgia proper, Izvestia reports on the political scandal involving television stations that are favorable in their coverage to President Mikhail Saakashvili. The TV stations reported that future US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged to defend Georgia and Ukraine against Russia's "imperial ambitions." Pro-Saakashvili politicians and political experts tried to convince the population that such statements are a continuation of George W. Bush's foreign policy that maintains strategic partnership with Georgia. However, political opposition reported that Senator Clinton never pledged such policy in her Senate confirmation, and opposition media published the entire 16-page transcript of Clinton's congressional hearings. According to leading Georgian political opposition experts, "such attempts to state that "Obama cannot live without Saakashvili" is pure disinformation. Saakashvili is a great student of Brezhnev and Goebbels." Izvestia noted that President Saakashvili's press office did not refute oppositions' claims about Senator Clinton's actual words.

The question of separatism and breakaway tendencies received additional coverage in an interesting article that described the attempt by Russia's Sverdlovsky Oblast - which encompasses energy-rich Ural region - to secede from the Russian Federation in early 1990s. Online publication "Noviye Regioni" published a remarkable report on the exhibition devoted to the 75-year history of the Ural region. The exhibition featured "Ural Franks", printed in 1991 for use as official currency. Apparently, 56 million of these "franks" were printed in order to fight the inflation of the Soviet rubble that reached nearly 1,000% following years of economic liberalization launched in 1987. Following the deteriorating economic climate, Sverdlvosky Oblast held a popular referendum in early 1990s, in which more than 60% of the population supported the session of the Middle Ural region from the Russian Federation. The idea to use Ural franks as official currency alongside Soviet rubble was even floated to Egor Gaidar, then Economic and Finance Minister of the Russian Federation (still part of the USSR in 1991) and future Economic Minister of independent Russia. There are some uncomfortable parallels between the crashing Soviet economy that facilitated the breakup of the USSR in 1991 and the current worsening economic situation across Russia, which today affects many regions, including Sverdlovsky Oblast.

Turning to the incoming administration of the President-elect Barack Obama, business daily "Vzglyad" published a farewell review of Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. The paper noted that Rice was one of Russia's strongest critics, especially during the August 2008 war between Georgia and Russian Federation over South Ossetia. The paper quotes Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stating that he tried to ask Rice over the years to put pressure on Georgia in order to prevent military conflict, with Secretary of State failing to restrain her allies. He noted that for Moscow, the political dialogue with incoming Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be much more cordial than with Rice.

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Russian news have been dominated by the growing row with Ukraine over deliveries of natural gas. The entire dispute has been "economically politicized," with both sides blaming the other for non-compliance and belligerence at a time of dropping winter temperatures across Eastern and Western Europe.

Daily Izvestia blamed Ukraine for thwarting the creation of independent commission made up of Russian, Ukrainian and European technical observers in order to mediate the dispute. The newspaper stated that Ukrainians refused to let Russian in, while citing that Ukrainians continued 'till the last minute to illegally siphon off gas for their own use, as "recently, nearly 86 million cubic meters of other people's gas have disappeared in the Ukrainian steppes." Today, as exactly two years ago in a similar dispute, the Russian side blames the Ukrainians for stealing some of the gas intended for the markets in Central and Western Europe. Russian Gazprom chairman Aleksei Miller expressed his concern that since Ukraine blocked the creation of an international observation commission to oversee the end of the dispute, the only people who may be observing the situation are members of the European Commission - themselves career politicians and clerks who may have never seen gas pipeline equipment in their entire life. The newspaper stated that EC's conclusions about the dispute will be undoubtedly politically motivated. "All blame is on the Ukrainian side," Miller was quoted by the paper.

On Friday, the energy dispute took on another dimension, as Kiev Economic Court concluded that the terms of Russian gas transit through Ukrainian territory in 2006 and 2007 are deemed illegal. The five-year contract - signed in 2006 and set to expire on December 31, 2010 - was considered unlawful because the Ukrainian signee, Igor Voronin, former Assistant to the Chairman of national "Naftogas" company, had no government authorization to sign such a contract with the Russian side. As of now, the terms of Russian gas transit through the Ukrainian territory are still undefined.

Izvestia reported on the "persecution" of Russian sailors in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol. Ukrainian Interior Ministry arrested several sailors of the Russian Fleet for "lack of proper registration." The paper commented that such "hunt for the Russian sailors always resumes at the onset of another crisis between Russia and Ukraine." Last time such action was undertaken by the Ukrainian authorities in August 2008, following Russia-Georgia war, when Russian Black Sea fleet returned from a mission to Abkhazia, a break-away region of Georgia.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called for greater military-technical cooperation for the Commonwealth of Independent States Members (former Soviet republics) with Russia. "The majority of defense industries across Russia and FSU were based on a single Soviet complex, and still depend on each other to a great degree," stated Medvedev. "The maintenance of such ties increases mutual combat readiness and guarantees collective security in the face of rising threats." The article comments that the strength of today's Russian Army is the result of work of hundreds of defense industries across former Soviet Union. Therefore, future success of the Russian military is not possible without close cooperation with former Soviet partners.

President Medvedev also announced the plan to make purchases of Russian military equipment easier for the CIS members, starting with the ease of delivery of spare parts. This would simplify the purchasing process by former Soviet countries and their militaries - all part of the continuing push by Moscow to become the top defense exporter in the world.

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