by snare&racket 23 Replies latest jw friends
Wasn`t their a report recently that it was suspected that Putin suffered from Aspergers disease ? a mild form of Autism ?
Maybe he has some other mental disorder we don`t/won`t know about till he does something stupid ,dangerous to the peace of the world.
Just saying
smiddy
Much of what you all have stated about Vlad is true. He has also shown himself to be a pragmatist when necessary and an astute politician. His gamble into the Ukraine backfired in a big way. As I pointed out on one of Metatron's From Russian With Love OPs, the West should do everything in its power short of boots on the ground to make each of Vlad's mis-steps feel like molasses. The sanctions hurt deeply, as I suggested they would. This isn't the Cold War, and the economic barriers that fell when the Wall fell make Mother Russian susceptible to lots of issues which before they were mostly sheltered from.
Falling oil prices has really hurt Putin and Russia's economy is in a major tailspin. Like the narcissist he is, he blame shifted Russia's problems to the West and the US for a long time. Intelligence reports indicate he went into a fairly seriously dark funk this past year due to all of the problems. The depressive state appears to be over for now, and we are experiencing manic Putin. The manic stage of a manic/depressive is always the scary stage, because they are willing to take a lot of risks. Returning to the Ukraine is one of them, as are the fly-bys and the hints at going into the Baltics.
But as long as his economy is in the tanks, and it will be subject to this as long as oil/natural gas comprise over half of his budge and revenues, the West can make any military forays extremely painful to Putin and Mother Russia. The unknowns are whether Europe will stand untied, especially Germany which has strong Soviet/Russia sentiments amongst the leadership. The natural gas pipeline and supply to Europe is certainly one of Putin's cards, but this is almost certainly of limited duration.
Supplying the Ukrainians with weapons will occur, if for no other reason than to serve to get Putin to the diplomacy table. The problem withe the weapons that the Ukrainians want is that they are not simply point and shoot weapons; they are complicated systems that require extensive training and likely onsite support for an extended period of time. The West would prefer not to go that route but they should threaten it at the least.
It's a game of Cold War Chicken; Vlad is playing his cards that the West will blink first. If he is wrong, Russia may sink even deeper into an economic and cultural funk. And this is the scariest part.
Shall we play a game? It's called global economic/military strategy, with a huge helping of psychological manipulation thrown in.
For Putin:
He knows that Europe is working on efficiencies, process changes and new suppliers for his natural gas. His time is short to use this for leverage, which may explain him pushing this issue right now to get what he wants, which is a big chunk of the Ukraine and assurances that the rest of Ukraine will not join NATO. Vlad also desperately needs a psychological lift to his presidency (or whatever the hell he is) and the overall Russian psyche; getting these concessions would give him that, for now at least.
Europe is also leaving a winter, not entering one, which does not play in Vlad's hands at the present.
Europe can address the natural gas/oil issue a lot quicker than Putin can change Russia's one trick pony economy into a multi-faceted and diverse economy where the price of one commodity, one, cannot send your entire country into the doldrums. Another reason Putin thinks he needs to act now.
If the West grants Putin his two primary objectives, will this historically turn out to be a good thing or a bad thing? The West has most of the cards right now; they do not have to give Vlad anything. But is that the wiser move? Germany likely thinks concessions should be made, but without some assurances from Russia that they will leave the rest of the Ukraine alone, the Baltics and every other target Vlad may have alone, this strategy is at best a paper strategy relying solely on the individual players.
Vlad is taking a risk right now that, from a war games strategic posture, couldn't be made at a worse time. Go big or go home I suppose. He is banking on the West not forcing a long, protracted, expensive and ugly war in the Ukraine. The West can better afford the costs, which would primarily be enough military support to force a stalemate and enough economic pressure to make Russian continue to feel it. Amping up the military option results in lost lives and the potential for unintended consequences however.
It's why these guys make the big bucks.
NATO should start flying planes all over his borders.
What planes? NATO's available air force is appallingly dismal.
If WW III started tomorrow Russian forces could overwhelm and devastate Eastern Europe before--and here it comes--the US stepped in and paid the bill with US blood and US taxpayer money.
Ukraine and weapons? If the US begins openly weaponizing Ukraine's military Putin will respond in kind and escalation will occur, and probably to a very bad end.
Putin is surrounded and kept in power by super wealthy oligarchs. These men are not interested in nationalism per se. They are interested in maintaining monopolies over the Russian citizenry they exploit to keep and grow their economic power. Controlling these men is controlling Putin.
How to best influence Russia's oligarchy is the quadrillion dollar question.
"Ukraine and weapons? If the US begins openly weaponizing Ukraine's military Putin will respond in kind and escalation will occur, and probably to a very bad end."
Hmmm.....
"President Obama confirmed Monday that his administration is weighing the possibility of sending arms to Ukraine to help the country beat back Russian-backed separatists, if diplomacy fails."
It's all creeping in the wrong direction daily now...
http://rt.com/politics/230559-russia-west-attitude-poll/
The number of Russians who claimed their negative attitude to the United States rose to 81 percent compared to 44 percent one year ago. The number of those who perceived the current relations between the two nations as hostile rose from 4 percent to 42 percent in a year.
Some 71 percent of those polled claimed negative attitude to the European Union (up from 34 percent a year ago) and 24 percent said that the EU and Russian Federation were in hostile relations, compared to just 1 percent in January 2014.
Snare,
Even the life long diplomats indicate that the best strategy to get Putin to the table is to send weapons to the Ukraine, even if they never actually do it. I agree. The Russians are simply mirroring Vlad's blame shifting; the West's sanctions did hurt them; the free fall in oil prices clobbered them. Vlad blamed both of those on the West but has since backed off the oil price rhetoric.
He can't blame anyone but himself.He chose a one pony strategy to fill the coffers and re-build his military, wow the world with the Olympics, etc. That was a strategy that was bound for failure, and he and the others drunk crazy on oil need look no further than the mirror for blame.
He also chose to take the Crimea and foment the problems in the Ukraine. Those were his choices, and good or bad he will pay for them.
I'm bumping this thread because there has been a lot going on in Russia in the past few weeks (not least Prigozhin's aborted coup-not-coup) but noone has really mentioned it on this site to date.
I also noticed in re-reading this thread that DJS was very prescient in some of the points he made given what we now know has developed in Ukraine and the proxy conflict between Russia and NATO.
On a lighter note, the weird situation between Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenaries, and Putin's Russian authorities continues with the Russians releasing details about their raid on his HQ in St Petersburg. They released photos of what they seized including cash, weapons and hilariously, a set of disguises including wigs, along with alleged selfies of Prigozhin wearing them.
It's likely this is all an attempt to discredit him in the eyes of the Russian public, but it does seem that the more I see of Prigozhin the more bizarre a character he is! First there was the video of him going to the Russian Ministry of Defence to hand over a letter - just like your average person taking a tax form to their local government office - now this! (Unfortunately I can't find the video I saw on Twitter of him handing in the letter now, but it was gloriously mundane and the woman at the counter shuts the window in his face and leaves when she sees his people are filming!)
Alleged selfies of Prigozhin in "disguise" found:
Footage of raid on Prigozhin’s residence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tihuBay_DTc
Found the footage of Prigozhin delivering his letter to the Russian MoD. Apparently, it was supposed to be his formal 'surrender' of Wagner forces to the Russian military so that their mercenaries could be absorbed into the Russian army, but instead he wrote a rambling letter making various counter-demands to the Russian military and demanding that Wagner take charge of the war in Ukraine!
Does anyone really believe that Putin is sound in mind? What's next in this real life version of a Saturday afternoon D movie?
