Khamenei-Putin | Dark Radiance

24 Monday Nov 2014

Posted by commart in Hungary, Iran, Political Spychology, Politics, Russia

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Khameni, Orban, Putin, terrorism, Yanukovych

Putin-Khamenei | Moscow-Tehran | ME-E.Europe-SA (Some) : two dragons-two fires | one sickness.

Putin-Assad-Khamenei / Khamenei-Putin

Putin-(Yanukovych)

Putin-Orban

I telegraph online impression via schematics like “mouth –> ear –> mind –> heart system” to get a much larger constellation in thought down to something almost memorable.

🙂

Nonetheless, reduction goes only so far: “overviewing” picks up some of the slack, which is often what happens here, and then, well, one must turn off the computer in favor of lengthier reading, which lately for me has been Pacepa & Rychlak’s Disinformation, an account of KGB’s accomplishments in the black arts accompanying libel, misdirection, misguidance, slander, and — I say this with “malignant narcissism” in mind — theatrical production.

Writing for The Guardian, Simon Tisdale recently commented on Putin and “The New Cold War” (11/19/2014) — “Last weekend’s G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, showed just how raw nerves have become – over Ukraine and, more broadly, over what the west has come to see as a pattern of expansionist, confrontational and often illegal behaviour by the Putin regime . . . ” — but perhaps not (yet) as aggression on two fronts.

With this week’s reappearance of the post-Soviet PFLP on the terrorist’s global stage, one might wonder if the attack on a synagogue in Jerusalem was not meant to distract from activity in Donbas.

In fact, my sources suggest that PFLP representatives met with Mikhail Bogdanov, the Russian President’s Special Representative for the Middle East and Deputy Foreign Minister, earlier in November (possibly Sunday, November 2, 2014) and discussed, among other things, S300 missile shipments placed on hold in 2013.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. Department of State since October 8, 1997. Given Moscow’s overtures concerning cooperation, the lower level meeting would seem duplicitous at least:

“I suggested to Foreign Minister Lavrov that we intensify intelligence cooperation with respect to ISIL and other counter-terrorism challenges of the region and we agreed to do so,” Kerry said just after the meeting, using an alternative name for IS jihadists.

http://www.dw.de/moscow-denies-working-more-closely-with-us-to-fight-is-terrorism/a-18000389 – 10/16/2014.

Somebody has lied.

http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/11/24/overlooked-palestinian-terror-group-returns-with-a-vengeance/ – 11/24/2014.

Additional Reference

Khamenei, Europe

As Sarajevo would ultimately like to join NATO and the European Union, they understand that every few years the Americans and the EU will put pressure on them to reduce their ties to Iran, particularly to its intelligence services. A sort of Balkan kabuki theater inevitably follows, with promises by the SDA to crack down hard, this time. A few Iranian “diplomats” are discreetly asked to leave the country, some of the more overt Iranian intelligence fronts in Bosnia shut their doors, usually only temporarily, and the Americans and Europeans are bought off for a couple years. And the Iranians remain.

http://20committee.com/2014/10/24/irans-secret-new-balkan-spy-terror-offensive/ – 10/24/2014.

Related from the same blog:

http://20committee.com/2012/11/04/uncovering-irans-espionage-terror-apparatus-in-the-balkans/ — 11/4/2012.

It is believed that MOIS cooperates with other intelligence agencies. One of these agencies is the Russian SVR, the KGB’s replacement. Despite the two agencies’ dissimilar doctrines and the complicated relationship between Iran and Russia in the past, they managed to cooperate in the 1990s, based not only on their intention of limiting U.S. political clout in Central Asia but also on their mutual efforts to stifle prospective ethnic turbulence. The SVR trained not only hundreds of Iranian agents but also numerous Russian agents inside Iran to equip Iranian intelligence with signals equipment in their headquarters compound. It is unclear whether this relationship is ongoing and whether the two intelligence agencies continue to cooperate.

Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security: A Profile. P. 40. Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, December 2012.

From page 41 of the above cited piece: “Bin Laden’s phone records, obtained by U.S. investigators working on the U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, show that 10 percent of phone calls made by Bin Laden and his lieutenants were to Iran.”

Khamenei, South America

The Mexican law student was surprised by how easy it was to get into Iran two years ago. By merely asking questions about Islam at a party, he managed to pique the interest of Iran’s top diplomat in Mexico. Months later, he had a plane ticket and a scholarship to a mysterious school in Iran as a guest of the Islamic Republic.

Next came the start of classes and a second surprise: There were dozens of others just like him.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/with-lure-of-religion-classes-iran-seeks-to-recruit-latin-americans/2013/08/10/8e3592c6-f626-11e2-9434-60440856fadf_story.html – 8/10/2013.

While Iranian South American “feed and seed” programs may be continuing, the gist of a 2014 Congressional Research Service summary (by Mark P. Sullivan and June S. Beittel) suggests Khamenei’s regime may not be making as much progress as it would like. Rather than excerpt, I’ll leave it to the reader to look-see on this document: Latin America: Terrorism Issues. August 2014.

Putin

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/19/new-cold-war-back-to-bad-old-days-russia-west-putin-ukraine – 11/19/2014.

Putin – Post-Soviet Neo-Feudal Russia

Dawisha, Karen. Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014.

Pacepa, Ion Mihai and Rychlak, Ronald J. Disinformation. Washington, D.C.: WND Books, 2013.

Soldatov, Andrei and Irena Borogan. The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB. New York: Public Affairs, 2010.

Online

http://www.miamioh.edu/cas/academics/centers/havighurst/cultural-academic-resources/putins-russia/

The delegation stressed that Syria has been exposed to a U.S.-western-Zionist conspiracy, which is backed by some regimes in the region with the aim of liquidating the Palestinian issue since Syria is the main supporter of the cause.

http://www.sana.sy/en/?p=16800 – 11/3/2014.

Putin, Eastern Europe

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/hungarys-viktor-orban-walks-in-putins-footsteps/504632.html – 8/5/2014.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/11/06/hungary_is_helping_putin_keep_his_chokehold_on_europes_energy_south_stream_orban – 11/6/2014.

Do we have to ask [Putin] when it comes to Serbia, ask when it’s about the western Balkans? We cannot reconcile this with our values.”

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21633788-frustrated-putin-germany-and-its-chancellor-may-be-tiring-ostpolitik-merkel-toughens-up – 11/19/2014.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán openly admires the ‘illiberal’ models of Russia and China. Critics say his Fidesz party is using Putin-like tactics to cut the funding of newspapers and NGOs that conflict with the Orbán government.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2014/1028/Taking-a-page-from-Putin-s-book-Hungary-s-Orban-muffles-his-critics-video – 10/28/2014.

Putin is clearly the dominant force in the relationship. Orban may be currently the master of all he surveys within his own borders but externally, he looks increasing like the leader of a client state that is gently but perceptively gravitating towards Moscow’s sphere of influence. Which in itself is a remarkable state of affairs considering the residual concerns over the 1956 invasion by the Soviet Union.

http://www.policyreview.eu/is-hungarys-viktor-orban-a-miniature-vladimir-putin/ – 7/2014.

Putin, Western Europe

The radicals, of course, are most vocal. Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP, the U.K.’s anti-immigrant, anti-EU party, has expressed his admiration for Putin “as an operator, not a human being.” Farage has demanded that the West stop opposing Russian actions in Ukraine and ally itself with Putin in the fight against Islamic extremism. Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s ultranationalist Front National, is another Putin admirer. And Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party, has praised the Russian leader as a “pure democrat.”

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-11-20/putin-has-noncrazy-friends-in-europe – 11/20/2014.

I want to confess that I did something foolish once when I was young. Back in 1993, I abandoned my university studies in California and returned to Moscow. European nations had signed the Maastricht Treaty and I dreamed that Russia would join the European Union.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/illusions-gone-im-leaving-russia/502173.html – 7/18/2014.

Putin, South America

http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/south-america/item/18804-in-latin-america-russia-and-china-push-new-world-order – 7/29/2014.

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/13945/putin-s-south-american-trip-hides-russia-s-strategic-weaknesses – 7/22/2014.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/15/putin-latin-america-russia-power – 7/15/2014

(Posted to YouTube 11/13/2014).

Putin – ISIS

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/world/2014/09/08/Russia-will-stand-its-ground-despite-ISIS-threats.html – 9/8/2014.

While the U.S. and Russia have pledged to share intelligence on the group, Russia—one of the main international backers of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian government—is not a member of the U.S.-led “broad coalition” against ISIS announced last month. As one Russian foreign ministry official recently put it, “We do not expect any invitations and we are not going to buy entry tickets.”

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/11/21/can_putin_turn_the_isis_mess_to_russia_s_advantage.html – 11/21/2014.

Like others of his generation, he is part of a cadre of men who came of age in a massive, multinational, nuclear-armed superstate in the early 1970s. The faceless cogs who made this system work were unremarkable people like Putin, trained in ideology and imbued with the false faith that the USSR’s greatest days were yet to come.

In their later years, these men have experienced the normal anxieties and embarrassments of middle age. (In Putin’s case, she’s a gymnast young enough to be his daughter.) But middle age for the sovoks also brought many to realize they spent their lives serving a state based on lies and held together almost entirely by force.

So spend a moment imagining the better time for which these men yearn.

http://thefederalist.com/2014/09/02/russias-leader-is-neither-a-realist-nor-a-nationalist/ – 9/2/2014.

Update November 25, 2014

http://online.wsj.com/articles/mariam-memarsadeghi-and-akbar-atri-facebook-please-dont-let-the-mullahs-troll-us-1416873076 – 11/24/2014.

# # #

Throwing Down the Oil Card

14 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by commart in Iran, North America, Politics, Russia

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Iran, North America, oil, Russia

“In the issue of oil, the economy has not been the sole important factor,” Rouhani said. “International politics and plots” have also affected prices, he said, without elaborating.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-29/iran-oil-revenue-shrinks-30-percent-on-price-drop-rouhani-says.html – 10/30/2014

NCRI – The Iranian regime is facing a deepening financial crisis as the price of crude oil plunges on international markets.

The regime’s budget deficit was reported by the state-run Ebtekar daily newspaper on November 8 issue as totalling 1.5 billion dollars. But economists believe the true figure is much higher.

http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/economy/17510-iranian-regime-s-cash-crisis-as-oil-price-plunges – 11/12/2014

Russia, whose economy is forecast by the central bank to run zero growth next year, is struggling under the weight of a plummeting ruble and sanctions imposed over the conflict in Ukraine. Brent crude, the grade that underpins prices for Urals, Russia’s main export blend, is set for a record losing streak amid speculation that OPEC will refrain from cutting production to ease concern of a supply glut.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-14/putin-says-russia-preparing-for-catastrophic-oil-slump.html – 11/14/2014

A pressing question lies in determining what effects considerable cuts in the price of oil, the glut in oil supplies, and the remarkable growth of the U.S. oil industry, has and will have on international politics as well as on the global economy. Almost certainly, the United States and Western countries will benefit both politically and economically, while most of the members of OPEC, and countries including Russia, Iran, and the Islamic State of Iraq, and Syria, will be hurt. More broadly, there will be a global economic benefit as lower energy costs will help both producers and consumers.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/11/oils_well_for_american_energy_independence.html#ixzz3J2wnCdTE – 11/13/2014

Abductions, beheading, mass slaughter — headline grabbers!

Commodity pricing?

Squint.

While post-feudal North America has been working on greater achievement in energy independence, it appears some oil cash flow addicts have puffed and bluffed their way into an anticipated but unaddressed cash crunch with consequences looming on the near horizon, this perhaps despite deep pocket brags.

# # #

A Universe of One’s Own: “The Russian Section”

11 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by commart in Books, Russia

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books, private library, Putin, Russia

Dawisha, Karen. Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014.

Gessen, Masha. The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. New York: Riverhead Books, 2012.

Harding, Luke. Expelled: A Journalist’s Descent Into the Russian Mafia State. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Judah, Ben. Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013.

Remnick, David. Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire. New York: Random House, 1993.

Smith, Hedrick. The Russians. New York: Times Books, 1983.

Soldatov, Andrei and Irena Borogan. The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB. New York: Public Affairs, 2010.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/library/russian-section/

Our iddle biddle web has gurgled and Googled long enough for anyone to block text, right-click the mouse, and find on the web the alphanumeric string wanted and in the form desired.

The contemporary URL takes you to something the author specifically wants to show you.

As I would rather write blog posts, I suppose, than catalog the 2,000+ volumes that surround me, the library section of this blog remains sparse. However, in the way of web-driven and curiosity-based fate, it appears I’ve got some linear shelf space supporting a “Russian Section” and that listed above this section is it.

Should one add to it web resources?

Miami University. “Putin’s Russia”. Havighurst Center, Russian and Post-Soviet Studies.

How about naming names (which from — I will call it “MoscVegas”– Karen Dawisha does in abundance)?

For this simple blog, a reduction to a few of the simple popular nouns of the opposition might suffice: Alexei Navalny, Boris Nemtsov, Gary Kasparov, Michael Khodorkovsky, Yevgeny Roizman, Pussy Riot, etc. (the abbreviation of laziness, but on the web, nouns lead to nouns: one cannot compete with that comprehensive aspect of machine compilation given the labors of scads of academics and journalists contributing daily to wealth in knowledge).

A few moments ago, the search string (using the Google engine) “Putin, journalists” brought this gem to the top of the list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Politkovskaya – “We are hurtling back into a Soviet abyss, into an information vacuum that spells death from our own ignorance. All we have left is the internet, where information is still freely available. For the rest, if you want to go on working as a journalist, it’s total servility to Putin. Otherwise, it can be death, the bullet, poison, or trial—whatever our special services, Putin’s guard dogs, see fit.[17]”

# # #

28 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by commart in Iran, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia, Ukraine

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dictatorship, Iran, Russia, Russo-Iranian, Ukraine

The number of political groups that are inclined to support Russia’s president Vladimir Putin is growing, both in the ruling parties of the European countries and in the opposition; from Hungary’s Victor Orban and his ruling Fidesz party to the far-right opposition parties that are performing spectacularly well in national elections, such as Marie Le Pen and her Front National of France. Sympathy and support also comes from Hungary’s Jobbik radical nationalists, the Flemish nationalist Vlaams Belang in Belgium, Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn, Austria’s Freedom Party, and Italy’s Lega Nord, just to name a few.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/28/-sp-ukraine-russia-europe-andrei-sannikov – 10/28/2014.

I would expect Russo-Iranian methods in the development of power and wealth to expand until stopped cold. The interior mythology in both units, to be clinical about it, have zero incentive to stall or stop aggression on the basis of the political accommodations and levers owned by others. That implacable will may be buttressed by an equally sociopathic view of humanity. For evidence of that in addition to Ukraine (and how Yanukovych milked it): Bashar al-Assad’s behavior in Syria.

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Putin’s Defense – Mearsheimer – Response, Note, Loose Reference

20 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by commart in Political Psychology, Politics, Russia

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Mearsheimer, NATO, politics, Putin, Russia

“The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement, the central element of a larger strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and integrate it into the West.”

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141769/john-j-mearsheimer/why-the-ukraine-crisis-is-the-wests-fault – September-October 2014.

Dr. John J. Mearsheimer appears in the above-cited Foreign Affairs essay a tad confused about “locus of control” in regards to the wave of protest catchalled as “Euromaidan”

While the realpolitik may indeed include notice in Russia of a Soviet post-Soviet transition to a neo-imperial oligarchy bent on expansion through theft, the note received everywhere around it would seem to correspond to an intrinsic yearning for access to justice promoted by democracy.

Reference

The search engines of the World Wide Web have become so fast and reasonably accurate that a blog might skip URLs altogether: just block, right-click, and search. Nonetheless, one has this option in compressing and shaping thought on the web to send a reader toward other information in both useful and whimsical ways (I’m not advertising for Amazon, and, in any case, this blog is accessed worldwide (including from Russia) daily.

As I post, I’m watching and listening to a Reuters production posted on Garry Kasparov’s web site — “Newsmaker: The Rise & Legacy of Vladimir Putin”, and it’s really quite refreshing and wonderful to experience. The panel is a panel of live wires.

The Russians by Hedrick Smith

Mafia State by Luke Harding

The Man Without a Face by Masha Gessen

The New Nobility by Andrei Soldatov and Irini Borogan

Yanukovych Leaks

“Yanukovych Leaks: Read the Astounding Papers that Ukraine’s Ousted President Left Behind” by Linda Kinstler, The New Republic, March 12, 2014.

Open Russia: The Return of Open Russia: Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Movement for Civil Society (campaign web site).

Reuters “Newsmaker: The Rise & Legacy of Vladimir Putin”, one-hour video, October 14, 2014, posted on The Official Website of Garry Kasparov. Panel: Sir Harold Evans (Moderator), Garry Kasparov, David Remnick, Roger Altman, Masha Gessen.

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FTAC – Putin – Anti-Semitism – Jerusalem – Power – Grandeur

06 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology, Politics, Regions, Russia

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19th Century Modern, grandeur, modernity, politics, Putin, restoration, Russia

Yesterday’s New York Times featured an interview with the pro-Russian militia in Ukraine, and in the reporter’s straight estimation they were on their own, defending against threats to their ethnic status and cross-border relationships, and experienced in the Soviet and Russian armies — but they were not armed or paid by Russia.

This is not to say that “Putin-Assad-Khamenei” / Putin-Yanukovych” and the body of relationships developed around the “vertical of power”, a euphemism for the law under Putin’s leadership, should be given a light touch: Dictatorship / kleptocracy itself has stakes across the Russia’s (Putin’s) axis of power.

However, although some Russian nationalists may match their counterparts in Hungary as regards attitudes about Jews, in principle, Vladimir Putin has never been associated with other than a straight secularism deeply devoted to other aspects of Slavic culture and life. His visit to Israel and the Wailing Wall have been well regarded — there are some nifty YouTube videos available for that; his defense establishment’s procurement includes Israeli manufactured avionics, at least.

Is Putin playing for Jerusalem?

🙂

At the moment, he could steal some affection from the Obama Administration.

However, I think the foreign affairs layout more complex but partially distilled to the defense of the natural legitimacy of autocracy (corruption, manipulation, oligarchy, patronage) worldwide.

The basic background reading around here: https://conflict-backchannels.com/library/russian-section/ — I’d do more with funding supporting focus, but I’m not about to ascend to the heights of multilingual scholars: for who’s around, visit the Brookings Institute.

Putin, whom I have called “the best Bond villain ever — and he already has the nukes”, has a good deal of charisma, part of which involves what may be universal feelings about grandeur and its expression in great empire, great states, and great estates.

We have a long conversation ahead on how Versailles gets built, by whom, using what methods.

Obviously, the turns of Kasparov and Khodorkovsky have not yet come — and current FSB staffing exceeds in headcount per capita that of the old KGB (and the press is again “state managed”, heavily so).

______

All that above is just my impression chatyped out in about seven minutes.

As mentioned but worth mentioning again, in my vast estate of 850-sq.ft., I much appreciate what I have come to call “19th Century modern” — and, believe me, this related to playing guitar and singing quite well, I am as a guest ever at home in the confines of mansions, sailboats, and big ol’ farmsteads.

Would the world rather not have its great castles, cathedrals, estates, mosques, and palaces?

Would it not wish to read in history and in real time the legends (and scandals) involving the powerful and wealthy?

I may achieve yet, so I do hope, but with a mind matched to a great library (850-sq.ft., 2,000 volumes), one may well travel into these atmosphere — and with a guitar visit now and then.

While Putin, for whom my space would be a broom closet, if that, has skewered Russia around the “vertical of power”, he has made it also glamorous (that $51 billion splurged on the winter Olympics at Sochi may have its positive resonance long after the Syrian Civil War has expired) while making himself legendary.

Post-Soviet resurgent 19th Century Imperial Russia will turn itself right-side-up with time, but Putin reminds that decision rests with himself and Russia, not with Russia as an expression or extension of western ethics and values. While he has backed a despot in Syria, aligned himself with the kleptocrat in Iran, and may be tangled in his own mafia nets with Yanukovych’s route from Ukraine, he has nonetheless maintained the modernity and secularism of a modern state with its boisterous energies intact — and when the day comes that he’s gone, it will go on talking about him a long, long time.

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Putin Today – Reassembly

07 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics, Russia, Ukraine

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linkage, political, politics, Putin, Russia, Syria, Ukraine

Bloomberg: “Ukraine Accuses Russia as Protests Seize Offices in East.” 4/7/2014.

Bloomberg: “Putin Stirs Azeri Angst That Russia Is Set to Extend Sway.” 4/6/2014.

International Business Times: “Pro-Russian Protesters Clash With Police and Seize Buildings in Eastern Ukraine.” 4/6/2014.

* * *

President Vladimir Putin, condemned by NATO for annexing Crimea, is now defying the U.S. in Syria by sending more and deadlier arms to help Bashar al-Assad score a string of advances against insurgents, military experts say.

Bloomberg. “Putin Defies Obama in Syria as Arms Fuel Assad Resurgence.” 4/3/2014.

* * *

In the middle east, I have for a while characterized the western opposition as “Putin-Assad-Khamenei”; for eastern Europe, I now may blurt “Putin-Napoleon” (in lieu of “Putin-Yanukovych”), for the “vertical of power” appears to be spreading horizontally and quickly using predictably feudal (one almost hears, “Deploy the thugs”) methods.

Putin behind the curtain in Syria has reportedly improved the qualities of arms reaching the Assad regime with the intention of discouraging continued resistance in a convincing way. In Ukraine, The Bear has squatted on Crimea and made camp sufficient to throw around some weight:

A new, leaner and meaner Russian Army has been on display in Crimea and war-gaming on the Ukrainian border over the past month or so. Its vanguard is now made up of just a few elite divisions of highly-motivated, well trained, and fully equipped volunteer soldiers, capable of deploying swiftly anywhere in the former Soviet Union on the Kremlin’s command.

Christian Science Monitor. “Russia debuts new, sleek force in Crimea, rattling NATO.” 4/3/2014.

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Russia-NATO Kumbaya Sayonara

02 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia, Ukraine

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eastern Europe, NATO, political psychology, Russia

NATO and Russia do not consider each other as adversaries. They share the goal of overcoming the vestiges of earlier confrontation and competition and of strengthening mutual trust and cooperation. The present Act reaffirms the determination of NATO and Russia to give concrete substance to their shared commitment to build a stable, peaceful and undivided Europe, whole and free, to the benefit of all its peoples.

27 May. 1997 – Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation signed in Paris, France

* * *

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who said earlier he would be satisfied if NATO located two heavy brigades in Poland, said on arrival at the NATO meeting that he would welcome any NATO forces being stationed there.

Germany’s Steinmeier said the basing of a significant NATO force in Poland would not be completely in line with a 1997 treaty on NATO-Russian cooperation.

“NATO suspends cooperation with Russia over Ukraine crisis” BY ADRIAN CROFT AND SABINE SIEBOLD, BRUSSELS, Reuters, Tue Apr 1, 2014 7:32pm EDT

* * *

. . . Vladimir Putin has been grasping for a narrative that could legitimize a second decade of his rule.

“Putin’s Fairy Tale: Why Russia Will Try—and Fail—To Build a New Empire” by Alexander Kliment, Foreign Affairs, April 2, 2014.

* * *

Yet, as the portrait of Peter the Great hanging in his office testifies, Putin views himself as a modern day czar, finding threats to his empire intolerable. Seeing himself and Russia as one and the same, Putin is a consummate narcissist whose every move is calculated to protect his image and goals, which are severely threatened by the current crisis.

“Putin the Great: Struggling to Hold on to a Crumbling Empire” – Jerrold Post and Jennifer McNamara, Huffington Post – Posted: 04/01/2014 5:20 pm EDT Updated: 04/01/2014 5:59 pm EDT

* * *

In 2011, $84 billion of capital fled Russia, and another $33 billion was taken out of the country in the first quarter of 2012, even though the Russian economy is growing and the rest of the world is in a downturn. This money mainly belongs to bureaucrats, siloviki and other mafiosi. These beneficiaries of the mafia state don’t trust their own system, nor do most of them want to live in Russia.

“Why Russia’s Mafia State Is So Inefficient” – Alexei Bayer, The Moscow Times – May. 28 2012 00:00 Last edited 18:38.

______

Putin’s Russia: where is it going to go?

Most unfortunately, Putin’s Russia has already gone to Syria where it will be associated with Bashar al-Assad’s brutal repression of what began as a children’s protest representing a true people’s revolution. True to form in that theater, political ingenuity and a sociopath’s sadism have managed to cast as the main players Assad’s secular-leaning kleptocracy against a motley cloud of al-Qaeda associates with, this from a refugee of the war, the complicity of the regime.

Leave The People of Syria out of it: Putin-Assad-Khamenei have rigged the war that makes them before their own eyes glorious.

Next smart move: responding to another people’s revolution against authoritarian kleptocracy, Putin’s Russia, hiding in insignia-stripped uniforms behind a mighty fortress of unfounded assertions about Ukraine, has planted its field boots in Crimea.

No news there.

However, the swipe of the Bear’s paws in the middle east and in eastern Europe, the essential anomic character of Putin’s calculations on top of ambition, and whatever personal demons might have assailed him on the way to becoming the Godfather of Post-Soviet Russia, have ensured the Russian president’s enmity with the world itself — and the world would seem to be waking to the necessity of defending its interests.