Old message on this message but perhaps new distillation.
The prompt for conversation was a Henry Farrell piece appearing in The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/04/10/hungarys-government-wants-to-shut-down-its-most-prominent-university-that-may-be-backfiring/ —
Lines of compatible feudal power: Putin –> Assad, Khamenei; Putin–> Orban, Le Pen; Putin –> Erdogan; Putin –> Donald J. Trump.
Putin is not asking for cooperation, imho, but rather for a revived feudal politics pitting all against all for time while Russia ramps up its own military-industrial complex as a major driver of its internal economy.
The sweethearts of EU and NATO who promote greater international cooperation and integration through shared humanist principles plus open passage plus trade haven’t perhaps relayed to their populations the complete criminal character of Moscow’s intentions and its methods, including the channeling, I believe, of Islamic Terrorism in target states to produce reactionary politics.
Related on BackChannels
https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/
https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/23/moscows-rules-a-module/https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/23/moscows-rules-a-module/
BackChannels believes Putin’s Moscow has encouraged political polarization in its targets by using “active measures” to produce the “New Nationalists” (like Le Pen, Orban, and Trump) and sustain a still strident “Red-Green Alliance” — Old Comrades and Neo-Islamists — in the west. The main thing has been to get the “Brown vs Red-Green” extremism going while working with its destabilizing effects on true democratic politics.
Mission accomplished?
Yes — but at the same time, Moscow’s grand scheme may be close to being found out.
Related in the News
Moscow’s demonstrations of barbarism in Syria and Ukraine may underscore the direction of its internal intents.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/04/syria-war-showroom-russian-arms-sales-160406135130398.html
Kleptocracies are the cancers of states, and Putin, the KGB/FSB, and Russia’s “oligarchs” have had a field day enjoying the full flow of Russia’s productive assets far at the expense of Russians separated from the circles of centralized power. Toward the end or as declining cash reserves produce hardship throughout the state, wartime spending may become the heavy dessert found at the bottom of the devil’s barrel, for fear plus the intimidation that coincides with tests of loyalty may open pockets.
“Washington”, a metonym used the same way here as “Moscow” to represent the state and its leadership, knows that the Moscow-Tehran axis lies and, quite possibly, that it channels — through indirect manipulation — Islamic Terrorism (by choosing to fight the west and western-backed or western-endorsed everything first — “Moscow” cannot abide classical liberalism; by using old communist cadre and Islamists to sow the chaos in the world that it may then claim to stand as champion against (!) — convenient look-ups: “Terry Nichols, Philippines”, “Zawahiri, Russia”, and “Moscow Apartment Bombings” (HUGE false flag, that one): and of course there’s no questioning the existence of the “Moscow-Tehran” nexus in power and the continuing relationships both have with Hamas and Hezbollah and others (start with PFLP).
BackChannels believes that Washington has known all along that deals with Moscow and Tehran would not prove worth the ink used to sign them.
Moreover, if BackChannels and others believe Moscow complicit in the incubating of ISIS in Syria (look up Kyle Orton’s work on the matter), then it only makes sense to cut out the nonsense implied by the prospect of “cooperating” with Moscow in the projection of its related totalitarian narrative.
Also contributing to the above thinking: Russia has nearly 100 years of combined 20th and 21st Century history as an entity approving of or inured to terror as a political tool.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_and_the_Soviet_Union
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