Philips knows of what she speaks. I am presently reading her latest ” The World Upside Down”.
Highly recommended.
Reiterates my point that in world affairs, the truly dangerous ones are not the sly or the malevolent, they are the naive and stupid. It’s seriously time for Canada to start talking one to one with Israel, and with an (obviously) very different agenda and set of levers, Russia. The US under Obama is a staggering drunk and could do just about anything without even realizing it’s actually been done until it sobers up to the sound of the house and the neighborhood on fire . . . and maybe not even then.
I think that Obama has been hanging out with Justin.
Yes; the Phillips article is good, and largely on target. It is, however, bothersome that Americans of all stripes. including
Phillips, seem unable to come to an understanding either of modern Russia or of V. Putin.
My own thesis is that Russia today is much like Tsarist Russia, and that is not particularly good (we (the British Empire) did after all go to war with them in the Crimea); and V. Putin is much like one of the more capable and energetic Tsars – neither so forceful as Peter the Great, nor so dangerously ineffectual as Nicholas II. And indeed even when Russian foreign policy was not hostile it was never completely friendly, and could be mischievous in deadly ways (for which see “The Russian Origins of the First World War”). There was also a conflict of ideology which precluded any close understanding or sympathy. That was not communism vs capitalism but Orthodoxy vs Catholicism; and probably is still operative.
When I say “Catholicism” I include the many Protestant sects which have broken off from Catholicism and which agree with Catholicism on issues where Catholicism and Orthodoxy most significantly disagree. Remember that 70% of Russians are declared Orthodox Christians, and Vladimir Putin is an Orthodox Christian. It is hard to say whether that is important, but since Putin ended his letter to the New York Times with
explicit mention of God it should not be dismissed casually.
The chemical weapons charge was a false flag that Obama was selling it as false justification to prove that he actually has balls, instead of his hyena wife who I affectionately call skeletor.
If Putin prevented Obama from incorrectly bombing the Syrian government when the jihadi rebels did it, then he prevented a mistake and further emasculated Obama.
Hey Obama,
If you are going to draw red lines, tell the truth IF they are crossed.
Don’t defer to the UN.
Don’t punt to Congress.
Don’t hire someone like your fumble mouthed clown shoed secretary of state.
Don’t say the world drew that red line when YOU did.
And don’t fall back on the Russian President to give you an out when you make all of those mistakes.
So The Obozo in Chief tried to play with the big boys and got his lunch eaten and his ass kicked. He and that other idiot Kerry have just relinquished the worlds political stage to Vlad and the Saudis and Iranians.
“…Americans of all stripes. including
Phillips, …”
Melanie Phillips is British.
was she at the Boston tea party:-))))
the Obumbler in chief
“My own thesis is that Russia today is much like Tsarist Russia…”
Russia today is the Soviet Union downsized in the early ’90s, just like many major western Multinational Corporations at the time, to become LEAN and MEAN and focused on eliminating the losing subsidiaries while muscling up to take on the #1 Top Dog for World Domination who just happened to be spending itself into an economic Black Hole chasing social justice.
The Cold War never ended.
The U.S. just unilaterally declared Victory and stopped fighting their side of the Cold War.
The ‘Muslim Threat’ is just one of Russia’s many ploys in the continuing Cold War that is paying out HUGE dividends.
Obozo is a tool of the jihadists and Putin knows this. Having seen the results of the “Arab spring”, rational forces in arab countries are jettisoning the US and gravitating to Russia. Having Egypt become a US ally was one of the the foreign policy achievements of the US but likely Egypt will start moving towards the Russians again. The demonstrators in Egypt have clearly sized up Obozo as evidenced by their banners specifically naming him in supporting the MB.
Obozo’s brother is a jihadist and considerable resources in the US are being spent to harass anyone who dares publicize this fact. Obozo’s strings are being pulled by the Saudi’s but likely Saudi Arabia is one of the first targets the Iranian’s will go after in the near future. Of course, having deliberately prevented the US from becoming self-sufficient in oil, the fall of Saudi Arabia will greatly affect the US.
When it comes to geopolitics, Americans are amateurs and putting an affirmative action moron in charge of the country is something that will likely amuse the leaders of Russian and China endlessly as they divide up the resources of the Middle East.
Correction: it is a much more dangerous, influential Tsarist Russia.
Obama the narcissist can’t live with the criticism of his poor foreign policies but when Israel is destroyed and the Middle East in a shambles, he’ll think it all worth while. Russia just wants the roubles.
Interestingly, if the US keeps getting further emasculated, the Saudis may have to start getting closer to the Israelis publicly as well as privately. (The Saudis after all were the ones who had to privately give the Israelis the free kick at the Iraqi nuclear program and were willing to give them one free overflight of Saudi airspace to take a shot at the Iranian nuclear program.) That would mean cooling some of the public anti-semitic Wahabist rhetoric. Increased Russian influence in the region would also likely result in pressure to cool the funding of jihadist agitation since the Russians obviously would like to throw a wet towel on the foreign agitation of their own muslim minorities and neighbors.
If the Saudis feel a stronger Russian presence in the region, they may have to start growing up a bit. Up to now they’ve been able to play both sides of the coin, funding Wahabist agitation while living the vida loca of American armaments and protection. It’s been an ongoing irony that the house of Sa’ud up to now has been able to spread the Wahabist cult to its allies exactly because it could heretofore count on American support as a fall back for the weakening of its regional allies by the very Wahabism it was spreading. If that American protection loses credibility (by ineptitude more than design) they, the Saudis, may have to cool some of the Wahabist proselytizing since they may have to face the consequences of their spawn turning around to bite them from the enclaves in the region in which they foster it. One can always hope.
John, in my view your assessment is pretty accurate. But then I am not an expert, just one who because of our family’s heritage in that country for 133 years, and still has a few relatives there, and therefore has a considerable interest on the political goings on. Most of the family still in Russia left there around 1990 for Germany. Now, Richard Pipes and Orlando Figes have expert knowledge of Russia.
Your sentence, “Russian foreign policy was not hostile it was never completely friendly, and could be mischievous in deadly ways”. Very few nations have “friends”. The relationship with the administrations of some countries with Israel at different times are close to that description. Canada at the moment, the US not so much. Every nation does however have national interests that mesh with the national interests of other nations at various times.
Russia has always had an interest in access to the south, and ever since Catherine II took what is southern Ukraine and Crimea today from the Ottomans and Tatars during the late 1700s Russia has been close to that goal. Afghanistan was an effort toward that goal, as are efforts to strike alliances with whoever they can in the ME.
Afghanistan is a wasteland at the nexus of several real nations which know they cannot rule over this total waste of space. If one of them bordering it could do it they would.
It, Afghanistan, is merely a name for a place which cannot be either ruled or civilized because it will not be worth the effort in blood and treasure, however large and intense the effort. The Pashtuns who live there do not even allow themselves to be numbered/counted and they are the majority.
China has been granted rights to some areas for mining copper.
Good luck with that, 444.
8^D
I usually like Phillips but this time I thought she offered little more than an anti-Putin rant (don’t assume from this that I’m some sort of Putinophile).
Most of the noise about Putin seems to stem from the amazing discovery that Russian views on Syria don’t coincide with American ones.
Well, duh.
Different countries have different national interests (duh again).
We shouldn’t be surprised that the Russians don’t share our liberal fantasies about the so-called “Arab Spring”. They just see Islamists fomenting instability. The closest Russian territory to Syria is a mere 650 km or so distant and is itself embroiled in continuing on-again, off-again struggles with various jihadist groups. The nearest US territory to Syria is the coast of Maine – over 8400 km away.
Enough said.
If Putin were the enemy she thinks he is, he would have allowed Obama to continue in his folly.
Think about it.
Loki;
Hasn’t American foreign policy always been hampered by their Revolutionary War dogma about true difference in governance. The American Constitution is a revolutionary document. American geopolitics whether successful or not is not unlike any other country.
The involvement of Saudi influence in American politics is a subject well worth investigating. Since the USA sources only about 1 million bpd of ME oil their dependence on energy does not reside there. American interest in ME oil has always (IMO) been about fear that Russian or Chinese dominance of the region would led to dominance of energy dependent countries foreign policy. ie Russian dominance of the ME would allow even greater influence in EU policy as their sole supplier of energy. Amazing how co-operative people become when you shut the gas and oil off in January.
If the prime directive is secure borders and access to foreign markets the USA cannot allow foreign domination of ME energy which still fuels approximately 25% of world demand. Obama seems to be fumbling the USA effort but again I ask myself how much is the directive being clouded or confused by the Saudi alliance. Sunni Islam has been somewhat patient in its drive for world Islam. The Saudis led that effort and obviously see Iran as their biggest threat. That threat can now be combined with a loss of influence by the increased production of oil alternatives around the globe. Massive oil fields are being discovered each year. The Saudis have to realize their influence will wane along with their oil revenues which yield their international influence. Their regional security is at risk and their funding of world Islam is at risk. This threat could led to irrational reactions by a desperate Saudi government. I do not trust them or the influence they have in America.
CT, you’re right about American foreign policy being different than any other countries but I suspect that the primary reason for this is the marked changed in direction depending on which party is in power. The US threw away an strategic position that would have given it easy domination of Iran should that have been necessary when it conquered Iraq and Afghanistan. The fact that there was a total withdrawal of US troops from Iraq must seem mystifying to every other major power in the world. If it was the Russians, and they hadn’t sustained a military loss, they would be there forever.
Saudi influence is primarily through money and, unfortunately, it’s too easy to buy US politicians. The payoff doesn’t have to be a direct bribe but rather a Saudi agreement to buy F-16’s or other military hardware that just so happens to be manufactured in a particular congressional district. The US is probably the most short sighted country in the world when it comes to geopolitics. Islamofascists think in terms of centuries whereas US politicians don’t think past the next election. The Russians are also long-term planners and I hate to think of how many sleeper agents they’ve planted in the US and Canada decades ago which they still haven’t seen the need to activate. Oz’s description of the USSR “downsizing” in 1988 is a very apt description of what happened to the USSR. Most likely Gorbachev went on to start the watermelon movement as a means of eliminating western supremacy in technology and found a willing mass of anti-western moonbats who could no longer protest against nuclear weapons as the threat of nuclear war was almost eliminated in the early 1990’s so suddenly they discovered the CAGW religion.
What I expect will happen is a more isolationist America for the next decade or so. The spontaneous disagreement of 80% of the US public with a plan to hit Syria is a singular event. Previously, there would be disagreement about US military action but the majority of the population would support wars when they got started. The last time there was this much unanimity about the US not going to war was at the end of the Vietnam war.
The concern about Russia and China having control of the ME oil supplies is much less significant now than it was during the cold war. The EU bureaucracy is probably worse than anything that existed in the USSR and capitalism is far more alive in Russian and China than it is in the US. N. America can become self-sufficient in oil very easily if the political barriers are eliminated and I suspect that the spontaneous US outrage against a war that only the Saudi’s wanted is going to be repeated again in the future insane US energy policies.
The aspect of the whole Syria situation which hasn’t gotten the publicity it deserved was the willingness of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to totally fund a US military strike on Syria. The Saudi’s are perfectly free to hire whatever mercenaries they want among ex-military, but in this case the Saudi’s made an arrogant assumption that the US would jump at a chance to go to war for free. Obozo took the bait but Putin rejected a Saudi offer to ensure no Chechan interference with the winter olympics if they would agree to Saudi policies regarding Syria. I suspect that very soon the Saudi’s are going to find out that there are people in the world who can’t be bought, or that their price is far more than they can afford.
Error in link (trailing characters)
All true. Better link (if it shoes…):
https://www.embooks.com/blog/single/putin-checkmates-america
thanks, fixed
Philips knows of what she speaks. I am presently reading her latest ” The World Upside Down”.
Highly recommended.
Reiterates my point that in world affairs, the truly dangerous ones are not the sly or the malevolent, they are the naive and stupid. It’s seriously time for Canada to start talking one to one with Israel, and with an (obviously) very different agenda and set of levers, Russia. The US under Obama is a staggering drunk and could do just about anything without even realizing it’s actually been done until it sobers up to the sound of the house and the neighborhood on fire . . . and maybe not even then.
I think that Obama has been hanging out with Justin.
Yes; the Phillips article is good, and largely on target. It is, however, bothersome that Americans of all stripes. including
Phillips, seem unable to come to an understanding either of modern Russia or of V. Putin.
My own thesis is that Russia today is much like Tsarist Russia, and that is not particularly good (we (the British Empire) did after all go to war with them in the Crimea); and V. Putin is much like one of the more capable and energetic Tsars – neither so forceful as Peter the Great, nor so dangerously ineffectual as Nicholas II. And indeed even when Russian foreign policy was not hostile it was never completely friendly, and could be mischievous in deadly ways (for which see “The Russian Origins of the First World War”). There was also a conflict of ideology which precluded any close understanding or sympathy. That was not communism vs capitalism but Orthodoxy vs Catholicism; and probably is still operative.
When I say “Catholicism” I include the many Protestant sects which have broken off from Catholicism and which agree with Catholicism on issues where Catholicism and Orthodoxy most significantly disagree. Remember that 70% of Russians are declared Orthodox Christians, and Vladimir Putin is an Orthodox Christian. It is hard to say whether that is important, but since Putin ended his letter to the New York Times with
explicit mention of God it should not be dismissed casually.
The chemical weapons charge was a false flag that Obama was selling it as false justification to prove that he actually has balls, instead of his hyena wife who I affectionately call skeletor.
If Putin prevented Obama from incorrectly bombing the Syrian government when the jihadi rebels did it, then he prevented a mistake and further emasculated Obama.
Hey Obama,
If you are going to draw red lines, tell the truth IF they are crossed.
Don’t defer to the UN.
Don’t punt to Congress.
Don’t hire someone like your fumble mouthed clown shoed secretary of state.
Don’t say the world drew that red line when YOU did.
And don’t fall back on the Russian President to give you an out when you make all of those mistakes.
So The Obozo in Chief tried to play with the big boys and got his lunch eaten and his ass kicked. He and that other idiot Kerry have just relinquished the worlds political stage to Vlad and the Saudis and Iranians.
“…Americans of all stripes. including
Phillips, …”
Melanie Phillips is British.
was she at the Boston tea party:-))))
the Obumbler in chief
“My own thesis is that Russia today is much like Tsarist Russia…”
Russia today is the Soviet Union downsized in the early ’90s, just like many major western Multinational Corporations at the time, to become LEAN and MEAN and focused on eliminating the losing subsidiaries while muscling up to take on the #1 Top Dog for World Domination who just happened to be spending itself into an economic Black Hole chasing social justice.
The Cold War never ended.
The U.S. just unilaterally declared Victory and stopped fighting their side of the Cold War.
The ‘Muslim Threat’ is just one of Russia’s many ploys in the continuing Cold War that is paying out HUGE dividends.
Obozo is a tool of the jihadists and Putin knows this. Having seen the results of the “Arab spring”, rational forces in arab countries are jettisoning the US and gravitating to Russia. Having Egypt become a US ally was one of the the foreign policy achievements of the US but likely Egypt will start moving towards the Russians again. The demonstrators in Egypt have clearly sized up Obozo as evidenced by their banners specifically naming him in supporting the MB.
Obozo’s brother is a jihadist and considerable resources in the US are being spent to harass anyone who dares publicize this fact. Obozo’s strings are being pulled by the Saudi’s but likely Saudi Arabia is one of the first targets the Iranian’s will go after in the near future. Of course, having deliberately prevented the US from becoming self-sufficient in oil, the fall of Saudi Arabia will greatly affect the US.
When it comes to geopolitics, Americans are amateurs and putting an affirmative action moron in charge of the country is something that will likely amuse the leaders of Russian and China endlessly as they divide up the resources of the Middle East.
Correction: it is a much more dangerous, influential Tsarist Russia.
Obama the narcissist can’t live with the criticism of his poor foreign policies but when Israel is destroyed and the Middle East in a shambles, he’ll think it all worth while. Russia just wants the roubles.
Interestingly, if the US keeps getting further emasculated, the Saudis may have to start getting closer to the Israelis publicly as well as privately. (The Saudis after all were the ones who had to privately give the Israelis the free kick at the Iraqi nuclear program and were willing to give them one free overflight of Saudi airspace to take a shot at the Iranian nuclear program.) That would mean cooling some of the public anti-semitic Wahabist rhetoric. Increased Russian influence in the region would also likely result in pressure to cool the funding of jihadist agitation since the Russians obviously would like to throw a wet towel on the foreign agitation of their own muslim minorities and neighbors.
If the Saudis feel a stronger Russian presence in the region, they may have to start growing up a bit. Up to now they’ve been able to play both sides of the coin, funding Wahabist agitation while living the vida loca of American armaments and protection. It’s been an ongoing irony that the house of Sa’ud up to now has been able to spread the Wahabist cult to its allies exactly because it could heretofore count on American support as a fall back for the weakening of its regional allies by the very Wahabism it was spreading. If that American protection loses credibility (by ineptitude more than design) they, the Saudis, may have to cool some of the Wahabist proselytizing since they may have to face the consequences of their spawn turning around to bite them from the enclaves in the region in which they foster it. One can always hope.
John, in my view your assessment is pretty accurate. But then I am not an expert, just one who because of our family’s heritage in that country for 133 years, and still has a few relatives there, and therefore has a considerable interest on the political goings on. Most of the family still in Russia left there around 1990 for Germany. Now, Richard Pipes and Orlando Figes have expert knowledge of Russia.
Your sentence, “Russian foreign policy was not hostile it was never completely friendly, and could be mischievous in deadly ways”. Very few nations have “friends”. The relationship with the administrations of some countries with Israel at different times are close to that description. Canada at the moment, the US not so much. Every nation does however have national interests that mesh with the national interests of other nations at various times.
Russia has always had an interest in access to the south, and ever since Catherine II took what is southern Ukraine and Crimea today from the Ottomans and Tatars during the late 1700s Russia has been close to that goal. Afghanistan was an effort toward that goal, as are efforts to strike alliances with whoever they can in the ME.
Afghanistan is a wasteland at the nexus of several real nations which know they cannot rule over this total waste of space. If one of them bordering it could do it they would.
It, Afghanistan, is merely a name for a place which cannot be either ruled or civilized because it will not be worth the effort in blood and treasure, however large and intense the effort. The Pashtuns who live there do not even allow themselves to be numbered/counted and they are the majority.
China has been granted rights to some areas for mining copper.
Good luck with that, 444.
8^D
I usually like Phillips but this time I thought she offered little more than an anti-Putin rant (don’t assume from this that I’m some sort of Putinophile).
Most of the noise about Putin seems to stem from the amazing discovery that Russian views on Syria don’t coincide with American ones.
Well, duh.
Different countries have different national interests (duh again).
We shouldn’t be surprised that the Russians don’t share our liberal fantasies about the so-called “Arab Spring”. They just see Islamists fomenting instability. The closest Russian territory to Syria is a mere 650 km or so distant and is itself embroiled in continuing on-again, off-again struggles with various jihadist groups. The nearest US territory to Syria is the coast of Maine – over 8400 km away.
Enough said.
If Putin were the enemy she thinks he is, he would have allowed Obama to continue in his folly.
Think about it.
Loki;
Hasn’t American foreign policy always been hampered by their Revolutionary War dogma about true difference in governance. The American Constitution is a revolutionary document. American geopolitics whether successful or not is not unlike any other country.
The involvement of Saudi influence in American politics is a subject well worth investigating. Since the USA sources only about 1 million bpd of ME oil their dependence on energy does not reside there. American interest in ME oil has always (IMO) been about fear that Russian or Chinese dominance of the region would led to dominance of energy dependent countries foreign policy. ie Russian dominance of the ME would allow even greater influence in EU policy as their sole supplier of energy. Amazing how co-operative people become when you shut the gas and oil off in January.
If the prime directive is secure borders and access to foreign markets the USA cannot allow foreign domination of ME energy which still fuels approximately 25% of world demand. Obama seems to be fumbling the USA effort but again I ask myself how much is the directive being clouded or confused by the Saudi alliance. Sunni Islam has been somewhat patient in its drive for world Islam. The Saudis led that effort and obviously see Iran as their biggest threat. That threat can now be combined with a loss of influence by the increased production of oil alternatives around the globe. Massive oil fields are being discovered each year. The Saudis have to realize their influence will wane along with their oil revenues which yield their international influence. Their regional security is at risk and their funding of world Islam is at risk. This threat could led to irrational reactions by a desperate Saudi government. I do not trust them or the influence they have in America.
CT, you’re right about American foreign policy being different than any other countries but I suspect that the primary reason for this is the marked changed in direction depending on which party is in power. The US threw away an strategic position that would have given it easy domination of Iran should that have been necessary when it conquered Iraq and Afghanistan. The fact that there was a total withdrawal of US troops from Iraq must seem mystifying to every other major power in the world. If it was the Russians, and they hadn’t sustained a military loss, they would be there forever.
Saudi influence is primarily through money and, unfortunately, it’s too easy to buy US politicians. The payoff doesn’t have to be a direct bribe but rather a Saudi agreement to buy F-16’s or other military hardware that just so happens to be manufactured in a particular congressional district. The US is probably the most short sighted country in the world when it comes to geopolitics. Islamofascists think in terms of centuries whereas US politicians don’t think past the next election. The Russians are also long-term planners and I hate to think of how many sleeper agents they’ve planted in the US and Canada decades ago which they still haven’t seen the need to activate. Oz’s description of the USSR “downsizing” in 1988 is a very apt description of what happened to the USSR. Most likely Gorbachev went on to start the watermelon movement as a means of eliminating western supremacy in technology and found a willing mass of anti-western moonbats who could no longer protest against nuclear weapons as the threat of nuclear war was almost eliminated in the early 1990’s so suddenly they discovered the CAGW religion.
What I expect will happen is a more isolationist America for the next decade or so. The spontaneous disagreement of 80% of the US public with a plan to hit Syria is a singular event. Previously, there would be disagreement about US military action but the majority of the population would support wars when they got started. The last time there was this much unanimity about the US not going to war was at the end of the Vietnam war.
The concern about Russia and China having control of the ME oil supplies is much less significant now than it was during the cold war. The EU bureaucracy is probably worse than anything that existed in the USSR and capitalism is far more alive in Russian and China than it is in the US. N. America can become self-sufficient in oil very easily if the political barriers are eliminated and I suspect that the spontaneous US outrage against a war that only the Saudi’s wanted is going to be repeated again in the future insane US energy policies.
The aspect of the whole Syria situation which hasn’t gotten the publicity it deserved was the willingness of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to totally fund a US military strike on Syria. The Saudi’s are perfectly free to hire whatever mercenaries they want among ex-military, but in this case the Saudi’s made an arrogant assumption that the US would jump at a chance to go to war for free. Obozo took the bait but Putin rejected a Saudi offer to ensure no Chechan interference with the winter olympics if they would agree to Saudi policies regarding Syria. I suspect that very soon the Saudi’s are going to find out that there are people in the world who can’t be bought, or that their price is far more than they can afford.