Professor Stephen F. Cohen recently had an interesting conversation (podcast) with John Batchelor about Russia’s role in European, Syrian, and NATO politics. Here’s a sampling of Cohen’s writings.
Professor Stephen F. Cohen recently had an interesting conversation (podcast) with John Batchelor about Russia’s role in European, Syrian, and NATO politics. Here’s a sampling of Cohen’s writings.
You really have to wonder these days if any sources can be relied upon for unbiased
provision of news or analysis of world events.
Cohen:… “… refusal to cooperate with Russia…”
Curse those Russians for only caring about their own national interests rather than ours!
The American Conservative
Is the Pentagon Hyping the Russia Threat?
Some officials are trying to inflate the defense budget by returning to a Cold War posture.
While most of our foreign-policy attention is focused on the Middle East, a new danger lurks. According to a number of high-ranking Pentagon officials, that danger is not Russian aggression but rather their own colleagues, who are inflating the threat Russia poses in an effort to boost the Defense Department’s budget.
Those in the military who are encouraging the build-up of U.S. troops along Russia’s European border are “the ‘Chicken-Little, sky-is-falling’ set in the Army,” one senior Pentagon officer told Politico. “These guys want us to believe the Russians are 10 feet tall.”
“There’s a simpler explanation,” he added. “The Army is looking for a purpose, and a bigger chunk of the budget. And the best way to get that is to paint the Russians as being able to land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. What a crock.”
He’s not the only one to suspect bureaucrats are inflating the Russian threat. When Politico highlighted a recent Pentagon study on Russian capabilities, high-ranking current and retired Army officers told the magazine it was laughably incorrect. They particularly rejected frightening descriptions of Russian technological prowess.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/is-the-pentagon-hyping-the-russia-threat/
“Is Russia Really to Blame For Everything?”
Yes absolutely, not nuking them in 1945 was a second greatest crime against humanity in the history of humanity.
You mean FDR’s ‘noble Soviet allies’, lead by a ‘fine Christian gentleman’ should have been nuked?
How is the invasion of Georgia and Crimea in Russia’s best interests (not Putin’s, Russia’s)?
“Curse those Russians for only caring about their own national interests rather than ours!”
Only?
Explain to me how this is in the Russian people’s best interest.
http://www.newsweek.com/why-putin-burning-mountains-good-food-365698
from wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin#Political_career
“Within a year, Putin was investigated by the city legislative council led by Marina Salye. It was concluded that he had understated prices and permitted the export of metals valued at $93 million in exchange for foreign food aid that never arrived.”
That was the beginning of Putin’s climb to $Billionaire status. I’ll bet he sold that food on the black market.
Once into rubble, twice into dust, trice into glass. Does that answer your question?
Exactly. Russia was on the verge of collapse when Putin came on the scene in 2000. Everything he has done politically has been to safeguard or advance Russia’s national interests. When the EU and NATO began encroaching on Russia’s Imperial/Soviet traditional sphere of interest Russia through the ex KGB former mid-level officer, who turned out to be a stronger more ruthless man than his prospective Russian political opponents were, became concerned and began to act against Ukraine, Crimea, and sabre rattling in the Baltic region. Earlier, unrest in the Georgia, Dagestan regions prompted a Russian response as traditionally the Caucasus Mountains were a fortress wall against the Muslim hordes of the ME.
That said, Putin was a poor man when he took power, had some political talent discovered when helping his mentor, and if the biographer is correct, kind of fell into the job of president by accident, but took to the mantle of power like a fish takes to water. Along the way he played off one set of oligarchs against another and became very wealthy in the process. He is no more or no less ruthless than most Tsars or Tsarinas were. He is not ideological and believes Marxism is a failed economic and political movement. Yes, we can consider him a rat, but Russia and his wallet come first, in that order.
Um, this former KGB agent is trying to restore Russia’s Cold War empire.
“My last words to you, my son and successor, are: Never trust the Russians.”
Abdur Rahman Khan
Amir of Afghanistan (1880-1901)
The Russian people do not comprehend democracy Putin knows that.
If by “fell into” you mean was appointed Russian President by Boris Yeltsin and if by “took to the mantle of power like a fish takes to water” you mean has been the Russian dictator ever since, then I agree with you.
Professor Stephen F. Cohen can’t figure out why Britain doesn’t get along well with Russia.
Mr Brown today revealed: ‘We were clear that the assassination(of Alexander Litvinenko) had been ordered from the top … and what was clear was that further assassinations on British soil were possible.
‘Indeed, we believed that one new assassination was being planned.
Ex-PM Gordon Brown today claimed the orders to kill Litvinenko came ‘from the top’. Mr Brown expelled Russian diplomats over the murder in 2007.
‘This led to the diplomatic stand-off that has characterised our relations with Russia ever since.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3621284/Gordon-Brown-claims-orders-assassinate-Alexander-Litvinenko-streets-London-came-directly-Putin-s-Kremlin.html
Please Ken(Kulak) Please take the time to watch this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sx2YmSXDy8
No, he is trying to restore Imperial Russia’s empire, the empire that Catherine II built by conquering the Turks. He believes the “Soviet” system was an economic and a human resource failure, although he was quite upset for a while in the early 199os at the disintegration and loss as a world class power. He considers and compares himself to the Tsars.
“The New Tsar”, Steven Lee Myers.
Nicholas, right, the Russians have only had democracy, such as it was with anarchy all over, from March 1917 until October 1917.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” — H. L. Mencken
Right, right, and exactly. Myers is not nice to Putin in his book, and yes, British/Russian relations have been “cool” ever since.
But, to give credit where credit is due, the living standards of Russian have improved greatly since Putin became, yes, a dictator. That and Russia’s new world status is why he has such high approval ratings among Russians. Putin runs corcles around Obama in the diplomatic sphere, but then again that would not take much.
Mencken was right. We see all the time, even in Canada.
And yet he behaves like the KGB agent that he is.
What other countries should Putin invade to restore the Russian empire? Poland? The rest of Ukraine? The Baltic states?
Will Putin do to them as he does to other Russians: have some bumped off when they get too curious? Offer contracts to his crony friends?
I don’t care how much Putin is not Obama or his useless eunuch Canadian clone. He is still an autocrat.
People thought Stalin was a noble leader once, too.
“Is Russia Really to Blame For Everything?”
Umm…err…well, no.
Global warming is to blame and causes everything dontcha know? ☺
CAS
PS: Way cool…the captcha number is my summer place lot number. Should buy a lottery ticket perhaps.
Here is what Putin has to say.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBTBBNOtbhM
Bear in mind that he is a politician.
Yes, his KGB training has helped him, but he was a mediocre KGB operative in East Germany that never accomplished much except to make good contacts among a few Stasi agents that still serves him in good stead even today, as many of these former pragmatic Stasi operatives have positions in the unified Germany.
While the Baltic states were in Imperial Russia, most of what is western Poland today never was a part of Imperial Russia, but was part West Prussia and East Prussia. Warsaw was in Imperial Russia. Most of southern Poland and western Ukraine (Galicia) were a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and never within the Imperial Russian borders. According to Myers, Putin realizes Russia’s economic and population growth limitations and has no ambitions except to keep a buffer zone between NATO/EU and Russia.
Tsar in a sense also means autocrat, and yes, many older people still revere Stalin as a “noble” leader. And no doubt Putin will use the termination option against opponents if he feels it is necessary. Litvenenko was not the only victim.
Yes, that is the Putin Myers describes. He made mince meat out of the CNN moron. Good and bad he may be, but he is a genius compared to Obama, never mind the puppet we have.
Btw, RT is no more or no less a biased media mouthpiece than CNN is. RT is under Putin’s sufferance and CNN is an arm of the Democrat Party.
“How is the invasion of Georgia and Crimea in Russia’s best interests (not Putin’s, Russia’s)?”
Your opinion (or mine) of what is or is not in Russia’s interests is entirely moot.
It only matters what the Russian government thinks is in their interests.
JJM, the Canadian government thinks trans-bathrooms are in our best interests.
But you’ve cemented how Putin and Russians think. They are as likely to embrace classical liberalism and democracy as oil is to get along with water.
Ken, Poland is not going to want be a Russian colony again. That is why Putin is dangerous.
“Colony” is too gentle of a word “killing fields” are more appropriate. And this is it, after what russia did to Poland throughout 19th anf 29th centuries Polish patriots will always do everything possible to distance themselves from the Siberian horde. That is of course when Polish government is not infiltrated by Kremlin’s agents and vassals, which it has been many times in the past… for russia is cancer.
Indeed.
To think, if Putin even tried a trade deal the way other countries do, he might bridge the gap between the two countries.
But why do that when one can take the whole pie?