PUTIN DARES USA AND EU TO START COLD WAR 11

Vladimir Putin staring at the threat of Obama arming Ukraine, additional European sanctions and the economic chaos in his country, brazened out the recent peace talks in Minsk. First, he declared a truce and then attempted to delay it for ten days to allow the Russian separatists to capture a strategic railway hub on the Eastern border of Ukraine. This circumstance would have forced 8000 Ukrainian troops to surrender. The European negotiators, Merkel of Germany and Hollande of France, painted a grim picture of the prospects of peace when reporting back to their European colleagues in Brussels. No one believes that Putin is serious and will be deterred from his colonial objectives. In so doing he risks Obama following through on his ultimatum thereby precipitating Cold War 11.

Putin has signaled, again and again that he is not ultimately going to back down and regardless of the consequences he is going to take on the world - well at least most of it. He has bragged that he is a super power and that the world better believe it. This while each day that goes by his position becomes weaker and weaker. The Russian economy, the Russian ruble and the price of oil have all tanked leaving the country more and more vulnerable to Western sanctions. But the modern day Tzar continues to stride, strut, and posture on the world stage while furthering his territorial ambitions. As Jay H. Ell has pointed out previously, in this modern communication age you cannot bluff and bluster as everybody knows everything about everything. So with his strongest card, oil, trumped his hopes sill rest that it is not in Europe’s best interests to take him on and that Obama in his isolationist mood will, chicken out. Both these calculations are in fantasyland - Europe lead by Germany’s Angela Merkel have proposed additional sanctions and Obama has repeatedly threatened to arm Ukraine. Thus far the Russian proletariat have reveled in the resurgent glory of the motherland but there are indications that that can change.

PUTIN’S ANSWERS TO HIS SITUATION

Putin’s moves this far, other than his territorial ambitions in Ukraine, having snuffed out Chechnya and Georgia and bagged Crimea, is to cozy up to every enemy of the rest of the world whether it be Syria or Iraq. He is very empathetic to the predicament of any state that is anti the West and has most recently paid a very visible high power visit to Egypt’s Sissi who gave him the red carpet treatment. (Sissi and the USA are not exactly hitting it off these days). However, the problem is that the Kremlin leader has no largesse to hand out anymore, just love and sympathy.

Putin, as he did in Crimea, denies that he is aiding the separatists with troops in the battlefield that he refers to as “New Russia”. This when Russian troops, without insignias have been identified in the war zones. He no longer bothers to deny that it is his limitless weaponry that arms the separatists. This, too while he has troops in “war games” on the Russian side of the border. Putin doesn’t care that no one believes anything he says. It is like the good old USSR days when the propaganda from the self same neo colonialist fascist pigs was that everyone else were neo colonialist fascist pigs. In those days those who believed that the emperor had clothes were rewarded with goodies, but now the cupboard is bare. Inevitably, when the fighting continues he denies he has any control over the “rebels” who just battle on.

Putin’s denial mechanisms extends to his economic plight and his failure to adapt to sanctions. According to a Forbe’s report in the important area of food production the Russians have done nothing! Even if the consumer had full access to European food the Ruble can buy less than 50 percent of what it previously could. Mark Adomanis, the Russian economic expert that authored the Forbes article, ended with the following statement, “The Kremlin can of course, pretend, (his emphasis), that it’s economy hasn’t been impacted by the sanctions, that Russian consumers are rapidly and enthusiastically turning to Russian - made goods and that the Russian business sector are in rude health. But, Rosstat, (Russian sources), shows pretty clearly that Russia’s private sector have done a poor job filling the gap left by sanctions and the Ruble devaluation”. 

PUTIN’S PROLETARIAT BACK IN CHAINS

Putin does not to have much confidence in his comrades shutting up much longer as there has been an unprecedented crackdown on any criticism and dissidents. According to Marc Bennett of The Business Insider the Kremlin’s suppression is the most wide sweeping in post - Soviet Russian history. For practical purposes he has criminalized protest. A law has been put into effect that if a dissident is arrested twice for an unsanctioned protest,(which most are), within 180 days he has a mandatory 5 year prison sentence and several key dissidents are about to be nabbed. In addition to the draconian actions of the Kremlin a new pro establishment vigilante group  called Anti - Madian has graced the scene. The group was formed by a former pro Putin lawmaker. Their main objective is to prevent any camp that is against the Ukraine war. What polls that have come out of Russia have shown the proletariat to be at best lukewarm to the continued aggression. 

So any hope the West had of an internal revolt against Putin’s destructive megalomania have been dashed by the Russian leader’s preemptive totalitarian legislation and actions. There also have been the usual collection of “show” trials where for example a woman was charged for treason for allegedly informing the Ukrainian embassy that she had overheard a conversation where the possibility of Soviet troops being deployed was discussed. Tanya Lokshina, the deputy director of the Moscow office of The Human Right’s watch group agrees that this crackdown is the most sweeping since the dissolution of the USSR.

GUNG HO PUTIN DARES "TAKE ME ON"

The Carnegie Foundation believes that US and Russian relations are at a point of rupture. Any reading of Putin’s personality and the mess he is in leads one to that inescapable conclusion. He will face no more internal opposition than Stalin or Kruschev did as he has already taken the necessary steps to prevent that. So he will play each day by ear all with the objective of hanging onto power. While there are massive reservations to arming Ukraine as they are not that stable either Obama obviously feels that, notwithstanding his European NATO partners’ opposition, he has to reassure the Eastern European countries that are new NATO members, that they are not going to fall victim of Putin’s “territorial ambitions”.

Obama, in spite of his laid back approach to military adventures, finds himself once again in an impossible situation. He cannot ignore the state of affairs much longer. Putin has obviously put himself on a path to self destruction. Heaven knows what he is thinking. When he embarked on this mayhem of neo colonialism he held many cards. The Russian economy was booming, he was the oil rig of Europe and able to hold over them the threat of disrupting their economies, There also was not much will to take him on. He mistook Obama’s lack of stomach to involve the USA in military adventures as him being soft on intervening. He failed to compute that so far Obama’s desire for love not war has not stopped him going in boots and all when he finally decides to. Most of all Putin failed to adapt to his precipitous financial fall. He declined to diversify his economy and all he has left is the vain hope that the price of energy will once again rocket.

He is cornered and like a long line of Russian rats he will bring down the proletariat with him. He still can come to a deal to stop this out of control train. He has so often in the past, declared victory even though he is in the jaws of defeat. He can after all point to the fact that Russia is hosting the World Soccer Cup in 1918!

In a moment of Zen, one has to reflect on the metamorphosis of Putin’s Russia morphing from a colossus that bestrode Eastern Europe just a year or so ago into a wounded swaggering giant. The acceleration into the abyss has been electrifying and must be reflective of modern day communication that is measured in nano seconds. While some empires held sway for centuries the new Russian domain is rapidly catapulting into oblivion with yet another madman at the helm. The tragedy is the many that will perish in the process of his doomed imperialistic ambitions.