Russia in the 21st Century [Superthread]

[Edward Campbell]

The Financial Times is reporting that a lastminute deal was signed. The article says that, "State-owned China National Petroleum Corp, China’s largest oil company, said on Wednesday it had signed a 30-year deal to buy up to 38bn cubic metres of gas per year, beginning in 2018 ... The company did not give details on the pricing of the gas, the sticking point in negotiations that have stretched over a decade ... The breakthrough came just hours after PetroChina, the listed subsidiary of CNPC, told the Financial Times that the deal would not be completed during Mr Putin’s visit because of the pricing dispute."

The price will be interesting. China should be willing to pay a premium for guaranteed delivery through a pipeline and Russia should be willing to accept a price a wee, tiny bit below current market rates for a guaranteed, high volume deal. The FT article concludes, "For China, with a growing diversity of natural gas sources including from newly licensed Russian exporters, securing supply of piped gas from Gazprom no longer holds the importance it did when the two companies began negotiating a decade ago."

But, always, see my comments about China's expectations. Russia has, in the recent past, in Putin's era, used oil and gas as a weapon, closing the taps to punish its neighbours. The Chinese will not accept that and, unlike the rest of the world, China would have no compunction about physically punishing Russia for any such move. Xi Jinping is nothing at all like Barack Obama or Angela Merkel and he, Xi, has waaaay more balls than Putin can even dream about ... it's all in the nature of the system through which he made his way to the top.

Another inforgraphic showing that China would need the equivalent of 16, that's 16! of those Russian gas deals to meet its energy demands.

 

[CougarKing]

Germany, having finally thrown off its collective, national guilt over World War II, will assert its leadership role and the notion of MittelEuropa will be front and centre, again.

Sorry to be a little off-topic,

But I certainly hope that the notion of MittelEuropa does not evolve into a "Fourth Reich" that seeks to displace other nations and ethnic groups while seeking "Lebensraum" ("Living Space")...

Agence-France-Presse

GAME CHANGER? European Parliament set to usher in first neo-Nazis

BRUSSELS - Though no stranger to controversy or diatribe, the European Parliament is set to usher in its first fully-fledged neo-Nazis members, from Germany and Greece.

With around 300,000 votes at Sunday's European elections the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) is expected to claim one of the country's 96 seats in the new Parliament, in a historical ground-breaker.

A recent change in German electoral laws, scrapping all minimum thresholds, paved the way for the march into parliament of the NPD, which has 6,000 members.

It describes itself as "national socialist," just like Germany's Nazis in the 1930s, and is openly xenophobic and anti-semitic so a group of German regional governments have tried to have it banned for propagating racism.

Meanwhile, with almost all ballots counted in Greece, the neo-Nazi "Golden Dawn" party is claiming over nine percent of the vote, which would net it three seats in the 751-member Parliament.

Golden Dawn was founded in the 1980s by Nikos Michaloliakos, an open admirer of Adolf Hitler. In 2012, Michaloliakos publicly denied the responsibility of Nazis in the mass-murder of six million Jews.

(...EDITED)

 

[Kirkhill]

The anti-EU forces (both left and right wing), I believe, are not expansionist.  They are very much focused on local control.

The expansionists are the traditional socialists/internationalists running the bureaucracy in Brussels.  Which, in fact, brings them head to head with the Russians.

Nationalism could actually reduce the pressure on Russia's border.  If only the Russian's weren't so keen on maintaining borders that no longer exist.

 

[a_majoor]

From the American Interest: Russia revitalizes their longstanding propaganda machine for the 21rst century. And they were very, VERY good at it back in the day. Simply look at Boshevik and early Russian posters, or watch the movies of Sergi Esinstein (who not only was a contemporary of Leni Riefenstahl, but an equally skilled director), or study the way the Russians spread the gosple of Communism around the world through various means. We will need to be at the top of our game since they are leverageing their strong suit against us:

http://www.the-american-interest.com/blog/2014/06/02/the-great-success-of-the-russian-propaganda-machine/

The Great Success of the Russian Propaganda Machine

Propaganda has always been an important tool of war—and its importance grew during the 20th century as Stalin and Goebbels took the dark art to new heights of sophistication and power. As Putin seeks to rebuild Russian power on the rubble of the Soviet Union, he is reaching out for the USSR’s most effective propaganda and espionage weapons.

Here’s the opening from a Spiegel article well worth your time:


Ivan Rodionov sits in his office at Berlin’s Postdamer Platz and seems to relish his role as the bad guy. He rails in almost accent-free German, with a quiet, but sharp voice, on the German media, which, he claims, have been walking in “lockstep” when it comes to their coverage of the Ukraine crisis. During recent appearances on two major German talk shows, Rodionov disputed allegations that Russian soldiers had infiltrated Crimea prior to the controversial referendum and its annexation by Russia. He says it’s the “radical right-wing views” of the Kiev government, and not Russia, that poses the threat. “Western politicians,” he says, “are either helping directly or are at least looking on.”

Rodionov defends President Vladimir Putin so vehemently that one could be forgiven for confusing him with a Kremlin spokesperson. But Rodionov views himself as a journalist. The 49-year-old is the head of the video news agency Ruptly, founded one year ago and financed by the Russian government. The eighth floor of the office building has a grand view of Germany’s house of parliament, the Reichstag. It’s a posh location and the Kremlin doesn’t seem to mind spending quite a bit of money to disseminate its view of the world from here. Around 110 people from Spain, Britain, Russia and Poland work day and night in the three-floor office space on videos that are then syndicated to the international media.

At first glance, it’s not obvious that Ruptly is actually Kremlin TV. In addition to Putin speeches, there are also numerous other video clips available in its archive, ranging from Pussy Riot to arrests of members of the Russian opposition. When it comes to eastern Ukraine, however, the agency offers almost exclusively videos that are favorable towards pro-Russian supporters of the “People’s Republic of Donetsk,” which was founded by separatists. You’ll also find right-wing radicals like Britain’s Nick Griffin or German far-right extremist Olaf Rose, an ideologist with the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD), stirring up hatred towards the European Union and its Ukraine policies.

(Note the opportunistic use of far-right European political figures to further Russian talking points. This is a trend worth watching.)

The West needs to up its game. Cracking down on Russian espionage, both commercial and strategic, tracing and publicizing the flow of money and influence in the Kremlin’s propaganda enterprise, and countering Russian disinformation and attempts to shape world opinion must now become part of Western policy.

 

[vonGarvin]

Don't kid yourself.  The propaganda machine works for us as well:

"I am the Ukrainian" was a pretty slick little number.  And people bought it.

 

[Kirkhill]

Foreign Policy.

Some interesting maps - circa 2035

Europe dismembered. Russia united.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Part 1 of 2

Alexander Lukin, a Russian insider offers an interesting analysis and prescription, with which i fundamentally disagree, for the current contretemps in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from Foreign Affairs:

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141538/alexander-lukin/what-the-kremlin-is-thinking

What the Kremlin Is Thinking
Putin’s Vision for Eurasia

By Alexander Lukin

FROM OUR JULY/AUGUST 2014 ISSUE

Soon after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, Western leaders began to think of Russia as a partner. Although Washington and its friends in Europe never considered Moscow a true ally, they assumed that Russia shared their basic domestic and foreign policy goals and would gradually come to embrace Western-style democracy at home and liberal norms abroad. That road would be bumpy, of course. But Washington and Brussels attributed Moscow’s distinctive politics to Russia’s national peculiarities and lack of experience with democracy. And they blamed the disagreements that arose over the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Iran on the short time Russia had spent under Western influence. This line of reasoning characterized what could be termed the West’s post-Soviet consensus view of Russia.

The ongoing crisis in Ukraine has finally put an end to this fantasy. In annexing Crimea, Moscow decisively rejected the West’s rules and in the process shattered many flawed Western assumptions about its motivations. Now U.S. and European officials need a new paradigm for how to think about Russian foreign policy -- and if they want to resolve the Ukraine crisis and prevent similar ones from occurring in the future, they need to get better at putting themselves in Moscow’s shoes.

BACK TO THE BEGINNING

From Russia’s perspective, the seeds of the Ukraine crisis were planted in the Cold War’s immediate aftermath. After the Soviet Union collapsed, the West essentially had two options: either make a serious attempt to assimilate Russia into the Western system or wrest away piece after piece of its former sphere of influence. Advocates of the first approach, including the U.S. diplomat George Kennan and Russian liberals, warned that an anti-Russian course would only provoke hostility from Moscow while accomplishing little, winning over a few small states that would end up siding with the West anyway.

But such admonitions went unheeded, and U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush chose the second path. Forgetting the promises made by Western leaders to Mikhail Gorbachev after the unification of Germany -- most notably that they would not expand NATO eastward -- the United States and its allies set out to achieve what Soviet resistance had prevented during the Cold War. They trumpeted NATO’s expansion, adding 12 new members, including former parts of the Soviet Union, while trying to convince Russia that the foreign forces newly stationed near its borders, in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania, would not threaten its security. The EU, meanwhile, expanded as well, adding 16 new members of its own during the same period.

Russian leaders were caught off-guard; they had expected that both sides would increase cooperation, remain responsive to each other’s interests, and make mutually acceptable compromises. The Russians felt that they had done their part: although never entirely abandoning the idea of national interests, Russia had shown that it was willing to make sacrifices in order to join the prevailing Western-led order. Yet despite an abundance of encouraging words, the West never reciprocated. Instead, Western leaders maintained the zero-sum mindset left over from the Cold War, which they thought they’d won.

It remains hard to say whether a different approach to the post-Soviet states would have produced a better result for the West. What is obvious is that the course Clinton and Bush took empowered those Russians who wanted Moscow to reject the Western system and instead become an independent, competing center of power in the new multipolar world.

Today, the West’s continued advance is tearing apart the countries on Russia’s borders. It has already led to territorial splits in Moldova and Georgia, and Ukraine is now splintering before our very eyes. Divisive cultural boundaries cut through the hearts of these countries, such that their leaders can maintain unity only by accommodating the interests of both those citizens attracted to Europe and those wanting to maintain their traditional ties to Russia. The West’s lopsided support for pro-Western nationalists in the former Soviet republics has encouraged these states to oppress their Russian-speaking populations -- a problem to which Russia could not remain indifferent. Even now, more than two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, more than six percent of the population in Estonia and more than 12 percent of the population in Latvia, most of them ethnic Russians, do not have the full rights and privileges of citizenship. They cannot vote in national elections, enroll in Russian schools, or, for the most part, access Russian media. The EU, despite its emphasis on human rights outside its borders, has turned a blind eye to this clear violation of basic rights within them. So when it came to Ukraine and the threat of NATO forces appearing in Crimea -- a region for which Russia has special feelings and where most residents consider themselves Russian -- Moscow decided that there was nowhere left for such minorities to retreat. Russia annexed Crimea in response to the aspirations of a majority of its residents and to NATO’s obvious attempt to push Russia’s navy out of the Black Sea.

Western leaders were taken aback by Moscow’s swift reaction. In late March, General Philip Breedlove, NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe, said with surprise that Russia was acting “much more like an adversary than a partner.” But given that NATO has acted that way since its founding -- and never changed its approach after the Cold War -- Moscow’s actions should have been expected. It was only a matter of time before Russia finally reacted to Western encirclement.

In this context, the government of Vladimir Putin has interpreted Western protests about the situation in Ukraine as nothing more than a case of extreme hypocrisy. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how the Kremlin could think otherwise. Consider the EU’s recent criticism of right-wing groups in Ukraine. In March, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, condemned Right Sector, a militant nationalist group, for attempting to seize the parliament building in Kiev. But the EU had effectively supported Right Sector when it took to the streets to depose the government of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych only months earlier. None of this is surprising, of course; Western leaders have never had any difficulty justifying the actions of such extremist groups when convenient, as when it assisted Croatians fighting in the self-proclaimed republic of Serbian Krajina in 1995 or nationalists in Kosovo in 1997–98.

Western hypocrisy doesn’t end there. Washington has regularly chastised Russia for violating the sanctity of Ukraine’s borders. Yet the United States and its allies have no leg to stand on when it comes to the principle of territorial integrity. After all, it was not Russia but the West that, in 2010, supported the ruling by the International Court of Justice that Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence in 2008 did not violate international law. And Moscow repeatedly warned that the precedents set by Western military interventions in such places as Kosovo, Serbia, Iraq, and Libya would undermine the existing system of international law -- including the principle of sovereignty as enshrined in the 1975 Helsinki Accords, in which the West formally acknowledged the national boundaries of the Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia, and the Warsaw Pact states.

In spite of such Western double standards, Moscow has offered up a number of proposals for resolving the Ukraine crisis: the creation of a coalition government that takes into account the interests of the eastern and southern regions, the federalization of the country, the granting of official status to the Russian language, and so on. But Western ideologues seem unlikely to ever accept such proposals. Working with Russia, instead of against it, would mean admitting that someone outside the West is capable of determining what is good and what is bad for other societies.

End of Part 1

 

[Edward Campbell]

Part 2 of 2

COLLISION COURSE

Given the growing distance between Russia and the United States and Europe, it was only a matter of time before their two approaches collided in Ukraine, a border state that has long vacillated between the pull of the East and that of the West. The struggle initially played out between opposing Ukrainian political factions: one that advocated signing an association agreement with the EU and another that favored joining the customs union formed by Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia.

Western leaders have consistently viewed such Russian-led efforts at regional integration as hostile moves aimed at resurrecting the Soviet Union and creating an alternative to the Western system. Most officials in the United States and Europe thought that bringing Ukraine into alignment with the EU would deliver a heavy blow to those plans, which explains why they interpreted Yanukovych’s decision to temporarily postpone the signing of the EU agreement as a Russian victory that called for a counterattack.

Yet Western leaders are woefully misinformed about the idea of Eurasian integration. Neither Russia nor any of the states seeking to join a Eurasian system wants to restore the Soviet Union or openly confront the West. They do, however, believe that in a multipolar world, free nations have a right to create independent associations among themselves. In fact, the ruling elites of many former Soviet republics have long favored the idea of maintaining or re-creating some form of association among their states. In 1991, for example, they created the Commonwealth of Independent States. And of the 15 former Soviet republics, only a few of them, primarily the Baltic states, have used the collapse of the Soviet Union as an opportunity to permanently abandon all ties to the former union and join Western economic and political unions instead. The remaining countries struggled to arrive at a consensus on precisely what role the CIS should play.

In some former Soviet republics, leaders have actively sought to create new forms of integration, such as the Eurasian Economic Community, whose members include Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan (Uzbekistan suspended its membership in 2008). In others, such as Georgia, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine, the ruling elites considered the commonwealth the primary means for obtaining a civilized divorce from Russia and dividing up the ownership rights and authorities that were previously held by a single, unified state. In most of these countries, at least part of the official establishment and a significant segment of the general population wanted to maintain close relations with Russia and the other former Soviet states. In Georgia and Moldova, for instance, various ethnic minorities feared increasingly assertive nationalist majorities and hoped that Russia would help protect their rights. In other states, including Belarus and Ukraine, significant parts of the populations had such close economic, cultural, and even familial bonds with Russia that they could not imagine a sharp break.

Yet economic problems have long stood in the way of real integration. Although Putin came to power convinced that the collapse of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the twentieth century, he waited a decade -- until Russia had gained sufficient economic and political strength -- to do anything about it. It wasn’t until 2010 that Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia launched a customs union, the first real step toward meaningful economic cooperation among post-Soviet states. The union created a territory free from duties and other economic restrictions, and its members now apply common tariffs and other common regulatory measures in their trade with outside countries. Negotiations are currently under way to add Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan to the union.

In addition to providing economic benefits, Eurasian integration has fostered security cooperation. Like NATO, the Collective Security Treaty Organization -- which includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan -- requires signatories to help assist any member that comes under attack. Many Eurasian countries put a special value on the CSTO; their leaders know that despite assurances from many other countries and organizations, in the event of a real threat from religious extremists or terrorists, only Russia and its allies will come to the rescue.

UNDER GOD, INDIVISIBLE

With economic cooperation a success, political elites in the countries of the customs union are now discussing the formation of a Eurasian political union. As Putin wrote in the Russian newspaper Izvestiya in 2011, Moscow wants the new union to partner with, not rival, the EU and other regional organizations, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the North American Free Trade Agreement. That would help the member states “establish [themselves] within the global economy,” Putin wrote, and “play a real role in decision-making, setting the rules and shaping the future.” For such a union to be effective, however, it will need to evolve naturally and voluntarily. Moreover, taking post-Soviet integration to a new level raises the question of what deeper values would lie at its foundation. If the countries of Europe united to champion the values of democracy, human rights, and economic cooperation, then a Eurasian union must stand for its own ideals, too.

Some political thinkers have found the ideological foundation for such a union by looking to history. The concept of a Eurasian space or identity first arose among Russian philosophers and historians who immigrated from communist Russia to western Europe in the 1920s. Like Russian Slavophiles before them, advocates of Eurasianism spoke of the special nature of Russian civilization and its differences from European society. But they gazed in a different direction: whereas earlier Slavophiles emphasized Slavic unity and contrasted European individualism with the collectivism of Russian peasant communities, the Eurasianists linked the Russian people to the Turkic-speaking peoples -- or “Turanians” -- of the Central Asian steppe. According to the Eurasianists, the Turanian civilization, which supposedly originated in ancient Persia, followed its own unique political and economic model -- essentially, authoritarianism. Although they valued private initiative in general, many of the Eurasianists condemned the excessive dominance of market principles over the state in the West and emphasized the positive role of their region’s traditional religions: Orthodox Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. However dubious the Eurasianists’ historical claims about the Turanians may be, this theory now enjoys wide popularity not only among a significant part of the Russian political elite but also in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and other Central Asian states where the Turanians’ descendants live.

Although the old ideas advanced by today’s Eurasianists may seem somewhat artificial, the plan to establish a Eurasian union should not be considered so far-fetched. The culture and values of many former Soviet republics really do differ from what prevails in the West. Liberal secularism, with its rejection of the absolute values that traditional religions hold as divinely ordained, may be on the rise in western Europe and the United States, but in these former Soviet republics, all the major religions -- Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism -- are experiencing a revival. Despite the significant differences between them, all these religions reject Western permissiveness and moral relativism, and not for some pragmatic reason but because they find such notions sinful -- either unsanctioned or expressly prohibited by divine authority.

Most inhabitants of these post-Soviet states also resent that people in the West consider their outlook backward and reactionary. Their religious leaders, who are enjoying increasing popularity and influence, concur. After all, one can view progress in different ways. If one believes that the meaning of human existence is to gain more political freedoms and acquire material wealth, then Western society is moving forward. But if one thinks, as a traditional Christian does, that Christ’s coming was humanity’s most important development, then material wealth looks far less important, for this life is fleeting, and suffering prepares people for eternal life, a process that physical riches hinder. Religious traditionalists see euthanasia, homosexuality, and other practices that the New Testament repeatedly condemns as representing not progress but a regression to pagan times. Viewed through this lens, Western society is more than imperfect; it is the very center of sin.

A great majority of Orthodox Christian believers in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova agree with all of this, as do many people in Central Asia. And these beliefs have propelled to power leaders who support the integration of the former Soviet republics. They have also helped Putin succeed in establishing an independent power center in Eurasia. Western meddling, meanwhile, has only served to further consolidate that power.

MOVING FORWARD

The situation in Ukraine remains tense. It might very well follow the example of Moldova, effectively splitting in two. The United States has perceived Russian calls for dialogue as an attempt to dictate unacceptable conditions. In Russia, the continuing strife has fueled the activity of nationalists and authoritarians. The latter group has become especially active of late and is presenting itself as the only force capable of protecting Russia’s interests. An uncontrolled escalation of the confrontation could even lead to outright war. The only solution is for the United States and its allies to change their position from one of confrontation to one of constructive engagement.

After all, a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis is still possible. Even during the Cold War, Moscow and the West managed to reach agreements on the neutral status of Austria and Finland. Those understandings did not in the least undermine the democratic systems or the general European orientation of those countries, and they even proved beneficial to their economies and international reputations. It is no coincidence that it was Finland, a neutral state with strong ties to both the West and the Soviet Union, that hosted the talks leading to the signing of the Helsinki Accords, which played a major role in easing Cold War tensions. The solution to the current crisis similarly lies in providing international guarantees for both Ukraine’s neutral status and the protection of its Russian-speaking population. The alternative would be far, far worse: Ukraine could well break apart, drawing Russia and the West into another prolonged confrontation.

I agree, broadly, with Mr Lukin's analysis in "Back to the Beginning" and I also agree that we, both, set ourselves (unintentionally) on a "Collision Course." Where I part company with him is that I do not accept that "Neither Russia nor any of the states seeking to join a Eurasian system wants to restore the Soviet Union or openly confront the West." I think Vladimir Putin wants both, albeit with a new, different outcome.

Obviously I cannot accept Lukin's prescription that "The only solution is for the United States and its allies to change their position from one of confrontation to one of constructive engagement." In fact I think we should disengage and, economically and politically, isolate Russia.

 

[Kirkhill]

I agree with the prescription - isolation.

I disagree with Lukin on the origins.

My belief is that both the Kremlin and Beltway Washington both have it wrong.  And got it wrong long ago.

They labour under the delusion that they control their populaces and that deals made on their behalf will stick.  As Canadians dealing with the US we should no better.  (And we can't gloat - witness Meech Lake).

Governments govern with the consent of the governed.  Full stop.

A deal between Kennan and Gorbachev means nothing after 1,000,000,000 Europeans, Americans and Russians have their say.

It isn't too difficult to understand why Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles, Romanians, Moldovans and Georgians might not be as wedded to the notion of Russian rights after those same Russians arrived uninvited, stayed too long, denied them access to their own institutions and schools and declared themselves overlords.

The Russians living in Estonia or elsewhere, do not consider the Estonians legitimate suzerains in their own country.  They never have.  It is not difficult to understand the antipathy of the "non-Russians" to the Russians.  It is also easy to understand why the non-Russians might be eager to associate with non-Russians over Russians.

The Russians left in Eastern Europe are the same poor bastards that have been left stranded in the tidal pools by the retreat of every empire.  Bright folks figured out how to adapt to local realities quickly.  The not so bright often retreated with the tide or ended up dead.

The Russians of Donetsk, Crimea, Estonia and Transnistria are no different than the Brits of India, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Adapt or die.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Interceptions Rise as Russia Boosts Air Power

The Russian Air Force is upgrading its long-range aircraft, making the decades-old planes more lethal amid increasing encounters near US airspace, a top US general responsible for defending the American and Canadian airspace said.

“They are much, much better than they ever were during the Cold War,” Gen. Charles Jacoby, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and US Northern Command, said in an interview.

“One of the things we have seen is that it’s increasingly sophisticated [and] increasingly capable,” he said.

US and NATO aircraft have been intercepting Tu-95 Bear, Tu-160 Blackjack and Tu-22 Backfire strategic bombers and numerous fighter aircraft since 2007 when the Russian Air Force resumed long-range aviation missions, which had stopped at the end of the Cold War.

“We’ve seen it go up and down a little bit, but steadily increase over the intervening seven years,” Jacoby said of the pace of the flights. “A lot of it depends on their exercise cycle. Sometimes it depends on what’s going on in the world.”

The intercepts typically take place near Alaska and down the western coast of Canada and the continental US. In Europe, they typically occur over the Baltic and North seas.

Since the middle of the past decade, the Russia Air Force has been modernizing its bomber aircraft and long-range missiles, according to Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London ....

 

[a_majoor]

An interesting article quoting a former US ambassador on why Vladimir Putin behaves the way he does:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/07/michael-mcfaul-what-turned-putin-against-the-us/373866/

Why Putin Turned Against the U.S.

Former ambassador Michael McFaul on what really motivated Russia to invade Ukraine

David A. GrahamJul 2 2014, 5:56 PM ET

ASPEN, Colo.—One major divide in international relations, as well as in other social sciences, is between those who believe in structure and those who believe in agency. Members of the first group say leaders are just representations of cultures and nations, subject to long-running political dynamics; their counterparts insist, no, individual leaders make decisions that can change the course of history.

Discussing whether Vladimir Putin's actions in Ukraine herald a new or resurrected Cold War between Washington and Moscow, former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul placed himself firmly in the agency camp: He thinks the current crisis is a direct result of Putin's actions and personality. But while he didn't put it exactly this way, he suggested that Putin's worldview is shaped by the fact that the Russian president is a structuralist. McFaul made the comments at the Aspen Ideas Festival, which is hosted by The Atlantic and the Aspen Institute.

"Is this a new Cold War? There are certain similarities. This is the greatest moment of confrontation since [the time of Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev," McFaul said. For example, he noted that not even in the depths of the Cold War was the Kremlin chief of staff subject to economic sanctions, which is the case today. "It’s a deeply tragic moment. It makes me wonder, and I know the president wonders, were we naive to try to think about a different relationship with Russia?"

There several ways of thinking about the recent crisis. One favorite frame, especially among Russian experts, is that this is simply the way Great Powers behave and the way they've behaved for centuries. Russia is a rising power, and it's only natural that it would seek to control more territory. That can't be written off entirely, McFaul said, but he doesn't see it as the main factor. First, he explained, if Russia had made a faster transition to democracy and markets—like, say, Poland did—the situation might be different. And second, he noted that Russian policy up until late February of 2014 was far more accommodating.

"I don’t think [Putin] was sitting as a kid dreaming about putting back the Russian empire," McFaul said. The lavish Sochi Olympics and the decision to release of imprisoned Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky were the actions of a nation trying to assimilate into the world; the crisis in Ukraine imperiled Putin's dream of creating an eastern version of the EU.

Another approach suggests that U.S. policy is to blame—either the Americans were far too aggressive, chastising Russia for its failings, driving NATO eastward, and supporting "color revolutions" in Eastern Europe, which drove Putin to paranoia; or else the Americans were too soft, letting Putin get away with his incursion into Georgia and telegraphing that they wouldn't strike back. McFaul rejected that, too, noting the long list of collaborations between the two governments up to February: a nuclear-arms-reduction treaty, distribution networks to Afghanistan, Iran sanctions, the Syrian chemical-weapons deal. Violent protests in 2010 in Kyrgyzstan didn't cause a crisis; Russian opinion polls showed two-thirds approval of the United States as recently as three years ago.

“Something that happened 20 years ago cannot explain what’s happening now if we were cooperating two years ago,” McFaul argued. That is perhaps not a completely convincing argument—as we learned during the Balkan Wars, among other conflicts, historical animosities can appear to have disappeared, only to reappear suddenly and violently—but it does undermine those who blame U.S. policy.

Instead, McFaul sees two crucial events as leading Putin to decide the U.S. was implacably opposed to him and determined to push him out of power, which together produced the current situation. The first was widespread protests against Putin in early 2012, which the Kremlin accused McFaul himself of organizing. “But that was not the end of the story, because Putin is a great compartmentalist," McFaul said. "He'd say, ‘I understand you’re trying to overthrow regimes in Syria and Iran and here,'" but still see ways to work on business deals or the chemical-weapons deal with America.

The second event came during negotiations for a peaceful exit for Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych this winter. The American government was deeply involved in trying to broker a handover; Vice President Biden was on the phone with Yanukovych. Then the Ukrainian leader suddenly fled the country. "Putin thought that yet again the Americans had duped him. That’s when he said, 'I’m done worrying about what they think about me.'" In short, Putin had adopted a structuralist view. Believing that American grand strategy was geared toward undermining him at every turn, he rejected any attempt to reckon with Obama as an agent of policy. But that was an emotional decision—hence McFaul's allegiance to agency.

“We tend to assign a lot of rationale and logic to individuals and states, and my experience in government suggests ... they’re people with emotions, with worldviews, and that different people in that job will behave differently,” McFaul said. "The good news is that this is not part of a grand strategy where first they take Crimea, then eastern Ukraine, then Moldova, and then a piece of Estonia. This was a response to the collapse of the government in Kiev."

Yet even if the spark wasn't a grand strategy, the ground has now shifted. "The bad news is I think Putin is now locked into his worldview," McFaul said. "It’s going to be a long, long confrontational struggle with Russia that will last at least until Putin is no longer the leader."

 

[Edward Campbell]

We can file this report, which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Financial Times, under "It's Not Easy being Green Russia:"

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/668ee370-090e-11e4-8d27-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=intl#axzz37Thz6iI4

Wooing China runs into local difficulty in Russia far east

By Kathrin Hille in Khabarovsk

July 14, 2014

When Russia and China inked a $400bn gas supply deal in May it marked an unexpected breakthrough after a decade of delays and bogged-down negotiations.

For Vladimir Putin, the deal was something more: the dawn of a new golden era in Russo-Chinese economic co-operation.

As relations with the west fray over Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Mr Putin has reacted by seeking to throw open the door to Chinese trade and investment.

In addition to the gas deal, Moscow has lauded China as Russia’s most important economic partner, set up a host of joint projects in energy, infrastructure and technology, and estimated that bilateral trade will more than double by 2020 to $200bn.

Yet a visit to Pashkovo, a village on the banks of the Amur river that divides the two countries, suggests Mr Putin’s vision – for all its potential – is still beset by longstanding rivalry and mistrust.

In 2008, two Chinese forestry companies invested here with the aim of serving their nearby factory. Two years later, they found the door slammed in their faces after Russia closed the local border crossing.

“[To begin with], we would ship the wood across the river to our plant in China for further processing, just a few kilometres away,” says Zhao Fuquan, director of the sawmill Heilongjiang Xin Chun Timber Group runs here. “Now every truckload has to make a 700km detour. That cut our profits in half.”

His frustration is but one example of the enormous hurdles Chinese companies face in conquering Russia.

Most are active in the Russian far east, a vast, resource-rich but sparsely populated region between Lake Baikal and the Pacific coast.

Kangbo, a Chinese seller of agricultural machinery in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (JAO), is struggling to keep afloat as Russian customs imposes strict quotas on large gear.

“We have to undergo an onerous application process for every single combine harvester we want to import. In 2013 the government approved only one machine for the JAO for the entire year,” says Chen Dajun, the local manager.

Oubangde, another Chinese forestry firm, had its logging concession shut down last year after federal authorities conducted a series of raids and found fault with fire security measures, work permits and tax records.

Zu Guofu, head of the company’s operations in Russia, accuses the regional government of systematically targeting Chinese investors.

The Chinese are making inroads and steadily weaving themselves into the fabric of the economy. In Khabarovsky Krai, they accounted for 4 per cent of foreign direct investment last year, up from 2 per cent in 2009. If round-tripping by Russian groups registered offshore was excluded, the ratio would be much higher.

In Birobidzhan, capital of the JAO, most new buildings are built by Chinese contractors and the Chinese play a growing role in the local retail, logistics, hotel and recycling sector. “Without the Chinese, this whole place would stop running,” says Wang Mingwei, an official who represents the city of Yichun in Birobidzhan.

Larger firms are now following the small companies that spearheaded the move. Fuyao, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of car glass, has set up shop south of Moscow where it supplies a Volkswagen plant.

Russian officials say they are wooing Chinese investors but acknowledge that it is a process fraught with challenges for both sides.

“Bilateral trade and investment are growing fast, and all the more so now since the Ukraine crisis,” says Maxim Tarasov, head of the foreign economic co-operation and investment department at the ministry of economic development in the Khabarovsky Krai.

But echoing views widespread in Russia, he complains that Chinese investors are mainly interested in getting their hands on Russia’s natural resources and it is hard to persuade them to set up manufacturing operations or employ Russian staff – something Moscow considers key to making the partnership benefit the Russian economy. “The Chinese want whatever is most profitable,” says Mr Tarasov.

The Chinese have not endeared themselves to the locals by using mainly Chinese workers in the Russian far east – similar to their approach in Africa and Latin America.

Haihua, the other wood processing plant in Pashkovo, employs 105 Chinese and only 20 Russians. Chinese managers claim that local villagers are too lazy and too often drunk. Chinese staff, who stay at dormitories at the plant, work seven days a week from dawn to dusk.

The disregard for local knowledge and customs has proved costly at times. Consider China National Electric Engineering, a state-owned enterprise that is building an iron ore extraction plant in the JAO for an affiliate of the London-listed Petropavlovsk Group.

CNEEC was fined repeatedly for failing safety inspections. According to Gu Xiaomei, the deputy general manager, no member of the project team had any Russia experience and the company only hired a Russian chief engineer after the unsuccessful inspections.

Such sensitivities could become even more acute as the Chinese make a grab for Russian land. In recent years, Chinese state farms have followed a wave of individual Chinese farmers to the Russian far east. According to Russian data, the agricultural area contracted by farms from China’s northeastern province of Heilongjiang is expected to expand from less than 50,000 hectares in 2008 to 666,666 hectares in 2016.

As China’s vice-president argued during a Moscow visit in May: “You have the land and the resources, and we have the people and the money.”
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Japan and South Korea push their companies

Japan and South Korea are prodding their companies to team up in Russia to stem China’s economic power there, writes Kathrin Hille in Khabarovsk.

The embassies of Japan and Korea have in recent weeks hosted companies from both countries with investments in Russia and are planning more meetings this year, according to diplomats and company executives.

“Japanese and Korean companies in Russia should consider each other as partners now that China is getting stronger and stronger,” said a Japanese diplomat. “Russia’s decision to seek a much closer partnership with China can only create pressure on our economic interests. Our companies can counter this.”

The initiative follows Moscow’s move to crank up trade, financial and investment relations with China as economic ties with Europe, its main source of foreign investment, suffer as a result of the standoff over Ukraine.

Since the US and the EU slapped sanctions on Russian government officials and businesspeople, President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly singled out China as an important economic partner.

His signing of a $400bn gas export deal in May, which Russian state firm Gazprom  had failed to close with its Chinese partner for more than a decade, is seen as a signal of a new willingness in Moscow to make concessions to receive access to the Chinese market and attract Chinese funds.

Last week, Russian and Chinese companies and regions signed contracts worth $3.15bn at a bilateral trade fair, with most funds earmarked for trade with Russia’s far east.

This has caused alarm in Tokyo and Seoul. This year, Park Byung-hwan, an official at the economic section of the Korean embassy in Moscow, warned that China was gaining a “huge impact on the region” and called Chinese companies’ growing presence there a threat.

Seoul and Tokyo see the Russian far east, with its energy and raw material resources and reserve of agricultural land, as vital for future energy and food security. South Korea’s keen interest in the energy resources of Russia’s far east was one factor behind Seoul’s decision to support the development of the Rason port in North Korea, which is linked to the Russian rail system.

Additional reporting by Simon Mundy in Seoul and Ben McLannahan in Tokyo

I have mentioned before that the Russia Far East is Asian and, in the minds of many Chinese, Asian Siberia ought to be a Chinese vassal.

 

[Kirkhill]

Just as the Tungusic Manchus of the Qing and the Mongols of the Yuan were vassals of the Han?

The Han have not demonstrated a propensity for prolonged ventures outside the Middle Kingdom.

I still feel that both the Rus and the Han take the people of the steppes too much for granted.  The Rus are losing influence in the East and the Han are gaining influence.  That doesn't mean that either of them are particularly welcome, or at home, out there. 

The Han's best bet is to stay home and trade.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The Chinese do not, in my opinion, want to own Siberia. (Some Chinese feel the Qing went too far in annexing Xinjiang.) They do, however, reject the notion that Russia, a European power, should have sovereignty in East Asia. My sense is that the preferred (by the Chinese) solution is an independent East Siberia ~ maybe several states ~ within China's sphere of influence.

Staying home and trading is the best idea ... but the Russian Far East is a problem.

 

[Kirkhill]

... but the Russian Far East is a problem.

Agreed in full.

With respect to Qing  annexing Xingjiang to China: perhaps, given the geographic origins of the Qing, they saw it as Xingjiang annexing China? 

 

[Edward Campbell]

There's some discussion, including in e.g. Bloomberg that Putin is doing what he's doing in Ukraine to shore up his support at home, even though he must know that he's on the wrong side of history in the eyes of most, much anyway, of the world. It might be that Putin has troubles, more than are visible to us, at home and he must take risks with his international reputation in order to score domestic political points.

The contrary opinion is that he's trying to strengthen Russia's global 'hand' by acting the bully, and the increased domestic support is just a nice byproduct.

------------------

Edited to add:

More on this idea in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Financial Times:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/cc3ca75c-10c5-11e4-812b-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz380Qzv9iv

The Kremlin’s Machiavelli has led Russia to disaster
Putin is revealed as a reckless gambler leading his country into economic and political isolation

By Gideon Rachman

July 21, 2014

Just a couple of months ago it was fashionable to laud Vladimir Putin for his strategic genius. American rightwingers contrasted his sure-footedness with their own president’s alleged weakness. In a column entitled “Obama vs Putin, The Mismatch ”, Charles Krauthammer argued: “Under this president, Russia has run rings around America.” Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York, praised Mr Putin’s decisiveness and cooed: “That’s what you call a leader.” Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence party, said Mr Putin was the world leader he most admired.

How misplaced all this adulation looks after the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17. Russia’s apparent policy of supplying anti-aircraft missiles to the Ukrainian rebels was not simply immoral. It also gives the lie to the idea that Mr Putin is some kind of strategic genius. Instead he is revealed as a reckless gambler, whose paranoid and cynical policies are leading Russia into economic and political isolation.

The Kremlin’s mini Machiavelli believed he could destabilise eastern Ukraine while maintaining plausible deniability about Russia’s links to the separatist rebels.

However, the puppet master failed to keep hold of the strings. After the deaths of nearly 300 innocent civilians, a harsh light is shining on Russia’s involvement in the tragedy. Outside Russia, only a hard core of Putin apologists is likely to accept denials of involvement.

The Russian authorities now face a very difficult choice. If they co-operate with an international investigation into the MH17 atrocity, the results are likely to be extremely embarrassing. But if they block the investigation, shelter behind conspiracy theories or even send troops into eastern Ukraine, they will encourage an even fiercer international backlash. Last week, even before the airliner tragedy, the US had announced intensified sanctions. The EU is also now likely to toughen its stance. Some big Russian companies are losing access to western capital markets.

Political isolation also looms. Russia has already been chucked out of the Group of Eight leading industrial nations. The Australians, who lost several citizens on the flight, are balking at welcoming Mr Putin to a G20 summit in Brisbane in November. Russia’s hosting of the 2018 World Cup will come into question before long.

Mr Putin’s mistakes extend beyond the irresponsibility of enabling the separatists to shoot at passing aircraft. That blunder has its roots in at least four other failed policies. First, there was the wildly excessive reaction to the idea that Ukraine might sign a trade deal with the EU. The idea that Brussels was desperately trying to grab Ukraine was paranoid. In reality, the EU has, for decades, been embarrassingly reluctant to admit Ukraine. Nato membership – which Moscow evoked as the great threat to Russia – was a similarly remote prospect. At its 2008 summit Nato declined to put Ukraine on the path to membership, and that has been the basic position ever since.

Russia’s second blunder was to stir up unrest in Ukraine while denying responsibility. This must have seemed smart in a cynical sort of way – and it certainly caught the world off guard when it came to the annexation of Crimea. But in eastern Ukraine, Moscow’s manipulation has been less effective and harder to disguise. This has culminated in the MH17 tragedy. The result is that Russia has the worst of both worlds. It is not completely in control of events but is still blamed for them. And rightly so because, even if the order to shoot did not come from Moscow, the Russians enabled the disaster to happen.

The third trap that Mr Putin has created for himself involves the manipulation of Russian public opinion through increasingly crude, nationalistic propaganda. This has had the desired effect of boosting the president’s approval ratings. But it also makes it much harder for him to back down. Anything less than total support for the separatists will open Mr Putin to the charge that he has failed to protect Russian speakers from the “fascists” his media claim control Ukraine.

His fourth blunder has been consistently to underestimate the reaction in the west. Perhaps he was convinced by the sycophants around him – and their echo chamber overseas – that he is a master strategist and that the west is feeble. The west’s response has sometimes been slow but real sanctions have been passed, and more are on their way. Russia’s business leaders are aghast at the situation. But, for now, they are powerless.

By allowing himself to be sucked into an unnecessary and destructive confrontation with the west, Mr Putin is also engaging with the wrong problem. For all Moscow’s paranoia about Nato, the real strategic challenge to Russia is the rise of China. But, locked into a confrontation with the west, Mr Putin has become a supplicant of Beijing, as is evident in the lopsided energy deal recently signed with China.

It is the tame Russian media’s job to gloss over this record of failure and misjudgment and instead to present Mr Putin as a hero standing up to a hostile world. Opinion polls suggest this campaign is working well for the moment.

The danger is that the only way for Mr Putin to disguise his repeated failures is to further ratchet up the atmosphere of crisis, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy in which Russia is indeed faced by an increasingly hostile west. That policy is dangerous for the world – and, most of all, for Russia itself.

I think Mr Rachman has identified Russia's real enemy: it's China, not the West/NATO.


-------------------

Further edit to add:

This is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

Harper saw through Putin from the start

J.L. GRANATSTEIN
Contributed to The Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, Jul. 22 2014

J.L. Granatstein is a fellow of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute. William Kaplan is a Toronto lawyer and historian.

Stephen Harper was right. It’s not fashionable today to say that about anything the Prime Minister says or does. It’s especially against the current to praise his foreign policy which, most critics agree, is distinguished only by its unbalanced megaphone style and simplistic good versus evil rhetoric. But how can anyone deny that on Vladimir Putin, Mr. Harper, from the get go, got it right on the money?

Consider the recent record. After Russia orchestrated the absorption of Crimea into the Soviet Union – oops – into Russia, the Prime Minister told a German audience that Mr. Putin was a “throwback” to the USSR. “Unfortunate as it sounds,” Mr. Harper observed, “it’s increasingly apparent to me that the Cold War has never left Vladimir Putin’s mind.” Then the Prime Minister added, “we simply … cannot afford the risk of Europe going back to being a continent where people seize territory … where the bigger military powers are prepared to invade their neighbours or carve off pieces.” The economy was important, he went on, but global security remained Canada’s highest priority.

In April, Mr. Harper spoke out again: “When a major power acts in a way that is so clearly aggressive, militaristic and imperialistic, this represents a significant threat to the peace and stability of the world, and it’s time we all recognized the depth and the seriousness of that threat.” All nations had to be rallied “to understand that peace and stability is being threatened here in a way that has not been threatened since the end of the Cold War.”

From the outset Mr. Harper declared the presence of Russian troops in Crimea to be an “illegal military occupation” and said Canada would refuse to recognize the forthcoming referendum that Mr. Putin used to “legitimize” its seizure. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird chimed in to call the upcoming referendum “a Soviet-style tactic that’s unacceptable for a G8 country…” So it was.

Russian-sponsored and Russian-assisted separatist groups were already operating in eastern Ukraine, arming Russian nationalist thugs to fight against the legitimate Kiev government. The Canadian government believed that Russian special forces were on the ground, training the separatists and providing them with weapons. In May, Prime Minister Harper was sharp-tongued: “We are obviously concerned by the continuing escalation of violence in Ukraine, which to me very much appears to be clearly what I would call a slow-motion invasion on the part of the Putin regime.”

Thus, when Mr. Harper flew off to Europe on a week-long trip at the beginning of June, a trip that was to culminate with a gathering of world leaders on the Normandy beaches to mark the 70th anniversary of D-Day, Mr. Harper declared forthrightly that he had no interest in talks with Mr. Putin. The Russian leader should be present at Normandy, he said, recognizing the critical role the Soviet Union played in defeating Nazi Germany, but even if European leaders wanted to talk to him, he did not. All the Europeans should do was deliver a clear denunciation of Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Mr. Harper said in Brussels that the message should be about “ending illegal occupations, about ending provocative actions, ending the supporting of violent actions in eastern Ukraine.” He called upon the G7 to take immediate action.

There were a succession of sanctions by Western nations against Russia, and there will be more. And NATO, including Canada, began military efforts to bolster the states that might be in Mr. Putin’s crosshairs next. These measures were pinpricks, though they will now be increased further.

The reason, of course, is that a Malaysian airliner was destroyed by a Russian surface-to-air missile almost certainly fired by Russian-aided separatists in the Donetsk “People’s Republic.” The evidence is not yet all in, but Mr. Harper’s response, again, was exactly right in tone and content. “It is clear,” he announced Monday, “that the Putin regime’s continuing provocative military action against Ukraine, its illegal occupation of the Crimean peninsula, and its failure to end its support to armed separatist groups in eastern Ukraine constitute a threat to international peace and security.” Canada, the Prime Minister said, in concert with its allies would step up its sanctions.

From the very beginning of this current crisis, Canada’s Prime Minister has been dead right in his assessment of Vladimir Putin. To Moscow, the supporters and officials of the Ukrainian government are regularly painted as fascists and Nazis. But to Mr. Harper, and now incontrovertibly to rest of the world, Mr. Putin is a Stalinist using Nazi big-lie techniques and Soviet-era disinformation tactics to try to camouflage his government’s actions and shift blame. It won’t work, and to Stephen Harper’s credit, he not only saw these appalling tactics for what they were months ago, but was among the first Western leaders to call on the world to take action.

 

[pbi]

The third trap that Mr Putin has created for himself involves the manipulation of Russian public opinion through increasingly crude, nationalistic propaganda. This has had the desired effect of boosting the president’s approval ratings. But it also makes it much harder for him to back down. Anything less than total support for the separatists will open Mr Putin to the charge that he has failed to protect Russian speakers from the “fascists” his media claim control Ukraine.

I think this bit is very important. Putin woke up the tiger of Russia's traditional paranoid xenophobic nationalism, then climbed up on its back. (Look at the current coat of arms of the Russian state: a direct throwback to Imperial Russia: Great Russia is back!)  Now, if he tries to climb off the tiger, it might eat him.

And, God knows, we have no idea what even greater nasty might take his place, if Putin wasn't enough for the Russian self-image.

 

[Kirkhill]

Stratfor's take on Putin's situation and prospects....

 

[Edward Campbell]

I think this bit is very important. Putin woke up the tiger of Russia's traditional paranoid xenophobic nationalism, then climbed up on its back. (Look at the current coat of arms of the Russian state: a direct throwback to Imperial Russia: Great Russia is back!)  Now, if he tries to climb off the tiger, it might eat him.

And, God knows, we have no idea what even greater nasty might take his place, if Putin wasn't enough for the Russian self-image.

More on this theme in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/putin-cant-back-down-now/article19718068/#dashboard/follows/

Putin can’t back down now

MARK MACKINNON
The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Jul. 23 2014

The pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin grows each day. He must end his support for the rebels accused of shooting down a passenger plane over eastern Ukraine, Western leaders say, or face tougher economic sanctions and greater political isolation.

And each day, Mr. Putin makes it clearer that he’s not about to bend.

Mr. Putin is in a trap of his own making following the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. He’s unable – even if he were willing – to meet the West’s demands, in large part due to the anti-Western opinion in Russia he and his Kremlin have moulded over 15 years in power.

Having cast the West as Russia’s enemy for so long, and having personally vowed to protect ethnic Russians everywhere, analysts say Mr. Putin would be fiercely criticized at home if he pulled an about-face and abandoned the separatists of the Donetsk People’s Republic under pressure from Washington and London.

Much of the world sees the pro-Russian rebels as the villains of the MH17 saga. But they have been portrayed as heroes – standing up for their right to speak Russian and choose their own course – on Kremlin-run television for the past five months, making it almost impossible for Mr. Putin to desert them now.

“People are still supportive of the government, and they buy into this picture created by Russian TV of a fascist government in Kiev trying to destroy the population of the southeast [of Ukraine], of Novorossiya,” said Sergey Utkin, head of strategic assessment at the Moscow-based Russian Academy of Sciences. “It’s a myth that’s dear to Russian conservatives,” he added, “and we have quite a lot of Russian conservatives these days – call them revanchists if you like.”

“I’m afraid we can’t hope that this conflict will end soon. Most probably, it will escalate.”

In such an atmosphere, Mr. Putin is under domestic pressure to do more, not less, to support the rebels in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine, an area collectively known as Donbass. “Putin risks coming into contradiction with public opinion [if he cuts support to the rebels]. Public opinion is very clear – do not allow the killing of ethnic Russians in Donbass,” said Sergei Markov, a Moscow-based political scientist and unofficial Kremlin spokesman.

Amid Ukrainian allegations of a renewed buildup of tanks and troops on the Russian side of the border, Mr. Markov said the option of direct Russian military intervention in eastern Ukraine remained very much on the table. “The fact that Putin didn’t send the troops in yet is because it requires more preparation.”

Kiev and the West accuse Russia of having fomented the civil war in eastern Ukraine, supplying the rebels with fighters and weapons including tanks and anti-aircraft systems. More than 1,000 combatants and civilians have been killed since fighting began in April.

While other observers feel Mr. Putin is extremely unlikely to send Russian troops into eastern Ukraine following the MH17 disaster, there is still a sense in Moscow that the country is locked into a confrontation with the West with no obvious way out.

Former finance minister Alexei Kudrin, once a close associate of Mr. Putin’s, warned Tuesday that there were some in Russia “who have long wanted to distance us, who have wanted isolation.” He said Russians risked seeing their standards of living fall by as much as one-fifth if the conflict in Ukraine continues and the country’s confrontation with the West grows.

“All this has fallen onto fertile ground and I’m just surprised at the scale of the anti-Western rhetoric which has emerged here,” Mr. Kudrin told the Itar-Tass news service.

Since last week’s downing of MH17, which killed all 298 people on board, Russian media have created another alternate reality, one in which the rebels aren’t presumed guilty of firing the surface-to-air missile. Theories suggesting the Ukrainian military may have downed the plane to frame Russia and its allies are given plenty of airtime.

Tuesday saw a fresh tranche of actions aimed at upping the pressure on Mr. Putin. The European Union said it was preparing new sanctions to punish Russia for its actions in Ukraine, while the United Kingdom announced a public inquiry into the 2006 death of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB operative who was poisoned with polonium while sipping tea in a London hotel, to determine whether the Russian state was involved.

Some Russian observers argue that each new round of blame and sanctions from the West makes Mr. Putin even less likely to do what’s being demanded of him.

“Any pressure like [new sanctions] would only strengthen the hardliners in Russia, and only lead to a more robust and tough position,” said Pavel Andreev, executive director of the Valdai Club Foundation, a state-backed foreign-policy think tank in Moscow.

Indeed, rather than acknowledging his weakening position and stepping away from his unsavoury allies in eastern Ukraine, Mr. Putin emerged from a much-anticipated meeting of his Security Council sounding as if he was preparing instead for an arms race against the NATO military alliance.

“NATO is demonstratively reinforcing its grouping on the territory of East European states, including in the areas of the Black and Baltic Seas,” Mr. Putin said, referring to recent alliance deployments in Poland and the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. “Because of this, we need to implement all planned measures to boost the country’s defence capabilities fully and in time, naturally including Crimea and Sevastopol.”

Crimea and the Black Sea port of Sevastopol are considered part of Ukraine by those in the West who consider Russia’s March annexation of the peninsula illegal. The seizure of Crimea marked the start of a fresh spiral in relations between Moscow and the West, with the United States, the EU and Canada implementing several rounds of sanctions since then.

The Crimea annexation was part of Russia’s response to a February revolution in Kiev, which saw the Moscow-friendly government of Viktor Yanukovych ousted in what Russia says was a Western-supported “coup.” The new government of President Petro Poroshenko is portrayed by the Kremlin as having “fascist” leanings, even though far-right candidates were distant finishers in May’s election.

I suspect no one (not me, certainly) is absolutely certain about whether "Mr. Putin is in a trap of his own making" or whether he is preparing Russia for another all out struggle with the US led West. Remember that Stalin could have been a major - almost certainly the biggest - beneficiary of American generosity in the 1940s and 50s: the Marshal Plan and so on. But he chose to challenge the US led West for global supremacy. 

"Russia," Churchill famously said, "is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."

 

[pbi]

“All this has fallen onto fertile ground and I’m just surprised at the scale of the anti-Western rhetoric which has emerged here,” Mr. Kudrin told the Itar-Tass news service.

Surprised? Really? I'd say it was only to be expected.