Putin is trying to bring Russia back to the world stage.....

[Gedo_Boy]

Man this guy is really hard-core and has the resume to prove it........unlike many of the hard-shell Twinkie filling politicians like the neocons



Putin takes aim

Jun 5th 2007
From Economist.com
A row about Russian missiles hangs over the G8 summit

AFP

GERMANY'S swish resort of Heiligendamm might escape addition to the Kremlin’s list of new nuclear targets in Europe, given President Vladimir Putin’s visit there. But that will provide little reassurance for the seven leaders of the world’s big, rich and long-standing democracies that make up the rest of the G8. They, and Mr Putin, will meet at the seaside setting on Wednesday June 6th before the summit begins officially the next day.

The Kremlin’s spin doctors are trying hard to play down remarks made by Mr Putin about aiming his country’s missiles at Europe. They claim that he was giving a hypothetical answer to a hypothetical question about America's planned missile-defence installations in Eastern Europe. But the damage to Russia’s image as a friendly country has been done. Russian officers and officials have grumbled before about America’s sometimes cavalier attitude to strategic security. This time the combative words came from the top. Even at the height of their row over Iraq, it is impossible to imagine that France would have targeted its nuclear weapons on Britain or America, let alone the other way around. Just as democracies do not make war on each other, they do not point nuclear warheads in each other’s direction.

Germany will hope to salvage something from the summit’s original agenda of aid for Africa and climate change. Difficult though those issues are, they pale by comparison with the difficulty of dealing with a newly assertive Russia.

So far, the western response has been to describe Mr Putin’s remarks as unhelpful rather than outrageous. As so often with tough talk from Russia, outside governments try to dismiss it as aimed for internal consumption, and thus not to be taken seriously. But treating Russia as an unruly adolescent to be part-soothed, part-ignored, works badly.

One reason is that Russia’s assertiveness has not been matched by a clear expression of what its government actually wants. The commonest refrain from the Kremlin is the desire to be noticed and taken seriously. Paradoxically, the more that Russia shows itself to be a sham democracy and bullying neighbour, the less willing other countries are to treat it with much respect.

At this week’s summit, Mr Putin may notice the absence of the man who was previously his staunchest defender: Jacques Chirac, France’s former president. His successor, Nicolas Sarkozy, is keen to break with the cosy and sometimes mysterious habits of French policy towards Russia. He promises a “frank” exchange with Mr Putin. Mr Sarkozy’s family fled communist Hungary. Like Germany’s Angela Merkel, who grew up in the Soviet-run part of Germany, he finds Mr Putin’s nostalgia for the Soviet Union repellent.

Yet dislike of Russia’s current path does not create unity. Both France and Germany are unenthusiastic about America’s planned missile-defence installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. President George Bush continues to protest that these are aimed at Iranian nuclear weapons, not at Russia. But with the exception perhaps of Britain's Tony Blair, a lame-duck ally who will shortly leave office, he will find little support from his western counterparts. The American leader may save the hard talking on nuclear issues for later: he has invited Mr Putin to the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, early next month.

And for all Mr Bush’s warnings about Russia’s departure from democracy and good neighbourliness, America still needs Mr Putin’s help, chiefly on curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions but also on the future of Kosovo, which it wants to bring to the UN Security Council soon.

So after so much unpleasantness in past weeks, it may be in all countries’ interests to patch things up as much as possible. Mr Putin in particular likes to portray himself both as a strong defender of Russia’s interests and as a welcome guest at the world’s top table. Fostering the latter image will require at least a temporary change of tone, if not of approach. Most G8 summits produce a welter of carefully honed platitudes, in which differences are finessed and blurred as much as possible. This one is likely to be no exception.

[paidmonk]

The way he obliterated the Chechens shows he's not a joke, but he does look funny.

I think Russia will end up getting into a two-way war with the US and EU. The US because of the missle defense disagreements and the unsettled issues in Eurasia, especially Azerbaijan and Georgia, also Ukraine the original homeland of the Rus people is now being lost to US interests - especially after the corporate-funded "Orange" Revolution. The EU because every year, one former Soviet State is joining the European Union, and Russia is becoming more and more isolated while spreading her wings more and more every year.

Russia also shouldn't expect China to help if it enters war, as everyone knows the Chinese have no backbone or warrior mentality, however I think the Russians will inflict more than heavy casualties on their opponents, but they'll be utterly crushed and Moscow turned into a Western city.

[Koronto91]

He is about 20 years late! I always found it ridiculous that the Soviet had the most weaponry, but never really used them. What a bunch of Puss1os.

[NoAngst.]

He's rattling the birdcage and rightly so. Imperial america is ever so closely positioning it's forces dubbed "allies" right up to Russia's borders. The latest provocative move is the plan to place "missile shield" in Eastern/Western Europe. But from what? Russia is not the enemy of the US anymore. Or is it? More interestingly, why does the US still have thousands of troops in Western Europe more than a decade after their raison d'état has evaporated?

[paidmonk]

^ Russia is trying to spread its wings, any fool can see it. And what better way to stop a bird from flying than to lock it in a cage, and rightly so the US has placed fences all around Russia -- Alaska to the East, Azerbaijan to the South, Poland to the West, and Satelites in the Sky.

Game on, nigga.

[NoAngst.]

Russia has been subdued and docile compared to the US since the end of the cold war. How many countries has the US bombed, invaded and occupied since 1991? Russia barely comes close with the exception of Dagestan and Chechnya it has done virtually nothing, both regions are part of Russia I believe. Besides we were told Russia was not the enemy when the iron curtain fell, why the sudden change of posture now? The US is goading Russia and has been so for nearly a decade. One of these days the US imperialist will bite more than they can chew.


Did you hear what Bush said today? He reproached Russia along with CHina for their Human Rights record. What a hypocrite. THe US spends BILLIONS each year propping up brutal dictators and regimes with appalling Human Rights records. Bush runs Guantanomo, Bagram, Abu Graib and many other secret "detention centers" across the globe where kidnapped people are held incommunicado, tortured, abused and denied habeas corpus.

[paidmonk]

If you were in the shoes of a top White House official, what would you do about Russia? Its a dog-eat-dog world, and when one dog grows he eats bigger meals, bigger meals that in part come from YOUR plate -- what would you do -- break his jaw so he stops eating from your plate, right?

And again, rightly so, the US is breaking the jaw of the growing Russian beast.

Everyone knows Russia has a great imperial history, its been the same Russia since Ivan the Terrible, even through the 'communist' Bolshevik revolt, it was the same tyrant Kremlin.

I think Russia and the US will have one major war coming soon, definitely in 20 years, but in the next 100 years, Russia won't be at an American level.

I predict that Russia will be utterly crushed, St. Petersburg given to Chechens, and Moscow turned into a soft, West-German sort of cultural landscape. At this point, we will see America TRULY become an empire. We'll see a repeat of Rome.

If not that, Armageddon at the least.