Time is NOT on My Side.
Well its been a long lapse in posts, mostly because life sometimes gets in the way of my desire to wax eloquent, however I'm back and with issues to spare.
First up is Russia. For those of you who know me well, you know that Russia happens to be my pet project, my country of interest, the object of my fascination. My love started with Stalin. Which is a creepy thought, I know, but I just couldn't imagine living in a place so steeped in secrecy and bloody tradition. (And I don't mean bloody in the English adjective kind of way.)
So fast forward to the present tense when Russia is run by a "democratic" President, Vladimir Putin. When elected, I would wager to guess that the rest of the world breathed a sigh of relief. But in the years since his debut tensions have risen and Soviet era whispers have begun. When Putin became President he inherited a fledgling democracy from Boris Yeltsin. What he has done with that democracy I don't pretend to know, but what has emerged from the Putin machine is centralised autocracy that fears and oppresses any whiff of independent opposition.
Putin himself has stated that the arms race is still on. Putin is assertive and Russia has gained a sense of confidence under him, they no longer need the help of the West in order to survive econmically as they did right after the fall. We (the west) tend to disapprove of his leading style, probably because it reminds us of a more frightening divided time, but are reluctant to say so within earshot of the Motherland. However the bigger picture here is that the tables have turned, and now we need them.
With Iran heating up to be a bigger mess than Iraq, at least if things go as badly as they could, we need Russia to help us set the stage for a big cool down. If there is one thing I DO know its the way Russia reacts to criticism, and that is by shutting down and shutting out the rest of the world. And that is the last thing we need when Russia has oil, diamonds, and worse power. We need them and we don't know what to do about it.
tags: Russia,Putin,Russia
First up is Russia. For those of you who know me well, you know that Russia happens to be my pet project, my country of interest, the object of my fascination. My love started with Stalin. Which is a creepy thought, I know, but I just couldn't imagine living in a place so steeped in secrecy and bloody tradition. (And I don't mean bloody in the English adjective kind of way.)
So fast forward to the present tense when Russia is run by a "democratic" President, Vladimir Putin. When elected, I would wager to guess that the rest of the world breathed a sigh of relief. But in the years since his debut tensions have risen and Soviet era whispers have begun. When Putin became President he inherited a fledgling democracy from Boris Yeltsin. What he has done with that democracy I don't pretend to know, but what has emerged from the Putin machine is centralised autocracy that fears and oppresses any whiff of independent opposition.
Putin himself has stated that the arms race is still on. Putin is assertive and Russia has gained a sense of confidence under him, they no longer need the help of the West in order to survive econmically as they did right after the fall. We (the west) tend to disapprove of his leading style, probably because it reminds us of a more frightening divided time, but are reluctant to say so within earshot of the Motherland. However the bigger picture here is that the tables have turned, and now we need them.
With Iran heating up to be a bigger mess than Iraq, at least if things go as badly as they could, we need Russia to help us set the stage for a big cool down. If there is one thing I DO know its the way Russia reacts to criticism, and that is by shutting down and shutting out the rest of the world. And that is the last thing we need when Russia has oil, diamonds, and worse power. We need them and we don't know what to do about it.
tags: Russia,Putin,Russia
posted by KatKrusade at
3:50 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home