“Anyone who doesn’t regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.” ~ Vladimir Putin
The BRICs party is over | Anders Aslund | Vox
Anders Åslund:
From 2000 to 2008 the world went through one of the greatest commodity and credit booms of all times. Goldman Sachs preached that the BRICs were unstoppable….
However, Genesis warns that after seven years of plenty, “seven years of famine will come and the famine will ravage the land”. Genesis appears to have described the combined commodity and credit cycle, from which the Brazil, Russia, India and China have benefited more than their due….
Read more at The BRICs party is over | vox.
Russian video of meteorite explosion
Published on 15 Feb 2013
Video Courtesy: Roman Belchenko
A meteorite explosion was seen from different regions of Russia and even from abroad – as far away as Kazakstan, where a dashboard camera belonging to Roman Belchenko captured meteorite fall. The meteorite shattered over several major cities, including Chelyabinsk, where the blast waves blew out windows and disrupted mobile service.
The Myth That Screwed Up 50 Years of U.S. Foreign Policy – By Leslie H. Gelb | Foreign Policy
By Leslie H. Gelb
What people came to understand about the Cuban missile crisis — that JFK succeeded without giving an inch — implanted itself in policy deliberations and political debate, spoken or unspoken. It’s there now, all these decades later, in worries over making any concessions to Iran over nuclear weapons or to the Taliban over their role in Afghanistan. American leaders don’t like to compromise, and a lingering misunderstanding of those 13 days in October 1962 has a lot to do with it.
In fact, the crisis concluded not with Moscow’s unconditional diplomatic whimper, but with mutual concessions. The Soviets withdrew their missiles from Cuba in return for U.S. pledges not to invade Fidel Castro’s island and to remove Jupiter missiles from Turkey……
via The Myth That Screwed Up 50 Years of U.S. Foreign Policy – By Leslie H. Gelb | Foreign Policy.
Georgian government warns of Russian build up as election nears | The Cable
By Josh Rogin
As Georgians head to the polls Monday, analysts are warning that rising tensions could boil over just as the Russian military is conducting exercises near the de facto border line……The European Union’s monitoring mission, which patrols the administrative boundary between Georgia and the Russian-occupied regions of Abkhasia and South Ossetia, noted in its most recent report that while the observers saw no movement of military equipment on the Georgian side that could be perceived as instigating an attack, the Russian forces on the other side of the boundary line are increasing……
via Georgian government warns of Russian build up as election nears | The Cable.
Czech foreign minister: The West is losing to Putin | The Cable
By Josh Rogin
“We are not going back to Stalin, we are going back to Nicholas I,” said Karel Schwarzenberg, the Czech minister of foreign affairs, in an exclusive interview with The Cable. “It was under Nicholas that the great part of Central Asia was conquered by the Russians and Putin is quite successfully getting them under the control of Russia again, and the West is losing.”
…..”The Pacific basin is now more important [to the US] than Europe, it’s perfectly understandable,” he said. “I think in Europe we have to learn that we have to care much more ourselves, for our own security.”
via Czech foreign minister: The West is losing to Putin | The Cable.
Putin's Russia Is Becoming a Flawless Dictatorship – SPIEGEL ONLINE
The Path to Tyranny: Putin’s Russia Is Becoming a Flawless Dictatorship
By Georg Diez, Walter Mayr and Matthias Schepp:
Medvedev’s essay “Forward, Russia,” published in September 2009, had triggered hopes of a freer Russia within the well-educated urban middle class. Putin’s successor had created an atmosphere in which the middle class had become active, recognizing that a different, modern Russia could be possible. This political thaw had since been recognized as a mistake, says Moscow political scientist Vitaly Ivanov. Putin’s team responded to Medvedev’s stated principle that freedom is always preferable to the lack of freedom with the conviction that order is always better than disorder.
via SPIEGEL Cover Story on Pussy Riot Trial and Putin – SPIEGEL ONLINE.
Authoritarian Rulers Get Subtler: Putin, Chavez, China's Chiefs – WSJ.com
WILLIAM J. DOBSON: A handful of retrograde, old-school dictatorships have managed to limp into the 21st century. They are the North Koreas, Turkmenistans and Equatorial Guineas of the world. But they represent dictatorship’s past….
Today’s smarter dictators, by contrast, understand that in a globalized world, the more brutal forms of intimidation—mass arrests, firing squads, violent crackdowns—are best replaced with more subtle forms of coercion.
Rather than arrest members of human-rights groups, Russia’s Vladimir Putin deploys tax collectors or health inspectors to shut down dissident groups. In Venezuela, Hugo Chávez ensures that laws are written broadly and then uses them like a scalpel to target groups that he deems a threat….
via Authoritarian Rulers Get Subtler: Putin, Chavez, China's Chiefs – WSJ.com.