Failure of western democracy, tensions between the US and China, the Arab Spring and other major global events.
From Christian Neef in Donetsk:
Could it be that the much discussed conflict between the Russians, the West and the eastern Ukrainians doesn’t really exist? The longer I am in this city, the more I believe that much of what is said about the war in eastern Ukraine isn’t true. Others have imported the conflict…..
Read more at The Battle for Donetsk Reveals a Resigned Populace – SPIEGEL ONLINE.
From Anna Nemtsova:
Pro-Kremlin think tank analyst and insider Yuri Krupnov explained the shift to me: “There’s a crisis of management in Russia,” he said. “Moscow elites have managed to convince Putin to give up the idea of Novorossiya. Many in Moscow can’t wait for European Union sanctions to be lifted, so Putin will meet with [Ukrainian President] Poroshenko and [E.U. Commission President] Barroso soon and most probably cut a deal.” But Krupnov hastens to add that Russia’s willingness to bargain with Kiev does not signal an end to the conflict: “Moscow has betrayed Novorossiya,” he says, “but that doesn’t mean it will guarantee peace.”
Read more at Novorossiya Is Coming Apart at the Seams.
From Ambrose Evans-Pritchard:
European officials calculate that Mr Putin will not dare to cut off energy supplies, since to do so would bring the Russian state to its knees within months. But even if he tried – as a shock tactic – it would not achieve much. Oil can be obtained anywhere.
Europe’s gas inventories have risen to 81pc of capacity, up from 46pc in March. Britain is at 94pc……Japan has just given the go-ahead for two nuclear reactors to restart in October, with seven likely by the end of the year. Koreans are also firing up closed nuclear reactors. All this frees up LNG.
Whether this is fruit of a co-ordinated strategy, the net effect is that inventories and spare LNG could cover a Russian cut-off for a long time, probably through the winter with rationing. Areas of eastern Europe have no pipeline supply from the West, but “regas” ships could plug some gaps in an emergency. The gas weapon is not what it seems.
The Kremlin is counting on acquiescence from the BRICS quintet as it confronts the West, and counting on capital from China to offset the loss of Western money. This is a pipedream. China’s Xi Jinping drove a brutal bargain in May on a future Gazprom pipeline, securing a price near $350 per 1,000 cubic metres that is barely above Russia’s production costs….
Read more at Vladimir Putin's pointless conflict with Europe leaves it a vassal of China – Telegraph.
I received this from a long-time subscriber and requested permission to publish in the interest of presenting both points of view:
Dear Colin,
Being a subscriber to Incredible charts for many years and liking it very much, for some external reasons I was not reading articles for a long time, but when I happened to read the latest “Europe leads markets lower” article I was completely taken aback how it is politically charged and how it seems to be based on mass media propaganda, not on unbiased facts and analysis… It does not leave a good impression at all. I don’t mind other people having their own opinion, but I think that it should not be imposed on others in supposedly non-political, business articles, so may we respectfully ask your editors to refrain from politically motivated language and argumentation in the business articles and leave it to politicians and political forums instead ? I am talking about the anti-Russian bias and rhetoric – I am a Ukrainian citizen and lived in Ukraine for 30 years before moving to Australia 20+ years ago and I still have friends living in Ukraine, so I think that I am a bit more qualified on this topic than Mr. Abbott’s speeches or Mr. Murdoch’s newspapers. The plain fact is that neo-nazi thugs came to power in Ukraine as the result of coup-de-tat in February (supported and sponsored by some Western countries) and once the Constitution was thrown out of window, the law and order does not exist any more there (so called theory of “controlled chaos” is in full swing), all power ministry heads and many personnel were replaced with ultra-nationalists, civil war was started and atrocious war crimes are committed as we speak – anyone with the different view to people in power at the moment is declared an enemy, people are disappearing, burned alive (in Odessa on 2nd of May), etc. Ukrainian army and semi-legal “national guards” battalions are bombarding south-east regions after they declared that they are not recognising Kiev’s neo-nazi government and everyone who knows a little bit of history would understand why that was their choice voted in referendum by majority of these regions population. This has nothing to do with Russia, but has everything to do with the people in power in Ukraine and their western supporters. In fact, Russia’s showed and still showing a great deal of patience for so many years and seems to be the only country that tries to find some peaceful solution without depriving people of their basic rights to choose the way of living. As for Crimea, this was Russian people/territory for hundreds of years until year 1954 when it was given (read stolen) by decree from the then General Secretary of USSR communist party of Ukrainian nationality and that decree was not legal even by laws of that time – no one raised strong objections at the time simply because it was the same country anyway. Later, when breaking apart Soviet Union (again not legally and against the will of people who spoke on referendum), no one cared about sorting this out properly and for 23 years Ukraine was ruling in Crimea while Russia and people of Crimea were somewhat patient about it until the February coup-de-tat in Kiev and neo-nazi coming to power. Parliament and people of Crimea made their choice very clear in law and referendum where 97% of people voted to become independent state (not unlike Kosovo so cherished by Western countries) and their natural choice and only protection would be to ask Russia to join it which Russia accepted and why it should not ? People of Crimea were saying at the time that “we may not be joining the Heaven in Russia, but definitely we are escaping the Hell” which is exactly what happens now in the former south-east region of Ukraine. If anything, Mr. Obama and other western leaders should stop baseless and counter-productive aggression against Russia and tell their buddies in Kiev to stop this violence and start diplomatic efforts. My apologies for such a long email, but I am just very saddened by the way how it is portrayed in Western media – brainwashing people who are not multilingual and cannot access alternative points of view.
Regards,
Name Withheld
Dear Name Withheld,
I appreciate you taking the time to write and express your views.
I am very concerned about the state of affairs in Eastern Europe. It is, and always has been, a tinder box. And one unintentional spark can start a fire that none of the parties intended. Respect for borders and for the rights of other countries and their citizens is one of the fundamental safeguards to prevent such outbreaks of war. Russia, no matter how strong a regional power, does not have the right to simply take territory by force because it once belonged to them or because they need the territory as a “buffer” to protect themselves from “encirclement” or outright aggression. If all states acted like that we would be in a constant state of war. They have to respect the conventions designed to safeguard the world from future wars and pursue the matter through negotiation or the international courts.
If history serves me correctly, the territory is neither Russian or Ukrainian, but Crimean. It should be up to the people who reside in the region and those who originate from there, like the Tartars, to negotiate its future and not be subjected to a ballot at the point of a gun.
Please can I post your letter on my blog in the interests of giving both points of view — with your name withheld if you wish.
Regards,
Colin
From Sebastian Veg, Research Professor at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Science in Paris:
By shaking up the unwritten rules that have prevailed since Deng Xiaoping consolidated power, Xi is taking a political risk. In exchange for the immunity that PBSC members were granted, they were expected to retire at the end of their term, and to remain loyal to collective decisions. If immunity is denied, both of these tenets may begin to be questioned. Why should powerful leaders retire if they can then be targeted? Why should they accept decision by consensus if they can later be made to pay the consequences as is alleged in Zhou’s case with the vote on Bo? They may be better off spending their terms gathering compromising material on other colleagues. Xi no doubt understands the risk, and believes it must be taken because the Party’s legitimacy is in danger. However, by disturbing the carefully crafted institutional balance, he runs the risk of overplaying his hand.
Read more at For Chinese Power Game, a Changing Equation.
Putin appears to have taken a decisive ideological turn. Listen to the @PowerVertical podcast: http://t.co/GIOmQSCLY0
— RFE/RL (@RFERL) August 2, 2014
Vladimir Putin has long shown himself to be ruthless and cynical. But also pragmatic and rational.
In his third term in the Kremlin, however, and particularly in the Ukraine crisis, Putin appears to have taken a decisive ideological turn.
As pressure mounts from Western sanctions and Russia becomes more isolated, speculation has intensified about whether Putin will seek an exit strategy from the Ukraine crisis, or whether he will escalate yet again.
The answer largely depends on which Putin — the pragmatist or the ideologue — the West is dealing with.
On the latest “Power Vertical Podcast” Brian Whitmore discusses the issue with co-host Mark Galeotti, a professor at NYU, an expert on Russia’s security services, and author of the blog “In Moscow’s Shadows”; and Kremlin-watcher Ben Judah, author of the book “Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell Out Of Love With Vladimir Putin.”
Also on the podcast, Mark, Ben, and Brian discuss how attitudes in Europe about Russia are changing — and changing dramatically.
Jeremy McInerney (University of Pennsylvania) on thy parallels between Thucydides’ ancient Athens and the US in the modern era:
From Vladimir Sorokin:
Yeltsin, who was tired after climbing to the top of the pyramid, left the structure completely undisturbed, but brought an heir along with him: Putin, who immediately informed the population that he viewed the collapse of the USSR as a geopolitical catastrophe. He also quoted the conservative Alexander III, who believed that Russia had only two allies: the army and the navy. The machine of the Russian state moved backward, into the past, becoming more and more Soviet every year.
In my view, this fifteen-year journey back to the USSR under the leadership of a former KGB lieutenant colonel has shown the world the vicious nature and archaic underpinnings of the Russian state’s “vertical power” structure, more than any “great and terrible” Putin….A country such as this cannot have a predictable, stable future….
Unpredictability has always been Russia’s calling card, but since the Ukrainian events, it has grown to unprecedented levels: no one knows what will happen to our country in a month, in a week, or the day after tomorrow. I think that even Putin doesn’t know; he is now hostage to his own strategy of playing “bad guy” to the West…..If you compare the post-Soviet bear to the Soviet one, the only thing they have in common is the imperial roar. However, the post-Soviet bear is teeming with corrupt parasites that infected it during the 1990s, and have multiplied exponentially in the last decade. They are consuming the bear from within. Some might mistake their fevered movement under the bear’s hide for the working of powerful muscles. But in truth, it’s an illusion.
Translated from the Russian by Jamey Gambrell.
Read more at Let the Past Collapse on Time! by Vladimir Sorokin | The New York Review of Books.
Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, says Vladimir Putin stole his prize Super Bowl ring in 2005:
“I took out the ring and showed it to [Putin], and he put it on and he goes, ‘I can kill someone with this ring.’ I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out.”
Kraft revealed that he hadn’t intended to part with his prize from the Patriots’ win over the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX. He claims that a call from the White House kept him from attempting to recover it. The official overcame Kraft’s objections, repeatedly saying:
It would really be in the best interest of US-Soviet relations if you meant to give the ring as a present.
This may have been a mistake by the Bush administration, considering that Vladimir Putin has graduated to seizing parts of Georgia, the Crimea and now has his eyes on Eastern Ukraine. As Winston Churchill would have said:
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last.
Read more at Kraft: Putin stole Bowl ring | NY Post.
The following tweet and video purportedly show a BUK surface-to-air missile system being moved by UKR rebels from the area near the MH17 crash site — with two empty missile tubes.
Video of UKR rebels moving BUK system away from area where plane was downed; it only has 2 of 4 missiles left http://t.co/1RnjKwtkEG
— grasswire (@grasswire) July 18, 2014
Hat tip to The Interpreter