David Rohde at Reuters quotes James Jeffrey, a retired career U.S. diplomat:
Jeffrey said the days and months ahead will be vital. If Putin faces few long-term consequences for seizing Crimea, it will set a precedent for China and other regional powers who may be considering establishing 19th century-style spheres of influence of their own.
“The Chinese,” Jeffrey said, “are in the same position.”
Read more at As China looks on, Putin poses risky dilemma for the West | Reuters.
Quote from Anatole Kaletsky, Gavekal, in John Mauldin’s Outside the Box newsletter:
…..it is literally inconceivable that Putin will ever withdraw from Crimea. To give up Crimea now would mean the end of Putin’s presidency, since the Russian public, not to mention the military and security apparatus, believe almost unanimously that Crimea still belongs to Russia, since it was only administratively transferred to Ukraine, almost by accident, in 1954. In fact, many Russians believe, rightly or wrongly, that most of Ukraine “belongs” to them. (The very name of the country in Russian means “at the border” and certainly not “beyond the border”). Under these circumstances, the idea that Putin would respond to Western diplomatic or economic sanctions, no matter how stringent, by giving up his newly gained territory is pure wishful thinking.
Read more at John Mauldin: Outside the Box.
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.
Colin Twiggs is a former investment banker with almost 40 years of experience in financial markets. He co-founded Incredible Charts and writes the popular Trading Diary and Patient Investor newsletters.
Using a top-down approach, Colin identifies key macro trends in the global economy before evaluating selected opportunities using a combination of fundamental and technical analysis.
Focusing on interest rates and financial market liquidity as primary drivers of the economic cycle, he warned of the 2008/2009 and 2020 bear markets well ahead of actual events.
He founded PVT Capital (AFSL No. 546090) in May 2023, which offers investment strategy and advice to wholesale clients.
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.
Colin Twiggs is a former investment banker with almost 40 years of experience in financial markets. He co-founded Incredible Charts and writes the popular Trading Diary and Patient Investor newsletters.
Using a top-down approach, Colin identifies key macro trends in the global economy before evaluating selected opportunities using a combination of fundamental and technical analysis.
Focusing on interest rates and financial market liquidity as primary drivers of the economic cycle, he warned of the 2008/2009 and 2020 bear markets well ahead of actual events.
He founded PVT Capital (AFSL No. 546090) in May 2023, which offers investment strategy and advice to wholesale clients.
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.
Colin Twiggs is a former investment banker with almost 40 years of experience in financial markets. He co-founded Incredible Charts and writes the popular Trading Diary and Patient Investor newsletters.
Using a top-down approach, Colin identifies key macro trends in the global economy before evaluating selected opportunities using a combination of fundamental and technical analysis.
Focusing on interest rates and financial market liquidity as primary drivers of the economic cycle, he warned of the 2008/2009 and 2020 bear markets well ahead of actual events.
He founded PVT Capital (AFSL No. 546090) in May 2023, which offers investment strategy and advice to wholesale clients.
