Russian president Vladimir Putin has been obsessed with an imaginary threat from an ageing, pacifist Europe in slow decline, while throwing his country at the feet of a greater threat - China By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, back earlier this month.
The world faces a moment of maximum danger in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin has perhaps 72 hours to decide whether to launch a full invasion of the Donbass, or accept defeat and let the Ukrainian military crush his proxy forces.
Nato officials say Russia has massed 20,000 troops in battle-readiness near the border, backed by Spetsnaz commandos, tanks and aircraft. Vehicles have been marked with peace-keeper labels already. Nato sees every sign that the Kremlin intends to disguise an attack as a "humanitarian mission".
This is more serious than the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1980. That was a "colonial war". The Soviet Union was a careful, status quo power in its final decades. It held captive nations but did not overrun new borders in Europe. Mr Putin is expansionist, and far less predictable. He is, in any case, captive to the chauvinist fever that he has so successfully stoked.
He has been clear from the outset that he will deploy any means necessary to bring Ukraine back into Russia's orbit. Only war can now achieve this, since all else has failed, and since he has turned a friendly Ukraine into an enemy by his actions. The awful implications of this are at last starting to hit the markets.
"People thought that Russia was just playing a game of brinkmanship,and that pragmatism would prevail in the end. There is real fear now that this will spin out of control. Nothing cannot be excluded at this point, even a cut-off in oil and gas," said Chris Weafer, from Macro Advisory in Moscow.
The Kremlin's gamble has gone horribly wrong. The eastern regions of Ukraine have failed to rise in mass support for Putin's front organisations, led by political operatives from Moscow, and patently run by the Russian security apparatus (FSB/GRU) as even Russian newspapers admit. The latest report by the United Nations accuses these units of "eggregious abuses", carrying out systematic intimidation through torture and execution.
Mr Putin has failed equally to drive a wedge between America and Europe, or to paralyse the EU by playing off one country against another. Germany has not cut a special deal, though its 6,000 companies in Russia are on the frontline. It has gone beyond the EU measures, blocking a €100m export of combat training kit by Rheinmetall. I'd say the author is wrong there; that Rheinmetall was supplying Russia up until the war started, and that France is supplying them still, would actually have created a large rift if there were an American American President, and just because he's pretending things are OK doesn't necessarily mean they are. It's like pretending your marriage is OK when your wife is an alcoholic. Guess what? Your wife is still an alcoholic.
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.
Pieties aside, the two countries are rivals in central Asia, where China is systematically building pipelines that break Russia's stranglehold. China has large territorial claims on Far Eastern Russia, land seized from the Qing Dynasty in the 19th century.
Even if Mr Putin's strategy of a Euro-Asia alliance with China succeeds, it will reduce Russia to a vassal state of China, a supplier of commodities with a development model that dooms it to backwardness. "It is a dangerous illusion. We are witnessing the funeral of Russia," said Aleksandr Kokh, a former top Kremlin official.
Mr Putin is stuck in a Cold War timewarp, deaf to the shifts in world power. He has been obsessed with an imaginary threat from an ageing, pacifist Europe in slow decline, turning manageable differences into needless conflict.
Yet at the same time he is throwing his country at the feet of a rising power that poses a far greater threat in the end, and that will not hesitate to extract the maximum advantage from Russia's self-inflicted weakness.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain ||
08/27/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Putin's playing the long game from a visibly declining position. Russia is having demographic collapse; he can see his major captive market (for oil and gas) moving away. It's fairly obvious the future (20 years) for Siberia is Chinese, whether they buy it or otherwise.
What he's done is locked in recognition of rights of proprietorship; cash is secondary. He was also dependent on EU for hard cash; this diversifies the income spread. It's actually an astute move in a difficult situation. Could it have been better? Yes, but "life's a b*tch, and then you die."
Posted by: ed in texas ||
08/27/2014 7:45 Comments ||
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#2
We'll see how long it will take until "green little men" will start to appear in Siberian provinces calling for bogus referendums.
Putin opened Pandora's box with Crimea.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
08/27/2014 10:02 Comments ||
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#3
Vladimir Putin has been obsessed with an imaginary threat from an ageing, pacifist Europe in slow decline
[DAWN] Though most political parties support the PTI's stand on the election fraud inquiry and its demand for poll reforms, there are no takers for the disruption of the democratic political process or involvement by an outside force. This may well be the reason for the 'umpire' not coming to the Kaptan's help. He has to do more to bring the umpire into the field. But it is not going to be that easy against such heavy odds.
Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems... 's desperation was evident by his ridiculous call for civil disobedience. More recently, he advised people to close down their accounts with state-owned banks and for Pak expats to transfer their money through the hundi system.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
08/27/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] MUCH as Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems... , Tahirul Qadri ...Pak politician, and would-be dictator, founder and head of Tehreek-e-Minhajul Quran and Pakistain Awami Tehrik. He usually resides in Canada, but returns to Pakistain periodically to foam at the mouth and lead demonstrations. Depending on which way the wind's blowing, Qadri claims to be the author of Pak's blasphemy law. Other times he says it wasn't him... and their respective protesters gathered in the heart of Islamabad would like to pretend otherwise, it is not just the PML-N government that is in the metaphorical firing line but the democratic system itself that is on trial. And, with the street protest against the government entering its third week, the pressure on the system has grown. Quite how much that pressure has grown in recent days was in evidence on Tuesday as the Prime Minister's Office issued an extraordinary statement after a meeting between Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... and army chief Gen Raheel Sharif. In the blurb issued by the Prime Minister Office, there is not just an explicit mention that matters of high politics were discussed between the highest-ranking civilian and the most powerful military leader on matters concerning politics but that, rather extraordinarily, the two men are in agreement that the political impasse should be resolved expeditiously.
The benefit that Mr Sharif and the PML-N would have hoped to gain from such a statement is fairly obvious: the federal government is trying to show that the army leadership and the PML-N are still working together and in agreement on the way out of the crisis. Essentially, the PML-N's posturing is meant to signal to the protesters and their leaders that the military is on the government's side, not the protesters'. In truth, however, the PML-N's posturing only reveals its own uneasiness -- and perhaps even uncertainty -- about what may happen if push comes to shove. In truth, there are enough tensions on policy matters between the PML-N government and the military to leave a lingering question mark over whether the army leadership may prefer a different political dispensation in the country. In truth, there are no guarantees in politics.
For the PML-N, the pressure is coming from many directions. The PTI has floated the idea of a so-called in-house change in parliament; the MQM has talked of a possible sacrifice being made; the PML-Q leadership has tried to sow fear by ominously reminding the political class of how political crises have led to military interventions in Thailand and Egypt; and even the ANP has talked of being committed to the democratic process but not necessarily the prime ministership of Mr Sharif. Meanwhile, ...back at the abandoned silver mine, there was another kaboom... protesters continued to occupy Constitution Avenue yesterday despite the Supreme Court suggesting that they needed to move. Amidst all of this, Prime Minister Sharif has unhappily returned to his approach of being seen sometimes and heard rarely. Mr Sharif ought to speak to the public and put in perspective what this protracted crisis is about and the kind of pressures his government is under. In May 2013, Paks in unprecedented numbers showed their preference for a democratic system. That same public could be Mr Sharif's strongest ally -- if he takes them into confidence.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/27/2014 00:00 ||
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[Ynet] No one should be deceived by the rather ostentatious displays of victory on the streets of Gazoo, but Israel must be firm in its demands, and its leader should take a good hard look at their own behavior over the past 50 days.
In Jerusalem and the Defense Ministry's Kirya compound in Tel Aviv they are rubbing their hands in satisfaction - and quite rightly so. After a short-lived war of attrition of just one week, even without a fresh ground incursion, Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, blinked first and agreed to the outline of the initial ceasefire proposed the Egyptians - the outline of which it had received before Israel sent its ground troops in weeks ago.
Hamas has not even received the "minor agreement" it could have secured eight days ago, before it violated the ceasefire the last time. Israel, however, has not ceded on anything, rather simply agreed to the ceasefire approved by the Cabinet back in mid-July, a few days after the start of Operation Protective Edge.
Even so, I can honestly say that I still do not know if we won or drew against the terrorist organization that initiated this war. Granted, the organization is badly maimed, has had all of its military capabilities taken away and more than a thousand of its fighters bit the dust, but Israel also lost 68 people, most of them soldiers. And yet, there is no satisfactory answer that will ensure the safety of the border communities against mortars, short-range rockets and even anti-tank missiles that could be fired on a bus carrying children to school in the Eshkol Regional Council or the Negev.
The indefinite ceasefire that took effect Tuesday evening is a tactical win that, for the moment, does not guarantee long-term, stable calm for the Western Negev communities or the whole of Israel. It was indeed Hamas who sought the ceasefire, even pleaded for it, but the organization is known to be a serial violator of ceasefires, and the need to hurt and shed the blood of the Israelis has often overcome its survival instinct and concern for the Paleostinians under its control.
The Egyptian and Israeli governments did well by demanding a relatively long ceasefire of at least a month before even beginning to discuss Hamas' demands and Israel's counter-demands. Even when the negotiations do begin, we should be prepared for Hamas trying to pressure us to accept its demands by renewing its attacks. Therefore, instead of calling this a "permanent ceasefire", it is more appropriate to call it a "conditional ceasefire".
In this regard, it is important to point out that in addition to the ceasefire that began Tuesday evening, the United States is moving ahead with a Security Council resolution that would anchor the ceasefire in international law and also mention Israel's demilitarization requirements. This process, initiated by the US and the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... within the framework of the Security Council, serves to reinforce the deal reached by the Egyptians, Hamas and Israel.
It is fair to assume that the Egyptians promised Hamas that the Rafah crossing will be opened as soon as possible, which will give Hamas an incentive to uphold the ceasefire, even if its Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates... -based political leader Khaled Mashal does try to drag it back into a resumption of fire. But Hamas will be interested in maintaining the ceasefire primarily because of the need to rebuild the Gazoo Strip from the terrible rubble that remains. One must admit that the Air Force operations of the last eight days and the achievements of Israel's intelligence officials in eradicating Hamas' military wing prevent the need for Israel to send its ground troops back into Gazoo to impose a ceasefire while Hamas fell apart, something that would have proven to be very costly indeed.
Another question that Israel will have to address is what to do if and when Hamas or one of the other Gazook factions violates the ceasefire -- either by digging a tunnel, manufacturing rockets or planting explosives near the Gazoo perimeter fence. If Israel does not respond firmly and decisively to even the slightest breach from this point on, it will lose the deterrence it has achieved in this operation. There would be no point to anything that the Air Force, ground troops and navy have achieved if Israel were to show restraint in the face of any breaches.
Hence, the true test of the ceasefire declared Tuesday evening will not just be whether Hamas, Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... and/or the Popular Resistance Committees violate it, but how Israel responds to that first violation. Israel did not respond to violations either after the disengagement in 2005 or following its withdrawal from Leb in 2000, and as a result had to wage war a few years later, under more difficult conditions. A similar situation now should be avoided at all costs.
The next test of the ceasefire will be the details of the agreement that the parties will begin to discuss next month. In fact, Israel has several demands of its own: Security arrangements to prevent attacks on the fence, mortar fire and the creation of new tunnels, and stopping Hamas from regrouping. This latter issue has actually already been recently resolved, with the Egyptians destroying the smuggling tunnels in Rafah, and Israel overseeing the humanitarian aid delivered to Gazoo via the border crossings.
In the future, when the Rafah crossing is opened, the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... ' inspectors will ensure that weapons and munitions are not transferred from Egypt to Gazoo. The question is whether the major agreement will include close inspection of the cement, building materials, pipes and fertilizers brought in to rebuild the economy and demolished buildings of the Gazoo Strip so that they are not used to rebuild the tunnels. At this stage, this will be managed by the United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... and the European inspectors for construction projects in the Strip.
A more serious international monitoring mechanism will have to be devised at some point in the future. As far as Hamas' humanitarian demands go, Israel has no problem in accepting them immediately. This is, of course, provided that materials transferred to ease the suffering of the population, deal with the water shortages and meet the housing needs of those whose homes were destroyed are not used to strengthen Hamas.
In terms of the rehabilitation of Gazoo, Israel has a simple equation: Gazoo reconstruction for the demilitarization of heavy weapons - rockets, mortars, anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles and UAVs. Demilitarization should also include the dismantling of facilities used to produce the rockets. For despite what has been said, Israel's demand for demilitarization is not off the table.
But as stated, the tough negotiations over the agreement will take many months and their success will largely determine whether there is a long-term truce or not. Israel has a vested interest in rehabilitating the Strip, even if it takes a decade, as the citizens of Gazoo and Hamas would then have something to lose. Hamas has already previously announced that it has agreed in principle to a 40-year hudna (armistice) with Israel. It stipulated, however, that Israel must withdraw to the 1967 borders.
It is fair to assume that if Gazoo is rehabilitated, and the population does have something to lose, even Hamas will keep the hudna - at least for three to five years. A hudna, of course, is more stable than a tahadiyeh (period of calm), and this is what Israel must strive for -without giving up its demand for demilitarization. If the Security Council passes a resolution in the coming days that mentions the demilitarization of Gazoo, that would be a real boost to Israel.
One can say, in conclusion, that the operation apparently did achieve its objectives. We do not know yet whether the ceasefire will hold, but if it does, then the operation will definitely have fulfilled its goals. Hamas is militarily and politically weakened, its tunnels destroyed, its rocket production system has suffered a fatal blow - and no one should be impressed by the showy celebrations on the streets of Gazoo.
But Israel must take a careful look at itself - especially the government. If the Cabinet had previously ordered the IDF to enter and destroy the tunnels, which they knew about before June 2014, we might have had far fewer casualties and a shorter operation. The Cabinet had not taken into account, although they knew about it, the greatest threat posed yet to the border communities nor taken steps to evacuate them. The defense minister, prime minister and chief of staff made a mistake by not ordering the evacuation of children and anyone not required for the essential maintenance of those communities.
The Israeli government evacuated communities during and after the War of Independence, and there was no reason why little Daniel Tregerman had die so tragically from shrapnel wounds. The outrageous behavior of members of the Cabinet and the mutual exchanges of verbal fire between Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers severely hampered Israel's deterrence capabilities, possibly unnecessarily extended the war and even caused a sense of lack of purpose as they gnawed away at our national strength and bolstered Hamas' desire to keep going.
The campaign is not over, it has just moved to the political, diplomatic and international judiciary arenas. With that in mind, it is still too early to declare mission accomplished, and we may well only be praising the outcome of Operation Protective Edge years down the line.
#1
Isreal should take the opportunity, if they violate the ceasefire, to take all the territory in a solid block and expel all the muslims into a separate area. Leave them for egypt or jordan.
There should be no muslims allowed in israel. Pay token compensation, say $10k every man woman and child, paid in gold. Cut them loose. Goodbye forever nice knowing you! Then build a big wall and a huge moat. Put an electrified fence in a huge trench under the wall to a depth of 500m to prevent tunnelling.
#2
No Hamas didn't blinked first. Israel blinked.
Israel doesn't have flexibility and is only creative in technological arena. They think trough hardware only. Which is WW2 warfare no XXI century warfare: that includes lawfare, mediafare.
A ceasefire is completely contrary to the interests of Israel.
#4
If Gazooks can claim victory, then they won. Only when they are so badly beaten and there are so many of them dead that they are too despondent to ululate can the Israelis rest.
#7
Having an IAF F-15 do a low altitude sonic boom run over the cheering crowds would clear the streets pronto...
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/27/2014 13:21 Comments ||
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#8
A day after the Saudi's suggested abandoning Hamas....
Anon1, I mostly agree but I think Israel should take the Islamic rules for non-muslims (higher taxes for those that don't convert) and apply that rule to non-Jews within Israel. Just to hear the Muslims complain abou the injustice and rationalize away their own rules to that effect.
Sad for the Christians and others hit by such is life.
[YouTube] The Center for the Study of Political Islam: The media does not take political Islam into account about the Hamas/Israel conflict. To understand the reality we must view it from the standpoint of jihad.
If Washington is counting on the Kurds to defeat the terrorist caliphate with a little support from American drones and warplanes, it had better think again.
Posted by: Pappy ||
08/27/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Why would the worlds dominant air power restrict its thinkingvto ground forces. We just need baitvto lure isis into open territory and will to bomb the crap out of them.
many of the best places, in a military sense, to bomb ISIS are in Syria but if the US hits ISIS there, the US will effectively be on the same side as Hezbollah and Assad
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/27/2014 15:37 Comments ||
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Somethings gotta give - iff somebody's feelings get hurt, so bit it ala the "fog/chaos of war".
Its either the above, or the following ...
* WORLD NEWS > [Fox News] AL-QAEDA MAGAZINE [AQAP-published spinoff "Palestine"] HINTS AT LOOMING [US] ATTACKS, URGES BOMBING OF LAS VEGAS, MILITARY [+ Military-industrial] TARGETS.
As per various Twitter msgs, the ISIS claims they are present in LA, Chicago, + Washington DC, AKA "OBAMA/DEMOCRAT-LAND".
* TOPIX > [Daily Mail] AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE CHIEF WARNS BRUTAL ISIS WILL HAVE TO BE DEFEATED WID TROOPS ON THE BATTLEFIELD.
> ISIS "Not Defeatable" wid Airpower alone.
> "Situation is bigger than Iraq".
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has been obsessed with an imaginary threat from an ageing, pacifist Europe in slow decline, while throwing his country at the feet of a greater threat - China 
