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Why on earth…

The New Neo Posted on by

…would Putin listen to any threats or admonitions coming from the US or the EU right now? I cannot think of one. It’s not that they have no economic power over him—they do—it’s that they seem to have no will to execute it. He knows it, they know it, everyone knows it. That’s the reason Russian officials feel perfectly okay jokingly insulting Obama.

Putin will do whatever he considers expedient, unless something changes drastically and soon.

Comments

Why on earth… — 37 Comments

  1. The same scenario exists with Chairman O. There is no organized opposition, the dinosaur media are advocates, Federal Agencies will punish anyone who dares to question policies. If someone has a genuine difference of opinion, they will be called racist. Everything has to fit the narrative.

  2. There is also another reason that they feel comfortable joking about Obama – what’s gonna happen? The Western News Media call THEM racists?

    Ha! like Russian officials would care what the west thinks of them.

  3. Putin was to told to wait until after the 2012 elections. Well, he waited.

    People may think that by 2016 we will be rid of Obama and everything will be improving. That’s not going to happen if the Zombie Apoc activates, a nuclear war happens with Russian or Iranian involvement, or some other “coincidental” trouble happens to upset the American concept that everything in the world revolves around American power.

    With the death of Pax Americana, that won’t be true, if ever it was.

  4. It is actually more of a two-way street, an EU-Russia co-dependency. EU must have Russia’s oil and nat. gas, and Russia must have the Euros paid for that. The EU save France has no fangs, none.
    So the euros can foam at the mouth with indignation, but that is all, and Russia knows it.

    Geopolitically, even if we had a Prez that put the US first, there is no sane way of projecting US force to Ukraine. Bill Clinton knew that in 1994, but ever the conman he persuaded others the Agreement was worth the paper it was written on. And the pacifists loved him for de-nuclearizing Ukraine; they were of course willfully ignorant of Stalin’s murderous eviction of the Tatars from Ukraine (see Neo’s recent post on this), and the later State-sponsored starvation of millions of Ukranians .

  5. Why?

    Don’t be ridiculous. Because Barack Obama has spoken on the matter that’s why.

    That’s how it works over here. “The Law shall be; the Law shall not be. Thus I have said; thus it shall be.”

    It must be the same everywhere. His friends at the NYT et al have never denied this. That’s key. Nor have they denied that in this case Barack’s word shall not be incarnated in fact. If it were otherwise I am sure they would say so. But they have not.

    The rest is epidemic…I mean academic.

  6. Something certainly will change, drastically and soon. It is called economy, stupid. It will with or without sanctions. You do not understand cause and effect in latest developments: expectation of inevitable economic collapse is the reason for Putin’s reckless behavior. He needs pretext for isolation of Russia, for beginning a new Cold War and mobilization of low-information people, so that all economic woes can be explained away by foreign intervention and hostility.

  8. Our leadership position in the world was earned over decades with two world wars and the blood and sacrifice of millions of young men and women. It has been all wasted in 5 years by a feckless leader that isn’t smart enough to know what he doesn’t know. And is far too arrogant to ever admit error.

  9. kaba:

    It is much easier to break Humpty Dumpty than to put him back together.

  10. Obama is our genuinely Anti-USA President of the USA, and our enemies know it.

  11. Interesting piece in the Boston Globe about Putin’s “Eurasian dream”:

    When it comes to Putin’s long-term strategy, however, there is at least one concrete plan that offers some insight, and one specific date that Russia observers are looking ahead to. That date, Jan. 1, 2015, is expected to mark the birth of an important new organization linking Russia with an as-yet-undetermined constellation of its neighboring countries–an alliance Putin has dubbed the Eurasian Union.

    Currently, only two nations besides Russia, Belarus and Kazakstan, have signed on. A number of other post-Soviet states, including Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, have signaled interest in joining. It’s expected to build on an existing regional trade pact to establish common policies on labor migration, investment, trade, and energy.

    But from the moment Putin announced his plan, experts have believed he sees it as the linchpin of something much larger: a new geopolitical force capable of standing up to Russia’s competitors on the world stage in a way it hasn’t been able to since the fall of the Soviet Union. “We suggest a powerful supranational association capable of becoming one of the poles in the modern world,” wrote Putin in the 2011 op-ed in which he first described his vision.

    It all makes me think of Bette Davis’s comment in All About Eve: “Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”

  13. The last chance for the sustainment of the role America took upon itself, the world’s policeman, was with Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Since neither the Left nor Hussein wanted America killing terrorists or anti American dictators like Saddam, we are where we are. That chance was wasted, because most people didn’t realize what was truly at stake.

    It was their last chance at redemption for Vietnam and Bay of Pigs, including Rhodesia and various other F ups and deceptions on the world stage by America, led by the Left or the Left’s goons.

    The last chance will not come again, ever.

  14. Kaba,

    You are correct that it was “earned”. I would say made or fashioned, but whatever.

    But it was not earned by us. It was earned by people better than us – our parents and grandparents and great grandparents.

    The Boomers had some contribution, but the heavy lifting was done by people who were our parents and older.

    We and the generation after us gave it away out of stupidity, laziness, and pride.

    Why doesn’t America “make” things anymore? The answer is simple: We are too lazy to. Period, End of Story.

    Will America ever reawaken? Possible. Odds? Long.

  15. Here’s my take on the major geo-political dynamics at play in the world today.

    The domestic sphere; Obama’s continued gutting of the US Military is rapidly reducing our international responses to a binary set of options; verbal bluster and the threat of nuclear conflict. But nukes only have value as a deterrent or as a retaliatory response. Since nuclear conflict is essentially suicidal, their value is primarily a matter of retaining territorial boundaries. Putin would not be threatening Ukraine if she had retained her nuclear capability.

    Economic sanctions are an empty threat, given the interconnections of the global financial sector.

    The foreign sphere; Russia, China, and Iran.
    The full achievement of a ‘Eurasian Union’ is indeed at the heart of Putin’s strategic goals and he does seek the formation of “a powerful supranational association capable of becoming one of the poles in the modern world”

    “The Putin government’s foreign policy is today guided by the so-called ‘Eurasian’ strategy, invented by Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, who proposes that Russia, China, and Islam ally with all the anti-American forces in Western Europe, Africa and Latin America, for the purpose of laying final siege to the United States.”

    I don’t subscribe to Dugin’s “final siege” of the US and only Putin fully embraces the Eurasian strategy. But there is no doubt that Russia, China and Iran are working selectively together.

    Putin seeks the Finlandization of Western and Central Europe.

    ” the process by which one powerful country strongly influences the policies of a smaller neighboring country. The term literally means “to become like Finland” referring to the influence of the Soviet Union on Finland’s policies during the Cold War. The term is generally considered to be pejorative, originating in West German political debate of the late 1960s and 1970s. As the term was used in Germany and other NATO countries, it referred to the decision of a country not to challenge a more powerful neighbor in foreign politics, while maintaining national sovereignty. It is commonly used in reference to Finland’s policies in relation to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but it can refer more generally to similar international relations, such as Denmark’s attitude toward Germany between 1871 and 1940.”

    The natural endpoint for the Russian Federation itself is when Russia has acquired warm water ports on the Mediterranean. Putin cannot achieve “a powerful supranational association capable of becoming one of the poles in the modern world” and, the global influence he seeks for Russia, without those ports.

    Greece and the former Yugoslavian countries are thus the logical targets. Greece is currently a member of both the EU and NATO but may be, at some future date, susceptible to seduction by Putin into joining a new Eurasian Union. Greece is a heavily socialist nation and the monetary pressures from the EU could not be less popular. The US Federal Reserve’s Feb. 19th announcement that it will cut off the massive financial lifeline that has been subsidizing the European banking system since the beginning of the global financial crisis in March of 2008, in order to support US borrowing is going to create much greater pressure on the EU to tighten the screws on the ‘PIGS’ with Greece being the foremost indebted nation in the EU.

    This is a probable view of the Eurasian Union that Putin envisions with Western/Central Europe fully ‘Finlandized’.

    China will continue to push toward full dominance of the Far East. She will continue to build a Naval presence fully capable of challenging America’s and will continue to work on her long term project; the militarization of space. Whomever holds the high ground wins the conflict.

    Iran; Obama has arranged for Iran to gain the time needed to achieve nuclear weapons capability, while hamstringing Israel’s ability to interfere. Once Iran gets nukes, nuclear proliferation into unstable third world regimes and future jihadist States will result. Sooner or later, terrorist groups will get their hands on them. They will use them (get out of NYC neo, while yet years away, the clock is ticking).

    Returning to the domestic sphere, the long term psychological reaction of the American public to a nuked major American city will be an isolationist, ‘Fortress America’ mind-set. The resulting fear, possible rioting, economic chaos and demand for the restoration of order will result in the declaration of Martial Law. Obama or a Pres. Hillary Clinton will not miss the ‘opportunity’ (given prior legal precedent) that martial laws permits; the legal suspension of certain Constitutional guarantees…

    Those are IMO, the major threats we face (with the exception of the debt crisis) and willful denial by the public will ensure that we reap the full consequences of our foolhardiness.

    “The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made him their president”. Vé¡clav Klaus (former Premier of the Czech Republic)

  16. “Why doesn’t America “make” things anymore? The answer is simple: We are too lazy to. Period, End of Story.”

    The ‘story’ is far more complex than that. There are a number of factors responsible and ‘laziness’ is not a primary factor. The odds however are long indeed.

  17. M J R,

    Daniel Greenfield’s blog is one of my favorites. He doesn’t hide his biases, but at the same time, he shows his work.

    For a textbook Russian propagandist position, see “Proud Brit” in the comment thread.

    I’ll add to Greenfield’s post that the turning point for international law enforcement and Pax Americana was liberals opposing the Iraq enforcement. Bush acted to resolve the festering Iraq problem for a bundle of reasons. But foremost in the bundle was the enforcement of international law – since 1990, the Iraq enforcement had been the defining UN mission of the post-Cold War and wrapped in international law.

    International law enforcement and American leadership of the free world during the Cold War were made potent by Truman’s intervention in Korea. Bush attempted to do the same with the mature decade-plus Iraq problem, but the popular-political rejection of the US-led enforcement in Iraq with the willful adoption of a blatantly false narrative spelled the end of Pax Americana.

    The Obama admin has claimed the same liberal foreign policy goals as Bush while disconnecting Bush’s rational means to achieve those goals. Either Obama is deluded enough to sincerely pursue a liberal foreign policy irrationally or he’s purposely steering the US-led world order towards a conclusive failure by deliberately following the historical precedent Greenfield describes.

  18. Right. Like you know.

    I’ve seen a City shut down its industry because it needed money to pay lazy people to vote for them.

    Everyday for a decade now I see dozens, many dozens, of foreigners who came at a minimum of 2000 miles to cut a lawn or get a hard-working job doing something real….while several hundred thousands who live 10 miles away are too lazy to do it. They are getting paid to vote for people who steal money from real workers who will then continue to pay them, etc., etc.

    But it’s “complex”. Oh yes! Must be all those multi-factorial confluence of socio-econimic causations vis a vis transnational laborization of the hoo ha.

    You know though. Very complex. Funny.

  19. Ymarsakar: “That chance [OIF, OEF] was wasted, because most people didn’t realize what was truly at stake.”

    Yep, and Iraq more than Afghanistan. While OEF was made necessary as self-defense by 9/11 and thereby a NATO mutual-defense mission, international law enforcement and US leadership of a Pax Americana liberal world order were at stake in OIF.

    I understand that leftists, and IR realists and libertarians on the Right will oppose a liberal foreign policy. But the death-blow came from liberals who opposed Bush’s definitively liberal strategy with which he responded to 9/11, especially with the Iraq enforcement.

  20. Eric, 6:28 pm — “Either Obama is deluded enough to sincerely pursue a liberal foreign policy irrationally or he’s purposely steering the US-led world order towards a conclusive failure by deliberately following the historical precedent Greenfield describes.”

    I am both depressed and aghast that our national stance has come down to this particular “either-or”.

    Thanks as well for touching base regarding the Greenfield blog. I’ll look at the comments there as soon as I “submit” over here.

  21. . . . Daniel Greenfield’s crisp reply to “Proud Brit” in the comments is right on the money.

  22. Something to keep in mind: When was the last time the US was defeated in a military confrontation? I don’t mean politically, but on the ground. You have to dig deep for that answer. War of 1812, maybe?

    The key to defeating the US isn’t military confrontation. Rather, our competitive vulnerability is to propaganda. And Putin is KGB.

  23. . . . ReplieS, it turns out. And I see you (Eric) are contributing your own two cents’ worth over there.

  24. Let’s see:

    Teddy Roosevelt said: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

    Yosemite Sam said: “Well I speak loudly, and carry a bigger stick and I use it, too! (WHAM!)”

    Barack Obama said “Words. Just words.” and by gutting the military is announcing that he threw away his stick. Of course, it doesn’t really matter because everyone realizes that he’d never use it anyway — so 19th century you know.

  25. Mike,

    All I said was that the reasons for the decline in our manufacturing base are a lot more complex than a simplistic American laziness.

    I do acknowledge your right to cling to your simplistic ignorance however.

    Hoo ha? “When the debate is lost, slander [and mockery] becomes the tool of the loser.” — Socrates

  26. M J R,

    Our repeatedly proven vulnerability to propaganda, and the decisive effectiveness of propaganda against us, is a main reason I advocate for dedicated Marxist-method activism by the Right.

    Competing against the enemy propagandists now defeating us requires fully dedicated Marxist-method activism – first, non-stop, and always.

    It’s not just about discourse and debate. We are losing wars we’re winning (Vietnam) or have won (Iraq) on the ground due to propaganda. Our foreign policy is being crippled by propaganda-corrupted popular-political algorithms.

    The eye-opening moment for me on the resiliency of the propaganda threat was watching the 1946 WW2 coming home classic movie, The Best Years of Our Lives.

    I posted on my blog:

    During this viewing, however, two particular scenes caught my attention and got me to thinking. The first scene was the soda shop scene where Fred Derry defends Homer Parrish from an anti-war “Americanist” who argues that the great personal sacrifices of World War 2, including Homer’s amputated hands, were a waste, and worse, the result of a vast conspiracy. . . . It seems that the anti-war radical was stubbornly vocal even during the patriotic World War 2 era. His successors have barely changed since then, except he was a disreputable fringe radical 60 years ago, but now dominates Ivy League political science departments, politics, and media punditry. The villainous archetype of the anti-war American 60 years ago, barely changed, is now viewed as a wise hero in popular and political culture.

    Contrary to the popular myth of uniform American solidarity in WW2, the same “Proud Brit” propaganda playbook was gnawing at the general will even during WW2, and before then.

    Since WW2, the government – rightfully – has been legally limited in its powers to combat ‘seditious’ propaganda. However, limiting government power in order to preserve our rights and freedoms doesn’t help us compete against the enemy. It means competing against enemy propaganda falls onto the people and that requires Marxist-method activism by the people.

  27. Eric has a point. The Dems piled on Bush over Iraq because it offered a reason to pile on Bush. Never mind Clinton bombed the place, never mind the liberals who bashed H. W. Bush for not taking down Saddam. Note how Obama, who in large part defined himself as the opposite of warmonger Bush, had a VP and two SoSs who all voted FOR the war (lies to the contrary notwithstanding).

  28. The Dems also didn’t want Saddam, their ally, to go down since CNN would lose their exclusives.

    The Dems also didn’t want what the Marines did to Fallujah II to happen to Detroit or Chicago. Saddam dying is regretable. Detroit being taken over by counter insurgency units that fight the Left… that’s dangerous.

  29. The vulnerability of propagandists is that they can’t overcome Death with propaganda.

    Most Americans have never taken psychological resistance or interrogation resistance training. That’s a problem that can be easily solved with certain systems.

  31. DonS,

    Actually, no one proposed nor voted for war with Iraq outright. What they voted for was the implementation of the credible threat of regime change to bring about Iraq’s full compliance with the terms of the cease fire and resolutions. From there, whether we went to war with Iraq was up to Saddam and, in the event Saddam failed his ‘final chance’ to comply, whether the threat of regime change was credible.

    He did, and it was.

    Operation Iraqi Freedom had some of the best developed legal, policy, and precedent grounds in US military history, developed scrupulously by 3 presidents over a decade-plus. The bulk of the development was by President Clinton.

    Regarding the 2002 vote, during the 1990s, Congress passed multiple laws pushing forward the Iraq enforcement. That means, in 2002, they voted consistently with the US’s decade-plus course with Iraq, not only based on what Bush said. In fact, Bush’s case against Saddam was, with some cosmetic updating, Clinton’s case against Saddam.

    Yet despite that the truth was in the open and long established with over a decade in the public eye, propaganda displaced the truth. The most cynical spectacle was of Clinton officials who worked on the Iraq enforcement promulgating the false narrative.

    With reluctance, I’ve come to conclude that We the People weren’t just tricked. We chose the lie. After 60+ years, we chose to give up as leader of the free world.

  32. Not only do the Americans and Europeans lack economic leverage, but they also lack a moral basis for their arguments. All in, Americans and Europeans are feckless Dodos, both economically and morally.

  33. That was hilarious, Beverly. Carol has got Shatner down cold.

    I never saw that one before.

  34. Let’s just call it a lighthearted look at leadership! I dunno about you, but I sure could use the laugh. (The bit when Uhura got up cracked me up too.)

  35. Beverly, that was onew of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long, long time! Thanks!

  37. Blert, Alinsky was writing in the context of non violent infiltration and light violence.

    Death is a far better power and weapon than ridicule, pound for pound.

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