Articles from March 2014
2014-03-24: Okay, and now what … ?
The problem with an effective sanctions régime is that it leaves the guy at the business end of the sanctions very little face-saving leeway.
That’s why it’s so worrying that the Russian government is digging itself deeper and deeper into a hole. They should know that the so-called West can’t let them get away with Crimea for free; if they insist on keeping that rather inconsequential (but for the warm-water harbour) peninsula there will be a steep price to pay.
Are the Russians really going for it? No more Western money for natural gas? No more iPhones? No more … anything, really?
I don’t think an isolated Russian government is going to last a long time. I really don’t.
2014-03-04: Past peak Putin
I think this is it, we are seeing the endgame of the Putin era.
Look at it this way. Over the last few years, the Russian government has acted as if it tried to hold on to control when it was already losing it. The invasion of Crimea is only the latest in series of increasingly desperate measures.
And guess what – it’s not working. Putin probably knew it wouldn’t before he even started it. The markets already sent a resounding thumbs-down. Does Putin care about the markets? I think he does.
If you want to run a country as an undisputed dictator, you have to isolate it from the world. That’s why it’s working (if you want to call it that) in North Korea. But Russia does not want to isolate itself. It needs to trade; it wants to be seen as a power in the world.
Does Putin wants to see what real allies Russia has left? Possibly. And, who are those allies? So far, I fail to see any. That must be a sobering realization. Germany has been the closest Russia has had to an ally in the West, and now the German chancellor tells the president of the US that Putin is living “in another world” – basically saying that he has lost his mind.
If you follow the Twitter tag #russiainvadesukraine at the moment, you will see (at least at daylight hours in the Americas) calls for Obama to grow a pair and stop Putin. That’s just dim-witted slurring of course; that would be extremely dangerous. I think all those doomsday warnings about World War 3 being imminent are way over-hyped, but the US starting a war to protect a country that is not even a NATO member could make those dire predictions come true.
Maybe the most frustrating aspect is that the rest of the world will have to help Putin find a way out of the hole he has dug himself into so he doesn’t completely lose face. I doubt has has it in him to do that himself.
And now let’s hope that the Crimea adventure, and the Putin era, come to a peaceful end. And soon.
