Best Western Strategiests are non-educated posers.

[BruceVC]

From New Zealand, also British citizen- rously.

 But were you born in NZ, I would be surprised if you were because you seem far too personal and persistent  with your diatribe against the West

 

Its like you have a real grudge ...like many people from Serbia who dislike the West because of perceived bad treatment. And its not big deal, I am just interested 

[RedCat]

 

 Russia is no threat to the world and isn't imperialistic. For the most part it stays in the tundra and minds its own business, unlike US/NATO who wants to dominate the world. It's the only country in the world to stand up to US, the global bully, and deserves my respect for that. I'm sorry guys but seems Russia is the good guy here actually.

 

 

Tell that to Ukraine, Georgia, Estonia, and any country that has them as neighbors...

 

Granted, USA isn't exactly innocent either, but that's my point: the alleged guilt of one party =/= the innocence of the one opposed to them.

 

Besides, give them both credit, in a way. Sure we're tyrants but at least we're both smart enough to recognize there's limits and not blow the world up fighting each other. May not sound like much but who's to say that wouldn't be the outcome in other hands? At least we got the respect for one another right even if we do both have habits of picking on countries that are clearly outmatched.

 

 

I think its entirely different topic to discuss, so i'll just state, that in my opinion you have a wrong picture here.

 

 

 

  As for Putin's approval ratings, personally I don't know what to say on that matter because on a personal level I have encountered Russians losing faith in Putin by a considerable margin, but I'm also not denying the numbers; his approval rating was always high. All I can say on that matter is that the Russians I know that live here in Germany all comment that the Russian media does not show them everything. Had a friend visit home during the Ukraine Crisis and she was saying it's kind of amazing the difference between what gets shown in the news there and what gets shown here. That's not to say "Russian media is corrupt and western media isn't!!" I'm cynical and I bet both are corrupt. If I'm to trust the judgement of any russian contacts I have here though, they all suggest that russian media only tends to show one side of the story or skip over some facts and details. Wish I could see what they saw, but sadly that's not the case. I also must say that Russian interest in politics in general seems very low, as I often struggle to find Russians with in-depth political opinions. The general thought always seems to be that the government corrupt, the elections are rigged and it doesn't matter whether they pay attention or not, so most don't. Despite this, they're all very fond of Putin for a various range of reasons, such as a belief he keeps the right groups in check, that he's a powerful leader who accomplishes a lot for Russia, or as stupid as finding him physically attractive.

 

If you wondering about why Putin have this much support, the short answer is: there is simply no alternative to Putin.

I'll elaborate a bit.

If you are familiar with election mechanism, you probably know that you can only rigg them up to a certain degree. Usually its 3-7%, 10% tops. Well you can probably stretch as far as 15% if you want every observer to point finger in your direction and make a scandal. It would make sense to do when candidates are closely tied, but in case with Putin its would only cast unnecessary shade on your win. In Russia, ruling party dominates by dividing electoral base of "opposition" to the smaller parties. For example, back in 90s, long before Putin, Communist Party had really good chances of coming back to power through election as most people at that point realized they got cheated. So after that Kremlin promoted creation of parties with different shades of socialistic agendas, like Fair Russia, LDPR and so on, to divide communists electoral base. In 2000, Putin was brought to power as a figure of compromise, an arbiter between various clans of power. But due to his action in his first 2 terms he actually gained people support which gave him quite a big degree of independance. For example first two things that come to mind would be, winning Chechen war and making oligarchs to pay taxes.  Now you can see why  after huge disaster of 90s, a strong and decicive leader like Putin won people's love. It may be hard to believe now, but back in 2008, after his 2nd term Putin actually was planning to retire and leave country to Medvedev as his sucсessor. Medvedev's presidency turned out to be one huge /facepalm instead. Medvedev's betrayal of Libiya, his inability to act during 08.08.08 Georgian agression, and his controversial renaming of militia into police didnt win him much love. Story goes on. In 2012, Washington tried to promote an opposition in Russia with an anti-corruption agenda. The idea was quite good by itself, and in first weeks of protests in december 2012, Kremlin was actually disoriented by turn of events. The problem was in a Washington's choice of people for leaders positions for this. I wont go into much detail but, basically, people saw two options: either Putin, or a bunch of "pro-US, corrrupt hysterical snobs". Choice was quite obvious, especially after Libiya events. And on top of that, return of Crimea in 2014 gave Putin a huge poeple support, thus he ended with 86% rating.

 

 

Now to the question of why a lot of people became disappointed with Putin over the years.

While Putin was brough to power as arbiter between clans of power, his actions in punishing Khodorkovsky and forcing oligarchs to pay taxes, gave him huge support but at the same time people started to expect more from him. In people's conscience every oligarch is a thief. Privatization in 90s was a crime. So when Khodorkovsky was punished, a lot of naive people expected other oligarchs to follow, and Privatization revised. Didnt happened.  Following years, a few scandals with insubordination in the government, corruption in the Ministry of Defence, people waiting for heads to start rolling, but instead nothing. So most people who dissapointed in Putin thinks that he's too soft.

While that has some degree of truth, i should note that one of the major problems Putin faces, is the lack of competent people for the job. I wrote earlier about Central Bank destructive policy towards economy, but they still there cause there are no people to replace them.

So the real problem before Russia (and Putin is aware of it) is the lack of proper political field which results in shortage of personnel for government.

[Rostere]

 Russia [...] isn't imperialistic.

 

LOL.

 

Look, I think there's one thing this thread is completely failing at. People say that "Hmm... I don't like A, ergo, their enemies B must be good guys".

 

Lay it off. You are adult people (I think). You're better than that. I have no idea what is so appealing behind that line of thought that so many otherwise intelligent people succumb to it.

 

People like to sympathize with those who share in their criticism, I think. So when people who like to criticize country A and see that country B also does that, they are inclined to think better of country B. It's also a trick you see often in politics, sadly. I guess that only goes to show how stupid people really are when the let themselves be controlled by emotions.

[RedCat]

I understand that people have a certain view of Russia and its actions and anyone is perfectly entitled to believe what they want 

 

But other people will dispute this, like me

 

Firstly its not accurate to suggest that sanctions against any country have an  equally negative impact to both sides, thats just not true. Yes of course in the case of Russia as the sanctions increase you will see international companies pulling out of the Russian economy or being forced to and this will impact sales as Russia was a excellent market for certain industries. But there are always other markets and the reality is sanctions  make it very difficult for any country to operate in the global community so the worst hit people will be Russian businesses who need to operate in the international community 

 

As you mentioned Russia is primarily the architect of ifs own economic slowdown as it hasn't diversified its economy and relied on the  exports of natural  resources to sustain its economy so obviously the falling oil price has had a huge impact 

 

But lets not kid ourselves of course the Western sanctions have also had a detrimental effect to the Russian economy..its just silly to suggest anything different

 

 For example Russian bonds are now worth junk which makes borrowing more expensive and also certain international fund managers  have to pull out of investing in Russia. But the main issue is Russia is now considered a risky investment so you will see and  have seen the mass flow of foreign capital ..this is bad for any country

 

The end result of most  sanctions is not to undermine Putins power, we know he is very popular. The end result is to get the Russian economy to a point where its so bad it has to start making concessions...so in the interest of economic stability Putin will have to become more serious about a real agreement in Ukraine 

 

You may think  " what nonsense..sanctions don't work " but that would be a incorrect assumption. Sanctions work but they work slowly and insidiously..look at my own country South Africa and Iran? Sanctions forces both countries to want to negotiate and Russia will be no different  

 

 

Let me clarify my point a bit.

Impact of sanctions on both sides of course is not equal, but there IS an impact on both sides. Consider the difference in perception on those sanctions for both parties. From Russian side, it is viewed as threat to Russia sovereignity, as Russia constantly opposes to US policy on Ukraine. From foreign companies who suffer losses on russian market due to sanctions, (and with the currency rate falling, people simply started to buy much less foreign goods because their price doubled),  it is viewed, as US trying to push their agenda with Russia on expense of those companies, which in turn result in political pressure towards their leaders who agree to follow US lead and support sanctions.

 

Secondly,

while current economic policy is suicidal, and the peolpe who decide on it and execute it are the top management of Central Bank, it should be understood that the root of this system lies in 90s, when privatization of state property and country's economic institutions were intentionally designed this way under US advisers. That is the main reason of anti-US tendencies among russians. And yes without foreign investment capital, Russia economy cant work, and thats why we need to create a financial mechanism for investment which would be independent from IMF and FRS.

 

Thirdly, sanctions, as well as Magnitsky list, in the first place target comanies which belongs to either Putin's friends or his supporters. People like Chubais, Voloshin, Yumashev, are not under sanctions mainly because they represent a branch of power inside Kremlin which opposes Putin. For the common people US trying to send a simple message: "Your quality of life dropped because of the sanctions, and we imposed sanctions because Putin's bad. Putin need to go." In reality economic recess started back in 2012, and it is worldwide

For example, really harmful sanctions would be a ban on planes parts sale which would result in no civil aviation in Russia after couple of years.

 

 

And lastly, when you say about foreign companies moving on from Russia to another market. I think its an overstimation of a market capacity. What we deal with today worldwide is a global consumption decline, people buying less, FRS funds rate is already 0% for long time  and discount rate as i recall around 0.25%, which means that consumer stimulation resource is no more. Houshold debt in US is around 25-30% above income (i think in EU is a bit lower), so i think loosing a market right now is quite a bit hit for any major company.

[Longknife]

 

 

 

 

  As for Putin's approval ratings, personally I don't know what to say on that matter because on a personal level I have encountered Russians losing faith in Putin by a considerable margin, but I'm also not denying the numbers; his approval rating was always high. All I can say on that matter is that the Russians I know that live here in Germany all comment that the Russian media does not show them everything. Had a friend visit home during the Ukraine Crisis and she was saying it's kind of amazing the difference between what gets shown in the news there and what gets shown here. That's not to say "Russian media is corrupt and western media isn't!!" I'm cynical and I bet both are corrupt. If I'm to trust the judgement of any russian contacts I have here though, they all suggest that russian media only tends to show one side of the story or skip over some facts and details. Wish I could see what they saw, but sadly that's not the case. I also must say that Russian interest in politics in general seems very low, as I often struggle to find Russians with in-depth political opinions. The general thought always seems to be that the government corrupt, the elections are rigged and it doesn't matter whether they pay attention or not, so most don't. Despite this, they're all very fond of Putin for a various range of reasons, such as a belief he keeps the right groups in check, that he's a powerful leader who accomplishes a lot for Russia, or as stupid as finding him physically attractive.

 

If you wondering about why Putin have this much support, the short answer is: there is simply no alternative to Putin.

I'll elaborate a bit.

If you are familiar with election mechanism, you probably know that you can only rigg them up to a certain degree. Usually its 3-7%, 10% tops. Well you can probably stretch as far as 15% if you want every observer to point finger in your direction and make a scandal. It would make sense to do when candidates are closely tied, but in case with Putin its would only cast unnecessary shade on your win. In Russia, ruling party dominates by dividing electoral base of "opposition" to the smaller parties. For example, back in 90s, long before Putin, Communist Party had really good chances of coming back to power through election as most people at that point realized they got cheated. So after that Kremlin promoted creation of parties with different shades of socialistic agendas, like Fair Russia, LDPR and so on, to divide communists electoral base. In 2000, Putin was brought to power as a figure of compromise, an arbiter between various clans of power. But due to his action in his first 2 terms he actually gained people support which gave him quite a big degree of independance. For example first two things that come to mind would be, winning Chechen war and making oligarchs to pay taxes.  Now you can see why  after huge disaster of 90s, a strong and decicive leader like Putin won people's love. It may be hard to believe now, but back in 2008, after his 2nd term Putin actually was planning to retire and leave country to Medvedev as his sucсessor. Medvedev's presidency turned out to be one huge /facepalm instead. Medvedev's betrayal of Libiya, his inability to act during 08.08.08 Georgian agression, and his controversial renaming of militia into police didnt win him much love. Story goes on. In 2012, Washington tried to promote an opposition in Russia with an anti-corruption agenda. The idea was quite good by itself, and in first weeks of protests in december 2012, Kremlin was actually disoriented by turn of events. The problem was in a Washington's choice of people for leaders positions for this. I wont go into much detail but, basically, people saw two options: either Putin, or a bunch of "pro-US, corrrupt hysterical snobs". Choice was quite obvious, especially after Libiya events. And on top of that, return of Crimea in 2014 gave Putin a huge poeple support, thus he ended with 86% rating.

 

 

Now to the question of why a lot of people became disappointed with Putin over the years.

While Putin was brough to power as arbiter between clans of power, his actions in punishing Khodorkovsky and forcing oligarchs to pay taxes, gave him huge support but at the same time people started to expect more from him. In people's conscience every oligarch is a thief. Privatization in 90s was a crime. So when Khodorkovsky was punished, a lot of naive people expected other oligarchs to follow, and Privatization revised. Didnt happened.  Following years, a few scandals with insubordination in the government, corruption in the Ministry of Defence, people waiting for heads to start rolling, but instead nothing. So most people who dissapointed in Putin thinks that he's too soft.

While that has some degree of truth, i should note that one of the major problems Putin faces, is the lack of competent people for the job. I wrote earlier about Central Bank destructive policy towards economy, but they still there cause there are no people to replace them.

So the real problem before Russia (and Putin is aware of it) is the lack of proper political field which results in shortage of personnel for government.

 

 

 

Yeah I've heard this before, sadly. Always worded slightly different and with slightly different focuses, but I've always been very curious about Russia. I'm curious about various cultures and countries in general, but Russians have been the hardest to figure out just because a lot of them have little interest in politics, saying that their vote does not ultimately matter or that there truly is no choice to be made. Putin's actions with the oligarchs are the one constant thing I always hear praised, and often I'm told he's irreplaceable. You suggest that there's simply not a qualified alternative to him, I've heard others voice concern the oligarchs would run things again if Putin were gone.

 

 

It seems unfortunate to me because I always like to think all countries have an interest in progress and working together, because why wouldn't we? Now though, unfortunately it seems like Russia and the West are at another impasse and no one seems to know exactly how to fix it. On one hand I would criticize Putin and how Crimea was handled. On the other hand, I'm not so arrogant to doubt the overwhelming Russian opinion that he is important for the country. I said I have seen some people lose support for Putin, and the Russians who have said they don't like Putin as much now, I think said so because Crimea has shown that Putin is not completely in control. There was a bit of a stand-off between Russia and Europe and/or the USA, and ultimately Russia got hurt the most from the sanctions (though of course sanctions are bad for all parties). I think they expected Putin to be a little....bolder? Or more capable of handling the situation in a way that benefits Russia? This would align well with how you said some people think he has not done enough or is becoming soft.

 

 

I do find it concerning however that Russia has gone so long with Putin as leader. I just mean that in a general sense, because the moment he's gone, what exactly is Russia going to do...? Even when Medvedev took office, my Russian friends here had the attitude of "Psssh it's all fake, Putin will be back and he's still in charge." They were right, but eventually he really will be gone. It runs the risk of functioning like a dictatorship. Not in the sense that he has absolute power or is free to be a tyrant, but in the sense that when he dies or leaves office, it will be very difficult to find a suitable replacement, and even if one is found, people will probably cling to that leader too.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Longknife

[Dayen]

As far as what Russia is and isn't doing, we've got questions to be sure. Are they at the same point with Ukraine as they were with Georgia ca. 2009? Signs point to yes. But are we, as the US and EU, at the same point with Ukraine as we were with Georgia ca. 2009? Signs point to no.

 

Is Russia's economy in an irrecoverable tailspin? My assessment is yes, although Putin has several tools at his disposal to ameliorate the situation that most democratically-elected leaders do not. Which raises the question: whose companies will be repatriated next? I'm sure the Oligarchs are asking themselves the same question. (Side note: Browder's book, Red Notice, is a fantastic read if you're interested in how "commerce" is conducted in Russia.)

 

Russian economic collapse is a foregone conclusion at this point. Putin cut is his own salary, which is a clever way to signal to his theoretical German allies that they can stop. But it doesn't appear Merkel was paying attention.