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Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin meeting Chinese Premier Wen Jinbao in October 2008 (Photo by: Xinhua). Both governments are worried about the value of their dollar-denominated assets holding up during Washington's upcoming spending binge
The Western media have said plenty about Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's remarks at Davos, Switzerland last January 28. Some observers claimed that Putin chose to blame capitalism for today’s economic woes. Others, such as former U.S. President Bill Clinton, believe Putin offered an "endorsement of private enterprise" instead of more government intervention to bail out the sagging global economy.
Putin, however, was not attacking capitalism, but the haphazard series of Western government bailouts and interventions that have made it very hard to predict when global financial markets will stabilize. It is not clear to foreigners which American financial companies like Bank of America and Citigroup will be nationalized as "too big to fail" and which ones will be allowed to slide into bankruptcy, as did Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.
Click on the extended post to read more.
Continue reading "Russia and China's Financial Warning to the West
Is Anyone in Washington Listening?" »
Kyrgyzstan is officially expelling U.S. forces from the Manas Air Base -- so now what?
Nikolas K. Gvosdev is a professor at the U.S. Naval War College and the editor of The Washington Realist foreign policy blog. Gvosdev is also, when it comes to Russia, probably not the most popular guy in Washington, particularly when he reminds his fellow Washingtonians about the limits of American power worldwide and the checks on the extent of U.S. influence in the former Soviet Union. Gvosdev has long been skeptical of efforts to create democracy overnight in former Soviet republics like Ukraine and Georgia through so-called "Color Revolutions" that took place earlier this decade with strong American government and NGO support.
Here at Russia Blog, we've frequently published Prof. Gvosdev's articles in the last two years. Gvosdev's latest article offers suggestions on how the Obama Administration can cooperate with Moscow to secure NATO's logistical lifeline through Central Asia into Afghanistan. While some observers may believe that Russia is taking unfair advantage of America's predicament in Afghanistan, demanding concessions from Washington in return for NATO access to Russian and former Soviet territory, the fact is nothing in international relations comes for free. And the phrase "trust but verify", so beloved by fans of the late President Ronald Reagan, actually came from Russia. The Kremlin is now testing U.S. intentions in Central Asia to see if fighting the Taliban and jihadism really are the highest American priorities in the region, or if other zero-sum agendas are still ongoing twenty years after the Cold War was officially declared over.
Click on the extended post to read the article.
Continue reading "Working Together in the Land of the Unruly
U.S.-Russian Quid Pro Quo on Afghanistan" »
Since its inception ten years ago, the Austin, Texas based "private intelligence agency" Strategic Forecasting Inc. (Stratfor) has consistently drawn a great deal of attention from the mainstream media.
Occasionally, as in its coverage of The Hague war crimes tribunal of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in the early 2000s, this "shadow CIA" has been accurate, demonstrating that it can cultivate reliable sources in places like Belgrade and elsewhere. But when it comes to Dr. George Friedman, the President of Stratfor, the predictions and "strategic forecasts" have often taken a turn towards the bizarre (for example, Friedman has predicted that Mexico will become a major rival for America in the late 21st century). Not for nothiing has my alma mater university community of Austin, Texas (whose unofficial motto is "Keep Austin Weird") become the home of both George Friedman and the professional conspiracy theorist and frequent Russia Today TV guest Alex Jones.
It's been said by many observers that a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth. In the case of Friedman, during a recent appearance on the U.S. conservative Dennis Prager's talk radio show, the President of Stratfor revealed what he thinks the purpose of NATO expansion is: "to block the Russians" from reasserting influence in the Russian near abroad of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Click on the extended post to read more.
Continue reading "Stratfor's Friedman:
New U.S.-Russia Cold War Likely" »
Dear Readers,
Today at 8:08 PM Moscow time (12:08 PM EST, 9:08 AM PST) I will participate in a debate on the future of the U.S.-Russia relations on Radio Echo Moskvi (Moscow Echo radio station). Dr. Andrey Afanasievich Kokoshin and I will defend our point of view that Russia will manage to improve its relationships with the U.S. The listeners will challenge our position. As you all know, we at Russia Blog, believe in a positive and productive relationship between the two nations, therefore, I will enjoy my role in this lively discussion. Please, click here to listen to the live broadcast.
Dr. Andrey Afanasievich Kokoshin is a member of the State Duma; deputy chairman of the Duma Committee on Industry, Construction, and High Technologies; chairman of Expert Councils for Biotechnologies and Information Technologies; Director of the Institute for International Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences; and Chairman of the Russian National Council for the Development of Education.
This article appeared in a smaller American newspaper, The Oregonian on February 15. On January 27 Vladimir Putin told Bloomberg that he wasn't "indifferent to the amount of the US federal budget deficit" because... "Russia has almost a half of its gold and currency reserves in the American economy." Today, the irony (and the appropriate consequence of the ridiculous investment strategies of the Russian government and oligarchs) is that Western companies owned by Russians will receive Kremlin bailout money ahead of Russians. In fact, the Motherland's businesses might not see the money at all...
Will Kremlin bail out an Oregon steel plant?
By Richard Read (richread@aol.com)
The Oregonian
Sunday February 15, 2009, 8:55 PM
During their recent heyday, Russian billionaires bought far-flung companies, London mansions, massive yachts and private jets. Few of the reclusive oligarchs loomed larger than Roman Abramovich. The owner of Britain's Chelsea soccer team is one of two controlling shareholders in Evraz Group, which bought Portland-based Oregon Steel Mills for $2.35 billion in 2007. Now some of the oligarchs, reeling from the global economic meltdown, are proposing a mega-merger -- including Evraz -- that would give the Kremlin a stake in the resulting Goliath and, hence, in Oregon Steel.
Click on the extended post to read more.
Continue reading "Will Kremlin Bail Out an Oregon Steel Plant?" »
A U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane in the snow at Manas Air Base, 2006
The Swiss International Relations and Security Network (ISN) website, a project of the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, has published an interesting take on why the U.S. is losing access to a strategic military base at Manas in Kyrgyzstan. While Switzerland has long enjoyed a reputation for a detached, if not always completely neutral view of international affairs, the author in this case is actually an American, Dr John C.K. Daly, a Washington D.C.-based consultant and an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute.
Dr. Daly writes that Washington hawks who want to blame the Kremlin for the U.S. getting booted out of the Kyrgyz base that has been critical to ongoing American military operations in Afghanistan since December 2001 have no one to blame but themselves. Dr. Daly adds that Washington should understand that the Kremlin no longer believes that the U.S. has the political will to stay in Afghanistan long-term and defeat the Taliban. Therefore Russia is making every effort to prop up its authoritarian friends in former Soviet Central Asia with economic aid, lest they too fall victim to the Taliban exporting heroin and jihad into their countries in the years to come.
Click on the extended post to read more.
Continue reading "Why Kyrgyzstan is Kicking the U.S. Out
Why the U.S. and Russia Need to Make a Deal" »
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev meeting Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev (right) in Bishkek on October 9, 2008 (Photo by: RIA Novosti)
Russia apparently got the message from the incoming Obama Administration that the new American President had planned a "surge" into Afghanistan to fight a resurgent Taliban. Now that resolve is being tested, in the sense that the Kremlin wants to see what quid pro quo the U.S. is willing to give in return for the use of Russian territory and railroads for shipping materiel from Europe to former Soviet Central Asia. However, unlike the terrible day of September 11, 2001, when then President Vladimir Putin was one of the first world leaders to call President Bush and offer him access to sharing intelligence on the Taliban and his country's airspace for armed U.S. overflights, this time Russia is going to "trust, but verify" American intentions in Eurasia before agreeing to a full-scale supply effort.
Click on the extended post to read an excerpt from the Associated Press story.
Continue reading "Kyrgyzstan to Close Manas Air Base
Russia Ready to Negotiate U.S., NATO Supplies for Afghanistan" »
Myth: Russia is only about oil and gas. Fact: Russia has begun to diversify its economy
The present economic crisis and collapse of energy prices give Russia more opportunity for diversification
Princeton University history professor Stephen Kotkin recently released a paperback edition of his book, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000 with an addendum covering the last eight years in Russia. Writing over at the Russia: Other Points of View forum, Prof. Kotkin notes that the Western media often fixates on Russian leaders like Vladimir Putin and Cold War-style Kremlinology, to the detriment of reporting on changing economic and social conditions for ordinary Russians. Only in the last two and a half years, for example, has the Western media widely reported that middle class Russians are buying many of the same things that middle class Westerners once commonly took for granted, such as new cars, apartments, and vacation packages abroad.
Click on the extended post to read Prof. Kotkin's article.
Continue reading "How Did Russia Rebuild Itself?
Sorry, But You're Wrong" »
Oleg Deripaska (right, with Vladimir Putin) is the richest man in Russia and is a longstanding member of the Kremlin elite.
In late 2007 Oleg Deripaska reportedly surpassed Roman Abramovich, the flashy owner of the English Premier League Chelsea football club and former tycoon of the Sibneft oil company, to become the richest man in Russia. This year Mr. Deripaska's holdings and those of his fellow oligarchs have been sharply reduced by the global economic crisis, and in particular, the shrinking of worldwide capital markets that financed the expansion of Russia's largest companies. And yet, when Deripaska sat down with the Wall Street Journal reporter Greg White for an interview in December 2008, the oligarch remained bullish on the long term prospects for Russia. While the WSJ's editorial board has consistently taken a hard anti-Kremlin (and some would say, anti-Russian) line, its reporters continue to do excellent reporting on the Russian economy.
Click on the extended post to read an extensive excerpt from the WSJ article.
Continue reading "Deripaska, the Richest Man in Russia:
"The Russian Economy is Turned Inside Out"" »
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