Because we do not always get the infographics we need, but what we deserve. Or something like that.
We tried to put Pussy Riot, Putin and the West in the juxtapose most familiar to a meme addled society. We think it captures the moment in Russia and the West. Clicking on the image below will produce the full size graphic. Feel free to make suggestions or comments for improvements. We can, as they say, ‘iterate this’ to reflect our consensus.
Putin must be wondering how did it all go so wrong? So fast?
First, demonstrators marred his moment returning to overt power. Putin even cried a bit. Former Finance Minister Kudrin and others broke ranks and seek his overthrow.
Lately, he’s blamed for inept responses to massive flooding and failed rocket launches. Putin’s presidency is now so volatile there’s open speculation how soon he’s trying to oust Medvedev as Prime Minister. Or whether he can control elite factions anymore. Three young women punk rockers as international superstars just rubs it in.
Putin and his collective instrumental base show a political deaf ear and marked clumsiness since his return as president. It’s a common mistake to attribute everything to Putin himself. As we wrote before in the link above, Putinism operationally (as opposed to substantively) is about preserving his role as arbiter.
Within the wider personal and institutional factions, much occurs without him. Either by ‘working towards’ him by anticipating what Putin might want, or operating more broadly, with the ‘better to seek forgiveness than permission’. Corruption is a vital currency. Putin’s long delay announcing his new government underscores the fractious nature of this political ecosystem – and his essential role as arbiter.
So when Putin does act, it is often in broad measures, trying to set systemic guidance by dramatic example. In the past, these actions were carefully choreographed in exquisite detail by Vladislav Surkov, Putin’s former young eminence grise who famously turned Putin into an action figure. Surkov is gone. Asute Russia observers suggest Putin misses Surkov’s shrewd ear to the ground.
About the only surprise from yesterday’s Russian elections are Putin’s tears savoring his long predicted victory. Putin’s victory speech was erratic. If he tried to stage emotion, it backfired.
Famous blogger Alexei Navalny named Monday’s protest “Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears” based on the title of an Oscar-winning Soviet melodrama. Ironic use of Putin’s tears fills the Russian Internet from Twitter to Snob.ru. (Putin says the tears came from the wind).
Watch Medvedev introduce the man who took the re-election he wanted so badly himself. Medvedev veers between the manic and awkward unhappiness. 30 seconds into Putin’s speech Medvedev fittingly all but disappears before our eyes.
So what does Putin do next?
Even as America itself crumbles, the American Idea continues to pre-occupy the Continental mind. The EU, the euro and Maastricht all have their roots in early 20th century European fears of looming American power and economic scale – whether the shirts were red, brown or with French cuffs. The Corporal’s solution of forced integration to meet America in the 1950s or 60s as an equal? A variation on a theme.
Due to modern technology and the communication it makes possible, the international relations among peoples have become so close that the European, even without being fully conscious of it, applies as the yardstick for his existence the conditions of American life …
Today, the euro’s brittle weakness underscores the fundamental flaw of that post-war alternative, EU model. Economic integration must be married to the political.
Putin and many Russians have always known this. Indeed, in 1991, had Gorbachev been a better politician, the plan was to replace the Soviet Union with a confederacy of independent states. All those ideas hastily tossed after the botched coup.
Now, Putin openly makes the case for an integrated economic space to achieve the economies of scale and depth necessary to be a viably independent player on the world stage. Putin isn’t trying to rebuild the Soviet Union. Why should he? It failed. His goal is a more modern geo-strategic equivalent. Its starting point? A common customs integration among Belarus and Kazakhstan. Other ‘Stans are expected to hop on board soon according to Putin (and let’s overlook that Belarus suspended participation this summer when its economy stumbled).
There is no talk about rebuilding the USSR in one way or another. It would be naive to try to restore or copy something that belongs to the past, but a close integration based on new values and economic and political foundation is a demand of the present time.
Putin’s concept of a ‘Eurasian Union’ naturally triggers alarm bells across Eastern Europe, in former Soviet republics and even here. The Russian Right, after all, has long pushed for Moscow’s re-assertion across the Near Abroad. The Georgian War is a recent memory. Russian coercive energy politics blatant. Putin, however, is thinking about more than traditional Soviet nostalgia. His views on scale, international order and power are linked to his Continental predecessors from 100 years ago. Putin seeks to have Russia become the gatekeeper and driving force controlling a free trade zone from Lisbon to Vladivostok. This is literally his continental answer.
On Sunday afternoon, during a cruise in a reservoir adjoining the Volga River, a ship called the Bulgaria capsized and sank, killing more than 125 people, including dozens of children who got trapped below deck in a playroom. As passing ships picked up survivors in the water and news of the disaster spread, the nation fell into mourning, and some observers brought up the sinking of the Titanic in an effort to express the scale of Russia’s grief. But the comparison fails for one important reason. The Bulgaria was not a masterpiece of engineering on its maiden voyage, as the Titanic had been in 1912. The cruise ship was 56 years old when it sank on Sunday, becoming another example of the rotting Soviet-era equipment and infrastructure — barely kept up yet still in use — that have made such disasters so familiar in Russia today.
Wait, there’s more.
What Medvedev failed to mention was the scope of Russia’s broader infrastructural decay, an issue that arises after every major industrial catastrophe, but quickly tends to fade again. In the past two years alone, Russia has seen a huge methane blast at a coal mine (about 90 dead), a turbine explosion at its largest hydro-electric dam (75 dead), another Antonov plane crash in Siberia (11 dead), as well as a handful of major blackouts, gas blowups and the countless deaths caused every year by the dire state of Russia’s roads.
All these accidents are normally blamed on human error or misconduct, which allows the government to save face by firing or jailing the guilty parties. But many businessmen have started lobbying for the government to pay attention to the country’s deeper infrastructural needs (instead of splurging on vanity projects like the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi). One of them is Alexander Lebedev, a billionaire who owns a fifth of Aeroflot, Russia’s national airline. The sinking of the Bulgaria, he says, is just the latest symptom of Russia’s skewed priorities. “The industrial base of the country is still mostly a product of Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev,” the three longest-serving leaders of the Soviet Union, “and that was not such high quality in the first place,” Lebedev tells TIME. “If you scratch the surface of the city of Moscow for example … everything is very old.”
Ok Stiftung, bringing late news to the show, again — we can hear it now. Would you be surprised if we mentioned to you that the Washington Metro is already collapsing and failing? That if a foreign power imposed this technological terror subway on any American city it would be an act of war? Difficult to gauge the full magnitude of suckage. Suffice to say, some paunchy wonks in wrinkled khakis were sighing very loudly while ostentatiously looking at their watches. So you see the danger.
How nice to know then that the D.C. Metro’s “plan” is to pay almost a billion dollars to a Japanese company for new subway cars (from ‘Unsuckdcmetro’ site). Metro’s following tradition. The original 1977 cars were from Italy. Still, in time of near economic paralysis one would think somewhere, somehow an American company could be found to build subway cars. Maybe the next set will be from Russia.
When the Metro first opened it was like going to EPCOT Center. Bechtel made these amazing tunnels. No coins, using futuristic farecards. Carpeted cars. Blinking lights signaling an arriving train. Sure, the Peanut Farmer was around but Metro proved America built the future. The debut system covered a few stations only. It’s still comparatively tiny in terms of overall track mileage. The City’s might be grittier but it can take you almost anywhere. (WASP Georgetown, for example, refused a station, afraid ‘undesirable elements’ might emerge like a CoD re-spawn point from Hell. And how well-heeled McLean, VA howled in protest a new extension might disturb their outsourced-wealth).
Sad to see the system literally fall apart before our eyes. It’s not uncommon for breakdowns to strand commuters for 40 minutes. Americans also apparently can’t keep an escalator in operation. A couple of stations are deep. The Vladgrad subway is even deeper than the Metro because of the water table. Somehow, the above reports notwithstanding, that subway in our memory is more reliable than 21st century American.
Medvedev sent his special envoy to meet with rebels in Benghazi. Putin, as all here recall, was and remains vocally critical of the NATO operation. The younger man makes an interesting gesture, adding to uncertain buzz in Moscow. Not only calling Khadaffi to leave, Medvedev then (gratuitously) declared Russia will not shelter him.
NATO in a way may be forcing Medvedev’s hand. Attack helicopters, missile spotters and SAS shooters in Libya are a bit astray from a UN humanitarian mandate. Much as Putin predicted. Libya’s a political football match that many gladly would see wrapped up soon. Medvedev’s in for a penny, in for a pound, wrapping himself around the G-8 declaration.
Both Putin and Medvedev mostly continue campaigning for 2012 via mime: Putin’s photo ops usually target older and less educated demographics, showing outdoor hardihood or feats of daring. Medvedev apparently likes to sound like a lawyer and embraces high tech.
Even a year ago many assumed Medvedev still would be Putin’s poodle. No longer. Now, Medvedev wears a “Russia’s Commander In Chief” jacket. (The CiC can fire the Prime Minster – subtle, no?). He then forced one of Putin’s proteges out of running a rich company. Successfully. And now they’ve split on Libya.
So how do people who will really decide things make up their minds? The officials, oligarchs and power players within the political-economic sphere? (The ‘people’ will be presented with a decision to ratify). Who’s really up? Down? No one knows. Everyone’s guessing. And everyone’s lying.
The tandem (as they’re called) even have different scripts for the nomination of McFaul to be the new ambassador. For one side, McFaul is shallow, duplicitous and his lack of any previous diplomatic training a sign of contempt. He signals that Washington plans more ram and cram policies (Oh Lord, if they only knew!). The other side sees the ambassador as a great opportunity for Russia. Moscow would have direct contact with Obama and the White House staff, bypassing the slow, wooden, unimaginative State Department (per the script).
Care to share? What’s your take?
The space vehicle is shoddily constructed, running dangerously low on fuel; its parachutes — though no one knows this — won’t work and the cosmonaut, Vladimir Komarov, is about to, literally, crash full speed into Earth, his body turning molten on impact. As he heads to his doom, U.S. listening posts in Turkey hear him crying in rage, cursing the people who had put him inside a botched spaceship. . . .
In 1967, both men [Komarov and Gagarin] were assigned to the same Earth-orbiting mission, and both knew the space capsule was not safe to fly. Komarov told friends he knew he would probably die. But he wouldn’t back out because he didn’t want Gagarin to die. Gagarin would have been his replacement.
Putting 10 malfunctioning telephone poles [sic] in the ground to appease Warsaw and a radar in Czecho despite local public opposition never made strategic military sense. The hair brained scheme was an important lynch pin for the Neocon’s imperial fantasy. First BMD in Eastern Europe. Then roll back along the former Soviet Near Abroad. Followed by ‘lilypads’ across Central Asia. For a few years as a political construct it worked. The Imperial idea fell apart. Then economic collapse buried it in a heap of hopeless debt. Today’s decision to dynamite this anachronistic AgitProp artifact is a political double plus good regardless of motivations.
We almost never recycle art here. Largely because it is more fun to make new stuff. But this one of Joe from last Fall came to mind reading his stream of consciousness ramblings from his trip around the Russian periphery. (You can set the density of spew in the box and then ‘explode!’)
When CIA-apologist/water boy David Ignatius ran a July column arguing Russia was so weak that America held the transcendent hand in future negotiations we said nothing; better not dignify his AgitProp with additional meme circulation. A futile gesture. Like the swine flu, bad WaPo memes continue to circulate and mutate.
Well that should do the trick. Not even les sanctions politiques et économiques can be mentioned. We’ve all discussed here the limits of U.S. power projection on the World Island, much less adjacent to a non-feeble (of any sort) Russia.
If the EU and the U.S. can not even talk about sanctions in the face of brazen Russian public contempt, what’s the point of NATO expansion in the Russian Near Abroad? One must concede that Georgia was always the outer fringe of Western willingness to provoke Moscow. In April 2008 the Germans and others blocked the Warlord’s wish that Georgia receive a so-called ‘MAP’ (Membership Action Plan) for NATO consideration. Ukraine was also denied. Both were expecting that decision to be reviewed in December 2008. Ooops.
We have a part of our answer now. It’s obvious that Moscow played on Western fears and uncertainties about where to draw their Western civilization boundaries. Many in NATO do not believe Georgia even fits that bill. Regardless of who really started the Georgian debacle, we now know that Americans, Frenchmen, Germans, Dutch and Norwegians will not even risk a significant political gesture for that part of the Russian Near Abroad. Factions in Kiev also must see the handwriting on the wall. (As does Minsk. Belorussia always is among the most reliable former Soviet Republics. Never interested in NATO membership. But even they are relatively muted in their support for Georgian ‘regime change’. Let’s not forget the ‘Stans).
The real question is where the West sees Russia exceeding its unvoiced but now recognized efforts to re-assert former imperial rule. Even the Soviets now and then in Moscow gave lip service to avoiding ‘Russian chauvanism’. Right up there with their desire for mir i sotrudniechestvo (peace and cooperation). But we know the score. And so do the peripheral states.
Poland may feel somewhat secure. Those few symbolic Patriot batteries being deployed in advance of still-roll-of-the-dice-will-they-ever-work BMD interceptors are nice tokens. There are some politically valuable Polish-Americans and growing institutional ties. The Patriots will be manned by the *crucial* but tiny American trip wire garrisons in 2012.
France and the British Empire once did go to war for Poland. But those ‘powers’ are mere ghosts in history. Will 21st century Frenchmen die for the Vistula? (Germans did twice before but that’s a whole different story). Norwegians? The capable-per-unit but over all small UK forces? And could the U.S. even do it without risking a global meltdown? As an intellectual exercise — that is avoided. Regardless all would be a fait accompli by the time Americans build up, get more European base access and especially Chinese credit. Certainly Europe’s dependence on Russian energy supplies and export markets will continue to grow. At that point? The Russians certainly might have to withstand a withering press conference or three from Brussels and Washington.
Let’s figure for the moment that Russian prudence lurks beneath truculent press releases. Poland is not and is not likely to be on any foreseeable agenda of *forcible* regime change. Russian expansionist plans remain today and so far are based on irredentism (like Russians in the Crimea, etc.). And in a potential phase two, perhaps, confined but expanding to its historic Near Abroad. Lenin always said probe with a bayonet and if you meet steel stop.
So far, the various velvets this-and-thats cover cheese whiz. The Russians know it. At least now we do, too.
Can't help but feel Nemstov delivered a eulogy for the Opposition today. #russia If I've said once, I've said it a thousand times: Ariel Cohen belongs at Heritage. In all ways. At DSOB 106 for Boris Nemstov. Haven't seen him since Nizhni Novgorod Mayor and IFC small scale privatization (Saratov too). 
@DrLeoStrauss They'll put him up in Philby's suite. Hook him up with a new acrobat girlfriend/ @DrLeoStrauss They'll put him up in Philby's suit. 
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If you remember . . . had fun this weekend with old friends.
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