{"id":8471,"date":"2014-02-16T21:41:22","date_gmt":"2014-02-17T04:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/?p=8471"},"modified":"2014-03-23T19:46:26","modified_gmt":"2014-03-24T02:46:26","slug":"putins-sochi-spring-break","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/putins-sochi-spring-break\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin&#8217;s Sochi Spring Break"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"vvp_hype_container\" style=\"position:relative;overflow:hidden;width:600px;height:400px;-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0,0,0,0);\">\n\t\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\" charset=\"utf-8\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/VVP.hyperesources\/vvp_hype_generated_script.js?27429\"><\/script>\n\t<\/div>\n<p><b>P<\/b>utin&#8217;s $51 billion gamble to re-make Russians&#8217; self-image achieves its initial, limited goals. Putin wanted Sochi to sell Russians they&#8217;re active participants in the 21st century&#8217;s pop culture meme bubble, not just observers. Sochi&#8217;s distraction and legitimization will buy crucial time for his regime.<\/p>\n<p><center><\/p>\n<h2>Giving The Russian People A Chance To Escape Today<\/h2>\n<p><\/center><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s beyond just Putin individually.  His restive elites need him to peddle illusions of Russian global emergence. All have a stake in prolonging the faltering system&#8217;s inertia. Russia&#8217;s economic growth, once over 8% in the mid 2000s, may not break 1% in 2014. Infighting among self-dealing elites over extractive and infrastructure resources grows more public. Putin&#8217;s no longer the axiomatic arbiter. Russia fails to embrace economic innovation to replace dead dinosaurs\/gas\/oil in the ground. Russia&#8217;s future is bleak.<\/p>\n<p>Worse, Putin&#8217;s bag of tricks is almost empty.  He&#8217;s tapped Russia&#8217;s Reserve Fund and also guaranteed Sochi expenses. His extravagant but ineffectual re-armament plan forced his earlier Finance Minister, Kudrin, to resign. Putin adds promises for grandiose Soviet-mega projects to develop the desolate and decrepit Far East. His $15 billion bribe to Ukraine in December 2013 drains reserves still more.  <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s understandable the regime naturally turns up the AgitProp. Putin&#8217;s State-controlled media is doing everything it can to manufacture artificial &#8220;us&#8221; versus &#8220;them&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>What is the regime promoting? A toxic blend of revanchism added to ethnic and religious chauvinism that trumpets a &#8220;Russianness&#8221; brutalizing the needy and marginal. Even the Kremlin is concerned about how how to keep this environment sustainable, fearing a slide toward nihilism or spontaneous &#8216;chaos&#8217; (organization) without something more. <\/p>\n<p>Enter Sochi.  Its essential mission &#8212; sell Russians that Putin&#8217;s noxious mixture is internationally mainstream.  Revanchism with a patina of glossy, Daft Punk-loving globalism. The squalor and bigotry of Russian daily life hidden by Euro disco hip sheen. <\/p>\n<p><center><\/p>\n<h2>Why Sochi Is Not Berlin<\/h2>\n<p><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Comparisons to 1936 and Berlin miss this critical point: Putin needed Sochi because he and Russia are weak. His elites increasingly tempted to think past or through him. 1936 by contrast?  The Corporal, 2 years after the famous Nuremberg rally memorialized on film, totally controlled his elites and populace.  Germany&#8217;s economy boomed. <\/p>\n<p>1936 declared the regime to the world.  2014 asks the world for help to make Putin&#8217;s regime look cool.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, global perceptions matter. World leaders boycotting Sochi hurts. But the regime is adept turning real and imagined hurts into daily AgitProp fodder. Watching and reading the regime&#8217;s lieutenants and sycophants&#8217; reactions to the games instructive. Not just their unhinged anger over a U.S.-Russia hockey game. Day in and day out while the games unfold the regime can&#8217;t mask its true psychology of petty resentment or rages that few Americans will ever see or care to see.   <\/p>\n<p>Two questions today: How long will Putin enjoy a post-Sochi halo?  And was it worth the cost? <\/p>\n<p>On the latter, our answer is clear.  The regime faces a looming, possibly severe crisis at home with a faltering economy. Sochi may help distract by buttressing Russian self-identity and vague global legitimacy.  Sochi&#8217;s reprieve &#8211; if it&#8217;s real &#8211;  for Putin is worth its weight in gold.  For a little while. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1936 was about declaring the regime to the world.  2014 is asking the world to help make Putin&#8217;s regime look cool.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","two_page_speed":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8],"tags":[257,97],"class_list":{"0":"post-8471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-foreign-policy","7":"category-pop-culture","8":"tag-pop-culture","9":"tag-russia","10":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}