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Opinion: Don't play dead for Putin

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  • Opinion: Don't play dead for Putin

    Don't play dead for Putin

    Author:
    Max Boot, Senior Fellow for National Security Studies

    December 6, 2006
    Los Angeles Times

    There are a lot of ways to make a man’s death look like an accident, suicide or a street crime. That wasn’t the intent of whoever murdered former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London. By using such an exotic murder weapon—a radioactive isotope known as polonium-210—his killers sent a message: Don’t mess with the powers that be in Russia.

    The identity of his murderers is likely to remain unknown, but in all probability Litvinenko was poisoned because of his campaign against Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and the KGB’s successor, the FSB. He is only the latest to pay with his life for offending Russia’s ruling clique. The list of prominent people murdered in the last few years includes crusading journalists such as Anna Politkovskaya (whose death Litvinenko was investigating), politicians, executives and government officials. Others, such as Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, have narrowly survived assassination attempts or have been exiled or silenced with threats of violence or legal charges.

    Alleged tax evasion has been a favorite tool of intimidation. Wielding such dubious accusations, the Kremlin was able to consign Russia’s richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, to a Siberian prison camp and to expropriate his giant oil company, Yukos. Whatever the state of his taxes, Khodorkovsky’s real sin was to bankroll opposition to Putin.

    Having taken power in a nascent democracy six years ago, Putin has been reestablishing authoritarian control. Governors are no longer elected but appointed by the Kremlin. Laws have been changed to make it harder for opposition parties to compete. Independent media outlets and major corporations have been gobbled up by state-controlled companies.

    Repression at home has been matched by rogue behavior abroad. Russia has used economic leverage in an attempt to stifle democratic revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, with the goal of keeping those neighboring countries under its thumb. In Chechnya, Moscowhas imposed a brutal puppet regime. Russia exports arms to China,Venezuela, Syriaand other countries at odds with the U.S. Most alarming have been Russia’s sales to Iran of a nuclear reactor and surface-to-air missiles to defend it, even as Moscowblocks serious U.N. sanctions against Tehran.

    Russia is not yet an outright enemy of theUnited States, but it’s certainly no friend. Putin is catering to Russian nostalgia for past greatness and to enduring resentment of the West in order to justify his consolidation of power.Washington’s ability to frustrate his designs is limited because the Kremlin is awash in petrorubles. But there are still steps we can take to make Czar Vladimir I pay a price for his growing truculence.

    For a start, the United States and its allies can move more actively to incorporate states such as Ukraine and Georgiainto the Western ambit through bilateral alliances and trade deals as well as by extending NATO and European Union membership. We can increase funding for civil society groups in Russia. The Kremlin has been harassing foreign nongovernmental organizations because it fears a “people power” revolution. The best Western response is to funnel more money to such groups as well as to independent media outlets.

    Western governments can also signal to Western companies and financial markets that investing inRussia is not a good idea. Russia’s oil and gas industry, its major exporter, remains dependent on expertise and capital from abroad; a slowdown of such investment would be costly for Moscow.Russia is financially dependent on the West in another sense: Putin’s cronies (and probably Putin himself) are thought to stash their ill-gotten gains in havens such as Switzerland. If the U.S. Treasury Department and foreign financial watchdogs were to launch investigations and start tossing around phrases such as “money laundering” and “asset freezes,” Kremlin insiders would feel the heat.

    This is something that could be done behind the scenes. At the same time, public pressure could be applied to deny Putin the international legitimacy he so obviously craves. President Bush could stop holding summit conferences with him and stop including him inhigh-profile meetings such as the G-7.

    Above all, what’s needed is a change of mind-set in Washington. We need to stop thinking of how to cozy up to Putin and start thinking of how to frustrate his illiberal imperial designs.

    http://www.cfr.org/publication/12185...2Feuroperussia
    "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

  • #2
    It’s a wishful thinking, nothing more.
    The US (or the West as a whole) doesn’t possess an exclusive economic or political clout anymore so as to exert a pressure onto unloved states. There are other places to deal with.

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    • #3
      The real issue is that the Russian people don't seem to be that interested in "freedom" - they're happy with strength. So back to what they know.

      -dale

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      • #4
        more like, look what happened to russian "democracy", yet ANOTHER example of rushing democracy.

        thanks to incompetent management and terrible advice about "shocking" the markets into viability, all yeltsin did was to let those with money and power use their influence to subvert both the market and politics.

        again, not that the people don't want freedom, but they had the cards stacked up very heavily against them. with the ruination of the russian economy in the 90s, all the people want is stability and economic growth- which are the precursors for democracy to begin with.
        There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

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        • #5
          Democracy is something that Russia will never have and actually they don't need any, they had the emperors for hundreds of years, than commies for another 70 years, they can't adapt to democracy so quickly and Americans are yelling in all the holes "look what happens to Russian democracy", if thet democracy doesn'e allow Russia to grow economicly at the rates as it does now than **** the democracy, thats actually exactly what Putin did.
          Putin is kinda king in Russia right now, his just making some speaches in the Parliament but if he wanna do something than he will no matter what (don't forget that he was the head of KGB in Germany during the USSR times). If some other country will say somethink vs. Putin than as KGB high commander he have the compromate on every politician in the countries that can somehow influent russia, so he can just use the compromate if some stupid dude will want to open his durty mouth and be forced to leave from his place. That think, Democracy, is not needed in Russia for now, at least untill Russia will get back in its full shape, power and strenght. And about those poisonings I'll say "yes, Punin did poisoned ****en Uschenko cause that freek couldn't do what he is to do", Ukrainian prez won't last for long, most likely he'll die before the next elections. If somebody is staying on the way of Russian growing than they should get some serious lesson, and if they won't understand it than fatal lesson will come.
          I'm fully support Putin cause he's doing smart things and want to get Russia on her own feet.
          Наша жизнь как пианино: белая клавиша, черная клавиша и крышка

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