Pooty-Poot Wants his Mommy
Filed under: Russia
It was not a great week for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. First the G-8 gathering in Germany piled on the criticism of his anti-democratic moves, then not only did the U.S. reject his proposal to place its missile defense system in Azerbaijan but Iran immediately stabbed him the back, announcing that it viewed the system as a threat to its security and claiming the Kremlin had already backed down on the installation. And then, showing clearly that Russian can be brought to heel with a sharp rap on the nose, Captain's Quarters reported that the second phase of Russia's response to the Bush plan to install defensive missile systems in Eastern Europe also blew up in Putin's face, and he immediately backed down again:
Vladimir Putin has tried his best to fight the missile shield the US wants to create for Europe against the threat of Iranian attack. The Russian president has both fallen back on Cold War threats against Europe and the US, and also tried to divert the effort by offering Azerbaijan as a base -- but under Russian control. Neither have worked to intimidate the US or its European allies, and now Russia appears to have shifted into a less-antagonistic tone:Russia dropped its threat to aim nuclear weapons at European cities yesterday in an abrupt change of tactics after weeks of Cold War-style brinkmanship. Sergei Ivanov, the hawkish deputy prime minister who is seen as a possible successor to President Vladimir Putin, said that only the sites in Poland and the Czech Republic where the United States wanted to erect an anti-missile system would be targeted. Commentators suggested that the Kremlin was trying to lower the rhetoric ahead of a crucial meeting between Mr Putin and President George W Bush in Maine early next month.The Russians have fallen back on an old Soviet habit: rewriting history. Eleven days ago, Putin very clearly stated that Russia would "of course" return to Cold War times of targeting major European cities, if the US, Poland, and the Czech Republic built the missile shield. Now the Russians say that they never meant to threaten all of Europe -- but they did nothing over the last eleven days to clarify that until now. What changed? NATO met this week to discuss the new threat. Apparently the Russians didn't care for the consequences of a NATO response and decided to back down somewhat from their blustering. The Russians have a first-class missile system, but otherwise their military has serious infrastructure problems and they don't have the economy to fix it in a hurry. The Russians can't afford another 1980s-style arms race.
As if all this were not enough, a prestigious international ratings agency found Moscow was the dead last among major cities of the world as a place to do business.
Europe is crucial to combatting the rise of the Neo-Soviet regime in Russia, and must draw an important lesson from this experience. Russia is neither militarily nor economically in any position to confront either Europe or the U.S., much less the NATO alliance, and despite his oft-crazed behavior Dictator Putin is not foolish enough to think otherwise. If we call his bluff, we can hold him in check. Some American leaders, especially John McCain, clearly understand this. As the presidential election cycle heats up, we must make sure they all do.
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