Thursday 12 September 2013

New Columnist at NYT. Hello Vlad!

vlad_putin_paperboy_big_9-11-13-2
Helping sell the old grey lady.
Roger Simon welcomes Vladimir Putin, the new columnist at the New York Times.  
"Perhaps he can finally tell us what happened in Benghazi. Sadly, there’s a better chance he’ll do it than our own administration".
There's some KGB-style disinformation but we're accustomed to being misled by the press.  He'd be an interesting contributor in the fishing and hunting department too.

George Friedman of Stratfor notes:
"Putin is bluffing that Russia has emerged as a major world power. In reality, Russia is merely a regional power, but mainly because its periphery is in shambles. He has tried to project a strength that he doesn't have, and he has done it well. For him, Syria poses a problem because the United States is about to call his bluff, and he is not holding strong cards."

And from Stratfor's free analysis newsletter:
"The issue has morphed into a U.S.-Russian confrontation. Russia's goal is to be seen as an equal of the United States. It wins if it can be seen as a protagonist of the United States. If it can appear that Washington has refrained from an attack because of Russian maneuvers, Moscow's weight increases dramatically. This is particularly the case along Russia's periphery, where doubts of American power abound and concern over Russian power abides.
This is not merely appearance. After all that has been said, if the United States buys into some Russian framework, it will not be seen as a triumph of diplomacy; it will be seen as the United States lacking the will to act and being pushed away out of concern for the Russians.

...The Russians are hoping this has unnerved al Assad's opponents sufficiently to cause them to use the Russians as their interlocutors. If this fails the Russians have lost nothing. They can say they were statesmen. If it succeeds, they can actually nudge the regional balance of power".




  

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