Quote note (#147)
The ‘Davoisie’ can’t imagine that there’s anyone who doesn’t secretly think they’re right, argues Walter Russell Mead. It’s educational, therefore, to take seriously the thought-processes of an emblematic figure from outside the ‘Davos box':
Germany will not, Putin may well believe, find a way to turn the euro disaster around. The south will continue to fester and stew under an increasingly hateful and damaging system. Germany will also not be able to turn the Balkans into an orderly and quiet garden of Nordic and Teutonic virtues.
The key to Putin’s thinking is that he is betting less on Russian strength than on German and therefore Western weakness. In opposing the consolidation of a German Europe, he is betting on German failure more than he is betting on Russian success. The goal of Russian policy in Ukraine, for example, is not to create a new Ukraine in Russia’s image. It is not to conquer Ukraine –but to demonstrate that the East is indigestible. Germany cannot save Ukraine or organize Ukraine. It doesn’t have the money, the military culture or the political skills to convert this particular sow’s ear into the silk purse of a North Atlantic market democracy. Germany cannot save Ukraine when the price of oil is at $100 per barrel; it cannot save Ukraine when the price of oil is $25 per barrel.
But if Germany cannot save Ukraine at any price of oil, it also cannot reform Greece, Italy and Spain at any value of the euro. Putin doesn’t see his job as one of building up a powerful force to counter a rising Germany. He sees his job as being able to take advantage of the coming failures and catastrophes of what he believes to be the grandiose and unsustainable Western project in Europe.
The positioning, at least, makes sense. (And Greece looks likely to play along.)
[…] Quote note (#147) […]
Posted on January 28th, 2015 at 4:10 pm | QuoteI’m always amused to see my conservative contacts’ responses to Putin.
The Cold War frame doesn’t die easily. At least my dad is honest that it’s about Russians and not Soviets or Communism specifically.
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Posted on January 28th, 2015 at 7:11 pm | QuoteEvery pivot towards Moscow is three quarters of a pivot towards Beijing.
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Posted on January 28th, 2015 at 7:35 pm | QuoteSounds like Russia is forcing a contest of attrition against Germany. Deja vu.
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Posted on January 28th, 2015 at 8:20 pm | Quote[…] Source: Outside In […]
Posted on January 28th, 2015 at 8:43 pm | QuoteJohn Robb has some related thoughts on how Russia might reverse the squeeze they are in:
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2015/01/russias-way-out-of-its-financial-crisis.html
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Chris B Reply:
January 29th, 2015 at 5:21 am
Saudi Arabia is a joke country. It would topple at the first push.
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The European situation is genuinely messed up … and it’s genuinely open-ended how it will play out. The current situation looks to me like a circular firing squad: Neither the Germans nor the Greeks can get what they want. The other PIIGS will be lining up for debt renegotiation if Greece gets a really good deal here. Putin’s bet probably is a pretty good one.
If the ECB had done QE earlier (and a lot more of it) these problems could have been headed off at the pass. Political revolt is what you get when you inflict 7 years of hopeless, grinding austerity on a foreign people, as the Germans have done to the PIIGS.
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Posted on January 29th, 2015 at 4:50 am | QuoteWhat if the world with it’s Whores and Politicians looks up at Putin and shouts Save Us! and Putin whispers: No.
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Garr Reply:
January 29th, 2015 at 9:51 am
What if NRX with its would-be concubines of Putin shouts Take Us! and Putin sneers, No.
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VXXC Reply:
January 30th, 2015 at 6:10 pm
You know Mr. Garr that is Brilliant.
My Rorschach approves.
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The EU is a German colony, and Germany extracts wealth from it just as like UK, France, et al once did in Africa and Asia. After suffering two world wars intiated by Germany, and now submitting to German colonial rule, perhaps Europeans should consider how Bismarck’s monster might be disassembled, preferrably without yet another European war.
The Greeks, of course, need to default and abandon the Euro. If they are lucky, the German lackeys will expel them from the EU. Expect Russia bases in Greek and Cypriot ports.
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VXXC Reply:
January 30th, 2015 at 6:12 pm
Precisely, and the Greeks and the Russians have a long history.
Normally BTW the Greeks aren’t getting the better end of it, but with England out of the Med as the World superpower…and the US withdrawing/distracted…
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[…] Land quotes Walter Russell Mead who, like Putin, is skeptical of Germany’s third, and to date most overwrought, attempt in a […]
Posted on January 31st, 2015 at 7:00 am | Quote[…] Putin’s thinking. […]
Posted on February 4th, 2015 at 6:02 am | Quote