Ukraine's European Revolution?

[Jacob]

How is this for a scenario:

Putin wants a war that puts him in a Cold War with the West as a justification for further authoritarianism and a president-for-life position back home?

Hell, he doesn't need a Cold War to accomplish that.  Quite frankly I don't see how much more authoritarianismy and president-for-lifey he can get. 

I don know either, but I expect he could always amass more power one way or the other. Maybe he doesn't want to do the now-I'm-prime-minister switcheroo next time the presidential term limits are up?

[Neil]

Will world oil prices rise due to this Ukraine crisis?

Almost certainly not.

Brent crude advanced as much as 2 percent this evening on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London.

Some analysts estimate that the Ukraine crisis might add a risk premium of as much as $5 a barrel to crude prices.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-02/yen-gains-with-oil-on-ukraine-as-s-p-500-futures-retreat.html

Indeed.  Oil prices aren't moved by any kind of rational concern, but by panic.

[Liep]

I don know either, but I expect he could always amass more power one way or the other. Maybe he doesn't want to do the now-I'm-prime-minister switcheroo next time the presidential term limits are up?

If he's still in power in 10 years I'll be amazed.

[Ed Anger]

He might have the Hand of Vecna.

[grumbler]

How is this for a scenario:

Putin wants a war that puts him in a Cold War with the West as a justification for further authoritarianism and a president-for-life position back home?

Who is he trying to justify this to?  He doesn't need to justify it to the public, because they don't elect the President (there is a farce every four years, but the public's input isn't part of it), and the oligarchs who keep Putin in power are the ones who are going to lose millions and their access to cushy vacation spots outside of Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela.  Putin is already president for life.  If he stays on this course, that life will be a lot shorter, though.

[Sheilbh]

Kerry's publicly accused Lavrov of lying to him.

Also:

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany told Mr. Obama by telephone on Sunday that after speaking with Mr. Putin she was not sure he was in touch with reality, people briefed on the call said. "In another world," she said.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/03/03/world/europe/pressure-rising-as-obama-works-to-rein-in-russia.html?referrer=

[Queequeg]

Holy Fuck. That's completely terrifying. 

[Jacob]

Who is he trying to justify this to?  He doesn't need to justify it to the public, because they don't elect the President (there is a farce every four years, but the public's input isn't part of it), and the oligarchs who keep Putin in power are the ones who are going to lose millions and their access to cushy vacation spots outside of Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela.  Putin is already president for life.  If he stays on this course, that life will be a lot shorter, though.

I don't know, I'm just speculating; I have very little insight into Russian politics.

I do think that as a general rule outsiders tend to view foreign state actions in the terms of international impact and relations, while in many cases the actions are motivated by almost purely internal concerns. Basically, I'm wondering what the internal motivation for Putin's actions might be.

[Sheilbh]

I don't know, I'm just speculating; I have very little insight into Russian politics.

I do think that as a general rule outsiders tend to view foreign state actions in the terms of international impact and relations, while in many cases the actions are motivated by almost purely internal concerns. Basically, I'm wondering what the internal motivation for Putin's actions might be.

I don't know if it's true but I thought this article was interesting:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/03/russia-vladimir-putin-the-west-104134.html#.UxP_4-N_uSr
On his motivation:

Because Putin has no fear of the West, he can concentrate on what matters back in Russia: holding onto power. When Putin announced he would return to the presidency in late 2011, the main growling question was: why?

The regime had no story to sell. What did Putin want to achieve by never stepping down? Enriching himself? The puppet president he shunted aside, Dmitry Medvedev, had at least sold a story of modernization. What, other than hunger for power, had made Putin return to the presidency? The Kremlin spin-doctors had nothing to spin.

Moscow was rocked by mass protests in December 2011. More than 100,000 gathered within sight of the Kremlin demanding Russia be ruled in a different way. The protesters were scared off the streets, but the problem the regime had in justifying itself remained. Putin had sold himself to the Russian people as the man who would stabilize the state and deliver rising incomes after the chaos of the 1990s. But with Russians no longer fearing chaos, but rather stagnation as the economy slowed – it was unclear what this "stability" was for.

This is where the grand propaganda campaign called the Eurasian Union has come into its own. This is the name of the vague new entity that Putin wants to create out of former Soviet states — the first steps toward which Putin has taken by building a Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan, and he had hoped with a Ukraine run by Viktor Yanuvokych. This is not just about empire; it is about using empire to cover up the grotesque scale of Russian corruption and justify the regime.

Russia would rather have swallowed Ukraine whole, but the show must go on. Russian TV needs glories for Putin every night on the evening news. Russian politics is about spin, not substance. The real substance of Russian politics is the extraction of billions of dollars from the nation and shuttling them into tropical Western tax havens, which is why Russian politics needs perpetual PR and perpetual Putinist drama to keep all this hidden from the Russian people. Outraged Putin has built up a Kremlin fleet of luxury aircraft worth $1 billion? Angry that a third of the $51 billion budget of the Sochi games vanished into kickbacks? Forget about it. Russia is on the march again.

This is why Crimea is perfect Putin. Crimea is no South Ossetia. This is not some remote, mountainous Georgian village inhabited by some dubious ethnicity that Russians have never heard of. Crimea is the heart of Russian romanticism. The peninsula is the only part of the classical world that Russia ever conquered. And this is why the Tsarist aristocracy fell in love with it. Crimea symbolized Russia's 18th and 19th-century fantasy to conquer Constantinople and liberate Greek Orthodox Christians from Muslim rule. Crimea became the imperial playground: In poetry and palaces, it was extolled as the jewel in the Russian crown.

Crimea is the only lost land that Russians really mourn. The reason is tourism. The Soviet Union built on the Tsarist myth and turned the peninsula into a giant holiday camp full of workers sanitariums and pioneer camps. Unlike, the Russian cities of say northern Kazakhstan, Crimea is a place Russians have actually been. Even today over one million Russians holiday in Crimea every year. It is not just a peninsula; this is Russia's Club Med and imperial romanticism rolled into one.

Vladimir Putin knows this. He knows that millions of Russians will cheer him as a hero if he returns them Crimea. He knows that European bureaucrats will issue shrill statements and then get back to business helping Russian elites buy London town houses and French chateaux. He knows full well that the United States can no longer force Europe to trade in a different way. He knows full well that the United States can do nothing beyond theatrical military maneuvers at most.

This is why Vladimir Putin just invaded Crimea.

He thinks he has nothing to lose.

Russian tabloid, Tvoi den, 'Russians Don't Abandon Their Own!' Apparently a theme in other tabloids too:

[Queequeg]

Holy Fuck.  I wish Lenin could see that cover in 1920.  Russia's back in full warrior-theocracy mode.   

[Razgovory]

I'm skeptical about the sanctions.  It's like putting sanctions on the mob.  These guys know all about getting around legal and fiscal bureaucracy.  NATO already has made a commitment to the Baltic.  They are part of NATO.  Right now they are seriously asking themselves if that means shit.  I ask myself the same question.  The things said by Iormland don't fill me with comfort.

What I meant by commitment is deploying troops there. If when Russia starts acting frisky you deploy troops to guard the border, you are letting everyone know you are committed.

Russia is integrated into the global economy probably a bit better than you think. Private sector businesses in Moscow and Saint Petersberg are vulnerable to sanctions.

I wonder if say, Germany has interest in posting troops around Riga.

And yes, Russia is integrated in the global economy, but the sanctions that are being discussed are being directed at individuals and certain business, not the country at large.

[sbr]

I'm skeptical about the sanctions.  It's like putting sanctions on the mob.  These guys know all about getting around legal and fiscal bureaucracy.  NATO already has made a commitment to the Baltic.  They are part of NATO.  Right now they are seriously asking themselves if that means shit.  I ask myself the same question.  The things said by Iormland don't fill me with comfort.

What I meant by commitment is deploying troops there. If when Russia starts acting frisky you deploy troops to guard the border, you are letting everyone know you are committed.

Russia is integrated into the global economy probably a bit better than you think. Private sector businesses in Moscow and Saint Petersberg are vulnerable to sanctions.

I wonder if say, Germany has interest in posting troops around Riga.

And yes, Russia is integrated in the global economy, but the sanctions that are being discussed are being directed at individuals and certain business, not the country at large.

Germany wouldn't have the stomach to post troops around Berlin if the Russians were marching.

[Syt]

I'm sure we're all glad to finally have the Stop the War Coalition weighing in:

Stop The War Coalition Says U.S. Must Share Blame For Ukraine Crisis

Welcome to the view of your average nut job user commenting on news sites over here.

[Syt]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/germany-putin-accepts-merkel-contact-group-idea-22740153

Germany: Putin Accepts Merkel Contact Group Idea

The German government said Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday accepted a proposal by Chancellor Angela Merkel to set up a "contact group" aimed at facilitating dialogue in the Ukraine crisis.

Merkel raised the idea in a phone conversation in which she accused Putin of breaking international law with the "unacceptable Russian intervention in Crimea." German government spokesman Georg Streiter said in a statement that Putin also accepted the idea of setting up a fact-finding mission.

A Kremlin statement said Putin defended Russia's action against "ultranationalist forces" in Ukraine and insisted measures taken so far were "fully adequate." It said Putin directed Merkel's attention to the "unrelenting threat of violence" to Russian citizens and the Russian-speaking population.

It didn't refer specifically to Merkel's proposal but mentioned a need to continue "consultations in both a bilateral ... and multilateral format with the aim of cooperating to normalize the socio-political station in Ukraine."

Earlier Sunday, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe could be asked to put together a fact-finding mission to determine what is really happening in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

He added that an international "contact group" — involving European countries and perhaps the United Nations along with Russia and Ukraine — could be part of the solution. Streiter said the group could be led by the OSCE — a body that includes 57 countries, among them European Union nations, Russia, Ukraine and the United States.

"In the end, the result must be that Russian soldiers return to their barracks," Steinmeier told ARD television.

On Monday, EU foreign ministers will meet to discuss the crisis.

Steinmeier stressed dialogue rather than possible action against Russia, and said there are differences among leaders of the Group of Eight industrial nations over Moscow's future in the club.

"Some say we must now send a strong signal and exclude Russia," he added. "Others say — I am more with them — that the G-8 format is actually the only format in which we from the West still speak immediately with Russia, and should we really sacrifice this one format?"

"I think we have to see that we contribute to de-escalation in Ukraine," Steinmeier said.

[Neil]

Targeted sanctions won't succeed.  The Russian people need to be made to suffer.  All Russian assets must be seized.  All Russian citizens must be expelled.  Any company that does business with Russia should be barred from doing business in the West.