The State of Affairs in Russia

[Malthus]

Uh-oh.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/17/russia-poland-expel-diplomats

[KRonn]

So WTF is wrong with Russia then? I get the flyovers in the Baltics. Its full of Russians and the only legitimisation left for Putin at this stage is that he is the protector of poor opressered Russians.

But sending a bunch of warships under the nose of the G20 leaders because they dare criticising the Dear Bear. Come on.

Sending aircraft and ships into Portuguese space too. I guess he's just trying to be as annoying as he can to everyone.

The news reported that he got a very chilly reception at the G20.  That may have been the reason he left early.

Good going Putin. The world needs another possible Cold War between nations with nukes, as if there isn't enough going on already, some of which affects Putin, such as Islamic extremism problems in his own country.

[Sheilbh]

An optimistic piece from the generally phlegmatic Gideon Rachman:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/db21a852-6e4a-11e4-afe5-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=uk#axzz3JN8mPDDv

[Jacob]

An optimistic piece from the generally phlegmatic Gideon Rachman:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/db21a852-6e4a-11e4-afe5-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=uk#axzz3JN8mPDDv

Is there a version that doesn't require sign in and registration?

[Sheilbh]

No. I'll steal

The nuclear gun is back on the table
Gideon Rachman
Both in private and in public, Russia is making explicit references to its nuclear arsenal

I never had much time for the Greenham Common women. As a mildly reactionary student of the 1980s, I regarded them – and their protest camp outside a British nuclear-weapons base – as silly and misguided. After all, decades of experience taught that nuclear deterrence worked.

Thirty years on and the nuclear peace is still holding. But I am becoming a little less secure in my belief that nukes will never be used.

There are three reasons for my anxiety. First, the spread of nuclear weapons to unstable countries such as Pakistan and North Korea. Second, the growing body of evidence about how close the world has come, at various times, to nuclear conflict. My third reason for worry is more immediate: a significant increase in threatening nuclear talk from Russia.

Both in private and in public, the Russians are now making increasingly explicit references to their country's nuclear arsenal. A couple of weeks ago, I witnessed a prominent Russian warn an audience, at a private seminar in Washington, that "President [Vladimir] Putin has put the nuclear gun on the table." The Russian president has indeed told an audience at home that outsiders should not "mess with us", because "Russia is one of the leading nuclear powers".

Last week, Pravda – the Soviet mouthpiece during the cold war – ran an article headlined, "Russia Prepares Nuclear Surprise for Nato". It crowed that Russia has parity with the US in strategic nuclear weapons and boasted: "As for tactical nuclear weapons, the superiority of modern-day Russia over Nato is even stronger. The Americans are well aware of this. They were convinced before that Russia would never rise again. Now it is too late."

My only hesitation in writing about this is that I have little doubt that one aim of all this nuclear posturing from Moscow is precisely to get western commentators talking about a Russian nuclear threat. Russia is desperate to stop the west supplying military aid to Ukraine. So, they want to get across the message that any such escalation would provoke a ferocious reaction from Moscow and – who knows – perhaps even the use of nuclear weapons.

Mr Putin seems to adhere to what Richard Nixon called the "madman theory" of leadership. The former US president explained: "If the adversary feels that you are unpredictable, even rash, he will be deterred from pressing you too far. The odds that he will fold increase greatly." President Putin may be right in calculating that, by putting the nuclear gun on the table, he can always out-madman Barack Obama, the coolly rational US president.

Nonetheless, even assuming that the Russian nuclear talk is a bluff, it is still dangerous – since to make the bluff intimidating, the Russians have to raise tensions and take risks. Last week, General Philip Breedlove, commander of Nato forces in Europe, said that Russia had "moved forces that are capable of being nuclear" into Crimea. As fighting in Ukraine continues, the danger of Russia and Nato misreading each other's intentions increases.

Historians of the cold war have shown that mistakes and miscalculation have brought the world closer to accidental nuclear warfare more often than is commonly realised. A recent report by Britain's Royal Institute of International Affairs, entitled, "Too Close for Comfort" documents several incidents. Some involved computer malfunctions that led either the US or the USSR to believe that they were under nuclear attack. As the report notes: "Individual decision making, often in disobedience of protocol and political guidance, has on several occasions saved the day."

Several of the most dangerous near-misses took place during periods of heightened political tension between Moscow and Washington. The most famous such incident was the Cuban Missile crisis of 1962. A more recent instance – with a stronger contemporary resonance – was the Able Archer incident of November 1983.

In September of that year, the Soviet Union had shot down a Korean Air civilian airliner, killing 267 people. That tragedy, like the shooting down of a Malaysia Airways flight over Ukraine this year, had significantly raised east-west tensions with the Russians, then as now, accusing America of militarism and plans for world domination.

Against this background, Nato staged a military exercise that acted out a western nuclear strike on the USSR. Operation Able Archer was so thorough and so realistic that many in Moscow interpreted it as preparation for a Nato first-strike. In response, the Russians readied their own nuclear weapons. It appears that intelligence services alerted the west to how Able Archer was being seen in Moscow, allowing for de-escalation.

One lesson of that episode is that the existence of a "hotline" between Moscow and Washington is no guarantee that the two sides will not blunder. Another is that any ambiguous moves, involving nuclear weapons, can cause a dangerous panic.

My parents' generation got grimly used to living in the shadow of the bomb. But for my generation, the very idea of nuclear warfare seems like something from science-fiction or even dark comedy, such as Dr Strangelove. But the world's nuclear arsenals were not abolished after the cold war. Sadly, we may now be returning to an era in which the threat of nuclear warfare can no longer be treated as the stuff of science fiction.

Incidentally General Philip Breedlove

[Jacob]

Incidentally General Philip Breedlove

Yeah. Strange.

[alfred russel]

Uh-oh.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/17/russia-poland-expel-diplomats

Russian / Polish diplomacy...back when I was working in Warsaw, I got the idea to drive to the Kaliningrad Oblast one weekend. I called the russian embassy in Warsaw to see what I needed to do. The embassy told me I needed a recommendation from a travel advisor based in Warsaw. I asked him to tell me the identity of such a person. He said no. I said I didn't know how to find such a person. He said I needed a recommendation from a travel advisor with a good relationship with the Russian government then hung up on me. I called back and got hung up on again.

So I decided to visit the embassy/consulate one morning. I get to the address. There is a locked gate. No instructions, security guard, or anything. I press the call box. Someone answers in some slavic language. I ask in English if this is the Russian embassy, and get more slavic gibberish. I press the call box again, and explain that I just want to visit the Russian embassy to see about a travel visa. Again slavic gibberish, but the mechanical gate opens. I walk in. There is no one around and I'm not sure I'm even in the right place. The walkway leads to a door, so I walk in. The room I'm in is empty, except for me. Someone speaks to me in a slavic language from behind a one way glass. I explain that I'm just trying to get a travel visa. More slavic comes back at me. I ask if I can speak english or if someone speaks english. Finally I hear my first english word. "No."

The guy steps out from behind the glass and points me to a room. I walk into the room. There are 5 people behind desks. One summons me over. The guy doesn't speak english. He points me to another desk. The english expert. She speaks extremely limited english. She explains it will be 5 days processing, with a recommendation from a polish travel avisor with a good relationship with the russian government. Then she asks what type of passport I have. I say US. She says, "5 days processing everyone else, 10 days American." I asked for the names of the travel advisors I could use, and she resisted, before giving me the names of apparently the 2 people they accept in Warsaw.

I visited one, and he said he could help, but there was no way to expedite the 10 days of processing for an American, and that was just too long for me. He explained that the Russians are pains in the ass. So I never drove to Kaliningrad and have never seen their shitty city.

[Ed Anger]

Should have went to Gdansk. It is shitty.

[Tonitrus]

A few months old, but good reading if you missed it...

http://www.newsweek.com/2014/08/01/behind-scenes-putins-court-private-habits-latter-day-dictator-260640.html

[alfred russel]

Should have went to Gdansk. It is shitty.

I did. 

[Ed Anger]

I was surprised they wasn't installing screen doors on the ships at the shipyards.

[alfred russel]

I was surprised they wasn't installing screen doors on the ships at the shipyards.

I went down to the shipyards because it was the epicenter of the solidarity movement, and sadly it seems there isn't much activity there these days. It seems the democracy movement kicked off by the shipyard workers ended up putting the shipyards out of business.

[Ed Anger]

Very little. I think they was growing rust as a cash crop.

[Valmy]

Putin is more of a nuisance than an enemy.

[Tonitrus]

Maybe.

What I think it shows, though, if a failing in Russian leadership that doesn't need to be.

Russia has/had the potential to be a cooperative, modern, functional western-style democratic power (at least, in their western, European core) that could have eventually matched even the Germans.  And with the added benefit of rich natural resources (and the downside of peripheral ethnic difficulties) to boot.  But the paranoia against outsiders, and even more, their own people...leading to the the crackdowns on media/journalistic freedom...is wholly unnecessary.  There would have been no need to co-opt Ukraine and force a showdown between Russia and the EU if Russia felt that it could be in a cooperative relationship with the EU as well.

Between Russia's own internal political paranoia, and frankly, our skepticism at first in the 90's keeping them at arms length...I think the last 20-ish years since the fall of the USSR has been a lot of wasted opportunities and potential on both sides.