Re: What Russia wants

Putin's "Peter the Great" strategy ('Westernizing' Russia by rebuilding
the authoritarian center) will continue to work only for so long as Russia
continues to cash in from it.  If investors spooked by the election of
Lula again begin withdrawing money from 'emerging markets" to cover losses
in Brazil, or if the price of oil plummets in case of a decisive US
victory in Iraq and subsequent establishment of a 'democratic' satrapy
there, Putin will begin to rethink his options quite fast.  The lack of
confidence and the fairly weak structural underpinnings of the US/Russia
alliance is obvious from the Russian news casts.  You will hear virtually
nothing about Iraq, but quite a lot about Georgia, which Putin is using as
ideological cover with the populace ('despite our acquiescence to the US,
we still can bully other countries when no one can criticize us for it,
so we are still a power to be reckoned with').

On Fri, 4 Oct 2002 Threehegemons@aol.com wrote:

> This article Elson posted helps offer one potential answer to my question 
>about who would ally with the US.  Perhaps, along with Israel and the UK, we'd 
>see Russia, Turkey and India join with the US, a sort of alliance of 
>semi-peripheral bullies given a free hand to do what they want against the 
>minority groups they have problems with (this is what Robert Kagan 
>recommends).  At the same time, Europe clearly wants to be friends with Russia 
>(presumably this has something to do with the alleged willingness of France to 
>fold if Russia goes along with the US on Iraq).
>
> Steven Sherman
>
>

-- 
Boris Stremlin
bstremli@binghamton.edu