The Emergent Russian Police State
I Expect Shoe-Pounding In Short Order
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Featured Stories | Foreign Affairs — Comments (11) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
You know, it really is high time that we get concerned about things like this (read on):
Russian authorities pulled hundreds of opposition activists off buses and trains and detained them along with scores of others on Saturday ahead of a rare anti-government rally in Moscow, organizers said.
The police action did not prevent more than 2,000 people from gathering in a central square, where leftist and liberal groups demanded that Russian President Vladimir Putin stop what they called Russia's retreat from democracy.
"In 15 months political power will be changed," said Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister who is now an opposition leader, referring to the March 2008 presidential election.
"Next year everyone should make a personal decision about what to do with our country _ whether we allow these people to continue their illegal undertakings ... or we finally make our main goal to build a democratic and socially oriented state," Kasyanov told demonstrators.
Garry Kasparov, the former chess grand master who has emerged as one of the Kremlin's most prominent critics, said the mere fact that the rally took place made it a success, given the efforts by authorities to stop it.
"We are protesting and it means that authorities are not as monolithic and powerful" as they believe, he said. "They are afraid that one day we will tell them 'enough.'"
The demonstrators chanted "Freedom" and held banners reading "No to Police State" and "Russia Without Putin."
And via reader Mike Daley, we are reminded that the Putin government is being as overbearing in the economic sector as it is in the political sector.
So what is to be done about this? I'm not sure that anyone has really studied the issue in earnest to be able to give a ready answer. There is exceedingly little discussion on either side of the partisan divide regarding the deleterious actions of the Putin government and it seems for all the world as if people are just hoping that eventually, the problem will go away.
It won't, of course. It will simply fester and grow larger. I know that there are any number of serious foreign policy challenges facing the United States--with Iraq being the most prominent--but one would think that the situation in Russia would receive at least a passing mention in policy circles, no?
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do business with" or something close to that...
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If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?
A large portion of the Russian population regards authoritarian rule as benign.
"So what is to be done about this?"
Why, neccesarily, does something have to be done about it? Putin has the support of the vast majority of the population. I'm not sure we have the right to try and "do something" about the leader of another country whose citizens are behind him, even if he is a thug.
(Unless, of course, he starts machine-gunning ethnic minorities or similar...)
of what it once was at the height of the Cold War, and it need not concern too much. Yes, it would be better for democracy to root in there, but the Russians have only limited ability now to cause any trouble outside their immediate neighborhood and they no longer have a crusading ideology like Communism we need to fear.
their clandestine network is at least as large as it was during the height of the Cold War. Their army is much smaller but on sounder financial footing and still churning out cutting edge research. Yes their economic horizon is limited but petrodollars help, as does the near monopoly Russia enjoys on natural gas. Their proximity to Iran makes them a player in one of the most crucial foreign policy issues that we'll be faced with over the next decade. No, they are not the threat the Warsaw Pact was, but they remain hostile and our will to do something about it is considerably smaller. And of course you can't forget about their arsenal.
And of course you can't forget about their arsenal.
Or all the weapons and technology they sell to the highest bidder, regardless of who that is or what they intend to do with it.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
lately? It is routinely claimed by people here that West Europe's low birth rates are rendering those countries has-been powers. Well, Russia not only has a low birth rate, it also has a high death rate! It really is a dying country.
Cutting Edge Tech since the MiG-21.
The ever so feared, unstoppable juggernaut everyone thought the Soviet military was was no more than glass box.
The Ultimate Tank that was the T-72 and that the Abrams was Specifically dsesigned to destroy can be killed with heavy machine-gun fire.
Their most recent variant on the MiG is no more than a sad joke and such a poor piece of junk that they'd be better off going back to the 21...
Russia's threat is the threat of the glbal arms dealer with more stock than quality. Most unfortunately, the Only thing the Soviets got right, they have in virtually unlimited supply and the US has produced nothing truly equivalent to it. The AK-47 is a monster...
"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal comfort... has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
--John Stuart Mill
Militarily, Russia is of course not as strong as it used to, although in the past several years it has made some progress even in that area.
Currently, its strongest weapon is its energy exports. A lot of people in Europe are worried about became slaves to Russian oil and gas. There is quite a lot of talk in Britain and the rest of Western Europe about building energy independnce from Russia as well as the Middle East, but that won't happen anytime soon. This might seem distant from us, but it is important that we keep a close eye since it won't be long before Russian and US interests diverge on some important issue in the world.
Hello,
I edit a blog devoted to Russian current events which has numerous postings on this and similar subjects.
to hear how it will have been Bush's fault.
If you always find yourself arguing the exceptions rather than the rule you just might be rapidly sliding down your own slippery slope to irrelevance. -CommonCents