February 20, 2007
Putin's speech at kremlin.ru, and some other Russia links.
The complete text of Putin's recent remarkable
speech in Munich is up at the Kremlin's site,
kremlin.ru, including all of the answers to the many questions he was asked after the speech. I posted on it before, and I still think it was quite an extraordinary and important speech. The discussion after it is noteworthy as well.
First time I ever stumbled on the Kremlin's site, very interesting. More like a presidential site, but that's about the same as the White House site in the US. Here or there, it's always about the politicians, and the cult of personality. There's a lot of material there though, and quite a bit of it in English.
Add: nice
article on Putin and Russia in the Guardian, suggesting that the Europeans and Americans may regret their continuous bullying of Russia.
When Putin sought to join Nato in the 1990s he was rebuffed. Then Nato broke its post-cold-war promise and advanced its frontier through the Baltics and Poland to the Black Sea. It is now planning missile defences in Poland and the Czech Republic and is flirting with Ukraine and Georgia. Against whom is this directed, asks Putin.
The west grovels before Opec, but when Putin proposes a gas Opec it cries foul. America seizes Iraq's oil, but when Putin nationalises Russia's oil that, too, is a foul. Meanwhile, every crook, every murdered Russian, every army scandal is blazoned across the western press. True, Russia is still a klepto-oligarchy that steps back as often as forward, but what of America's pet Asian democracies, Afghanistan and Iraq?
In his Munich speech Putin asked why America constantly goes on about its "unipolar world". Does Washington really seek a second cold war? Russia is withdrawing from Georgia and Moldova. Why is Nato advancing bases in Bulgaria and Romania? The west is handling Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran with the arrogance and ineptitude of 19th-century imperialists. Is it surprising Russia is seeking allies where it can, in China, India, Iran and the Gulf?
At an Anglo-Russian conference in Moscow last weekend I was bemused by the talk of a return to "east-west" confrontation. Diplomats have a habit of listing complaints like marriage counsellors inviting couples to catalogue what most irritates them about each other. The list seems endless, but it surely points to a proper talk rather than a divorce. Don't they really need each other after all?
Having visited Russia three times since the demise of the Soviet Union, I remain impressed by its progress. Debate and comment are open. Russia is not squandering its energy wealth but setting $100bn aside in an infrastructure fund. The links between Russia and western business are worth $30bn in inward investment. Cultural and educational contacts are strengthening. Moscow and St Petersburg are booming world cities, their skylines thick with cranes.
If you want more, the
Asia Times has some good recent articles on Russia. One by M. K. Bhadrakumar
entitled
Russia straddles Sunni-Shi'ite divide, discusses how Russia has been having more success with its diplomacy in the Middle East than the US has had using force. Another one by Nicolai Petro entitled
Russia as friend, not foe, is a very good article which details the many ways Russia has made progress since the end of the Cold War, and why the Euro-Americans can't seem to stop insisting that it's the same old Russia. And there's one by Spengler, who is a bit dogmatic and right-wing for my taste, entitled
Russia's hudna with the Muslim world, which discusses relations, both now and historically, between Russia and the Islamic world.
Petro's article is particularly good. He gives numerous examples of how what is reported about Russia by the Euro-American press is not matched by the reality inside Russia itself. In a number of areas: democracy, the media, Chechnya, the economy and so on. Sometimes what he reports is quite surprising.
One could go on and on, but these examples should suffice to provide a sense of the hurdles that even the most thoughtful and well-informed media consumers face when trying to understand the changes that have taken place in Russia since Putin took office. I will not even mention Russia's economic miracle - eight straight years of economic growth that have led to a fivefold increase in GDP, except to highlight one telling point. It astonishes people to learn that return on foreign investment in Russia is an order of magnitude higher than in China, and that foreign companies that invested in Russia have outperformed those that invested in China every year since 2001.
The fact that China is widely regarded as a more attractive investment opportunity than Russia despite yielding much lower profits, having more corruption and far less political freedom, and facing enormous future political uncertainties testifies amply to the role that media-fed cultural preconceptions play in relations with Russia.
One good thing about the Asia Times is that they publish relatively long and detailed articles, more than the quick soundbites you get from the western media, and ones that offer up some informed and educated historical perspective, something sadly lacking in the Euro-American media.
