Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
As Sergei Guriev (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Guriev) pointed out, the regime will perish when government will have to pay too much for the information war and the population simple won't be able to satisfy their basic needs (empty fridge).
This is quite scary.
It's hard to see a negative end-game to the Russian story in the short term.
The biggest threat seems to be a disorganized power grab after Putin retires or kicks the bucket - but I suspect they have a secret succession plan for that.
"Siloviki" are not exactly KGB officers, "silovik" is a name for every security, military or intelligence serviceman which is accurately described in the linked article https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/20/west-p...
It's fun to see how Guardian keeps playing Chinese whispers.
Interesting wording. Russia used to scare me in the context of nuclear war, but the fact that Putin's influence is now controlling Trump and the GOP (and elsewhere), I feel rightfully frightened.
If you want to understand how modern Russia came to be, start with Paul Klebnikov’s Godfather of the Kremlin. Klebnikov, who was in fact murdered for his fearless journalism, very likely by said Godfather, Boris Berezovsky. Berezovsky, who received shelter, protection and more from the UK.
Excellent documentaries on the topic:
The problem is that the "Western" bloc (if there ever was such a thing, really) is currently ruled by elites that fundamentally share those values: weak collective institutions, strong private corporations, the bottom line as the final measure of virtue, and exploitation of the weak as socially acceptable. That means "we" end up fundamentally unable to oppose putinism on a principle basis, let alone in practice.
That's how we end up with what the study reports: Western interests fundamentally welcome Putin's money and influence on a systemic level. "We" now run the world on gangster capitalism, and Putin is fairly good at playing that game. In fact, we will see more and more Putin-like figures appearing as time goes on.
Unless we significantly change the game, Putin will keep winning.
Or what Paul Krugman (and Matthew Yglesias) surmised: https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/09/greece-the-tie-... ; when Greece got a bunch of left "radicalists" into power, it got the elite to bully mode, because usually (prime) ministers could be offered cushy European gigs as long as they do what the "elite" wants, but the non-tie-wearing Greeks actually wanted to save their population.
The book "Adults in the Room" by Yanis Varoufakis is also an eye opener...
In terms of facing up to Putin though, despite the fact that European governments, and as a result the EU, are less corporatist than the US they also tend to be softer on Putin. The Germans particularly, for example their support for the Russian gas pipeline.
Meanwhile the US has tended to want to be much tougher on Putin. In this respect Trump is an outlier. He definitely does seem to see Putin as a kindred sprit personally and seems incapable of dealign with him effectively, but this is not at all representative of Republican policy and attitude towards Putin over the last few decades. If anything it was the Democrats who tended to be over-optimistic about the chances of rapprochement with Russia as in the failed "reset' of relations under Obama.
So yes there are definitely corporatist oligarchic forces in the west that bear comparison with the Russian system, but I see them as mainly being US based not western in general. However that doesn't make them natural allies with Russian oligarchism, rather they're directly competitive power structures. Their similarities can potentially make them less compatible with each other not more. If they were to work out how to become compatible with each other we'd really be in terrible trouble.
Well, Merkel is "pro-business". Even she said auto dealers could reopen after a few weeks of lockdown, because of the German car lobby (it's sort of defensible if one considers automotive jobs are a big chunk of voters too). Meanwhile LuxLeaks is about tax breaks/evasion to the biggest corporations.
Sadly, with this sort of elite, populists have it easy...
From an economic perspective, imho they display the same oligopolistic tendencies that Putin's Russia exhibits: lip service to competition and open markets (mostly abroad), ruthless devotion to monopolistic positions and cartels at home. The definition of "free markets" is declined differently depending on circumstances, in opportunistic fashion. I think that's what you mean by "competitive power structures" - they are competing entities, sure, but I personally don't see them as particularly different in the way they behave. Trump lays this bare by dropping the hypocrisy: him and Putin speak the same language, in the same way Putin and Berlusconi did. Both Trump and Berlusconi spent their lives in the trenches of "the Market". I don't think this is a coincidence.
I also disagree on the view of Europe being significantly more anti-corporatist than the US, but I admit that my Anglo-Italian view might be excessively pessimistic in that area and it's a complex discussion anyway, so I won't go there. However, the difference in "softness" towards Putin imho is not there - the Eastern block in the EU, for example, is rabidly anti-Russian for understandable reasons. We simply know that we cannot live without Russian energy at the moment, and that results in some hard pragmatism.
Europe may pretend to have principles, something USA seems to have given up upon, but in the end, - for a huge part of the ruling class - it's all about the money.
Russia is the biggest country in the world. Has so many natural resources so has always been coveted by Empires: The French one and the German, now the US and financial elites Empire.
It also counterweights US military power, something the US does not tolerate, they need to to destroy it like Roman Empire had to destroy Carthage in order to secure its hegemony.
The president of Russia that would make US media happy is the kind of president that would make Russian people unhappy. A puppet from foreign powers.
They want to break Russia in 10 or 20 pieces so they become much weaker and they can benefit bidding against each other.
Your arguments are deeply flawed and based in dogmatism, not data. Western interest does not welcome Putin's money, Russia has very little money compared with Europe, the US and even China, it is a poor country.
They care about energy and resources because in Germany people can not survive in Winter without energy. Is that simple. The industry also could not survive.
Oh, and by the way the Russian also have nuclear weapons that could destroy Western countries in seconds. That also gives them influence.
Nothing to do with capitalism. Several European countries spend more money in the public sector than in the private one, so you can call them socialist instead.
With either socialism or capitalism, in Germany or Sweden you get -30 C in Winter. I was raised in a country with -(1-5)C and it is a completely different league.
I am not Russian myself but completely understand their position.
The point you're missing is that Russian gangsters've made some terrible decisions (from economic perspective) and now the only voters they only get old people who only have TV access.
Which is still enough to manipulate elections, but I don't think it's going to continue forever.
EDIT: There is also another social group that supports Putin. "Siloviki" and their families, which happens to be >1% of Russian population.
In America, that's an electable majority. Bit of voter suppression and making sure that it's difficult for working age people to vote just helps to push it over the line.
Even more so in the UK, where 44% of the vote share gives total control.
In US you have whole war of Facebook not handling AI enough and your "branches of power" do somewhat work. For sure you have your own problems, but Russia is on another level.
How we change the game - do these same studies on our own oligarchs. Treat the members of the CFR with the same interest in their financials.
It was a deliberate strategy to destabilize Russia and undermine their war effort. It worked.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Aerospace_Forces (Air-Space Force, in Russian).
However I fail to see how he can be the most powerful in the world given that USA surpasses russia in both military and economic might (which are pretty much the same thing if you think about it). Russia has no answer to sanctions and those counter-sanctions are just a delusion. USA can make many other countries respect the sanctions due to dollar being universal currency.
There's also China which is simply too populous to challenge for anyone.
Compare with Russia: they have some involvement in Syria (and other places, I'm sure), but if they'd pull back from Syria, I'm not sure who else besides Assad would complain. From this point of view, their hands might not be as tied as the US'
I agree that Russia counter-sanctions can be just a delusion, but I think that another interesting point is that sanctions aren't biting as hard as they could've in Russia, due to their massive reduction in public debt:
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/09/11/russias-net-public...
They had slow (or absent) growth, otoh.
The US has been using the media like this for decades, but it's always been considered a side game. Russia has made it a primary mode of attack - partly because it's vastly cheaper and more effective than spending extreme sums of money on super-weapons.
So we know that Putin has been financing the subversion of social democracy and the promotion of far-right nationalist narratives in the US and the EU through a combination of direct funding, social media troll farming, and straightforward financially advantageous diplomacy - and possibly also direct election hacking, although so far that's been harder to prove.
The UK has been almost destroyed by this. It's a shell of the country it was when the century started, and the poison of Brexit hasn't even worked its way fully through the system yet. I expect I'll get the usual downvotes for posting this out, but the downvoters might want to address the points made here before they waste their time on that:
https://www.newlawjournal.co.uk/content/is-brexit-a-russia-b...
There's much more detail about this in a book which is being released soon.
I suspect WW3 is kept at bay not because of MAD anymore, but because of financial interests. If a country decides "fuck it, we'll forfeit this debt", we'll likely see more armed conflicts.
I don't see Russia opting for a conflict though, they too cannot afford it. Not unless they're backed by a well-to-do country like China.
I don't believe China would become a direct aggressor either, if they would, then their economy would quickly grind to a halt due to sanctions and import stops from the US and Europe. They'd probably a proxy like North Korea.
Souce: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-who-owns-a-record-21...
But even then their army is ancient and mostly predates the fall of Soviet Union.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_Russian_militar...
>Post link to aircrafts stats only
While it is true that Russia is behind the other major players on modernisation - russian military does get new toys quite often these days on a stable basis.
Same goes for upgrading old T-72 tanks for example. What's the point of building armada of Armata if modernised T-72 has basically the same capabilities as T-90 which is more than enough in most scenarios? T-72 Where used in Ukraine and Russia was able to get enough data from operations to do some improvements to the machines and even to upgrade the majority of them even before the 'hot' part of the conflict was over for them.
Also how did you count the size of the economy exactly?
And considering Russia is marketing their Jets heavily to everyone, i think the aircraft stats are enough to make it obvious how ancient their army actually is ( majority is ~ 50 years old).
More information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream
The difference is also clear in their propaganda:
Putin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r29k_T_o9To
(any reccos for Xi? I ought to frequent youku.com more often)
Trump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXTA36HO65g
Edit: removed snark
So its all illusion of control. Easier to achieve among some parts of the population when anyone who points it out gets killed.
But don't mistake it for control. He has lot of buttons he can push but what Outcomes he produces is all bullshit. The world is too complex and even Putin has a 7 inch head which can't fit in all of it.
Russia has been severly weakened by democratic Europe. They have lost an insane amount of area since the fall of USSR and Europe has never been "closer" to Moscow, their capital.
They are now getting punished for actions of last resort. Eg. Invading Ukraine, because otherwise their entire naval fleed would be rendered useless, since it couln't even go out.
Russia is weak, although Putin tries to portray it like it isn't. The conflicts they create (eg. with their jets) is just for the show, they can't even afford it to build those jet en masse for themselves, lol.
The sanctions against Russia are still in place and it seems to be working. It will only get worse when Trump will ( probably) lose. Their ally is China and they are the weak partner on that end and China knows it.
Additionally, Russia is probably getting an extra "big reward" in the coming year for their meldding in the western world.
[0]: https://politua.org/ekonomika/30270-gazprom-ostanavlivaemyj/
The one who fiddles the "best", is the one that you don't think about :)
Everyone knows what Putin is doing, so i would say he's not doing such a good job.
If there's any punishment, it certainly is not effective. Russia still occupies large parts of Ukraine (even some areas outside of the Crimea).
And currently Europe is subsidizing green energy a lot, so it's a slow process. If i'm not mistaking, Ukrain is becoming more and more anti-Russia.
I think it’s a global issue. Pretty sure almost everyone has had these thoughts when reading a news article about some wrongdoing of a foreign government and thought “why don’t we just nuke those Reds?”, “why can’t we just come and take over the North Korea”, “that’s it, it’s time to show those damn Iranians who’s the boss on this planet”.
The media has evolved to take advantage of our emotional response. Hate seems to be the most useful one.
What were you doing when the US invaded Iraq in 2003?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6gg1z5DovI
I know it's sad for some to see another dictator down, but that is how it should be with every dictator.
Do you know that the US supported Saddam in his war of agression against Iran? [0] Saddam could've been hanged much earlier and countless lives could've been saved if not for American support of scumbag and dictator.
As for WW2, please read about the Munich agreement.[2]
[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Ir...
[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_c...
We shouldn't
Russia is meddling in foreign affairs, invading Ukraine, uselessly threatening Europe, trying to spread misinformation and killing other people in foreign countries ( London, Germany, ... )
Even now, Russia is trying to influence/take-over Ukrains news agency.
This is not about conspiracy theories, these are plain facts.
And for this, Russia deserves to be punished. And Russians should realize it is Putin's fault.
We have been too soft on Russia for too long and the problems are just increasing. The soft approach isn't helping anymore.
Edit: new from an hour ago. Nuclear radiation spike. Guess who it is... Again...
https://www.iflscience.com/physics/unexplained-radiation-spi...
It’s not war, but there end up being millions of casualties. Understandably, a country values its interests above the lives of foreigners. It all looks like a world-scale trolley problem.
We'll see how that pans out, but I hope that they come back and the world trade table.
As an adult this time :)
History is rife with examples of failures to stop oppressive regimes. Hell, look at North Korea. We fought a war, we've tried sanctions, we've tried lifting sanctions. Sure, they are propped up by China, but what else could be done to improve the lives of civilians there?
Trade sanctions still seem to be the better solution, no?
While actually trading could be considered a reward for a decent government and a + for it's civilians.
Russia had a GDP per capita of $16,007 in 2013. In 2014 Russia annexed Crimea. In 2016 Russia's GDP per capita was $8,745. This drop was twice as great as the 2008 economic crisis. It has recovered from it somewhat, but it'll take time to get back up again. Keep in mind though that other countries did have a dip in GDP per capita in 2015 as well, but nowhere near the same level as Russia.
GDP per capita PPP did drop as well. More than after the 2008 crisis, but they have recovered from it by now.
It definitely seems like Russia is economically in trouble. How much of this is from sanctions is hard to tell though.
This is less of a factor nowadays after the US lifted its self-imposed ban on LNG exports:
https://www.ceep.be/lifting-us-oil-export-ban-lng/
They're still dependent, but so is Russia on those profits. Right after the sanctions started they tried to sell this gas to China, but didn't get a good deal on that.
Saying that Khordokovsky was "no saint" is...an understatement. He refused to pay tax in Russia, he was charged in the US for money laundering resulting from one of the largest tax fraud schemes ever, he was the main money launderer for Russian organised crime, he was involved in massive political corruption (it is forgotten today, the reason why Yukos was targeted was all of the above...Western investors, Bill Browder, worked with Putin to take Khordokovsky down), he got "his start" by stealing a bank from the state and paying bribes to win rigged auctions (an idea suggested by Western economic consultants, even well after it was apparent they were being rigged). Khordokovsky lived by the sword, and died by it.
To suggest that Putin was immensely powerful from the off and schemed his way into the Presidency is also not true. It took him nearly half a decade to build a power base. The corruption and incompetence around Yeltsin was also very real (it is amazing how almost every Western accounts ignores this), elections were rigged, big donations from foreigners were produced (one even went to pay state pensions before an election), and this was a govt run by oligarchs around Berezovsky (all of whom refused to pay tax and controlled the media, all of whom fled to the UK and were sheltered by the govt...which wasn't particularly smart). Not to mention that Yeltsin was then basically dead on his feet (he had heart surgery, was polling near 0%, and the corruption against him was basically proven).
If you want to understand Putin, you have to understand the 1990s (funnily enough, 1998 isn't mentioned...it never is, a financial crisis triggered by bad advice from the West doesn't fit the narrative).
Btw, this isn't to say that Putin isn't corrupt, etc. But it is to say that West reaped what it sowed in Russia. Bad economic advice (amazingly, some involved are regarded as economic experts of great gravitas and wisdom) and hitching our star to Yeltsin were errors (inevitably and accurately, Russians believe the West is hypocritical...Yeltsin's corruption was fine because he was "our man"). And say what you will but when Putin came to power, Russia's economy had basically imploded, there was essentially a civil war going on, the oligarchs were paying no tax, and looting everything that wasn't nailed down. He ended that (and btw, he won great plaudits from the West for this until he took over Yukos) and brought some measure of stability that Yeltsin was nowhere close to achieving (again, largely because the purpose of his govt was to be run by the West and oligarchs looking to loot Russia...Putin was focused on what was good for Russia).
I am not sure why journalists push this narrative either. Everything doesn't need to be characterised as good or bad. It isn't binary. Putin is a function of the system that exists in Russia, and the situation that he inherited. Russia isn't like the West. To expect that it should be or judge him solely by those standards may feel comfortable but it makes no logical sense.
Whatever advice he got was useless as it never could be applied to Russia and they did not even try. They just stole whatever they could.
As Chernomyrdin said: We wanted to make it better but it ended up as usual.
Putin also did what was good for Putin and reestablishment of the empire. Problem of course is that as great player as he is Russia is still in deep trouble. Reckoning when it come will be terrible.
We must remember who created the oligarchs in the first place, and the fact that in the West they never seem to be called “oligarchs”
A completely corrupt regime which puts incredibly little value on human rights is agitating people in the west with accounts of (comparatively ) minor incidents and imperfections in western systems and institutions. This includes a lot of things from anti EU sentiments to racial tensions. And it's working if you ask me.
I don't know whether "it" is working and if it is, how successful it is. I believe that it's a colossal mistake to say "well, there is anti EU sentiment, so Putin's strategy is successful" as if that sentiment couldn't exist without any outside influence. The same goes for racial tensions, they are not a new thing at all, and they go back to before Putin was born, so to ascribe them (in full or in significant part) to Russian influence is questionable at best.
Here is my take: I'm sure there are Russian intelligence operations. I'm also convinced that they aren't "behind it all". Much like we did with the civil war in Syria (that is: provide money, guns, and training, because we wanted Assad gone), they are adding a bit of oil to the fire, but they can't start something where there is nothing to start a fire with.
This whole "it's Russian propaganda, you're a bot/paid shill" bit, that also get thrown around on HN on relevant posts, is just a lazy way to silence dissent, and usually followed up with "the moderators should look into the posting patterns and ban these people". I'm sure the moderators would disclose it if it happened, and they haven't, so my money is on there being no such thing here, but still people believe in it, because it's an easy explanation for the experience of people disagreeing with them.
The same, I believe, is true in society in general. If people can just hand-wave away different opinions with "ah, the Russian influence has created a movement", they're happy to do so, because it allows them to not question whether the other side might have a point. The Russians do the same, only to them it's American Agents that have infiltrated Russia and want to harm the Russian people.
If you read my comment again, you'll see that I don't defend Russia at all.
Same for internal tensions in the west. Sure they exist regardless of Putin and Russia, but it's the size of problem that matters. Extremists without critical mass can't do much harm. A small fire can go out on it's own, but adding gasoline is a clear significant issue.
The last part about calling the other side shills don't interest me much. Internet drama.
I'm not saying anything to the contrary, but your statement sounded like only Russia disregards human rights. I believe the primary difference is that Russia will do to Russian citizens what we will do to Iraqis, but not to our citizens.
> Same for internal tensions in the west. Sure they exist regardless of Putin and Russia, but it's the size of problem that matters.
But how do you know what size they would "naturally" be? We've had huge conflicts in the West before Putin, we've even had huge conflicts before the Soviet Union was created. Political conflicts, racial tensions (with the occasional genocide) are nothing new.
> The last part about calling the other side shills don't interest me much. Internet drama.
I disagree, that's why I mentioned it. The same thing is happening offline as well. You're not a fan of further political integration of the EU, the Euro or Euro-Bonds? You'll quickly get called a Putin-bot, because that's the easiest response to dissent: they can't really believe something else, they must have a hidden agenda. Or, alternatively, the more insulting variant: they can't really believe that, they must be stupid and are directed by foreign powers without them knowing it.
The US has spent a generation pushing first the Soviets, then Russia, back into a very tightly confined sphere of influence. There is no obvious limit to the amount of harm the US has been wishing on Russian interests.
It is a remarkably cycloptic perspective call such fears 'paranoid' or to paint Russia as some sort of aggressor. Russia isn't the one with military bases set up in North America. Russia isn't cutting people off from the global trade network or invading every other country in Western Asia. They are a relatively neutral country on the world stage in terms of aggressive foreign posture, even accounting for this article.
However to call them aggressors is a total perversion of the word aggression. Their posture is backs-to-the-wall defensive in relation to Western powers.
Just because they're afraid of having their "backs-to-the-wall" doesn't mean their doctrine is legitimate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Baltic_state...
They did a terrible job even before that, with "The Great Game" and all that. In fact, it was so bad even their own people had had enough.
Did you missed how Russia invaded those both countries? It's an aggressor.
This is how Russia behaves to us, I think my position is understandable. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/10/russia-opens-c...
No, only its nearby neighbors. Maybe ask Ukrainians or Georgians how they feel about the Russian sphere of influence.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force,_...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War#South_Russia...
Russia annexed Crimea.
America invaded Iraq.
Iraq lost 5% of its population during the American invasion.
How many Americans were in Iraq, who were under direct threat of violence from a fascist group involved in a coup d'etat?
Russia hasn't reached America's level of evil, destructive, criminal warfare, that is for sure. The claim that America was surgical and careful in its invasion(s) is specious at best, but really just downright evil. Literally millions of people are still suffering from the effects of America's callous invasion.
4 million innocent people have lost their lives under America's war machine. How many Ukraine soldiers did Russia take during the annexation?
Not even comparable levels of magnitude, no matter how finely tuned your moral relativism chops are ..
There is no question that the irregular forces in Ukraine received military equipment from Germany, US and other sources. There is videos documenting that. Part of the anti-russian forces were literal neo-nazis, complete with insignia used during world war 2. The Vice magazine war reporting (Russian Roulette in Ukraine) documents both of these statements.
(Yemen.)