Problem is, we don’t much like where it’s going. We seem to have seen it before. But first, a bit of fun:
Mr Putin laughed off the US sanctions that targeted his inner circle, promising the Russian government would “have the back” of those on the list, and even opening a personal account at a sanctioned bank as an act of solidarity.
“Far as I’m aware, it’s an average bank,” Mr Putin said on Friday of Bank Rossiya, the only institution on the list of sanctions targets released by the US Treasury Department on Thursday. “I don’t have a personal account there, but I’ll open one on Monday.”
Erm… OUCH! It’s a good thing that it’s so much damn fun watching the comically inept Lightbringer Obama unload both barrels into his own feet on a daily basis now that he’s been introduced to The Real World (Where No Sympathetic, Lying Press Has Your Back and No Nutless “Conservatives” Can Ignore Problems to Death For You), because truth be told, there’s really not much to laugh about, considering where all of this is headed.
Putin is no Hitler, and from the standpoint of power he isn’t even a Brezhnev. Still, his actions in Ukraine have been following Adolf’s playbook pretty closely. Adolf wanted to tear up the Treaty of Versailles. Putin is attempting to rip up the post-Cold War settlement in Europe and Central Asia. Like Hitler’s Germany, Putin’s Russia is much weaker than its opponents, so it can’t achieve its goal through a direct military challenge against its primary enemies. Like Hitler’s Germany, Putin’s Russia must be clever until it grows strong, and it must play on its enemies’ hesitations, divisions and weaknesses until and unless it is ready to take them on head to head.
“Keep them guessing” is rule number one. Nobody was better than Hitler at playing with his enemies’ minds. For every warlike speech, there was an invitation to a peace conference. For every uncompromising demand, there was a promise of lasting tranquillity once that last little troublesome problem had been negotiated safely away.
Yeah… about that. Back to the first article linked (but do read the one in the excerpt above. If you don’t mind not sleeping tonight.
And in what appeared to be a move to de-escalate tensions, [Putin] even said he had no intention of imposing answering reactions. “We should refrain from retaliatory steps,” he said.
Punch… call for peace and reconciliation… punch… call for peace and reconciliation…
I tak daleye…
Interesting times.
Thatisall.