Dear Drandul, you may be right up to a point, but honestly Putin's strategy is to unite the Russian population against perceived external threats... to justify growing defence budgets and to make sure opposition parties are forgotten.
I don't see Russia starting conflicts against the West, I agree. However I do see a sort of new cold war emerging since a stronger Russia inevitably uses its strengths to become a great power again.
Conflicting point of views between Russia and the West are increasing : Kosovo, ABM defences in Eastern Europe, the Baltic states' treatment of ethnic Russians, Georgia, Chechnia, control of the Arctic, Venezuela...
This means that any defence policy in the US and Europe has to consider Russia as a potential foe, even if luckily enough the chances of hot conflict are minimal.
cheers
I really feel that western or foreign people have very specific point of view on Russia and Putin.And it looks little bit shallow. Based exclusively on public news channels. Recently Russians have a kind of immunity to official propaganda and any kind of information from news apprehend in very critical way. Any news- Russian or foreign . I mean there is no any restrictions for information here (at least i do not feel them ) if you want to know. I got CNN, BBC, FOX news - it's difficult to be affected by some kind of artificial point of view if you can collect information from different sources. And for me it's clear that different news channels is affected by some influence groups -it's normal. Independent Journalists in politics - are endangered species. I agreed that some steps in internal politics could have been done by Putin in smarter way - I mean election system, infrastructure development. Problem with opposition- those people use to be in power while Eltcin time. So nothing really new or attractive. That time was just nightmare - zero law power, zero social care, zero defense budget, 100 % criminal power everywhere. So currently there is no any political party with some clear program and most of leaders of those parties looks kind of freak. They are not forgotten - they just unpopular. Pro-Kremlin parties unpopular as well - not much difference. They just have more financial support from big business to support interests of that business that's why have more opportunities to promote them self - almost same like in US
Growing defense budget - is very logic - if you have almost zero defense budget you'd like to have at least something. Current budget is negligibly low in compare to western countries. We got such neighbors like China, Japan, Afghanistan, North Korea - I don't think any European countries like to have such neighbors especially if you have small defense budget.
Conflicting point of view are not really conflicting. It's just different point of view. And it's strange why western leaders takes it like offense. Particular case- Kosovo. I cant understand - what is the point of Kosovo separation? - I mean there are many similar cases. - Ireland, Abhaziya, Kurdistan, Bask's in Spain ?? For me it's very unclear - why need to support Kosovo separation but not support Ireland separation or Kurdistan separation in Turkey ????Especially from historical point of view.
ABM defense...hm -just ask opinion of population in Czech Republic and anyway it's going to be US ABM system, not even NATO system. And major tension is not because system itself is threat to Russia- mostly because it going to be a new hook to control Europe. If it was NATO system or joint European system - believe me I personally never would have been worried about.
.... Gorgia...difficult to say what went wrong....I use to think that Gorgia is one of historical ally of Russia..... - I think it will be more clear in future. I mean even now Georgian economy existed only because of direct US money injection. That is the reason of huge corruption and poverty of population majority.
Chechnya....- long and dark story. It had independence once. - Results are well known. State with taliban-like organisation with shariat law and beheading of infidels. Right now - situation is pretty stable- huge money spends to reconstruct republic. Money form all Russia. Like in any arms conflict a lot of people gets badly affected. I don't know any conflict when all are happy.
Arctic..- strange to hear that. Some scientists got to the bottom of north pole first time in history - looks like great achievement for all humans. They may be got some data to represent it in international committee. Everything done according to international law and practice. Anyway- there is no any oil in north pole itself. Flag itself- is just kind of evidence that some humans have been there. It would had been strange if they put US flag or China flag.
Venezuela- you mean arm-trade contracts?.. nothing personal- just business - not so many markets opened for Russia.
From my point of view Russia acts with more logic and predictability in politics compared to some western countries.
Sorry for long topic - I just tried to explain my vision.
