Bill Casey died, but his legacy of secret budgets, White House and Congressional obfuscation and regime change continues.| Submit your comments on this article |
| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| The Kremlin's Grand Delusions What the War in Ukraine Has Revealed About Putin's Regime |
| 2023-02-18 |
| [Foreign Affairs] Despite a series of blunders, miscalculations, and battlefield reversals that would have surely seen him thrown out of office in most normal countries, President Vladimir Putin is still at the pinnacle of power in Russia. He continues to define the contours of his country’s war against Ukraine. He is micromanaging the invasion even as generals beneath him appear to be in charge of the battlefield. (This deputizing is done to protect him from blowback if something goes badly wrong in the war.) Putin and those immediately around him directly work to mobilize Russians on the home front and manipulate public views of the invasion abroad. He has in some ways succeeded in this information warfare. The war has revealed the full extent of Putin’s personalized political system. After what is now 23 years at the helm of the Russian state, there are no obvious checks on his power. Institutions beyond the Kremlin count for little. "I would never have imagined that I would miss the Politburo," said Rene Nyberg, the former Finnish ambassador to Moscow. "There is no political organization in Russia that has the power to hold the president and commander in chief accountable." Diplomats, policymakers, and analysts are stuck in a doom loop—an endless back-and-forth argument among themselves—to figure out what Putin wants and how the West can shape his behavior. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #9 @#3-4 John "Maverick" McCain died, but his legacy continues. |
| Posted by: DooDahMan 2023-02-18 21:33 |
| #8 *Drugs* |
| Posted by: Frank G 2023-02-18 20:48 |
| #7 I predict the following in the near future: - Blinken will step down as Sec. of State - He will be replaced by Burns (imho the source for Sy Hersh) - Burns as new Sec. of State will fire Victoria Nuland (UnderSec. of State) she will be assassinated by an Ukrainian few months later. - Ukrainian aid will be grossly dimished - Talks will start between Burns and Patrushev. You heard it here first. |
| Posted by: ACA JOE 2023-02-18 19:47 |
| #6 Putin is here now. He was hear last year. He was here five years ago. He was here 20 years ago. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2023-02-18 08:32 |
| #5 Yet the rumors of Putin’s imminent downfall and terminal health issues will continue to be manufactured and marketed like Disney figurines in a gift shop. We spent a decade digesting the stories of Bin Laden’s need for constant dialysis only to have him die of lead poisoning. Putin is here to stay. If he were to be replaced,it would likely be by a Slavic version of John Bolton. I think we have had enough destruction; there ought to be a negotiated settlement. We can cease enriching the arms portion of our military industrial complex. It is time to progress to the next stage of the shakedown where our rebuilding contractors steal what remains our wealth. Cue Lindsey Graham. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2023-02-18 08:17 |
| #4 Bill Casey died, but his legacy of secret budgets, White House and Congressional obfuscation and regime change continues. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2023-02-18 08:00 |
#3  /\ Hoover died, but his insidious work continues. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2023-02-18 07:56 |
| #2 The KGB never died. Viz, The "Mitrokhin Archive" a collection of handwritten notes, primary sources and official documents secretly made, smuggled & hid by the KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin during the thirty years in which he served as a KGB archivist in the foreign intelligence service and the First Chief Directorate. When he defected to the United Kingdom in 1992, he brought the archive with him, in six full trunks. His defection was not officially announced until 1999. ... In July 2014, the Churchill Archives Centre at Churchill College released Mitrokhin's edited Russian-language notes for public research. Original handwritten notes by Vasili Mitrokhin are still classified. [I wonder why? Rather like the Kennedy assassination.] |
| Posted by: Slavising Unineting5672 2023-02-18 07:51 |
| #1 After what is now 23 years at the helm of the Russian state Sort of like Pelosi. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2023-02-18 02:37 |