Vladimir Putin

I open up the Cake Eater mailbag this morning, and inside is a missive from "best"  Cake Eater Brother Timmy:

Subject: Putin

Where has he been?

Truth be told, it's (was) August: the slowest news month of the year because everyone (besides me) is on vacation.  But, never fear, we do have some newsworthy coverage from almost a month ago. 

Putin Strips for Stardom, Again

MOSCOW — Vladimir Putin drew scrutiny reserved for Hollywood action heroes this week, as Kremlin images of him fishing, swimming, rowing and riding bare-chested on a Siberian mountain were snapped up by media all over the world.

During a brief visit to the fields and streams of the Russian republic of Tuva, the Russian prime minister doffed his shirt to break cords of wood with his bare hands, ride a horse and swim a furious butterfly stroke, all for the benefit of government cameras.

Two state-owned Russian television channels broadcast video of Putin's leisure pursuits Tuesday night, and within hours everyone from the BBC to the tabloids seized on the story — perhaps grateful for something to cover in August, the slowest of news months.

The Western media seemed fascinated by the notion that the tough-talking former KGB lieutenant colonel, regarded as the shadowy power behind President Dmitry Medvedev's throne, would bare much, if not all, for an adoring public.{...}

Sexy beast, no?  And by that, of course I mean the horse.

"Da.  Dis is Brokeback Mountain.  Vhy do you ask?"

I don't know why, but I fear for the fish. 

In other, more current Putin news, he did his absolute darndest today, at the Polish commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the German invasion, to say:

{...}I want you to know that Russia has always respected the courage and heroism of Polish people, Polish men and officers who were the first to stand up against Nazism in 1939.{...}

Yeah.  Russia has always respected Poland and the Polish people. They really liked stomping hither and thither, loved the pierogies, and a deep respect for Poland and her people sprang up as a result.

In the words of Mr. Mackey, "Drugs are bad, mmmkay." 

Somehow, Vlad neglected to mention that Stalin, under his agreement with Hitler, invaded Poland two weeks later, and then when the Red Army strolled through again in early 1945, somehow, forgot to leave for the next forty-five years or so.  We're not the bad guys.  Really.  It was all about Hitler and how eeeevil the Nazis were.

Anyway, we live to please here at the Cake Eater Chronicles.  I hope you enjoyed the Vlad shots, and, no, I won't reimburse you for the bleach you bought to pour in your eyes after viewing them. 

Last night, Vlad the Impaler decided to spend three hours on television in Russia, in his usual festive holiday fashion, taking phone calls from his people. 

Because the peasants are his people.  And he loves his people.  PULL!*  

Erm...anyway.  Here be the highlights:

{...}Fielding questions about everything from Nato to unemployment benefits to Christmas trees, he made few new policy pronouncements but projected the impression that a strong man was at the helm and knew what to do.

Russia’s central bank would continue to defend the rouble from “sharp swings” in the exchange rate, he said. He reiterated the line that other politicians have taken that the state might take stakes in Russia’s large companies to prevent them from bankruptcy.

For people who had lost their jobs and had to pay off mortgages, Mr Putin announced the federal mortgage agency would take over loans from commercial banks and not demand early repayment. He promised large-scale help for the mounting number of unemployed.

Among the 1.3m calls, no concern was too minuscule to be dealt with. The people of the small Siberian town of Pokrovska wanted a sports centre built. “We will absolutely try to react” he told the audience.

A caller from the eastern province of Bashkyria complained that his sister had been deprived of her invalidity benefits. “It must have been a mistake. We’ll see what we can do,” Mr Putin assured him.

The majority of callers were worried about the economy, rising inflation and unemployment. Russians were either uninterested in speculation that Mr Putin planned to return prematurely to the presidency, or the questions were filtered out.{...}

But wait...it gets better. 

{...}Mr Putin was asked to offer his opinion on what kind of Christmas tree should someone buy (“artificial Christmas trees can also be entertaining”), and a young girl named Dasha called from Buryatia to ask for a new dress for the new year. “New years is a time to think not only of what you want but what your grandmother wants as well,” said Mr Putin, before inviting the girl’s family to Moscow.{...}

Ah, the paternalistic Vlad.  The one we know and love so much.  The one who not only, apparently, cares about what kind of Christmas tree one should get for the holiday season, but who apparently doesn't like it when his adopted daughter, named Georgia, tries to rebel against papa's dearest held wishes that she not date that awful NATO boy. 

And then beats the shit out of her to get what he wants.

One wonders when his other daughter, Ukraine, will start acting up?

*spot the quote

Oh, Good Christ.  Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, aka "The Lackey" has launched a video blog.

Here's one copy that's been translated into English.

 

 

The only question I have is...where was Putin during all of this? 

Behind the camera?  To Medvedev's left, off camera, feeding him the words?  Or did he simply have one of his staff write up the speech, send it over to Medvedev's office in the Kremlin, with the firm assurance it would be read as written? 

Curious.  Because if this was intended to introduce Medvedev as a leader in his own right, and establish his own connection with the people, separate from his mandate from Putin, well...I just don't think he achieved that goal. 

And that would, in general, be the trouble when you're the puppet and someone else is the puppetmaster: No one's going to believe the puppet has their own ideas, or can even speak without assistance. 

In keeping with the current Cake Eater Chronicles theme of "More Russian Craziness, Please," I've got some linkies for you, my devoted Cake Eater readers.  Today we have Vlad telling us what's really going on with the Russian markets. 

Vladimir Putin admitted on Thursday that foreign capital inflows could fall by up to 45 per cent this year, but rejected suggestions that turmoil in Russia’s financial markets was caused by the conflict in Georgia.

The Russian premier said the country was simply suffering from the same credit crisis affecting the rest of the world, but he acknowledged that foreign inflows might fall this year from $80bn (€57bn, £46bn) in 2007 to $45bn or $50bn.

Mr Putin blamed Russia’s outflow of capital on “speculative” moves by western institutions withdrawing funds because of the “mortgage crisis” in the US and Europe.

But, speaking to western journalists in the holiday resort of Sochi, he denied there was a liquidity crisis and rejected the view that the turmoil had “anything to do” with the Georgian conflict.{...}

Liquidity crisis? I do not think that means what you think it means.  And if it does, it's the West's fault.  So there!

But wait, in true Ron Popeil fashion, there's more.

{...}Mr Putin played down the scale of the domestic liquidity problems, saying that when the state treasury had offered extra funds to commercial banks, the banks had taken up far less money than they could have done. In aggressive comments towards the United States, he said Washington had huge deficits whereas Russia had “a double surplus” on its budget and trade accounts{...}

Vlad, darling, let's be clear about one thing: the only reason you have a trade surplus is because of all the Texas Tea you have out in Siberia.  Demand is down, darling, and so is the price of a barrel of the black goop.  When you only have one resource upon which to fall back, things have a tendency to get iffy. 

According to the article, the Russian stock market has fallen about 50% since May.  In rough terms, the Great Depression was caused by the Stock Market Crash of 1929, wherein on October 28th and 29th of that year, the dow lost 25% in two days.  I might be comparing apples to oranges, because stock markets nowadays, even in Russia, is much larger, and much more complex than they were was in 1929, but still...that's a big chunk of change gone poof! 

Courtesy of the FT, here's the timeline.

Yeah, it's been going down, slowly but surely, but notice the precipitous drop since the Georgian Escapade.  Putin says it's nothing to worry about, even though his finance minister is ready to tap $32B from their National Wealth Fund (read oil money) and pension reserves and placing it in securities to prop up the market.  Yes, that's right: they're thinking not only about tapping their oil wealth, but also the state pensions of the average Russian citizen to solve their liquidity crisis. 

They might be thinking that, what with the average lifespan of the average Russian vodka swiller, the funds will never be used for their intended purpose, but golly gosh, Russia is having to leverage the future of its pensioners?  My goodness how things have changed.  

Ultimately, what we have here is the beginning of the end.  The western investment Russia so sorely needs to modernize, even now, seventeen years after the fall of communism, has up and left the country since the Russian invasion of Georgia.  Investors have deemed Russia is not a place where the rule of law is upheld, and while that's been known for quite some time, western investors hedged their bets, but the Georgian invasion drove that point home, and they got their money the hell out of that frozen hell hole.   Now, to cover the shortfall, Russia is going to rely upon their oil billions. 

While $32B is nothing to sneeze at, it's not going to cover the costs involved.  No way, no how. 

I will fully admit I'm not the smartest chick on the block when it comes to things market related, but I can add and subtract, and I just don't see how it's possible. 

Can you?

What will they do after the oil money is gone?

Just in case you'd thought I'd forgotten all about Vlad the Impaler and his plans for world domination with all of the election silliness, know that you are WRONG.  And I've got the links to prove it!

One wonders, precisely, what the chairman of Gazprom did to get Khodorkovsky-ed:

{...}The Russian Federal Anti-Monopoly Service said it was pressing ahead with the fine for “violations” of antitrust rules for denying pipeline access to Transnafta, an independent producer in the Tatarstan region.

A spokeswoman at the Anti-Monopoly Service said the fine could be as much as 15 per cent of Gazprom’s annual revenue in the “corresponding market”.

The move signals a subtle power shift within the Kremlin and the country’s energy sector that may weaken Gazprom’s clout{...}

Get that?  The Russian Federal Anti-Monopoly Service is going after Gazprom, the STATE controlled gas company, and Putin's favorite foreign policy enforcer, for denying pipeline access to an independent producer.  One branch of government is going after another branch of the government?  In the west, you'd expect this sort of thing.  But in Putin's Russia?  {insert sing-song voice here} Somebody's out of favor.

If I were the chairman of Gazprom, well, I'd be thinking about getting my money, my family, and myself out of Russia ASAP.  I don't think this is going to end well for him. 

The cash crisis is worse than previously thought.  Investors are, left, right and center, bailing out of the Russian markets, and there's a bit of a lending crisis as a result. 

{...}Bankers and analysts said real estate and retail businesses were being hardest hit by a slowdown in lending. “There are real estate developers who can’t finish projects. They can’t get money from anyone, state banks included,” said one senior banker in Moscow speaking on condition of anonymity.

“No one was ready for the lack of cash to manifest itself so quickly,” he said.

“Nobody has any money. The country has got all this cash but the banking system and capital markets are not particularly good at allocating it. There is a flood of liquidity in the state’s fields and a drought in the private sector.”{...}

Western analysts claim that close to $20B has left the country since Russia invaded Georgia.  Russia says, optimistically, that it's only around $5B...at most.  

Who do you believe?

On Monday, Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, aka "The Lackey", finally---FINALLY---agreed to pull Russian troops out of the port city of Poti by the end of the week, and out of "Georgian" territory (which, of course, doesn't mean South Ossetia or Abkhazia) by the end of the month. 

This diplomatic triumph was brought to you by the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, who, it seems, managed to get Russia to finally live up to the terms of an agreement it signed a month ago,  that, of course, doesn't respect Georgian territorial rights. 

Wooooh.  Color me impressed!  

In another case of European wobbliness, yesterday in Brussels, the EU told Ukrainian president Viktor Yushenko, essentially, we're not going to let you into the EU just yet, but, never fear, your hopes are still alive---you know, once we've weaned ourselves off Russian gas and oil.   Whenever that might be.

A communiqué issued at an EU-Ukrainian summit set out a framework for closer ties between Kiev and the 27-nation bloc, but omitted the crucial words “membership perspective” to describe Ukraine’s future relationship with the EU.

Sacre Bleu!  C'est Close Une! 

Ukraine, a country of 46m people wedged between the EU and Russia, had hoped that Russia’s military assault on Georgia last month, and its subsequent attempt to partition the former Soviet republic, might prompt the EU to go the extra mile for Ukraine.

Tuesday’s communiqué affirmed the EU’s commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and held out the prospect of agreements on free trade and easier travel for Ukrainians to EU countries, but stopped short of a promise of EU accession.

“Be clear that this agreement shuts no door, and maybe it opens some doors. This is the most we could offer, but I believe it to be a substantial step,” Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president, told reporters.

Diplomats said Germany and the Netherlands, and to a lesser extent Belgium, were the most reluctant to state clearly that Ukraine could one day join the EU.{...}

There were all sorts of claims that last week's schism between Yuschenko and Ukrainian Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, was the reason for the EU's hedge.  I'm not so certain.  After all, what's one former Soviet satellite's struggle for democracy and a free market compared to a warm home and petrol for the Peugot? 

And, finally, we have everyone's favorite Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, mucking up the works. 

{...}Strains in the transatlantic relationship were on display in Rome on Tuesday as Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, and Mr Berlusconi read out statements.

Mr Cheney strongly condemned Russia’s “unilateral efforts to alter by force of arms Georgia’s internationally recognised boundaries”, and reiterated that Nato had agreed on eventual membership for Georgia and Ukraine.

The US delegation, in Italy for five days, had pushed for clear endorsement from Mr Berlusconi. Instead, he did not utter a word of criticism against Russia. The Italian premier said he had tried to explain to Mr Cheney his personal success in helping to defuse “what happened in Ossetia and then in Georgia”. He stressed the importance of sustaining the Nato-Russia council, the joint forum he inaugurated in 2002 with President George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin, then Russia’s president.

According to European diplomats, Bush administration hawks view with suspicion Mr Berlusconi’s close personal ties to the Russian leader and worry about Italy’s presidency of the G8 from January . Italy has already made clear it intends to invite Mr Putin to the summit in Sardinia.{...}

But why, why would Silvio be siding with Russia?  Well, do the words "oil," "gas," and "Eni" and "competing pipelines," ring a bell?

{...}US hawks are alarmed by Italy’s tight energy relationship with Russia, particularly the “strategic partnership” reached between Moscow's Gazprom and Italy’s part state-owned Eni in 2006, and the South Stream pipeline planned to take Russian gas across the Black Sea.

{...}Umberto Quadrino, chief executive of Edison, Italy’s second-largest energy group, is lobbying the Bush administration to put its full weight first behind Edison’s ITGI Corridor project and, later, the more ambitious but still somewhat hypothetical Nabucco pipeline. Both would bypass Russia but transit Georgia.

ITGI would take 8bn cubic metres of gas from Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz field in the Caspian all the way to Italy. Azeri gas is already reaching Georgia and Turkey and can be extended to Greece. The only “missing link” is an undersea pipeline across to Italy to be built by Edison and Greece’s Depa.{...}

Curious, eh? 

Politically,  this is a smart move on Berlusconi's part.  He's got nothing to lose by siding with the Russians on this one, particularly if he's of the European mindset that Obama will be in the White House come January 20th.  If the South Stream pipeline is actually finished, he's got a direct pipeline to Russian gas, that doesn't go through any politically pesky territories in the meanwhile, and he can then charge the rest of Europe a fortune for gas, or, conversely, shut it off when Russia's whims demand that he do so.  He's siding with those whom he considers to be the big boys. 

Which, of course, leads one to question whether his former electoral competitor, Walter Veltroni, was actually right when he called Berlusconi a fascist, before the April election that brought Berlusconi back to power.  Is he the new Mussolini, as the Italian left has advertised?  Well, time will tell, but I suspect the judgment won't so much be based upon whether the trains run on time, or if he manages to actually do something about all the Roma who have illegally set up shop in Italy, or if Naples' trash finally gets picked up, but rather on the average Italian's gas bill.

Because this hasn't been getting a lot of play, what with Hurricane Gustave and Hurricane RNC going on. 

Vladimir Putin took some time out of his busy plotting the invasion of all of Russia's past colonial possessions to save a tee vee crew from a Siberian tiger. 

Putin, taking a break from lambasting the West over Georgia, apparently saved the crew while on a trip to a national park to see how researchers monitor the tigers in the wild.

Just as Putin was arriving with a group of wildlife specialists to see a trapped Amur tiger, it escaped and ran towards a nearby camera crew, the country's main television station said. Putin quickly shot the beast and sedated it with a tranquilizer gun.

"Vladimir Putin not only managed to see the giant predator up close but also saved our television crew too," a presenter on Rossiya television said at the start of the main evening news.

Just one word to describe this situation: STAGED!

Where the hell did Vlad the Impaler get a tranquilizer gun?  Does he carry one with him, in case he needs to sedate Medvedev? 

Oh, for the love of God. 

 MOSCOW — As Russia struggled to rally international support for its military action in Georgia, Vladimir V. Putin, the country’s paramount leader, lashed out at the United States on Thursday, contending that the White House may have orchestrated the conflict to benefit one of the candidates in the American presidential election.

Russia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin, seen during his interview with CNN in Sochi, Russia's Black Sea resort. Mr. Putin has suggested the United States pushed Georgia toward war and said he suspects a connection to the American presidential campaign.

Mr. Putin’s comments in a television interview, his most extensive to date on Russia’s decision to send troops into Georgia earlier this month, sought to present the military operation as a response to brazen, cold war-style provocations by the United States. In tones that seemed alternately angry and mischievous, he suggested that the Bush administration may have tried to create a crisis that would influence American voters in the choice of a successor to President Bush.

“The suspicion would arise that someone in the United States created this conflict on purpose to stir up the situation and to create an advantage for one of the candidates in the competitive race for the presidency in the United States,” Mr. Putin said in an interview with CNN.

He added, “They needed a small victorious war.”

Oh, but wait, it gets better...

{...}“We have serious reasons to believe that directly, in the combat zone, citizens of the United States were present.”

“If the facts are confirmed,” he added, “that United States citizens were present in the combat zone, that means only one thing — that they could be there only on the direct instruction of their leadership. And if this is so, then it means that American citizens are in the combat zone, performing their duties, and they can only do that following a direct order from their leader, and not on their own initiative.”{...}

{my emphasis}

Is he serious?  Does he really think this crap is going to play?  Nobody's getting behind the Russians---well, no one who could claim respectability---and their actions in Georgia.  So, it would seem the next logical move, according to Vlad's playbook, is to blame it on the US and the evil imperialist, George W. Bush.  After all, everyone HATES the US.  Why wouldn't the US have started a war in Georgia?  We're evil!  It's something Bush would totally do: start a war to win an election.  He did it with Iraq---why wouldn't he with Georgia?

If anyone in the UN buys this line, I swear to God, we should, as I've said before, ship in mounds of the finest cheese, and when the lactose intolerance kicks in, a highly trained spy should light a match and send that stupid place to the sky. 

Putin's presidential lackey, Dmitry Medvedev, explains "Why He Had To Recognize Georgia's Breakaway Regions" in today's FT.

Let's jump in after the introduction:

{...}Not all of the world’s nations have their own statehood. Many exist happily within boundaries shared with other nations. The Russian Federation is an example of largely harmonious coexistence by many dozens of nations and nationalities. But some nations find it impossible to live under the tutelage of another. Relations between nations living “under one roof” need to be handled with the utmost sensitivity.

The Russian Federation is an example of largely harmonious coexistence by many dozens of nations and nationalities?  Ummm, is the word Chechnya ringing a bell? 

But moving right along...

After the collapse of communism, Russia reconciled itself to the “loss” of 14 former Soviet republics, which became states in their own right, even though some 25m Russians were left stranded in countries no longer their own. Some of those nations were un­able to treat their own minorities with the respect they deserved. Georgia immediately stripped its “autonomous regions” of Abkhazia and South Ossetia of their autonomy.

Can you imagine what it was like for the Abkhaz people to have their university in Sukhumi closed down by the Tbilisi government on the grounds that they allegedly had no proper language or history or culture and so did not need a university? The newly independent Georgia inflicted a vicious war on its minority nations, displacing thousands of people and sowing seeds of discontent that could only grow. These were tinderboxes, right on Russia’s doorstep, which Russian peacekeepers strove to keep from igniting.

But the west, ignoring the delicacy of the situation, unwittingly (or wittingly) fed the hopes of the South Ossetians and Abkhazians for freedom. They clasped to their bosom a Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, whose first move was to crush the autonomy of another region, Adjaria, and made no secret of his intention to squash the Ossetians and Abkhazians.

Meanwhile, ignoring Russia’s warnings, western countries rushed to recognise Kosovo’s illegal declaration of independence from Serbia. We argued consistently that it would be impossible, after that, to tell the Abkhazians and Ossetians (and dozens of other groups around the world) that what was good for the Kosovo Albanians was not good for them. In international relations, you cannot have one rule for some and another rule for others.{...}? 

Chechnya?  No bells are ringing?  Nothing comes to mind here, at all? 

"You cannot have one rule for some and another rule for others".  Oh, really?  Forgive me if I'm wrong here, but when has Russia ever been a defender of "the rule of law"?  Of equality of law?  Please.  Supposedly, this is Medvedev's line, and the one major plank in his campaign platform which he was adamant about: that the rule of law would be upheld in Russia under his administration.  I don't think it comes as a surprise to anyone that what he really meant was, "We'll talk about upholding the law when it serves our purposes and change the law when we need to."  Everything needs to be nice and legal.  Yep.  Because Russia is all about upholding the Rule of Law, international and otherwise.  

Just one question, though: have you guys extradited Andrei Lugovoi to Britain yet to stand charges for the murder of Alexander Litvinenko?

Oh, you have?  Really?  So I should expect to see him in the dock at the Old Bailey any day now...right?  Right?

{...}Only a madman could have taken such a gamble. Did he {Saakashvili} believe Russia would stand idly by as he launched an all-out assault on the sleeping city of Tskhinvali, murdering hundreds of peaceful civilians, most of them Russian citizens? Did he believe Russia would stand by as his “peacekeeping” troops fired on Russian comrades with whom they were supposed to be preventing trouble in South Ossetia?

Russia had no option but to crush the attack to save lives. This was not a war of our choice. We have no designs on Georgian territory. Our troops entered Georgia to destroy bases from which the attack was launched and then left. We restored the peace but could not calm the fears and aspirations of the South Ossetian and Abkhazian peoples – not when Mr Saakashvili continued (with the complicity and encouragement of the US and some other Nato members) to talk of rearming his forces and reclaiming “Georgian territory”. The presidents of the two republics appealed to Russia to recognise their independence.

A heavy decision weighed on my shoulders. Taking into account the freely expressed views of the Ossetian and Abkhazian peoples, and based on the principles of the United Nations charter and other documents of international law, I signed a decree on the Russian Federation’s recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. I sincerely hope that the Georgian people, to whom we feel historic friendship and sympathy, will one day have leaders they deserve, who care about their country and who develop mutually respectful relations with all the peoples in the Caucasus. Russia is ready to support the achievement of such a goal.

So, basically, Medvedev had to act because, well, Saakashvili started it.   And like any frustrated father, whose kids are acting up in the backseat while he's driving around town, doing the Saturday errands, he replied, in essence, I'll come back there and END IT. Just you never mind that it suits my purposes quite nicely to do so anyway.  Never mind that there's evidence to the contrary on that claim.  Because not only did he get to invade Georgia, he also, pretty much, annihilated their military, killing their soldiers and civilians, invading their ports, blocking their commerce, and stripping any and all hardware the Georgians could use to press the Russian's exit from Georgia's sovereign territory.   It works out so much nicer this way.  

If there was any hope left that Medvedev would stand up to Putin, despite the fact that he's Vlad's handpicked successor---and I'm not saying there was much to begin with---it has completely disappeared.  Medvedev is Putin's bitch.  And that's a fact, Jack.

Also, if I had any investments in Russia, even in a smallish mutual fund, which had invested in a smallish way in some project to reach the Russian market, I would bang on to my stockbroker about pulling my money out of there AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.  Same goes if I had invested in companies with a large presence in Russia, like Exxon Mobil or Royal Dutch Shell.  Get thy money out of that country, people.  You'll lose it otherwise.  Not that I'm a stockbroker or anything, but it would seem the wise thing to do.  If they don't have any problems invading a sovereign nation under the guise of trumped up charges of genocide, what's to stop them from going whole hog and appropriating western investment  under the "rule of law?"  They've done it before.  They'll do it again, and this time around they're high on their "success" in Georgia and won't give a damn about any consequences they might face.  

It seems curious to me that a boatload of pundits have made a monumental effort to scare people off of the notion that Putin wants a new Cold War.  Personally, I think that's precisely what Putin wants.  After all, he is a "order rather than chaos" kind of guy, and the Cold War paradigm of two superpowers on either side of a chessboard, with their various satellites acting as pawns, does provide the kind of stability dear old Vlad craves.  What kind of proof do I have to back this claim up?  Well, for one he invaded Georgia---under shifty reasoning and he hasn't left yet, nor does it look like he's going to.  For another, he's threatening Poland, through his subordinates, of course, with all sorts of nuclear and non-nuclear retaliation for having the gall to think they can put a US missile defense base on Polish soil.  And, finally,  Bashar Al-Assad, the President of Syria, has gone running home to papa, looking for the type of arms deal that hasn't been available since his daddy dealt with the Soviets:

Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s president, arrived on a two-day visit to Russia on Wednesday seeking new weapons and greater military co-operation and hoping to capitalise on the rising tensions between Moscow and the west.

In an interview with the Russian daily Kommersant, the Syrian leader said arms talks would top the agenda during discussions on Thursday with Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Syria is eager to revive a deal to import Russian Iskander ballistic missiles, which have better targeting systems than its existing arsenal of Scud missiles. Talks over the missiles were abandoned two years ago.

Mr Assad said Russia’s conflict with Georgia, in which Moscow claims Georgia used Israeli-supplied equipment and military training, had underlined the need for Russia and Syria to bolster their military co-operation.

Syria remains in a state of war with Israel, which has occupied the Golan Heights since 1967, although the two sides have been holding indirect peace talks through Turkish mediators.

“Everyone knows about the role Israel and its military consultants played in the Georgian crisis,” Mr Assad said, adding that Russia could no longer count on “friendliness” from Israel.{...}

It's curious that Bashar is the first one to line up for Post-Soviet Satellite status.  I kind of figured he'd wait until after some of the African countries had queued up, but I suppose now that they're being supported by the Chinese, they really don't need Russian Satellite Status anymore, whereas Bashar's stocks must be running pretty low since Saddam went out of business.  And, undoubtedly, the Russians are easier to deal with than that whacko Ahmedinejad.  Wouldn't want to get too close to Hezbollah and it's supporters, would we?

But, lest you think it's all bad news about Russia, realize that, because they invaded Georgia, they took a big financial hit:

Investors pulled their money out of Russia in the wake of the Georgia conflict at the fastest rate since the 1998 rouble crisis, new figures showed yesterday.

Russian debt and equity markets have also suffered sharp falls since the conflict began on August 8, with yields on domestic rouble bonds increasing by up to 150 basis points in the last month.

The moves come as President Dmitry Medvedev faces pressure from business leaders concerned that the impact of the global credit crisis is starting to be felt in Russia.

Credit conditions are to be discussed at next month’s “summit of oligarchs”, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs meeting that former President Vladimir Putin held annually to discuss economic issues.

Vladimir Potanin, head of Interros, one of Russia’s largest industrial groups, has complained about the shortage of long-term credit to Mr Medvedev, the financial newspaper Vedomisti reported yesterday.

The tight credit conditions have been exacerbated by foreign capital flight since the war. Data released by Russia’s central bank showed a drop in foreign currency reserves of just over $16.4bn in the week beginning August 8. This was one of the largest absolute weekly drops in 10 years, according to Ivan Tchakarov at Lehman Brothers.

The only larger drop in reserves since 1998 was $16.5bn in June 2006, when Russia paid off the bulk of its Paris club debt.{...}

So, not only has Russia's cash reserves dropped since the start of the Georgian war, they've also just learned that they're not as immune as they once though to the global credit crunch.  Now keep in mind that Russia's foreign currency reserves are $581 billion, that's still a big chunk of change to be lost.  I suspect that if Putin and his lackey, Medvedev, keep up with their current rhetoric and follow up said rhetoric with action, they're going to lose a lot more than just $16 billion in foreign currency reserves.  Western oil companies might start fleeing, along with other companies that are heavily invested in Russia. 

And then where will Putin be?  After all, you've got to have funds to run an empire---armies do march on their stomachs, as that little French bastard said once---and the new Russia needs Western investment to keep running.  If the West doesn't want to invest, who's he going to go running to?  The Chinese?  I don't think they'll be too keen to pay Russia's asking price, particularly not when they're getting such good bargains in Africa for all the raw materials they could ever want. 

There's only one thing that's for certain in all of this---it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Why, you finally get with the program and go out and buy a gun. 

Or in Poland's case, you let the US set up their missile defense system in your backyard, and get a battery of Patriot missiles in return. 

They've been working on this deal for over a year now, and if you think the current events in Georgia didn't have anything to do with Poland's hasty reversal, you, my devoted Cake Eater readers, need a good lesson in geopolitical theory.  

Poland's government changed during the winter and the new Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, wasn't too keen on the deal, set up originally by President Kacyzinski, and his twin brother, the former Prime Minister, who are more than a little whacko about the threat from Russia and have put Polish society through an anti-commie witchhunt for the past several years.  (yeah, Polish politics are that confusing.)  If Tusk was going to do it at all, he wanted more bang for his buck, to make it worthwhile to antagonize Russia in such a way---and he got it, in the form of Patriot missiles, and a mutual defense agreement, wherein the US will come to their aid if Poland suddenly gets in trouble, above and beyond any NATO promises to do the same.  Of course, the Poles are obliged to come to the US's defense, should, you know, someone decide to invade here, but you get the gist.  What has happened in Georgia has them running scared.

There's just one thing, though, that gave me a good chuckle out of all this.  Dana Perino, White House Spokeswoman, said that this deal, "was not an attempt to antagonize Russia."  BAH!  Who are you trying to kid, lady?  Of course it was intended to antagonize Russia.  Forget the cover story about setting up missile defense in Poland to protect us from Iran, this is all about Russia, baby.  And it's about time the Russians learned they're going to have to pay a price for what they did in Georgia.  That means a missile defense base in Poland, and in the Czech Republic.  That means Ukraine will shortly be ushered into NATO.  That means Russia will be kicked out of the G8, and won't be allowed into the WTO.  That means, potentially, a shortage of western investment into building up Russia's oil and gas infrastructure, which is probably just fine by BP, Royal Dutch Shell and any number of other oil companies due to Putin's tendency to let them build things up and then appropriate their hard work for the benefit of Rosneft and Gazprom, the Russian state oil and gas companies.  The days when the former Soviet satellites were unable to rely upon the West for help in dealing with Russia's imperialistic whims are over with.  It should be interesting to see just how pissed off Vlad gets at this development.   But he brought it on himself.  He, apparently, needs reminding that what he thought was his backyard isn't his anymore.  

As a related aside, it's kind of funny how the past couple of days have brought that red-headed stepchild of international relations theory, the Domino Theory,  back into favorable use.