---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 8:58 AM
Subject: re: Putin, Amid Stark Challenges, Says Russia’s Destiny Is in Hand
To: "letters@nytimes.com"
To the Editor:
Vladimir Putin can "not convincingly explain how the Kremlin would contend with the economic damage from Western sanctions — and a simultaneous plunge in oil prices and the ruble", but that is not his focus. Putin is concerned with status, not with substance. If you count tanks, subs, nuclear war-heads, Russia is a great power and Putin demands the due respect. If you peer through any other lens, Russia is just one more petro-state in a falling economy. Its oil and gas reserves are worth less month by month as renewables become cheaper and cheaper. So while Moscow wants this to be a matter of counting tanks, Washington prefers to make this a matter of clashing economies.
Vladimir Putin can "not convincingly explain how the Kremlin would contend with the economic damage from Western sanctions — and a simultaneous plunge in oil prices and the ruble", but that is not his focus. Putin is concerned with status, not with substance. If you count tanks, subs, nuclear war-heads, Russia is a great power and Putin demands the due respect. If you peer through any other lens, Russia is just one more petro-state in a falling economy. Its oil and gas reserves are worth less month by month as renewables become cheaper and cheaper. So while Moscow wants this to be a matter of counting tanks, Washington prefers to make this a matter of clashing economies.
Russia today is in the position of Sparta in the 5th century b.c.e. It had a formidable infantry, but no one would come out and fight it. Rather, it was bled endlessly by harrying raids by more mobile enemies. Nobody won, of course.
Barry Haskell Levine
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/05/world/europe/putin-russia-state-of-nation-speech.html
No comments:
Post a Comment