Does Russia Pose a New Threat to the West?

Right after the Soviet Era ended, people in the West were happy to see Democratic reforms taking place in the new Russia that emerged from the dust of the old Cold war days. Entrepreneurs of all kinds began to flock to nations that had once been off-limits to Capitalists and others seeking to invest in new markets. It was a heady heyday of freedom, celebrated by Russians of all ethnics groups and languages.

So, what happened? Why is Russia now run more like a Mafia empire than a free-market country? Who did what to kill the great dream of a free and prosperous Russia, a Russia that followed a Western economic model?

Gary Kasparov was the Soviet Union’s great chess player, who now runs, unsuccessfully, for political office in Russia. When he is not under threat of one kind or another, which he says comes straight from the top, Kasparov tries desperately to get his message out in a tightly controlled media that falls directly under the control of former President Vladimir Putin, and now under the hand-picked puppet, Dmitry Medvedev.

You remember Putin, the man President Bush said he could see through the windows of his eyes, the guy Bush said was a “good guy” and on the same page with us? Well, Putin has been replaced by space aliens, I fear, because the strongman, who now fills the chair of Prime Minister, seems bent of returning Russia to the same rigid control system that once kept the Soviet Union under such tight wraps.

Under Putin there have been mysterious assassinations, all accomplished in typical, shoulder-shrugging KGB style. KGB-like thugs have broken into offices, jailed officials, and of course, when regional governments displeased Putin, he replaced them with his own hand-picked men, who were 100% obedient to him, as were the old Stalinist apparatchiks of the 1930’s and 40’s.

Why do people there put up wit this, and why does no one speak out against this new Soviet-style dictatorship in the guise of democracy?

OK, people tell me that things work differently in Russia, that there is something fatalistic in “the Great Russian Soul”. That people there just accept with quiet sighs the major and minor changes that occur in their lifetimes. Yet something tells me that the changes occurring are not part of any great plans to democratize that huge and still important nation.

I fear the emergence of top-heavy Soviet-style leadership in Russia. It is still a very well-armed nation, with enough nukes to make life miserable for decades, if not centuries on Planet Earth.

I fear that Russia will be using its natural gas and oil money to play spoiler in European and Middle East nations.

I fear that a Russia playing Russian Roulette with the world will cause a catastrophe that will make WWI and WWII look like a Kindergarten exercise in playing at war.

Why do I fear these things? Well, when I look into Mr. Putin’s eyes, I see a cold, calculating former KGB official who believes that people are robots to be ordered about, nations are natural enemies to Mother Russia, and I also see the cold, distant stare of a Mafia boss, willing to do anything, and I do mean anything, to get his way.

I can only hope that whoever our next president may be, he or she will look deeply into Vladimir Putin’s eyes and see him for what he really is. Because, unless our next leader has that ability, we all will be playing Russian Roulette with our future.


For more enlightenment about this subject, please refer to the article written by Lord David Howell, former British Cabinet minister and former chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. Lord Howell is now a member of the British House of Lords.

http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/western-alliance/42882-russia-disappoints-world.html