Perhaps someone should crowdfund a roadside billboard campaign along whatever route TRIPP is supposed to follow. Big pictures of his glowering mug and/or mugshot with the words “Coming Soon! The Trump Route(etc., Jesus that guy’s long winded)” in whichever regional language is appropriate. It just feels so retro-Soviet that online mockery alone might prevent this abomination.
Dear Cathy, thank you for your insightful articles with information I am not getting elsewhere. Question: Based on history and your knowledge of the Russian context, what are the possible outcomes for Putin should the war continue to go south? e.g., stays in power, flees to another country (my brother suggested Mar al Lago), or is exiled at his Sochi palace? Thanks again
“Putin started the war in Ukraine in a deranged attempt to rebuild the Russian (or Soviet) empire”. Couldn’t agree more—ego. I hope it leads to a greater defeat.
Can Georgia (the 3rd nation in the Caucasus) be next? The government leans toward Moscow but the people are largely pro-Western, plus Russia still holds about 20% of Georgian territory from their war in 2008. The Armenian tilt is interesting because it’s been my understanding that Armenia has historically viewed Russia as its “protector” going back to the days of the Ottoman Empire.
It goes back farther than that. In late antiquity, Armenia and Georgia were a buffer between the Persian and Roman/Byzantine empires. That continued after the Ottomans inherited the Byzantine Empire and Russia got in on the act. The Armenians and Georgians always had to balance their desires for security and independence - sometimes vis-a-vis each other, as well as their surrounding empires.
While I enjoy optimism, there’s nothing more dangerous than a losing brutal dictator with no regard for life. A desperate evil man like Putin who knows what he will do to try and save face.
We didn’t “finish the job” of economically reforming the historically brutal and dishonest Soviet Union when we had the chance from November 1989 to sometime in 1991. We got distracted by whatever was shinier and more instantly gratifying. But now, these decades later, Russia destroys itself. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, I guess.
It wasn't a matter of failing to "finish" the reform of the Soviet Union so much as botching the job of reform. A market economy must rest on a foundation of civic culture, which had been thoroughly destroyed by the Soviet regime. Western "experts" had lived under the rule of law for so long that they just took it for granted, not even noticing its absence in Russia. The result of relaxing the regime's control without building a civic culture was a criminal culture, which we still see today in Russia. I was among the American Soviet/Russian economic analysts who tried to warn our colleagues about this problem, but we were ignored by the government, which was committed to an optimistic narrative about reform, and by academics, who regarded our cultural arguments as ethnocentric.
But we should not blame it entirely on the Western experts. Russians had a magical understanding of the market: they thought of it as a machine that, after it was installed in Russia, would just start generating wealth without changing anything else about how their society worked. They consistently blocked efforts to permit the buying and selling of land, for example, because after centuries as serfs followed by communism, they thought of land as something sacred to be held in trust for the peasants by the ruling class.
Lukashenko is to Putin as Franco was to Hitler. All talk and no troops.
Excellent comparison.
This is good. You guys should do more from Young.
Perhaps someone should crowdfund a roadside billboard campaign along whatever route TRIPP is supposed to follow. Big pictures of his glowering mug and/or mugshot with the words “Coming Soon! The Trump Route(etc., Jesus that guy’s long winded)” in whichever regional language is appropriate. It just feels so retro-Soviet that online mockery alone might prevent this abomination.
Dear Cathy, thank you for your insightful articles with information I am not getting elsewhere. Question: Based on history and your knowledge of the Russian context, what are the possible outcomes for Putin should the war continue to go south? e.g., stays in power, flees to another country (my brother suggested Mar al Lago), or is exiled at his Sochi palace? Thanks again
“Putin started the war in Ukraine in a deranged attempt to rebuild the Russian (or Soviet) empire”. Couldn’t agree more—ego. I hope it leads to a greater defeat.
Two questions to ponder:
1. When Russia devolves into chaos and regional conflict, how big a chunk will China grab?
2. When Putin falls and dies, which mob boss oligarch will try to take over first?
Thank you for the updates on Russia and its neighbors, Cathy. Do you have a piece coming on the recent Ukrainian attacks inside Russia?
Karma
Can Georgia (the 3rd nation in the Caucasus) be next? The government leans toward Moscow but the people are largely pro-Western, plus Russia still holds about 20% of Georgian territory from their war in 2008. The Armenian tilt is interesting because it’s been my understanding that Armenia has historically viewed Russia as its “protector” going back to the days of the Ottoman Empire.
It goes back farther than that. In late antiquity, Armenia and Georgia were a buffer between the Persian and Roman/Byzantine empires. That continued after the Ottomans inherited the Byzantine Empire and Russia got in on the act. The Armenians and Georgians always had to balance their desires for security and independence - sometimes vis-a-vis each other, as well as their surrounding empires.
I appreciate your analysis and it is thought provoking
Empires always want to be great again.
Of course all empires come with treating your aquiered subjects badly very badly.
Every new wanna be emperor has an easy pitch,
While I enjoy optimism, there’s nothing more dangerous than a losing brutal dictator with no regard for life. A desperate evil man like Putin who knows what he will do to try and save face.
We didn’t “finish the job” of economically reforming the historically brutal and dishonest Soviet Union when we had the chance from November 1989 to sometime in 1991. We got distracted by whatever was shinier and more instantly gratifying. But now, these decades later, Russia destroys itself. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, I guess.
It wasn't a matter of failing to "finish" the reform of the Soviet Union so much as botching the job of reform. A market economy must rest on a foundation of civic culture, which had been thoroughly destroyed by the Soviet regime. Western "experts" had lived under the rule of law for so long that they just took it for granted, not even noticing its absence in Russia. The result of relaxing the regime's control without building a civic culture was a criminal culture, which we still see today in Russia. I was among the American Soviet/Russian economic analysts who tried to warn our colleagues about this problem, but we were ignored by the government, which was committed to an optimistic narrative about reform, and by academics, who regarded our cultural arguments as ethnocentric.
But we should not blame it entirely on the Western experts. Russians had a magical understanding of the market: they thought of it as a machine that, after it was installed in Russia, would just start generating wealth without changing anything else about how their society worked. They consistently blocked efforts to permit the buying and selling of land, for example, because after centuries as serfs followed by communism, they thought of land as something sacred to be held in trust for the peasants by the ruling class.
The bad guys are losing.
Over there. Why can't that ever happen here in our neck of the woods?
Love watching Putin’s world crumble.