On December 18 President Vladimir Putin gave his traditional end-of-year holiday speech. Think of it as a Russian version of the American State-of-the-Union address always given by our President. In it Putin expressed dismay and concern at the manner in which Russia’s “Western partners” were behaving, even going so far as to declare Western intentions as being purposely aimed at controlling Russian national resources and leaving Russia a de facto vassal state. He vividly used the analogy of a chained bear, with Western powers looking to declaw and defang Russian power so as to make it compliant and impotent. There was even a dramatic use of old-school symbology in this expansive three-hour speech. The traditional reaction of American power to such openly bravado displays of defiance and strength is usually one of disdain and dismissal. In most cases it is fairly harmless to disregard such acts of macho. But in this case I believe there are certain signals within the speech that indicate America would do well to pay closer attention and not simply think these are the desperate actions of a man pushed to his wits’ end by sanctions that are having the desired effect on Russia.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 12:58:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015