Why the West has nothing to fear from posturing Mr Putin
23rd August 2007
Daily Mail
MAX HASTINGS
It's a classic image of the Cold War, yet it was captured on film only last week: a giant Russian Bear bomber being shadowed over the North Atlantic by RAF jets.
For more than a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian military aircraft seldom approached British airspace.
But today, as part of President Putin's campaign to flex his nation's muscles, once more Russian bombers are flying reconnaissance missions towards the West, providing the RAF with a photo-opportunity to suggest that its new Typhoon fighters are not quite the expensive anachronisms some of us think.
Putin seizes every opportunity to assert national pretensions, to beat his waxed chest in public. On Tuesday, at the country's biggest air show for years, he promised that his government would increase its output of both military and civilian aircraft.
Classic Cold War image: A Russian Bear bomber (top) being shadowed over British airspace by RAF jets last week
'Russia, as a state that has acquired new economic capabilities, will continue to attach special importance to high technology and development,' he declared.
A fortnight ago, the world was shown videos of a Russian mini-sub planting a titanium flag under the North Pole, the sequence enriched as only Moscow knows how, with stolen footage from the Hollywood movie Titanic.
Russia's naval commander talks of restoring a permanent fleet in the Mediterranean, using its abandoned base on the Syrian coast. Tensions are mounting between Moscow and former Soviet republics - especially Georgia, Ukraine and the Baltic states.
All this adds up to a package which alarms many foreigners. After years of being feted in the West as leader of an embryonic Russian democracy, Vladimir Putin has shown his hand as the KGB man he once was - and the ruthless autocrat he is.
Even if he does not stand for re-election next year (which would require a constitutional change to allow him another term) his successor will be a hand-picked clone.
Russian democracy is eclipsed. We are back to dealing with the familiar snarling bear of history; with Moscow's cult of personality; with threats as the principal instrument of foreign policy; and czarist rule by another name.
Putin seizes every opportunity to beat his waxed chest in public
Most of the Russian people love it, of course. This is the kind of governance they understand, which strikes a chord with every taxi driver who still keeps a miniature of Joseph Stalin beside his windscreen.
They associate their society's decade of democracy with chaos and rampant inflation coupled with condescension and humiliation at the hands of the West.
Now at last, they have got back some of the order they value, even if the trains still do not run on time. They see their leader sticking up for their supposed greatness in the world and they applauded to the rafters Moscow's contemptuous dismissal of Britain's demand for the extradition of the ex-KGB man suspected of murdering Alexander Litvinenko in London.
They feel provoked by American plans to deploy part of its new anti-missile system in Eastern Europe. They rejoice in Washington's disaster in Iraq.
Short-lived Western hopes of friendship with Moscow are out of the window - but they were always optimistic. The huge disparity of wealth between us and them fed Russia's historic inferiority complex. Western societies are rich and successful, while in almost every respect Russia is a failing society.
A falling birth-rate has sent its population into steep decline and alcoholism is a national disease.
Russian science and industry achieve successes in a narrow field of weapons and aerospace, but are incapable of manufacturing consumer goods which anyone save its own captive market would buy.
Whoever heard of a foreigner willingly driving a Russian car or using a Russian computer? They cannot make toasters or microwaves, washing-machines or cookers that could find an export market anywhere outside Cuba.
Its financial system is primitive and corrupt. Amid the growing worldwide energy crunch, the West is dismayed by the Russians' determination to exploit their own oil and gas reserves, rather than allow foreigners to do so, because Russian skills and technology are sure to botch the business.
Putin has shown his hand as the KGB man he once was
Only their fantastic reserves of natural resources allow Putin to strut the stage. The soaring price of oil and gas pours cash into the Kremlin's coffers.
After years in which Russia was dependent on Western credit to pay its bills, suddenly the country has money to burn - and is burning it.
That is how Putin this week was able to promise to build a generation of high-tech aircraft and to develop his own antimissile system.
Yet the president's grandstanding is chiefly designed to impress the Russian people. The huge structural problems of his country persist.
Outside a handful of showpiece cities, Russian conurbations resemble rubbish dumps. Pathetically, few Russian consumers, even the educated middle class, possess a single artefact in their homes which any British or American family would have even as a free gift.
Russian society is dominated by Putin's chosen handful of oligarchs, who are permitted to amass vast wealth in return for giving unstinting support to Kremlin policies.
Nowhere in Putin's universe is there an understanding that in these shackles, Russia is unlikely to advance from its trough of despond. There is no hint of anything happening which might enable the country to match the economic and industrial progress of China or even India.
Pity the Russian people, whose future looks increasingly bleak. Internal repression is less severe than under the old Soviet Union, but year by year free expression is wrung out of the media and political institutions. Journalists who dissent die, and nobody - including Putin - cares a jot.
Western Europe, with its unhealthy dependence on Russian oil and gas, is likely to have plenty of grief ahead, as the president and his successors seek to extort every possible concession, against the threat of cutting the pipeline.
Russia cannot press this advantage too far, because it needs our money as much as we need its energy. But Moscow will do its utmost to divide and rule, playing off one customer nation against another - a strategy in which it already has some success.
Yet, for all those big, bad Bear bombers taunting Western defences, it seems mistaken to suppose that we are anywhere near fighting the Russians again, or are likely to be.
The world is a long day's march from where it was 40 or 50 years ago, at the chilliest point of the Cold War. Russia is fundamentally a weak nation whose president is attempting, often absurdly, to make it masquerade as a strong one.
He wants Russia to walk tall in the world. Since it cannot command respect for wealth, scientific or financial achievement or social progress, then he tries to get it by frightening us a little - as his forefathers have done for centuries. But there is no sign that Russia wants war.
Putin is an old-fashioned schoolyard bully. We can afford to laugh at his pretensions - and resist his more outrageous demands. The G8 meeting of world powers should learn to be ruder to the Russians, because tough talk is the only kind they understand or respect.
Russia's president presides over a gangster culture, which is chiefly the tragedy for his own people.
The rest of us do not have to live in Putin's country, thank goodness, and should be less frightened of it than he would like us to be.
dailymail.co.uk
23rd August 2007
Daily Mail
MAX HASTINGS
It's a classic image of the Cold War, yet it was captured on film only last week: a giant Russian Bear bomber being shadowed over the North Atlantic by RAF jets.
For more than a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian military aircraft seldom approached British airspace.
But today, as part of President Putin's campaign to flex his nation's muscles, once more Russian bombers are flying reconnaissance missions towards the West, providing the RAF with a photo-opportunity to suggest that its new Typhoon fighters are not quite the expensive anachronisms some of us think.
Putin seizes every opportunity to assert national pretensions, to beat his waxed chest in public. On Tuesday, at the country's biggest air show for years, he promised that his government would increase its output of both military and civilian aircraft.
Classic Cold War image: A Russian Bear bomber (top) being shadowed over British airspace by RAF jets last week
'Russia, as a state that has acquired new economic capabilities, will continue to attach special importance to high technology and development,' he declared.
A fortnight ago, the world was shown videos of a Russian mini-sub planting a titanium flag under the North Pole, the sequence enriched as only Moscow knows how, with stolen footage from the Hollywood movie Titanic.
Russia's naval commander talks of restoring a permanent fleet in the Mediterranean, using its abandoned base on the Syrian coast. Tensions are mounting between Moscow and former Soviet republics - especially Georgia, Ukraine and the Baltic states.
All this adds up to a package which alarms many foreigners. After years of being feted in the West as leader of an embryonic Russian democracy, Vladimir Putin has shown his hand as the KGB man he once was - and the ruthless autocrat he is.
Even if he does not stand for re-election next year (which would require a constitutional change to allow him another term) his successor will be a hand-picked clone.
Russian democracy is eclipsed. We are back to dealing with the familiar snarling bear of history; with Moscow's cult of personality; with threats as the principal instrument of foreign policy; and czarist rule by another name.
Putin seizes every opportunity to beat his waxed chest in public
Most of the Russian people love it, of course. This is the kind of governance they understand, which strikes a chord with every taxi driver who still keeps a miniature of Joseph Stalin beside his windscreen.
They associate their society's decade of democracy with chaos and rampant inflation coupled with condescension and humiliation at the hands of the West.
Now at last, they have got back some of the order they value, even if the trains still do not run on time. They see their leader sticking up for their supposed greatness in the world and they applauded to the rafters Moscow's contemptuous dismissal of Britain's demand for the extradition of the ex-KGB man suspected of murdering Alexander Litvinenko in London.
They feel provoked by American plans to deploy part of its new anti-missile system in Eastern Europe. They rejoice in Washington's disaster in Iraq.
Short-lived Western hopes of friendship with Moscow are out of the window - but they were always optimistic. The huge disparity of wealth between us and them fed Russia's historic inferiority complex. Western societies are rich and successful, while in almost every respect Russia is a failing society.
A falling birth-rate has sent its population into steep decline and alcoholism is a national disease.
Russian science and industry achieve successes in a narrow field of weapons and aerospace, but are incapable of manufacturing consumer goods which anyone save its own captive market would buy.
Whoever heard of a foreigner willingly driving a Russian car or using a Russian computer? They cannot make toasters or microwaves, washing-machines or cookers that could find an export market anywhere outside Cuba.
Its financial system is primitive and corrupt. Amid the growing worldwide energy crunch, the West is dismayed by the Russians' determination to exploit their own oil and gas reserves, rather than allow foreigners to do so, because Russian skills and technology are sure to botch the business.
Putin has shown his hand as the KGB man he once was
Only their fantastic reserves of natural resources allow Putin to strut the stage. The soaring price of oil and gas pours cash into the Kremlin's coffers.
After years in which Russia was dependent on Western credit to pay its bills, suddenly the country has money to burn - and is burning it.
That is how Putin this week was able to promise to build a generation of high-tech aircraft and to develop his own antimissile system.
Yet the president's grandstanding is chiefly designed to impress the Russian people. The huge structural problems of his country persist.
Outside a handful of showpiece cities, Russian conurbations resemble rubbish dumps. Pathetically, few Russian consumers, even the educated middle class, possess a single artefact in their homes which any British or American family would have even as a free gift.
Russian society is dominated by Putin's chosen handful of oligarchs, who are permitted to amass vast wealth in return for giving unstinting support to Kremlin policies.
Nowhere in Putin's universe is there an understanding that in these shackles, Russia is unlikely to advance from its trough of despond. There is no hint of anything happening which might enable the country to match the economic and industrial progress of China or even India.
Pity the Russian people, whose future looks increasingly bleak. Internal repression is less severe than under the old Soviet Union, but year by year free expression is wrung out of the media and political institutions. Journalists who dissent die, and nobody - including Putin - cares a jot.
Western Europe, with its unhealthy dependence on Russian oil and gas, is likely to have plenty of grief ahead, as the president and his successors seek to extort every possible concession, against the threat of cutting the pipeline.
Russia cannot press this advantage too far, because it needs our money as much as we need its energy. But Moscow will do its utmost to divide and rule, playing off one customer nation against another - a strategy in which it already has some success.
Yet, for all those big, bad Bear bombers taunting Western defences, it seems mistaken to suppose that we are anywhere near fighting the Russians again, or are likely to be.
The world is a long day's march from where it was 40 or 50 years ago, at the chilliest point of the Cold War. Russia is fundamentally a weak nation whose president is attempting, often absurdly, to make it masquerade as a strong one.
He wants Russia to walk tall in the world. Since it cannot command respect for wealth, scientific or financial achievement or social progress, then he tries to get it by frightening us a little - as his forefathers have done for centuries. But there is no sign that Russia wants war.
Putin is an old-fashioned schoolyard bully. We can afford to laugh at his pretensions - and resist his more outrageous demands. The G8 meeting of world powers should learn to be ruder to the Russians, because tough talk is the only kind they understand or respect.
Russia's president presides over a gangster culture, which is chiefly the tragedy for his own people.
The rest of us do not have to live in Putin's country, thank goodness, and should be less frightened of it than he would like us to be.
dailymail.co.uk
