Cyrill Vatomsky, Where All Politics Are Global: Putin, Friedman, NATO and Cold War II.

Putin, Friedman, NATO and Cold War II.

Posted At : February 26, 2007 5:20 PM | Posted By : Cyrill Vatomsky
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Opening is a short comment on the previous week broadcast where a challenge was made that this show’s audience is too small and too intelligent, meaning this show’s content is way over most people’s heads.

I can not disagree more. My experience in this country and abroad tells me, borrowing Peggy Noonan’s words, this is the country of sophisticates. And there is no surprise for me in this. The amount of information, of different positions that this country is exposed to, vs. unanimity of media in other countries is the key to understand why United States is a country of sophisticates. And I am not talking about Russia some other country where a huge portion of the media is controlled by the government one way or another. How about UK, and its puny radio industry: BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4 and so on simulcasting both in FM and AM!

I will state this again: if there is something most valuable I brought with me from the USSR, something I learned because of my experiences there – that will be the conclusion that unanimity is not a good thing. Unanimity is dangerous, it is stagnating, it is bad for society.

Plurality of ideas is what makes this country great and sophisticated. The free market of ideas, just like the free market of anything else: Coke vs. Pepsi, Left vs. Right, Nike vs. Reebok. The best will survive and the looser will die.

To those that called last week and supported this show, thank you, but I am not surprised – sophisticates need intellectual stimulation and this is once again the reason. We in this country get so much intellectual stimulation by being exposed to plurality of ideas that our mind bandwidth expands. The first law of dialectics at play: accumulation of quantity and transformation of accumulated quantity into new quality.

The media, however is somewhat a different story. Last week Mr. Putin made a speech in Munich that some treated as a declaration of the new Cold War. Unfortunately for Putin, a bimbo died in the US and the US media went into a carrion feeding frenzy of 24/7 dead bimbo coverage. Cold War? Who cares… Here is a good assessment of the situation by Ariel Cohen.

Putin waxed nostalgic about the bi-polar world in which the U.S. and the USSR checked each other's ambition through a balance of nuclear terror known as Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). Many Russian and Western experts perceive Putin's speech as a declaration of a new Cold War.

Moving on to apparent exception to the first law of dialectics: Thomas L. Freidman and his syndicated column about Putin’s speech in Munich. I do not for the life of me, understand how is it possible that Thomas L. Friedman still has no clue about Russia its policies and goals. He takes a cue from Putin, complaining about expansion of NATO and tries to sell it as his own conclusion. How pathetically transparent! Then he insults people that suffered long and hard behind the iron curtain:

OK, fine, we were ready to enrage Russia to expand NATO, but what have we gotten out of it? The Czech navy?

Nice going Mr. Friedman, duh, very funny indeed. Have you no shame dishing out this condescending spite towards the country twice before betrayed by the West? We in the West must support and protect those that want to join our club of democratic capitalism. If and when Russia wants to join, we should invite it as well. Friedman clearly does not get it. He also makes absolutely clueless claims like:

For those of us who opposed NATO expansion, the point was simple: There is no major geopolitical issue, especially one like Iran, that we can resolve without Russia's help.

How can a person that travels around the globe think that the world is flat? How can someone with that kind of experience and knowledge not understand that it is not in Russia’s interests to resolve the situation with Iran? Just look at the map and ponder the importance of the Caspian Sea, Central Asian Oil and Gas, Russia’s desire to keep its virtual monopoly on access to Central Asia. It is clear as day to me and I wonder why is it not clear as day to Thomas L. Friedman that it is completely futile to expect Putin’s Russia Inc. to help. This issue also later comes up during my conversation with caller Kenny who also inquired about Putin’s personal oil and gas interests and ambition. Take a listen.

The bottom line is if Russia wants to be a petro-cartel then the status quo is in its interests, nothing else.

Then there is David Ignatius

Russia is back. That's the real lesson I take from Putin's blunt comments. A country that was near collapse after the fall of Soviet communism has regained enough confidence and stability to take a verbal shot at its old rival.

This is equally silly. How confident and stable is Chavez, or Ahmadinejad who constantly snipe at the US. Obviously, Krauthammer he is not.

How similar are the 2007 and 1994 North Korea agreements? Have a listen as well.