One Possible Elaboration, Part I:
(without claims for the absolute truth attached to it)
The biggest nightmare in the minds of the ruling class in the anlgo-saxon world (chief US and UK political and business powers) is that Russia might create an Eurasian political and economic union with Germany and France (and EU generally), with high mutual economic, political, military and cultural benefits.
That would mean huge loss of markets, power and influence for Washington and London. There are such tendencies, no matter how improbable in the short-term they look to the casual political observer who doesn't follow closely what's really going on.
So in a certain way the Cold War is needed (if not required) to continue, even after pretending it is something of the past.
One PR-related nasty form of this war - only bad news or no news allowed from Russia in the mainstream western media. The less people think Russia, Russian, (or even just Russians) are notions you could attach nice, friendly, good-minded connotations, the better!
The president Putin really pissed-off the western state and big-business powers that in a period of rising petrol/gas prices in 2000s they couldn't extract the tens of billions $ they used to do easily in the 90s - back then with the help of the local oligarchs enriched overnight by criminally grabbing ownership of state economic base and infrastructure they themselves had not built in the preceding decades.
Putin even had the temerity to use the extra-profits for increasing the country's living standard and modernizing the armed forces - one of the 3 to 5 really formidable military organizations in the world.
And he started doing the really unthinkable - gently probing EU, Asian and African (think Libya) countries for this disgusting idea of selling energy resources for currencies other than the $. (And this in times of this self-inflicted financial crisis.)
On the [re]New[ed] Cold War - just a few points of thought or questions for someone to ponder over, if really interested:
How come NATO still exists when its mirror-antagonist military organization of the former socialist EE-countries from the soviet block has gone to history, dissolved peacefully and voluntarily?
Why are there still US military bases (old and new) across the EU-countries today since Gorbachev retreated back the Russian/Soviet armed forces from East Germany and Eastern Europe?
Why was the Gorbachev's 80-year jubilee held in London? If he was uniformly acknowledged as such a good doer to humanity and democracy why wasn't that an event held in his home country and among his own people proud of him?
What does the average ordinary Russian think of Gorbachev? Actually who was robbed and who profited from the neo-liberal economic policies he had been instrumental to be installed in Russia?
russian army is not formidable military organizations and hasn't been since 1970s, may be earlier. the only thing formidable is the level of corruption. There was an article few days ago that they feed dog food to their conscripts. The only thing that keeps them being taken seriously is the nuclear threat, which they parade (literally) every single opportunity they get
I think it is worth the widespread but rarely (for obvious reasons) publicly articulated sentiment that various US groups are actively involved in suppressing German culture and preventing Germany from having its own national defense. Russia in some ways is as much a proxy for a revived Germany free of US occupation as it is about Russia proper.
The biggest nightmare in the minds of the ruling class in the anlgo-saxon world (chief US and UK political and business powers) is that Russia might create an Eurasian political and economic union with Germany and France (and EU generally), with high mutual economic, political, military and cultural benefits.
That would mean huge loss of markets, power and influence for Washington and London. There are such tendencies, no matter how improbable in the short-term they look to the casual political observer who doesn't follow closely what's really going on.
So in a certain way the Cold War is needed (if not required) to continue, even after pretending it is something of the past.
One PR-related nasty form of this war - only bad news or no news allowed from Russia in the mainstream western media. The less people think Russia, Russian, (or even just Russians) are notions you could attach nice, friendly, good-minded connotations, the better!
The president Putin really pissed-off the western state and big-business powers that in a period of rising petrol/gas prices in 2000s they couldn't extract the tens of billions $ they used to do easily in the 90s - back then with the help of the local oligarchs enriched overnight by criminally grabbing ownership of state economic base and infrastructure they themselves had not built in the preceding decades.
Putin even had the temerity to use the extra-profits for increasing the country's living standard and modernizing the armed forces - one of the 3 to 5 really formidable military organizations in the world.
And he started doing the really unthinkable - gently probing EU, Asian and African (think Libya) countries for this disgusting idea of selling energy resources for currencies other than the $. (And this in times of this self-inflicted financial crisis.)
On the [re]New[ed] Cold War - just a few points of thought or questions for someone to ponder over, if really interested:
How come NATO still exists when its mirror-antagonist military organization of the former socialist EE-countries from the soviet block has gone to history, dissolved peacefully and voluntarily?
Why are there still US military bases (old and new) across the EU-countries today since Gorbachev retreated back the Russian/Soviet armed forces from East Germany and Eastern Europe?
Why was the Gorbachev's 80-year jubilee held in London? If he was uniformly acknowledged as such a good doer to humanity and democracy why wasn't that an event held in his home country and among his own people proud of him?
What does the average ordinary Russian think of Gorbachev? Actually who was robbed and who profited from the neo-liberal economic policies he had been instrumental to be installed in Russia?
(continues...)