Vladimir Putin – Face Activities

Will Vladimir Putin have buyer’s remorse?

January 27, 2017 Alphonse Leave a comment

Donald Trump has promised to shake things up in Washington, and that appears to hold true for international relations as well. According to Trump advisor Kelly Ann Conway, the new President is meeting to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin, on a whole range of issues, including the Obama-era sanctions currently hampering Russia’s economic growth.

The first round of sanctions, which primarily affect Russia’s financial and energy sectors, were imposed in 2014 following the Russian invasion of the Crimea, and the second round after the hacking scandal broke late in 2016.

Trump will also speak with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Francois Hollande, who are staunch supporters of the sanctions. Trump has talked about the possibility of easing or ending these sanctions in the past. A ‘moment of truth’ style reckoning may soon be at hand. Which path will President Trump choose? His influence could likely sway the course of history on this issue, and affect the economic and political landscape of Europe for years to come, as well. Though clearly a man who plays it cool, Vladimir Putin is likely waiting for their talk with abated breath. A lot is riding on Trump’s decision, though it may not come during this first meeting.

In the interests of forging a new relationship with Russia, bearing in mind that U.S. / Russian relations are at an all-time low since the end of the cold war, and hoping to benefit from a cooperative and forward-thinking new climate, and perhaps, as many would argue, because he lacks good judgment and fails to see the importance of reining in a dangerous bully acting recklessly and selfishly on the international stage, Trump may lean towards Putin on the matter of sanctions.

However, Merkel and Hollande, leaders of nations with long, positive diplomatic histories with the U.S., may very well convince him otherwise. After all, Trump is an old-school deal maker, and surely the leaders of two of the most powerful European countries can potentially offer a range of enticing deals to win him over (as can Russia, most likely.) In the recent past Trump’s said he might favor lifting sanctions if Russia cooperates with the U.S. in fighting terrorists.

So, since the art of the deal isn’t an exact science, and Trump is a true wild card, anything can happen. This must worry Putin, who wants to get Russia out from under the harsh economic sanctions, restoring the flow of credit into Russia, and the flow of natural gas out of Russia, to bolster the Russian economy. In short, if the U.S. dropped sanctions, it would be a huge economic boon to Putin’s Russia.

Well, is Putin worried? Clearly, as the methodical KGB-trained leader who ordered a hacking campaign to smear Hillary Clinton during the U.S. election, which many believe contributed significantly to Trump’s victory, he has invested in a favorable outcome for Russia. So, we must ask, is he confident that Trump will serve the ball to his court, or is this seasoned, machiavellian leader contemplating buyer’s remorse?

Learn more about Trump and Russian sanctions (CNN)

Photo: By Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, Link

A renewed nuclear arms race under President Trump?

December 23, 2016 Alphonse Leave a comment

In a bizarre double whammy, the week before Christmas ends, Donald Trump offered great praise for Vladimir Putin’s warm holiday greeting card, while also threatening to restart the nuclear arms race. This dangerous and disturbing posturing comes after the noteworthy progress of the last three decades, when the size of the nuclear arsenals of both countries declined from cold war peaks. Sadly Putin has also expressed an interest in refurbishing Russia’s nuclear capability. It seems the stage is set for a massive arms race between the two nations, fueled by the egos of their charismatic leaders.

If this comes to pass it would be, of course, a giant step backwards. We must remember that the super powers have come to the brink of nuclear war before, most memorably during the cold war’s Cuban Missile Crisis. During that frightening ordeal the Kennedy Administration blocked an attempt by the Soviet Union to install Nuclear ICBMs on the tropical island, making for a tense October stand-off that had Americans literally heading for their backyard bomb shelters.

This sort of brinksmanship is dangerous, totally unnecessary, and should remain a thing of the past. And the more it happens the more tensions will escalate between the U.S. and Russia, as if the ordinary ebb and flow of world politics doesn’t provide enough fodder for conflicts to arise. And the greater the tension, and larger the number of thermonuclear weapons available for both sides, then the greater the chances of a catastrophic event. And a catastrophic event of a thermonuclear nature would spell the end of mankind. Mistakes do happen, after all, and thermonuclear mistakes are the mother of all mistakes.

Political leaders in Congress, as well as state and local governments, must rise to this challenge, and put their collective feet down in opposition to this policy. The American People must write to their congressional representatives, and organize to prevent a new nuclear arms race from starting. We have little to gain, and literally everything to lose, by pursuing this policy.

Perhaps Trump is using this as a negotiating tactic. Perhaps he has no intention of rekindling the madness of the cold war era, and that ever present, looming threat of global thermonuclear war. In that case, the nuclear arsenal is just another chip in a grand negotiation. It’s a big game between these two nations, that’s been playing out in one form or another over many generations. If so, the President Elect is playing a most dangerous game. Let’s visualize a scale, with concrete, pragmatic, useful diplomatic gains on one side, and the total destruction of life on earth on the other side. It’s hard to imagine any diplomatic gains worth a risk of that magnitude.

Learn more about Trump’s call for a new nuclear arms race (New York Times)

Photo: By Cookkiemonster123 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Watch President Obama’s last press conference

December 18, 2016 Alphonse Leave a comment

Watch President Obama field questions from reporters on issues of the day, including the war in Syria, the Russian e-mail Hacking scandal investigation (which dominated the press conference) and Hillary Clinton’s e-mails, during his last press conference of his final term in office. President Obama is an excellent speaker and a quick thinker on his feet, so dealing with the press in his confident, no nonsense manner has always been his strong suit.

President Obama had stern words for Putin’s Russia. Though he didn’t directly name Vladimir Putin in the cyber attacks, he strongly implied that the Russian leader had a hand in the hacking leading to the November 18th election upset, saying that the highest levels of Russian government were involved. He also said that he confronted Putin at the Group 20 Summit in China, and told him to “knock it off.”

CNN / Youtube

Vladimir Putin’s e-mail hacks: have the Democrats become soft?

December 16, 2016 Alphonse Leave a comment

Based on evidence from the CIA and other important intelligence agencies, the Russians interfered with the 2016 Presidential Election, by way of an extensive e-mail hacking scheme. It’s important to note that these intelligence services are the most important and accurate sources of information for critical decision making in the U.S. government, with extensive networks of experts gathering and analyzing data.

Clearly the Russians wanted to make sure Donald Trump was elected, and Hillary Clinton was not. Intelligence experts believe two Kremlin-affiliated groups, operating independently, were responsible for the hacks, one from Russian Military Intelligence, and the other from the FSB Spy Agency. And Vladimir Putin appears to have been involved with the schemes.

The Russian leader has great enmity for Hillary Clinton, going back over four years. He believes she was responsible for a wave of protests in 2011 and 2012, when Putin ran for a third Presidential term. He believes that the protesters were paid by Clinton, who was still Secretary of State in President Obama’s administration, in an attempt to meddle with the Russian election. So the 2016 election hacks were essentially payback for Clinton, from Putin’s point of view. Putin was basically taking revenge.

In contrast, Putin’s view of Trump is much more favorable. He’s viewed as a fresh face, sans baggage, and a deal-maker with whom he can negotiate, not as an ideological hard-liner, and personal enemy, like Clinton. And Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson (President and CEO of Exxon Mobil) sits well with Putin, who has negotiated many favorable deals with Tillerson for the drilling of fossil fuels.

Tillerson is quite close to Putin, and the Russian government even awarded him the country’s Friendship Decoration in 2012. Clearly the Trump administration is poised to do a lot of business with Russia in the energy markets over the next four or more years. And so, in addition to a great deal of personal bad blood between Hillary Clinton and Vladimir Putin, Russia has some pretty clear economic interests at stake, making it logical for the Russian government to prefer a Trump victory in the U.S. Presidential election.

So at this point we must ask, what’s wrong with the U.S., what’s wrong with American Citizens, and what on earth is wrong with the Democratic Party? We have clear evidence, from top intelligence services, particularly the CIA, that Vladimir Putin’s Russia hacked the U.S., and conspired to influence the election in favor of Donald Trump, who in fact ended up the actual winner.

In other words, a foreign power put its thumb on the scale of our election process, and was rewarded with exactly what it wanted! This is obviously an outrage, but nonetheless, many stand by passively. Where’s the outcry? Where’s the fiery concern for democracy and the sacred inviolability of the vote? Americans, and America’s Democrats in particular, need to stand up and be counted. They simply can’t allow this to pass.

For 70 years the preeminent power in the world has been the United States. Is that now changing? Was our 2016 election actually Russia’s great moment of triumph, its ascendancy to influence on the world’s stage, following it’s time in the doldrums of power after the collapse of the old Soviet Union? Has Russia finally outplayed the United States?

So what should we do in response to the hacking scandal? Surely something. Not simply—-nothing. Should we delay the Electoral College vote by a week or more, to help figure this mess out? Maybe. Should we declare the election results null and void, due to foreign interference, and run a new election? Probably. Are the American People and the Democratic Party so soft, so disinterested and sheep-like, that they…that WE… simply let this outrage pass? Shouldn’t we, for the love of our country, freedom and democracy, take this terrible revelation as a chance, and a reason, to take decisive action, and start over again?

Photo: By DonkeyHotey – Vladimir Putin carrying his buddy Donald Trump, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link