Maintaining Russian Power: How Putin Outfoxed the West

[FarCenter]

'New World Leader of the Conservatives'

Following Snowden, Syria, Iran and other foreign-policy coups, Putin now sees himself in a role that he finds equally gratifying: an "arbiter of global politics."

"For Putin, all it took was 20 minutes with Obama on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg to avert a bombing of Syria and to lay the groundwork for a solution to the Syrian chemical weapons problem," says a senior Russian diplomat.

According to an unpublished, 44-page report by the Institute for Strategic Studies, the Kremlin's most powerful think tank, to which SPIEGEL has gained access, Putin's authority is now "so extensive that he can even influence a vote on Syria in the US Congress." The report praises Putin as the "new world leader of the conservatives."

The report's authors write that the hour of conservatives has now come worldwide because "the ideological populism of the left" -- a reference to men like Obama and French President François Hollande -- "is dividing society."

According to the report, people yearn for security in a rapidly changing and chaotic world, and the overwhelming majority prefers stability over ideological experiments, classic family values over gay marriage, and the national-state over immigration. Putin, the authors write, stands for these traditional values, while the domestic policies of traditional democracies are hamstrung by the need for compromise. Last week, Putin himself stated that the objective of his conservatism is to "prevent a movement backward and downward, into the chaos of darkness."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/how-vladimir-putin-ruthlessly-maintains-russia-s-grip-on-the-east-a-939286-2.html

[BKH70041]

1. Politically speaking, Putin knows how to position himself to get the results he wants.

I can admire that ability without having to like the things that someone does.

Otherwise, the article seems to overstate some things that aren't really accurate. It seems the opposite is more accurate in some cases.

[JoePhilly]

2. BS.

"For Putin, all it took was 20 minutes with Obama on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg to avert a bombing of Syria and to lay the groundwork for a solution to the Syrian chemical weapons problem," says a senior Russian diplomat.

That's all it took uh?

So no US and Russian diplomats working behind the scenes starting a year or so prior.

Um, ok.

[moondust]

7. +1

[Vox Moi]

3. Putin is tough, smart and isn't sandbagged by a Republican House of Representatives

I always thought that Putin loved George Bush.
Fox, meet henhouse:



Obama and Putin and Putin might be evenly matched on a chessboard



But Obama some of Obama's own chess pieces want him to loose.

[idwiyo]

4. My reaction to this article -> ...

[madrchsod]

5. yawn......

[JVS]

6. Conservatism? Is the ISS forgetting that The big difference between Yeltsin and Putin is that...

Putin nationalized the oil industry, reigned in a lot of the excesses of the oligarchs, and abandoned the ideal of western untrammeled capitalism.

[Cali_Democrat]

8. LMFAO!

All hail Putin!

[Ikonoklast]

9. The Snowden fluffers love them some Autocrats.

Makes you wonder about their real intentions.

[Cali_Democrat]

13. Indeed it does. nt

[geek tragedy]

10. In Russia, hagiography write you. nt

[ck4829]

11. 21st century version of the Axis Alliance coming up next?

[DirkGently]

12. Well, sounds like Putin's influential enough to have a bullshit report

written, claiming "the overwhelming majority" prefer authoritarian kleptocracies over "the ideological populism of the left."