A Disturbing Defense of Putin’s “Realism”

MearsheimerIt is tempting to dismiss the protests that took place at the NATO summit in Wales as the inconsequential braying of leftists who welcome a new Cold War as an opportunity to renew their vows with Moscow. However, even fringe ideas can migrate into mainstream discourse. Case in point, John J. Mearsheimer’s article in the current (Sept.-Oct.) issue of Foreign Affairs, the flagship journal of the very establishmentarian Council on Foreign Relations. The author is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago with a long list of scholarly work. But, like the “No to NATO” demonstrators, Mearsheimer argues that the Ukraine crisis is the fault of the West. Russian President Vladimir Putin was “provoked” into resorting to force to “take Crimea” and “working to destabilize Ukraine until it abandoned its efforts to join the West.” He argues that Putin is “motivated by legitimate security concerns” which justify his actions.

Mearsheimer’s tone is not the crude revolutionary rant of the Wales rabble. Indeed, he pretends to criticize NATO from the right by attacking “liberals” from what he calls the “realist” perspective. He alleges that the West committed two sins. First, its aim was “to make the entire continent look like Western Europe,”

The United States and its allies sought to promote democracy in the countries of Eastern Europe, increase economic interdependence among them, and embedded them in international institutions.

What a nefarious scheme! Imagine wanting to bring Eastern Europe up to the living standards of the most advanced societies on the planet! The Russians opposed this effort because they do not want stronger nations on their borders. The Kremlin particularly opposed Western support for democracy in Ukraine, starting with the Orange Revolution. Mearsheimer doesn’t mention that the spark for the Orange movement was the attempt to steal the 2004 election for the pro-Moscow candidate Viktor Yanukovich. The Ukrainian Supreme Court overturned that fraud. He was elected in 2010, but was overthrown in 2014 Because of well-grounded fears that he was dragging the country back under the Russian yoke. He did not just reject a pending trade agreement with the European Union. Earlier he had extended the lease on Russia’s naval base in Crimea, which was due to expire in 2017, until 2042. After the coup, Yanukovych fled to Russia. It should also be mentioned that Yanukovych had served as governor of Donetsk Oblast, now the center of the Russian-backed separatist insurgency.

Mearsheimer claims that Russia did not seize Crimea until after the coup posed a threat to its security. But Moscow had been working hard to control all of Ukraine through a puppet government in Kiev; one that had welcomed a Russian military presence in the country. When that effort finally failed in the face of an aroused Ukrainian populace, it has resorted to force to grab what it can.

Like those on the Left, Mearsheimer spends most of his article attributing Ukrainian fears of Russia to Western “social engineering.” Yet, anyone familiar with the history of the region knows that Ukrainian nationalism is homegrown, a reaction to a long record of Russian oppression. Has Mearsheimer forgotten the great famine of 1932-1933? This was the result of Joseph Stalin’s policy of forced collectivization and was meant to crush Ukrainian society. Six to seven million Ukrainians died, something the survivors and their descendants have not forgotten.

Towards the end of his piece, Mearsheimer does finally concede that the Ukrainians desire an alignment with the West. But then argues,

This is a dangerous way for the Ukrainians to think about its foreign policy choices. The sad truth is that might often makes right when great power politics are in play. Abstract rights like self-determination are largely meaningless when powerful states get into brawls with weaker states.

He also thinks it is dangerous for the West to think in such terms, advising that even if the Ukraine wants to join the EU or NATO, “the United States and its European allies have the right to reject these requests.” After all, it would upset the Russians if Ukraine moved west, and Mearsheimer is fully in the Russian camp. He even defends Russia’s attack on Georgia in 2008. “Putin sought to keep Georgia weak and divided” writes Mearsheimer, calling this a “clear warning” to NATO.

Mearsheimer claims the second sin of the West was not to understand that “might makes right” realism is still alive in Russia. Now that this has been revealed to all, the West should back off and appease the Kremlin. Or more precisely, appease Putin whom Mearsheimer sees as “a first-class strategist who should be feared and respected.”

In a key passage, he notes “When Russian leaders look at Western social engineering in Ukraine, they worry that their country might be next.” But wouldn’t such regime change be in the interests of the West, and of the Russian people?

Mearsheimer apparently thinks only Russia has the right to act on the tenets of realism and protect its security (and regime) interests. NATO enlargement was not just an exercise in liberalism, it greatly strengthened the alliance and pushed back the Russian “sphere of influence” which Mearsheimer thinks is sacred. But why should the West preserve Russian influences that are hostile to its own economic and security interests? When a rival retreats, you advance; that’s realpolitik. Western values and interests were not in conflict, they were in sync. Today, Putin, looking at a “war weary” America and a disarmed Europe, thinks it is the West that is in retreat. So it is time for Russia to advance— and Putin has intellectuals like Mearsheimer to champion the Kremlin’s cause.

The problem is not that NATO has done too much, but it has done too little. Ukraine is the great prize “when great power politics are in play.” Ukraine has a population and territory on a par with Spain, and larger than Poland. Its vast potential can only be developed if aligned with the West. Putin’s revanchist dreams of a rebuilt neo-Soviet empire should not be accommodated.

Mearsheimer is correct about one thing. The West has not backed up its strategy with sufficient force. It did not foresee the intensity of Putin’s ambitions and did not prepare to meet his challenge. Sanctions will not deter him, and NATO has allowed its military forces to so atrophy that even putting together a 4,000-man “rapid reaction force” (as proposed in Wales) may prove difficult. The hot topic at the Wales summit was getting the Europeans to pledge to raise defense spending to a paltry 2% of GDP.

Russia is much weaker in population, wealth and technology than NATO; but it has boots on the ground and that will likely prove decisive in eastern Ukraine unless the Western will to mobilize real power revives. Thus, Mearsheimer’s article can have a positive effect, albeit not the one he wants. It can remind readers that “realpolitik remains relevant” and induce American and European leaders to rearm as well as rethink the nature of the 21st century. The practice of realism is not unique to Eastern Europe; it can be seen across the Middle East and Asia as well. The new century is not that different from previous centuries and will require all the traditional tools of statecraft and strategy. Those still loyal to the West should consider Mearsheimer’s disturbing defense of Putin to be a wake-up call.

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  • Gamal

    Russia is strong in energy and in weapons. Russian weapons outperform NATO weapons and they have more of many types of weapons than NATO does.

  • RMThoughts

    Maybe a little of the author’s desired “realism” should be inflicted upon the neocons who run American foreign policy. The American neoconservative desire demonize Russia is both reckless and irresponsible as well as dangerous. The reality is the campaign to paint Vladimir Putin as Stalin-in-a-judo-robe never really reached take-off velocity, since by all appearances he was the most rational and cool-headed actor on the geopolitical stage, following logical and long-established national interests. He came off as the only grown up in the whole Ukraine imbroglio.

    If the West had just left Ukraine alone, and allowed it to join the Eurasian Customs Union, and not insisted on the neocon wet dream of regime change in Kiev, that basket-case nation would have been Russia’s economic ward and the internecine Civil War where the US backed neo-Nazi’s ethnically cleansing Eastern Ukraine, would not have happened.

    Now the US and the EU have to support it with billions in loans that will never be paid back. Meanwhile, our European allies have been snookered into a set of economic and financial sanctions against Russia that guarantees they’ll be starved for oil and gas supplies in the winter months ahead. Smooth move.

    The reason that all this has all but vanished from the news media is that it’s game-over in Ukraine. We busted it up, and can do more damage with it. Pretty soon the rump Ukraine region will go crawling back to Russia begging for a little heating fuel.

    • JB Ziggy Zoggy

      Yeah, Obama’s Administration and the State Department are full of neocons like Valerie Jarrett, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, et al.

      Damn, you’re full of crap.

      • RMThoughts

        The chaos enveloping U.S. foreign policy stems from President Obama’s unwillingness to challenge Official Washington’s power centers which favor neoconservatism and “liberal interventionism”, Obama’s failure to confront and now to promote “neocon policy” and “liberal interventionists” has resulted in a foreign policy that is unrealistic, hypocritical, and deadly.

        • The March Hare

          I thought Muddy Waters passed away.

      • JJ Joseph

        JB, you’re breathing hard, but not making any sense.

  • http://www.therussophile.com/ Karl G

    You, sir, are in denial of the truth and a very dangerous person for anyone believing in your falsehood.

    If the people in Ukraine were to chose an example, do you really think they should choose any country that have had the “fortune” to be “helped” by IMF and by western “democracy”?

    Or should they choose a model of a country that “been there and done that” and came out on the top?

    Have a look at the image below and see what Putin has done for a Russia which was robbed by the West and by oligarchs under Yeltsin.

    Of course imperial cronies like you prefer the situation in Russia during the 1990-ies and would like to see the same for Ukraine.

    However, the majority of the people in Ukraine might not want that if they had not been duped by the Pied Pipers of Brussels and Washington.

    • CowboyUp

      Nice to see the SVR is on the job. Clinton crony Mark Rich showed soviet officials how to liquidate the state assets under their control and deposit the proceeds in Swiss accounts as the soviet union collapsed. Yeltsin inherited a looted country. Being commies themselves, the clinton administration wouldn’t give Yeltsin or any of the communist opposition the dime of day and treated them with open contempt.

      It’s ironic that you accuse the US of imperialism, even as your country foments violent insurrection and invades its’ neighbors to reconstitute the soviet empire.

      • http://www.therussophile.com/ Karl G

        And you, sir, might be right about the looted country which Yeltsin inherited, but he for sure didn’t do much to turn it around.

        For the rest, it seems like you have no clue what you write about.

        Interesting to note that most of your kind have difficulties to understand that anybody voluntarily and out of our own free will and experience, can be supporters of Putin’s policies.

        • CowboyUp

          Yeltsin was a lush, but he wasn’t expansionist or hostile to the west. Nor did he abuse his power to win reelection, as Putin has. I mostly blame the clintonistas for Putin, and Russian hostility towards the west, like I blame them for the fact that the chicoms still run China and they are also an opponent, instead of an ally.

          I have no difficulty understanding how many Russians support many or most of the Putin policies I oppose, I just disagree with you on them. Nor do I oppose all, or perhaps not even most of Putin’s policies. For instance, most of your taxes are lower than ours now, and it’s paying off in your economy. But Putin is ex-KGB, and it shows in many ways. The only difference between him and our democrat party, is competence, and that Putin isn’t anti-Russian, like our democrat party is anti-American.

        • JB Ziggy Zoggy

          Cowboy didn’t express any surprise over Putin’s popularity, comrade.

          • JJ Joseph

            Well, then, what’s his complaint? Since he doesn’t speak that language very well, can you explain what he’s getting at?

      • JJ Joseph

        Cowboy, you don’t even have a clue what “soviet” is or was, so how can you use it in a sentence?

        • CowboyUp

          Is that what you call a counter argument? Try again.

    • JB Ziggy Zoggy

      What do any of these claims have to do with annexing the Ukraine, comrade?

      • JJ Joseph

        You’re having the same problem as Cowboy. For example, who’s annexing Ukraine? Ukraine just signed an agreement to join Europe.

        • CowboyUp

          So they can do it, but as long as they say otherwise, then they aren’t, riiight.

  • rbla

    Mearsheimer is usually wrong but even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Russia sends in forces to protect their fellow ethnic Russians along their border who are being slaughtered by the Kiev government. In 1999 Clinton intervened to dismember Serbia in a conflict far from us in which we had no national interest and at best should have been a concern for Europeans. Furthermore Clinton concerned for his own popularity conducted an air war inflicting numerous civilian deaths while avoiding US casualties. In contrast, so far at least Putin has not bombed Kiev. But what the U.S. did was right and what Russia is doing is wrong.

    For twenty years, before Putin came to power, we have pursued an extremely
    foolish and spiteful policy toward Russia. It is not Russia that views NATO as
    the enemy; the opposite has been true for many years. The attitude toward
    Russia of old knee-jerk cold warriors is regrettable but understandable – the
    inability to change is a human failing. But what accounts for the Left and
    their media lapdogs turning against and demonizing Russia; thirty years ago
    they were all full of sympathy for the Soviet regime – give peace a chance,
    better red than dead etc.? Their selective reporting of events is the same game
    that they are playing with regard to Israel. Russia now and Serbia previously are
    villainized because they won’t go along with the multiculturalist agenda of
    abolishing Western civilization.

    Putin is certainly not a nice guy and has done many bad things but he is not a Hitler or a Stalin for that matter; such would not have put up with allowing the anti-government demonstration that just took place in Moscow. Putin is a Russian nationalist with genuine feelings of patriotism and love of country; would that the U.S. and the rest of the West had such leaders. And is the Kenyan in the White House, a man who won’t even keep children from invading our borders going to stand up to him? The one and only good thing about Obama is that his combination of weakness and indecisiveness as well as animus toward his own country, might keep us out of a dangerous and unnecessary
    armed conflict with a nuclear armed Russia.

    • mollysdad

      That ethnic Russians along the Ukrainian border are being slaughtered by the Kiev government.is as true as that ethnic Russians are being slaughtered by the British Government in Scotland.

      • rbla

        I’ll give you that, “slaughter” might be too strong a word. But as many or more Russian speakers have been killed in shelling or bombing by the Kiev regime as Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israel defending itself. But in the latter case the media makes sure we are bombarded with reports of every dead Palestinian civilian; in eastern Ukraine this is ignored.
        Ethnic Russians are not being slaughtered in Scotland but scores of British girls have been raped by Muslim “culture-enrichers” for over a decade while successive British governments have done nothing except threaten and imprison their own citizens for objecting. And Britain is one of the countries pushing for action against Russia.

      • JJ Joseph

        Just to be clear, are you saying “beheadings” is not the same as “slaughter?

    • CowboyUp

      Much of your post is bs, but this has merit- “In 1999 Clinton intervened to dismember Serbia in a conflict far from us in which we had no national interest.” In fact, that was the left/dp/msm’s reasoning for why it was moral, and okay to do it without congressional or UN sanction, because it wasn’t in our national interest and we had nothing to gain from it.

      The democrat party turned on Russia when they abandoned communism, and one can see that same contempt for any other country that does, like Nicaragua. Their support, or lack of support for that country has flip flopped four times with the Sandanistas Power. The democrat party is revealingly consistent that way.

      I don’t care for putin or his crooked soviet cronies, but at least he doesn’t hate his own country and seek to weaken its’ influence, or lower Russians’ standard of living.

    • http://tinatrent.com/ Tina Trent

      Lots of new faces here blathering the same trite RT nonsense.

      • rbla

        We should all try to live up to your high standards and not
        be trite. But tell me, genius, did Putin and RT do this to us or did we do it all to ourselves.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP0XTvuRycY

        • http://tinatrent.com/ Tina Trent

          I give people one chance to have the integrity to use their real names if they want to engage.

          Here’s yours.

          • rbla

            Roy Blau. Now what, do we dance? I notice that besides using the words blathering and trite and questioning the integrity of others you have nothing to say regarding the substance of my post or to the other posts with a similar point of view.

          • RMThoughts

            You have no right to be here posting. Either get on board and agree with Tina or go elsewhere.

          • rbla

            Yes Indeed! We must all agree with Tina lest we be linked in McCarthy-like fashion to various unsavory elements. It appears that Tina is turning into the very Putin that she so detests. I like your posts.

          • RMThoughts

            You are demanding the same fascist regulations that Putin has placed on social media in Russia. Putinista fascist.

      • RMThoughts

        We should ban new faces. How dare their interrupt our monologues with ourselves

        • JB Ziggy Zoggy

          Yeah, we should invite as many trolltards as possible.

          • JJ Joseph

            JB, what does that mean? Do you mean we should just make trouble for the sake of making trouble?

      • nightspore

        Agreed. Russia is a thugocracy for Christ’s sake! if Putin is so wonderful and the invasion is so justifiable, why has he lied every step of the way? Or don’t commenters here believe there are any Russian troops in the Ukraine? (Funny thing about those soldiers’ coffins returning to Russia.)

        I suspect that this is a case of simple(-minded) attitude balance. Putin makes some statements that people can agree with,and is now opposed to someone like Obama who people don’t like, and consequently people start looking favorably at Putin.

    • JB Ziggy Zoggy

      And where are all these Russians who are being “slaughtered” by Kiev? How did Kiev cover up this atrocity? And why has Putin allowed it to go unavenged?

      You’re even more full of crap than Mearsheimer, who will eventually claim that the West is trying to control Russia because the West is controlled by a secret cabal of Joooooos……..

      Russia perceives the whole world as its enemy or dupe, and always has. That’s one of the reasons its standard of living is so low. It’s incapable of forming and governing a civil society and constantly tries to destabilize successful countries because it thinks their failure is Russian success. The Soviet Union and Czarist Russia were the same way. This cultural attitude of resentful stupidity began long before Putin came to power.

      • JJ Joseph

        @JB:”And where are all these Russians who are being “slaughtered” by Kiev?”

        They’re in the mass graves recently dug up in the conflict areas, documented by our dear BBC

  • GSR

    Putin is a nationalist and Obama has great ambivalence to his own country(US? Kenya? Indonesia? Islam?, who knows!) and the Western world in general, for racial reasons, jealousy really. The US and Western Europe have voluntarily given up on nationalism and are “full in” with (to me, nonsensical) internationalism/globalism/open borders, etc.

    Putin is certainly no saint but he and Russia are not friends and allies with the West. He’s not an enemy; he’s an opponent, which I believe Romney correctly called him back in 2012. I do like Putin’s fight against the constant in your face, homosexual militants which have taken over popular culture in the USA and the entire West. And his support for traditional families and religion. Obama has been a fool for promoting homosexuality and his feverish anti-religious biases. He does it just for the money from non-religious and homosexual lobbies, who are prominent in the money rich media/entertainment industries.

    As far as Ukraine, I have mixed feelings about the situation. I think they should pursue their own destiny based on the will of their population. I think NATO shouldn’t just grow and grow for the sake of growing. NATO should be kept as a Western Europe / US / Canadian block of nations. If Ukraine wants closer relations with us, fine but if not, leave them alone to be closer to Russia. Ukraine is not vital to the USA.

    • http://tinatrent.com/ Tina Trent

      Don’t give in to propaganda. Putin’s pretense of morality and religion is just shallow agitprop designed to appeal to American conservatives. It is deeply troubling to hear so many drawn in.

      Nor is it advocacy for getting involved with the Ukraine/Russia conflict to observe that the purpose of Putin’s latest propaganda offensive is to push Americans to reject Ukraine’s claims.

      Accuracy in Media has been covering Putin’s propaganda efforts in detail. These efforts include pro-Putin commenters encouraging readers to follow the Kremlin line, of course.

      • RMThoughts

        Fake it until you make it. If only in the US our political leadership felt the need to to present a pretense of morality.

  • Prof. L. Wessell

    I have tried two times to make a comment and am blocked. I am supposed to confirm my email address or whatever and I do it. Nothing! Can someone explain?

    • Steven M Tenneshaw

      It’s complicated.

    • JB Ziggy Zoggy

      Disqus sucks.

  • Prof. L. Wessell

    testing!

  • Texas Patriot

    The Cold War is over, and WWIII has already begun. Instead of complaining about Russia protecting its own borders and its own people, America and the rest of the civilized world including China and Israel should be more concerned with protecting their own borders and their own people against the combined forces of global Islamic jihad.

    • JB Ziggy Zoggy

      Protecting its borders and people? More like expanding its borders and exporting its people.

  • Erudite Mavin

    This is a needed commentary.
    Too many people have little to no knowledge of history and world affairs
    and are sucked into the Putin agenda as did the same type with Hitler.
    The Radical Left and Libertarian Ron Paul give both cover propaganda to Putin and Iran.

    =============

    Russia under Putin

    The making of a neo-KGB state

    Political power in Russia now lies with the FSB, the KGB’s successor

    Aug 23rd 2007 | moscow |

    ON THE evening of August 22nd 1991—16 years ago this week—Alexei Kondaurov, a KGB general, stood by the darkened window of his Moscow office and watched a jubilant crowd moving towards the KGB headquarters in Lubyanka Square. A coup against Mikhail Gorbachev had just been defeated. The head of the KGB who had helped to orchestrate it had been arrested, and Mr Kondaurov was now one of the most senior officers left in the fast-emptying building. For a moment the thronged masses seemed to be heading straight towards him.

    Then their anger was diverted to the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the KGB’s founding father. A couple of men climbed up and slipped a rope round his neck. Then he was yanked up by a crane. Watching “Iron Felix” sway in mid-air, Mr Kondaurov, who had served in the KGB since 1972, felt betrayed “by Gorbachev, by Yeltsin, by the impotent coup leaders”. He remembers thinking, “I will prove to you that your victory will be short-lived.”

    Those feelings of betrayal and humiliation were shared by 500,000 KGB operatives across Russia and beyond, including Vladimir Putin, whose resignation as a lieutenant-colonel in the service had been accepted only the day before. Eight years later, though, the KGB men seemed poised for revenge. Just before he became president, Mr Putin told his ex-colleagues at the Federal Security Service (FSB), the KGB’s successor, “A group of FSB operatives, dispatched under cover to work in the government of the Russian federation, is successfully fulfilling its task.” He was only half joking.

    Over the two terms of Mr Putin’s presidency, that “group of FSB operatives” has consolidated its political power and built a new sort of corporate state in the process. Men from the FSB and its sister organisations control the Kremlin, the government, the media and large parts of the economy—as well as the military and security forces. According to research by Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a sociologist at the Russian Academy of Sciences, a quarter of the country’s senior bureaucrats are siloviki—a Russian word meaning, roughly, “power guys”, which includes members of the armed forces and other security services, not just the FSB. The proportion rises to three-quarters if people simply affiliated to the security services are included. These people represent a psychologically homogeneous group, loyal to roots that go back to the Bolsheviks’ first political police, the Cheka. As Mr Putin says repeatedly, “There is no such thing as a former Chekist.”……..

    http://www.economist.com/node/9682621/print

    ..

  • objectivefactsmatter

    He’s among the “realists” that don’t mind of “capitalism” is “replaced” or “enhanced” and Western culture kind of fades away.

    • JB Ziggy Zoggy

      Once a commie douche, always a commie douche. Except for Horowitz and China.

      • JJ Joseph

        Who’s the “commie douche”? Or are you just having a bi-polar moment?

  • humura

    Buchanan has written sensible articles on the subject. We should try to work with Putin against our common enemy, militant Islam, whose terrorists have killed many in the US, Russia, and China. Many in eastern Ukraine prefer Russia to the coup in Kiev crowd. Let them secede. Mearsheimer makes sense too.

    • JB Ziggy Zoggy

      What does cooperation against terrorism have to do with Putin’s occupation of the Ukrain?

      Mearsheimer is an evil, lying Marxist.

      • JJ Joseph

        Say, that’s really strong words – what does it mean?

  • http://tinatrent.com/ Tina Trent

    This comment thread, infested with pro-Putin dupes from Takimag, American Conservative, and other Buchanan mouthpieces, is an interesting object lesson in the extent to which the Putin propaganda is worming its way in to American socon publications. I hope the editors take note.

    • RMThoughts

      I’ll bet when your husband disagrees with you she is being a mouthpiece for Putin.

    • JJ Joseph

      Tina, thanks for the Muslim perspective.

  • RMThoughts

    in Russia 25,000 churches are restored or newly built in 25 years, the US Government is investigating whether the participation of US pro-lifers in their private capacity to a pro-life, pro-family event is in violation of the sanctions against Russia.

    And truly, it seems difficult to deny that Russia is the only Western Country where Christianity is still officially written large, and most certainly the only Western Country whose leader actively promotes it rather than trying to destroy it.

    This is the more notable, as Putin is still dealing with a deeply secularised country – hence the exaggerated enthusiasm of the Orthodox -; a country that seems to accept, more than approve, Putin’s more and more obvious Christian stance. Another leader would acquiesce to the opinion of the vast majority, and promote abortion and godlessness as in Soviet times. Not Putin. Putin actively goes against the grain of his own people, and tries to help the rebirth of a real Christian nation as much as he can and, very clearly, as fast as he thinks prudent. I go as far as to say that I have the feeling if he felt his grasp on the country is strong enough, he would move decisively and ban abortion altogether. Not something he would survive today, I think; not in 2014, and probably not in 2024, either.

    This leads us to another paradox: pro-life movements gain traction in North America and Western Europe, but are still systematically opposed by the ruling political classes; at the same time they seem to me very feeble in Russia (I say this based on anecdotical evidence only), but over there they have a rather strong champion at the top.

    Armchair generals and Sunday afternoon geopolitical experts will now, no doubt, lament the fact that Putin has not (yet) banned abortion. But again, he has not come to be the leader of his Country – and a boon for Christianity with that – by being an armchair general and Sunday afternoon geopolitical expert.

    I have little doubt that his Christian feelings are sincere: firstly because they are clearly countercultural among his own people, and secondly because the phenomenon that seems at play here (the death of a beloved, devout Christian as trigger of a Christian conversion) is well-known and not at all infrequent. .

    As we pray for the conversion of Russia, we should pray that this intelligent, perceptive man may embrace his Christian values more and more as he gets older, and slowly guide his Country, almost mortally wounded by Communism, to a recovery of, at least, its old Christian tradition.

    May Putin grow in wisdom and power *, and show to the West the error of its ways.

    • http://tinatrent.com/ Tina Trent

      Nonsense. Putin’s faux christianity and faux values talk is just a shield concealing his fascist politics and oppressive regime. If you really believed this stuff, and if you had actual credentials beyond oh, watching RT, I would expect you to be comfortable to sign your name to this.

      • RMThoughts

        Faux Christianity, faux values. Would that we had such here in the US. Here we have real Marxist, real Leftist Alensky radicals, real haters of Christianity, running our affairs.

  • RMThoughts

    Another example of Putin’s realism:

    “In what he called “a provocative and defiant act,” President Obama charged on Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has started letting his calls go directly to voice mail”….”Having left dozens of voice mails for the Russian President, Obama said that he tried to reach him via e-mail on Monday night but received an out-of-office auto reply.”

    More moxy than the GOP.

    • JB Ziggy Zoggy

      That is pretty funny. Obama is good at persecuting Americans but he cant sic the IRS or any other corrupt government agency on Putin.

      • RMThoughts

        Unless I’m mistaken, there are some things called sanctions going on?

        • JJ Joseph

          The result is the sanctions are devastating the European economy.

  • JB Ziggy Zoggy

    Very subtle. Use Israel to promote Putin’s imperialism. You sure fooled me.

    • JJ Joseph

      Have you always felt this confused? Or is it just since NATO bunged up in Ukraine?

  • chicagorefugee

    “Western social engineering” means more than full supermarkets, it also means toxic feminism, anti-white “diversity,” destruction of the family, and compulsory homonormativity. Meatless Mondays and incessant hectoring by social justice warriors. There’s a lot not to like in that package.