Russia is a funny kind of superpower. Its population is declining, its public health statistics are appalling, its industrial economy is an artifact of a long history of mismanagement, and its predator class has turned Moscow into one of the world's most expensive cities in which to live, while turning the vast majority of the country's people into dog food. And then there's oil. As long as Putin keeps the local (to where the oil is) population in control, he stands to control the largest proven reserves of the world's single most crucial industrial commodity, especially as Iran and the Gulf states deplete their assets in the next ten years. Putin's in it for the long run. he's young, he's healthy, and he's willing to kill millions of people to keep his oil monopoly. He is, and will remain, the world's most successful gangster. So what is there about Putin that could possibly bother George Bush? What frightens us is true Believers, and Putin believes in nothing but oil and power. Basically, he's a younger, shorter version of Dick Cheney.

I suspect you're broadly right. I was stuck listening to some dusty Japanese diplomat talking in London a few weeks ago, and someone said that Putin was planning to take the chairmanship of Gazprom on leaving office, whereupon he will fill his boots while wielding serious political power.

Any fear the West now has of Russia is based only on its nuclear arsenal. Ditto China, actually: China has always been an economically powerful but otherwise weak country, capable of being dominated by smaller neighbours.

That's why Russia is so worried about the missile shield.

A starving person will not ask a person who can give him food if hes is good or e vil, a gangster or a saint. America is starving for oil and in no position to quibble about the moral character of the exporter. When Hitler had to be defeated, even Churchill held his noseand joined forces with Stalin, arguably the greatest murderer of the twentieth century.

Putin is NOT Dick Cheney. Putin is quieter, more stable, and isn't as belligerent. Putin isn't being aggressive. He is just trying to protect Russia from our loose cannons.

Think about it for a minute. Who has the Bush administration parked new hardware next to that they weren't thinking of invading??? Putin doesn't like seeing the hardware moving in because he doesn't want to be next on the list.

I understand your point and sentiment; it is a sufficiently Machiavellian realm so that Putin fits in it and as the karate/KGB expert he is...he works in this realm well. And ironically, Bush tries too [yet is poor at it constantly losing his chessboard pawns] with the expert help of Dick Cheney.

But it is not "about oil". It is about power politics which by definition means: anyone who threatens to take away or actually acts to take away another person or group or nations vital human needs or social institutions/culture. Putin does not via the use of raw materials. It is common with all those throughout all human history who operate solely or predominately via power politics. There are other forms of politics [cooperative politics and pseudo-politics for example]. But Putin is pure power politics. And that is why Kaplan is dead wrong in his soft analysis of "orbits"...a spongey relativism. We have a world increasingly bound by depleting national global resources...and very soon, even water pipes will become a weapon. It is all about the new options for the weaponization of raw materials and dwindling planetary resources. This will dominate all the 21st century unless there is rapid and emergency changes...some along the line that Al Gore and many others have warned so desperately.

Does a country have a right to decide what the price of their raw material is? Now the answer appears simple - Of course they do!

But ask most people here in the USA more questions and you find out the real answer is NO. If we don't feel the price is 'reasonable' we have the right to use force to ensure it is reasonable.

Raw materials have always been the key (sugar was king at one point in history). The change I see is that third world countries have learned something; They can hold out and increase THEIR livestyle instead of keep 10 cent on the dollar for their goods.

Since Americans believe they have a right to an ever increasing life style our only choice is to use force to ensure we get these materials. This is why we are no longer a moral country (riping someone off isn't moral either, but it was better than stealing!)..

The is no conventional threat to Russia so long as it maintains its mobile nuclear force. The missile defense shield will be totally ineffective against Russian nuclear missile technology since they've already come up with easy counters for the theoretically better systems of the old star wars days.

The "massive footprint" that has been claimed by Slate contributers is a joke as the US signed agreements to base troops well before this latest round of NMD huff hit the press, and, two, the force levels are no where near approaching the number that can't currently maintain the status quo in Afghanistan, let alone take on the larges country in the world with a huge nuclear arsenal that we can't pinpoint.

Any real threat to Russian security will come from unconventional sources as no country will try to overrun another sitting on a stockpile of nukes.

Don't forget it was Russia who helped Iran obtain nuclear capability, Russia who supported Saddam Hussein with military advisers right up to the start of the war, and now Russia is objecting to missile defense in Europe ... a move coming on the heels of Iranian threats to wipe Israel off the face of the map, and after Russia cut off oil temporarily to its neighbors in protest of policies it disagreed with. Iran funds and operates proxy armies. Don't think Iran won't forget who dares to speak up against the U.S. and who has helped it acquire nuclear technology.

Iran has no nuclear capability. There's a good chance they'll never have such a thing, which from the standpoint of our "nuclear shield" is a good thing because THAT also does not exist and likely never will. Let's stop pretending we have a technology when we don't. This bullshit convinces idiots in Kansas City, but not Putin, who knows better. Back when Georgie Boy was losing other people's money in the oil bidness, Putin was working under Andropov at KGB. He's a thug and apparently a smart thug. I bet we amuse him, and given the situation of the country he has to run, he can probably use the laughs. The only military that worries him is his own. Why else do you think he pungled up his phony war with the Chechens? For Christ's sake, people, there's a real world out there. Try thinking for a minute or two about how it works. Iran is not our enemy. The parties that will cause us the most grief in trying to come to some settlement of a federated iraq are our "friends" in Turkey and SA. Our "enemies" in Iran and Syria (another country about which Condi and company have not the first clue) are the ones who will help us, because it is in their best interest to do so. Iran has already won in iraq and Syria has already won in Lebanon. Now they, and israel (still a military superpower, though not as invincible as once thought) will have to work things out.

was not a man to be trifiled with espescially if your residence is in Moscow. He certainly does not have a monopoly on the use of natural resources to club the life out of populations with though.

For a much better example of how to make blood plasma morph effectively into petroleum products check with your local gas station and your wallet; Then ask Mr. Bush why this man is now at the green energy coalition helm???

Hi melvyl,

I know you didn't say this explicitly, but your implication, I think, is that the world will again be divided in a mostly binary way -- Russia & her oil-rich satellites vs America & her oil-poor "allies." I just don't see that happening anymore.

Some now-poor countries -- as in Africa and that former USSR satellite with all the natural gas (where the dictator just died) and other resource-rich countries -- could parlay their natural resources into genuine power, either alone or in alliance with ... who knows whom? China? India? a South American country?

What do you think?

Mary Ann

new equipment anywhere he wasn't planning on invading. He isn't seen as stable. He is a loose cannon and the world considers him dangerous. Bush isn't all that rational. Bush does things a thinking leader would not do.

Given that he is feared and looked upon as a loose cannon, wouldn't you say something that might cause someone to reign him in if you were Putin and he parked things on your doorstep?

Drawing a trend from two data points can't be done with a high confidence level. If we get more specific and look only at invasion that a large portion of the world condemns, then you only have one data point and you can't predict squat. When we consider that the "equipment" buildup in Iraq was vastly different than what is put in place for a missile shield, your comparison between the two is ridiculous. Finally, considering that missile placed in Eastern Europe aren't in the right position to even catch up to an ICBMs from central Russia, let alone hit one, its obvious that this equipment is utterly ineffective against Russian nukes. It would be like saying the positioning of troops in the Mid East is a clear threat to Argentina.

russia, europe and the arabs have to come to bush for the deal...he isn't finished with them yet:

watch iran now that the cards have been shown in the security council.

watch it disappear...