Putin and his Phony Everything

A nice way to put it by Arnout Brouwers in today's Volkskrant: in its relations with the West, Putin's Russia raises phony issues (the envisioned anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic--aimed against Iran, powerless against Russia's missiles-- if it will ever work), threatens phony retaliation (missiles to the Kaliningrad enclave), and then may also offer phony concessions (maybe not station these missiles). Meanwhile, the West is going through all kinds of contortions, agonizing over how it can avoid antagonizing Russia. Meanwhile also, Moscow keeps reinforcing its new bases in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Same, one could say, in Central Asia: on the one hand, Moscow is willing to "help" the U.S. find access to Afghanistan outside of Pakistan, on the other, it undermines the U.S. position in Kyrghizstan by offering the government there a loan on the condition that it sends the U.S. packing from the Manas airbase (used, you guessed it, to supply NATO troops in Afghanistan). Manipulative, bullying, fundamentally untrustworthy: it doesn't appear that being hit by economic trouble, low oil prices, and domestic protests has made Don Putin any less ornery. Same for Western efforts to reason with him. We really should start witholding things he really needs, like Western investments, Western expertise, and Western oil and gas purchases. I'm turning down the heat, put on a sweater, and will ride my bike to work again tomorrow.