The Slow Fall of Vladimir Putin?

What will the future hold for Putin?

Vladimir Putin - Russia's strong-man president - seems to have been successful in his annexation of Crimea. Despite many objections from the U.S. and the E.U. in particular, he seems to have gotten things his way.

Putin has the oligarch vote

However, what many commentators seem to forget is that Russia is not really a democracy. The 'success' that we award Putin is based on our (Western) view of what keep politicians strong, namely popular support. But in Russia that's really not all that important. Ask any governor or oligarch: What is the source of your influence? They won't respond 'the people'. Instead it is the that fact that business and politics are more intertwined than in the U.S. or the E.U. A successful business in Russia is by definition influential as it provides access to power. And vice versa.

Multinationals pull out of Russia

Foreign companies are starting to suffer from the sanctions against Russia and its conflict with Ukraine. Carlsberg, the Danish brewery with global reach, saw its share price plunge 7 percent on 19 August  when the company reported lower operating profits than expected, according to CNBC/Reuters. Carlsberg has closed two of its breweries there due to a "deteriorating macroeconomic climate" in both Russia and Ukraine. For Russia to see a big multinational close down its direct investments there is a bad omen. Fewer foreign investments will only lead to lower Russian growth, higher unemployment and greater instability in the region. If history is anything to go by, the will spell greater social unrest, protests, violence, etc. Ultimately, Russia might see itself expelled from international organizations like the WTO if the country reacts to this changing climate with protectionism - which is highly likely. Already, as the BBC reports, Putin is handing out decrees ordering the destruction of Western - or partially Western - products like cheese, bacon, tomatoes and fruit coming into the country - to the dissatisfaction of ordinary Russians who struggle to make ends meet.

Endgame

So for the moment, Putin seems to have played his cards right. For now, he has the support of the people because he has successfully created the narrative that it is the West that is trying to bully Russia - and not the other way around. But as we're seeing, money is starting to flow out of Russia. That was expected, of course, but the extent - and speed - with which this has occurred should be a source of concern for Putin. His power rests on the shoulders of oligarchs, and they are the ones paying the price for Putin's politics. For how long will they continue to support him while they see the international markets react against them?

The 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act

In 2005, The Economist did this piece about the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act which was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. It still remains a landmark piece of legislation that furthered the cause of racial equality in the U.S. Since the Economist piece, the U.S. did get a black president; although not Condoleezza Rice as they predicted.

A farewell to arms - and U.S. militias?

Yet another shooting...

As James Holmes - the 2012 Aurora cinema shooter who killed 12 people and wounded 70 others - was awaiting his sentence, another shooting at a movie theater happened in Lafayette, Louisiana. This time it happened at the screening of the movie Trainwreck in which comedian Amy Schumer, who is the second cousin of U.S. senator Chuck Schumer, stars. The both of them held this press conference to speak out against not only gun violence, but also against the apparent ease with which people - including people with a violent past - can get a gun in the U.S.

For Europeans, the fact that guns are so common in the U.S. can seem odd - and maybe even at little eerie. Because why should they be necessary in the first place? There shouldn't be any reason to assume that Americans should be any more prone to violent behavior - genetically, at least - than Europeans. So why this obsession with guns?

Rebellion

Part of the reason is most likely historical. Europeans sometimes forget that the birth of the U.S. came about in the first place because of a rebellion against a king that was seen as a tyrant. And rebellions - then as well as now - often require weapons. And so, the successful rebellion against the king was partly due to the settlers' access to weapons. They relied on their own strength and weapons to gain their freedom from tyranny.

In the American constitution it states under Article II - which describes the role of the executive power of the President - that the President "shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States [...]". The word "militia" has probably changed a great deal in meaning since then, but nonetheless it seems like a relic of the past when we read the Constitution today - for the obvious reason that the people of the U.S. are no longer subjects of a king. They are free, and therefore they can put down their arms. But they don't. Instead, they treasure their guns and see them as symbols of the American people's struggle for freedom, it can be argued. Some symbols, though, belong in museums and not on the streets or in our homes.

New photos on 9/11

The U.S. National Archives have release a large number of pictures taken on September 11th which have not previously been available to the public. They can be seen on the Archives' Flickr page here.

Nazis and ISIS

The other day marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Approximately 1.1 million people died in the camp, which still stands as the most infamous monument of the Nazi regime's horrific, yet carefully planned, attempt to cleanse Europe of Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, the disabled, and others whose mere existence was viewed as unacceptable.

Polish-English sociologist Zygmunt Bauman has written a thorough analysis of how the Holocaust was made possible. In Modernity and the Holocaust he offers the explanation that - in short - it was not despite of modernity that this mass murder happened, but that modernity itself provided the framework within which a high degree of specialization, division of labor, and rational bureaucratization made it possible to kill so many people and have a relative few admit to their complicity.

Today, our societies are as technologically sophisticated as ever. This, as history so depressingly proves, is , however, no antidote against brutal mass murder on a huge scale. Technology is a double-edged sword. As Goebbels - the Nazi's genius in charge of propaganda - used the technology of the day to demonize Jews and other types of 'others', so technology today is used by The Islamic State to spread the propaganda of their mass killings - whose barbarism easily matches that of the Nazis - to draw wannabe jihadists to Iraq and Syria to fight for IS' pervertedly warped interpretation of Islam. 

IS' 'others' are Shias, Christians, Yazidis, and others who do not - faced with the barrel of a gun or the blade of a knife - immediately yield to IS' demands of complete submission. This extreme intolerance of other world views matches that of the Nazis - it is merely statistics that tells them apart. 

Russia's descent

Since this blog is about E.U. and U.S. affairs it shouldn't really be dealing with Russia, since I don't believe Russia is really part of Europe. There are differing views on this, but when one looks at what Europe has in common with Russia, it should be clear that Russia doesn't belong in the group of European countries alongside Denmark, Sweden, Britain, Germany, etc.

Therefore, some would argue that the sanctions imposed on Russia by the U.S. and the E.U. are justified. Russia has in effect been fighting a war with the Ukraine, only by proxy. Pro-Russian rebels may not be official partners with Russia, but it is clear that their interests are closely aligned. Which is why it can hardly come as a surprise that the rebels get arms, money, and other facilities directly from the Russians.

Unfortunately, until Mr Putin realizes that the sanctions being put in place by the West are not acts of agression but merely logical responses to Russia's violations of international law and order, odds are that the current situation is only going to escalate further. Self-reflection never has been Russia's favorite pasttime.