Vladimir Putin is back, and he’s looking to get the band back together:
At the beginning of his first term as Russia’s president, Putin sought contacts with Cuba, Libya and North Korea. As he prepares for a third term, he has expressed interest in creating a “Eurasian Union” with Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Putin insists that these nations have a common history and that mutual cooperation could bring their people “direct economic benefit” and “allow all of them to integrate into Europe more rapidly and from a stronger position.”
Putin knows that more than half of Russian voters recall the Soviet past with affection. He understands that the idea of reviving the empire entertains many of his fellow citizens. And so he seems ready to ignore facts in favor of ideology.
The facts are that the per capita GDP of the proposed Eurasian Union is vastly less than that of either the EU to Russia’s west, or China to the east, limiting the effective influence of the Putin’s new partnership. Within that partnership, the spread of economic activity within the proposed union speaks less of co-equal membership than metropolitan dominance. The advantages to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are relatively clear. The advantages to the Russian people, less so.
Russia was through much of its history an Asian power, and it has only been in relatively recent centuries that Russia moved towards Europe, leaving one foot in the East. It was not until the reign of Czar Peter I in the late 17th century that the Russian empire consolidated, modernized and moved towards a western geopolitical mindset. Catherine the Great extended this modernization and move towards Europe, and in doing so ended up ruling over a golden age of Russian empire.
Vladimir the Great seems poised to take his countrymen the other way, aligning the future of the Russian people with dependent autocracies, rather than liberal democracies.
Cui bono?
Not the Russians.
Hmmm, Belarus being predominantly Orthodox versus the others being overwhelmingly muslim- does that make a union to “allow all of them to integrate into Europe more rapidly and from a stronger position.”?
The “Stans” may be mohammedean, but look at the overall populations. Holy Mother Russia is about 100,000,000 Orthodox Christians. Belarus, between Holy Orthodoxy and the Roman Catholic Church add another 9,000,000 or so Christians. The Stans put together have roughly 15,000,000 mohammedeans.
And something tells me that Влад Великого has ways of controlling them.
Lex, as far as Russia, in the old sense, being an “Asian” power until Tsar Pieter I, bear in mind that the eastern plains and central and trans-Ural Russia were under the boot heel (or would that beef the horse’s hoof?) of the warlords that spilled out sequentially from Central Asia and what is now far western China for many centuries longer than the rest of Europe. This arrested cultural development in many ways, as what we consider Eastern, Central and Western Europe grew and evolved from the medieval feudal societal structures to different systems. I would submit that what we are seeing is yet another cycle in the centuries-long story of the Rodina seeking barrier space, as much as it can, from its psychological boogieman to the east. Oh, and the incessant yearning for warm water ports.
Tsarist Russia was an autocracy before the Bolsheviks made it a communist tyranny. I don’t see anything changing here.
With alignments such a Tsar Vladimir is seeking, I see the evenst of Ezekial chapters 38 & 39 looming. The King of the north does not enter the conflict voluntarily, but has a “hook in his jaw.”
I have no doubt the Russian Orthodox Bishops will be placted in some way by Putin, and they will make a few squeaks about the alignment with Muslims, but that’s about that will happen.
Who benefits ?…why Putin of course…and, as always, at the expense of the long/ever suffering Russian people…
…this snake-eyed,ex KGB Col/ Tsar redux aspires to be nothing more than head thug in his back yard and just might do it…what other options does this pariah have?…I would suggest few, if any…
…In re the Bishops…alas…they’ll be co-opted as they were under the Tzars and the Soviets. Best
I think the ROCOR will regret rejoining the homeland version of same.
Greetings:
If I remember Samuel P. Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations…” well, I wouldn’t be too optimistic about Putin’s success. Or Sarkozy’s Mediterranean Union either. But I suppose a Muslim rathole is as good as any other to pour you money into.
You’re giving Putin too much credit. Russia is the 4th Reich’s resource colony, and he’s the sitz-chairman of the colonial administration.