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That’s Vladimir as in Putin, the Russian president who intends to remain in power until at least the next decade’s end – and maybe as long as 2036 – now that Russia’s high court has deemed term limits inapplicable to his current rule. Hoover senior fellow and Russian historian Robert Service offers his thoughts on Putin’s grip on power, the role of oligarchs in maintaining that power, why Putin recently engaged in an oil price war with Saudi Arabia, as well as Putin’s regional and global ambitions.
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“Robert Service Assess Czar Vladimir” … has got to be one of the more obscure titles in Ricochet history.
When I hear the name, Robert Service, I think of the famous poet; the grammatical error in the middle of the title doesn’t exactly help, either.
Interesting interview. It always gets down to how is a totalitarian regime going to transition to a new leader. China had, apparently, solved the problem with the 10-year rule but Xi has thrown that out the window. I don’t really see an end game for Putin but death or exile.
After three years of his presidency, my impression is that Trump’s modus operandi is to speak glowingly of any individual foreign leader he has a personal relationship with regardless of the democratic or anti-democratic nature of the leader’s country…except if they 1) verbally threaten the US and/or 2) personally insult him. He always punches back if 1) and/or 2) occur. After Trump feels he’s sufficiently responded (via tweet and/or public statement), he returns to speaking well of the foreign leader. What Trump says does not accurately predict the policy his administration carries out.
So while speaking glowingly of the personal relationship he has with Putin, the Trump administration’s actions have been to restore the missile defense deal to eastern Europe that Obama cancelled in 2009, provided lethal weaponry to Ukraine that the Obama administration denied, promoted US oil and natural gas production to the point that we’re now the largest producer and a net exporter in competition with Russia, pulled out of the INF treaty after accusing Russia of breaking it, and authorized our soldiers in Syria to use lethal force to kill 200+ Russian troops?/mercenaries when they advanced too close to and attacked our position. Related to the Trump administration policy on Russia is Trump publicly berating Merkel for making a natural gas deal with Russia rather than a NATO ally.
This disconnect between what he says about an individual ruler and administration policy has played out over and over again, e.g. with North Korea and China. He says nice things about Xi, but Trump has been complaining about and wanting the US to fight back against Chinese trade, intellectual property theft, currency manipulation, etc. since the 1980’s. He says nice things about Kim Jong-Un after meeting with him, but calls him little Rocketman when North Korean public statements get too bellicose or they try to intimidate us with another missile test.
This disconnect may or may not be the best strategy, but it does seem to keep world leaders guessing. The host and guest of this podcast seem to not understand Trump’s approach or at the very least glossed over it. I’m inclined to wait for what happens rather than pin too much meaning on photo-ops of world leaders shaking hands and joking around at conferences.
As far as knowing the content of Putin and Trump’s conversations, I don’t remember knowing a lot of what Reagan and Gorbachev said to each other in closed door meetings until after Reagan’s presidency was over and books were published by his administration officials. The only reason we know Obama was eager to go easy on Putin in his second term is because he was caught on a hot mic talking to Medvedev. Considering Trump’s experiences so far with the leaks of his conversations with world leaders, why should he share them (despite having done so with the Ukraine transcript)?
@djej — Brilliant! You should post it so more people can see it.
Especially pundits who, producing nothing but words themselves, naturally treat Trump’s words as all-important, while engaging with his actions only as an afterthought.
Good point. The pundits give their own words more weight than are deserved. If I remember correctly from a class I took called “Performance, Narrative, and Identity”, speech that accomplishes action by virtue of it being spoken is called “performative speech”. I would not elevate what Trump says to or about other world leaders (while patting them on the back and shaking their hands) to this level. What his administration does on the other hand is another story.