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Putin? Winning? Winning What?: Live from Potemkin's Villages (Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality...)

Putin's Muscovy is potentially dangerous because it is a declining power whose rulers may well fear that they will be, relatively, even weaker in a decade than they are today. It should thus be treated with caution and respect. And helping the neighbors of Putin's Muscovy guard themselves against trouble coming from it is something the western alliance needs to do. And trying to lay the foundations so that when the people of Putin's Muscovy finally start to properly renovate their room in the common European home should be a very high priority--as I have often said, the people of western Europe, North America, and indeed the entire world owe a profound debt to the soldiers of the Red Army, the peasants who starved themselves to feed them, and the workers of Magnitogorsk who armed them with the tanks that played the decisive role in the overthrow of Adolf Hitler's German Naziism. And not even the interest on that debt has ever been paid. But Putin: "winning"? Winning what? Winning how?
#Grand-Strategy #Ukraine #Vladimir-Putin #Muscovy - bradford-delong.com

Putin? Winning? Winning What?: Live from Potemkin's Villages (Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality...)

Putin's Muscovy is potentially dangerous because it is a declining power whose rulers may well fear that they will be, relatively, even weaker in a decade than they are today. It should thus be treated with caution and respect. And helping the neighbors of Putin's Muscovy guard themselves against trouble coming from it is something the western alliance needs to do. And trying to lay the foundations so that when the people of Putin's Muscovy finally start to properly renovate their room in the common European home should be a very high priority--as I have often said, the people of western Europe, North America, and indeed the entire world owe a profound debt to the soldiers of the Red Army, the peasants who starved themselves to feed them, and the workers of Magnitogorsk who armed them with the tanks that played the decisive role in the overthrow of Adolf Hitler's German Naziism. And not even the interest on that debt has ever been paid. But Putin: "winning"? Winning what? Winning how?
#Grand-Strategy #Strategy #Vladimir-Putin #Muscovy - bradford-delong.com

Afternoon Must-Read: Yuriy Gorodnichenko , Gérard Roland and Edward W. Walker: Putin’s European Fifth Column - Washington Center for Equitable Growth

It is not just the macroeconomic health of the European Union that is at stake in the European Union’s failure to find a way to reflate and rebalance its economies. The political destiny of what Muscovy calls its “near abroad”–what happens in those former union republics of the Soviet Union with capitals different from Moscow–hinges on the European Union being a success and being seen to be a success. And perhaps the political destiny of Muscovy hinges on this as well… Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Gérard Roland, and Edward Walker: Putin’s European Fifth Column: “There can be no doubting [Vladimir Putin’s] awareness of the role that European ideals… …and the possibility of EU membership–has played in motivating the struggle in Ukraine and constraining his actions. The popular desire to join Europe’s community of democratic states was a key force behind the collapse of right-wing dictatorships in Greece, Spain, and Portugal in the 1970s. It also played a critical role in the collapse of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And it certainly contributed to the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych–a key Putin ally–in 2014. Indeed, the existence of a European model continues to guide and encourage those pursuing transparent, democratic governance in many post-communist countries…
#Grand-Strategy #Ukraine #Russia #Yuriy-Gorodnichenko #European-Union - equitablegrowth.org

Liveblogging World War II: February 4, 1945: Yalta (Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality...)

State Department Historian: The Yalta Conference: The Yalta Conference took place in a Russian resort town in the Crimea from February 4–11, 1945, during World War Two. At Yalta, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin made important decisions regarding the future progress of the war and the postwar world. The Allied leaders came to Yalta knowing that an Allied victory in Europe was practically inevitable but less convinced that the Pacific war was nearing an end. Recognizing that a victory over Japan might require a protracted fight, the United States and Great Britain saw a major strategic advantage to Soviet participation in the Pacific theater. At Yalta, Roosevelt and Churchill discussed with Stalin the conditions under which the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan and all three agreed that, in exchange for potentially crucial Soviet participation in the Pacific theater, the Soviets would be granted a sphere of influence in Manchuria following Japan’s surrender. This included the southern portion of Sakhalin, a lease at Port Arthur (now Lüshunkou), a share in the operation of the Manchurian railroads, and the Kurile Islands. This agreement was the major concrete accomplishment of the Yalta Conference. The Allied leaders also discussed the future of Germany, Eastern Europe and the United Nations. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin agreed not only to include France in the postwar governing of Germany, but also that Germany should assume some, but not all, responsibility for reparations following the war. The Americans and the British generally agreed that future governments of the Eastern European nations bordering the Soviet Union should be ‘friendly’ to the Soviet regime while the Soviets pledged to allow free elections in all territories liberated from Nazi Germany. Negotiators also released a declaration on
#Grand-Strategy #Yalta - bradford-delong.com