Putin, Seven Years Ago

 I wrote this review seven years ago. Guess I was right.

The book, The New Tsar by Myers, is a well done bio of Vladimir Putin. To set my observation space regarding this work, I was in Russia from 1995 thru 2004, in Saint Petersburg and Moscow, starting my telecommunications company, and with partners who were from the same world as Putin. These folks knew me since in the 70s I had been part of the US Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty talks and had one on one contact with various Russians. I managed a bit of Russian language, adequate to get about, and even joke after a few vodkas. Thus I had been closely aware of Russia, the Russians, and the KGB world. Unlike most Americans I had no larger company backing and I needed in country partners, many of whom are covered in Myers tale. I saw Moscow via the Metro, the streets, the stores, the homes. I saw vodka used to brush teeth because the water is so infested it is barely adequate to flush toilets. Yet the streets looked like Tokyo at night, a change which occurred in less than ten years.

Myers takes on a journey which has as its focus Putin, but for all purposes it is a journey on the change of Russia from Communism to what it is today. In a sense, the Orthodox Church has replaced the Communist Party for the masses, a milder means of establishing the mandated role of the rulers. This comes out in Myers work by the telling tale of Putin being baptized as a child. Myers did not really explore the depths of this ongoing cooperation but he does provide certain pieces. Myers follows Putin and attempts to give some depth to the many by his movement from young KGB “employee”, to the accidental head of the FSB (formerly the KGB) and then to President. In a sense Putin’s life is almost Forest Gump like, just being there when the bus went by and getting on to see where it took him next.

Unlike a Tsar, one who was born to “greatness” and knew it by birth, Putin just happened to be at the right place at the right time with the right attitude. The appointment of Putin as President by Yeltsin was a turning moment, for up until that moment he was an effective administrative functionary, but then he was thrown headlong into the top leadership slot. His KGB past was his backstop. His trusted friends, if any, were from that time and space. Key among them was Sergei Ivanov, a KGB general and longtime associate. Ivanov flows in and out of Myers book but it would have been worthwhile to have explored him in more depth.

The discussion by Myers concerning Putin and Bush is also telling. At first, after 9/11, there was a bond, but as the US managed to take its aggressive single handed approach to Iraq that bond fell apart. Putting understood Iraq, albeit from afar via Afghanistan and Russia’s disaster. Bush did not, and his team also did not. Thus, the quagmire. There is also the discussion on boundaries and NATO and Russia’s near abject terror of a NATO encroachment. Why the US never truly understood the need for Russia to have a buffer is amazing. Russia just needs neutral borders, ones not militarily aligned with the West.

Myers does a reasonable job on Putin I and Putin II. Namely Putin I is the accidental president. This is a period of his ascending to the highest rank. Much of this time he is learning and expanding. Then after his hiatus, he is now Putin II, no longer accidental, but deliberate and with a depth of team players to make him untouchable in Russia. The problem is when we see Putin II we see in many ways the old KGB tactics. Myers discusses many of the allegations of assassinations and corruption.

The book is exceptionally well written and is a major contribution to the understanding of Putin. But the book also demonstrates that Putin II is a moving target and evolving and expanding player on the world stage, a man who is much more comfortable in his new role rather than the accidental presidency that pushed him to the forefront.

If Myers’ book does anything, it should enlighten some in Washington as to whom they are dealing with. He is a Russian, has a Russian mind, and in a sense a Russian soul. One must understand Russia at least a little to understand Putin. Kennan had such an understanding. Very few have had such in the US since then.

NJ 2022 03 05

 The Gov declared the pandemic over yesterday. He says it is now endemic but we are OK. Thanks for your scientific insight. I have just put the latest data that is available through yesterday. One should be careful for the variants, they will just keep coming.

Milk and Inflation

Just an observation. Since I do the shopping, and I do pay attention, I noticed yesterday milk was now $4.50 a gallon. Four months ago it was $3.00. That is a 50% increase in 4 months or 150% annualized! 

Now the supply chain argument carries no weight. You see milk comes from our local cows, perhaps from the other side of the Delaware or Hudson, but they have bridges. We do not use ships to carry milk to New Jersey. 

I estimate that by the end of 2022 milk will be $6.50 a gallon and gas will be $8.25 a gallon. Thanks to the folks in DC! Mortgage rates will top 8%. 

And the inflation just goes on....

The Best and the Brightest

 When Halberstam wrote the above book about the Kennedy administration it noted that Kennedy assembled an expert team of just that, best and brightest. We seem to be now in The Worst and the Dumbest. Is there another Halberstam to take on the challenge to write this, before the end of humanity. 

It is worth the rereading of this book. Viet Nam was to some degree the US attack the indigenous peoples and their internal civil war. We called them Communists and Putin calls them Nazis. But Putin's evil transcends anything we have ever seen since 1939 in Poland. 

Perhaps the Best and Brightest were not bad comparing...

How Dumb are the Russians!

 The Russian military is a strange amalgam. There are almost 250,000 troops with at best 20,000 competent and trained and the remainder conscripts. The senior military officers are for the most part Putin hacks. Add to that the fact that they have not fought a war since WW II/ Some air support in Korean, some support in Viet Nam, a disaster in Afghanistan, and some thuggish efforts in the Middle East. They fight with an iron fist and just butcher away as they move. 

Now the nuclear reactor. As the Telegraph notes:

Radiation levels at a nuclear power plant shot at by Russian forces are “within normal limits”, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said, after a fire broke out at the Zaporizhzhya station. The plant was targeted by Russian rockets and gunfire on Thursday and a blaze started on the site, which is Europe’s largest nuclear plant. An anonymous Ukrainian government official threatened to spark panic on Friday morning when they told the Associated Press that radiation levels at the site were higher than normal. However, a spokesman for the plant said background radiation levels at the site remain unchanged and they insisted that the fire was outside the station perimeter.

An artillery shell at the wrong place and off we go! Russians do not aim well so they overcompensate but just shelling more heavily. They also seem clueless about nuclear radiation. Putin as an Intel in KGB at best knew how to have someone killed but never managed a large scale military operation. The US has done so but we trust Colonels not Generals. We have a lot of good ones after the war really begins and we rid ourselves of all the old useless generals.

This is getting out of hand, and will just spiral to an even worse condition. One should check the wind. Also the river flows out to the Black sea and down to turkey, then across to Egypt. Perhaps this may wake a few folks up.

Yesterday's Misinformation is Tomorrow's Fact?

 In a NY Times piece they state:

President Biden’s surgeon general on Thursday formally requested that the major tech platforms submit information about the scale of Covid-19 misinformation on social networks, search engines, crowdsourced platforms, e-commerce platforms and instant messaging systems. A request for information from the surgeon general’s office demanded that tech platforms send data and analysis on the prevalence of Covid-19 misinformation on their sites, starting with common examples of vaccine misinformation documented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The notice asks the companies to submit “exactly how many users saw or may have been exposed to instances of Covid-19 misinformation,” as well as aggregate data on demographics that may have been disproportionately exposed to or affected by the misinformation.

Who decides what is misinformation? What right does the SG have to act this way? Frankly this is a chilling act amidst  the Ukrainian savagery. They are asking the tech platforms to seek out and determine what they think is misinformation. That is an impossible task and a chilling one in terms of Free Speech! 

In fact, the more one thinks of this the more chilling it becomes. It is the antithesis of a free society and against all principles of science. Science is a give and take as information changes. What competence does one have in the woke tech folks in California? Is the intent to silence, to intimidate, to control, the eliminate? 

Take vaccine information. Yes it seems to work, but there are an infinite number of unknowns we still do not have answers to. If one poses one of these questions, is one then to be hunted down as some heretic! Are we bringing back stakes and fires, metaphorically I hope, but in reality if one looks at Ukraine. Trust is going and when gone what have we left.