Putin’s Speech at Valdai
Wednesday, November 12, 2014 at 9:50PM This is a point-at post. I don’t have all that much to say except that you should set aside about 15 minutes and read the speech Vladimir Putin just gave at the Valdai Conference in Sochi. Vlad drops his gloves and wades into the U.S. like an NHL enforcer. The importance of this speech is not about belligerence, though. It is straight talk about Russia’s attitude towards the pseudo-unipolar world we’ve had since around 1990. The one sentence summary is that a unipolar world doesn’t work, and even if it did, the U.S. has massively screwed up the opportunity, so the rest of the world is going to make other plans.
Of course, Putin glosses over the sins of Russia. This is predictable. Nevertheless, as a critique of U.S. hegemony and a discussion of the consequences, it is valuable.
I should note that it has received almost no attention in the U.S. mainstream news media, despite the huge foreign policy implications.
At Club Orlov, here.
New World Order, Putin, Valdai in Foreign Policy, Foreign Politics
Reader Comments (1)
Wow. "NHL enforcer" is an apt analogy. His realism is chilling, expressing what's at stake for the whole world--chaos and destruction--when the rest of the world does what it needs to do: body checks the U.S. into the boards. There's a part of me, of course, that roots for "team USA," thinks "they don't have the power--nor the right." But, then, I remember how I came by that view and give it up. WE don't have the power--nor the right.