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Terry's Take on Putin's Victory Day Speech

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Terry is back with his comments in letters to me. Optimistic as usual and always interesting. Here he comments on Putin”s Victory Day Speech as reported in The Washington Post.

           MY TAKE:

           May 9th was a good day for the “West”. Putin is not insane, nuclear war is not in his playbook; neither is declaring war nor total mobilization. He’s seen the reality of “ quagmire” and yet he can’t pull out nor can he muster the forces to “win something” in Ukraine. So the world is stuck fighting with no easy resolution?  

           Maybe not. Unlike the “West” , the Russian military , particularly the mid grade officers, many of whom are refusing to follow orders with “alacrity” or not at all, has a deep  and fraught history with the “Security” elements of the Russian state, both in Tsarist Russia,
Soviet Russia and in Putin’s Russia as well.

           The military may have lost their fear of the Moscow security elite who run Russia.  In that case the professional officer corps outside of Moscow could just gather up their units and, without orders , withdraw to their February 28th positions, creating a new status quo. And tell Putin to just deal with it. We aren’t going to die for you. Period.

           This happened in 1917. It also happened in 1799 and resulted in the assassination of the pro Prussian Czar Paul and the accession of his son Alexander I. Russians don’t do “quagmires” well (like Afghanistan).

           This may happen sooner than many think. It may already be happening. That may be why the “fly over” of the Victory Parade was mysteriously cancelled. The Security Elite doesn’t trust the Air Force not to create a “provocation”. Something is clearly going wrong.

           In any event, Putin is a defeated man. He knows it. So does the Military Elite outside of Moscow.  The question is, have they lost their fear of him enough to act.

               Opinions | Putin is trapped in a quagmire and doesn’t know how to get out,For the Kremlin, both escalation and withdrawal are too painful to contemplate.
                        Max Boot
                               https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/09/putin-victory-day-russia-ukraine-quagmire/

       Unfortunately, defeated men are often dangerous men. Unless he is removed by more democratic forces in Russia, I fear some form of enhanced escalation is probable. Removal by the military is at best a short term solution. Peace returns for a few years than deteriorates as the traditional “Great Powers” continue to respond to their five hundred year old compulsions.

       The US, bless its soul, seems for some reason hell bent on abandoning its Great Power status both on the traitorous Trumpist right by surrendering to another of the traditional Great Powers or the liberal/progressive left’s futile search for equalism among nation-states. Joe Biden, bless his soul also, appears to be attempting to pilot the nation to a soft landing

       I have always believed that Russia, if it were wise, should develop a federal systems much like in the US with both strong state and federal powers, The federal concentrating on international relations and country wide economic and economic justice while the states handle the general issues of government within their jurisdictions. Unlike the US, however, whatever constitution it adopts should contain economic and social justice criteria such as those contained in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That is a only dream at best.

It is interesting and sad, I guess, how fearful all governments seem to be of social and economic justice requirements. Remember, the United Nations, which was set up in another attempt to secure a peaceful world, was unable to get together to even draft that document, as ignored as it has proven to be, but for the efforts of a single determined woman.

Previous Terry’s Take’s on issues of potential interest: 

www.dailykos.com/…

trenzpruca.wordpress.com/…

trenzpruca.wordpress.com/...

And one missed caution:

www.dailykos.com/...


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