[_tppga_]

Why do you always expand arguments by making one model fit all?

I'm not trying to. He said, "military might is most often a direct extension of economic might." I resoundingly disagree. I think that theory died out in the 20th century.

The military aspirations of both Germany and Japan were unilaterally curtailed as a result of WWII. They had no choice. The course of 20th century history with respect to Russia was nothing like either of the two. I'm well aware of the differences. My intention was to demonstrate that, in this day and age, to be perceived as a power player in global politics, you don't need to have a huge military parading around.

And America. Look for China to follow suit. If you take into account historical trends, America's military budget is lower than at any point since before WWII as a percentage of GDP. It was slightly lower in the Clinton years, and yes, it's been increasing steadily since 2001, but perhaps (and I hope) it's a cyclical phenomenon. We'll see what happens if Obama is elected.

China has its own internal security issues that may or may not make it advantageous for them to have a strong military. I personally don't know what road they're going down with respect to that, so I'll say nothing further.

[Weislenalkata]

Piano, he one thing they do not include on a lot of these stats it the actual cost of the war in Iraq. they have hidden it fairly well.

The only other explanation was that we were ALWAYS spending this much money on the military and only now is it being put to use. Either way it does not bode well (spend that much money in a time of peace? etc.etc.).

Anyway, lets try to get back on topic.....

[SasortFkire]

^^

The US military budget is still believed to represent approximately 46% of total global worldwide military expenditures. Expenditures have increased significantly since 2001. In 2005, the last year this was trended studies showed that 80% of that year's increase was attributed to the US

http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolit...litarySpending

[lXvtm0ox]

Yeah, and US economic activity still represents somewhere close to 30% of world GDP.

Let's stay on topic please.

[dAy2EWlg]

- US GNP represents 28% of the world's total GNP.
- US military expenditures represent 46% of the world's total Military expenditures.

That is a significant imbalance

As for staying on topic you're the one who took us here. One can easily argue that the percentage of US military expenditures to world wide expenditures is as relevant as percentage of US Military expenditures to US GNP is.

But OK if you insist, I will refer back to my previous post #20

[goatteatromiag]

eddhead, if you'd like to talk about this more, I have no problem with it. The topic happens to interest me, and I'd like to learn more about it if I have the chance.

Threads like this tend to get off topic fairly easily, and Ninja already pointed out we were veering off course. I only brought the issue up because Zippy mentioned it in his last post. But you started the thread, so I guess if you think a discussion of America's military expenditures is relevant to the topic, we can keep discussing it.

Article lobbing aside, I reject any notion that would rationalize the use of media censorship, dictatorial rule, and political intolerance as necessary means to achieve ends that include the establishment of the rule of law and with it the social stability needed to create an environment conducive to self-actualization and individual freedoms.

Like I said, I'm not defending it, nor am I in favor of it. From what I've read, however, there does seem to be justification for it in political development theory. I also think it's fair to say that many democratic societies today are more democratic than they were at the onset. For me, it's a question of balancing two conflicting perspectives: 1) How a country is developing in relation to its current time and global context; 2) How a country is developing in relation to its position on the development timeline.

There is less corruption for sure. But I go back to Ninja's point. People can't object to what they do not know about.

To what extent do you think this phenomenon is occurring? There's certainly a lot of activity in the government that Russians probably have no details about, but then again we face that problem too. What's to be said of the Russians who freely defend Putin's actions in forums such as the NYTimes? Even if they don't know exactly what's going on, they must know there are things about which they know nothing, and they don't seem to mind.

[beloveds]

^
I mentioned what in my last post?

You diluted this topic in post #18, bringing in several countries, offering "exhibits."

Is it your assumption that Russians (or citizens of any country) make an objective, analytical assessment of the global community, and choose their view of the idea of their country from the best (or most numerous, or whatever) models?

Group behavior is often not logical.

[Caluabdum]

You specifically mentioned "America" in your last post, and since then I've been trying to keep the thread on topic after Ninja and eddhead jumped on my two cents about it.

Is it your assumption that Russians continue to think the same way they thought under communism? A lot's changed since then.

And, as if on cue...

[gernica]

Free and Flush, Russians Eager to Roam Abroad


Russian tourists enjoy the pool at a resort hotel in Antalya, Turkey, built to resemble the Kremlin and St. Basil’s Cathedral.

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY
Published: June 15, 2008

ANTALYA, Turkey — Yelena Kasyanova booked her trip at a local travel agency in about as much time it takes to drop by the market for a few groceries. She was soon lounging here by the Mediterranean, a working-class anybody from an anyplace deep in Russia, a child of the Soviet era who still remembers the humiliating strictures that once made it difficult to obtain a passport, let alone a plane ticket.

And all around the beach were so many just like her.

One of the most enduring changes in the lives of Russians in recent years has occurred not in Russia itself, but in places like this coastal region of Turkey, where an influx of Russian tourists has given rise to a mini-industry catering to their needs. A people who under Communism were rarely allowed to venture abroad, and then lacked money to do so when the political barriers first fell, are now seeing the world. And relishing it.

There is perhaps no better symbol of the growth in Russian tourism than the very resort where Ms. Kasyanova was staying, the Kremlin Palace Hotel, a kind of Las-Vegas-does-Moscow-by-the-shore extravaganza whose buildings are replicas of major sights at the Kremlin complex and nearby neighborhood. Why go to any old spot when you can frolic by the pool while gazing at the reassuring onion domes of a faux St. Basil’s Cathedral? (No need to bundle up against the cold, either!)

Ms. Kasyanova, 51, a health-care aide from the Kaluga region, 125 miles southwest of Moscow, has been to Egypt, Hungary and Turkey in the last few years and has Western Europe in her sights. For her and other Russians interviewed here, foreign travel reflects not just Russia’s economic revival under Vladimir V. Putin, but also how the country has become, in some essential ways, normal.

If you have some time and a little money, you can travel. Just like everyone else in the world.

“It is now so easy — buy a package tour for $800, and here we are, in paradise,” said Ms. Kasyanova, who, like many Russians here, was amused by the resort’s trappings but also interested in exploring the mountains and other places nearby. “It speaks of the high standard of life in Russia, of the improvement in life in Russia.”

The Russians are coming from all over. At the local airport here, the arrivals screen was like a primer in Russian geography, with charter flights from Moscow, Rostov-on-Don in the south, Kazan in the center, Novosibirsk in Siberia and other cities in between.

The number of Russian tourists visiting countries outside the former Soviet Union grew to 7.1 million in 2006, the last year statistics were available, from 2.6 million in 1995, according to the Russian government.

A record 2.5 million Russians visited Turkey in 2007, up 33 percent from 2006, Turkish officials said. Only Germany, that paragon of European wealth, sends more tourists to Turkey. (By contrast, in 1988, a few years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, all of 22,000 Soviet citizens visited Turkey.)

The Russian tourism boom is happening as new low-cost airlines in Europe have spurred a sharp increase in tourism across the Continent. But for the Russians, the chance to travel is especially prized.

For the first time in Russian history, wide swaths of the citizenry are being exposed to life in far-off lands, helping to ease a kind of insularity and parochialism that built up in the Soviet era. Back then, the public was not only prevented from going abroad; it was also inculcated with propaganda that the Soviet Union was unquestionably the world’s best country, so there was no need to leave anyway.

People who desired foreign travel in Soviet times typically had to receive official approval, and if it was granted, they were closely chaperoned once they crossed the border. Even before they left, they often were sent to classes to be indoctrinated in how to behave and avoid the perils of foreign influence. Those who were not in good standing with the party had little chance of going.

The controls on travel were particularly onerous given Russia’s long and dark winters.

“For us, it’s like a fairy tale to be here,” said Lilia Valeyeva, 46, a clerk from Chelyabinsk in the Ural Mountains who had never before been abroad when she visited Turkey two years ago. Since then, she has returned twice.

“We are seeing other countries with our own eyes, how other people live,” she said.

Many Russians interviewed here credited Mr. Putin, the former president and current prime minister, for their ability to travel, saying that he was responsible for Russia’s new prosperity.

“It is not like before, when we were afraid of everything,” said Larisa Kazakova, 32, a real estate agent from Yekaterinburg. “We travel, and we live a good life.”

These days, Russians can compare the services they receive abroad with those at home, and can mingle with tourists from everywhere. How these experiences will alter their perspective at home is an intriguing question.

The writer and commentator Viktor Yerofeyev said he had noticed that the more Russians traveled, the more they tended to lose some of the coarseness that at times characterized Soviet society.

“Through all this travel, we are seeing a change in mentality at home,” Mr. Yerofeyev said. “People are now seeking pleasure, whether it is in the night clubs of Moscow or in restaurants. Travel is a continuation of that pleasure. Just to have pleasant lives, not to suffer, to feel positive. Their life compass changes, from ‘I don’t care about anything’ to ‘I would like to have a better life.’ Travel is a part of this.”

“The world is becoming part of their lives,” he said.

The first major wave of Russian tourists after the fall of the Soviet Union did not necessarily do their country proud, sometimes acting like rowdy college freshmen getting a taste of spring break in Florida. There were tales of hotels limiting or even banning some Russian tour groups because of drunken behavior.

Hotel executives in Turkey said things had largely settled down, with many Russian families now vacationing here, and relatively few problems.

“Nobody believes me when I say this, but the Germans drink even more than the Russians,” said Ali Akgun, a manager at another hotel in the area, the Kemer Holiday Club. “It’s just that the Russians drink a little faster.”

The biggest struggle now for the Turkish hotels is to find enough staff members who speak Russian. Those in the tourism industry who had mastered German and English are returning to language school.

“Everybody is studying Russian now,” said Suat Esenli, a worker at the Kremlin Palace Hotel, which has more than 800 rooms and opened in 2003, just as Russian tourism began to soar. Typically, about 60 percent of the hotel’s patrons are from the former Soviet Union, with the rest from elsewhere in Europe.

Still, the effort to make Russian guests feel comfortable can go too far. For a time, one of the hotel restaurants served the sort of dishes — borscht, blinis and the like — that should have brought joy to a Russian’s heart.

The restaurant had to scrap the menu. It turned out that the last thing that the Russians wanted was the food they could get at home.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

[maclaudser]

You specifically mentioned "America" in your last post

Don't be obtuse. It was a direct response to your off-topic post.

Didn't we go through this already in the blank-wall thread?

Is it your assumption that Russians continue to think the same way they thought under communism? No, it's my assumption that Russians think like Russians, and their history, which includes Communism, shapes their national viewpoint.

And I made no claim as to the relative weight of economics vs national pride, so there was no need for me to resort to absurd examples like Japan to make some sort of quantitative case.

And, as if on cue... Yeah, what, that it's 51-49, or 70-30? Are we back to lobbing articles, or did you "happen to be browsing" again?

You're thinking like an accountant.

[Beatris]

Yes, I happened to be browsing again. If you look at the two articles I've posted in the thread, their "published" dates are both one day after the "posted" date.

I'm not lobbing articles to make a quantitative case. That being said, I think the article I posted makes some important points that support my argument.

No, it's my assumption that Russians think like Russians, and their history, which includes Communism, shapes their national viewpoint. Fine.

[Tij84ye]

This would be awesome except he's far too young to be facing something like that, & that his mother probably put him up to it & should be slapped.

Image of little boy on bicycle becomes Moscow's Tiananmen Aquare moment

The image is poised to become the iconic face of the pro-democracy protests gripping Russia

By Meghan Neal / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Tuesday, May 8, 2012, 9:40 PM

@ioffeinmoscow/Twitter

This instantlt iconic picture shows a little boy sitting on a bicycle in front of a wall of Russian police.

A photo circulating the Internet that is being called “Moscow’s Tiananmen image” is poised to become the iconic face of the pro-democracy protests gripping Russia in the wake of President Vladimir Putin’s election.
The picture shows a little boy sitting on a bicycle in front of a wall of Russian police.
The New Yorker and Foreign Policy magazine correspondent Julia Ioffe snapped the photo with her iPhone during violent protests by anti-Putin demonstrators on the day before Putin's inauguration, ABC News reports. She tweeted the photo, and refering to Tiananmen,
to her more-than-6,000 followers.
Ioffe was referencing the huge pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square, China in 1989, iconized by a photograph of one man standing still in front of a row of tanks.
At least 20,000 people rallied Sunday at Moscow's Bolotnaya Square in protest of Putin’s election.
Violence erupted as the protesters marched toward the Kremlin and police fought back with clubs, injuring several people and leading to more than 400 arrests, reports the Associated Press.
Anti-Putin protests began when the sidelined leader announced he intended to return to the presidency, an office he held from 2000 - 08.
At the time he was serving as Russia’s prime minister. Putin’s easy victory in March despite accusations of ballot box stuffing and government corruption sparked more protests, showing the public’s changing sentiment toward the long-time leader.
Demonstrations became violent as Putin’s inauguration approached.
Ioffe was at the scene when she glimpsed the powerful image of the young boy lingering on his bicycle in front of a daunting line of Russian police wearing helmets holding weapons.
"In the era of Twitter and Facebook, [images\] become instantly iconic," Ioffe wrote Monday in a Foreign Policy magazine article on the Moscow protests.
Demonstrations continued Monday during Putin’s inaguration and more than a hundred more people were arrested.
In central Moscow hundreds of young people are still camped out to protest the government.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/worl...#ixzz1uL4oDrdn

[Zvssxstw]

Putin Rolls Back Freedoms, Ups Efforts to Intimidate OppositionBy Kirit Radia | ABC News – 6 hrs ago




Putin Rolls Back Freedoms, Ups …
MOSCOW - When riot police forcibly dispersed a crowd that lingered after an anti-Putin protest in central Moscow a day after Russia's presidential election in March, many in the crowd sensed an ominous change in the air.
By the time protestors clashed with riot police May 6, the eve of President Vladimir Putin's inauguration, there was little doubt in most people's minds: Putin's patience with the opposition was over.
The next day, as Putin's motorcade drove through Moscow's deserted streets on the way to an opulent swearing in ceremony in the Kremlin, police raided cafes popular with opposition leaders and detained anyone wearing the opposition's iconic white ribbons. For the next week, police harassed roving groups of protestors who were guilty of little more than gathering without signs in a public square.

The incidents marked a dark shift in the Russian government's approach to the unprecedented wave of protests that have called on Putin to go since December.
Although Putin mocked the protest movement at first, accusing them of being U.S. agents and comparing the white ribbons to condoms, police did not intervene and city authorities granted them permits.
Since Putin's inauguration, however, the Kremlin has pushed through several pieces of legislation and orchestrated an apparent attempt to systematically restrict and intimidate the opposition.
"The government has switched to a repressive mode," Masha Lipman, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center, said in an interview. "Punishment for a few, I think, is aimed at intimidating others."

For his part, Putin has said he respects the right of the people to protest, but again mocked their efforts. The white ribbons, he said, were yesterday's protest tactic.
"I am not saying anything against people, who use such symbols. But it hurts my feelings to see people using foreign-developed technologies,"(?!?) he told a youth forum Tuesday.
Lipman says any hope that Putin would pursue reform after last winter's protests was overly optimistic. "Putin's way of governing hasn't changed. But only now he is facing challenges he didn't face before and he wants to remove the challenge," she said.
That effort has only increased in recent weeks.
Several pieces of legislation were rushed through the legislature and signed into law by Putin. Several more are pending. The new laws, which are ostensibly to protect stability and decency, include restrictions on public gatherings, a drastic increase in the fines and penalties for organizing or joining unsanctioned protests and the creation of an Internet blacklist that critics warn could lead to censorship. Others are the re-criminalization of libel, a requirement that foreign-funded NGOs and perhaps soon even media might have to publicly declare themselves "foreign agents" (a term tinged with hints of espionage), and efforts to control the waves of volunteers who rushed to help flood victims in southern Russia.

Police have also raided the homes of several prominent opposition leaders, ostensibly to investigate violence during the May 6 rally, and have detained several dozen others accused of attacking police during the skirmish. Many leaders say they are being followed everywhere they go.
Among those raided and harassed were anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny and television personality Ksenia Sobchak.
Authorities charged Navalny with embezzlement this week in a case that had been dismissed for lack of evidence years ago. He faces up to 10 years in prison. Sobchak, a prominent socialite whose father was Putin's mentor when he was the mayor of St. Petersburg, has been booted from her television shows as her activism has increased.

In another case that is being viewed as a canary in the coal mine for how the Kremlin will deal with the opposition, the trial of an all-female punk rock group began Monday. The group called Pussy Riot is being tried on charges of hooliganism after they performed an anti-Putin anthem on the altar of Moscow's largest cathedral in February.
Their song asked for divine intervention to remove Putin from power. Several prominent Western musicians have spoken out against their detention and Amnesty International has called them "prisoners of conscience." They face up to seven years in prison.
One of the band members Tuesday said they are being made an example for others who might attempt to defy the Kremlin.
"I am taking it as the start of a repressive authoritarian campaign which aims to hamper the public's political activity and build a sense of fear among political activists," Ekaterina Samutsevich said in a statement to the court.
http://news.yahoo.com/putin-rolls-ba...opstories.html



Reminds me of this guy:
http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showth...ighlight=putin

[QzVyZbTg]

The guy is showing little skill in this.

Oppression works, but it only works as long as you have the means to apply the pressure. The biggest weakness to this system is that it can fail utterly and violently rather readily.

Psychological warfare works better, or using a bit of a softer cover over the iron bar you bludgeon people with.

He is trying to solve this the Military way. My way or else.

Regardless of whether it will work, and for how long, I feel sorry for the people of Russia to have to deal with this crap again.

[gIWnXYkw]

I actually liked the guy when he first appeared on the Russian political scene years ago. I thought he was someone who wanted to move forward from the cold war bs. But when he let those sailors die in that nuke sub disaster that was it for me. Then he had that other guy poisoned (ALLEGEDLY! yeah) now this. There's very little difference between him & Khadafi or Assad. He's just quieter about it.

[Zenthachall]

Return of the gulags?

[sttrqiss]

Does Russia have enough financial stability to start doing this again? Have they solidified their base?

It is hard to oppress a people when you are standing on one foot in a windstorm.

[kasandrasikl]

Did they have it during the last go around?

[Nesskissabe]

Yes, until the people found that there was sand in the feeding troughs......[/lit ref]

[MackBranon]

Sorry, but I don't think there was much financial stability in the USSR, just a succession of five-year plans that produced military hardware and a space race, but little for Russian citizens. Much effort was expended in hiding this reality from them.

In a new book, Nina Krushcheva, great-granddaughter of Nikita Krushchev, has an interesting take on the Russian psyche.